Hélène stood up. She couldn’t bear to listen anymore. Her mother must be going crazy. It was all a dream, a fantasy—just like going back to England.
“Where?” she cried. She made a wild waving gesture at the window. “Where? Gardens? Servants? Camellias? You see any of those outside in that trailer park?”
“Not there. Of course not there.” Her mother’s voice had risen now too. “I wasn’t talking about out there. You know I wasn’t…”
“Then where?”
“Lots of places. You’ve seen them.” She hesitated. “The Calverts’ for instance. They have beautiful camellias up at the Calverts’…”
“They do? They do?” Hélène knew she was almost shouting now, and she couldn’t stop. She pushed away from the table and made for the open door. She knew she had to run out, go away, go someplace. She just couldn’t bear to be in that hot stuffy little room a second longer. She couldn’t bear to see that expression on her mother’s face, half-crumpled, half-hopeful, and the violet eyes suddenly afraid. At the door she spun round, her throat so tight with pain and love and anger all mixed up that she could hardly speak.
“Who cares about the Calverts?” she said. “Who cares? What are you planning now, Mother? Buying the Calverts’ house with a hundred and fifty dollars?”
She just ran, to begin with, not thinking where she was going, just wanting to be alone. She ran, and the tears streamed down her face, and then after a while she stopped. She was over on the edge of the old cotton fields, and she knew where she wanted to go. Down by the pool. Into that cool brown water. Without pausing, she jumped the ditch, ducked under the wire, began to run through the shrubbery. She didn’t slow to look at the house, or the lawn, or even the little summerhouse. If someone saw her, she couldn’t have cared less. In minutes she was in the shade of the cottonwood trees, and half-sliding, half-falling down the slopes to the water.
She stood there on the edge for a moment, feeling the sudden coolness of the air dry the tears on her face. Then she pulled off all her clothes, throwing them down carelessly. She stood for a moment, naked under the trees, sunlight and shadows patterning her skin. Then she dived into the water.
Billy had taught her well, and she swam strongly, but the pool was not nearly as large as it had seemed to her when she was little, so she just went back and forth, back and forth, compulsively, unthinkingly, until she was breathless, and all the anger and shame and confusion were gone.
Then she stopped, and stood up in the shallows, and tilted her head back, so the long wet skein of her fair hair, darkened by the water, laced and rippled down her back. She looked down at her own body, at the long narrow flanks; she was the tallest girl in her class by two inches. Skin, pale in this light, gold in the sun. A tiny triangle of hairs between her thighs now. Her breasts were soft and small, lifting from her rib cage. Her nipples were hard and pointed from the cold of the water; their aureoles looked wide and dark. That was how they went when boys touched you, Priscilla-Anne said. Boys liked that; they liked to touch them, and then kiss them, and touch the nipples with their tongue, and suck on them. And when they did that, Priscilla-Anne said, it felt amazing, incredible, just magical…like you never wanted them to stop.
Slowly she lifted her wet hands and ran them up over her body. Up over the curve of hips and waist, up over her rib cage, and under her breasts. She cupped them delicately in her palms—she could do that now—and then, very carefully, she caressed the hard nipples with her fingers. She felt a wave of sudden pleasure, a shiver of delight.
Quickly, guiltily, she dropped her hands and looked over her shoulder. There was no one there, of course—who would there be? Billy would be working over at the café; no one else ever came here.
Yet now that the anger had gone, she felt suddenly a little afraid once more, the way she had the last time. As if someone were watching her, someone who saw what she had just done. She stared, wide-eyed, into the shadows. Dappled light; the grayish trunks of the cottonwoods; nobody.
Still, she wanted to leave, wanted to get back to the trailer park—now, quickly, before the light started to go, and the shadows darkened. She pulled herself out of the water, and, shivering now, began to pull on her clothes, dragging them on over her wet skin as quickly as she could. She wouldn’t bother with the bra, not now, it was too difficult to fix. Just the white blouse, which stuck to her damp skin, and the cotton pants, and the skirt which was too short for her already. She wrung out her hair as best she could, but it still hung in damp tendrils around her face and shoulders. Then, flushed, nervous, she stuffed the bra into her pocket, slipped her bare feet into her shoes, and clambered up the bank as fast as she could. Head bent, she ducked under the branches and came out onto the patch of scrubby grass, into the sunshine.
A man in a white suit was standing there. He was standing right in the center of the grass, near the summerhouse, and he was looking straight at her. For one moment she had the sensation that he knew where she’d been and that he was waiting for her, but she dismissed that thought. She stopped dead.
He had his hands in his pockets, and the sun was behind him, so he looked very tall, and very dark, and very cool and very elegant. Just the way he’d looked on his veranda all those years before. He spoke first.
“Well now, ma’am,” he said, smiling, and kind of drawling out the words. Then he took a step forward, and another step, and held out his hand. The smile grew wider: “Do you still say how do you do the way you used to? And shake hands?”
Hélène bit her lip. She looked up at him uncertainly.
“Sometimes,” she said.
Then she took his hand, and he solemnly shook it. She stared at him, half-expecting him to do as he had all those years before, to press a little, and scratch with his nail, there in the damp circle of her palm. But he didn’t. He simply shook her hand quite formally, and then he let it go, and then he looked at her.
He looked at her for what seemed an eternity, though it couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds. He looked at her long wet hair and her flushed face. He looked at the wet blouse that clung to the outline of her breasts. He looked at the short schoolgirl skirt and the long bare tanned legs. He looked at her the way Billy Tanner looked, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he saw. And quite suddenly, Hélène relaxed.
It was all right, she thought. It was all right. He wasn’t angry, and even if he were, she had the oddest feeling that she could stop him if she wanted.
He smiled again, a beautiful warm smile, displaying even, white perfect teeth.
“You’ve grown up,” he said at last in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice. “You remember me? You’re Hélène, aren’t you? Hélène Craig.” He paused. “Well, since you’re on my land, Hélène Craig, can I offer you something to drink?”
“I…thank you very much. But—well, I ought to be getting home now, and…”
“Don’t be absurd.” He smiled, and then, to her astonishment, he took her arm, firmly but lightly, resting it through his, the way her mother had shown her, for all the world as if he were taking her in to dinner. He moved off, and Hélène went with him.
“So. What will it be? Mint julep? Whiskey sour? Coke? Bourbon on the rocks?”
Hélène laughed nervously. “I don’t drink. Not alcohol. I’m—well, I’m twelve. My mother says that’s too young.”
“You astonish me. Twelve? I took you for a grown-up young woman.”
Hélène flushed with pleasure. “A limeade would be nice.”
“Then a limeade it shall be.”
They processed, that was the word, Hélène thought. Not walked: walked was much too ordinary a word. Across the grass, past the old summerhouse, and over the lawns in full view of the tall windows of the big house. Along past the tall white portico, along past the magnolia tree that reached almost up to the roof. Arm in arm, right up the veranda steps, in through the huge entrance hall, across a cool stone floor, and into the most beautiful room she had ever seen in her whole l
ife.
It was so big, she couldn’t believe it. Why, it must have been forty feet long, fifty maybe. And the ceiling was very high, and there were four huge windows. Their blinds were lowered against the evening sun.
He showed her to a chair, and Hélène sat down in it. It was the softest, most comfortable, most luxurious-feeling she’d ever known. Silk, against her bare legs, and cushions that were plump with finest goose down. She leaned back, slightly dazed, her heart beating very fast. Major Calvert went over to a cabinet on the far side of the room, and at first she thought he was going to ring for the butler, but he didn’t do that. He mixed the drinks himself, from a silver tray: whiskey for him, she saw, on rocks of ice which he took with tongs from a silver bucket. And limeade for her, eau-de-nil green, in a long thin glass. He turned back with the drinks in his hand, and looked at her again. Then he went over, as if it were an afterthought, and shut the tall mahogany doors. And then he brought her her drink and sat down on a chair opposite her.
Hélène clutched the glass in her hand. There was a tiny table of polished wood right next to her, with flowers on it, and a little silver tray which looked as if it might be meant to stand a glass on. But she couldn’t be sure. Her eyes turned to the room, but it was too immense, too extraordinary to take in all at once. She just had a confused impression that everything shone: the tables, the silver ashtrays and photograph frames, the grand piano at the far end, the gilt frames of the paintings on the wall. And there were flowers everywhere: hothouse flowers and palms. The scent of the flowers came to her on the still cool air, and her eyes dazzled. She looked back at Major Calvert.
He was sitting there, apparently perfectly relaxed, his legs crossed at the knee, one perfectly polished shoe tapping idly on the carpet.
His skin was deeply tanned, his hair and moustache just as dark as she remembered. As she looked at him, he reached into his pocket and drew out a gold cigarette case and a lighter.
“You don’t smoke, either, I take it?” The corners of his lips lifted. “Would you mind if I did?”
“Oh. No. No. Of course not.”
He lit the cigarette and inhaled slowly. He didn’t seem to feel the need to say anything, but Hélène did. The silence was terrifying.
“I shouldn’t have been there,” she burst out suddenly. “I do realize that. In the pond, I mean. I’m sorry.”
“Please.” He made an amused, courteous gesture of the hands. “It’s very hot. If that’s where you were, feel free to go there anytime you like.” He paused. “Is it a good place to swim? Do you go there often?”
Hélène looked at him uncertainly, for he put the question slightly oddly. Then she shook her head.
“No. Not often. Not now.”
“But you did once?”
“For a while. Years ago.”
He sighed. The answer seemed to please him.
“To tell you the truth, it’s a little scary.” She paused. “It’s shadowy in there. You feel like you’re being watched.”
He didn’t answer this, but drew on the cigarette. There was silence again; in a corner, a clock chimed.
“It certainly is very hot,” Hélène said at last. Her mind was whirling. She knew there ought to be lots of things she could say, but right then she couldn’t think of one of them. “Is Mrs. Calvert at home?”
Out it came, just like that, sounding idiotic. But Major Calvert didn’t seem to mind. He just looked up, absently, as if he were thinking of something else.
“What? Oh, no. She’s visiting. Her family, you know. Up in Philadelphia.”
Hélène considered this information. Major Calvert said nothing more, but he was looking at her again. He put his cigarette out and slipped his hand back into his pocket. She didn’t know why, perhaps it was the way he was looking at her, so quietly like that, but Hélène felt more and more self-conscious. She could feel the color mounting in her cheeks, and she felt peculiar, excited and nervous all at once. She drained the glass of limeade quickly.
“You’d like another?”
“Oh, no. Thank you.” She twisted her hands nervously in her skirt.
“You still sound English. Not American at all. Remarkable.” He spoke so suddenly he made her jump. She smiled.
“Do I? I can sound American too. When I want to.”
“Can you now?” He leaned forward. “Say something to me, then, in American…”
Hélène drew in her breath. She let her lashes fall, then looked up again at him.
“I’m sorry I was trespassin’ on your land, Major Calvert…” It came out perfectly, a slow southern drawl, demure, with just a little provocative edge. Major Calvert looked at her for a second intently, then he threw back his head and laughed. Just the way she remembered.
“Well now—who’d have believed it?” He stopped laughing. “You’re a clever young woman. As well as a pretty one.” He leaned forward suddenly, his dark teasing eyes meeting hers. “Do they tell you that, all the boys ’round here? I’m sure they do. That you’re pretty? More than that. That you’re beautiful?”
Hélène’s heart seemed to miss a beat. A quick shiver of excitement went through her, like an electric pulse and just as quick, there and then gone. She lowered her eyes again and stood up.
“I’d better be getting home now. Thank you for the drink, Major Calvert.”
“It’s been a pleasure, ma’am.”
He stood up in the same moment, and his voice sounded as if he were teasing her. But she looked up, and he didn’t seem to be. His eyes were dark brown and quite serious. He was standing close to her suddenly, and Hélène could see that his breath was coming a little fast.
“You’re hair’s still wet, Hélène Craig. You know that?” he said, and his voice sounded odd and kind of thick. Then he lifted his hand and he touched her hair. He lifted one long strand very slowly, and let it run through his fingers. Hélène didn’t move. “And your blouse. It’s wet almost right through.” She saw his tongue pass over his lips, saw his chest rise and fall under the elegant white jacket. And then he touched her. Her sleeve first, and then, slowly and deliberately, looking right down into her wide, shocked eyes, her breast. A light touch, so she knew he could feel the swell of her breast through the wet material, but a movement that could just as easily be passed off.
She knew she ought to do something. Tell him to stop, knock his hand away, run out of the room, something; but somehow she couldn’t do any of those things. She just stood there, looking at him.
“Wet through. Right down to the skin.”
His voice was deep and thick now, and kind of whispery. For a moment he stayed still just like that, then his hand tightened over her breast suddenly. Still his eyes never left hers, and Hélène thought confusedly that it was as if he were looking for something there, something he could read, and she didn’t know what it was. Then he slipped his hand in under the blouse, easily, gently, and cupped her naked breast in the dry palm of his hand. Again, he stayed like that, quite still. Then he moved his fingers, once, twice, over her nipple, with a feather-light touch that was piercingly exquisite.
Then he removed his hand, and it was as if nothing had happened at all. He simply took her arm, the way he had before, and led her courteously to the door.
In the entrance hall he looked down into her face. He looked quite composed again now, quite relaxed, and that odd intentness had gone from his eyes.
“Would you like to come here again someday, Hélène Craig?” He paused. “See ’round the plantation maybe?”
Hélène hung her head. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”
Her answer seemed to please him once more, for he smiled.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine. Anytime you feel ready, you just let me know. Doesn’t matter when.”
“It doesn’t?” Hélène lifted her head, her blue eyes flaring with doubt.
He shook his head.
“No, ma’am.” He touched her arm. “I can wait.”
It was her fifteenth birthday,
and Billy Tanner said that was something special, something to celebrate. Billy had graduated from Selma High now; he was working in the garage over Maybury way, working full-time, earning good money, he said.
“We could go out. Have dinner someplace,” Billy said. “Celebrate in style…”
Hélène looked at him uncertainly. Billy seemed to avoid her less these days; he’d even promised he might take her swimming again sometime. But he’d never asked her out on a date.
“Just you and me, Billy?”
Billy’s face went a dull brick red. “You’d rather we made it a double date maybe?”
Hélène hung her head. She thought she might prefer to be alone with Billy, but she didn’t like to say so. She didn’t want to sound pushy.
“I could ask Priscilla-Anne, I s’pose,” she muttered.
“Okay. Sure. Why not?”
So she had asked Priscilla-Anne, and Priscilla-Anne’s eyebrows had disappeared right up under her carefully groomed bangs.
“Billy Tanner? Billy Tanner? You must be kidding. In a restaurant? He’s paying?”
“I guess so.”
“Okay.” Priscilla-Anne sighed. “Some celebration. I’ll check it out with Dale, okay? Because then we can go in his car. I’m not going on some bus. No way…”
And so here they all were, crammed into Dale Garrett’s Buick. She and Billy in the back, Priscilla-Anne and Dale in front; Dale driving, one hand on the wheel only, and Priscilla-Anne laughing, and opening up a six-pack. She tossed two cans into the back, and opened one for herself; Budweiser squirted all over the dash. Then one for Dale. She tilted her head back; one hand rested on Dale’s thigh, and he said something Hélène couldn’t catch, and Priscilla-Anne laughed. Hélène leaned back in her seat. Dale was Priscilla’s latest beau. She’d lost count how many there had been between Eddie Haines and him. Six at least; seven maybe. And she herself was fifteen—fifteen years, two and a half days. When was her life going to start?
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