Promises

by Belva Plain

  “I’ll tell you what we’ll be. Look around you. We’re halfway there already.”

  There was something she had for a long time wanted to ask him and had hesitated to do.

  “Excuse me for being inquisitive, Stephen. I know it’s none of my business,” she said, “but were you ever married?”

  He smiled. “I notice you don’t ask whether I am now married.”

  Margaret shook her head. “I don’t because I know this much about you. You wouldn’t be here with me if you were.”

  “That’s true. No, I’m not, and I never was. I’ve had my share of women, but I long ago promised myself that I’d never make a commitment, a promise, that I wasn’t certain I could keep.”

  As he spoke, he looked with such intensity into her eyes, that she had to turn from him. And she sat there looking instead at her fingernails. A sensation as acute as pain or some celestial, imcomparable joy was shooting through her flesh.

  There was silence.

  “I want to know you better,” Stephen said.

  She looked up, seeing in a wavering blur dark shoulders, white collar, dark hair … She was in love with him.

  “But you’re going away,” she said.

  “That doesn’t matter. I’m not going far.”

  The cheerful boom of Fred Davis’s voice crossed the table. “Hey! This is a surprise. What are you doing, moving your office to the Hotel Bradley?” He bent to kiss Margaret’s cheek.

  “Stephen is telling me about his move,” she said, feeling embarrassment, feeling resentment, and wishing Fred would move on.

  But Fred was interested. “Buying a house?” he inquired.

  “No, leaving Elmsford.”

  “Really? Tell me about it. Mind if I draw up a chair?”

  “Go ahead,” Stephen said politely.

  “I’ve had my dinner. A couple of investors from downstate are staying in the hotel here. The food’s not bad. So where are you going?”

  Frustration, like a fire, was hot in Margaret. She sat there watching the rain on the windowpane, going through the motions of eating while listening first to Stephen’s responses to Fred’s questions, and then gradually just to men’s talk, which was mostly about Fred’s business and the economy of Elmsford. After a while the fire cooled, leaving her with the dull, defeated feeling people have when they have lost something valuable or missed a flight.

  “And so you’re going,” Fred said at last. “When’s the move?”

  “Friday. I start my first class Monday.”

  “Well, you leave a fine reputation behind you, Stephen. I can certainly vouch for you, and this lady of mine can do the same.” He laid his hand over Margaret’s, continuing with emphasis, “She’s told me many times how helpful you’ve been, and that’s made me feel pretty pleased with myself, because I’m the man who got you together. Right, Margaret?”

  “Yes,” she said flatly.

  He was making a statement, being proprietary, with his hand still resting warmly on hers. Lest there be some misunderstanding, she thought miserably, unable to retrieve her hand.

  And she tried in some way to catch Stephen’s attention so as to convey a message, but he was busy paying the check, and besides, what message did she want to convey?

  In the underground garage both men’s cars were in the same row.

  “If you’ve finished with your legal business and if you don’t mind, I’ll drive Margaret home,” Fred said.

  “Of course,” replied Stephen, and they parted.

  In Fred’s car Margaret sat silently staring out at the rain. She thought that her face must look like stone. Fred had disposed of her as if she were a bundle to be delivered, a bundle that could have no preferences about who was to do the delivering. And who had ever given him permission to speak of “this lady of mine”? Yet, since he was Fred Davis, she could hardly turn upon him with her anger.

  The lights were on in the apartment, for which she was thankful because it meant that the children were home. Otherwise, Fred would want to come in.

  “I hope I didn’t interrupt any business tonight,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “It’s all right. My business with lawyers is finished.”

  “When shall I see you again?”

  “It will be a busy week, Fred. School starts, Megan leaves, and we’ve hardly begun to pack.”

  “I understand. But I have important things to say to you.”

  Yes, she knew. Only last week Louise, with the best intentions in the world, had given her another motherly piece of counsel.

  “You really ought to settle things with Fred. He told Gil that he’s ready anytime you are. You’ve been through so much, Margaret. You should think of yourself, now. You’d have a peaceful home with a trustworthy man, and your children would have a father.”

  “A woman doesn’t have to be married to have a peaceful home.”

  “True. But you need more than peace, Margaret. You’re too young to have no one to love you.”

  He had shut off the engine. They were enclosed in a sudden stillness, the dark, and the pattering rain. He would reach over, draw her to him, and kiss her. She had never minded his gentle, swift kiss, but the thought of anything more dismayed her. Now he was about to pin her down, and somehow—somehow—she would have to say no to him, to kind, good Fred, who had made her so angry.

  “Important things,” he repeated. There was a pause. “You don’t want me,” he blurted.

  “You don’t under—”

  “Understand? I never really tried to, and that’s been my whole trouble. I should have seen. It was perfectly clear.”

  “Fred, no!” Her dread for herself turned quickly to pity for his humiliation. “I would never hurt you! Not you! How could I, ever?”

  He said quietly, “Surely I know that. But without admitting it to myself I’ve felt your unwillingness. And I know you were angry tonight. I can’t blame you. I made a fool of myself.”

  “No, no, you didn’t. Forget it. It wasn’t important.”

  “Yes, it was. We need to see everything very plainly, Margaret. Neither one of us needs to make any more mistakes. To have you take me out of old friendship or, God forbid, a sense of gratitude—no, no!”

  “You deserve better,” she said, very low.

  “Don’t cry, Margaret.”

  “I’m not.”

  “But you’re about to. And I don’t want you to. I don’t want to see you cry. Things happen, or they don’t. That’s all there is to it.” He started the engine. “The rain’s let up. Go in before it comes back hard.”

  “Fred, I don’t know what to say. I can usually find something.” She gave a small, sad laugh. “But right now, I just don’t know what to say.”

  “Say nothing. I’m flying to see the folks in Canada next week. You’ll be going back to work. And that’s it.”

  Emotional storms besieged her every night. All that week they raged.

  There was the ache of saying good-bye to her first baby, a Megan grown now, going away, and never—if you looked squarely into the blunt eye of truth—never really coming back.

  There had been no word from Stephen since their parting in the hotel’s garage, where apparently he had made his final farewell. What more had he been about to say when Fred interrupted? Well, whatever it might have been, Fred’s message had been clear enough: Keep away.

  She lay there wondering what she might do about it, tossing out one thought after the other because each was impossible. Each, whatever careful phrasing she might use, was only a way of offering herself, and he would see that. Very likely she had read into their brief encounter far more than he meant, anyway. So she would be making a humble fool of herself and embarrassing him.

  Yet she knew that she was in love with him.

  On the day before Megan was to fly east, a moving van came down the street and turned at the end toward where he lived. They were all at breakfast, but Margaret got up, saying that she would be right back, and walked
down the slope to see where the van had stopped.

  At the top of the rise from behind a thicket of evergreens, she could see the men going inside and the first possessions coming out: a bookcase and a desk. Something in her wanted to run down there, but inhibition stopped her again, and so she stood watching with an ache of helplessness in a heavy heart. Then after a while she walked away, and, not yet ready to go back to the bustle of home, took the path to the park.

  The pond was dozing in the morning’s heat, and the swans were making their endless, circular voyages. She sat down on her familiar bench as if there were some sort of healing to be had in this quiet place. I don’t understand it, she thought. I would never have believed that this could happen to me again. There was such a terrible sense of loss in her. Yet how could one feel the loss of something one had never had? He had simply left, as he had every right to do.

  Back in New York after Thanksgiving at Gil and Louise’s, Nina was still trying to piece together some odds and ends of information.

  After dinner Louise had taken her aside to lament the fact that Margaret had turned Fred Davis down.

  “It would have been a wonderful match,” she mourned. “Everybody says so. The only reason can be that she has somebody else. But who?”

  At breakfast Megan asked about Stephen. “I always thought he was the true Renaissance man,” she said in her new adult importance. “He was a scholar, a lawyer for Mom, and a baseball nut for Dan. Remember the night he told us about his father’s leaving? It’s funny that nobody ever hears from him. He seemed to like us all so much.”

  “Oh, he was sweet on Mom,” Dan said.

  “That’s a stupid remark, and I’ve asked you not to make it,” Margaret said sharply.

  Naturally, everyone looked at her, who almost never talked that way. Her face had gone quite unmistakably bright red.

  Later that day Nina and Margaret had gone for a walk. After a desultory conversation, chiefly about her own life, Nina had posed a bold question. “Why were you so upset this morning when Dan said that about Stephen Larkin?”

  “I wasn’t upset. It’s just that Dan’s too old now to be so silly.”

  “Oh. They really do seem to be missing Stephen, though.”

  “Yes.”

  They had walked on over crackling leaves.

  “Of course, I only met him once, but he sounds to me like a very special person.”

  “Yes.”

  They had walked on into the wind. And suddenly Margaret stopped, saying, “Why not get to the point? You want to know whether there was anything between him and me.”

  “Well, yes, frankly I do. Not that it’s any of my business, I admit. So, was there?”

  “No, there wasn’t. I thought there might have been, but nothing happened. He went away, and that’s the whole story.”

  Nina sat now in the apartment, reflecting over a cozy cup of tea. That’s the whole story. But there had to be something deeper, more complex, than that. There had been tears in Margaret’s eyes. The picture was vivid to Nina: Margaret in the November wind with her brilliant hair blowing, beautiful in her calm dignity, while one large, slippery tear slid down her cheek.

  “Shall I be a meddlesome fool?” she asked herself. “Will I be doing any harm?”

  After a while she decided that there would be no harm in a try, and as to being thought of as a meddlesome idiot, it didn’t really matter. So, after inquiring from long distance information, she telephoned Stephen Larkin and told him what she knew.

  “I just thought you might be interested,” she concluded.

  “Then she really didn’t—she isn’t with—Fred Davis anymore?”

  “She never really was.”

  “But I thought—it seemed—and so I—”

  “I hope you don’t think I’m an idiot with a hell of a nerve besides, but I decided it was worth taking a chance to tell you. And if you ever let Margaret know I did this, I swear I’ll murder you.”

  He began to laugh. “You won’t have to murder me, I promise. I’m going to love you forever. And now, will you please hang up so I can make my call?”

  EPILOGUE, 1995

  Willie and Ernie’s East Side house was alight from bottom to top. The Christmas setting was still there in the window of the shop on the ground floor; the wing chair at the fireplace, the golden candles on the antique mantel, and the dried flowers in a great brass bowl came straight out of a hearty nineteenth-century novel.

  This was the last night of 1995. On three floors above there was a lively celebration. Up and down the white marble stairs and through the private quarters—which their owners were only too happy to display—the guests paraded in their clothes and jewels, greeted friends, were introduced, examined paintings, stopped at the buffet table, and drank champagne. Over all, was the sound of music.

  “Quite a spectacle,” remarked Stephen, enjoying it.

  “Can you believe it?” said Margaret. “All this white marble, even the walls, and yet, somehow, it’s not too much.”

  “I suppose that’s why they’re famous. Did you go into the small red library on the second floor? I can see myself some cold night, stretched out on the sofa under the Winslow Homer with a book or a brandy.”

  “I wish I could stay and talk to you,” Nina said, “but since I’ve been promoted and given a raise, I feel terribly responsible. Willie and Ernie have some customers here tonight, or possible customers, who positively need to be stroked. But it has been a wonderful vacation week for me, just having you here. It’s been a vacation and a celebration. I wish I could be at your big day next month.”

  “It’s going to be a very simple big day,” Margaret said. “No wedding finery. We’ll be too busy moving into the house.”

  “No more grabbing a night at a hotel midway between us anymore,” Stephen said.

  “I’ll come out and decorate your house for you,” Nina offered.

  “No marble walls, please. But a Winslow Homer would be nice,” Stephen said.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Seriously, it’s a nice house, not far either from my work or from the university for Margaret. We’re almost all moved in. Julie’s piano arrived last week, all tuned and ready to work again.”

  “Yes,” Margaret added, “and it’s so wonderful, Nina, we’ve got Rufus back. A neighbor is dog-sitting for him right now.”

  “Oh, I’m glad. My heart was broken for Dan’s sake. Listen, I have to go downstairs. Save a place for me at supper.”

  In the long hallway a young man was standing alone examining a cabinet filled with antique silver. Having a feeling that he might be a customer, Nina stopped to introduce herself.

  “I’m Willie and Ernie’s woman Friday. If you have any questions about the silver, maybe I can help.”

  “Thanks, but I was just looking. Actually, I am interested in silver, but mostly in nineteenth-century stuff, old Tiffany pieces. I like more decoration than you find in the Georgian period.”

  He was immediately interesting, an obviously cultured man who knew something besides finance and sports.

  “The shop will be open after the holiday. If you’re a collector—”

  “Not really. I only pick up a piece now and then if I happen to fall over one.”

  He had a nice smile and looked as though he laughed easily. His direct manner, his quiet, pleasing voice, appealed to Nina, too, so that when he asked her to have a drink with him, she accepted.

  “I’m here alone,” he explained. “I came with a friend, but he left for another party, and I was about to leave soon myself, just lingering and looking around when you came over. Now I am definitely not going to leave.”

  For a while they stood holding their drinks, and then, finding an unoccupied love seat, sat down.

  “So you work here, Nina?”

  “Yes, and I love it. I love being around all these beautiful objects.”

  “You’re a rather beautiful object yourself.”

  There was nothing bold
or cheap about the compliment, because there was nothing bold or cheap about the man. They talked for quite a while; she learned that he was a coffee importer and knew South America with its art, its crime, and its politics very well.

  “How about dinner some night this week?” he asked. “You name the night.”

  “Any night, really?” she responded. “Wednesday, maybe?”

  “That’s the one night I can’t. We have theater tickets. My wife—”

  She took a long breath. Hold on, she said silently to herself, and aloud, “Your wife? I think I may know her.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe so. She’s really”—he gave a slight, deprecating frown—“she’s really not your—”

  “Not my type? Of course not. She’s old as God and homely too. And you haven’t had sex with her in years. I know all about her.”

  He stared as if he couldn’t believe his ears. Then, believing, he was outraged. “Well, excuse me! You really are something, you are, you little—”

  But she was already ten steps away. “Yes,” she called back. “I’m something, all right. But one thing I’m not is a married man’s little pickup.”

  She was angry, but she was also laughing when she went back upstairs. They were all sitting at the table waiting for her.

  “I went looking for you,” Margaret said, “but you seemed to be involved, so I didn’t interfere. Was he nice?”

  “Very nice. And his nice wife is probably very nice too.”

  “Oh,” said Margaret.

  The two women’s glances met, and both smiled. Memories, Margaret thought. We have them, Nina and I.

  And she looked around the table, as had always been her habit when the family was assembled at a table.

  There was Megan, already a sophomore and a scholar, but a recluse no longer; she had a serious boy who also wanted to be a doctor, but Margaret must not worry, she had no plans to promise anything, not yet, not nearly so soon. She knew better.

  There was Julie in her vivacious blue dress, telling Nina now about her music teacher, “My new one, where we’re moving soon. She said I haven’t lost much time. I might even go to a conservatory after college.”