Glass Mountain

by Cynthia Voigt

  “Yes, thank you.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and studied the carpet.

  I went back down to the kitchen, then ascended a narrow back staircase to the servants’ wing. Three bedrooms, one with its own sitting room and a private bath, a low sloping ceiling and flowered wallpaper. A double bed, iron, painted white, occupied this bedroom. I sat down on it, hat in hand. The ceiling seemed to press down on me.

  I thought about what I would want to do with the room and its sitting room, with the servants’ rooms, to make them pleasant living spaces. I knew what I would do with the whole house, to lighten its heaviness of walls and ease the formality of the rooms, to make it a place where a family could live. But it had nothing to do with me and I didn’t plan to occupy the bed I sat on. I was merely busying myself, keeping myself busy, until the afternoon would pass.

  Aimless, that’s what I was, especially when alone. Purposeless. There was a woman in a bar, late one May afternoon, an afternoon in late May…and what I was doing in a bar I couldn’t have said. She looked married, she looked unhappy, she suited my mood. She had asked me to pass the pretzels, please. Not a pretty woman, not young, her body looked as if it had borne children, her face looked lived in. I passed the pretzels. She yawned, covering her mouth with a not-manicured hand.

  “Long day,” I suggested, sympathetically.

  “Are there any short ones?” She smiled. “What’s your name?”

  “Gregor.”

  “Mine’s Joy.” She made a sound like a bark of laughter. Or a bite. “And that’s a joke. What brings you in here, Greg? You don’t exactly look the type.”

  I made up my mind. It was something to do with the way her hand emerged from the tailored cuff of her blouse, with the strong wrist. Unless her looks and clothing were entirely deceptive, she wasn’t in a high-risk group. You couldn’t be entirely sure, not of anyone, you can’t be, but I had condoms in my wallet. Even with condoms, you can’t be entirely sure, but the way I felt, a little surety was enough. “I was thinking of dinner, and a movie.”

  She waited, then asked the question herself. “With me?”

  “If you’d like to. We could see a movie first and then eat, if you’d rather.”

  She didn’t look me up and down but concentrated on my face, eyes. “Are you married?”

  “No,” I said.

  She sighed. “You’re lying. I can tell, I can always tell. I was married, for twenty years almost, until last New Year’s Eve. Isn’t that a hell of a time to tell your wife you want a divorce?”

  “Maybe he thought there was something symbolic about it?”

  “There was. There sure as hell was. Have you ever been married?”

  “No.”

  She munched on a pretzel and considered me. “I like you, Greg, you just bare-faced lie. And you’ve got sympathetic eyes. I like your eyes. So maybe we’ll do that, even if you are married. Because you have to begin sometime, don’t you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “And after all, my husband was married too, wasn’t he?”

  “I should warn you,” I warned her, “I’m not looking for anything permanent.”

  “Who is, Greg? Who in the whole lousy city is?”

  We never made it to the movie. We also never made it to bed. We ate and talked, drank coffee and talked—about her life, children, marriage. “I didn’t expect Prince Charming, nobody in her right mind would, but he did. Not Prince Charming, and not Cinderella, exactly—more Sophia Loren, some dark Italian beauty, oversexed and overdomesticated…What do you think, Greg, are all men that stupid? Or just him?” I walked her home, to an East Village apartment, kissed her at the door for whatever good that might do, and said good-bye, good night. I walked home, uptown, along dark streets. I would have liked it if someone tried to mug me, the way I felt. But nobody rose to the bait.

  26

  The Last Temptation

  I could have left Mr. Theo’s employ, but—

  Not that I didn’t think of it, not that I wasn’t tempted. But I had references to consider, and if I were to simply walk out, without notice, there would be a three-year gap in my resume, too long a time to leave unexplained. Also, I was contractually bound to give him thirty days’ notice, and morally bound to see him through his marriage. I could hold out, I thought. It was only a matter of waiting out the time. So I set myself aside and derived whatever pleasure I could from the comedy playing out before me.

  Besides, while I didn’t mind having deceived Alexis, I found I did mind having disappointed her. The expression of shame and scorn I saw in her eyes whenever I met them—that galled me. By behaving well, by impeccable behavior, I could regain the sense that I at least deserved respect.

  So I stayed on, playing my part in the occasion. Like the bridegroom’s, mine was a passive, enabling role. The ladies were active. I often carried in trays of tea or coffee, cakes or sandwiches, to whatever ladies were embroiled in whatever decisions needed making. Miss Sarah stayed on at the house. Alexis was often in conference with her and Mrs. Mondleigh and Mrs. Rawling in the library. The four of them worked at the production of the wedding. Mrs. Rawling for lack of time and Mrs. Mondleigh for lack of interest left the redecoration project to the two younger women. I kept to the background, kept the background running smoothly behind them.

  Once again, I was carrying a tray of tea out to the library, late in an afternoon. Miss Sarah and Alexis, old friends by this period of forced intimacy, were once again at work among wallpapers and fabrics and books about color, Miss Sarah in jeans and one of Mr. Theo’s old shirts, Alexis in a Laura Ashley sundress. I set the tray down on a place Alexis cleared for it. They were each at one end of the deep leather sofa.

  “Thanks, Gregor,” Miss Sarah said. She was the more obsessed of the two about getting everything decided before the wedding, but I assumed that she had more she wanted not to be thinking about. I moved the teacups onto their saucers and turned to leave.

  “Wait a minute,” Miss Sarah stopped me. “We should ask Gregor, Allie. He’s got great taste. Have you seen his room? He did it all himself, I mean, designing and decorating.”

  “No,” Alexis answered, and I could guess what she was thinking. “I’ve never seen his room.”

  Miss Sarah had no such suspicion of anyone. “It was this dingy—Victorian—rabbit warren, for servants, and Gregor’s turned it into—I guess it’s a suite. Would you call it a suite, Gregor?”

  “Mr. Theo was very generous,” I explained to Alexis.

  “He transformed the whole thing, it’s—You ought to see it, Allie. If it weren’t Gregor’s, I’d ask Theo if I could have it. You looked at the servants’ quarters in the old house, didn’t you, Gregor?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think? You must have thought something. What would you do with them?”

  She was impervious to the subtleties. I was not. “If I may, miss?” I inquired of Alexis, forcing her to look at me. Scorn and shame.

  “Go right ahead.”

  “I’d do it—them—in white, a warm white but not too creamy. With bold colors, crayon colors. I wouldn’t move any walls: the rooms themselves aren’t bad, the house is well built. But at present they’re depressing.” I remembered. “You’ll want to refurnish them. I’d do modern, wood rather than glass or metal.” She nodded her head, a good girl, listening politely.

  “Is there anything else?” I asked Miss Sarah.

  In the kitchen, I picked up a book. I had decided to kill the time reading through Dickens, The Pickwick Papers to The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I had arrived at David Copperfield.

  Alexis entered the kitchen, bearing the teapot. I stood up. “You should have rung.”

  She paid no attention to what I said or to my tone. “Is it true what she’s telling me? She got married? and divorced? this spring? within three weeks?”

  I didn’t contradict any of it.

  “Gregor, she’s in there—just crying. Weeping. I don’t know what started it,
I didn’t say anything. I don’t think I said anything that would start it. What can I do?”

  “Talk to her like a friend, miss,” I advised.

  “That’s no problem. She’s sweet. Silly, but—I never had a little sister but I like having Sarah. What should I say?”

  She had forgotten who she was speaking to, and that was a welcome change. “Say whatever seems true to you. Although…I don’t think the time is right for feminist points.”

  She smiled unselfconsciously, nodded thoughtfully, and left. I assumed I was supposed to refill the teapot, so I put the kettle on and cleaned out the old leaves. The water came to a boil. I swished some around in the pot, poured that into the sink, and was measuring out tea when Alexis came back into the kitchen.

  “Gregor, what is this?” she demanded. “Brad rescued her?”

  I nodded.

  “She won’t tell me. What did he rescue her from? Do you know? Why didn’t she tell him who she was?”

  I shrugged and poured water.

  “She’s desperately unhappy, Gregor. What happened?”

  I shook my head, as if to say I couldn’t say. She stared at me, then picked up the teapot and went back to Miss Sarah.

  I returned to my reading. Sunlight fell silently beyond the window. I turned pages.

  Alexis entered and sat down facing me. She reached across to take the book out of my hands. “She’s pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?”

  “Pregnant.”

  I didn’t know why I should be so surprised.

  “She’s gotten the test results. Does Brad know?”

  This added a whole new dimension to the situation. “I doubt it. I don’t think they’ve communicated in any way since she left him.” This changed everything.

  “The way Sarah tells it, he left her.”

  “Yes.”

  “After she told him who she was.”

  I related the events impartially. “She told him, he was furious, he left for work and didn’t call or come back, so she moved out. Before ten thirty a.m.”

  She took a minute to take it in. “She doesn’t want to tell him about the baby.”

  “Of course not.”

  “She says she wants to forget it ever happened. It being Brad.”

  “A baby makes that difficult.”

  “Well, she’s not thinking very clearly,” Alexis allowed. She rested her chin on her hand, waiting for whatever I would say next. I noted a distinct lack of scorn and shame on her face, and I hated to risk the question but it seemed an obvious one to ask.

  “Can you ascertain how she feels about an abortion? Not in principle, but for herself.”

  “It’s so sad, Gregor. She’s so naive. What could she have done to him?”

  “He’s young himself. Growing up rich keeps you young.”

  “Tell me about it,” Alexis said. She rose from the table and returned to Miss Sarah.

  I didn’t pick up my book. I looked out the window to the garden, walled in by buildings, and tried to imagine what Miss Sarah, pregnant, might be feeling. It was useless to spend any time being impatient with their lack of precautions. Caution hadn’t characterized the affair, not at any point.

  Alexis entered the kitchen but stayed across the room. I waited. “She wants you too. She asked me to ask you…Bring a cup, there’s plenty of tea.”

  I offered her a way out. “You don’t mind?”

  “Mind?” I’d angered her. “What do you think I am? She’s twenty, she ran off and got married, she ran off and got divorced, now she’s pregnant and doesn’t know what to do, and she trusts you. I’d mind if you refused.”

  She didn’t wait for me. I got down a cup and saucer and followed her. Miss Sarah, looking about fourteen with blotchy eyes and runny nose and quivering lips, greeted me: “It just gets worse and worse. What am I going to do?” She answered herself, by wailing.

  She was alone on the big sofa. I sat beside her. She wept. I put an arm around her and gathered her in, until she could bury her face against my shoulder.

  I told her, “What you’re going to do is cry, and when you’re through with that, we’ll talk.” Her face moved against my jacket, in what I took to be agreement.

  Alexis passed me a box of Kleenex. She poured tea into my cup, miming sugar? milk? lemon? I nodded or shook my head.

  It could almost have been our own child over whose weeping head we communicated without words; or a niece, and we the dependable adults in her world. We were for her, and against whatever that required us to be against. We were allies.

  Eventually Miss Sarah drew back and blew her nose and rubbed at her eyes and looked absolutely miserable. “I feel better,” she said to both of us. “It always helps to blow off steam. Gee, I’m sorry, Allie. There’s no reason for me to lay all this on you.”

  “We’re almost sisters, Sarah. Does Theo know?”

  “He knows I got married. He doesn’t know about the divorce, only Gregor knew that. And until today, nobody knew about—” Her voice cracked. I put the Kleenex box into her hand.

  My first objective was to soothe. “Miss Sarah?”

  Her reddened eyes looked at me over a tissue.

  “It’s not the end of the world, being pregnant. Especially not when you’re rich.”

  Her eyes widened when I mentioned the unmentionable.

  “In the first place, it can mean the best medical care, if you decide on an abortion…?”

  She shook her head, absolutely not.

  “In that case…You’ll have control over your own money when you turn twenty-one, won’t you?”

  That thought cheered her.

  “So you’ll be all right, no matter what you decide.”

  “I will, won’t I?” She lowered the tissue.

  I think I had shocked Alexis, but I went on, regardless. “The difficult thing is to decide what you want.”

  “I want everything to be the way it was. It was wonderful, Allie, it was perfect. And now I wish I’d never met him.”

  I got her back on the rails: “I could tell your brother, and he could talk to Mr. Wycliffe.”

  She had started shaking her head before I finished the first conditional clause. “No, no. Don’t do that. Please. You won’t, will you?”

  I reserved judgment.

  “You don’t understand Brad. He’s an idealist. He means what he says.”

  Alexis cut in. “What I don’t understand, Sarah, is why he refused to come here. You say you know he won’t, but I don’t understand why.”

  I attempted to deflect her. “Sarah,” I said, “Brad must also have said he’d always love you. If I know anything about people, he must have said that too.”

  “But that won’t matter if he doesn’t think he should. If he thinks he shouldn’t love me, it won’t be the same, what he’s said. You see,” she said, “I know what he’s like.”

  Alexis was not to be distracted. “What does he have against this house?”

  Miss Sarah turned to her. “I can’t tell you. You’re going to marry Theo.”

  Alexis directed her face at me. “Gregor? What is she talking about?”

  “Believe me, Mr. Theo was much maligned.” I composed my face to trustworthiness.

  She knew what I was doing. “Believe you?”

  “Ask Theo, if you want to know,” Sarah suggested. I could understand her impulse to spite, but I did wish she could have restrained herself on this occasion. “He’s the one you’re marrying. If that’s what you want. Allie,” the question had just occurred to her, “is that what you want? To marry Theo? Or is it just what our parents want for the two of you?”

  “Theo and I have known one another almost all of our lives,” Alexis reassured her. “It’s bound to be different than, say, you and Brad. We’ll do fine, don’t worry about me. It’s what you want I’m trying to think about.”

  There was something each of us didn’t want to have to speak of. Or think of.

  “I guess,” Miss Sarah said, “I want to ha
ve this baby. No, I really do. I think I need someone to love, and that’s what a baby is, isn’t it? It’s just—I don’t know how to have a baby.”

  “I’ll take you at your word,” Alexis said, “if you’re sure?”

  Miss Sarah nodded.

  “Then listen. There’s my house on Lake George. You could go there. You could live there. It’s winterized. You’ll have to find a doctor, and I don’t think you should be alone. Is there a friend who could stay with you?”

  “Would you?” Miss Sarah asked.

  Alexis smiled, gentle. “I think Theo might object.”

  I had served my purpose, and rather well I thought, so I rose from the sofa. “If you don’t need me…?” I inquired, back in character.

  “I guess I don’t,” Miss Sarah said. “Except you make me feel better, just being here. I’d like to adopt you for a brother. Gregor? How about you, you could come stay with me. Would you? Would you do that for me?”

  Alexis wouldn’t look at me. She wasn’t going to give me any help, or hinder me in any way. I could see how it might go if I moved up to Lake George with Miss Sarah, as her resident friend: there would be daily life and childbirth classes, an intimacy rife with possibilities. I liked the girl well enough, and I was tempted. Not very tempted, and not for very long, given the long-range difficulties. “Wouldn’t you be better off with a girlfriend?” I suggested.

  “I guess. Yeah, I think. Besides, people would talk about us, wouldn’t they? And then, after it’s born—Do you think it’s a boy or a girl, Alexis? I can barely wait to see it. I’d love to have a boy or a girl. This is exciting, isn’t it?” she said, in wonder. “This is going to be exciting.”

  “Thank you, Gregor,” Alexis said. There were shadings to her voice and I wondered if I had spared her the uncomfortable choice between telling all or abandoning Miss Sarah to the fate of me. Had I seized the opportunity, would that have been her deepest shame?

  27

  I Meet My Match

  Through the kitchen windows I could see how fine the morning was—spring ripening into summer, May coming to its end, daffodils and tulips gone, and roses just beginning. I was sitting at the table with the silver piled in front of me, applying polish.