Love of Finished Years

by Gregory Erich Phillips

  Glenn didn’t regret his decision to join the army. His military career was the best thing for him, just as Manhattan was the best place for Dafne. For each, individually, this made sense. But for their relationship, the logic unraveled.

  Would he give up the army for Dafne? If it were that simple, yes. But the army represented something he had found in himself that she hadn’t yet shown an ability to understand. Giving it up wouldn’t change who he was, nor would it change who she was.

  He determined to do what he could to fix their relationship before it desperately needed fixing. He couldn’t let them grow further apart. Dafne needed all the love he had to give. He decided to go straight into Manhattan and apologize for his insensitivity last spring. He would do whatever it took to make things right.

  It was late afternoon when the train reached Grand Central Station. He disembarked and took a taxi up to Dafne’s apartment. Predictably, since it was a Saturday, she wasn’t home. Elsa thought she was at a tea dance with Mr. Halifax, but she didn’t know where. Glenn assumed they were at the Biltmore. Hal always stayed there when he was in town.

  Despite his eagerness to make things right with Dafne, he was happy to see Elsa and realized that he had missed her almost as much as he had his fiancée. She’d prepared a simple dinner for herself, and he was delighted to share it with her.

  “If I had known you were coming I would have made something nicer.”

  “After the food they fed me at camp, this is practically a banquet.”

  Elsa smiled at him across their corn salad and split sandwich.

  Glenn stayed longer than he realized, talking to Elsa. By the time he left the apartment and made it to the Biltmore it was nine o’clock. The host informed him that the dance was over. There was no sign of Dafne in either the restaurant or the bar. Twice now he had come to visit Dafne unannounced, and twice she had eluded him. He needed to be better about letting her know when he was coming.

  While deliberating over whether to get a room or to just go back to the base in Brooklyn, he decided to inquire about Hal.

  Yes, the clerk told him, Mr. Halifax was staying in the hotel. The clerk, who knew Glenn to be Hal’s friend, even told him that he was in room 140 but added that he had requested not to be disturbed.

  “Why,” Glenn asked. “Is he ill? It’s still so early.”

  “No, he is quite well.” The clerk leaned forward. “There was a young lady with him.”

  At first this announcement didn’t rattle Glenn. Hal always stayed at the Biltmore because he knew he could trust them to be discreet about such things. Glenn was surprised they had told him.

  It wasn’t in Glenn’s nature to mistrust; after all, Elsa hadn’t even been sure of Dafne’s whereabouts. Yet something didn’t feel right to him. He looked down, then back up at the clerk as if to ask the question that was gradually dawning on him. A horror of possibility began to race through his brain.

  In a sudden frenzy, he ran up the stairs and down the hall to 140. There he stopped.

  What was he thinking? Hal was his friend, and Dafne would soon be his wife. Neither of them would betray him, least of all together. He felt ashamed to even suspect what he might find behind this door. What if Hal were with another woman, and he rudely disturbed them? How could he live with the shame?

  He waited for several long moments. The light of the electric bulb played on the three metal digits on the white door.

  With his mind in indecision, he hesitantly tried the door.

  It was locked.

  That it was locked enraged him. With a burst of recklessness he stepped back, then kicked down the door. He ran through the living room and stopped cold in the entrance to the bedroom.

  The only feeling he recognized was sadness. No longer the fear, nor the anger; only sadness. Sadness to see Dafne scrambling to cover her nakedness as tears built in her terrified eyes. Sadness to see his friend quickly pull on his trousers, then stand tall beside the bed, stoically masking his shame.

  There was nothing to say to them—no questions to be asked, no answers needed. Everything was clear. In an instant he understood and couldn’t believe he’d failed to see it coming. He blamed himself, not for stupidly asking Hal to look in on Dafne while he was gone, but for failing to be a better man for her. If he had taken better care of her heart, she wouldn’t have needed this.

  Dafne sat shaking on the edge of the bed with a sheet clutched tightly around her. Her mouth and eyes sagged with the weight of guilt and despair. Her lips tried to move, as if trying to cry out to him, but she couldn’t make a sound. Glenn’s sadness deepened into a terrible grief.

  Hal stood motionless, his eyes fixed on Glenn as if Glenn would pull out his military pistol and shoot him dead against the wall. He probably wouldn’t have moved if Glenn had. But Glenn wasn’t thinking about Hal. He was only the instrument by which Dafne satisfied her neglected desire. Glenn didn’t hate him or even miss him. He felt suddenly like he had never known him.

  Glenn felt terribly ashamed. It was all his fault. He was the one who should have covered his face in his hands, not these two. He slowly turned and walked back out the door he had broken.

  * * * * *

  Dafne cried in Elsa’s arms for almost an hour before she could control herself enough to tell her servant what happened. When she finally did, Elsa pushed her away and stood up in­dignantly beside Dafne’s bed. She wanted to hit her mistress.

  “I didn’t mean to do it. Please don’t hate me,” Dafne pled. “You at least have to forgive me!”

  Elsa had to do no such thing! It would take a long time for her to forgive Dafne for this.

  “It wasn’t entirely my fault. I drank more than I’m used to. We were talking, and I was depressed. I’ve been lonely with Glenn away. I have people all around me, and of course, I have you and I love you. But it’s not the same. I started to cry, and then he kissed me.”

  “How could you let him kiss you?”

  “Have you ever been kissed right here?” Dafne pointed to the area between the bottom of her right ear and the edge of her hairline. “If anyone ever kisses you there, then tell me how well you could resist him.”

  Elsa was not convinced but had no experience with which to argue.

  Dafne’s face fell into a hideous pout. ”Glenn never kissed me there.” She leaned back onto her pillow and resumed crying.

  Elsa stood rubbing her palms together. She didn’t know what to do or even what to think. The full weight of the disaster was just beginning to become clear to her.

  ”What are you going to do?” she finally asked.

  “I don’t know. What can I do?”

  “Which of them do you love?”

  “Glenn, of course. But I can’t beg him to take me back.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t crawl back to him.”

  Elsa thought she should have to. As she looked at her mistress, Dafne seemed pathetic to her. She couldn’t bear to see her that way. She turned away. “I’m going to bed.”

  Once in the privacy of her own room, Elsa wept bitterly. Her dream of serving Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Streppy until the day she died, which only an hour ago had seemed a certainty, was fading fast. Her premonitions since moving back to New York were coming true.

  She never wanted to see Dafne again. But even if she didn’t feel friendliness toward her, there was far more between them than friendship. The practical implications to herself quickly grew clear to Elsa.

  All the time since she’d first left this city played on her memory. Was everything now lost? Indeed, this whole life she had gained for herself was at stake and hung perilously on Dafne and Glenn’s splintered happiness. She was foolish to have expected it to last forever. None of the Grahams had ever been there to arrange a situation for her. It was her job to do that for them. If the need was gone, or they grew tired of her, she would be right back in the employment lines at Hopkins & Co, with nothing to show for all she had been through since her first day in Amer
ica.

  That was why she couldn’t say everything to Dafne tonight that she wanted to. In recent years she had served Dafne as a friend, not as a servant. She did love her mistress. Their friendship might now be permanently scarred; it was too soon for her to know. But she was still Dafne’s maid and could ill afford to lose the position. Thus she would support and stand by her mistress through whatever decisions she made.

  Oh, but she would miss Glenn! She missed him already. He was the one she wanted to stand by to comfort in his sorrow.

  In the weeks and months that followed, Glenn devoted himself to his training with new rigor. He seldom left the base. If he did take a leave, he went to visit his family in Lindenhurst. He didn’t go into Manhattan at all. The officers noticed his effort along with his intelligence and sharpening skills. Before the Christmas leave he was made a Lieutenant and put on track to become Captain. It was clear that America’s entry into the Great War was inevitable. Skillful officers would be in high demand if there were a draft.

  His devotion to the military, however, couldn’t make up for his piercing regret. Deep down he understood that his and Dafne’s failure had nothing to do with the army; it only expedited the inevitable. Still he blamed his enlistment, needing something other than himself.

  Hal had come to the base a few days after, but Glenn refused to see him. Dafne had telephoned for him twice, but he hadn’t returned her calls. He didn’t know why. He still loved her and longed for her. But he didn’t know what he wanted. He was confused by it all. If he agreed to see her, he couldn’t say what would happen. Would she ask forgiveness? He had forgiven her before he even left the Biltmore that night. He forgave her without ever having condemned her for her betrayal. Would she ask him to give her another chance? How would he be able to refuse?

  But that wasn’t what he expected to happen if he agreed to see her. He doubted he had the strength not to beg her to take him back. Glenn had never considered himself a proud man. But this once he felt the need to hang onto whatever pride he had left. Otherwise, even if they reconciled, she would never respect him, and he would never trust her.

  Now she was being announced outside the fort. The sentry stood in the doorway to his barracks asking whether she should be admitted. Glenn said no.

  It killed Glenn to reject her this way, but he knew what Dafne really wanted. She hadn’t come to reconcile. She had come to ask forgiveness so she could move on. He tried to talk himself out of this realization—how could he truly know her motives? Yet somehow, he did know and it broke his heart. He wasn’t strong enough to see her under those circumstances without making a fool of himself.

  He leaned his head down onto his knees as he sat on his low mattress. Several times his hands wiped perspiration from his brow.

  She was so close. Probably only a hundred yards away. He could imagine her scent. It wasn’t the smell of her perfumes that played in the senses of his imagination, but the smell of her, which was there when she wore no fragrances, and cut through even when she did. The essence was so uniquely hers. He had never thought of it in all those years they’d spent together. Now he knew he would never forget it.

  He longed to go out to her. Even if he couldn’t hold her in his arms, just to sense her essence would be wonderful. Yet it would weaken his resolve, making it harder to move on.

  There were new passions now. He had become a good soldier. Soon he would go to war. When the order from Washington finally came, he wanted to be on the first ship to France! Why wait? He had joined the army to help win a war.

  Even if he could win back Dafne, what would keep her from cheating again, especially after he left for the war? There were two fights in front of him, and he only had the strength for one. Better to fight for the cause he believed in, rather than the one he was coming to doubt had ever really been true.

  As Dafne left Fort Hamilton, denied the chance to see Glenn, she felt her heart harden toward him.

  Two months had passed. At first she’d truly wanted reconciliation. She had run from the Biltmore that night without letting Hal get her a cab. She jumped on the first uptown bus, needing to be away from him, feeling disgusted by him. When she got back to her apartment she locked the door just in case he had followed her. The very next day she tried to call Glenn. If he had offered to take her back she would have stayed with him. Much as she had come to understand the flaws in their relationship, she missed him and wanted another chance to prove her love for him.

  But as the weeks passed she became confused. His refusal to return her calls hurt her. She didn’t know whether she wanted him back or not. All she wanted was amends.

  Now, however, she was finished. She had come all this way, and he wouldn’t even see her. She knew she had wronged him, but felt she deserved an audience. At least she had made an effort, while he’d made none. Now she knew their relationship was truly over, and would stay over.

  She walked back to the train station where Elsa waited for her.

  “He wouldn’t see you?” asked Elsa, reading the meaning of her stone-cold expression.

  “No. I’m not trying anymore.”

  They turned together and went in to wait for the train.

  “I know you hated me for what I did. But you have to agree I made an effort to reconcile, while he has not.”

  “Yes. I am proud of you for trying.”

  They sat down on the plush, red train seats. Dafne emitted a long sigh.

  “I feel just like I did when he announced his enlistment at that horrible tea party last spring—completely rejected and embarrassed. He has shown that he can’t forgive my mistake. I don’t care anymore. I don’t want to be with him now.” She paused. “That he won’t forgive me actually lessens my regret for what I did. I’m so mad I could spit!”

  Elsa said nothing.

  Dafne slid her arm inside her servant’s and leaned her head down onto her shoulder. “Oh, darling, what use have I for a man when I have you? I love you better than anybody.”

  She was so glad to have reconciled with Elsa. Her servant may not have forgiven her. But the fact that she had made an attempt to contact Glenn while avoiding Hal restored her somewhat to Elsa’s good graces. It felt so good to feel Elsa against her now as the train began its churn back into Manhattan.

  She failed to think through the practical necessity of Elsa’s loyalty. She still thought of Elsa as more of a friend than a servant and refused to contemplate how permanently their dynamic had changed.

  In reality, Dafne had seen Hal a few times. Although she hadn’t let him contact her directly, he was making a point to remain in her social circles. She couldn’t avoid him completely. Although she didn’t want to spend time with him, she assured him that she bore him no ill feelings. It was just too fresh for her.

  With questionable hindsight, Dafne talked herself into believing that she and Hal wouldn’t have gone all the way that night. Glenn had interrupted them naked, on the verge of making love. Yet he had interrupted them. Perhaps she’d had no power or inclination to resist Hal that night. But the fact was, she remained a virgin. This allowed her to still think of Hal as a gentleman.

  Walking back into the quiet apartment that afternoon, Dafne felt the acute loneliness of being single. Her social calendar was quiet. Yes, there were places she could have gone that night, but not by invitation, and that made it different. With Glenn away she had used her status as an engaged woman to further her social standing. Even now she hadn’t told many people of her broken engagement—was it even officially broken? But gradually everyone was finding out. It was becoming necessary to face her new reality.

  She wanted nothing more than the life she had enjoyed here but while Glenn was away. She recognized the selfishness of that happiness. In it she’d given him next to nothing, while using only his name to create her comfortable world. He was probably better off without her.

  She no longer even had a logical reason to stay in the city, though she couldn’t imagine leaving. Once she told her parents
she was no longer with Glenn, would they expect her to come home? She knew the apartment was expensive and that her father’s business was suffering. Perhaps they knew already, and it was only a matter of time.

  By appearances nothing had changed. She and Elsa still lived in the same cozy apartment on 71st Street. She spent her days the same way, saw the same friends, hosted the same parties. But nothing was as it should have been. Despite not telling anyone what had happened, everyone seemed to know. The women no longer doted on her, nor did the gentlemen hold her in the same respect.

  At first it angered her that people looked at her differently. She stopped inviting certain people to her parties. But she couldn’t find replacements, so her circle simply grew smaller. Now she couldn’t think of whom to call.

  Thelma Sanderson was her truest friend through that time. Thelma was the one person Dafne felt comfortable telling all the details to. Thelma didn’t judge her for her indiscretions. She always heard her with an open mind. It comforted Dafne to be with her. Dafne had used to think she could tell Elsa everything, but Elsa had no sexual experience, and Elsa had her own emotions to deal with.

  She knew how Elsa felt about Glenn. She told herself her servant was in love with him. Silly as it sounded, she needed to convince herself of a reason why she could never be as close to Elsa as before.

  The next time Hal called, she was feeling especially lonely. She had spent most of the morning crying. Before she knew it, she had asked him to come over. The timing was good, because Elsa was visiting her sister. When Hal arrived Dafne fell into his arms. His kiss comforted her but made her feel ashamed.

  She had never learned to be a grown woman without a man. She wasn’t strong enough to learn now.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Courage & Cowardice

  Elsa never would have been this bold if not for the new circumstances.

  She felt differently about everything now that Mr. Halifax was back in Dafne’s life. She was still committed to serving Dafne to the best of her ability. But this commitment was more for her own security than for Dafne herself.