—So why is it still to be borne?
They had friends in to dinner. Sometimes when Patrick stayed at the hospital she went to the theater or a concert. Alone. Or with Ursula and her husband. Or with Gus Gregory who had the office next to Patrick.
They stood, Gus and Charlotte, in the crowded lobby of a theater during intermission. Charlotte, to keep him company, was having one of her rare cigarettes.
“You’re nuts, Lottie,” Gus said. “Both you and Patrick were given lousy deals by your parents.”
“I wasn’t!” Charlotte started, then choked over the cigarette.
Gus patted her gently between the shoulder blades. “I grow more grateful every moment for my nice, safe youth in Indiana,” he said. “I’m glad I’m in New York now, I love this filthy, stinking place, but if I ever get married and have kids I’ll be in a quandary, because I wouldn’t change my childhood in my frame house and big back yard for any penthouse on Park Avenue.”
“I don’t think I’d change my hotels and convent schools, either,” Charlotte said. “I think we like best whatever we’ve had.”
“You’re nuts,” he repeated. “Most people spend the rest of their lives resenting their childhood and blaming all their problems on it. I thought I was unique in being satisfied with my parents and my youth.”
“Do you think you’re lucky, Gus?”
Her cigarette had gone out; he relit it for her, smiling, but affectionately, with no derision. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Are you happy, Gus? I mean, now?”
People were bumping into them, jostling them, shoving out onto the sidewalk to smoke, pushing back into the lobby to get out of the cold. But Gus answered as though they were alone. “In a sense, yes. I’m happy in my work. I believe in it. It provides a creative satisfaction for me, as well as the fleshpots, which I also enjoy. But personally: I’m not unhappy, Charlotte, but if I’m happy it’s a rather sterile happiness. My work is not enough. I’m not married to it. I, like you, need to be married to a human being.”
Her voice was low, almost inaudible under the roar in the lobby. He bent his awkward, rangy body so that his ear was near her lips. “But you do have your work, Gus. You do have it.”
“An operating table is hardly a bridal couch.”
“But it’s something. It’s a focus for you. It keeps your life from being blurred.”
“What blurs yours for you, Charlotte?”
She turned away. Without words she had already told him too much.
But he was good. He didn’t force himself. He accepted it with awkward kindness when she said, “No, Gus. Please. Maybe I seemed to be asking for it, but it’s not what I was asking for.”
“For what, then, Charlotte?”
“To understand.”
“What?”
“Anything. To understand anything. If I could understand just one thing …”
For the first and only time with her he sounded angry. “You little fool, you mean you’re still looking for the meaning of life? You’d better grow up.”
“How?”
“Stop looking for rational explanations of the absurd. That is what maturity means. Accepting the absurd. Not with resignation, but with love.”
Gus continued, in his own loneliness, to take her that bitterly cold winter after Andrew’s death to the theater, to concerts, to the opera. He was gentle with her. He was concerned. He watched for drafts. He walked on the outside of the sidewalk. He offered her cigarettes, knowing that even though she would refuse she liked to be asked.
He tried once to talk to her about Andrew. As she went rigid he took her firmly by the elbows. “I know it hurts you, Charlotte, but you cannot deny five years of a life. They were good years. They are part of what has gone to make Charlotte Napier.” She shook her head. “I’m only a surgeon,” he said, “but I know there are certain things that can’t be cut out. You can’t cut Andrew out.”
“I’m not,” she said. “Could we go somewhere and have a drink, please?”
They sat at a bar, sipping scotch and soda. At the end of the dark, narrow room a jukebox blared.
“I’m not cutting Andrew out,” she said. “I couldn’t do that. But all I see is what I saw when the superintendent called me and I ran downstairs. When I try to think of the rest of it—and I’ve made myself look at his baby pictures, and all the snapshots we took to send to Violet—the other—the other image—superimposes—”
His hand again held her elbow, his grip warm, strong. “It will go, Charlotte, and the rest of Andrew will come back.”
It had been Gus who had met her at the hospital, who had done what had to be done, knowing that there was nothing to be done. It was Gus, not Patrick, who had shared.
“It was bad, Charlotte,” Gus said. “It was as bad as anything can be. But you are alive and you have to heal. For Patrick. He cannot until you do.”
…—No, Charlotte thought. Not yet. I’ve done what Gus said and I’ve looked at Andrew, but I cannot look at this. Not yet.
She turned out the light in the large lovely room in Violet’s villa and lay there in the enormous four-poster bed. The dog had stopped barking. Had Violet let him in?
For Violet had probably not yet gone to bed. She would have returned to the enormous room, to the harpischord. She would be practicing, as she always practiced at night, as she always practiced when she was upset, and Antonio had upset her. Charlotte wished that the sound of the music would reach to this room in the wing where Violet had planned silence. It would help her if she could hear Bach now: it would hold chaos at bay.
… But even the structure of the Divine Office could not hold chaos at bay in the convent. Who could silence Urraca and Ampara? Sofia’s fat face was puffy from weeping. The sisters all moved warily through their silence, as though listening for something to break it. In the shadows of the gatehouse old Sister Portress sat and blinked, for once roused from her ancient apathy. She sat upright when Baltazar, on his white mount, galloped along the road in a cloud of thick dust, swerving to avoid running down a wagonload of gobbling, gabbling turkeys. He reined up abruptly at the convent gates, jumped down from his sweating horse and hitched him to the post. When old Sister Portress came hobbling out to let him in he brushed by her, hardly seeing her.
“Here, here, young man,” she cackled after him, “where do you think you’re going? Who is it you’ve come to see?”
In the wagon one of the turkeys lifted its head on its long skinny neck, and gabbled in accurate echo of the ancient nun.
Baltazar hurried along the path and into the covered walk of the cloister. With his head down, as though against the wind, he slammed through the convent until he reached the abbess’s study. It was empty. So she was still in the chapel. He paced impatiently.
Morning prayer was ending. The chapel emptied in routine order, with the children leading the procession, the littlest ones first. At the back of the line Peregrina whispered fiercely to Urraca, Ampara, and Sofia, “If any of you says a word I’ll kill you. I have her Grace’s permission.”
After the children came the postulants, then the novices, then the professed nuns according to rank. The abbess was last, walking with Mother Escolastica.
At this first hour of the teaching day Mariana was gathering the littlest children around her in the garden when Mother Escolastica approached. “Her Reverence wishes to see you in her study, Sister. I will stay with the children.”
Several of the little ones ran to Mariana, clinging to her. She picked up one small girl who was clutching her robes, kissed her, and put her down. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise.” She moved slowly to the study, delaying the moment of meeting, though hope was still stronger within her than fear. She flinched as she saw Baltazar standing beside the abbess. She had not expected this.
“Here is your brother,” the abbess said. “Go home with him.”
Baltazar spoke with angry patience. “Aunt. If you would allow me a word.”
“I do not
see that we will gain anything by conversation. I cannot keep talk out of my convent while Sist—while Mariana is in it.”
“Aunt!” Baltazar shouted. “Our father will not have her!”
“He will have to.”
They were both ignoring Mariana. “Listen to me: papa asked me to come to you this morning—”
“He was too busy to come himself? After the letter I had delivered to him last night?”
Baltazar held up his hand in an impatient gesture. “Papa said, and I am forced to agree with him, that the best way to keep scandal from spreading is for Mariana to remain quietly in the convent. We have discussed the entire situation with Noël Saint-Leger. He is leaving for Sagres today and will sail for France from there. The less we ourselves make of this whole business the less it will be talked about outside.”
Mariana had been looking in a bewildered fashion from one to the other. “Talked about?”
Baltazar asked, harshly, “Are you naïve enough to think that anything like this can be kept secret?”
“Well, I don’t suppose it matters any more.”
“Doesn’t matter!”
“I have asked her Grace to go to the bishop for me. I want permission to be released from my vows so that I may marry Noël.”
Baltazar groaned, “Oh, my God, Mariana.”
She spoke with a curious dignity. “Noël and I love each other. For us there are no vows except our vows to each other.”
“Noël isn’t going to marry you!” Baltazar shouted.
“You sound like her Grace,” she said with a half smile.
“Mariana, how do you think I come to know about this?”
She looked at him trustingly. “Did Noël tell you?”
“Oh, yes, he told me and everybody else at the gaming tables too.”
“No!”
Dona Brites snapped at Baltazar, “You knew before?”
“I knew but I refused to believe it. I imagine I was one of the last to hear. It’s a little more difficult to brag about it to the nun’s brother than to the others.”
The fragile shell of Mariana’s calm began to crack. “Brag—”
“Conquest of virgin nun,” Baltazar said bitterly. “This is really the grandest of all his considerable record of seductions.”
With a cry Mariana fell to the low stool.
The abbess spoke brutally, as though the young nun were not in the room. “You have talked with this—man—about Mariana?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I told you. He’s leaving.”
“Nevertheless I cannot keep Mariana here.”
Baltazar flung his arms out. “Aunt! Papa doesn’t give a rap if Mariana sleeps with the entire French army as long as she is discreet about it. She has not been discreet. If any word of this scandal gets out it will endanger papa’s position at court. Therefore Mariana must be kept here and the whole thing hushed up.”
“And you agree with this?”
“Whether I agree or not doesn’t matter. The fact that Mariana may have feelings about this is as much beyond papa’s comprehension as it is beyond his monkey’s.”
“Nevertheless, I want to know how you feel.”
“If I knew perhaps I could tell you. Last night all I wanted was to kill Noël.”
“Why didn’t you?” The words came out before she could stop them.
“As a matter of fact, I had to be held back. Now, in the cold light of day, I think papa may be right for once, and that defending Mariana’s honor is unrealistic nonsense. The only solution is for her to stay here in the convent.”
“She has broken her vows.”
“Aunt, I know that. But you know that she is innocent.”
“Innocent!”
“As a child.”
There was a knock on the door and Mother Escolastica looked in, nodded to the abbess. “Wait,” Dona Brites said, and left, shutting the door on the brother and sister.
Slowly Mariana raised her head. “Baltazar, it’s not true. Nothing you’ve said is true.”
“God knows at this point I don’t know what’s true and what’s false.”
“I love Noël. He is my life. And he loves me.”
“Noël doesn’t know what love is. The breaking of a heart is his casual occupation.”
“No—”
“And what about your vows? Do you break them as casually? What about your responsibilities here? Your responsibility as an Alcoforado to follow Dona Brites as abbess? Or, if you won’t think of that, what about Noël? He has a career opening out before him, and a fiancée waiting for him in France.”
Mariana cried out in uncontrolled anguish. The door opened. Noël stood there beside the abbess. Mariana flung herself towards him and he caught her.
“Wait, my darling.”
The abbess held the door open. “You may have only a few minutes. I will be waiting.”
“Very well. But I want these few minutes alone.”
“Baltazar.” The abbess jerked her head towards the open door.
As they left, Noël disengaged himself from Mariana and shut the door after them.
“Noël!” she cried, “what are they trying to do?”
He held her, caressing her, murmuring quiet endearments.
Her breathing began to come more regularly. “How could they have found out?”
“One of your Sisters here at the convent—”
“Baltazar thinks that you—”
“That I told?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
“That you’d never tell. Not at sword’s point.”
There was a dark sadness in Noël’s voice. “Have you such faith in me?” For response she clung to him. “For me it was like being in heaven,” he said, with the same deep sadness. “And now I’m plunged back into the world. And I have to think of what’s best for you.”
“You. You’re the best for me.”
“No,” Noël said. “I should never—I understand that now. And the only thing left for me to do is to leave you.”
“No!” It was the anguished scream of the bird shot in midflight.
Noël spoke through the cry. “The only thing—”
Mariana stumbled through his words. “Please—listen—I was going to her Grace anyhow. Even if nothing had happened. And I’ve asked her to get permission for me to break my vows so that I will be free to marry you.”
“Dear Lord,” Noël said.
“Don’t you love me?”
“You know that I do.”
“Then don’t you want to be with me always, as I want to be with you?”
Noël pulled carefully away from her, took both her hands in his, and gently forced her to sit. “Mariana. Even if it weren’t for—for what has happened, I’d have had to leave Portugal anyhow. My family has sent for me. Oh, damn Baltazar, damn your father, damn all of them. I could have told you so that it wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“Told me—”
“Sweet love, I’m a soldier and you’re a nun. We both have duties to a rule that is more important than either of us.”
“Nothing is more important to me than you are.”
“That’s not true. I feel as though I were being torn limb from limb. But I know that nevertheless I must go.”
“You—you don’t want to marry me?”
A note of despair crept into Noël’s sadness. “I love you. You know that I love you. There has never been anything like this before in my whole life. There never will be again. But we both knew it couldn’t last.”
“Everybody acts as though marriage were a dreadful thing!”
“Marriage is a political necessity.”
“It’s a sacrament! A promise before God that our love is pure and holy, that it’s not a sin.”
“Our love has been outside the world,” Noël said slowly. “That’s the only reason it’s been possible. Because it’s something apart. Separate. More lovely than anything in the world could
ever be. For me it’s the only glimpse of heaven I ever hope to have. But Mariana, we must face the fact that I live in the world.”
“Then I must come into the world to be with you. We’ll bring our heaven into the world.”
“Sweet child,” Noël said in desperation, “I have commitments in the world that cannot be ignored.”
Baltazar’s words came back to her. “You mean you—are already betrothed?”
“Yes.”
“Jesu—”
“It has nothing to do with us.”
“Then it’s like—Ana and Rui de Melo—isn’t it—a political convenience—you don’t love her—”
“Love and marriage have nothing to do with each other. You have duties to God that you can’t avoid. I have duties to my king and my country and my family. My marriage arrangements are part of these duties. It’s a question of honor. The arrangements are legal and binding.”
“More so than my vows? I’m willing to break my vows.”
“I must go,” Noël said, flatly, “and you must let me go.”
“And then?”
“You must go back to the life that I should never have interrupted.”
“You think I can do that?”
He stood, looking expressionlessly at her, making no response.
“My God, Noël, no, I can’t! I can’t go back! You’ve wakened me! I can’t go back to sleep again! You’ve shown me the light! I can’t go back to the dark!”
Noël spoke with desperate quietness. “I can’t help what I’m doing. I have no choice.”
Mariana’s cries echoed through the vaulted room, seeming to hit against the clouds and cherubs of the ceiling, the intricate design of the floor. “Then promise me that you’ll send for me! Or that you’ll come back to me! Don’t leave me without hope! You can’t bring me to life and then throw me away to die! I love you! I can’t live without you!” She fell on her knees at his feet.
The Love Letters Page 27