by C F Dunn
Curiosity? Jealousy? For living this long, for being alive at all when the crash should have killed her? How could I resent a woman whose only transgression against me was to love and be loved by him first, and whose bitter tragedy saw her spend the rest of her life in the coffin of her body? She, who was the innocent, vulnerable victim of my jealous resentment – undeserving and unknowing – although I struggled against my darker thoughts and, for the most part, won.
Leaning my forehead against the smooth surface of the wall, I squeezed my eyes shut. Could someone please explain to me why I ever agreed to come?
Because I owed it to her.
Compassion, then, and pity? Yes, because she wanted to see me, and I should be secure enough in Matthew’s love that I could shake off the chains of envy and fear and wish this woman well.
By the time Matthew came to fetch me, I had sat, with a degree of composure, on one of the armchairs provided for relatives and visitors pretending to read a glossy magazine devoted to the apposite subject of health insurance.
It wasn’t one room, but a series, like a comfortable suite rather than full-time nursing care. Encapsulated in a custom-built wheeled chair, a tiny, frail woman of great age sat in the bay window full of light. A heavily built man with the shoulders of a boxer looked up from his newspaper as we came in, folding it and standing in readiness to welcome me. My courage began to fail.
“Come in, come in – don’t stand where I can’t see you.” I heard nothing fragile in the old lady’s voice, sinewy and strong with traces of her Texan roots still evident.
“Now, Ellen, that’s no way to greet your visitor, is it, Mr Matthew?” The man spoke slowly and deliberately, rolling his words out on deep, bass notes like an old song from the South. He ambled over to the chair and started to turn Ellen to face us as Matthew applied gentle, but insistent, pressure on my lower back, propelling my unwilling legs forward.
“That’s better – I can look at you now,” she said, her sharp eyes appraising my fixed face and wide, edgy eyes.
Matthew kept his hand on the small of my back, out of sight. “Ellen, this is Emma D’Eresby.”
“Yes, I know who she is.” Ellen peered at me, not making any attempt to disguise her scrutiny. I felt myself blanch further. “You look like a jittery colt with the wind up its tail. I won’t bite, even if I could with these damn wires everywhere. I promised Matthew I’d behave and Eli here won’t let me have any fun, anyhow.”
The large man shook a finger at her. “We can’t have you enjoying yourself, now, Ellen,” he chided her with a twinkle, making him far more amiable than his bulky body suggested. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” he said genially to me. I smiled in response. He busied himself around the back of her chair, adjusting dials and checking wires.
Matthew cleared his throat. “Emma’s been looking forward to meeting you, Ellen.”
“Don’t lie, Matthew. Who would want to meet a crabby old woman like your grandmother?” Her tone might be tart but her eyes sparkled. “Come and sit by me, young lady, so we can get better acquainted. I want to know how you met my grandson and what you two have been up to. I hear you’ve not ate supper before sayin’ grace, if you get my meaning.”
“There’s no call to be speakin’ like that!” Eli scolded. Ellen pitched a glance at Matthew, who struggled to keep a straight face.
“Stop fussing around me, Eli, and go read your newspaper someplace else.”
Eli heaved a sigh and picked up his paper from the table. “You play nice, now, Ellen, or you’ll have some explanin’ to do when I get back.”
“Yes, yes, I hear you. You go too, Matthew – this is no fit talk for your ears.” She took me by surprise by winking at me, and she lost a little of her formidable persona.
“I’ll go and find Charles then, as I’m not wanted.” Matthew grinned, his stride taking him to the door.
“No, we sure don’t need any men about, do we?” Ellen said to me.
“I heard that,” Matthew said over his shoulder.
I spoke without thinking. “I think you were meant to.” The door shut, and Ellen and I were alone.
“I expect you’re wanting to know why I asked to meet you?” She had lost none of her shrewdness, but her tone had softened considerably. She retained enough mobility in her neck to be able to turn her head forty-five degrees either way and she watched for my reaction.
“I think I can guess,” I said, a little stiffly.
Ellen cackled a laugh. “I’m sure you can, honey. This isn’t the most normal of situations, is it? But then Matthew’s not a normal sort of man, is he, as I’m sure you know.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. I studied her surreptitiously. Her fine, silvery-white hair had been carefully dressed to look full, her clothes specifically chosen to complement her colouring, which, despite her age and infirmity, still had a glow of sun about it. The pale lemon wool twinset wasn’t worn with pearls, but with an unusual gold necklace, exquisitely fashioned like a snake with the head swallowing the tail. Two large rubies glowed as eyes. Ellen saw me looking at it.
“Matthew gave it to me as an anniversary present when this sort of thing was all the rage; but it will seem old-fashioned to you now, I expect.”
I shook my head, feeling as if I were being drawn into a conversation that had nothing to do with jewellery. “I like old things,” I contested, before I recognized what I had said.
Ellen laughed. “Well, that’s a mighty good thing too since you’ve snared my husband.” I tensed but Ellen continued to chuckle. “Aw, don’t mind an old woman. To tell you the truth, I’ve been waiting for this for nearly fifty years. I always knew Matthew would meet someone else; it was only a matter of time.” She paused as she looked at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. I can’t pretend that I’ve found it easy waiting all these years, and it would’ve been easier still if I’d been dead when he met you, but now it’s happened, I’m kinda glad that I’m still alive to see it – to meet you. I can see what caught his eye. You’re a thoroughbred if ever I saw one, and Matthew has an eye for fine things.” I shook my head, embarrassed. “You’ll have to forgive me; I’m too old to waste time beating about the brush. I say what I think because I’ll be dead before I can say it otherwise. But there’s more to you than looks, I guess, otherwise he could’ve had any of the women who’d have gladly flung themselves at him. Do the nurses still chase him?”
I needed to gauge the source of her query before I answered, because one false move at this juncture might throw the whole meeting off-course. But since I didn’t know the direction of her question, it seemed any response would be like walking along an unknown cliff edge. In the dark. I opted for direct honesty, rather than subtle diplomacy. “Yes, nurses, doctors, and the students – in fact anyone who has eyes and hormones in the right place.”
Ellen grunted a laugh. “Yes, indeedy, you can’t take him anywhere, never could. I bet you’ve seen them too, haven’t you, honey? All those girls who are taken by his good looks and gentlemanly ways. But then they don’t know what we know, do they? And I wonder – I wonder if they would be so enchanted if they did?” She eyed me speculatively. “But you and I, we know, we accept him – despite his bein’ so different and all.” She coughed a little and I could hear the hollow fragility of her lungs. “You know, honey, when I met Matthew I didn’t know anything about him. My brother, Jack – he was his friend from the athletics team – he brought Matthew home with him one holiday. Matthew was so handsome and so quaint my parents just loved him to bits, and although he was studying to be a doctor, he knew a thing or two about farming, and he knew horses better than anyone, so that wasn’t so bad. My parents had a ranch – I’m from Texas, if you hadn’t already guessed – a big place, and they hoped he and Jack would run it one day when they passed over. But that wasn’t to be.” Ellen’s voice stilled and her face softened as she summoned the sun-warmed memories of her youth. I sat quietly next
to her, not yet understanding my role but absorbing each detail of Matthew’s past as she revealed it to me.
“Everything was just dandy until the war. Well, I say dandy – Henry had come along by then and he grew so well – like a field of dreams, my papa would say – but I noticed Matthew was somehow not the same as other men, always working through mealtimes. He didn’t need much sleep and looked as good as he did when we married and I didn’t mind that. But when he came back from the war, he hadn’t changed, not one little bit, and that was real confusin’, because all the other wives, their husbands came back and they were wounded in their heads or their bodies – sometimes both – and they would talk about how difficult it was for them. But Matthew, he carried on as if nothing had happened, except for Jack – now that took him bad.”
“In what way?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
“Jack was killed in Italy in 1944. It hit us all hard, my mama and papa especially. But Matthew, he found it real difficult to get over.”
“Why – did he ever say?”
“Not really, but he couldn’t save him when Jack was brought into the field hospital and he couldn’t forgive himself that, you know? I think that’s why he keeps me alive when I should have died in the accident. I should have died times over but he has always brought me back. Sometimes I think that he does it because he can’t abide losing anybody else.” She smiled sadly. Somewhere nearby, a clock struck eleven with a melodic ting. “I saw what you meant to Matthew when that man attacked you. And then you left, and he was nearly beside himself because he thought he had lost you.” I frowned involuntarily, wondering how much Ellen knew about me. She must have guessed my thoughts because she continued. “Matthew told me he had met you. He’s not good at keeping secrets – they eat him up inside and I can always tell – so he has always been honest with me, though I expect he still keeps things from me – dark things – from his past.” She eyed me quizzically and I kept my face blank.
“When did you know about me?” I asked quietly.
“Right off, before he even knew it himself. And when I asked him who you were, he seemed surprised at first, as if it hadn’t occurred to him. But then he knew and I could see it in every look, every word – he just went right on and lit up whenever he spoke of you. He tried not to of course, but it just shone out of him. I was dead envious. I don’t remember him ever doin’ that for me and I wanted to know what it was you had that I didn’t – when I was your age and younger, that is. At first I thought that he might leave me, abandon me, even though I have said to him time and again over the years, ‘Matthew, if you find someone else, I’ll give you a divorce and you can be free of me.’”
I looked at her squarely. “He would never do that to you.”
“I know, I know, but what can I give him now that he has you?” Her eyes travelled over my face and my hair, noting my clothes and the youthful suppleness of my body when I crossed my ankles under my chair. Her glance then fell on my earrings, and I reached for them self-consciously. She looked away.
I broke the awkward moment. “I don’t think Matthew sees it that way. You are his wife and… I am not.”
“That is true.” I thought I perceived a note of triumph. She sighed and closed her eyes and, for a moment, it seemed she slept.
I looked around the room. Despite the medical equipment to one side, it appeared more like an elegant drawing room, expensively furnished and beautifully maintained.
I became aware that Ellen had opened her eyes and now analysed me openly.
“Matthew says that you study history.”
“Yes.”
“And you work at the college. You must be clever to get a job there. Matthew is very intelligent, you know.”
I wondered where this might lead. “Yes, I know.”
“I didn’t go to college; it wasn’t expected back then. My parents thought that I would get married and make a home and I did…” She paused. “I wouldn’t have chosen a life like the one I had with Matthew. If I had known about him before we married, perhaps I wouldn’t have. I never wanted anything much out of my life but a good husband, a family – and I had that – but I found it hard sometimes, the way we had to live. And when Matthew didn’t get any older-looking and we had to move on and lie about who we were – who I was, and Henry too – that near broke my heart. But I had to choose and I did. I stuck it out and I’m glad that I did now, despite all this…” She moved her head from side to side, her body staying lifeless and still. “Tell me about your folks, honey, and where you come from.”
I gave her an outline of my family, and all the time she watched and listened, summing me up from the short life I’d had.
“My papa would say Matthew’s family tree was short of a few branches. Matthew didn’t talk much about his parents; he said they died sometime before we met,” Ellen stated, obviously fishing to see if I knew more.
“I believe so, yes,” I hedged.
“You sound like him a little. My mama always used to say how he was an English gentleman in disguise, and he would laugh and say that he had better stop reading Austen. I always remember that because it reminded me of Texas – you know, Austin, Texas?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of it.”
“I read one of her books but it didn’t interest me that much, and I had Henry to cook for – he was always hungry, he and his friends – and I would rather be reading recipes than reading books. Do you like to cook, honey? I loved to cook; that’s what I miss most.”
Food again, always food.
“I’m afraid I’m a lousy cook.”
A little look of satisfaction crossed the old woman’s face, just a fleeting glance, before it vanished. “No matter, honey, Matthew was never interested in food anyway, more’s the pity.” She appeared a little weary and she coughed gently.
“Can I get him for you?” I asked, trying to imagine what I would do for Nanna in similar circumstances.
Ellen smiled at me for the first time. “Now there’s a kindness. No, honey, Eli will be here in a minute to fix these damn lines and you’ll be wanting something to eat yourself.”
I had so many questions, but time was stolen from me by her frailty and great age.
“Ellen, I know that this might sound impertinent, but I’m concerned about Maggie. I’m worried that because of me, she could do something that will upset Matthew – or even worse. I think she mi…” I stopped abruptly as the door opened and Eli came in looking efficient.
“Don’t you ever knock?” the old woman said in a tone that would have had me quail.
Eli brushed her remark aside with a cheery grin. “And what might you be doing that I should need to knock? Now, Miss Emma, Mr Matthew asks if you would like to join him for lunch. I’ll take you to him, if you would like?”
I stood up, recognizing the first signs of hunger, but reluctant to leave with so many unanswered questions. I turned to Ellen, ready to speak, but she spoke first.
“Go along now and get something to eat, but I’ll expect you back later – I haven’t finished with you yet.” We exchanged the briefest of looks and I followed Eli.
“Don’t you go doin’ anything I wouldn’t when I’m gone, now,” he said, as he reached the door.
The delicate invalid snorted defiantly. “And what might that be, I ask you? Chance would be a good thing.”
Matthew waited for me in a small dining room; we were the only ones there at present. He stood up as we approached, his face more pensive than he probably intended me to see.
“Thank you, Eli.” Then to me. “How did that go?”
Eli answered before I could. “I half thought I’d find a pile of bones and the old lady still chewin’ when I went in, but they were gettin’ on just fine. I think your grandmother really likes Miss Emma.”
Matthew relaxed a little. “Good.”
“But I think that there’s still a way to go,” I said. “Ellen wondered if I could go back after lunch. There are things we would like to discuss
.” His forehead rumpled slightly, but he nodded.
Eli chirped, “Don’t worry, Mr Matthew, I’ll make sure Miss Ellen’s good and fed so she’ll not be a bother.” Matthew smiled tightly in response and I could tell he wanted to ask me what happened, but Eli remained within earshot.
“I’m starving,” I said, sitting down at the table nearest to me.
Eli took the hint and rambled back the way we had come, his broad shoulders almost filling the corridor as he went.
Matthew sat down with me. “So?”
“It’s fine – we’re fine – but as I said, we haven’t quite finished and I promised I would go back after lunch.”
He sat back in his chair, still frowning. “Yes, of course.” He hesitated. “So there’s nothing you want to ask me?”
I thought about it. “Not yet, no, but I’m sure there will be. Did you see Dr DaCruz?”
“No, he wasn’t available. All right, be mysterious if you wish. I’ll get it out of you later.”
I smiled sweetly. “Is that a promise?”
“You know me and my promises…”
I laughed and picked up the menu.
After lunch – my lunch, that is – I begged Matthew for some time outside. For all the elegance of the place I couldn’t take the heat, and I longed to feel the raw cut of the cold air.
The snow lay too deep in the gardens, and we ended up walking around the exterior of the big house where the recent snow had been cleared to leave a gritty path. I asked him how many residents there were in total.
“Six at any one time, including Ellen. They come and go, of course.” He didn’t need to elaborate, and he directed a look over the side of the house we were passing. I recognized the bay window of Ellen’s room and I wondered if she could see us walking together.
“Ellen told me that she didn’t know about you when you married; she found it quite difficult at first.” Matthew kicked a lump of ice out of my way without commenting. I went on. “She thinks we sound similar. Her mother thought you were an English gentleman in disguise.”
“I remember. I had to work on my American accent.”