by May Sarton
“Am I so arrogant?”
“No, no, not arrogant. Just damnably clear-sighted. I didn’t expect that somehow. It makes you quite formidable.” He poured Anna another glass of wine and as he did so met her eyes full on.
“There’s no hiding place down here,” he said looking away. “And what, may I ask, are you thinking?”
“Oh,” at this she became self-conscious and actually blushed. “I’ve forgotten. You puzzle me … shall I ever find you out?”
Ned laughed, “I shall do all I can to defend myself.”
“Life’s too short,” she said. “Why defend yourself?”
“It’s an old Bostonian characteristic, Anna. You must know that. Don’t you have any defenses? I bet you do, only they’re different.”
They were so absorbed that neither had noticed a man standing waiting to catch their attention.
“Excuse me, but you are Anna Lindstrom, surely?”
Ned lifted his head and stared coldly at this interloper, but Anna gave him a ravishing smile and nodded.
“Would you be good enough to sign this card for my wife? I’m here on business. She would be thrilled.”
“Of course … do you have a pen on you?”
“Will you by any chance be in concert near Chicago this year?”
“Not that I know now, alas.”
Ned meanwhile summoned the waiter and buried himself in the menu. When the man finally withdrew Anna said, “What a nice man! He said he had heard me two years ago when I sang with the Chicago orchestra …”
“I thought him rather rude,” Ned said coldly. “I can’t see why you have to respond to such an intrusion.”
Anna looked startled and dismayed, “But Ned, what could I do?”
“Tell him to go away.”
“Antagonize a perfectly innocent person whose wife is an admirer? Could you do that? Yes, I suppose you could.” She looked across the table at this closed, self-conscious man for whom the surfaces meant so much. And whom, she saw suddenly, she had begun to love for all he was not, for all he had never had of ease and fun and openness.
“He didn’t even introduce himself to me.”
“You were buried in the menu, you spook,” she said. “And why should he?”
“I dislike bad manners.”
Anna sensed the spiral of anger rising in each of them. “Let’s change the subject.”
“Very well,” he said grimly, “will you have dessert?”
“Zabaglione …” she said, tasting it with her voice as she uttered the word, “and coffee.”
“Italian?”
“Of course.”
Ned was not looking at her. He ordered and then there was silence. The waiters removed their plates. Anna’s eyes roved round the room which had filled since their arrival. Ned drank his wine, twirling the glass absent-mindedly as he set it down as though he were formulating some equation, some financial ploy, way off somewhere—in his own world.
“Where are we?” she asked, to break the tension if it was possible. The trouble with burying irritation, she thought, is that it’s hard to forget it and go on to something else.
“Nowhere,” he answered, frowning. “The trouble is I want you uninterrupted, all to myself. Damn it, Anna, will you marry me?”
The question, put so bluntly, and in anger, took Anna by surprise and she laughed. “Good heavens, Ned, what a way to propose!” But the laughter ended as she met his shy, suddenly vulnerable eyes, and she laid her right hand open on the table for him to clasp, as he did with a strong triumphant grip.
“The answer is yes?”
Too sudden, too soon, some voice inside her was telling her. Don’t rush into it, her mother’s voice whispered in her ear. They were all going up in flames, all her resolves.
“Of course,” she said very quietly. “The answer, dear impossible Ned, is yes.” But then Anna panicked. “I shouldn’t have said it,” she murmured, “we’ll never get on. We’re too different. You’re marrying a tigress. You’ll hate me half the time.”
“And you’ll hate me,” Ned said cheerfully.
“Why should we get married then? Why ask for trouble?” but then Anna laughed again. And explained why. When she was growing up, still a small child, and her father still alive she used to escape to a neighbor’s in Brookline where there was a family of girls, and when the servant over at the Lodges saw her sailing over on her bike, lickety split, she used to say “here comes trouble!”
“I bet she did,” and Ned chuckled. “But why exactly were you trouble? Do tell me.”
“Because I was always inventing dangerous games.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, daring someone to climb a tree and jump off a high branch, things like that.” And almost without a pause for breath Anna changed the subject, “Why did I say I would marry you? It’s crazy—we hardly know each other!” And indeed Anna was terrified. She saw Ned as someone with a net he was about to fling about her, capture her, and she was not at all sure that she wanted to be captured. “Let’s wait,” she pleaded. Visions rose up in her mind of houses she would be expected to run, entertaining she would be expected to do, and she was suddenly close to tears.
Ned seemed unaware that her mood had changed. Of course it was mad to believe she could have fallen in love. And of course she hadn’t. She had said yes to marrying a fortune, no doubt.
“We’ll get married at Thanksgiving,” Ned said firmly.
“No, we won’t,” she answered with a flash of lightning in her eyes. “I’m singing in Pittsburgh that weekend, the Bach B-Minor Mass.”
“Early in December then.”
“Can it be a very small wedding?” she asked, suddenly meek.
“Of course. We’re much too old for a big affair. That is for the innocents of twenty-one.”
“I’m scared,” Anna said, “and what will your mother think?” All the impossible things about marriage were swarming in her head … leaving her own mother … being interrupted in her work … being catapulted into a world she instinctively disliked.
“I couldn’t care less what mother thinks. We just manage to tolerate each other, as it is.”
Anna laughed, “And when I come on stage it will be open warfare?”
“Concealed under oceans of self-pity and perfect manners.”
“Oh Ned …” She was fascinated by the dry tone with which he spoke of matters that usually were spoken of, if at all, with emotion. She decided that she had to be honest there and then, tell him the truth. “I’ll tell you why I have doubts.”
“You’re not allowed to, you’ve said yes,” he said briskly.
“The thing is I hate money. It makes me uncomfortable. You’re too rich, Ned. That’s one trouble, isn’t it?”
“You’re asking me?” he teased. “Very well, you shall have all the money you make and I shall have all the money I make and never the twain shall meet!”
“Be serious,” Anna commanded.
“Well then, what’s wrong about money? It’s quite a useful commodity. It buys freedom from certain anxieties.”
“Yes,” Anna said, twirling her glass and frowning, “of course, but at a price. It also buys houses and cars and responsibilities and servants.”
“Not any more … there aren’t any servants, my mother tells me, and the only one I have is not even a servant in the old-fashioned sense of a loyal retainer, but instead a team of young men who come in like a whirlwind once a week, make an infernal noise, and leave the wastebaskets upside down on the beds.”
“I shall feel I am going into a foreign land without knowing the language. Oh Ned,” she said again, “let’s wait till the New Year.”
“Let’s not. Think of all the fun we are going to have!”
“Are we?” She opened her eyes wide. “We aren’t even lovers,” she said. “It’s just possible that one of us will feel shipwrecked on a desert island … imagine marrying someone you hardly know. It’s crazy, Ned, absolutely crazy!” For what Anna w
as chiefly feeling at that moment was that the whole thing was unreal … that neither Ned nor she was really there, present in the flesh. It had become like a scene in a sophisticated comedy—and that was not something she could handle at all. And she who had held Ned with her eyes all through dinner now could not bring herself to look at him. She was overcome by shyness and terror.
“What made you propose? You were cross with that man, that’s all. You wanted to assert yourself against … against …”
“Against what?”
“Me, I suppose.” She lifted her head now and looked at Ned quite coldly.
“I proposed because I am madly in love with you, because I want you, Anna, more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. You must believe me.”
Anna burst into laughter. She couldn’t help it.
“What’s funny?” Ned asked, obviously nettled by being put down just when he had made a declaration of passionate love.
“Dear Ned, has anyone ever uttered the words you just uttered in that tone of voice?”
“Did you want me to shout? The people at the next table are far too interested in whatever is going on as it is.”
“I didn’t want anything but—a little warmth perhaps.”
They were saved at that moment by the waiter with the check. Why am I so attracted to him, Anna asked herself, observing his slightly flushed, closed face, the stern mouth, as he took his time to calculate the tip. She wanted to feel his cheekbones with her hand, and she realized that the warmth she had missed in his voice just now was inside her. It is very odd, she considered, but I have to admit that I am in love. The word, not uttered, but felt made her shiver. “It’s so mysterious,” she said aloud.
“Yes, it is,” he said, smiling at her now the waiter had left. “But like bats who are blind, we are told, we have radar. I’m aware of every hair on your head, Anna,” he whispered as he helped her on with her coat.
And once they were in the car, he drove around the corner to a side street, drew up to the curb, and kissed her. It was a long, sensitive, wise kiss, an exploratory kiss of discovery with a passionate truth in it at the end. And when he let her go Anna leaned back in her seat.
“Yes,” she whispered, taking his hand in hers and holding it to her breast. “Yes, Ned.”
Chapter V
All through that sleepless night the doubts flowed in. And by morning Anna was so busy writing a letter to Ned that she didn’t hear her mother come in with breakfast on a tray.
“Are you all right, Anna?”
“Oh Mama,” Anna turned her head from side to side like an animal in a yoke, “he asked me to marry him, and I said yes … but it’s crazy. I’m not ready. I hardly know him.” The tears she had held back all night poured down her cheeks. Teresa brought her a Kleenex, hugged her, and whispered,
“Take it easy. Write your letter. It’s not a tragedy, darling.”
“If I only knew,” Anna murmured, “Mama, it is like entering a foreign country, not knowing the language …” Then she laughed, “He only asked me to marry him because he was angry!”
Teresa raised an eyebrow, “Well, drink your coffee. You’ve got to think this over, Anna. But from what I’ve seen lately you are certainly involved, if not in love.”
“Oh, I’m in love, Mama!” Then she added quite coldly, “It’s just that I can’t imagine the future. I can’t imagine what it will be like. I can’t imagine being Ned’s wife.”
“Do you have to marry him?”
“Mama!”
“After all, you told me yourself that you would have love affairs but would probably not marry.”
“That was five years ago, Mama, and you warned me that love affairs rarely last very long.” She turned then and faced her mother, “I want this to last.” Then she added very softly, “I want to feel safe.”
“Oh dear,” Teresa smiled, “marriage is not exactly safety, you must know that.”
“I’m too old for a love affair.”
“Nonsense,” Teresa went to the door, “I’m going to leave you alone to sort yourself out.” But at the door she hesitated, smiled, reminded Anna that her father used to say “be as wise as the serpent and as gentle as the dove”.
“Impossible … I’m a tigress. You tell me so yourself. And besides what did Father know about love?”
Teresa gently closed the door.
How empty the room felt after her mother had gone! Acute loneliness took her place. Anna swallowed the cup of coffee, then sat at her desk for a long time, rocking herself, her arms clasped around her, holding herself together. Then she wrote.
“Dear Ned, You have been thinking about me for a long time, but I have not been aware of you until a few days ago. You have made me feel more than I have for years. I look at your face and want to touch you. I look at your hands and want to hold them very hard and fast in mine. I look at your mouth …” here Anna stopped for a moment, dizzy with the longing for more of those kisses. Why hesitate? “ … and need your kisses. I love you. But, Ned, we hardly know each other. We have talked so much, we have given each other our lives—that has been wonderful, all the doors open suddenly, such a deep real exchange. And yet we don’t know each other. Can you understand?” And she signed it simply “Anna,” not as she had wanted impulsively to do, “Your Anna.” Not yet.
The letter was delivered to Ned’s office by messenger. For he was sure to call and it was absolutely necessary that he read it first.
At six that evening Ned called, “Anna, it’s been a wild day here and I’m only just home. I didn’t want to call you from the office.”
Anna was silent. She waited because she was frozen with anxiety. “Did my letter reach you?” she managed to utter.
“Yes. Anna, will you come and spend the weekend with me in Beverly? I have a house near the shore there.” It was said in such a brisk assured voice that Anna couldn’t help laughing.
“The president of the State Street Trust has made a decision!”
“Don’t tease me. Please come.”
“That’s the day after tomorrow,” for a second she hesitated. “All right.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up on Friday at half-past five. Wear old clothes.”
When she put the phone down, Anna realized that two days would be a very long time. And then she smiled. This amazing man had not uttered a word of love. But he had, she admitted with admiration, answered her letter with action, the one necessary action. And swept her quite neatly and decisively off her feet.
But if she had been nervous about being in his territory in “a foreign land” as she had said to her mother, Anna was amazed to find that she felt at home from the moment they walked into the small cosy house and she helped Ned stow food away. The gardener had turned the heat up so it was not the chill house she had dreaded, and besides that it was full of charm, old blue and white china, copper jugs on a side table, some old-fashioned water colors of the shore, that looked like Sargents.
“Here, you arrange them,” Ned said, handing her a box of yellow roses, “There’s a tall Steuben glass somewhere.… Oh, I know, in the corner cupboard there … you’ll find it.”
He was being efficient and quick. She liked the way he did things, liked it that they had crossed the threshold in an impersonal hurry to get sorted out. For now they were alone really for the first time—except on the swan boat!—it was healthy to have a lot to do before the momentous fact that they were alone could overwhelm.
“There,” Ned said coming into the living room, “I’ll light the fire and then show you your room—when you come down there’ll be a drink. What shall it be?”
“Scotch, please, with a little water,” Anna said as she brought the roses in and set them on a small table. “Oh smell, Ned! Isn’t that delicious?” As he bent down to smell, Anna’s heart missed a beat as a rush of longing to kiss the back of his neck took hold of her, but she didn’t. It was a little like being in the middle of a piece of music that must be allowed to continue without interru
ption until … until …
“Well, come along then,” Ned said, picking up her suitcase, “Hey, what have you got in here? It’s heavy as lead.”
“Scores, Ned. You said there was a piano—at the last minute I put in some songs!”
“Wonderful …” and then without further ado he was running up the stairs, and leading Anna into a small room with yellow walls and a comfortable looking small bed. “There’s a bathroom,” Ned said, opening a door. “I’m afraid it’s rather Spartan, though. Paul and I lived here for a while … not very feminine, is it?” He smiled rather shyly. “I can’t believe you’re here.” Something though was troubling him. And as he turned at the door on his way out, he murmured, “My room is better.”
“In what way?”
“It has a double bed,” he said, running down the stairs leaving Anna laughing in spite of herself at how little Ned could express, at how terribly self-contained he was even on this momentous occasion. But will it be a bridal night, she was wondering? Or will it turn out to be a huge mistake? What did it matter? For the moment Anna felt happy, excited and happy, and, she realized, unexpectedly at ease.
Somehow coming into this house had broken a spell. It didn’t feel like a foreign country, after all, and when she went down and found Ned mixing a salad in the kitchen, he did not feel like a stranger.
“Italian peppers, you marvelous man!” She seized a strip of one from the bowl and chewed it. “What are we having for supper?”
“The great American meal … steak, baked potato, salad.”
“And ice cream?”
“How did you guess?”
And they laughed. Why was it so funny? Not really, but it was such a relief to be able to laugh and to be at ease. And then at last Anna ran a finger along Ned’s cheekbone and along his mouth. “I’ve wanted to do that,” she murmured. She felt the tremor under the skin—sensed Ned’s acute sensitivity to her touch.
“Come and have a drink,” he said crisply. “We have lots to talk about.”
And there they were, sitting side by side on the sofa by the fire, forgetting to drink their drinks on the table in front of them because Ned was holding Anna’s hand, hard and fast. “I’ll never let you go,” he said. “Never.”