A Winter's Love

by L'Engle, Madeleine;

  He cut her off. “It’s important that we understand these things, that we face them, see what they’ve done to us. Just as it’s important for me to understand what our situation has done to Gertrude and me if we are to work out any solution at all. It isn’t difficult for me to see why Courtney would withdraw. That’s what I do sometimes, too, when I go running to the mountains. I’m lucky. I have a place to withdraw to.”

  “But you come back.”

  “Courtney came back.”

  “But he has gone again.”

  “He will come back again,” Kaarlo said. “With you to help him he will come back again.”

  “But I can’t help him, Kaarlo,” Emily said in a low voice. “I’m absolutely useless to him. About the only good I am to him is to feed him—and a competent servant could undoubtedly do it better—only I don’t cost as much.” She laughed a harsh, unnatural laugh.

  “You know that’s not so, Emily,” Kaarlo said.

  “But it is. I’ve never had any illusions about my—my importance. But he doesn’t need me, Kaarlo; he doesn’t need me at all. It’s as though I were in a different town, a different country, much less the same house with him.”

  “Isn’t it perhaps because he’s trying to protect you?” Kaarlo asked.

  “Being completely shut out isn’t being protected. If a marriage is worth anything, things have to be shared, the bad things as well as the good. Sometimes with Virginia and Connie he shares himself. I mean he lets himself relax with them, he gives something of himself to them, but never to … He’s always wanted me to be self-sufficient. And I’ve tried to be. But the more self-sufficient I become the more separate I become. And that isn’t good for a marriage.”

  “Each branch of a tree is separate,” Kaarlo said, “but they belong to the same tree.”

  “I seem to have become separated from my tree, then.” She stopped, listening as the church clock struck, the sound barely rising to them, the notes dim against the snow. “I didn’t realize it was so late,” she said. “Please forgive me, Kaarlo.” Tears rushed again, against her bidding, to her eyes. “I’m not a strong person, Kaarlo! I’m so terribly, terribly weak! And I have such terrible, terrible need of strength.”

  “Why do you say that, Emily?” Kaarlo asked gently. “I’ve always thought of you as a quiet little rock.”

  “And rocks have no need of forbidden fruit, have they? That’s what I must be, Kaarlo, a rock.”

  “Emily, has something happened to upset you? Something particular?”

  She stood up, not answering. “Kaarlo, we’ve got to hurry. At least I have. The family will be wondering where on earth I am.”

  “Take my skis, then,” Kaarlo said, “and ski down as far as my chalet. Just lean them against the shed. I’ll stay and put out the fire and come along in a few minutes.”

  She started to protest, but he cut her short, pushing her out of the hut and calling after her, “Why don’t you come listen to records tonight? I have a new Mozart. Gertrude will call you.”

  But instead of going directly to the kitchen when she got home she went to Courtney’s workroom, knocked and entered, shutting the door behind her. He finished writing something, then looked up.

  “I’m back,” she said. “Are you in the middle of a train of thought? Could I talk to you for a few minutes?”

  “Is it important?” he asked.

  “Yes. Desperately.”

  “Okay, let’s have it,” he said. “You look like a solemn little kid in college on the mat for not having a term paper in on time.”

  There was only the one chair to Courtney’s desk in the room, but she needed the effort of standing to give her the strength to speak. “Court, I’m frightened,” she said.

  “Frightened? Why?”

  Behind her back she twisted her hands together. “About us.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “What about us?”

  “Court, you don’t need me any more, and I need to be needed.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Court,” she said despairingly, “there has to be sharing and—and outgoing in a marriage, and you—”

  “What?” he demanded, his voice growing hard.

  “It isn’t strength to be quite so strong, it’s weakness. When you’re unhappy you—you shouldn’t keep it all to yourself—not if you love someone. You have to share the difficulties as well as the happiness.”

  He turned his eyes away. “Why should I be unhappy?”

  “You know why! We both know why! It was hell for you to be forced out of a job you loved. You pretend it doesn’t hurt and I know it does and until we both admit it it’s as though there were a wall between us.” He said nothing, but continued to stare away from her, rigid with resistance to her words, and she raised her voice as though he had retreated from her physically as well as mentally. “I know I’m being selfish to make this scene! I know you hate scenes and so do I, but I have to try this time. I have to! Don’t you see that I want you to be selfish, too? It would be easier for me. For both of us. And if only your work can help you, if I can’t help at all, then—”

  At last he broke in on her, swinging round violently in his chair. “You think losing the job was my fault, don’t you?” he shouted.

  Suddenly weak, she leaned against the wall. “No,” she said in a low voice. “But I don’t think it was all Tommy O’Hara’s, either.”

  “Did I ever say I did?”

  “No. You didn’t. You didn’t say anything. That’s just it. But lots of people said it for you.”

  “Oh, so you think I’m playing the martyr.”

  “No, Court, no! That’s not what I mean. It’s not what I wanted to talk about. It’s us.”

  He stood up roughly, knocking over his chair. “For Christ’s sake, Emily! Why do you have to do this!”

  She whispered, “I had to try because …” and her whisper died out.

  “I have to work it out in my own way,” he said. “You have to leave me alone. I can’t have anybody. I don’t want anybody. Leave me alone, Emily.”

  “But I have been,” she said, trying desperately to stop her lips from trembling. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do all winter. And now I—now I think it was the wrong thing to do.”

  “You think what you’re doing now is any better?”

  “It—it—” she started, stumbling, and he broke in.

  “It’s my problem, Emily.”

  “But it isn’t,” she said. “It’s my problem, too. You aren’t living your life alone. It’s my life, and the children’s. What affects you affects all of us. If I feel I’m of no use to you, that I can’t share, then—” She stopped because she knew that she could not go on without weeping.

  “Then what?” he asked.

  She shook her head, trying to force back the tears. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  He turned away from her again, saying finally, “If you haven’t any more to say, I have some work to get through before lunch.”

  She whispered, “Do you love me, Court?”

  But if he heard he gave no answer, sitting there, turned away from her, leafing through some papers, and at last she left him and went out to the kitchen.

  After lunch Virginia went up early to dress for the thé dansant, running up the stairs silently in the old white moccasins she usually slipped into after she had pulled off her boots.

  —Mother’s amber beads, she thought. I bet she’d let me borrow them for this afternoon.

  She stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, listening to the sounds of the house. Downstairs she could hear Mimi talking to Connie, could hear the sound of her father’s typewriter; upstairs, nothing except the sound of her old alarm clock ticking loudly against the silence. She moved, quiet as an Indian in the soft-soled moccasins, to the door of her parents’ room. It was pushed to, but not shut tightly, and as she leaned against it it swung open and there upon the bed she saw Emily, lying face downwards, her arms flung out, her body acro
ss the bed in an abandonment of despair, her eyes closed but with traces of tears still clinging to lashes and cheeks. Unseen, unheard, Virginia backed out, trembling, and went into her own room.

  She stood at the window in the room already beginning to darken with the approach of evening. The garden lay still and white under the snow, only hummocks and ridges showing where there might be bushes and flowers. Stars were already beginning to flicker, disappear, then shine steadily as darkness seeped into the valley. Up the mountains the great hotel lay sprawled in indistinct shadows, above it the sanatorium, and lights were coming on in their windows; and a stranger would not know which was which, which the hotel where there was dancing and champagne and gaiety, and which the sanatorium where there was illness and pain. She stared at the two buildings, trying to blot out with their image that of her mother flung across the bed, staring until the outlines of the buildings blurred, merged into each other, separated, blurred again.

  —I wish I were back at school, she thought.

  And then—My stomach hurts (transferring the pain to something physical).

  She took out of her bottom bureau drawer the small pile of Christmas presents she had bought or made, and put them on her bed and stood looking down at them for comfort, each one tied up carefully in a different kind of Christmas paper. She picked up the last present that remained unwrapped, a small bottle of “4711” eau de cologne for her mother, and turned it over and over in her hand, reading and rereading the inscription. “No. 4711, Ferd. Müllens, Inc., always the first prize. Jedesmal den ersten preis. Toujours le premier prix.” Then she wrapped it up, slowly, and put all the presents away, shutting the drawer as Mimi came in.

  While they were dressing, Emily knocked and there she stood with the amber beads, saying, “Vee, I thought these might help with the velvet dress,” and her face was freshly powdered and you could not tell that so short a time ago there had been tears on her cheeks.

  “I was going to ask you for them,” Virginia said.

  Emily laughed. “Two minds with but a single thought. Obviously they were meant for your dress, but mind you, I’m only lending them to you. I’m very fond of them myself.”

  “Put on Vee’s lipstick for her, will you, Mrs. Bowen?” Mimi asked. “She never puts on enough.”

  Sam was waiting for them, looking about anxiously each time the great doors opened, his face breaking into a delighted grin as he saw them coming up the marble steps. Behind him was another boy, considerably taller and thinner than Sam, aggressively good-looking and expensively dressed, a studied look of boredom on his features and cream oil on his hair.

  “Mimi, Virginia, I want you to meet Beanie. Snider Bean. They’re staying here for the hols, too.”

  Beanie shook hands, his grip a little too forceful, his camaraderie a little too hearty. They went, the four of them, towards the sound of a small orchestra and cups clinking and voices speaking rather loudly, a conglomeration of languages, French, English, German, Italian. They sat down at one of the small tables. Beanie pulled out Virginia’s chair politely, then turned his attention to Mimi. Sam’s attention was already there, his gaze on Mimi’s golden hair, always a little wild, on her gold-flecked eyes, her wide, smiling mouth: everything about Mimi was a little over-generous, a little out-size. Virginia drank two cups of tea and ate some of the petit fours and tried to smile and look as though she were happy. Sam turned to her suddenly, and she was grateful, at the same time that she resented the fact that he was talking to her mainly because he felt sorry for her.

  “Hey, how about a dance, Virginia?” he said.

  She dropped her eyes, started to say—I don’t dance very well, then remembered Mimi saying to her, time and time again at school, “Qui s’excuse, s’accuse,” looked up, smiled despairingly, and said, “I’d love to.”

  It was Sam who said, “I don’t dance very well,” but so gaily it didn’t seem to be an excuse at all. “I love barging about the floor, so I hope you don’t mind if I stamp all over you. Just scream if I break your foot. One day I have hopes I’ll catch on and make an elegant hoofer.”

  “I think you dance very well,” Virginia said, tripping over his feet. Someone stuck an elbow into her neck, and Sam’s heel came down on one of her toes and then she stumbled and he had to hold her to keep her from falling. “Maybe we could make a comedy routine out of this, “she said desperately.

  Sam chuckled. “You’re quite a girl, Virginia. I like you. And you’re good for Mimi. Mimi could go off the deep end without any trouble and that would be too bad. You’re sort of ballast for her and that’s a big help.”

  “Mimi’s the one who’s helped me,” Virginia said. “I’d be miserable at school if it weren’t for Mimi.”

  “How come?”

  “Oh, I was completely Out. You know. And then Mimi took me up and now I’m In.”

  “Let’s go back to the table,” Sam said. “We seem to be a menace to everybody on the floor. We’ll try again later.”

  They passed Mimi and Beanie, dancing tidily, not bumping into anybody, keeping their feet to themselves.

  Sam pulled out Virginia’s chair and the waiter brought them more tea. “How did Mimi come to take you up?” he asked.

  “Oh, she discovered I write poetry. She likes people who’re peculiar.”

  “Are you so peculiar?”

  “The girls at school think I am. At least they used to. They don’t so much any more.”

  “How did Mimi discover about this poetry business?” Sam asked.

  —Golly, you’re kind, Sam, Virginia thought. You could so easily sit and just drink tea and eat cakes and wait for Mimi and not sound interested a bit. “Well, I was going to give her a history assignment she didn’t have straight. It was in study hall and I passed her the wrong notebook.”

  “You mean you gave her a notebook with your poems in?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t write them in any special notebook. This was in my geometry scratch book and it’s the same color as my assignment book.”

  “What was this poem about?”

  “Oh—the Earl of Northumberland. We’d been doing him in history. I like to write poems about people.”

  “Do you happen to know this poem by heart?”

  “I—oh, no.” Virginia blushed furiously.

  Sam grinned at her. “You do, too. Come on, Vee. Out with it.”

  “I—it’s—it’s really kind of silly.” Qui s’excuse …

  “Don’t be modest, Vee. If Mimi thought it was good it must be.”

  “I’m not sure she thought it was good. She just thought it was kind of peculiar. But I’ll say it to you if you like.”

  “I do like.”

  Virginia stared down at the table:

  “Northumberland robed in crimson, velvet, and gold,

  Leans his head in its whiteness upon cold stone

  And in the lingering silence frail and alone

  Feels his bones stiffen and watches his mind grow old.”

  “Don’t mumble,” Sam said.

  Virginia raised her head and her voice, though still a little shaky with embarrassment, came clearer:

  “Tracing the lines on the walls so damp and cold

  That the moisture trickles down, hearing the drone

  Of the Thames ever flowing below, he drops a groan

  For Northumberland young and aware, for Northumberland bold.”

  “It’s a sonnet,” she interpolated. “There are six more lines.”

  “Go on,” Sam said.

  “Northumberland leaves without faith in himself, or friends

  To tell him good-bye. He hears the key in the rust

  While somewhere Mary his wife in a velvet frock

  Is pacing, tearless, alone. Northumberland bends,

  Traces and kisses a cross in the blinded dust,

  Then quietly kneels and puts his head on the block.”

  “Say, that’s cool,” Sam said, as her eyes dropped to the white tablecloth again. “When you s
aid you wrote poetry I thought it was going to be soppy girl stuff, but that’s okay.”

  Virginia’s green eyes lit with pleasure; now her smile was spontaneous and happy as she looked up and saw Mimi and Snider Bean coming back to the table.

  “Hi, Mimi Opp,” she called gaily.

  “Mimi Opp?” Beanie asked as he seated Mimi. “Opp your last name?”

  “No. Oppenheimer. Miriam Oppenheimer.”

  “Why does she call you Opp, then?”

  Mimi’s face became set. “It’s simply a nickname,” she said. “Like calling Virginia, Vee.”

  “Hey, let’s dance, Mimi,” Sam said.

  Virginia watched them move onto the dance floor. Mimi’s head rose above Sam’s, the rather violent blond of her hair shining above his brown crew cut; but they did not seem clumsy, dancing together.

  “You want to dance?” Beanie asked Virginia.

  Virginia knew that dancing with Snider Bean would not be like dancing with Sam. “Not just now, thanks,” she said. “I’m hungry,” and reached for a tart she did not want. All around them in the salon were noise and laughter, and darkness gathering outside, pressing against the windows, trying to enter.

  “Attractive, your friend, what’s her name now?” Beanie asked.

  “Mimi.”

  “No, her real name.”

  “Miriam Oppenheimer.”

  “That’s why you call her Mimi Opp, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To help her get away with it.”

  “Get away with what?”

  “Come on, stop kidding around.”

  “I’m not kidding. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Without quite knowing why, she began to get angry. She looked about the room as though for help and all around her she saw only laughing faces, except for one dark-haired woman who sat at a table alone, staring unseeing at her reflection in the black glass of window. Waiters moved about quickly with plates of pastry, pots of tea, coffee, whipped cream, their steps light, assured; and moving slowly among them was Madame Pedroti in her black dress and black shining hair, seeing everything, her little black eyes darting about, quick, quick, while her great body moved ponderously between the tables.