Abe turned on a waltz and turned to Emily. “Come on, let’s have a whirl. Up you get.”
Obediently she stood up and moved to him and they started to dance. When the record was over Gertrude said, “Why the hell didn’t we think of doing this before? Come on, Abe, my turn. You’re quite a dancer on top of everything else, aren’t you? You and Emily looked quite professional there. More hidden talents, Em. Didn’t know you could dance like that.” She went to Abe and put her hands on his shoulders. “Come on, Abe, dance with me. I’m not too heavy on the toes, either.”
Kaarlo put the needle back to the beginning of the record. “Emily?” He held her more closely than Abe had done, but she was hardly conscious of his nearness. “This is good for Gertrude,” he said once while they danced. “We should do this sort of thing more often.”
When the record was over, Abe took a sandwich and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Sam tells me you and the girls are planning to go on the télépherique tomorrow, Emily,” he said. “Mind if we hitch a ride?”
“We’d be delighted to have you.”
“Fine. Frankly, I think Sam and Mimi cooked this plan up. We’re just invited along as chaperones. As a matter of fact I wasn’t really invited at all, but I think I’d rather enjoy the télépherique myself.” He finished his sandwich and rose. “Wonderful evening. Gert, but I think I’d better go. I don’t like to leave Sam too long in the hotel alone.”
Emily turned towards him, to go with him, to go with him wherever he wanted, she would speak to Gertrude about Virginia the next day, it would wait, but Gertrude caught hold of her hand and said with desperation, “Please, Emily, please don’t go yet. And you stay, too, Abe, please. Sam’s all right.”
“Yes,” Abe said. “I know. But I’m tired myself so I think I’ll get along. It was a good evening, Gert. Thanks and good night. Good night, Emily.” And without looking back he walked out of the room.
For a moment it was as though he had slapped Emily across the face, as though she had offered herself, saying,—Here I am; take me, and he had turned on his heel, spurning her. But she had not in words offered herself to him and how was he to know that she had resolved to trample on her scruples? How was he to know that Courtney had said, albeit indirectly, that it would not kill him, so that instead of killing Courtney she was planning to kill her conscience?
And would she have been able to? If Abe had not left, if they had been able to walk away from Gertrude and Kaarlo under the high starry sky, would she have been able to go with him?
—Oh God, I don’t know, she thought rather wildly. It wouldn’t be from fear of Abe if I hadn’t. It’s not that of which I am afraid. I know that it would be beautiful with him and my loins tremble with wanting him.…
—Oh, damn senses of sin, damn senses of responsibility, damn sex anyhow!
—He should not have played that music and then left me!
She looked very carefully around the familiar room as though she had never seen it before, at the books on the shelves that Kaarlo had built, Gertrude’s tall art books and the Tauchnitz and Albatross and Penguin editions, at Kaarlo’s ski trophies on top, at the high wide window, black and cold against the night, at the Braque silk screen, at Kaarlo sitting on the couch where Abe had sat, at Gertrude’s silky hair falling across her face; at the fire crumbling again to embers—staring deliberately from one thing to another in order to keep the tears from her eyes. She couldn’t quite manage not to blow her nose.
“Catching the village cold?” Gertrude asked.
“I hope not. I may have picked it up from Courtney, though his seems pretty well licked.”
It was all right. No tears. She could go from Mrs. Jekyll to Mrs. Hyde again and not have hysterics at the transition. But which was Mrs. Jekyll and which was Mrs. Hyde?
Gertrude handed her the plate of sandwiches and she shook her head. “Got something on your mind tonight, Em?”
“No. I’m just tired. Or maybe it is a cold.”
“Go to bed and take four aspirin and four ounces of whiskey,” Gertrude said. “That’ll cut it for me sometimes.”
Kaarlo stirred lazily on the couch. “Gertrude believes in kill or cure.”
“What’s this Sam of Abe’s like?” Gertrude asked, jumping as usual from subject to subject.
“A nice kid. You know as much as I do. He and Mimi seem quite smitten with each other.”
“Oh? Not Virginia? I thought you thought he might be a beau for Virginia.” She let just a trace of maliciousness slip into her voice.
“That was your idea. A friend of Sam’s has been rather hotly pursuing Virginia.” Emily stuck up for her child, quickly, instinctively.
“Yes, I know,” Gertrude said. “Snide Snider. Sam’s better looking than his father. Note on national characteristics: why are professional American athletes always ugly, like Abe; English ones stringy; and European ones beautiful, like Kaarlo? Now don’t tell me I’m generalizing. I know it. I like to generalize. By the way, Kaarlo says Abe could be a good climber if he did enough of it. Didn’t you, Kaarlo? I say, Kaarlo!”
“Hush,” Emily said. “He’s asleep. I’d better go.”
“Wait a minute,” Gertrude said. “I know you have something on your mind. You have had for days. I can always tell. So you might as well get it off.”
“Nothing’s been on my mind for days,” Emily said, “but you’re right tonight. There is something I want to ask you.”
“Fire ahead.”
“What was Virginia so upset about when she and Mimi left here this evening?”
“Was she upset?” Gertrude asked innocently.
“You know perfectly well she was.”
“I’m sorry if she was, then,” Gertrude said, “but it was nothing but typical adolescent hysteria. And none of your business.”
“It’s very much my business.”
“If Virginia or the little Oppenheimer want to tell you they probably will. Now let’s get back on the subject. I want to talk about my problems, and if you don’t think they’re problems you’re batty.”
“I know they’re problems, Gert.”
“I adore Kaarlo, you know,” Gertrude said.
“I know you do.”
“I divorced my first husband to marry Henri. Did I ever tell you?”
“No.”
“Dear Bob. A typical Rotarian. Prosperous, and paunchy by now, I’m sure. Last I heard he was president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce and had spawned four children.” She shook her head roughly to fling back her silky mane of hair. “You know, in a way I suppose Bob acted very decently about Henri. What do you think Courtney would have done in Bob’s place, Emily? Would he have quietly gone home to the family business like Bob and found himself another dame? Or would he have gone all self-righteous and the heavy husband and started a nice sizzling adultery suit?”
“I can’t imagine Court acting self-righteous,” Emily said.
“Can’t you? I can. And what do you think he’d have done? Would he have taken the children away from your pernicious clutches? Would he have started divorce procedures? Or what?”
“I don’t know.…” Emily said.
“When I went back home after the war I had a vague idea of getting back with Bob again,” Gertrude said. “The wife—a dull girl—and the kids were rather a shock. I used to agonize on the hour every hour about how horribly I’d hurt Bob, and all the time he was happily consoling himself with another dame. What a waste of conscience. Love’s a funny thing, Emily.… I had a bitch of a mother. In a manner of speaking, that is. Probably what I really mean is the opposite of bitch. Cold and domineering with bosoms corseted till they were hard as the Rock of Gibraltar. But she did give me some good sound advice about loving. Don’t do too much of it. Don’t let it get too big a thing. People don’t like it. They want you to love them, but moderately. They’re afraid of you if you show them you love them too much. It’s too big a responsibility for them. It smothers them. Good advice, Emily. But I hav
en’t followed it with Kaarlo and I don’t give a damn. I may treat him like hell but I don’t think he can have any doubt in his mind that I love him and if he ends up throwing me out—well, that’ll be that. That’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t stay in the sanatorium, you know. If Kaarlo wants to kick me out, okay, but just to let him drift away from me because I’m shut off from him is—oh hell, I don’t suppose any of this makes any sense to you anyhow.”
“Of course it does,” Emily said. “What kind of cold fish do you think I am?”—I’m not following Gert’s mother’s advice, she thought. I’m letting Abe see.…
“I don’t know,” Gertrude said. “Have I misjudged you? I almost always misjudge people when I resent them. And I only resent people when I think they’re better than I am so it’s really a back-handed compliment. Did you ever love anybody wildly, madly? I haven’t any right to ask. I’m just curious. You don’t need to answer.”
“I don’t mind answering,” Emily said. “Yes.”
“In other words I’m not so damned unique? Somehow I can’t imagine getting violently passionate over Courtney.”
“I did,” Emily said.
“Did? There. You’re putting it in the past tense.”
“Do, then.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, in a funny sort of way.”
“Funny? How funny?”
“You know I’m no good at talking about myself, Gert,” Emily said. “I don’t enjoy all this analysis.”
“Now you’re cross. Okay, I’ll stop trying to pry into your purple past. Maybe I ought to marry Kaarlo after all, maybe I’d feel safer, I suppose he could remarry and have kids and stuff after I’m dead. Funny thing, the marriage ceremony. It seems so damned serious at the time. Do you suppose it would make any difference if all married couples had to go to church and repeat the business of being married once a year on their anniversary? Not all the fanfare, just going to church and standing in front of the altar and saying those things. Be a fine way of making some extra money for the churches anyhow. I wonder if I’d still be married to Bob and going to country club dances on Saturday nights and beefing about baby-sitters like his present spouse?” She knelt in front of the bookshelves and ran her fingers over the volumes until she came to the Book of Common Prayer—something Emily had not expected to see there. Still kneeling, Gertrude pulled it out and riffled through the pages. Then she began to read aloud:
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony, which is commended of St. Paul to be honourable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God.”
She looked over to the couch where Kaarlo was sprawled. He had fallen asleep as he lay there, his face pillowed childishly on one hand, his mouth fallen slightly open so that his even, white teeth showed.
She looked down at the Prayer Book and read aloud again:
“Wilt thou have this Man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in thy holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
Emily got up and walked jerkily to the fireplace, picked up some sticks and put them into the fire, keeping her back turned to Gertrude.
“‘I take thee to my wedded Husband,’” Gertrude read, “‘to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish—’”
“Stop!” Emily cried.
“Am I being blasphemous?” Gertrude asked. “Sorry. I didn’t realize it would bother you.” She put the Prayer Book back on the shelf and stood up.
“No,” Emily said. “It’s not that—”
But Gertrude was still wound up in the cocoon of her own problems and did not notice Emily’s trembling fingers.
“When I married Bob I thought it was going to last forever,” she said. “What is it, Emily? Is the human being incapable of sustaining the heights of love? And we don’t want to be satisfied with less? Is that why so many marriages go to pot? We start off with a bang and end up with a whimper. Or something like that. I’m quoting somebody, I think. You know, there’s something most of us miss about marriage, some sort of development, some sort of step we can’t quite manage to take. Seems to me you and Courtney’ve taken it. I envy you, Emily. All secure in a nice, quiet love. Do you think Kaarlo and I’ll ever simmer down to being nice and quiet? I don’t even know if I want to.”
“I have to go,” Emily said. “It’s late.”
“You’re upset about something,” Gertrude said curiously. “What is it?”
Emily shook her head. “I’m just tired. I probably am coming down with grippe or something.”
“I’ll wake Kaarlo to walk you down.”
“No,” Emily protested quickly. “Please don’t, Gert. He’s tired. Don’t make him come out in the cold. I’m perfectly okay. I could find my way home from your place blindfolded in a blizzard, and it’s a clear night. Goodnight, Gert. Be seeing you.”
When Emily got back to the villa from Gertrude’s she was surprised to find Courtney still up. He was still sitting in the kitchen by the stove, reading.
“Not in bed yet, darling?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
He had a half-empty glass on the kitchen table. “Trying to drown my sorrows in drink,” he said. “Yes, I’m all right. After you’d left I wished I’d gone with you. As a matter of fact I almost went after you. Told Virginia and Mimi I might, but in the end I didn’t quite feel up to Gert. How about going somewhere for a night cap now? Or are you too cold?”
She looked at him in surprise. If there was anything Courtney had balked at all winter it was going out in the evening. “No, I’m not too cold. What about the children?”
“Told them we might go out for a few minutes. Mimi went up about an hour ago. And Vee and Connie haven’t stirred since you left.”
“Okay,” Emily said, “get your things on and let’s go.” She felt suddenly tired and not in the least like going out in the cold again, but it was an odd suggestion on Courtney’s part and she knew he must have a particular reason for it.
“Where shall we go?” he asked as they went out the door.
“Wherever you say.”
“Let’s just go up to the hotel, then. Much as I hate to give Madame Pedroti a single other sou after all she sinks us for this rathole it’s the closest place and it has the added advantage of being downhill on the way home.”
It would not make sense to Courtney if she were to say she did not want to go to the hotel for fear they might meet Abe there, so she said nothing. They could hear the music and Courtney walked quickly towards it. They did not speak until they reached the hotel. Courtney was breathing heavily from the exertion of climbing, and Emily, panting too, her breath coming in white gusts against the dark, was willing that Abe be gone to bed, that they not bump into him. She followed Courtney across the lounge, grateful not to see Abe among the people there. When they were safely seated and had ordered, she breathed a small sigh of relief, and Courtney said,
“I had a letter from Tom Russell today.”
For a moment she went completely blank; she had no idea who Tom Russell was or why a letter from him should be so important that it take Courtney up to the Grand Hôtel late on a cold night. Then her brain cleared and she asked, “What did he say?” trying now to give all of herself, all of her attention to Courtney.
“He wants me to give him a definite decision about next year. Which, of course, is only fair. Well, how about it, Emily? Shall we go to Indiana? Shall I accept the position? Or not? What shall I do?”
When they left the villa it had not seemed as though Courtney had had too much to drink, but now, with only a sip from the glass that had been brought him
, he was no longer quite Courtney.
“Darling, it’s your own decision,” Emily said gently. “I can’t make it for you. You wouldn’t want me to.”
“But it isn’t just my decision,” Courtney said. “I’m not going to Indiana alone. It’s you and the children, too. Would you be happy there?”
Emily looked at him in surprise, sensing his effort. Then she said steadily. “We will be happy wherever you are.”
“Emily, I want to go to Rich wood,” he said, almost desperately. “I’m not a writer. I’m a teacher.”
“Then you must go.”
“And you won’t miss New York?”
“I probably will,” Emily said, “and you will, too. It’s been our home for a good many years. Yours even, longer than mine. But that’s not the point. If we go to Richwood we’d probably feel the same way if we were leaving there to go to New York.”
Courtney looked around for the waiter and beckoned him to bring another drink.
Madame Pedroti, poured into black lace over pink satin, waddled over to them. “Monsieur and madame are enjoying the holidays?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Emily answered.
“Our festivities are simple but enjoyable,” Madame Pedroti said, assured that her festivities were not simple at all, and highly lucrative. “Now if there’s anything in any way special I can do for you—”
“Nothing, thank you. Everything’s fine,” Emily said, willing her to go away and leave them.
But Courtney was saying, “Yes, if you would have the orchestra play Chanson des Rues—they know it, don’t they?”
“But of course, monsieur. They will be enchanted.” She waddled majestically across the floor.
“Why that particularly?” Emily asked.
“Oh, it reminds me vaguely of you,” Courtney said.
“And at least a dozen other girls.” She smiled across the table at him. “I remember my last two years at college we were all playing Jean Sablon records like mad and I guess that was our favorite. You must have heard it every time you were asked to the dormitory for dinner.”
He picked up his glass and gently swirled around the small amount of liquid left in it. “Tom says we’ll be able to find a nice house near the campus. He says it’s a nice little town and a pleasant community and that he’s sure we’ll like it.”
A Winter's Love Page 23