A Winter's Love

by L'Engle, Madeleine;

  “He says he does.”

  “Why, then?”

  “It is no virtue of mine that I haven’t,” she said despairingly. “I think it’s more of a sin this way than if I had. Having done it in intention I’ve already sinned as much as though I had done it in actuality.”

  “This sin business,” Clément said. “I am sorry, but I do not understand it.”

  She tried to unclench her hands. “Maybe I’m a prude,” she said. “But there’s more to it than that. A being utterly confused. Oh, Clément, there don’t seem to be any valid values left anywhere.… But sometimes I’m really convinced that it’s simply a question of standing up for what you believe in.”

  “What do you believe in?” Clément asked.

  “I don’t believe in affairs. I don’t believe in betrayals.”

  “And whom are you going to betray?”

  “That’s just it. I’ve betrayed myself to the point that now whatever I do I’ll be betraying someone, I’ll be hurting someone. I never should have let this get started in the first place. There was where I did the wrong. Having started it I should have had the courage to go through with it. To go ahead and hurt someone I love. You see the whole thing’s impossible now whichever direction I look. But I was dead and now I am alive. So I can’t wish it not to have happened. I can’t wish to be dead again.”

  “But—”

  “But I have no right to play around with people’s lives and that’s what I’ve been—what I am—doing.”

  “Let me ask you something,” he said. “Was Courtney the first man you loved?”

  She shook her head. “No. But only one other who counted at all.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “My father was a country doctor. He was his assistant for a while.”

  “And?”

  She put her cold hands up to her hot cheeks. “I loved him like a—like a fool. And I thought for quite a long time that he cared about me, too. Then I found out that he was simply using me as a sort of bait to get another girl.”

  “I see. And there has been no one since your husband?”

  She shook her head. “No. Except that I know that the seed of this thing between Abe and me has been there for a long time. It could have happened any time. I’ve been in love with him for years in a half-acknowledged way. I suppose it’s an indication of my—my essential depravity.”

  Dr. Clément leaned across the table and took both her hands in his, holding them so tightly that she gasped from pain, but he did not release his grip. “These words you use,” he said, “sin, depravity, I’m sorry, but they are quite distasteful to me.”

  She nodded, shame-faced. “I know. They really just help to confuse the issue, don’t they? But what it comes down to is this: before I was married what I did was my own affair—that wasn’t meant to be a pun—and as long as the only person I hurt was myself it was my own business. But when I married and when I had children I assumed responsibilities and those responsibilities I have no right to cast aside just for—for my own emotional and physical needs. Isn’t that it?”

  Now he released her hands. “Would it hurt your children so very much?”

  She spread her fingers apart. “The odd thing is that it isn’t my children I’ve been thinking of all through this. It’s my husband.” She stirred carefully with her spoon in the empty cup. “Anyone who has known Courtney only this winter really hasn’t known him,” she said after a moment. “Tonight when he was—when he’d had too much to drink and he was laughing when he was stuck in the snowdrift, and then singing on the way home, he was more like himself than he’s been all winter. I don’t mean the drinking; I mean the ability to enjoy things, to have gaiety and excitement. That’s what I mean about this winter. He hasn’t been able to enjoy anything. And he’s—he’s stifled himself so that he hasn’t even allowed himself to suffer.” She stood up abruptly and her chair scraped across the floor with a harsh sound. “You don’t understand why I haven’t slept with Abe,” she said. “Neither do I. But you can put part of it down to gratitude.”

  “Gratitude?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Yes. Gratitude to Courtney. If I’ve become the kind of woman Abe can love—or that you can offer to kiss—if I’ve become a person in my own right it’s because of Courtney.”

  “And how is it because of Courtney?” Clément asked, leaning back in his chair, his legs crossed, his expression alert, compassionate, but above all quiet; and it was the quiet that made it possible for her to go on talking.

  “Because before I was married to Courtney I wasn’t anybody. At school—at home at high school—most of the kids didn’t didn’t even know I was there. I went to classes and did my homework but that was all and the rest of the time I stayed home and read and played the piano and daydreamed. Sometimes my cousins fixed up dates for me but they were always flops.”

  “What about your parents?” Clément asked.

  “My father was as busy as most country doctors are, and though he was a man of great—great probity, my younger brother was always his favorite and he never tried to hide it. Our mother died when we were quite young and father’s sister kept house and as long as we kept our rooms tidy and were prompt for meals that was all she cared about. She wasn’t a—a loving sort of person. Then I went away to college and nothing much changed. I went to classes and did my work and spent the rest of the time in one of the practice studios and nobody knew I was there.”

  “Go on.”

  “Then I took Courtney’s senior seminar and the whole world changed for me,” she said. “I went back to do graduate work in music but I took another of Courtney’s courses, too, and …” She was silent, then, for a long time. Clément did not speak either, but sat there quietly, smoking, dropping his ashes into his saucer, and at last Emily said, “I don’t know why he ever asked me to marry him, what he saw in me. Just a gauche, unattractive stick. But I married him and I—it was as though I had become a completely new human being. I discovered I had a personality of my own and I began to enjoy being myself. I stopped freezing up whenever I had to meet anybody and I actually began to enjoy parties. We had the students over a lot and they liked to come and that meant a lot to me, too.”

  “Why do you suppose it happened, this great change?” Clément asked her.

  “I suppose it was because I was loved,” she said, looking across the table at him. “I was loved, for the first time in my life, and so anything became possible. We had Virginia, and she was an enchanting baby, fat as a butterball, believe it or not. Then came Alice, and with the children an added kind of security, a cementing of my feeling that I was of some value as a human being.”

  “Alice?” he asked gently.

  “She died when she was eight,” Emily said, “While we were in Washington.”

  Again his hand touched hers. “And that was something else to bring you and your husband closer.”

  She shook her head. “No. While she was—while she was dying he was magnificent. But afterwards—he retreated, as far as Alice was concerned. He took his grief and hid it somewhere so deep inside him that no one could even see that it was there. We met Abe shortly after that and it was Abe who came close to me then. Not the way he is now. Just as a friend. We had—we had death bringing us together. He helped me with Alice and I could listen to him while he talked to me about Kristina—his first wife who died when Sam was born.”

  “And your youngest little girl?” Clément asked.

  “She was—unexpected,” Emily said. “We had Virginia and Alice right away and we wanted more but nothing happened. I went to a couple of doctors and there wasn’t any reason we didn’t have more children, it was just that—” she shrugged—“nothing happened. I’d given up even thinking about more children and right after Alice died it was the last thing that was in my mind. When I found out that Connie was on the way I was horrified. I didn’t want her. It seemed like—the ultimate betrayal of Alice. I had horrible morning sickness which I hadn
’t had with either Virginia or Alice and it was like a kind of psychological rejection. Of course now I can’t imagine life without her.” She realized that she was trembling and she sat down again. “I didn’t mean to go into all this,” she said shakily. “Only to say that anything I am I owe to Courtney. If I’m a—a fulfilled woman who can thereby be attractive to—to someone like Abe, it’s due to Courtney. Out of most unpromising material he made Emily Conrad Bowen.”

  “Or Emily Conrad Bowen made herself,” Clément contradicted her gently.

  “But I couldn’t have done it without Courtney.” She stood up again then and took the coffee cups to the sink. “I should never have bothered you with all this. I had too much to drink, too—though I’m not going to blame it on that. It’s terribly late and you’ve already been more than kind and it was most thoughtless of me to keep you up pouring out my problems like this.”

  He stood up, too, but he did not make any move to leave. Instead he asked her, “Does Courtney know about the young doctor you mentioned?”

  “Of course.”

  “Does he have any idea of what is going on now?”

  Her hand flew to her throat as though in panic. “No. And he mustn’t. Ever.”

  “You have beautiful eyes,” Dr. Clément said. “I hope you’re told that frequently.”

  “I’m not.” She put the cups and saucers on the drainboard and dried her hands.

  “You know, of course, that there is nothing I can say that will help you? I can say, ‘Go to your lover,’ or, ‘Stay with your husband,’ and neither answer will satisfy you. It is something you have to work out for yourself.” Again he took her hands in his.

  “Oh, I know that,” she said. “And I’m not fool enough to think that things can ever be the same with Courtney and me again. But I’ve got to belive that out of something different I can make something good. Or—” She stopped. “Well, it’s up to me, isn’t it?” she asked. “Thank you for listening. I somehow had a terrible need to say it out loud. I wanted to tell someone that I am in love. I wanted to stop hiding it.”

  “Whenever you want to talk about it,” he said, “please come to me.” Then he bent down and kissed her gently and firmly on the lips and walked out of the kitchen and after a moment she heard the front door shutting behind him.

  Six

  At the breakfast table Virginia sat next to her father and discoursed on history, trying to make up with casual prattle her violence of the night before. “I’m not too fond of history,” she announced, “except to write poetry about, and then you don’t have to stick too closely to the facts. Could I have the milk, please, mother? Thank you. You know what I mean about history, don’t you, now really, daddy? It’s full of trends and it talks about nations as though they were individuals and individuals as though they were nations and just people get lost in the shuffle.”

  “Virginia’s on a talking jag,” Mimi said to Emily. “She gets this way once in a while.”

  “Maybe you learn something about individuals like Caesar and Napoleon and Hitler,” Virginia was saying earnestly, “but history never seems to bother about how completely different the same world is for different people. I mean, I know my world, but I don’t know a bit what the world would be like if I were a—a Puerto Rican kid growing up in New York—just a few blocks from our apartment, even, and having to live with ten or fifteen people in a couple of dingy rooms and not enough to eat and dope-pushers after me—and never having heard of—of El Greco or Ernest Hemingway.”

  Connie hitched her chair closer to Emily’s. “Tell me all about Goldilocks and the three bears,” she suggested.

  “Or if I were a Korean kid,” Virginia went on, “or in Red China. Or India. I don’t know anything about that kind of world. Or if I were growing up in Israel, fighting the Arabs and hating the English and Egyptians—or an Arab kid hating the Jews. Historians don’t ever think about things like that. They just generalize.”

  “Aren’t you generalizing a little about historians, too?” Courtney asked.

  At that moment the front doorbell rang. At first Emily thought it was the telephone and leaped to answer it; then she realized that it must be the doorbell and therefore Madame Pedroti; everyone else knocked, the doorbell looked so rusted and unfunctional. “It’s Pedroti,” she said. “We don’t owe her any money, do we, Court?”

  He looked startled. “Good heavens, I don’t think so. Last night, I suppose. But she can hardly have come to collect that yet. You made out her check at the beginning of the month, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Virginia, who had gone to open the door, returned, saying, “Madame Pedroti would like to see you, mother.”

  Emily stood up. “Okay, thanks, Vee. I’ll go in to her.”

  “Your breakfast will get cold.” Courtney did not lower his voice.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’d almost finished.” Emily put her napkin down on the dining table and went into the living room.

  Madame Pedroti heaved her bulk out of one of the puce chairs; it was a tight fit. “Ah, good morning, Madame Bowen. I hope I am not disturbing you.”

  “Not at all, Madame Pedroti.”—Polite and a lie.

  “Madame and monsieur enjoyed themselves yesterday evening?”

  “Yes, thank you, very much.”—You old witch.

  “And Mademoiselle Virginia? She is enjoying the holidays?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Such an attractive child! It must be a joy to madame to have her home.”

  “It is, thank you.”

  “I trust madame will always let me know if there is anything she desires?”

  “Yes, Madame Pedroti.”

  “I was just passing by this morning so I thought I would drop in to tell madame that Etienne has procured the boards for the bridge for the door to the alley and any time it would be convenient for you to pay for them—”

  “Pay for them?”

  “Etienne got a very good price. Boards are usually very expensive but Etienne was able to get enough for the whole affair for only nine thousand francs.”

  “I’m sorry,” Emily said, “I don’t quite understand. What are the boards for?”

  Madame Pedroti gave her a how-can-you-be-so-stupid? sort of look. “Why, for the spring thaws, madame. The garden will be flooded but Etienne thinks so highly of you that he himself will build the bridge from the house to the alley.”

  “Madame Pedroti!” Emily said. “I think you can hardly expect us to pay for these boards.”

  “But who is to pay for them, Madame Bowen?”

  “When you rent a small villa you don’t expect to find that you are surrounded by a moat when the spring thaws come and are supposed to buy a drawbridge.”

  “Madame Bowen is always so witty. I am not, but, nevertheless, madame, you can hardly say that I am responsible for the melting of the snow.”

  Emily tried to smile, to make her voice reasonable, to sound pleasant as she said unpleasant words. “You are responsible for building a house in a hollow and for renting it without telling your tenants that their garden, and, I presume, cellar as well, will be completely flooded during the spring months.”

  “Of course, madame, if you don’t want the boards I shall be only too happy to—”

  “To what?”

  “To forget the whole matter.”

  At that point Emily saw a mental image that made her burst into laughter. Madame Pedroti raised her brows and Emily said, “I’m so sorry, I was just visualizing your coming to get your monthly check in a rowboat.” She laughed again. Then she said, “Madame Pedroti, it isn’t even quite Christmas yet. March and the deluge are still three months off. Suppose we forget the subject—or rather, suppose you go home and think about it and we’ll discuss it later.”

  “Very well, madame. As you wish.” Then she lifted her upper lip into what must have been meant for a smile. “It has been pleasant for madame to have her friend here, has it not?”

  “Y
ou mean Virginia’s friend, Mimi? Yes, she’s a delightful child and we’re enjoying very much having her.”

  The upper lip was raised again. “I did not mean the little Oppenheimer.”

  —What is she driving at? Emily wondered.

  “The American gentleman who is staying at the hotel.”

  “Oh. Mr. Fielding. Yes, it has been very pleasant for my husband and me to have him here.”

  “Mr. Fielding thinks most highly of you. I can see that.”

  “We have been friends for a number of years,” Emily said.

  Madame Pedroti pulled on her gloves, pushing her pudgy fingers down carefully into each finger.

  —How I detest the woman, Emily thought. I’m sure I see her through a distorted lens. She cannot be as repulsive as she seems to me.

  “Such an attractive man, Mr. Fielding,” Madame Pedroti said. “Attractive in the American way, of course. It would not mean a great deal to me. But I can see that in the American manner he has a great deal of charm.” Again the smile, showing her discolored teeth. “And yes, I’m quite sure your charming husband must enjoy having him here, too. But I must not keep madame any longer. And I assure madame that I will think about the matter of the boards.”

  Emily stood quite still in the center of the room and did not even see her to the door.

  —Blackmail?

  —I am such a fool, she thought, that I don’t know. Perhaps it was entirely innocent. Perhaps it was just her way of making conversation, of turning an unpleasant business discussion into a social chat. Perhaps it is only my own guilty conscience that makes me read anything sinister into her mentioning Abe. How could she possibly be suspicious? I had dinner at the casino with him. And went to his room. Perhaps she saw me then. I walked home from Kaarlo’s and Gertrude’s with him but that was late at night and she couldn’t have seen us. I went skating with him but the children were along. We walked home from the casino together.

  And all the things she had done with Abe could have been exactly the same done without love and she would have no sense of guilt about them and Madame Pedroti could have said the same things, cast the same aspersions, and she wouldn’t even have suspected blackmail.