Unforgivable Love

by Sophfronia Scott

  “I’ll help you if you ask for help. But I want you to act like you got some sense,” she said. The words felt solid and stern—a hand placed on his chest to keep him from running wild.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered and bowed his head. She reached up and touched his chin. The skin of her honey brown fingers was soft and warm.

  “It’s time for you to be a man,” she said, nodding as though she wanted to be certain he understood her. “It’s come sooner than your mama would have wanted, but I won’t stand in the way.”

  At the mention of his mother he had hugged Aunt Rose. He’d wanted to cry, but he hadn’t.

  THE CRUNCH OF gravel beneath the Cadillac’s tires woke him and signaled his arrival at Mercylands. He sat up and looked out the window. The rhododendron and azalea bushes crowded the sides of the way, greeting him with a riot of pink, red, and white. The well-tended plantings seemed thicker, more lush, and he realized this was because so much time had passed since his last summer visit. Had it been two years or three? He made brief appearances throughout the year, but Aunt Rose would still scold him. He wasn’t concerned. She would be happy just to see him and voicing her displeasure would add to her enjoyment. He looked down the drive. The canopy of tall sugar maples hid the mansion until the last possible moment. His aunt loved beauty, but not ostentatious display. When she and Uncle Lou built Mercylands forty years earlier, the spoils of his fortune earned in shrewd real estate deals, she hadn’t wanted a stone behemoth like the homes built by the Roosevelts and Vanderbilts farther north.

  “Crazy white people,” she’d once told him when she saw a photo of Hyde Park in a local paper. “Why would you want to live in a place that looks like a mausoleum?”

  So Mercylands, while large, had all the charm of an English cottage. She had ordered the stucco painted white, and insisted green shutters be placed on all the windows. The front door, tall oak panels flanked by thick stone columns of similar height, was plain. There was no grand stairway, no broad sweeping entrance. On the other side of the door was a floor of red stone tile and a simple hall decorated with wallpaper covered in cherry blossoms. A small statue of Pan stood perched on a waist-high stone pedestal. The effect was inviting, not intimidating. When Val used to bring girlfriends the house always had the desired effect, inspiring awe but not to the point where a woman couldn’t picture herself at home. Of course the place could also bring out any hidden greediness in a girl’s personality, but to Val it was all useful information to act on.

  He didn’t go through the door. Instead he climbed out of the car and, without thinking, began to retrace his boyhood steps. In the past whenever he first arrived on his aunt’s one hundred and twenty-one acres he would run around to the back of the mansion where a vast lawn swept away from the broad terrace like an emerald ocean. He would make a tour of the grounds, then eventually go into the house through the French doors of the terrace and greet Aunt Rose as though he’d only gone out to play an hour ago. Now as he reached the lawn and realized what he was doing he decided it wasn’t a bad thing. If he didn’t immediately present himself to Aunt Rose and Elizabeth Townsend, his aunt would of course know the reason and tell her guest about her nephew’s charming old rituals. She would relate stories of Val hitting balls into her tomato plants or how badly he scraped his knees trying to learn how to ride a bike on the gravel drive. This would cast him in a fair light and let his conquest see him as a man capable of nostalgia and sentiment—a good beginning. With any luck Mrs. Townsend might already be curious and looking for him from one of the large drawing room windows that opened onto the terrace.

  He walked up and down the lawn that had long been the site of countless baseball games—imagined ones when he was young, then real ones when he was old enough to invite other boys over to play. He knelt, pulled up a few blades of grass with his fingers, and crushed them beneath his nose. Each year he had looked for signs of previous base markings but Aunt Rose’s gardeners had always been diligent about repairing whatever damage he’d done the previous summer. He used to reason the muddy or flat yellow spots weren’t his fault. The lawn was too perfect and too inviting once the fragrance of fresh-cut grass penetrated his senses. He also knew his aunt could have incorporated any or all of the lawn into the elaborate gardens that decorated other parts of the property, but he was certain she reserved the grass for him. It was her joy to watch him play from the comfort of the terrace, where she often sat drinking tea or a gin and tonic underneath the green-and-white-striped awning.

  He turned his back to the house and walked across the lawn until it sloped gently downward to a gravel walkway about five feet wide that led into the woods of Mercylands. When the path ended he walked on mossy ground until he came to the large shining lake Aunt Rose called Gethsemane. Milkweed and ferns were just beginning to rise along the surrounding banks and Val heard crickets and peepers telling him, as they always did, that the lake was alive and healthy. When he was older he had brought girlfriends there, then picked them up and threatened to throw them into the water. He had laughed at how they would kick and scream, not because they feared drowning—which he found doubly funny because most of them couldn’t swim—but because they feared the ruin of their straightened hair.

  If he had taken the path in the other direction he would have come to the formal walkways leading to Aunt Rose’s gardens and greenhouse at the other end of the property. Over there she kept nature perfectly tamed into geometrically trimmed shrubbery and beds of flowers whose names he didn’t know. His mother and Aunt Rose had constantly warned him to stay away from the blooms with his baseballs and bats. In the same direction, if one stood in the massive windowed cupola topping Aunt Rose’s house and if the workers kept the trees properly pruned, a view could be seen of the Hudson River flowing placidly on its way to New York City as though this was always the way it should be—whatever existed here in this idyllic place went against the current and inevitably had to return to the city and reality again.

  Of course he preferred the woods. He understood the wild, uncultivated life there—turtles and fish and crickets and grasshoppers and praying mantises. He used to love the sound of the breeze tickling the leaves over his head, but today he wasn’t listening. He looked at his watch and thought about how much time needed to pass before he went into the house. He appreciated the quiet. He’d forgotten how easy it was to think when the sounds of the city fell away.

  Now he could better see in his mind the path to Elizabeth Townsend’s heart, and he could consider it more clearly than he ever had before. It was so perfect they should both be at Mercylands when the property was at its best. He savored the challenge of her, as though he were about to begin a doubleheader featuring undefeated teams. And he held home-field advantage.

  Every aspect of the place would serve his purpose. Mercylands moved to Aunt Rose’s rhythm. It wasn’t slow, exactly, but it was a tempo that said, “There’s no reason to hurry here.” In the past he would have done something to rev up the energy—invite friends, play loud music—all of which he knew Aunt Rose enjoyed as a good change. For this visit, though, such actions would be counter to his plans. He wanted all to be as usual—Aunt Rose and her lovely guest spending time in her garden, especially now as the roses came into their own. They would play cards, take walks, and, when the weather allowed, enjoy meals on the terrace. The size of the mansion would aid his cause too, with its excellent assortment of public and private spaces. The drawing room itself was large enough that you might separate yourself and enjoy a solitary activity such as reading, but still be within earshot to participate in a conversation when the right opportunity presented itself.

  He especially needed this feature so he could observe Elizabeth Townsend and listen to her from a safe distance. From the information he’d been receiving he’d been able to glean a few things about her habits, but to learn the woman, the whole woman inside and out, he had to study her. He was looking forward to it, to uncovering that one quaking sphere of emptine
ss within her so he could step in and, to her, magically fill a space she didn’t even know was there.

  He had a few guesses about what might be missing in her life. He relished having the chance to guess. It was like a delicious probing through layers of silken folds and rough tracts of wool or steel. Discovering the need was like finding a woman’s pearl—delicate and translucent and worried smooth by her hold on it, by her fear of showing it to the light of day. He thought too many women walked around with their need fully on display, sewn into their too-tight dresses or painted into the bright red of their lipstick, need that often melted down into burning, ravenous hunger threatening to devour any man senseless enough to step into such a yawning void.

  Every woman performed, without realizing, her own dance of the seven veils. He always watched from a distance, a distance that felt safe to her. Layer by layer she would reveal herself. He would provide careful prodding when necessary, but he knew the best thing to do would be to hold back. Once he sensed her emptiness, then came the miracle—when he could mold himself into the fulfillment of this need. It was the true challenge because it took some doing. If he were too obvious, making foolish declarations and promises too soon, she wouldn’t trust it. The work had to be subtle so only she would notice it. It would be her own discovery, and this was a kind of gift to her because there was always joy in such a discovery, in thinking you know something, have detected a patch of light where everyone else saw only darkness.

  Once she had made the discovery, the pearl cracked and he could step into it and slide on down as though into a tub of warm water. He could have a woman then. If he was lucky the struggle went on a little longer. But he would win. He would always win. There was some satisfaction in that, but now he cherished stepping on the edge of not knowing if he might win, and Elizabeth offered that prospect. He was aware of the edge because—and this was the thought he kept stuffed down in the pit of his stomach—he didn’t want to know what losing looked like. There was something unbearable and bitter about the idea. He refused to consider the possibility.

  WHEN HE FINALLY approached the house he did so at an angle that made him able to see anyone standing at a window before they saw him. He had used this method before when sneaking into the house, usually not alone. As he drew closer he made out the shape of a slim figure. She seemed to have her hands behind her back. Her posture had a feeling of expectancy. She looked like someone waiting—waiting for him. He intentionally took his time as he climbed the steps to the terrace. On his face he composed a look of calm distraction—he wanted to seem thoughtful, as though he’d been brooding while out on the grounds.

  He stepped through the French doors, careful to ignore Elizabeth Townsend standing at the windows to his left. He looked straight ahead and moved to Aunt Rose, who stood near a sofa and was pulling a sweater on over her shoulders. She grinned like a girl and kissed his cheek and tugged at his ear like she owned him. “Val, where have you been?” Her forehead, still unlined, met her hairline of smoky dark curls like a beach of brown sand. Her lips, stained a deep blackberry, set off the dark honey shade of her skin. Val admired that she still wore makeup, still moved through her world with the ease and confidence that came of wisdom, real wisdom. She was so unlike the silly old women who strutted around church pretending they knew something about the world just because they possessed the dumb luck that so far had allowed them to sidestep death by accident, illness, or assault.

  After being out in the sun his eyes had to adjust to being indoors, but not much. The large drawing room was painted the palest shade of blue and it had a white ceiling of plaster carved into elaborate patterns of garlands that looked like cake frosting. It was naturally bright and light just as he remembered it. He could clearly see Elizabeth Townsend’s slightly tousled brown curls and the simple cut of her yellow short-sleeved blouse.

  “You’ve missed lunch!” Aunt Rose was saying. She drew him into a tight hug and laughed. “Belle made the chicken salad you like because I told her you would be here. She about broke her arm whipping up eggs for the mayonnaise. You better go in the kitchen and get some or she’ll have your hide—and mine!”

  “Then that’s exactly what I’ll do.” He kissed his aunt’s powdered cheek and winked at her. “Can’t have Belle mad at me. She’ll have me eating liver for days!”

  She looped her left arm through his and waved her right arm toward her friend. “Elizabeth and I were just about to go out for a walk. This is Mrs. Elizabeth Townsend.”

  When he moved toward the guest, Aunt Rose tugged on his elbow before she released his arm. “You know her husband, Kyle, don’t you?” Her left eye narrowed to a slit and the right eyebrow lifted into a shrewd arch. Ordinarily he would ignore such a look, but now it suited his plan to prove her warning unnecessary.

  “Yes, from church, but this is the first time I’ve had the pleasure. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Townsend.” He smiled, but with no more warmth or attention than he would give a male stranger of no interest. He presented his hand to Elizabeth for the briefest of handshakes. When she touched him he was careful to notice the shape and size of her hands—not too small, medium, soft but surprisingly strong. He could feel her long middle finger wrap around his hand as she shook it. Her face opened to him like a refreshing window. Her eyes, smile, and expression all looked so honest and free. He saw no hint of flirtation or calculation, only a friendly sort of kindness.

  “Thank you! I’ve heard a lot about you.” She paused as though regretting her choice of words and a rush of color flooded her cheeks. “From Rose, I mean.” She glanced quickly at his aunt. “Such nice things about your growing up here.”

  His stomach muscles tightened and his heart thumped hard. He wanted to put her at ease, to say something to show she didn’t have to feel embarrassed. But the reaction he felt in his heart shocked him and he forced himself to rein it in. If he showed her too much attention it would mess up all his careful thinking for this first meeting. He stuffed his hands into his pants pockets and stepped back to put some distance between them.

  “I can only imagine.” He nodded and turned to his aunt. The safest move would be to focus on her again. “So, where are you going for your walk?”

  Aunt Rose pointed out an area through the French doors to the left, where her gardens began. “Oh, just down the lane a bit. I want to show her the dwarf lilacs in the courtyard with the limestone walk. They bloomed late this year. It was so cold up here a few weeks ago. Now they’re all out and it smells like heaven. I told Elizabeth they were probably just waiting to bloom for her.” She looked at her friend and smiled.

  He resisted the urge to agree. Then Elizabeth spoke again.

  “But I don’t want to intrude if you want to spend time with Rose. You just got here and I know you haven’t seen each other in a while.” She clasped her arms behind her back like she didn’t know what to do with her hands. Her voice had a careless, lovely lilt about it that made it feel familiar to him somehow. Her chin dipped when she looked down at the carpet and a curl flopped over her right eye. She pulled it back without a thought and let it sit messily on the top of her head.

  He thought about how many times he had witnessed a similar motion. It was almost always followed by the woman seeking a place in which to view her reflection—a mirror, a window, a piece of silverware—so she would know her hair had not gone awry. He looked at Elizabeth and waited for another blush, another note of unease, but she only showed the wide-eyed, pleasant face that expected his response.

  He was incredulous. My God, he thought. This woman has no idea how pretty she is. He realized he could himself uncover things for Elizabeth she had yet to know about herself. The potential for the game rose in his sights and it pleased him—all the more reason to stick with his plan. He felt impelled to join them, and with any other woman he would have done so. He would have spoken more, asked questions, engaged her in further conversation. But for Elizabeth Townsend he only smiled indifferently.

  “No, you two
go on,” he said. He opened one of the doors to the terrace for them and stepped aside. “Don’t worry about me. Aunt Rose and I will catch up in a bit. And I’ve got that chicken salad waiting for me. Enjoy your walk.” He kissed his aunt again before she walked through the door and he was careful to smile, not stare, when Elizabeth passed him.

  CHAPTER 12

  Elizabeth

  Mercylands, Late May 1947

  She tried to be attentive to Rose as her host showed her the romantic stone walls enclosing parts of her garden and the thick green leaves and tiny white flowers, climbing hydrangea, clinging to its cracks. Rose spoke of the shrubbery shaped in voluptuous cylinders and pyramids to match the ones she had seen on a trip to Florence, and of the bunches of purple irises grown from rhizomes given to her by an Ohio relative.

  But Elizabeth’s thoughts remained in the house with the nephew who would now reside with her and Rose. If she were anywhere else she might have been more concerned about living under the same roof as a nightclub owner who, rumor had it, ran numbers rackets and an illegal liquor market, and seduced women with the fearsome skill of a merciless Casanova. But Rose reacted with such joy at the news of his visit—she ordered a new radio for his room so he could listen to baseball games, and had the piano in the library tuned—Elizabeth couldn’t help but be curious.

  Then to see the man at last—with a smile so bright it seared her brain. Why else would the first words to come tumbling out of her mouth be so stupid? She was sure she’d given him the impression they’d been gossiping about him. But he hadn’t seemed to notice. In fact she was surprised he was so friendly and gentlemanlike. She had seen the way he sat apart from everyone else in church and she’d always thought he had a rakish attitude. There were times when he even had his feet propped up on the back of the pew in front of him during Reverend Stiles’s sermons. She expected such a man to speak with arrogance, to have a tone of disrespect in his every word. He was, after all, in complete control of his world and could behave however he liked.