The Wild Swans

by Peg Kerr

  He looked Rick in the eye. “Yes. I am.”

  After the interview he still felt keyed up and decided he wanted to sit and think for a while. Maybe that would help get rid of the jitters. Central Park was only a few blocks away. He jogged across Central Park South, past the statue of General Sherman, and crossed over to the path leading into the park. Here, under the trees, the light was green and peaceful. Pigeons foraged underfoot, skirmishing over crumbs from an abandoned croissant lying on the ground, barely hopping out of the way in time as mothers passed pushing strollers. A couple more minutes of walking brought him to the Pond. One of the benches was open, and he sank onto it gratefully.

  For a while he just closed his eyes and sat, listening to his breathing and the distant cacophony of traffic sounds floating over the trees. His mind drifted back to the interview. It had gone well, he decided, mentally reviewing the questions and answers. Yes, it really had. How strange to realize, after those weeks of despair in the warehouse, that he really did have a skill that made him employable. If he hadn’t talked to Sean, he might never have thought of it on his own.

  Sean. It wasn’t the interview, he suddenly realized, that had made him feel so edgy. It was Sean. Elias stretched his arms out along the back of the bench and opened his eyes again. A couple of swans floated serenely on the surface of the water a few feet away.

  Elias had never been in a gay man’s home before. Well, not knowingly, anyway. He had felt hypersensitive there, exposed, wary of anything suggesting any kind of sensuality. And yet it hadn’t been scary, but... okay. Comfortable. He felt ashamed, almost absurd, having to face the bigotry underlying his surprise at how normal everything had seemed. What, no sequined dresses or feather boas bursting out of the closets? Sean worked for a living. He liked Irish music; he spread peanut butter on his waffles. And he was comfortable inside his own skin. Being gay wasn’t the only thing about Sean that anybody ever had to know, the be-all and end-all, the only thing that defined him. Even more than the bed for the night and the job lead, showing him that was the kindest gift Sean could have possibly given him.

  He found a pay phone just inside the entrance of a deli down the block and called Sean. “He said he wanted the weekend to give us both a chance to think about it. But I think he’s going to offer it to me.”

  “Really?” Sean sounded pleased.

  “Yeah.” Elias stuck a finger in his other ear to mute the sound of clattering dishes. “I got the feeling he made up his mind once he realized I knew what he meant by ‘PhD’s.’ I guess he decided I was a good bet if I knew at least some of the weird jargon.”

  “PhD? What—Doctor of Philosophy? What’s that got to do with photography?”

  “No.” Elias smiled. “It’s what photographers call those new automatic cameras that’ve been coming out, the point-and-shoot type: ‘Push here, Dummy.’”

  Even through the tinny connection, Sean’s laugh rang out richly.

  “The question is,” Elias went on, “if he offers it to me, should I take it?”

  “Well, Rick’s my cousin, so maybe I’m biased. But I think he’d be a good boss, as long as you always remember to keep the coffeepot full.” Sean laughed again. “He does love a good argument. You’ll probably learn more about Kant and Hegel and the causes of World War II than you ever thought you’d want to know. But he’ll also teach you a lot about photography.”

  “The biggest problem might be the wage,” Elias said slowly.

  “Oh? Pretty low, huh? That’s too bad.”

  “Yeah. I get the impression it won’t be much above minimum. I’m not saying that taking a job with a starting wage is beneath me or anything,” he added hastily. “But I started thinking that maybe I could take some night college classes eventually. I gotta be able to pay the rent, too.”

  “And groceries. Don’t forget beer money.”

  “Yeah.” Elias sighed. “Maybe a roommate. There are places that list people who’re looking for roommates, aren’t there?”

  There was silence for a moment on the other end of the line. “Look,” Sean said finally. “You don’t have to make a decision on that right this minute. I’ve got an idea. Come on back to my apartment.”

  “Really? That’d be okay?” Elias felt light all over with relief and pleasure.

  “Sure. And listen: I just got a call from a friend of mine who owns a time-share on a house on Fire Island. A couple of his friends who were going to be spending the weekend there just canceled, and so he invited me out instead. I think it’d be no problem for me to call him back and wangle an invitation for you, too. Would you like to go out to the Island for the weekend? It’ll be pretty packed because of the Labor Day holiday, but it should be fun.”

  “Fire Island?”

  “You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course I have.” Fire Island! My god— Father used to call it the Sodom and Gomorrah of the East Coast. Elias took a deep breath and bounced up and down on his heels to nerve himself up to answer. “That’d be great. I’d love to come.”

  “I can introduce you to some people—who knows? You just might meet someone who’s looking for a roommate.”

  Chapter Seven

  For truth has such a face and such a mien

  As to be lov’d needs only to be seen.

  —JOHN DRYDEN,

  “THE HIND AND THE PANTHER”

  Her face streaked with tears, Eliza stumbled down the broad marble steps of Kellbrooke Hall and out to the avenue. Just beyond the first gate lay a broad circle of crushed gravel for carriages to turn around; at the far end, the avenue resumed, leading away from the circle to the outer gates. Eliza began the long walk around the circle, her thin-soled shoes occasionally slipping on the shifting pebbles. Her tears made seeing her footing difficult, and she brushed them away, angry at her weakness, her breast throbbing with hurt and humiliation. Cold, watery light from the rising half-moon outlined with silver each blade of grass on the carefully tended lawn.

  A breeze, perfumed with the scent from the flower gardens, made the skin on her arms prickle into gooseflesh. The only sound was the dreamy strumming of cricketsong. At the outer gate, she stopped and looked back. Kellbrooke Hall crouched in the moonlight, solid and indifferent, a faint silver gleam reflecting off the ball at the top of the cupola. A warm glow spilled from the windows, and she thought with sudden grief of her mother. Something inside of her wanted to wail to the heavens like a bewildered child, protesting that this was her mother’s house, and her mother would never have allowed anyone to drive her away. But she remained silent, for the first Lady Grey was dead, and no one else would listen to her. The light shining from the front doorway cut off as Eliza watched; that was Robert Owen, closing the door. After a moment, Eliza resolutely turned her face away from her birthplace and continued down the avenue. She didn’t look back.

  She never saw Kellbrooke Hall again.

  After almost a quarter hour, Eliza came to the juncture of the avenue with the common road, and she turned onto it. The stone fence by the side of the road made a dim line of white for her to follow in the moonlight. Except for Eliza the road remained deserted.

  The night remained dry and warm at least, and the path was easy, but her dress weighed her limbs down heavily. Eventually she looped the train up over her arm. She walked at a steady pace, setting her feet mechanically one in front of the other, her mind numb of all thought, until she began stumbling from sheer exhaustion. Abruptly she stopped in her tracks and looked around, but could see neither cottage nor hamlet anywhere nearby. A small copse of trees grew to one side of the road. She had to rest, she realized wearily. She wondered whether she should try to walk farther and find a goodwife who might let her sleep on the floor of her cottage or even in a barn, for charity’s sake. The thought of arriving on some farmer’s doorstep long after sunset, dressed like a great lady and yet forced to beg for a night’s shelter, made her shrink inwardly.

  An inner instinct urged h
er to avoid other people, to hide herself like a wounded animal. After hesitating for another moment, Eliza turned off the road for the shelter of the trees. Her eyes took a few minutes to adjust to the greater gloom of the shadows here. She felt her way forward through the pathless undergrowth, keeping her hands in front of her face to brush low-lying branches away from her eyes as she went. Gradually, the brush plucking at her skirts thinned, and the growth underfoot changed to soft and springy moss. Overhead, stars shone through an opening in the trees, and she smelled the sweet, cool scent of bruised mint. She had come to the edge of a small woodland pool. Her foot caught, painfully, on a stone, and she half fell to her knees. The hard knot inside her loosened again, and she wept for a time, leaning against a tree, her tears trickling slowly down her cheeks and soaking into the rough bark. When all her tears were finally done, she raised her head. “Lord, help me,” she whispered. “Dearest Father, sweet Jesu, have pity upon me! Hold Thy daughter in the palm of Thy hand and watch over and protect her sleep.”

  The ground was a little higher on this side of the pond, and the moss quite dry. She raked an armful of leaves around herself, and then wearily lay down, tucking some underneath her head to cushion it from the tree roots. She lay quietly for a time, staring up at the stars. Foxes have holes, she thought to herself drowsily, remembering her scriptures, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

  Oddly comforted, she cradled her head in the crook of her arm, and in a moment sank into a deep sleep. The breeze died away, leaving a gentle hush. Overhead, the stars wheeled slowly through the night, and no one came near to disturb her dreams.

  Light filtering through shifting leaves onto Eliza’s face woke her the next morning. She lifted her head from her pillow of leaves and raised herself on one elbow to look around, blinking sleepily, trying to remember where she was. Her gaze fell on the bright blue dress she still wore, dappled with patches of sunlight, and memory came flooding back.

  Eliza pulled up her legs stiffly and rolled to her knees, twigs crunching underneath her. The dew had dampened her dress, and her ribs ached; she had been too tired even to loosen the strings on the stomacher before falling asleep. Brushing leaves from her hair, she staggered to her feet and painfully limped over to the pool. Tendrils of mist hovering over the surface shivered away as she dipped her hands into the water. Her touch broke the perfect stillness of the pool, making ripples eddy out from her hand in ever-widening circles. She drew a double handful to her mouth and drank, water drops trickling over her hands and soaking into the lace at her wrists. The cold made her gasp with pleasure, and greedily she drank some more. It tasted of moss, she thought to herself. Moss, and mist and secrets. Finally satisfied, Eliza opened her hands to let the last of the water splash back into the pool. As the ripples stilled, the reflection that appeared on the water’s surface jolted her with a dreadful shock, like the pain of an unexpected burn. With a smothered exclamation, she pushed her hair back and leaned forward to look more closely.

  The face in the water leered up at her like a malevolent, decadent stranger. The lead ceruse made her skin not just pale but a dead white, the color of pallid grubs that hid from the sun under rotten logs. Her cheeks contrasted garishly, the rouge paste making her look as if she burned with a high fever, and the color only emphasized the red rims of her eyes. Her mouth, still smeared with scarlet, seemed to bleed like a wound, and the patches looked like nothing so much as flies clustering on the face of a corpse. A painted whore, her father had called her. Eliza shuddered in revolted horror and shame, seeing now what he had seen and finally understanding how well Lady Grey had worked to ruin her. She wondered bitterly whether the Countess had mixed witchcraft with her paints, turning father against daughter with the aid of a magical glamour.

  “It is a lie,” Eliza whispered to the mocking mask in the pool. Angrily she thrust her hand into the water to shatter the reflection and jumped to her feet. “It is a lie! That is not me. I am no whore!”

  The touch of the fabric of the dress her mother-in-law had given her suddenly seemed to burn her skin. She hastily stripped it all off: outer gown, quilted underskirt, stomacher and chemise, shoes and stockings, and when she was naked, she jumped into the pool. The stinging cold made her yelp aloud and then laugh with a kind of giddy relief. She ducked her head underneath the surface and scrubbed her face vigorously with her hands. Then she rolled over and floated on her back. As she stared up at the blue arc of the sky above her, she felt as if something slimy clinging to her had melted away, dissolving into the quiet pool like a nightmare fleeing before the break of day.

  Eliza swam for a long time, only climbing out reluctantly when her teeth began to chatter. A large rock stood at the pool’s edge, warmed by the sun, and she sat there, running her fingers through her hair to comb out the tangles and spreading it out over her shoulders to dry in the warm air. When drips had ceased trickling down her waist and her bangs had begun to stir on her forehead from the breeze, she took the chemise and, gritting her teeth, tore the lace from the wrists. She drew it over her head and went back to the edge of the pool to look at herself again. There, she saw her own familiar face gazing back up at her, all traces of illusion banished. The sunlight caught glints of red in her hair, transforming them into threads of molten gold shining in a corona around her face. Eliza smiled in relief and went back to sit on the rock to think.

  The growling of her stomach distracted her attention. She needed food and—she glanced at the dress heaped on the ground—new clothes. Where, she wondered, could she go, now that she had been driven from Kellbrooke Hall?

  The answer to that, of course, became clear to Eliza immediately. If, perchance, Nell had told her, matters do not fall as they should, I will always have a place by my hearth for thee, if thou should ever need it. Nell’s cottage was her home now, she understood with a thankful rush. She didn’t need to be torn between two worlds anymore. Her father’s world had cast her out, and she was truly Nell’s daughter now.

  Her mother-in-law had managed to cheat her of her true birthright. And yet it was better this way, Eliza told herself with fierce gladness. She had returned to Kellbrooke Hall not to assume the status of an earl’s daughter but to win redress for her foster mother. But money wasn’t what Nell wanted, Eliza realized, remembering the gnawing pain in Nell’s eyes at their parting. Nell wanted a daughter, a child she could truly claim as her own. And after all, who had a greater claim to the love and duty Eliza owed a parent than Nell?

  All that remained was for Eliza to go home and tell her so.

  Eliza stopped at three farms before she found a woman approximately the same size as herself who had a dress that could be traded for the gown given to her by the Countess. Even then, persuading the farmwife to agree to the transaction took some time.

  “ ‘Tis not filched, is it?” the woman said warily. She had set her butter churn aside at Eliza’s appearance at her doorway and come out to look at the dress in the sunlight.

  “No,” Eliza replied. Under the circumstances Eliza could not blame her. Anyone lunatic enough to appear in a farmyard, barefoot and clad only in a fine lawn chemise, offering to exchange a rich gown slung over one arm for a plain one could not help but arouse suspicions. “ ‘Tis mine honestly. A gift, it was.”

  “And you want to rid yourself of it now?” The woman turned her attention from the gown to Eliza, puzzled. Something struck her as odd in the girl’s expression. Whether it was sadness or weariness or something else, she couldn’t quite tell, but it seemed strange in the eyes of one so young. Yet the woman couldn’t quite bring herself to think the girl a thief. She must have powerful friends or relatives, or a rich patron if she could afford to all but give away something so valuable. But if so, what was she doing here, traveling alone and barefoot?

  Eliza smoothed the line of one of the heavy sleeves, remembering the strange glint in her mother-in-law’s eyes when Eliza had modeled the dress for her. “It... is no
t a gift I wish to keep,” she said firmly.

  That earned her another baffled look. Finally, the woman shrugged, wiped her work-roughened hands on her apron, and gingerly reached out to feel the texture of the brocaded outer gown. “Why, ‘tis much too fine for working use.” She laughed raucously, revealing a gap in her teeth. “Fancy me slopping the pig wearing that! And I’ve naught but a few pence put by.”

  Eliza sighed. “I am wishful for only a simple gown in exchange, truly. And perhaps some food.” She held the gown up by the shoulders and turned it so the woman could see the back. “I have a pair of shoes and stockings here, too, to go with it. If you cannot use the clothes themselves, could you not sell them? Or perhaps,” she added, noting the young girl who had edged her way to her mother’s elbow and was staring at the gown’s rich blue like a moth drawn to the flame of a candle, “you could make the gown over for your daughter to use?”

  The woman quickly glanced to one side and caught the look of naked longing in her daughter’s eyes.

  “Aye,” she said slowly, “perhaps.” Not for a moment did she actually intend to let Susanna keep the dress; it would not do for her to wear while slopping pigs, either. But the woman had fond hopes of purchasing another cow before winter. A gown that aroused that kind of desire in Susanna might also be appealing to one or another of the more prosperous goodwives in the neighborhood—someone holding more coins in her purse than she had. And if this unknown girl was indeed simpleton enough to trade it away, why not profit from it?

  Or perhaps, the farmwife thought, seized by a sudden flight of imagination, she was an honest girl who had been forced to become some rich man’s mistress? Could she be now making her escape from her seducer and ridding herself of all her trappings of sin in order to hide from him? Well, if so, she would help her—not that it was really her business, after all. “Susanna, do you go to the chest in the front room and take out the gown of brown holland there.” She eyed Eliza speculatively. “And what say you to some bread and a bit of mutton or so? I can give you cheese and a roasted egg to take along with you, too. Will that make the trade, then, if the brown holland fits?”