Victorine

by Maude Hutchins

  Costello felt Victorine’s eyes upon him and smiled at her, but it was a smile that included her; at least that is what she felt, and perhaps she was right. She left them.

  Outside, Dennis, an inch taller again, leaner, a little more sensible but not much, was helping Joe spread the compost lightly over the lawns, he loved the smell of it, it had an essence, a depth, a tone almost, and its dense dark look, and fine as black talcum, set him to taking notes unconsciously. At the very least, one day, an elegiac couplet would come out of the compost. But Dennis, innocent of his destiny, still talked baby-talk and wet the bed occasionally.

  Allison was reading My Recollections of Lord Byron by Countess Guiccioli, and Homer was dead.

  But what about Millie? Millie was still vigorous and blonde and as desirable as ever under the twenty little lamps, and even in the village, facing east, she had a blatant charm.

  She had shed no tears at Homer’s “vertigo,” as the Press had tactfully described his jump; only on police records in dark files was Homer dubbed in homicide lingo “a leaper” and only Midtown Manhattan, as has been said, knew what it was all about, and the Wall Street Journal runs no obituaries. But what “arrangement” had Homer made for her, Millie, in case of his sudden and certainly unforeseen death? Homer had always made a lasting impression that he would last for ever; you never could imagine his childhood and neither could you foresee his senility. He gave one confidence, he was always right, as Victorine had noted. Millie, automatically, it was her nature to be practical, checked the billet doux, it might be called, the only thing Homer ever put in writing, although she knew it by heart: “Darling Millie, If you will please stop being angry and let me come tonight you will not be sorry. Your desperate Homer.” That is what, believe it or not, Homer, when he was twenty and engaged to Allison, you remember, wrote, in his youthful exuberance, to the village queen, Millie. That Millie, blonde and fresh and half-naked under the twenty little lamps had no trouble, in the heat of Homer’s passion, in getting him to add the date and the next paragraph which read, “I promise to share with Millie S—— part of my income as long as she lives for being so sweet to me tonight, signed Homer Wilmerding L’Hommedieu” is herewith proved, if it need be. A postscript which added “on condition she does not ever divulge our love affair” was generously penned in Millie’s own handwriting and coyly signed by herself. . . . For a second Millie visualized the twenty-five-year-old scene. Homer had been so handsome and so able-bodied and she had given him a good time. But he had never enjoyed himself as much with her again. He had not hesitated to ask her for the missive back, in fact he asked for it exactly fifteen minutes after he signed it. Homer never took longer than that, and after the event he was always sober as a judge. But Millie held on to it, she had a collector’s item; whether she knew its extreme rarity is doubtful but she knew its value to herself, nevertheless, and besides, it amused her. Homer, following his marriage to Allison, dared not argue with Millie and he paid her regularly a certain moderate sum which she did not complain of.

  But what arrangement had he made for her now?

  As time passed and Millie heard absolutely nothing from Homer’s lawyer or anyone else, she grew, I believe it is called, restive.

  She began to carry around on her person, between her breasts, where it was handy, Homer’s indiscreet promise in writing. She confided in no one and in the evenings she studied it, wondered about its possible value. It said, didn’t it, as long as she, that’s Millie, lives, so being deceased, himself, did not cancel the payments—but who—he surely, if she knew him (didn’t she, though!), hadn’t told a soul of the affair or the promise. She would have to handle it herself, then; she thought about it. Millie wasn’t really mean, she was just practical and she would surely be a fool to give up fifteen hundred a year, especially as she had never asked Homer for more although she knew he was rich. She had never, either, really borne any resentment, not much at least, against Homer; in a kind of feminine parenthesis, she did hate the pretty Costello, who had thought she was too old to sleep with; she never could figure any other reason why he had left the feast so suddenly. But she shook her head at the painful recollection, it could wait. She thought of Allison. She bore no grudge against her either. She need not, because she had never thought of her as a rival. Just as she could not understand Costello’s shame at her immodesty, the shock of her brazen attempt to seduce him, when all he wanted was to adore her, neither could she comprehend the principle of innocence, and Homer, almost on his wedding night, certainly when he was already engaged to Allison, had come to her, not once, but often, and after the marriage, too, he had come, more excited and passionate than before. So Allison was no rival of hers; she thought that Allison was stupid and probably, in fact, surely, not sexually attractive. She felt no pity either for Homer’s widow.

  She was carefully dressing, as lady-like as possible, not too much make-up, gloves, no jewels, her dark suit, to call on Allison when she almost jumped out of her skin: On condition she does not ever divulge our love affair!

  “Son of a bitch!” said Millie angrily and she blushed crimson. “The rat, the stinker, the shit!” She stamped her foot and pounded her fist on the infidelity in writing, the easy money, the promise, the signature as rare as hens’ teeth. She was furious at poor dead Homer for fooling her! But she had added the postscript herself . . . and signed it . . . like a fool . . . already half undressed and Homer shaking with desire. She could have had anything! And how coyly she had sat on it afterwards when he asked for it back! It was worthless! It was Homer’s final “Don’t Tell!”

  Was it worth absolutely nothing? Millie stared at it. Then, volatile by nature, not really bad, it came to her . . . a dramatic change came over her and tears gathered in her eyes, they were tears of self-pity, self-indulgence, but they were sweet. She would be . . . noble! She would give up the precious note, sacrifice any possible return or interest and . . . Allison might just possibly be generous. No, she expected nothing, she would simply enclose the missive and send it to Allison without a word. That was the big way to do it. In fact she would tear it once across to show Allison that she was giving it up . . . woman to woman. It was a wonderful idea, a noble gesture. So she did it and ran out and posted it. She was a really stupid woman, completely self-centred and self-supporting, she meant no harm to Allison, that angle simply hadn’t struck her. That she was giving up nothing she did not dwell on. She felt honestly good and noble. It was wonderful.

  •

  And that is what drew from Allison the cry of pain that we foretold. The beautiful make-believe Homer lay gasping his last, lay dying in her brain and she sobbed and moaned for his loss. The other death, the jump she didn’t understand, had not touched her.

  “It is not unusual,” said the doctor, “she has only just realized.” And how right he was. Allison flushed Homer’s infidelity down the toilet and went into a decline.

  “She needs a change of scene,” said the young doctor, “and she will be fit as ever.” He visualized himself in a pretty boat with yellow sails nudging the numerous little islands in the Baltic.

  Poor Allison, no snob, it didn’t help at all that Homer had slept only with his inferiors. And the smell of the little note lasted for ever; hadn’t Millie harboured it between her breasts?

  Chapter XVIII

  Spring

  So Victorine left Lydia and Costello, really for ever; whatever her part had been in bringing them emotionally together, whatever sentimental education she had tutored them in, it was over and they were on their own; they had graduated and would surpass, as sometimes happens, their little professor. It would be a long time before Victorine herself would take the pledge: In sickness and in health, until death do us part, I do, and I will. She followed the short cut down the back stairs and through the kitchen, with Fool Fred in mind. She gave Elsie a big smile and ran down the kitchen steps.

  “Blessèd little orphan,” said Elsie cheerfully. “Saints preserve us.” She sat down heav
ily to her luncheon. “Poor Missus,” she said out loud and shook her head. That Allison should suffer so the loss of Homer that she was as good as dead, she could not understand. She could not know that Homer had blown up in Allison’s face like a child’s balloon on a string, and she was shattered. Elsie had bought herself, along with the family’s share, six big oysters (cotuits) and as she watched them shrink under the squirts of lemon juice she aimed at them, they reminded her of Homer’s astringent smile when she bade him good morning. “Ugh,” she said, “Glory be to God.” Elsie always covered a deal of territory at her lunch and tea hour and her thoughts came out in short ejaculations. “Them sailors! Them girls!” she snorted.

  Joe and Dennis were digging little round holes in the flowerbed with identical red-handled trowels and did not look up as Victorine passed them. Long legged, she stepped right over the fence, nipping the inside of her thigh, and crossed the big field that was still spongy underfoot, not yet wholly thawed out. Nanny, looking like a tawny ship in the distance, the high yellow grass undulating like waves around her, stretched her neck and gave a melodious tender mooo; Victorine waved at her. Vaulting the second fence, she reached the viridian hedge and was well on her way. How long ago was it that she had held on to the imaginary Misael by the hand and asked him, “Do you love me?” She had outdistanced him, she didn’t give him a thought. And old Sadie Lovejoy, lunching alone in the crimson dining-room, attended by Hilda in a lace apron, she, too, was buried deep in Victorine’s consciousness, part of a painful past. Pedro, asleep in a big yellow satin chair, did not catch the scent of her as she walked along beside the hedge, out of which he had performed his arabesque.

  “Good day, Victorine.”

  The Reverend Fulton-Peate, his white collar, backwards, making him look decapitated, a very pale-eyed head of St. John, barred her way. Chin lowered, cataleptic, she had nearly run him down. As tall as he, she looked him evenly in the face and a slight shudder went through her. Perhaps it was the still too cool spring breeze that chills the body even when the skin is hot from the sun.

  “A lovely day,” he said; “it is good to be alive on a day like this.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Victorine agreed, but how did the Reverend Fulton-Peate know, did he really feel the warm sun, smell the sticky shoots and wet buds, and his heart beat faster than in January?

  A cardinal let out a whistle as shrill as a sailor’s.

  “Listen to the cardinal,” said the Reverend Fulton-Peate. “Are you acquainted with the birds?”

  Victorine froze. She was angry, how dare he confide in her, how dare he ask her personal questions!

  “I know that the weather is lovely and there is much to interest you outdoors in such lovely weather, but I have missed you at eight o’clock communion,” he said. “Perhaps you will be there this coming Sunday?”

  “I don’t know,” Victorine said, almost rudely.

  “Well, my dear,” said the Reverend Fulton-Peate, “you are growing up fast, you are no longer a little girl, you make your own decisions.”

  “Big stupid,” thought Victorine, in a temper.

  “Soon,” he tried to twinkle his eyes but they were opaque as milk, “you will fall in love, and become engaged to be married.”

  Victorine flushed. “I will not!” she said, quite beside herself.

  “Come, come, my dear, a pretty girl like you!” the rector persisted. He misunderstood Victorine’s reaction and rejection.

  She felt that he was accusing her of stealing, that he guessed at the evil in her, that he knew something she didn’t know, some deeper passionate mystery. Love! That?

  She felt that it would suffocate her, she visualized it as an amorphous shapeless mass, something wet and spongy in a big bag with tentacles the shape of Nanny’s blood-shot teats; but it had nothing to do with anatomy in her mind. It was a queer intuitive sexual fear, a very womanly cowardice. It wasn’t a vision, it was a feeling.

  “Never!” she said and she said it with dignity. He felt her contempt, her virginity despised him, it was he who blushed, red spots broke out on his forehead and a blue vein there hardened.

  She longed for Fool Fred who would never “love” her that way and she meant it when she said, “Never!” Never would she do “that” with anyone she loved. How near, in her clairvoyant state, in the feel of evil that she was born with, was she, to being right? The last person to know would be the petty male antagonist in the path, the Reverend Fulton-Peate.

  Ill at ease, put in the wrong by a headstrong virtuous little girl, he made as if to go. “There is the love of God,” he said, not feeling very sure of himself, but he had often heard it said and he repeated it now, wanting, perhaps, the last word.

  It shocked Victorine, the change of subject-matter, it was as if he were stirring up her bowels with a big spoon, because, although he had cleverly changed the subject, he was still talking about Sex, about It, the evil and the remorse, the phantasy and the pain, blood and lust. Elsie’s secret rites and sacrifices had thrilled and terrified her, Joe’s blushes and butterflies, too, Lydia’s experimental and tentative near-seduction, Costello’s hard thighs, especially Costello’s hard thighs? . . . her heart beat so hard in her breast she could hear it thumping in her ears; she looked, her dark eyes hot and deep, as if she had been caught in the shameful act, itself, the act of love; but the Reverend Fulton-Peate saw nothing, taken up as he was with his retreat. . . . The Holy Bum! Ah, he was the one who had culminated, deepened the wound, so that it would never heal, he was the one, gyrating in the air and shouting ecstatically, tossing an imaginary alligator over his shoulder in the name of “love,” that faithless wife rotating her hips, wanting to eat up a half-naked boy in a pit, smeared with alligator blood! Like a fixative he had fixed it. . . . The love of God? That too! Even the love of God was bloody, blood ran like a scarlet thread through the Testaments, and lust, desire and cupidity. The frail male cadaver of Jesus God lay across His mother’s knees, pale yellow with red holes in it . . . the milky-eyed sadist was offering her the body of sweet Jesus to eat and his hot blood to drink. She smelled incense and saw the rosy particles of dust in the fingerling rays of light in Trinity Church, heard and felt the great organ surging in an overpowering avalanche of rhythmic sound, celebrating the awful feast.

  Victorine’s knees nearly gave way beneath her and the swooning sensation was the same as in the black swamp. Poor child. But as the Reverend Fulton-Peate was scarcely looking at her and could not sense the passionate holocaust of her sickening fascinating visions, she gathered up her strength, and her fear turning easily into anger, she said, “I hate,” she almost said, “God,” but it came out “church.” “I hate church!” She was saved from blasphemy by the language alone, a technicality.

  “Good gracious!” said the Reverend Fulton-Peate; he almost giggled, he felt very nervous. He hurried on.

  “Stinker!” he said surprisingly, he said it out loud and it startled him; he looked around. He quickly resumed his temperate companionable expression and no one could guess that he had had a very minor tantrum.

  But Victorine was not satisfied with a victory she did not feel. She turned back and caught up with him in a few steps.

  “You want me to drink Jesus” blood!” she hissed. She trembled with anger and was near tears.

  “Dear child! It’s only wine from the village,” said the rector.

  What!

  “I know better,” said Victorine but she was taken aback.

  “Good day!” said the Reverend Fulton-Peate, he was frightened to death at the admission he had let out without meaning to. He was awfully tempted to beg Victorine, the enfant terrible, not “to tell.”

  “Victorine . . .”

  She did not answer.

  “Good day.”

  He could only hope for the best. Squire Johnson and the other deacons might hear of it . . . well, he could accept a call elsewhere, in the Middle West perhaps.

  Victorine almost ran the rest of the way. She l
onged to be good, and quick, right away. She longed to lie naked in the Paisley shawl, Fool Fred standing over her, loving her with his eyes, caressing her with his voice, giving her succour with his being as if he were nursing her. She dared not wish for the white stallion and his virgin parts like big peaches, his deep dark translucent eyes, the smell of heavenly hay.

  She found the little apartment wide open to the spring sunshine, and mixed with the sunlight a quantity of dust like smoke, the second maid from the big house, representing “They,” no doubt, was in a frenzy of house-cleaning. The Paisley shawl hung out of a window getting a good realistic airing, the books lay in uneven heaps on the floor while she scrubbed the shelves, a vacuum cleaner dominated the scene, its various parts in chairs and on the mantel, a big bucket of soapy water blocked Victorine’s way. She turned to flee the confusion Fool Fred so disliked, the everlasting cleaning that hurt his feelings. “Miss!” yelled the maid, turning on the vacuum cleaner as if purposely to drown out what she was saying and yet still be heard. “They’re shootin’ the horse today!”

  Victorine, stunned, couldn’t think. “What horse?” she yelled. It couldn’t be the stallion, he was a private horse, They wouldn’t know about. Only she and Fool Fred understood each other and saw the stallion walking, because they were taboo.

  “The horse,” yelled the maid as the vacuum sucked viciously at the curtains.

  “What horse? It must be a horse!” Victorine raised her voice still louder and stamped her foot.

  The maid turned off the vacuum cleaner in exasperation, but not yet aware of the silence, there was a lag in her perception, she hollered, “The old mare, what other horse is there? The old mare who throwed the Master,” and, pursing her lips, she clicked the switch on again and turned her back on Victorine, shaking her shoulders with annoyance. There was a certain dignity in her stance, surrounded as she was by confusion, and in her repudiation of the gentry. The old Madame was touched, Mister Fred was half-witted, and young Miss L’Hommedieu was stupid.