It was not until afterward that Ivy became aware that love had ceased to be one thing in a moment and had become another thing entirely, although what it had been was included in what it became, and neither was he aware until later that there was in her ecstasy the deep and grievous sadness of irreparable loss.
And so for Ivy there was the summer and the symbolic smile, the ecstasy and anguish of what was gained and lost and of learning to know and accept herself as someone quite different from the person she had thought she was, or had thought she could possibly be. There was also in the passing of days and weeks and months an accretion of guilt and unspecific fear that was something quite apart from, and far deadlier than, whatever specific fear of discovery she might have felt in relation to her mother and father. But guilt and fear were still, and would for a long time be, of less effect than love, and at the end of summer, when it was time for Lila to go away to her father and then to her school, everything was of no effect at all in the dreadful desolation and loneliness in which Ivy was left.
“You’ll never come back,” Ivy said the night before Lila departed. “I have the most terrible feeling that I’ll never see you again.”
“You’re wrong. Next summer I’ll come, if your parents will have me. I’m sure that Father will be most happy to dispose of me so conveniently. In the meanwhile, I’ll write to you. Does your father or mother ever open your mail?”
“I don’t get much mail, but I don’t remember that they’ve ever opened any.”
“Nevertheless, I’d better be careful what I write. You’ll understand me, however. I’ll make allusions to places and times, and you’ll know what I mean.”
“I wish I could go away with you.”
“One day you shall. I’ll become a model, and we’ll have an apartment together. Good models are paid quite well, and I’ll have some money from Father besides, when he dies. He’s lived so hard that it’s very likely he won’t live to old age. I think his liver’s gone bad.”
“One day. It seems so indefinite and far away. How long, do you think?”
“Maybe sooner than you imagine. You’ll be eighteen in a little over a year. I think I may leave school for good next spring. Maybe soon after that. Isn’t the moonlight lovely? It’s like the first night I came here to your room.”
“I can hear it. Can you? You must listen very intently. It makes me so drowsy. I feel as if I were floating away on the sound of the moonlight, right out of the window and away forever.”
“I wouldn’t want you to float away forever. Then you wouldn’t be here when I return next summer.”
“Let’s not talk about that. About your going away, I mean. I can’t bear to think of it.”
“Would you like to sleep for a while?”
“I think I would, but I don’t want you to go away. Will you stay here if I sleep?”
“I’ll stay for another hour and watch you. I love to watch you when you’re asleep. You look so incredibly innocent, like a small child.”
“Will you wake me before you go back to your room?”
“Yes. I promise. Go to sleep now. Listen to the sound of the moonlight.”
She lay quietly in the cradle of Lila’s arm and went to sleep to the sound, and all through the fall and winter and spring that followed, lying alone at night, she always listened for the sound and waited in the darkness for it to come, and at first it came quickly and clearly, without delay, but then it began to be more and more elusive and remote, and finally could not be heard at all. With Lila gone, with only an allusive letter now and then to assure her presence on earth, the domination of guilt by love became uncertain, and the unspecific fear, which her father might have simplified as the fear of God, assumed slowly a commanding place and became a constant threat. During the time of the three seasons, Ivy was balanced precariously between one thing and another, standing in the time of decision between two ways to go, either of which was possible. But she made no decision, and the seasons passed, and Lila returned in the fourth season, the summer, and then there was no longer a decision to be made, and no way to go but one. The quality of the secret smile was again in everything, and the sound of the moonlight could again be heard, but there was nevertheless a significant difference between the first summer and the second, and the difference lay in an increased consciousness of an enormous commitment and in the dangerous consequences the commitment might entail.
It is possible to hide from the senses forever something that can only be seen, but it is not possible to hide from the senses forever, or even for very long, something that can be felt. Awareness may come slowly, but it comes certainly, and it carries conviction even if there is no material evidence to support it. And so it happened in the second summer that even so insensitive an egoist as the Reverend Dr. Theodore Galvin became uneasily aware that the emotional climate surrounding his daughter and his niece did not satisfy his conception of the effect of a normal attachment. He reluctantly discussed it with his wife and found support for his suspicions, which were by the support immediately transformed into conviction. They decided between them that something would have to be done to prevent a consummation they did not know had already been accomplished, and their idea of what to do was to institute a kind of police action. They imposed such sudden and severe restrictions and engaged so palpably in surveillance that both Ivy and Lila knew almost at once that they were under unspoken indictment.
“They know,” Lila said.
They were sitting on the glider under the tree on the side lawn. To Ivy the familiar patterns of sun and shade were the shapes and signs of a corporate threat. It did not occur to her, however, that there was any escape from it by retreat, or any choice left to her except the one that had been set. There was Lila, or there was nothing. There was hope, or there was hopelessness.
“Yes,” she said. “What can we do?”
“There’s nothing we can do. Not now. They’ll surely send me away.”
“If they do, I’ll go with you.”
Although Ivy was not clearly conscious of it, the they was not used in simple reference to her father and mother, for already the specific had been absorbed by the general, the smaller overt threat no more than a sign of the greater and deadlier one of which it was a part. They were the enemy in an ancient conflict, the accusing host.
“You can’t,” Lila said. “It’s not time. We’ll have to wait.”
“I can’t stand it if they send you away. I think I’ll die.”
“You won’t die. You’ll wait. In a few month you’ll be eighteen, and then you can come to me if you wish. In the meanwhile, I’ll prepare for it. Father knows a man who runs a model agency, and he’s promised to take me on. When I leave here, I’ll go to work immediately.”
“Suppose they try to stop me from coming. Do you think they could?”
“Your father and mother? They may try, but there’s a limit to what they can do. They won’t make an open issue of it, you know. They couldn’t bear the disgrace if the truth became known, and so, after all, you will be able to control the situation. As a matter of fact, I suspect, whatever they do or say, that they’ll be relieved to have you go. They’ll pretend afterward that you are dead.”
“How will you let me know when and where to come? It wouldn’t be safe to write.”
“Not here, of course, but I can send it to another address. To someone you know who will pass the letter on to you. Write to me when I get home and let me know where.”
Lila was right in assuming that she would surely be sent away, but it was done indirectly with no open reference to the reason for it, and indeed with the pretension that it was not being done at all. The Reverend Dr. Theodore Galvin, a master of indirection, simply wrote to his brother, Lila’s father, that it had become apparent, for reasons he would prefer not to divulge unless they were specifically requested, that it
would be better for everyone concerned if Lila were ordered to come home. The black sheep brother knew his daughter rather well, and he had no wish to know any more than he already did. He wrote Lila to come home and did not ask for reasons. Lila went. She said good-by politely, expressing her regret at having to leave, and the Galvins said good-by just as politely, expressing their regret at having her go, and the pretension was sustained to the end. The Reverend Dr. Galvin drove Lila to the station with her luggage, and Ivy went to her room and lay down on the bed and had for the first time in her life a sincere wish that she would often have later, which was the wish to die quietly and quickly without pain.
The period that followed was an extremely difficult one for Ivy, but she lived it somehow in intervals of days, often certain that Lila would never send for her as she had promised, but finally the letter came that fulfilled the promise. The definitive break, the departure from her home and parents, was accomplished so quietly that its finality was implicit in its quietness.
“Going?” her father said. “Where are you going?”
His face was perplexed and wary.
“I’m going to live with Cousin Lila.”
There was a brittle, defiant note in her voice.
“I forbid you to do so.”
“You may forbid me if you please, but it won’t stop me. I’m going.”
“If you leave against my wishes, I shall consider you dead. You will never be allowed in this house again, or in any house of which I am master.”
At this moment his face was like a stranger’s.
“I expected that. I’m willing to accept it.”
“Very well. Go when you are ready, but don’t speak to me again. I won’t want to say good-by.”
Ivy’s mother stood with the man she adored, and Ivy could not remember afterward a single thing she did or a single word she said, either of reproach or regret, in the time of parting. Everything was understood, but nothing was expressed.
And so began the life of Ivy and Lila together, and for a while it had gone wonderfully, and for a longer while it had gone well, but then it had begun to go bad. One cause of the growing badness was Ivy’s recurring and deepening depression, and another cause was Lila’s duality. Unlike Ivy, she was not wholly committed, and she could be one person in one time and another person in another time, depending on the times and their demands. The night of Ivy’s flight and meeting with Henry, the bad time getting worse had become as bad as it could be, but in the relationship with Henry, although the time was still bad, it was a bad time getting better. Lying in darkness on Henry’s sofa, she believed at last that it would be possible to have with him a saving alliance that would absolve her of the past and secure the future, and there was in her belief a compelling urgency to test it. The possibility was directly contingent, she felt, upon present circumstances, and what could be accomplished here and now and with this man could not be accomplished hereafter in another place with anyone else.
Getting up, she walked through the dark into the bedroom and stood beside the bed on which Henry lay. He was lying on his back on the far side with one arm crossing his chest on top of the covers and the other arm, the near one, stretched out at his side. She could see him only dimly in the dark room, but his breath was drawn and released with the rhythm and depth of sleep.
“Henry,” she said.
He didn’t answer, nor even stir, and there was no break in the rhythm of his breathing. She got into bed and lay beside him, very carefully not touching him until she was entirely ready, and then she reached for his hand and laid it deliberately on her breast. He stirred briefly, making a whimpering sound and Ivy held her breath. She squeezed his hand with hers, placed it more firmly on her breast and felt a surge of strange emotion in her.
Henry grunted and suddenly turned.
“Who is it?” he mumbled.
“Henry—Henry, I—I—” Ivy’s voice broke off in a faint whisper.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, then in the dim, uncertain predawn light she saw his eyes widen as he became aware of where his hand was resting.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
He laughed uncertainly. “No. Of course, not.”
“Henry, would you like to kiss me?”
Instead of answering her, he turned fully toward her and placed his lips on hers. It was a groping, tentative kiss and Ivy could feel a terrible trembling in her body. She was suddenly cold and she wanted to push Henry away, but she suffered the kiss to go on. Then she felt his hand pressing more firmly on her breast through the thin cloth of the nightgown. After a moment he removed it and put both arms around her, pulling her closer. She resisted momentarily, her body still strangely cold, then yielded. He brought her soft, quaking flesh against his lean hardness and Ivy felt panic begin to blossom deep inside her.
She was mashed against Henry now and he was kissing her, this time not so gently. His mouth was urgent and a little rough and suddenly his hand crept under the nightgown and was caressing the bare flesh of her breasts. His thumb and index finger toyed with the nipple of her lift breast, massaging it gently. A wild current of feeling rode like quicksilver through Ivy’s veins. She wanted to scream and cry. There was a stirring of desire in her—like the remembered delight of the hours spent in Lila’s arms—but there was a difference she couldn’t fathom and she couldn’t fight down the horrible, crawling fear that suddenly clutched at her vitals.
Suddenly, without conscious volition, she arched against him, pushing against his chest with a terrible frenzy. She withdrew slightly and in that moment she lashed out at his face, raking the nails of her left hand across it. Henry cried out in pain, then cursed.
Ivy scrambled out of the bed, clutching her nightgown to her quaking body. Henry got out the other side of the bed and quickly turned on a lamp. Blood was trickling down his cheek from the gashes left by Ivy’s nails. She had hurt him and she was sorry and there was a deep sadness in her for him. She wanted to ask his forgiveness but the fury she saw in his eyes held her back.
“You rotten bitch,” he said. “You goddamn queer.”
“Henry, please, I thought I could—”
“Shut up, damn you!” he raged.
He put his hand to his face, then lowered it and stared at the smear of blood across fingers and palm, and his eyes were suddenly sick with shame. Turning, he walked into the bathroom and she could hear water running into the lavatory, followed by the sound of the door of the medicine cabinet being opened and closed. She wanted to get up and go after him, to heal his wounds by the miracle of her intense desire, but she thought with despair that miracles did not come to pass, and on one moment of irrational fear it had become too late for the healing of anything. She did not blame him for his cruel words, which had been spoken in reaction to her cruel act. He hadn’t called her a tithe of the evil things she was, and today, instead of buying a Christmas tree, as she had planned, she would gather her things and go away before she could cause him more trouble and shame in return for his kindness.
CHAPTER 8
When he came out of the bathroom he had washed his face and stopped the seepage of blood with a styptic. Without looking at her, he removed his pajamas and stood before her naked, which was something he had not done before, and she thought that he did it now as an expression of contempt or indifference. Which of the two was worse she didn’t know, but either was bad enough, and she watched him steadily in his nakedness as a kind of submission. He began to dress for the street, dressing slowly, not speaking, not looking at her, and he did not speak or look at her until he was ready to leave. Then he looked at her levelly, with no discernible animosity, and spoke in the same dry, precise voice with which he had cursed her.
“I’m going to work,” he said. “When I get back this evening, I’d be happy to find you gone. I was a fool to bring you here in the fir
st place, and I’ve been a fool ever since to let you stay, and I hope to God I never see you again. I treated you decently, you’ll have to admit that, and I’ve respected you for what you are, but then you crawl into my bed like a whore when I’m asleep, and you scream and claw me like a goddamn violated virgin when you wake up to find yourself where you came of your own will. You’re crazy, that’s what you are. You’re psycho. I don’t believe your cousin tried to kill you at all. Maybe it was just the other way around, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was, but more likely it was just something you dreamed up to try to get someone into trouble. Trouble’s all anyone will ever get from you, that’s plain enough but I’ve had enough, thank you, and that’s all I’ve got to say. There’s twenty dollars in the top drawer of the chest. You’re welcome to take it when you go.”
He went out and downstairs and began to walk in the direction of the building in which he worked. It was still dark, and far earlier than he ordinarily left in the morning, and he had plenty of time to walk the entire distance, over three miles, rather than having to take the bus as usual. He was glad of this, for he needed the physical action, and he was grateful for the cold air that stung his face and carried a threat of snow. He could not remember having been angrier in his life than he was now, and his anger was not because of the little pain he had suffered, the scratches on his face, but because of the shame ht had felt and was still feeling, almost a sense of degeneracy. Waking to find her sleeping beside him, her slender body warm and lovely and inciting in its thin gown, he had not touched her until she asked for it, and the violence of her repulsion had made him feel irrationally like a rapist at least, although he was not.
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