Keeping Secrets

by Suzanne Morris

  One lady leaned near and, raising an oriental fan to shield our faces, whispered, “Until a few years ago I taught school down that way, close to Santa Rosa and Matamoros. I soon learned to spot a night lady from a mile away.” She nodded, sat back, and fluttered her fan.

  My eyes widened. “Oh, and how’s that?”

  She leaned forward again. “Ah, you’d have to see a few to tell, but they usually go around in pairs or groups, and wear the most striking ensembles. Now and again I see them shopping downtown—” she began, but the hostess interrupted with a call to refreshments. She snapped away and flipped her fan closed, as a schoolgirl would do when caught with a naughty book. I just managed to keep from smiling.

  Thankfully, a cold punch was provided as well as coffee. I filled a cup, and arranged some fancy sandwiches and cookies on a plate, then found a chair near a window and sat back contentedly to enjoy the chitchat. Lyla had long since gotten involved in gossipy whispers with one lady, and no one seemed to notice me very much, so it was easy to observe at a distance. There was something nice about the ease with which these women kept company—their world one I had never known, full of gentility and carefree days, the stability of having lived in a certain place over a long period of time, of using china and silver passed down from one generation to another, and of knowing many people close by with common interests.…

  I was sitting there in something close to a reverie, when I gradually became aware of an exchange between two women not far away. They were speaking about the new popularity of the tango over here. The dance had been favored in Europe for a long while, but up to now had been held back in this country because so many considered it vulgar.

  “Of course they’re always ahead of us abroad,” said one. “Correctly done, I find it a stunning sight, don’t you? Just last Friday I was leaving a meeting at the Menger when their afternoon tea dancing began. I stopped to watch the most handsome couple, executing the tango. When she turned to face my direction I realized it was Aegina Barrista. I met her and her father once at a party at the International Club. She’s such a striking young woman, you know.”

  “And who was she with?” the other asked.

  “I didn’t really get a good look at him, but he was dark, full-bearded—an attractive match for her.…” The remark was like a cold breath on my neck, and I clutched my half-empty plate harder.

  The breeze across the river was cool that early evening. I sat at the edge of the bank and looked down the sharp curve, sounds of the ladies talking echoing over and over in my mind, vaporous images of Emory and Aegina touching, bending against each other, closely, closely, the satin ribbons of her shoes winding around her legs, meeting the edge of the slit skirt as she moved, back and forth, back and forth, her whispers in his ear and her soft giggles, his beard brushing her cheek.…

  Now it all came together. Emory’s refusal to invite her to our home, his comment that there had been no sparks between Aegina and Nathan, the awkward moment when I’d mentioned her name while Barrista sat at our table.

  Yet it couldn’t be. Emory didn’t know the tango. We had watched a captivating demonstration once during an evening at the St. Anthony’s, but he hadn’t said he knew the dance and hadn’t offered to perform it with me.…

  At the Menger? Impossible. Short blocks from here. I could walk there this minute and see for myself … no, last Friday. This is Thursday. Tomorrow, then?

  What did she look like?

  Like Emory, of course—they made an attractive match.

  But at the Menger, where we’d been so happy together.

  Nonsense.

  I pulled up an encroaching vine, felt the little suction cups pop under my hand as I loosened it, inch by inch, from the earth. The vines climbed all over up the trees, along the ground, up the fence nearby. Who did they think they were?

  Why, Emory, why?

  Nathan stopped by and looked at the vines clutched in my hands. “You can hardly kill them,” he observed.

  “What?” I glanced up.

  “At home when I was a kid, we had a big tree right in the center of the front yard. The vines grew up the trunk and all through the branches. Dead of winter, the tree would be bare, but the vines would be thriving still … it looked so odd.”

  “Nathan, does Emory know the tango?”

  He looked perplexed. “I have no idea.”

  “I think he’s doing it, with Aegina Barrista. Would you go to the Menger next Friday, and see?”

  “Electra, I can’t just—”

  Then a thought flashed like a beacon. “Of course, you must know where Emory was last Friday afternoon. Think, where?”

  He paused. “Why, at the office of course—”

  “You’re positive?”

  “Let me think.” (An interminable pause as he studied the ground.) “He did leave early, though, to go by the bank on some busi—Electra, listen, I’m sure you are wrong about this.”

  “Oh, Nathan, could you just check next Friday?”

  “Me? But why?”

  “You could so easily explain your looking for him if he were there and he saw you—a pressing business matter. And then I’d know the truth and have some time to … gather … to …”

  “Don’t cry, Electra.”

  “Please, help me.”

  “Would that be helping? I mean, I just couldn’t risk it, really.”

  I looked at him squarely then. Beads of perspiration covered his forehead. His eyes were wide, intense.

  “You’re a coward!”

  “No, you don’t understand …” He was drawing away and backing toward the house, arms held out, entreatingly. “I can’t, you see …”

  Presently I recovered and turned to look up at the house. He was inside, watching me from the window. Poor frightened fellow, strange shadow of a man. I threw a rock into the water and watched the ripples spread.

  8

  Nathan and I shared dinner alone that evening.

  Every sound of knife grating across meat, spoon stirring in a glass, fork scraping plate was deafening. We soon gave up and faced each other.

  “I’m sorry,” I began. “You see, I’ve tried so hard to please Emory but … today a lady at the coffee said—”

  He looked away.

  I ran my tongue across my mouth. “If there is something going on behind my back, you could tell me and I swear to you I would not let Emory know where the information—”

  “I know of nothing,” he said, staring at a fixed point across the room.

  I sighed. “All right. I don’t suppose you could imagine what it’s like to—”

  His hard glance shot through my words. “But I could … I could imagine more than you think.”

  “Well then, just tell me, was there ever anything between Emory and Aegina Barrista? My suspicions are based on more than what I overheard today.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t, that’s all,” I said. I could not tell him the true reason was that, since I had forbade Emory to mention my past, I had no right to trespass on his unless I was certain he had failed to leave part of it behind.

  As I hesitated, Nathan studied me, then queried earnestly, “You’re afraid to ask him, aren’t you?”

  “Of course not … I just … don’t want to bring on a confrontation that would make me look foolish, that’s all. If you’d rather not say, it’s all right.”

  “Well, if it will ease your mind I’ll tell you what I know, but you must give me your word you will never tell Cabot what I said.”

  “I already have.”

  He relaxed somewhat and leaned back. “They courted when Cabot first came to know Barrista, but he stepped in as things became serious.”

  “Why?”

  “Several reasons, from what I gathered.… Aegina was only twenty-one years old, and her father felt Cabot was too old for her. Also, I think he wanted Aegina to marry a Mexican caballe
ro—one of his choice, probably.

  “But mainly Barrista didn’t want his daughter marrying out of the Catholic faith.”

  “I see. How long ago did all this happen?”

  “About a year before you came here, it was over and done.”

  I swallowed hard, realizing for the first time I may have been second choice, our marriage one of rebound for Emory. “Knowing Emory as you do, would you be willing to wager a guess about the two of them now?”

  He considered. “I suppose he could be seeing her. She was—is—a beautiful young woman, with dark eyes and hair. He was taken with her, all right. They used to throw big parties at the ranch in Mexico when Cabot was there, and he and Aegina would dance all night—” He stopped abruptly and blinked. “I never saw them do the tango.”

  I nodded, and he continued, “Next day they’d be off to the bull fights together. They both enjoyed the bloodthirsty sport. She had a wild streak in her, just like him.”

  “I see.”

  “But she couldn’t stand next to you, Electra, not by any stretch of the imagination. Finally a man—even one like Cabot—likes to settle down to a fine lady, and live respectably,” he said, then leaned forward and added, “Listen, you probably don’t realize what a different man he was before you came. He has straightened up a lot, by comparison.” He rose from his chair. “That’s all I know.”

  “Thank you. And don’t worry, Nathan. This will work itself out.” I watched him leave the kitchen, his steps quick and jerky, and wondered again at his fear of Emory. He was at times like a figure of spun glass, resting precariously on the open palm of an unpredictable hand.

  I retired early and lay in bed thinking. It was just possible that even if nothing were now between Emory and Aegina, the fact that there once was might make for discomfort between Emory and her father. Perhaps it was a subject that had once brought them almost to blows, and now that so much depended upon the friendship of the two men, they took extra care to avoid conversation about Aegina. That would explain a great deal. The man seen with her at the Menger may have only resembled Emory.…

  A couple of hours later Emory came in and I pretended to be asleep. I heard his hat plop on the bureau, his pants being shimmied off, and smelled the strong odor of his cigar. He didn’t bother me, although he lay for a long time awake.

  Finally I could stand it no longer and framed the question that would be the quickest, easiest stab at the truth: “Emory, is there someone else?”

  He didn’t answer. I decided, with relief, he was asleep. The question had sounded disgustingly superficial. At daybreak I awoke to the feel of his fingers stroking my hair, and turned to him.

  I believe from that time on Nathan took it upon himself to try and make up for any way he felt Emory was letting me down. He was always offering to drive me to one place or another, though it was easy to see he was reluctant to get behind the wheel of Emory’s automobile because he drove as though there were a traffic officer breathing down his neck all the time.

  Should I make the slightest suggestion or just hint at something needing to be done, he was at work on it immediately, even when there was obviously no hurry necessary. One morning I told him I’d noticed a charming little summerhouse in one of the yards on King William.

  “I could build you one even finer than that,” he offered at once.

  “Oh, I don’t know whether Emory would like—”

  “He wouldn’t mind, as long as it was for you. I’ll work on some plans tonight, and when I get them to suit you, I’ll go down to Steves Lumber and buy the wood. Maybe we could situate it in front of the Spanish oak in the side yard, between those two big magnolias. That way you’d have plenty of shade on it.”

  “Yes, and I could plant roses around it. Let’s paint it white, to match the trim on the house,” I said, infected by his enthusiasm.

  As a matter of fact, while the summer of 1914 wore on, I was eager for something new to occupy my mind and demand my energies. I found myself constantly expecting Emory’s announcement that he was bound again for Mexico, and would brace myself for the worst each time he broached a new subject in conversation. He spoke little at first about his plans with Barrista, and as he was often preoccupied I didn’t urge him to discuss them (I wished more than once that something might happen to make the Mexican troubles dissolve).

  Only the daily newspapers kept the situation near. In mid-July Huerta finally gave up under Wilson’s pressure and left the country, friendless, and reportedly “subtle and bitter” in his denunciation of the United States. Reading the Huerta story—assuming then it was an epilogue—I could not help but wonder why Fernando Barrista wanted the weight of Mexican troubles on his shoulders. And Emory—how much wealth or personal gratification could possibly be worth the strain and pressure of involving himself in matters he needn’t even bother with? His insatiable thirst for winning went back, of course, to the indignities he suffered in his bringing-up.

  Sadly, as much as I loved and understood him, my presence in his life could not completely fill his sense of need. In a way I was even a part of what drove him: as his wife, I could always be referred to as the “reason” he had to make good. How badly it would reflect on him if I did not have a big home and lots of expensive clothes to wear … and, several years hence, what a failure for him if I did not have even a second home, a staff of servants for each, and a substantial amount of the year spent traveling to one place then another. That I wanted none of this did not matter to him in the least. And I couldn’t tell him why I had every reason to remain modest about wealth.…

  Emory was spending fewer and fower evenings at home, and I was certain he was putting up Nathan to lie for him about the reasons. The young man never looked me in the eye when he told me another, then another excuse about why Emory would be arriving home late.

  Yet this concern was pushed aside by something far more ominous.

  9

  One morning as I was picking over fruits and vegetables at Haymarket Plaza, enjoying the sunshine and the pleasant sounds of chatter and general hustle-bustle of the market, I suddenly had the feeling someone was watching me from behind. I turned around, expecting to see a familiar face approaching. By now I knew enough of the vendors and patrons to exchange a greeting now and then or discuss a good find among the produce. Yet there was no one I recognized, though I shaded my eyes and looked both ways.

  Imagination, I decided.

  I began comparing the color and texture of fresh peaches, and was soon lost again in the business at hand. I selected several, and moved along to the next table. My basket was growing heavy by now so I stopped to reverse it with my handbag in the other hand, and in doing this I looked about, an uneasy feeling taking hold of me though I couldn’t say exactly why. Then I thought of Lyla’s warning about purse-snatchers and clutched my handbag tighter. I decided to call it a morning and head for home.

  It is odd to recall how I fought off misgivings during the long walk. Several times I was tempted to board a trolley or hire a taxi. Yet I kept telling myself I was behaving foolishly, walking a little faster all the time, never daring to look back to see if anyone were following yet listening for the sound of footsteps.…

  By the time I arrived at our door I was winded. I hurried inside, locked it, then went to a window and looked out. Nothing. Silly. Still, my nerves were unsettled so I sat down with a glass of cold fruit juice and tried to concentrate on a magazine. After an hour went by I was convinced my anxieties were groundless. Then I heard a knock at the front door.

  “Who is it?” I asked. There was no view of the porch from our windows. Breathless, I repeated, “Who is it?”

  “Oh, just an old friend. Hey, open up!”

  I knew then, even before I opened the door, who I was about to face. I was only thankful neither Emory nor Nathan were around as I let him in.

  Mark’s husky frame had gone to fat; his face, once having had a boyish pudginess about it that made him seem younger, was by now graded w
ith wrinkles, his chin lax. His color was unhealthy, and his brown eyes were puffy underneath. It was as though his looks, never attractive, had over the years become a badge of his character.

  “Well, well,” he said with an insolent smile. “Looks like you done all right for yourself, Mrs. Cabot.” He walked through the foyer and poked his head into one room then another, as I stood rigid against the doorjamb. I already knew what he wanted. The thing was to deal with him as quickly as possible and get rid of him. I directed him to the sitting room and offered him a chair, then sat across from him and asked how long he had been out.

  “Not as long as you, but long enough to do some looking around and take a little stock.” He propped a foot upon the table nearby and looked at me steadily, still smiling ever so little.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Oh, we had some real helpful friends down the line. It wasn’t so hard. When I heard you’d come to San Antonio I came down and started hanging around one place then another. I knew it was only a matter of time till you’d turn up somewhere.”

  “Were you at Haymarket Plaza this morning?”

  He grinned. “You still got good instincts. But I was real curious as to where you might be living by now so I didn’t want to reveal myself too quick.”

  “How did you find out my name?”

  “You got real accommodating neighbors. I must say I was surprised, Mrs. Emory Cabot,” he said, drawing the name out. His eyes circled the room again. “From the looks of things, you sure knew which coattail to hang on to this time. Maybe I ought to stay around awhile … when does your new husband get home? I might just—”

  “He’d kill you if he found you here,” I interrupted.

  “Now, now. I don’t want you to think I came all this way just to cause trouble, now that you’re wealthy and all. That might be fun but it wouldn’t do no good. You just give me what I’ve got coming and I’ll get out of your way. I never was one to hold grudges … not like some people.”