“What do you mean, Amelia?” she had asked. Amelia had shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not speaking from experience, of course, but I’ve heard Mamma say that after Papa died—I was only three—she was so lonely that she was tempted to marry any man that asked her. After she got over that year she knew she didn’t want to marry at all.”
“I shan’t want to marry again, either,” she had murmured. Much as she relied on Amelia for diversion, she had never been able to confide everything to her, especially as Amelia, being rather plain and certainly too blunt, had never been in love, so far as she knew. The crudity of Amelia’s remarks had stayed in her memory, however, and she recalled them now as she replied to Jared.
“How do you see me?” she asked.
“In a great beautiful house somewhere,” he replied promptly, as though he had thought about it. “I see you with servants to wait on you. I hate you to be here alone. I don’t want you to cook my breakfast. I make my own bed for I can’t bear to think of your doing it. Only when you’re at the piano there, or sitting on that high hearth in the firelight, do I feel I’m realty seeing you.”
She was moved by his earnestness. “Thank you,” she said. “And you don’t know how you help me. I’ve known I must go back to the big house but I haven’t had the courage. I came away after my husband’s death, and I’ve lingered on, dreading to go back alone—”
He interrupted her. “I’ll be with you. What I mean is—I’ll come to see you immediately and stay over a weekend, at least, now and then, if you’ll let me.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m very touched, and you mustn’t for any reason, think it necessary. I shall be quite all right once I’m there—in a day or two. I have friends next door. My husband and I grew up in that neighborhood. In fact, it was a question whether we’d live in his family home or mine. But my house was empty—my father died soon after my marriage and my mother died earlier. I was an only child and so everything was left to me, and I’m really fond of the house.”
She spoke breathlessly, trying to explain all at once and not knowing quite what it was she wanted to explain. He listened raptly until she broke off.
“Perfect,” he said. “That’s where I want to see you, in a house that is your setting. This?” His arm swept the rugged room. “No!”
And then as though he had settled an argument he went abruptly to the piano and began to play a resounding polonaise of Chopin’s creation, and she sank into the deep sofa before the fire and listened, entranced by his new interpretation of familiar music. By his emphasis he eliminated every hint of the pathos that underlay the music and made instead a triumphant assertion of life.
“And what would Chopin have thought of that?” she inquired when he had finished as abruptly as he had begun and rising had come to stand over her, his brooding eyes upon her face.
“I make all music my own,” he replied, not removing his gaze.
And she kept smiling, half shy, half afraid. She did not know him. He was still a stranger. All the more dangerous then was this powerful attraction which had no basis in knowledge. She would have liked to ask him what his thoughts were and dared not. He spoke them without her asking.
“I want you to come skiing with me tomorrow.”
Her reply was instant. “I couldn’t possibly!”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, I have no skis.”
“We can rent them.”
“I haven’t skied for years.”
“That’s an argument for—and this is probably the last good snow of the year.”
“It’s not good snow. Sam says the slopes are icy—warm sun melts them by day and freezes them by night.”
“It might snow tonight. There are clouds on the mountaintop.”
“And a shining moon!”
“Let’s finish this argument in the morning.”
“The answer will be the same.”
“Not if snow falls in the night—no, don’t speak! I shan’t let you.”
He put his hand over her mouth and held it there until, choking with laughter, she pulled it away.
“God, what a soft mouth you have!” he exclaimed, wondering.
“I’d have bitten your hand if it weren’t so hard,” she retorted. “And I don’t want to ski.”
“Stop there,” he cried, “or I’ll do it again. I won’t take no for answer.”
“You shan’t have yes, at any rate,” she retorted.
“For tonight, then, let it be neither yes nor no.”
She rose, half afraid. He looked at her steadily, speculating, but on what? She stepped back, he shook his head.
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
“Your age.”
“You must believe it.”
He shook his head again and then suddenly he reached for her hand, took it, turned it over and kissed the palm. “I’ll never believe it.”
She stood, unresisting, astonished, the kiss in her hand an unexpected gift. He let her hand fall gently to her side.
“Good night,” he said abruptly and crossed the room to the door of his room. There he paused.
“I shall pray for snow,” he said and closed the door.
…In the night the snow fell. She woke after a few hours of restless sleep and rose from her bed and drew aside the gold-colored draperies of the glass doors facing the mountain. The light of her bedside lamp was reflected upon a curtain of soft white flakes thickly falling. The terrace outside was already newly covered. She would never be able to resist his determination now, and already yielding she returned to her bed and slept.
“My prayers are always answered,” he declared in the morning at the breakfast table.
“But I still have no ski clothes,” she said.
“All the more fun! We’ll outfit you at the ski shop, and get on our way. Come on, hurry up, no loitering over coffee, if you please! The sun is climbing fast. A good six inches of snow, though—”
“You’re really rather domineering!”
“It’s my nature,” he agreed cheerfully.
He got up as he spoke, gathering dishes, began washing and drying and putting away while she watched, amused, and finished her coffee.
“You’re very expert,” she said. “I’ve camped all over the world. Last year I was in the Himalayas.”
“Doing what?”
“Studying cosmic rays. Ever hear of a fellow called Tesla?”
“Of course. He wanted to electrify the globe, didn’t he, and provide an eternal source of electric power?”
“God, you’re knowledgeable!”
“I’m my father’s daughter. He believed that Nikola Tesla was infinitely greater as a scientist than Edison was. In fact, he wrote articles about Tesla—and introduced him to millionaire benefactors sometimes.”
“We’ll have to talk about Tesla tonight, before the fire. Now the mountain waits.”
He hustled her ruthlessly, he was impatient and unrelenting, and in half an hour they were in the ski shop, he ordering expertly and refusing argument against the latest in ski clothes, garments of which she had not heard in the years that had passed since she taught the children to ski.
“Skin tight,” he ordered. “That’s for fair weather like today. You feel as though you had nothing on. Fits you like your own skin.”
He studied her critically when she came out of the dressing room in the tight suit that covered her from neck to ankles. He gathered an inch of slack at her waist.
“You can take a smaller size,” he said. “You’ve the waist of a girl.”
He sent her back, and she slid into another suit, and came out again for inspection.
“Perfect,” he declared. “Now for warm-up clothes. No more long underwear these days! You slip on a sort of space suit overtop…And the skis—they’re new, too—plastic core and fiberglass—fine for any kind of snow, ice, crud, moguls, powder. Boots, please, young woman”—this to the bewildered clerk. �
��Leather on the outside, foam inside, and single buckles, though in my opinion the perfect boot is still to be made. Maybe I’ll think of something someday.”
She was ready at last and they climbed into their seats in the lift. The snow had ceased but the sky was leaden gray again and ready to let fall, but perhaps not until evening. All through the day they skied and she was childishly proud that her old skills were with her still. He praised her but he was critical.
“Your timing is not quite—look, you have to do three things at once, see? Pole plant, upweighting, switch your leading ski, like this! But keep your skis on the snow—very slight upweighting!”
He illustrated in a series of skillful turns and she saw that he was superb on skis, even as he was at the piano. He continued to teach her throughout the day, and she strove to perfect herself, her good body responding to new demands.
“Your traverse,” he was saying, “it’s a little awkward. Don’t pay heed to your shoulders. It’s your hip you must watch—hold the downhill hip back and everything else—body, shoulders, everything—will be ready for the traverse.”
She practiced again and again and not until sunset did she realize her exhaustion and even then it was he who recognized it first.
“I’ve worn you out and damn me for a perfectionist! You ski beautifully and what I’ve been insisting on are just the final touches.”
She protested. “But I’m a perfectionist, too, and I love it!”
He flung his arm about her shoulders. “Good companion! Let’s go home and dine in front of a roaring fire.”
Which they did, he grilling the steaks before the fire while she tossed salad in the great salad bowl of Burmese teak.
They ate in silence, and afterward he turned on stereophonic music and they listened in silence but sleep overcame them.
“I must go to bed,” she murmured, her eyes half closed.
“So must I,” he confessed.
They rose, they stood hesitating, and for a drowsy moment she thought, she imagined, he was about to kiss her. Instead he straightened and stepped back.
“Good night, sweet friend,” he said.
To which she answered nothing and indeed could not, for all her strength was needed for her own control. She would not, she would not invite the kiss, for to what end it might lead she could not foretell and dared not ask.
“Good night,” she said, and stumbled, still half in sleep, across the room to her own door.
In the night she woke to the patter of rain upon the roof. That was the end of snow, then, and of skiing. Tomorrow he would be gone and she alone again. To be alone now seemed intolerable to her. She would leave here and go home to Philadelphia.
…It was still raining in the morning when she came out for breakfast. Jared had already prepared it, table set, orange juice waiting, bacon brown and an omelet turned in the pan.
“The skies are cruel,” he complained, “but it’s just as well, perhaps. I must get back to the lab. I was going to steal another day, fight my conscience, but now there’s no need. You’re tired?”
“A little—no, not tired, just muscle sore.”
“Just as well we can’t be tempted.”
They ate again almost in silence and she wondered, with a slight resentment, if he were on guard. After all, she had not kissed him. On the contrary! But they were both formal this gray morning.
“Shall you be staying long?” he asked when, breakfast over, he prepared to leave.
“No, I am leaving, perhaps tomorrow,” she replied. Then, resentment still alive, she added, “I shall probably stop on the way for a few days with an old friend, Edwin Steadley.”
He heard this coldly. “Well, good-bye,” he said. Then added somewhat gracelessly, she thought, “Of course we’ll meet again.”
“Why not?” she said.
“In the course of human events,” Edwin said, “I cannot live much longer. I do not come of long-lived ancestry, and ancestry seems to count, in the matters of life and death. Already I have lived longer than my parents were able to do. My mother died at sixty-four, surviving my father by three years. He was five years younger than she. Their relationship was a strange one. In some ways he was like a son.”
“I shouldn’t like such a relationship,” she said with decision.
“Ah,” he said, “that’s because you have such an old lover. I could almost be your grandfather. But the truth is, my darling, that young men don’t really know how to love a woman. A young man thinks first of possessing a woman for himself—that is, of impregnating her. At my age a man knows this is impossible, and so he gives himself up to pure love of the woman, without thought of himself. He contemplates her with delight, as I contemplate you. He gives her joy insofar as she accepts his touch, which now is skilled, but in all such matters he thinks only of her. My dear, by the light of the moon, which by some heavenly magic shines at this moment upon your bed, your beautiful body looks like a statue of pale gold. What a fortunate man I am to be thus admitted to your private chamber!”
“I can’t understand how it happened,” she said, smiling up at him through the mist of her fair hair, loose upon the pillows.
“I had the courage to ask,” he replied.
“You asked very confidently,” she said, laughing. “I can’t discern any lack of courage in you. But how is it that I had the courage to accept and how is it that it does not seem strange, and certainly not wrong, that you are here? I have never taken a lover before. Therefore why now?”
“A need to give all and to accept all,” he said.
“And why am I not in the least shy?” she asked him with genuine wonder.
“We are one,” he replied. “Our minds were one, first, and then it became necessary that the oneness be complete.”
“And will it continue?”
“Until I feel death come near. When that moment occurs, I will let you know. Don’t try to stay me or comfort me. I must prepare for the solitary passing. I shall need all my strength for it. Therefore—”
Here he paused so long that, moved to tenderness, she drew him into her arms.
“Are you afraid?” she asked.
But he would not accept pity, even a tender pity. He loosed himself from her and leaned over her, smoothing her long hair from her forehead, and looked down into her eyes. Upon the bedside table the flame of the candle wavered in a slight breeze from the open window so that light and shadow played upon her face.
“I am not afraid,” he told her. “But I have something to say to you, and I want it said now, while I am able to speak the full truth of what I feel. Who knows what it will be when the end draws near? I may be dazed with pain. I may be faint. Death may overtake me in one instant and give me no time. Tell me, my love, are you at peace now? For this moment? We are quite alone in my old house. I sent the housekeeper home—it was some family anniversary—and Henry is away for a short holiday. No one is under this roof except the two of us. We may never again be quite so alone. May I tell you what I want you to know and to remember as long as you live?”
“Tell me,” she said.
He lay down beside her then, not touching her now except that he took her left hand and held it clasped in both his hands on his breast. Upon inexplicable impulse she had taken off her marriage rings tonight when she washed, and now, caressing her hand, he noticed it was ringless.
“You need not have taken off your rings, my love,” he said, and put her hand to his lips.
“I don’t know why I did,” she said somewhat faintly.
“An instinct,” he said.
“Of guilt?” she asked.
“Of honor,” he said, “but quite unnecessary. Love is never guilty. It comes to us, always to be welcomed, from whatever source, at whatever time. One love does not displace another. Each love is added richness.”
“But could I have accepted your love—as I do—if—” She paused and he carried the question to answer.
“If Eloise, my wife, and Arnold, your husband,
had been alive? I would have expressed it differently, you would have accepted it differently. We would not be lying here in the naked moonlight. It would not have been necessary as it now is, to me at least, and I think to you, or you would not have accepted me. As it is, I, because I feel death near, you, because death struck into your house, we feel the necessity of bodily contact before the final parting comes, as it must, my darling! So let me say what I want to say.”
“Tell me—”
He drew a deep breath, he closed his eyes, he began, her hand still clasped in both his hands upon his breast.
“I want to tell you how I love you. I want to tell you now, while I am still fully alive, while my brain is clear, while my heart beats, while I have words upon my tongue. I love you. I have always loved you. I loved you before I ever knew you, before we ever met. I loved you because I knew the sort of woman I would always love, must always love, and when I saw you, I knew you were she. Of course I love your body because it is yours and because it pleases me. But I love your body because your spirit dwells there, because your incomparable brain is housed in your beautiful skull, because your soul is enshrined in your heart. I cannot imagine your body apart from the essential you, But I cannot imagine the essential you otherwise housed. You are entire in your whole being. I love the least part of you—your long free hair, your hands and feet, your adorable breasts, your waist, your thighs, the way you walk and carry your head. I love your voice, the look in your eyes—have you an idea how your soul speaks through your eyes? No, don't answer! I have more to say. If you had not let me love you—did you observe that I never ask you to love me?—I would have been afraid to descend solitary to the grave. As it is, my love for you sustains me. I fear nothing. I march to the unknown with steady step, for I bear in my heart my love for you. Love is the torch that lights my way. ‘O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?’”
His voice rang out into the night. He put her hand to his lips and held it there. But she drew it gently away, she lifted herself and took his head between her palms and kissed his lips.
“I am honored,” she said. “As long as I live, I am honored. I shall never forget—never, never!”
The Goddess Abides: A Novel Page 4