by Kathy
INTO
THE
DARKNESS
BARBARA MICHAELS
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving
hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, Time
out of mind. Into the darkness they go, the wise and the
lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not
resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is
lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look,
The laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses.
Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know.
But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all
the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the
grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the
kind.
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the
brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not
resigned.
Edna St. Vincent Millay,
"Dirge Without Music"
Beyond the glass, snowflakes swirled in patterns of blowing lace. The human figures stood frozen, as if snared in white netting; but the web was too fragile to hold them, soon they would move, slowly but inexorably, toward her, bearing a deadly gift of knowledge she could not, would not endure again. . . .
Meg Venturi's hand moved in a convulsive gesture of rejection, pushing the miniature, encapsulated world away. The crystal teetered on the edge of the table and would have fallen if Nick's quick fingers had not caught it.
"Need you express your dislike so dramatically? A simple 'no, thanks' would have sufficed." His voice was calm, but the sharp underlying edge of surprise and annoyance was audible to anyone who knew him as well as she did. The dark, finely arched brows that contrasted so strikingly with his pale blond hair were raised high, in the same expression with which he confronted a hostile witness. Nick Taggert was one of New York's best criminal lawyers, a profession in which his theatrical good looks served him well. His hair was a little longer than current fashion demanded; it was one of his best features, and he was well aware of the effect on the more susceptible women jury members when he brushed the thick shining locks away from his face. Meg teased him about wearing it long in order to cover his ears; he thought they were too big, and when she laughed and called him Mr. Spock his echoing laughter was a little forced.
Meg loved his ears. She loved everything about him—well, almost everything—she didn't blame him for resenting her reaction to his gift. It was an exquisite toy, unusual and obviously expensive. Cheap imitations could be found in any gift shop, tiny Santas or woodland scenes engulfed in temporary snow squalls when the plastic globe was shaken. This was different. The enclosing globe was of crystal, the tiny figures hand-carved and exquisitely painted.
"I'm sorry! I do like it; I love it. I didn't mean. . . ." Then a flame of anger kindled, sparked by his. "You forgot. Damn it, Nick, how could you be so insensitive? I told you about my father—about the night they came, through the snow and the dark, to tell me. ..."
For a moment his face was blank with incomprehension. Then his blue eyes widened. "I'll be damned. Sorry, sweetheart. I wanted to get you something beautiful and unusual; buying you jewelry is like carrying coals to Newcastle, so when I saw this I was delighted; I thought I'd found the perfect gift. It reminded me of that wonderful weekend in Maine—the first long weekend we spent together, remember? Honestly, it never occurred to me that that old memory was still festering."
He went on talking, explaining, apologizing. Meg stopped listening. The imitation snowflakes behind the glass had settled, the little carved man and his little lady stood immobile. Only the figures in her mind moved, out of the winter darkness more than twenty years past.
She had been waiting at the window for such a long time, her snub nose pressed to the glass, her eager breath making patches of fog on the pane. When the headlights appeared she let out a squeal of joy. But this wasn't the car for which she had been waiting, and neither of the men who got out of it was her daddy. This car had printing along the side and a red light on top. Revolving, it sent dull crimson flashes cutting through the dark and cast a rosy glow on the carpet of snow on the ground, like the funny pink snow in the Cat in the Hat book. But this pink snow wasn't funny or pretty.
She knew what the car was. She wasn't a baby, she was almost six years old and she could read . . . well, some words, anyhow. The words painted on the side of the car weren't words she knew, but she didn't have to sound them out, she knew this was a police car, and the men were policemen. Not cops or fuzz or any of the other words she had heard on TV; Mama and Daddy said those weren't polite words. Mama and Daddy said policemen should be treated politely because they were the good guys. They helped people. If you got lost or somebody bad was bothering you, you should go to a policeman, and he would help you.
So why was it that the sight of these policemen scared her? Her stomach hurt, and the patches of fog on the glass formed and faded more quickly than before. Maybe it was the snow that made them look so ... She couldn't find the word. It was as if they'd come, not from a regular police station with ordinary walls and rooms, but out of the storm itself. They had stopped moving. They stood still, looking at the house. She had the feeling they were as scared as she was.
Then the front door of the house opened and somebody came out onto the porch. It was Mama. She wasn't wearing a coat or a scarf, and the long, full skirt of her blue velvet dress dragged behind her and brushed the snow from the steps as she ran down them. Meg was afraid she'd slip and fall; she was moving too fast, and she was getting her pretty dress all wet. Meg liked it the best of all Mama's dresses. So did Daddy. That was why Mama was wearing it, because there was a party that night. Daddy was late. But he would come upstairs to say good night and play their game, the way he always did. Always. Even when he was going out, to a party or to work, or anywhere, Daddy always came.
The snow made pretty patterns on the velvet dress, like lace, before Mama fell down. One of the policeman tried to catch her but he wasn't quick enough. She lay on the ground with the crumpled folds of blue velvet around her and the snow fell harder, like a heavy curtain, like it was trying to cover her up.
And that night Daddy didn't come.
After Nick had gone Meg bolted the door and fastened the chain. She had lived in Manhattan too long to neglect that precaution, even though her mind was on other things.
As she turned she saw someone facing her across the narrow hall. The shock was so great it set her heart thumping, yet the figure was her own—her reflection in the tall pier glass. She had seen it a thousand times, but tonight it looked different, and she studied it with the detached curiosity of a stranger meeting someone for the first time.
The new shade of eyeliner wasn't as flattering as she had believed. Instead of looking bigger and softer, her eyes were opaque, solidly black as the crayoned eyes of a child's drawing. Her pale, carefully blotted lipstick had not been blurred by Nick's kisses. He hated bright lipstick, he said it made her look older and harder—and it didn't do much for him, either. His hands had loosened the heavy mass of her hair; instead of falling in soft waves over her shoulders, it stood out in crazy disarray, like the snaky locks of a Medusa, and the light died in its blackness. She wa
s a little vain about her hair, it was the true, rare blue-black that is seldom found in nature. An inheritance from her Italian father, her grandfather would have said. Dan was a firm believer in heredity. In the debate about nature versus nurture, he came down hard on the side of nature.
Meg turned away from the mirror and walked into the living room. It was still early. The crystal globe had not shattered, but something else had, and her attempts to mend it had failed. Nick had not blamed her. "I couldn't have stayed long anyway, sweetheart. Tomorrow is Cara's birthday, and I promised to take her and some of her friends out on the boat. They'll be raring to go at the crack of dawn—you know teenagers."
"Not your teenagers."
His eyebrows lifted. "Meg, darling—"
"I'm sorry." She twisted away from the hands that held her. "I'm sorry about everything, Nick. I don't know why I'm in such a foul mood tonight."
"It's obvious, isn't it?" He leaned back against the arm of the couch. "That call you got, telling you your grandfather was ill."
"It's just the flu. Nothing serious."
"I hope not. But you have to face facts, darling; the old boy isn't going to live forever. No, don't turn away—look at me." He reinforced the words with a gesture as fond as it was firm, cupping her cheek with his hand and turning her face toward his. "I'm glad you told me—reminded me, rather—about your father. It wasn't just the tragedy of losing him, it was the—er—the unusual circumstances, and the fact that you were at a particularly vulnerable age. It's no wonder you transferred all that dependency thing onto your grandfather. I'm no psychiatrist—"
"Thank God," Meg murmured.
"Meg, darling, you can't dismiss an entire profession because of one negative experience. You never really gave it a chance. My own analysis helped me a great deal—enough, certainly, to understand your problem. It isn't that complex."
"Oh?"
"Sweetheart, I'm only trying to help," Nick said patiently. "The fear of death, for ourselves and the people we love, is a basic human emotion. Intellectually you know your grandfather is going to die. Emotionally you can't—or won't—accept it. In your case it's doubly difficult because you lost your parents at an early age, and under particularly painful circumstances; Dan became not only grandfather but father and mother as well. It's no wonder you panic at the idea of losing him, or that any reminder of his mortality should revive memories of that earlier loss."
"I didn't panic. I haven't had one of those attacks since—" Meg stopped herself. She had not told Nick about the terrifying, uncontrollable episodes; she hadn't even thought about them for years, it had been so long. . . .
He didn't ask her to explain. Glancing at his watch, he rose, and reached for the little crystal toy.
"I'll keep it for you until you're ready to face those memories. When you are, we'll sit and watch the snow falling, together. Good night, love; I'll always be there for you, you know that."
Except when Cara wants you. Or Emily, or Nick Junior.
Remembering those words—which she had thought but not voiced aloud—Meg collapsed ungracefully onto the couch and began twisting the ring on her little finger, a gesture so habitual she was scarcely aware she was doing it. She wasn't jealous of Nick's other relationships—of course she wasn't. He and his wife had been legally separated long before she met him, and she could not have loved or respected a man who neglected his kids. Children came first.
And yet. . . Was it so unreasonable of her to want to be first with someone, not always, not to the exclusion of other commitments, but at those moments when the frightened child that lives in every human being cried out for comfort? Since that bleak winter night she had never had such total support, not from anyone. Sometimes Nick's facile diagnoses irritated her beyond measure, but maybe this time he had hit on something. After the death of her parents she had tried to find a substitute in her grandfather, but she had always known she had rivals for his love—not only Gran, but the gems that were Dan's joy and obsession. Sometimes she had the feeling that he would have sacrificed all of them, even her, even Gran, for their cold, glittering beauty.
The ring turned under Meg's fingers, catching the light in splashes of fiery crimson, kingfisher blue, and the iridescence of diamond. It was an early-Victorian posy ring; the words of the verse, or "poesy," twined around the circumference of the hoop read: "Je suis ici en lieu d'ami. " Though she had long since been forced to move it from her third to her little finger, she continued to wear it because it was the first posy ring Dan had given her, the start of what was now a valuable collection.
"I am here in the place of a friend." That was the real reason why she continued to wear the outgrown trinket, a superstitious belief in the power of the engraved motto. A friend ... A person who knows all your faults and likes you anyway. Dan knew her faults. He'd pointed them out often enough! And he liked her—loved her—anyway. And she would lose him too, as she had lost her father.
But not yet. Please, not yet. It was nothing serious, just a touch of the flu. Eighty-two wasn't old, not these days. Lots of people lived to be one hundred.
But Daniel Mignot had lied about his age, as he lied about so many things—even his name. He claimed to be descended from a famous European goldsmith of the same name, who had flourished during the sixteenth century. That claim would have been preposterous enough—few people can trace an unbroken lineage so far back in time—but Mignot, who had been born Daniel Merck, had no shame about adorning his family tree with equally implausible kinsmen. Through his mother he was related to the Castellanis, who had revived the lost Etruscan art of granulation, in which minuscule globes of gold are fused onto a golden surface. The technique of the Castellani family had died with them, though when their descendant was in a particularly expansive mood, he was wont to assert that he had inherited that secret along with the other legendary skills of his ancestors. His great-great-grandfather had supervised Nitot in resetting the crown jewels of France for the coronation of Napoleon; his father had taught Lalique all he knew.
Jacob Merck had probably never heard of Lalique. An immigrant from Poland, he had a hard-enough time supporting himself and his family in the teeming tenements of turn-of-the-century New York. Yet one could not help wonder whether his son's fantasy had some factual basis, for how else could one explain Mignot's passionate obsession with the complex techniques of the jeweler's craft, and his instinctive knowledge of gems? None of his stories of how he got his start made much sense, and some were mutually contradictory; but it is possible that he was telling the truth, for once, when he claimed to have been taken into custody by a suspicious policeman because he had been standing with his nose pressed to the icy-cold glass of the show window of Tiffany's store at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street for three solid hours—during a snowstorm. The intervention of none other than Louis Comfort Tiffany, who happened to be leaving the store at the strategic moment, saved the boy from arrest. Louis, the eccentric iconoclast of the family, was amused by the contrast between the child's shabby appearance and the blazing wealth that had so enraptured him; he gave the lad his first entree into the jewelry business, hiring him to sweep the offices.
Another of his favorite stories was that he had saved the life of a Rothschild or a Rockefeller (the names varied) during the Great War. He had been underage when he enlisted, but that didn't deter him, or the U.S. Army. He stayed in Europe until 1925, and when he returned he brought with him the beginnings of his famous collection of antique jewelry. "There is always money to be made at the death of a civilization," he would say, quoting a source he never bothered to credit. The statement was certainly true; a starving man will barter diamonds for bread. But it didn't explain how Mignot got the money to buy the bread.
The crash of '29 was not a disaster, but another stroke of luck for Daniel Mignot. Native conservatism had kept him from expanding his business; the capital he had saved was used to acquire, at bargain prices, the jewels of those who had been less cautious.
Not until the late thirties, when he had begun to expand, did he take time out to woo and marry a wife, a gentle, exquisitely pretty New England aristocrat. Her family, understandably skeptical of Mignot's genealogical fictions, protested to no avail; lovely Mary Morgan had always gotten what she wanted, and for reasons that completely eluded her bewildered family, she wanted the brash, undersized nobody who was almost twice her age. Their first daughter was born in 1937; the second came howling into the world the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
Daniel Mignot was among the first Americans to enlist. He claimed to have abandoned wife and children because of patriotic fervor, and who could prove he lied? Outrage and love of country moved thousands of Americans to do as he did. But in Mignot's case one is entitled to wonder.
This time it was Asia, not Europe, to which he applied his philosophy of acquisition. He was rather vague about his activities, hinting at top-secret intelligence work; by some means or other he managed to make his way to India, and was stationed there when the war ended. For centuries the subcontinent had been the market for the gem dealers of Burma, Ceylon, and Kashmir. It was hardly a coincidence that only after its founder returned from war did the firm of Daniel Mignot gain international status, right up there with Tiffany's and Harry Winston and the other giants of the jewelry business. Like them, Mignot had the big stones, the bright stones, the famous stones, but he specialized in design instead of concentrating on the gems themselves. As a designer he himself was second-rate, but he had an uncanny knack for spotting and encouraging new talent. He paid high salaries and was one of the first to list publicly the names of his top designers. By 1965 he had opened branches of his New York store in Palm Beach and San Francisco. His personal life was as happy as his business dealings were successful. Mary hated New York and disliked travel, so when, early in their marriage, she inherited the family home in Connecticut, he converted it into a mansion worthy of housing his most important gems, as he called them: his beautiful wife and his two daughters.