by Pamela Morsi
The real world had not seen fit to grant her passion, companionship, or offspring. She had promised herself not to weep or grieve for that loss again. But the facts were cruel, simple, and certain. She would not be a man's wife. She would be no one's lover. She would never hold a small little body next to her breast and look up into eyes that adored her to whisper,
"I have borne you a child, a gift of my body, a symbol of our love, an infinite perpetuity of our union." She would never say it. Her womb was vacant and withered. But worse, much worse than an empty womb was an empty heart. And her own was, for now and forever more, a interminable void.
The tears did fall then, in wrenching sobs of desolation. She was not old yet, but old age would come. And she would meet it with no more to show for her life than she had today. She was an aging spinster, hopelessly in love with a man she could only call her friend.
She began to run. Clutching her hands to her face, she ran into the darkness, the emptiness of unlighted pathways of the park. She ran from her thoughts. She ran from her tears. But she could not escape from her reality.
Chapter Eighteen
HE WAS BOTHERED by his thoughts. It was not something that he let happen to himself often. Mikolai wandered out of the bright and lively dance pavilion to the more quiet solitude of the shadowed grounds. He'd enjoyed the dance. He'd enjoyed it very much. Miss Gertrude was as light on her feet as she was lively in conversation. But that raw, vulnerable moment when he knew that he loved her lingered with him. He didn't try to puzzle out his feelings, merely to rid himself of them.
He supposed it was not that unusual for a man at his stage in life to begin to look back, to try to find those pleasures that he'd missed in youth, but he fought against it. He could not allow himself to love now. If he was to have fallen in love, it should have been with Lida.
It was only seeing his son reaching adulthood that made him so fanciful. When a man has taken upon himself the duty and ambition to raise his child well, it was understandable that he might feel unsettled to see that task coming to an end. The future for a man nearing forty who has made his mark and had a secure business might not be as exciting as when he was twenty. But it was certainly not something to bring on melancholia. And imagining himself in love was certainly that.
He checked his pocket for his pipe and found it missing. The foolishness of the gesture surprised him. He'd given up tobacco years ago. The smoke tended to irritate young Teodor's eyes. He had done away with the pipe as easily as he had done away with so many other things that he had enjoyed. He'd given them up for his child. Maybe he would take it up again when his son went off to the faraway college back East. Maybe he wouldn't.
From the corner of his eye he spotted movement in the distant shadows and turned his glance in that direction. His bushy brow furrowed. At first he didn't quite believe what he saw, or understand what he did believe. Miss Gertrude Barkley, who always moved across the earth with such unconscious purpose and grace, was rushing away from the pavilion. She had her arms clasped tightly against her chest, an aspect suggesting a need to comfort an aching heart. As he watched, her hasty steps quickened into a run. She was fleeing.
A strange knot of concern formed in his chest. He raised his hand to hail her and thought to call out, but knew without undue consideration that attracting attention to her departure would be unthinkable. Immediately, knowing not his purpose or his errand, Mikolai hurried after her. Somehow he had to.
Leaving behind the brightly colored light of the lanterns, the grounds were shrouded in night and shadow. The moon was a mere sliver in the autumn sky, turned like the edge of a teacup pouring out the last dregs of luster on the night. He hurried through that darkness.
She was a good distance ahead of him when he reached the maze of trails. Empty and deserted, the shaded pathways were illuminated only by the occasional beams of moonlight that stole through the trees. Mikolai was very much aware of the roots, rocks, and loose gravel at his feet, all very capable of bringing him head over heels at any moment, but he didn't slow his step. Something was wrong, very wrong, with Gertrude Barkley. And somehow it was his purpose to set it right again.
It was at a small moonlit clearing, within a ring of cottonwood trees, that he spotted her. She was racing ahead blindly, unheeding, as if real demons chased her. He feared for her safety.
"Miss Gertrude! Miss Gertrude!" he called as he ran. "Miss Gertrude, it's me, Stefanski."
At first his cries went unanswered. But he knew the minute she heard his voice. She stopped still in the path and turned to look in his direction. Her little hat was askew and her shorn curls were wild with disorder. He was close enough to see her expression. It was one of horror.
"Miss Gertrude, it's me, Stefanski," he repeated again.
Immediately, with pride more innate than acquired, she raised her chin and straightened her hat.
He wondered suddenly if he should have followed her. Wasn't a person, especially a person like Gertrude Barkley, to be allowed moments of solitary grief? He had no idea as to the cause of her distress. His intrusion could be unwanted to the point of rude. But somehow he had had to follow and now he was here. He was not going away without doing something to help.
He continued toward her, but he slowed his pace as he approached. He gave her time to dab ineffectually at the tears that had reddened her eyes and attempt to stiffen the lovely lower lip that trembled so tenaciously.
"Miss Gertrude, I saw you running," he explained. He spoke his words slowly and quietly as if he were afraid to frighten her. "I was worried."
"Oh, Mr. Stefanski, you shouldn't trouble yourself," she declared with only a slight catch in her voice. She tossed her head in the grand manner that she had and smiled at him in dazzling pretense. "I am perfectly fine."
She was flushed and her eyes were swollen, but she held herself straight with rigid self-control. "I was only . . . only . . ."
He stood in front of her now. He was looking down into her eyes. He was in love with her, but he pushed that thought away. They were friends, friends of long-standing. If a man was not there to comfort a friend, he was not much of a friend.
"Miss Gertrude," he whispered. "I cannot bear to see you crying."
"It's just a silly female foolishness," she assured him.
Her face was all starkness and shadows; he stepped closer to see her more clearly.
"If it is something I have said or done, Miss Gertrude—" he began.
"You?" Her voice sounded horrified. "No, of course it doesn't concern you. Why would you think—?"
The nonchalance in her tone broke apart. She covered her mouth with her clasped hands and turned away from him. She was silent, ominously silent, in her suffering. He was helpless. It was the shaking of her shoulders that finally moved him to action. It was those mourning tremors that drew him closer.
"Miss Gertrude, please, no," he said, raking a hand through his hair uncomfortably, before laying his palms gently upon her shoulders.
Mikolai stood behind her, in a quandary as to what to say or do. He felt the ill-suited sensation of being powerless. Defenseless against the intensity of her feelings and the unfamiliarity of his own.
In his well-ordered life he dealt with problems in the same direct, effective style he used for forging brick from earth. Emotions were as unwanted and unwelcome as topsoil in clay. And women, women seemed to Mikolai to be all emotion. Beautiful and delicate forms, too full of feeling to ever fire into anything strong and sturdy. He was not used to the emotions of women. He had no idea how to handle them. The women he had some skill in handling charged extra for any display of feelings. And certainly misery was not an emotion usually requested for purchase. His experience with the finer ladies of the community was a distant one at best. And his memory of his impatience with his late wife's tears was not one he wished to conjure up.
His sister, Edda, had shed many tears over her unhappy life. More than once she had turned to him in sorrow. And he had comforted her with
a strong shoulder and a willing ear.
But Miss Gertrude was not his sister. Neither was she his wife. To offer comfort to her was something totally new and a thing for which he was in no way prepared. His intellect offered him no counsel, so he allowed his heart to lead him.
"Sweet Gertrude," he whispered softly into her hair. Without giving himself time to worry about his actions, he turned her to face him. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against his chest. "Shhhhhhh, don't cry," he murmured. "It will all be fine."
Somehow the inappropriate embrace seemed perfectly right and reasonable. Holding her in his arms felt perfect, just as it had upon the dance floor. It seemed so right and reasonable to fit her cheek against his throat, to stroke the smooth soft curls away from her face.
"Hush, my sweet, my so very sweet."
His tenderness did not immediately ease her grief, rather it appeared to encourage it.
Sobs broke from her in great rushing torrents. Her body quaked as if his comfort had unleashed a flood of feelings inside her. A dam of propriety that had held her in check broke through with great calamity.
"Oh, Mikolai, I am so miserable," she whimpered.
The sound of his given name upon her lips caused his heart to beat faster. "Oh, Miss Gertrude, dear Miss Gertrude," he consoled her. "It can't be as bad as all that." He pulled her more protectively against his chest. "I'm here. You are safe. Everything will be fine."
He felt the dampness of her tears soak through the smooth satin stripe worsted of his lapel.
"There, there," he said. "Just let it out, I'm here and you are safe."
Gertrude cried as though her heart were breaking. And he held her. Firmly, securely, as if somehow his strength would transmit through his embrace and give her the fortitude to bear the pain that tortured her.
Mikolai closed his eyes. For one tender moment he allowed himself the sheer rapture of her body against his own. He had never held her before. Not like this. Never even in his dreams. Her soft feminine bosom was pressed close against his muscled, unyielding chest. It was nothing like the embrace of a dance. There was no formality, no illusion of propriety. He held her to him as if she were a dear possession of his heart, which she was.
"My dear Gertrude, my dear, dear Gertrude," he said softly. "If I could take the sadness from your heart, please know that I would. Yes, know that I would."
Her tears were like mortar binding them together. He held her against him, tightly. But it was not close enough. Could it ever be close enough? Close enough to meld her heart with his own.
"My Gertrude, my own dear Gertrude," he whispered against her.
The sweet scent of her hair filled his nostrils. Rose water. He loved her hair. Those short, bouncy locks that flabbergasted his neighbors were a delight to him.
He pushed one shorn curl away from her face. She was regaining her self-control, but he was loath to release her from his arms.
His hands began to move up and down her back, stroking, caressing. The straightness of her back from the expanse between her shoulder blades to the gentle curve at her waist felt alarmingly pleasing to his touch. His reaction was as powerful as it was male. She was soft and feminine and oh, so very welcome in his arms. The tension in the front of his trousers quickened. The strong sweet yearning that he'd relegated to youth assailed him. Lust, sweet lust. Desire. And need. The blood pounded in his veins. It deafened him. For one wonderful instant he allowed his hand to rest upon the smooth round curve of her derriere. Heaven.
He jumped back from her as if he'd touched a hot stove. He realized, almost too late, the inappropriateness of his action. She was still crying and he could only be grateful that she hadn't noticed the impropriety.
"Miss Gertrude, you must tell me what is wrong," he said, grasping only her hand now and keeping her body at a good and proper distance from his own. "Whatever has made you cry this way? Tell me, Miss Gertrude, perhaps I can fix it."
Gertrude quietly harnessed the most extreme of her emotions. He watched as she made a valiant effort to return to her more normal behavior.
"You must forgive me, Mr. Stefanski," she told him through tearful hiccups. "I am not myself."
"You most certainly are yourself, Miss Gertrude," Mikolai corrected gently. "You are merely yourself, distressed. Now you must tell me what has happened."
"It is nothing, really."
"It is something definitely. And you must tell me. I may be able to fix it," he said with the certainty of a man who has often bent his world to his resolve. "And I certainly will if it is within my power."
Bravely she attempted to smile. She wiped her eyes and straightened her hair. "It can't be fixed, I'm afraid," she said, feigning lightness. "Not now, not ever."
He continued to hold her hand, somehow unwilling to break the connection between them completely.
"Let me try," he pleaded. "You will never know that I cannot remedy the trouble if you fail to ask for my help."
She looked up at him then. In the moonlight her tear-brightened eyes shone like stars. He could have gotten lost in them.
"My life has passed me by, Mr. Stefanski," she said quietly. Her eyes welled up again with sorrow and she turned from him. "It has passed me by and I can never get it back."
Her words startled him. "It's my fault," he said quickly, before he realized that he had hidden his new, strange feelings for her in his heart.
She ignored his acknowledgment of culpability. "I'm a spoiled, silly spinster, Mr. Stefanski. As you see, that cannot be fixed," she said. "I have chosen my life and lived it as I wished. But I have chosen badly and have no one to blame but myself."
"Miss Gertrude, please let me—"
"Don't trouble yourself over me, Mr. Stefanski. I am sure Doc Ponder would call it a mere attack of the vapors. I'm just an aging spinster who has suddenly discovered that she is disappointed."
She turned from him then and hurried away. Mikolai stood in the clearing watching her go. Hurting. Understanding. Wondering.
"Dear, dear Gertrude," he whispered to the night sky.
Chapter Nineteen
IN THE CONCEALING darkness of the shrubbery at the far side of the moonlit clearing, Teddy Stefanski and Claire Barkley hid, crouching in silence. They stared in shock at the lovers' silhouette before them. They could not hear the words spoken, but they could hear Aunt Gertrude's crying and could see the tenderness in which she was held by Teddy's father. After she left, they watched as he stood bereft, still gazing thoughtfully for several minutes at the path she had taken. Finally he had raked his hair with consternation and began walking back toward the pavilion.
When he was out of sight, Claire gave a long, confounded sigh and dropped to the ground, sitting Indian-style in the grassy undergrowth.
"Oh, Teddy!" she exclaimed with disbelief. "It's all true, every bit of it."
He nodded slowly. “Truly, Claire, I didn't believe—well, I did believe—but I just couldn't—I mean—really it was just so—“
"I know," Claire agreed. "Did you see them dancing? What perfection. They must have danced together a million times."
"Father always said he didn't care for dancing."
Claire was almost beside herself with excitement. "Even knowing it—seeing it—I thought it almost like a fairy tale, but it's real, Teddy. It's really real."
The two sat thoughtfully side by side, trying to make sense of an adult world that they weren't completely prepared to understand.
When Claire had caught sight of Mikolai Stefanski running off into the darkness of the trees her curiosity had been piqued. It had taken only a couple of minutes to find Teddy and decide to follow him.
"Who would have thought old people could still feel that . . . that passionate about each other," Teddy said.
Claire nodded. "They are obviously still in love," she told him.
"Can't be anything else," he agreed. "And we've brought them back together."
"Yes, we've done that."
Te
ddy sighed wistfully. "Now, I guess all we have to do is wait for them to make an announcement."
"An announcement of what?" Claire asked him. "For heaven's sake, Teddy, didn't you see the way that she ran away from him?"
"Well, sure."
"That's not the way people end up happily ever after, is it?" Her tone was superior and facetious.
"Of course not, but—"
"They still don't believe that they can be together," she said. "They are still trying to keep the whole thing a big secret."
"Why would they do that?"
"Because of the scandal."
"What scandal?"
"The scandal of having me!" Claire answered with annoyance. "I am the child of their unsanctioned love. They must keep that secret, especially from me."
"There's no need for that. You already know," Teddy said.
"But they don't know that I know."
"Then we should tell them."
'Teddy Stefanski, football is rotting your brain," she declared. "Do you expect that I can just walk up to them and say ‘I know that I’m your illegitimate daughter.’"
Teddy blanched. "Well, no."
"They have to tell us, you and me. To be together again, they have to be honest and confess everything. But they can't tell us because it would hurt us, maybe ruin our lives. It's like a penance, don't you see. They can't be together because of us. Their love for you and their guilt over me keeps them apart forever."
The young man's brow furrowed in concern. "So we're back to where we started from."
"Not exactly," Claire said. "We know that the journal is all true. And we know that they still love each other."
Teddy nodded. "But if they can't be together because of you, how are we going to change that?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "But I'll think of something. Come on, we'd better get back. Olive is going to be wondering what happened to you."
Teddy helped her to her feet and they brushed their grass-stained clothing halfheartedly as they made their way down the path.