Many Mansions

by Isabel Bolton

  For years they had carried on a little affair of the heart. Fanned by all the breezes of mutual attraction, never allowed to go too far, each preserved unimpaired a sense of the other’s charms. The glances they exchanged, the delicate breezes of sensuality they set afloat, did not, as she reflects upon it, escape her, and the fact that Grandfather Foster was as they used to put it “sweet upon Cecilia” created just another of those situations that she and Lucien shared together, and constituted some portion of that curious sense she had that matters of a nature somewhat secret and suppressed were under observation. Sex, if indeed she could speak of it as belonging to an age entirely unacquainted with the word, was for her a matter of the licensed exhibition, the small scenes and tableaux enjoyed with Lucien, all of which—the ladies in their low-necked dresses at the dinner table, their behavior at the garden parties, Charlie Lamb’s lady-killing manners, Aunt Georgie’s undisguised jealousy—savored more of the absurd and the ridiculous than of the passionate and profound.

  Very dark and secret they had kept it. She had been led to understand that there were certain subjects under no circumstances to be mentioned. “When the proper time arrived,” all would doubtless be revealed. She had been singularly lacking in curiosity. Her mind had been bereft of concrete facts, concrete sexual images. Perhaps it was the gallant little story of Silvestro and her mother where romantic love had captured her imagination as something belonging to the higher reaches of the soul, connecting it somehow with sorrow and her orphaned state, with evening and the falling of the dew, the scent of flowers in the garden. How oddly in her adolescence she had been assailed by longing, rushing off at twilight into the garden, or more often to the solitary beach, where she would throw her arms out wildly, invoking winds and waves: “Swiftly walk over the western wave, Spirit of Night”—what extraordinary power that particular poem had had, to fill her full of yearning, immense, unutterable, vague—“Out of the misty eastern cave / Where all the long and lone daylight / Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear / Which make thee terrible arid dear / Swift be thy flight!” And those ardent invocations at the end of every stanza, “Come soon, soon.” For what was it she had waited? For love, for the arrival of a lover to whom she would yield up all the rich, the undiscovered treasures of her soul? Love had seemed to her as riotously, romantically incorporeal as those kisses of Shelley that mixed and merged with winds and waves and sunsets, leaving the soul quite free for unimpeded flights of poetry.

  It had seemed to her quite possible that if two people actually in love with each other should, by some rare circumstance, be left long enough unchaperoned, their love might reach a climax of such soulful unity that the exchanging of a kiss, the extending of this rapture beyond the limits of propriety, might very possibly result in the shameful, the unlawful bearing of a child. It was thus she remembers she had interpreted that child, that scarlet letter pinned to the breast of Hester Prynne. And it was probably, she had made it out, to save her from just such ignominy that she was always so rigorously chaperoned, never allowed to be in the presence of a young man without Cecilia or Aunt Eleanor or someone of a proper age to see that the proprieties were kept.

  How could she have been prepared for it, loving Lucien with her innocent, exclusive heart—that August afternoon when they had lain beside each other on the sand, the joining of their hands, their lips—the sudden tracks of fire traced along the secret pathways of her nerves, the secret channels of her blood?

  How could she possibly have stood out against it, that sudden passionate love that consumed and overwhelmed her—those stealthy meetings under the lee of the dunes where very occasionally they used to lie together in the hot dry sand?

  There were those words he used to whisper to her, “You are part of all things great and quiet, my beloved.” She had thought them very beautiful. They were, he told her, taken from a Rumanian folk song. She had, to be sure, been very far from quiet. Her heart had beaten wildly when he took her in his arms. But after their love had been consummated, when all that passion was spent, there she’d lie, very quiet and meditative, listening while the waves approached and, breaking, drew back the pebbles with that mesmeric music that carried her away, floated her off across the waters, across the limitless horizons. Then it had seemed to her indeed she had become a part of that open world of childhood—those moments that were timeless and imperishable.

  SEVEN

  Very much absorbed she read on. Good gracious, she thought, her predicament had been incredible. Who would be able to believe in it? She found it difficult to believe in it herself and her mind running back to dwell on certain incidents that had preceded that memorable trip from Rome to Florence and which had so absorbed her thoughts upon that April day, she went over them again with all the old astonishment.

  That morning at The Towers when Lucien and Eleanor had appeared so late for breakfast and something it had seemed to her between them—Eleanor with that look, hard to define it, in complete possession of her face and looking, if such a thing were possible, more beautiful than ever. Lucien pale, determined; he’d not looked up—he’d not looked at anyone and no sooner had he spread his napkin over his knees than he announced casually that he and Eleanor were leaving for the mountains—Eleanor he said had been suffering from lassitude. She needed a change of air. Eleanor kept her silence, that look of which she’d been aware spreading on her face and she remembers how she’d searched the other faces—Grandfather’s evident surprise, blustering out his protest, “What, leaving for the mountains, wasn’t the air here good enough for anyone?” and her grandmother sitting behind the coffee urn without a quiver of expression on her face—Lucien had done most of the explaining—a little as though he’d been talking to himself—for he’d looked at no one and it was sea level they’d seemed to be discussing—Eleanor had had too much of that—she needed higher altitudes and as the protests and expostulations had come entirely from her grandfather it was to be assumed that Grandmother Foster was in agreement—Eleanor must have a change.

  At any rate, they had departed for the White Mountains that very afternoon. She’d had no word from Lucien. She had not laid eyes on him again until Thanksgiving when, politely, decorously, they had met in the big house in Brookline. At Christmas she had seen him, and during the winter they had met occasionally in the same casual family way, and he had discussed with her and the rest of them the plans her grandmother had made for her to spend accompanied by Cecilia a year in Europe just exactly as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. She would love Europe. He hoped she’d go to Italy. Not a word from anyone regarding her condition, merely that relentless carrying out of plans for Europe, and then, in February, his coming with all the others to see her off.

  And oh, that moment on the steamer when they had been left alone together on the deck standing beside the rail. “Child,” he’d said, his voice so broken he could not go on; the beating of her heart so loud she dared not look at him; and then Aunt Eleanor’s arriving in a flurry of excitement, “Lucien, who do you think is on the boat—the Milton Steeles.” She’d borne him off with her and that was the last she’d seen of him save for his face upon the pier among the other faces in the crowd.

  Utterly incredible—never having mentioned her plight to a soul on earth and Cecilia playing her part to such perfection. Why no sooner had she been safely planted on foreign soil than she’d taken on the status of a respectable young matron—always referred to while they stayed in France as Madame and in Italy respectfully addressed as Signora. Goodness how Cecilia had loved it all—she’d positively doted on the coy little references—going in Paris to the dressmaker’s to order the new spring clothes. Did Madame hope for un fils or une fille? and making the rejoinder as it were by proxy, “Oh, un fils, of course.” And then in Rome how she’d enjoyed that too, being so conspicuous in her care of her—toting her about to see the sights and making such a feature of the fact that she was, impossible to disguise it, about to have a child.

  So t
here, thought the old woman, continuing to read and to remember she’d been on that lovely day in April traveling from Rome to Florence and Cecilia beside her very smart in her Parisian outfit, the new spring suit and the fashionable hat that set off her little head and the blonde, the pretty puffs and curls so admirably, her manner arrogant and frivolous, playing the woman of the world. She was no longer the poor relation. She was acting the great lady for all she was worth—the garrulous, the asinine conversation, “Look, darling, the Maremma oxen, the beautiful Maremma oxen. Your grandfather loved the oxen. No wonder, with his beauty-loving soul.”

  There, opposite, was that sprucely turned-out little gentleman, who was, and it could not have escaped Cecilia’s notice, an Italian version of Grandfather Foster, every move she made and every word she spoke a patent bid for his attention. “So good of your dear grandparents to send you to Italy at just this impressionable age. I wish I were seeing Italy for the first time.” The old gentleman had crossed his knees and discreetly extended his well-shod foot in the direction of her pretty ankles.

  Sooner or later, she had thought, they’d pick up an acquaintance. She’d given them however but scant attention, going back and forth among her memories, asking herself the same old questions, never able to answer them. Who had known exactly what, and above all, had Lucien been informed of her condition? She would wonder, what with his cousinages and connections, knowing he shared the same collateral relatives with Grandmother Foster, and remembering how she repeated his name twice over when she introduced him, “My son-in-law, Mr. Lucien Grey; Mr. Lucien Grey”—had not her grandmother let him off the final information? Could it be possible that Lucien had not known about the child? That was the all-important question.

  On and on Cecilia prattled, “Look, darling, at that old monastery, see the priest under the cypresses reading his breviary. See the splendid villa, the stone pines along the avenue. Isn’t Italy adorable?” And so on, and so on, until finally she’d leaned forward and tried, with a solicitude manufactured entirely for the benefit of the gentleman opposite, to place that little traveling pillow behind her back.

  Was he or was he not informed? It was a question nobody was likely to ask or answer, so decorously and discreetly was everything proceeding. Round and round in a circle went her thoughts. What was going to happen next? The only thing she knew for certain was that Florence was her destination, and that Cecilia was carrying out her orders from behind the scenes, her grandmother’s skillful hand directing every move. How supine she’d been about it all, never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown with Cecilia. What scenes and conversations she’d invented as she sat there, “See here, Cousin Cecilia, it’s my right to know what you’re planning to do with me and with my child,” or, “Let’s put an end to all this secrecy and make-believe”—forcing the issue in imagination as she sat beside her listening to the silly prattle.

  She’d managed, as she knew she would, to get into conversation with her fellow traveler, and was doing her level best to draw her into it. “This gentleman has been so kind. He’s been telling me about the places we must see while we’re in Florence,” and she’d turned to ask the name of that interesting little village he had spoken of.

  “Borgo alla Collina.” It meant, she’d explained, little town among the hills, and wasn’t that perfectly charming? A very famous man was buried there. He was mentioned in Dante. They must not fail to go.

  “The Signora is,” she’d explained, “very interested in poetry. She intends to study Dante when she’s mastered her Italian.”

  “Bravo,” said the old gentleman.

  She’d made no rejoinder whatever. She’d simply sat there, looking through the window at the broad, the spacious plain, the mountains, those celestial clouds and snows that lay upon them, and suddenly she’d felt consoled, carried beyond, outside her grief and her bewilderment. This is Italy, she’d thought, rejoicing in her Italian parent and in the radiant beauty of the Italian spring, all those blossoming fruit boughs, peach and plum and almond, pear and apple, with the lights and shadows on them from the clouds and snows and mountains, and all those little Tuscan views and landscapes, valleys, olive groves and vineyards, hills crowned with their towns and towers and churches, lifted from the earth, transilluminated there before her eyes.

  It was just before they got to Florence that she’d had her moment of rapture, ecstasy, call it what you would, remembering that small Annunciation just as plainly as though she’d stood before it in the Vatican Museum, something about the Virgin’s attitude, her hands folded upon her breast and that movement she seemed to be making, a drawing back in awe and denial as though an announcement so great and so astonishing could not by any possibility be true; and the angel, the rush and spread of wings, the garments full and flowing, the hand upraised, had all but overwhelmed her with that sense she’d had of the surpassing mystery, the miracle of birth.

  It was just then the door of the compartment opened to let in that ridiculous little courier. What was his name? Fratelli, that was it. “Scusi, scusi,” he’d exclaimed, continuing in his nervous, broken, obsequious English. They were nearing Florence, would the ladies permit him to take the luggage from the racks and place it in the corridor? He smiled, and, addressing Cecilia, said that the carriage for Fiesole would be waiting at the station. All the arrangements had been made, the drive in the cool of the evening would be delightful.

  “But delightful,” he repeated, and, turning to her, expatiated on the joys awaiting her. “When the Signora arrives in Fiesole,” he declared, “she will find herself in paradise,” and he kissed the ends of his fingers. “But in paradise,” he said.

  Again the old woman shut her eyes and closed the manuscript. Ah, there was more to it than just the recounting of her quite incredible little tragedy, that laying bare of the secret she had kept through all these years, and which was so faithfully recorded in these pages. It was on the place names now she lingered—Firenze, Fiesole, those months she had spent with the nuns in their convent overlooking Florence. Why, they had a heartscape, a horizon that closed her in with memories which left her vibrating now to an intensity of response entirely unique—to Italy as she’d experienced it at that time of poignant sorrow. To be sure she’d been in Rome but that ancient city had been too large, too crowded with history—the Forum, the Coliseum, the catacombs, St. Peter’s and the Vatican, all the Christian churches, dragged hither and thither by Cecilia, telling her about it in her uninformed, irrelevant manner, and her own thoughts but seldom free from her predicament.

  But here in the fine weather with the spring rioting wildly in the vineyards and the gardens and the nightingales singing all day long as well as through the night! There had been those drives to Florence down the long hill in the big landau with Fratelli on the box beside the coachman pointing out this sight of interest or the other, and Cecilia next her talking the usual nonsense, the Judas trees in blossom and the wisteria dripping over every wall, passing the contadini in their rattling wine carts, cracking their long whips, shouting their jokes and gay obscenities; then the entrance into the old town, clattering over the cobblestones through the dark streets between the great palaces with their overhanging roofs. And all of a sudden coming out on the Piazza del Duomo, that astonishing display of architecture, the great cathedral with its enormous dome, the baptistry and Giotto’s lovely tower intricately overlaid with flowery patterns of mosaic, as though with that happy exuberance of the Renaissance it had been necessary to proclaim in these wondrous structures that this was the city of flowers, the city of youth and renascent spring.

  Oh, she couldn’t get away from it in Florence, that sense she’d had that one participated in the celebration of life itself, its perpetual renewal. As she scanned the faces of the young women who passed her in the streets and saw their features and expressions again and again repeated in the faces of the Virgins and Madonnas in the churches and museums she became increasingly aware that the masters of the Renaissance h
ad expressed, in their beautiful Annunciations, Nativities, and Assumptions, as much their pagan adoration for life, fertility, as their ecstasy in the presence of the great Christian myths and mysteries. It was here on every side, you couldn’t escape it, the declaration of joy in the beauty and mystery of life. She was young and uninstructed historically, and she hadn’t so much got it through her intellect as through her senses, through every fiber of her being, so that now she had only to think about that extraordinary time to feel it flowing back to her through all the tides of memory—the language, the voices, the smells, vistas down the long dark streets, sunlight on the palaces, in the piazzas, clattering over the pavements, walking past the monuments. crossing the bridges, going into museums, entering churches.

  She had not, of course, been able to have it out with Cecilia. Day after day had passed, keeping up the same old farce, going in and out of Florence like any other pair of avid sightseers; and then, when it grew very warm and she had found it difficult to be so much upon her feet, the sisters had urged her to remain in the convent garden, and Cecilia had sustained them in this advice. Oh yes, she’d said, she must make herself comfortable in the lovely garden and let her do the honors of the town.

  EIGHT

  Certain memories are never still, thought the old woman. They are like clouds, they move and shift about, they emit their lights and shadows. You suffer them; they come and go and after a while establish a climate, an ambient all their own.

  And there had been a trancelike spell about that convent garden which, even as she thought about the anguish she’d suffered there, began to work upon her—sitting day after day in that long chair, the heat intense, the roses blooming, fading away in such profusion that she’d heard the little sound of petals falling through the hedge. The soft petals accumulating under the hedge, that mass of purple iris, the tall buds, and the blossoms standing up like moths above the broken chrysalises, the pigeons walking up and down beneath the cypress trees engaged in ceaseless conversations, the sisters coming on little errands, bringing her this and that—speaking to them, dismissing them, never allowing her reveries to be disturbed, and seeing, while they retreated down the path between the cypress trees, over the edge of the garden wall, floating off and away into the distance of the skyscape and the mountain ranges, the immense, the lovely panorama, with Florence lying below her in the valley of the Arno; asking herself the same insistent questions. Was Lucien informed or was he not? Did he know that she was about to bear his child? Had he allowed himself to be maneuvered by the same powerful hand that moved her puppets with such skill and deliberation? What would happen to her child? And why, why, why had she not been able to have it out with Cecilia?