Bellefleur

by Joyce Carol Oates

  While accompanying Mrs. Pym on a weeklong visit to the castle, shortly after the surprising occasion of Miss Christabel’s marriage to Edgar Holleran von Schaff III, Garnet was able to draw aside (discreetly, though she trembled violently that they might be discovered even in so innocent a place as the nursery, where she was “visiting with” Cassandra) her lover Gideon; and to arrange for a secret meeting very late on the following night. “I will make no demands of you,” she whispered. “But we must meet. One final time.” Gideon, dressed for the outdoors, his dark beard newly trimmed (but it was, now, Garnet saw with a pang of love, threaded with gray—silver-gray), his somewhat prominent eyes darting quickly about behind her (touching upon, and veering off, the beautiful Cassandra napping on her stomach in the cradle), seemed at first incapable of speaking. He opened his mouth—smiled—the smile thinned—he blinked rapidly—cleared his throat—looked her full in the face—and, wincing, drew back an inch or two, as if involuntarily. She could see that, for Gideon as well as herself, even so casual a meeting was painful: it was likely that he suffered as she did, though of course he would never speak of such things. “I know, I know, this violates our promise,” Garnet said quickly, half feeling pity for him (for herself, she had long abrogated pity, as unworthy of one who was loved by, and had borne a child for, Gideon Bellefleur), “but you must understand that I am desperate . . . I am so lonely . . . I’m afraid that something terrible will happen to me. . . . Ah, it was good, really, though your wife could not have known, that she came to take my baby away from me!” Garnet whispered.

  “Don’t talk like that, don’t say such foolish things,” Gideon said. “If you say them they are likely to become—”

  She touched her fingers daringly to his lips. “Then we’ll meet? Tomorrow? And you won’t despise me? And you will come?”

  He seized her hand and, hesitating a moment, kissed it; or anyway pressed it to his cold lips. Garnet was to feel the imprint of those lips against her hand (but it was the back of her hand, for he had, oddly, turned it at the very last instant) for many hours. Shamelessly, like a young girl new to love, and delirious with its promise, she had even kissed her own hand—hoping her foolishness would go unobserved.

  “He does love me,” she murmured aloud to her wan, indistinct reflection, as she plaited her hair for bed that night. “But his love makes our predicament all the more tragic. . . .”

  AND SO THEY met, the following night. In the unused room on the third floor of the east wing where, so very long ago, in another lifetime, Garnet had gone, at Mrs. Pym’s suggestion, to bring poor Gideon some nourishment. It was in the doorway of that room, in the shadowy corridor outside the room, that Garnet, staring as Gideon Bellefleur tore with ravenous appetite at the meat she had brought him, that she fell—plunged—was thrown, violently—in love. She had wanted to cry aloud O Gideon I love you, you must know, you cannot not know. . . . Perhaps (she sometimes wondered, reliving that night) she had cried aloud. . . .

  Meeting there had been Garnet’s idea. But if it struck her lover as foolishly sentimental, he gave no indication. (But then Gideon was so polite. So impassively courteous. Garnet had once overheard, out in the garden, one humid August afternoon, Leah herself shouting at him—What do you mean, showing that frosty insupportable gentlemanliness to me, to your own wife, who knows you inside and out!) Instead he merely nodded, and repeated the time she had said—1:00 A.M.—in a hurried and preoccupied manner.

  Well before 1:00 A.M. Garnet slipped away, and climbed the drafty stairs to the third floor, daring only a small candle (whose flame flickered wildly, cupped behind her hand), for fear of being discovered. Bellefleur Manor, even during the day, was intimidating: there were corridors, and corners, and dark little niches, that looked as if no one ever visited them; and of course the sillier women, and even some of the men, among the domestic staff, freely complained of ghosts. But Garnet did not believe in ghosts. She found it difficult, at times, to believe in flesh-and-blood people—even in herself—certainly in the baby to whom she had given birth. . . . There were only the cruel stretch marks on her abdomen and a certain oversensitivity about her breasts, even after many months, to remind her of the arduous physical reality of her motherhood.

  In preparation for the many houseguests who were to have stayed at Bellefleur Manor, for great-grandmother Elvira’s birthday celebration, all the rooms had been cleaned; and in many—in this room, for instance—furniture had been reupholstered and new carpets laid. So Garnet’s first impression was one of pleased surprise. The really quite filthy carpet upon which Gideon had slept was gone, and in its place lay what appeared to be an attractive thick-piled rug. There were chairs—a bureau—a large mirror—several small tables, inlaid with marble—and of course a bed—a double bed—a canopied bed with high pillows and a thick crimson cover. Blushing, Garnet saw by the flickering light (and perhaps she saw inaccurately, for the candle did flicker) a most embarrassing tapestry hanging just to the right of the bed: it showed a scantily clad couple, the woman as well as the man quite full-bodied, and vigorous, and impatient to make love, being surprised in a boudoir by—could it be?—a lascivious little Cupid leading, down a staircase, a horse—a horse with outlandish long eyelashes and a queer human expression. The lovers gaped with surprise: and indeed who would not have been surprised?

  Garnet was staring at this strange tapestry (she could not decide if it was obscene, or merely playful; or both; but in any case it should be taken down and stored at the very back of a closet) when she heard a sound in the corridor. For some reason (had she doubted, even then, her lover’s truthfulness?) her first thought was that someone other than Gideon was there. One or two of the male servants had expressed an interest in her—an interest, of course, fervently rebuffed—and there were tales of poor Hiram’s sleepwalking, which had evidently flared up again after some months of quiescence; and innumerable cats, some of them quite large, roamed the castle freely at night. So she stood, cringing, the little candle cupped in her hand, a young woman who—despite her motherhood, despite her passion—looked hardly more than a child, staring at the empty doorway as if she had no idea who might appear.

  And then of course Gideon did arrive, with a flashlight in hand—entering the room boldly, yet without haste. He murmured a greeting and reached out to take her hand (ah, how awkward she was!—Garnet jerked away because of the candle she was holding, not wanting it to be upset, and then of course it was upset; and her lover, swearing, had to scramble for it across the rug), and managed at last to kiss her on the forehead. Yet something was wrong. Garnet felt it, she knew, unmistakably.

  Nevertheless she spoke, gripping his arm. She spoke, too rapidly, of her love for him, which had not ebbed, which had in fact increased—though, yes, she knew they had promised never to say such things again—never to torment themselves. But she had to break her vow: her life was so empty, so miserable, so futile. It was all the more intolerable, she told him, that his wife (who meant well—of course Leah always meant well) chattered about finding a “suitable” husband for her, and had even been making inquiries about eligible bachelors and widowers in the area. Couldn’t he speak—discreetly, of course—to Leah? Didn’t Leah realize how such remarks wounded Garnet? Didn’t he realize? But that wasn’t the primary cause of her unhappiness, as he must know. Even the surrender of Cassandra—which had nearly broken her heart—wasn’t the primary cause.

  And then, suddenly, desperately, she threw herself into his arms.

  Gideon held her, rather awkwardly. He patted her back, he murmured words she could not interpret; he behaved, in short, exactly as Gideon Bellefleur—as nearly any Bellefleur, for that matter—might have behaved if, in public, quite suddenly, unpredictably, a grieving stranger had fairly collapsed in his arms.

  Sobs wracked her body. She knew—knew from the very moment he entered the room, really—that he no longer loved her. (And the hairsbreadth of a thought which she hadn’t quite had, about the handsome big bed—how
that would return to haunt her, poor humiliated Garnet Hecht!) Still she could not keep herself from saying, “O I love you, I can’t stop loving you, you are a prince among men, I can’t stop loving you—please, Gideon—please don’t abandon me! Haven’t I given up my baby girl for you, for your sake—Haven’t I doomed myself to a life of sorrow, knowing that my child will grow up apart from me—and even if she knows I am her mother, still—”

  Gideon stepped back from her, blinking. He asked her to repeat what she had said.

  “About Cassandra? Why, I—I—”

  “You gave her up for me?” Gideon asked, baffled. “But what do you mean?—for me?”

  “I—I naturally thought—”

  “Leah told me that you had begged her to take the child: that you didn’t want her: that the baby would interfere with your chances of getting married. What do you mean, now, by saying that you gave her up for me?”

  He stared at her with such incredulity, with such an air of—of unloving alarm—that Garnet came close to swooning. She stammered, “I thought—I only thought—Leah and Hiram came to visit Mrs. Pym, you see, and—and— And somehow it came about— I don’t remember clearly— I don’t remember most things clearly, now— O Gideon I had thought you—you were behind it—sending them—her—to bring your own child back—to rear her as a Bellefleur—of course without letting Leah know— I had thought,” Garnet whispered, “that it might even have been a test of—of—a test of my love for you—”

  Gideon stepped back. He exhaled loudly—puffed out his cheeks and extended his lower lip and blew upward, so that his hair was stirred—in a gesture Ewan frequently made, to show half-amused disgust and bewilderment. “. . . but no not really,” he muttered.

  “Gideon?” Garnet cried, reaching for him, stumbling toward him, “do you mean—do you mean—you didn’t— As Cassandra’s father you didn’t especially want her—?”

  He stepped back again, eluding her. As her fingers groped for his sleeve he brushed them half-consciously away. For a long moment he appeared unable to speak. A vein pulsed in his forehead, and another in his throat. “. . . so it was Leah . . . Leah’s idea . . . she knows . . . must know . . . but why did she do it . . . to spite me, or . . . to spite you. . . . Or is there another reason . . .”

  “Gideon,” Garnet said, in a lower voice, “please tell me: you didn’t ask her to bring the child back? You don’t, even now, especially want her? As Cassandra’s father you don’t especially want her—?”

  It was at this point that, quite suddenly, in a voice that hardly resembled his, Gideon said something that was to be as inexplicable—indeed, as unfathomable—in his own imagination as in Garnet’s, and to cause him, in secret, great torment: he heard himself say sardonically, “Am I the father?”

  For a long moment Garnet simply stared at him. She could not comprehend his words. Slowly, as if dazed, she brushed her damp hair out of her eyes—tried to speak—stood swaying—staring at him. It was only when his face contorted with shame, and guilt, and immediate sorrow, that she realized the terrible thing he had said. He exclaimed, “Oh, Garnet of course I didn’t mean—” but already she had turned, and was running out of the room, her long hair streaming behind her.

  He would have pursued her at once, and might have caught her, but in Garnet’s shock she dropped the candle; and once again he had to scramble after it as it rolled, not yet entirely quenched, beneath the bed. “Dear fucking God, why is this happening,” Gideon half-sobbed, his shoulder striking the bedframe (for he was a large man, and could not comfortably maneuver in that cramped space), “why am I plagued as I am, who is playing this vile trick, whom should I murder. . . . Jesus fucking God!” he exclaimed, at last catching hold of the candle, and retrieving it. And with great passion he spat on the wick, though the meager flame had at last died. “. . . should have let it go,” he murmured, “should have let everything go up in flames. . . .”

  So Garnet fled, in a paroxysm of shame, hardly knowing what she did, which turn in the corridor to take, which stairway to descend. She fled, too stupefied even to weep, and somehow found herself in an unheated back hallway, and then at a door, throwing herself against a door, as dogs began to yip in a startled chorus. Gathering her cloak about her she ran across the lawn. Moonlight illuminated the long hill that dipped to the lake—illuminated the hill and not the surrounding woods—so that she had only one way to run. Now barefoot, her hair streaming, the skirt of her pretty silken gown beginning to rip, she ran, her eyes open and fixed. Somehow the cloak was torn off her shoulders—torn off and flung away. Still she ran, oblivious of her surroundings, knowing only that she must run, to flee the horror behind her, and to eradicate herself in the dark murmurous lake before her. Senseless words careened about her head: O Gideon I love you, I cannot live without you, I have always loved you and I will always love you— Please forgive me—

  (An angel, transfixed by suffering! A crucifixion, Lord Dunraven was to think, afterward, in her lovely face! But how terrifying a sight she was, on that night, running like a madwoman, only partly clad, to drown herself in the frigid March waters of that ugliest of lakes!)

  So Garnet fled; and would surely have drowned herself. Except, through the unlikeliest of coincidences (though not, upon reflection, any less likely, Lord Dunraven reasoned, than many another coincidence he had experienced in his lifetime, or had heard of in others’ lives) there turned up the Bellefleur drive at that moment a carriage drawn by two superbly-matched teams of horses, carrying Eustace Beckett, Lord Dunraven, a distant relative of grandmother Cornelia’s who had been invited, originally, for great-grandmother Elvira’s birthday, but who had had regretfully to decline, though saying (with a graciousness that struck Cornelia as kindly rather than sincere) that he would like to visit his American cousin another time. A telegram announcing his arrival had been sent from New York, but had not, evidently, been delivered, for no one awaited him at the manor. As the carriage turned up the drive, and passed by the gate house, Lord Dunraven saw, to his astonishment, a ghostly figure running down the long, long hill—running barefoot, despite the cold—her hair flying behind her—her arms outstretched—and though the vision was a most alarming one (for Garnet did resemble a madwoman) Lord Dunraven had the presence of mind, and the courage, to shout for the driver to stop at once; and he leapt down; and pursued the girl to the very edge of the lake where, since his cries had made no impression upon her, he was forced to seize her bare arm, to prevent her from plunging in the water.

  “No, no—you must not— My poor girl, you must not—” Lord Dunraven cried, out of breath. The girl tried to struggle free. She clawed at him, even slashed at him—quite harmlessly, as it turned out—with her teeth, and writhed with such demonic violence that her gown was torn nearly off her back, exposing the bare flesh. “I say you must not,” Lord Dunraven grunted, holding her, at last, still, in the moment before she sank into blessed unconsciousness.

  Another Carriage . . .

  Another carriage, piled high with trunks, unceremoniously jammed with people, carried her away: so Jean-Pierre theorized, though in fact he could not see her: though he saw, quite clearly, her bewigged and vacant-eyed father.

  The next day, outside a tavern, he joined a regiment bound for Fort Ticonderoga; and the night before leaving he dreamt, not of the girl, but of the ugly prison-castle his family inhabited for centuries, in the north of France: its monstrous walls eighty-five feet high and seven feet thick, the shallow green-scummed water of the moat giving off a most unpleasant stink.

  Ticonderoga, Lake Champlain, Crown Point. . . . He left for the north without seeing a map. Henceforth he would not meet his fate passively: he would forge it.

  The Noir Vulture

  It was on a windless June day of heart-stopping beauty (only a very few clouds, diaphanous, subtle as milkweed fluff, were brushed against the china-blue sky) that Vernon Bellefleur, who had despaired for more than twenty years of being a poet (a genuine poet, in his own terms: e
veryone else referred to him, glibly, if not contemptuously, as The Poet), became, at last, quite suddenly, through an experience of obscene horror, a poet. And so he was to remain, for the rest of his exceptionally long life.

  “A man’s life of any worth,” Vernon often intoned, “is a continual allegory. . . .”

  But what is the nature, precisely, of this allegory? Are all men’s lives allegorical, or only the few, the extraordinary few?

  He liked to read to The People. To his family’s field hands, or mill hands, good simple unquestioning sturdy folk, about whom the phrase the salt of the earth was not inappropriate: he liked to stand before them in his jacket that was too tight in the armpits, and buttoned crookedly, part of his beard caught up in the gay red scarf he knotted about his neck for such occasions, his voice rising with a dramatic intensity that stirred his listeners to a sympathy so profound it expressed itself in spasms of mirth. (But were their lives allegorical, their simple laborers’ lives . . . ? Or might they require the transcendental services of the poet, of poesy, to transform them . . . ?) At any rate he read, though his knees trembled with the audacity of his undertaking (for he read out in the fields, standing atop a wagon; or on a window ledge in the Fort Hanna mill; even in crowded taverns on Friday evenings, where the tavern keeper, knowing he was a Bellefleur, commanded a modicum of attention for him), and tears jerked in the corners of his eyes, he read until his throat was hoarse, until his head reeled with exhaustion, until, glancing up, he saw that most of his audience had drifted away—for perhaps his thirty-eight-line sonnets on “Lara” were too painfully candid for them, or they found too difficult, too demanding, the words of certain other poets, lifelong heroes of Vernon’s, whom he also read: