Beauty and Attention: A Novel

by Liz Rosenberg

  “A trial?” fumbled the younger sister, through her handkerchief.

  “One must be sure of doing the right thing,” said the father. “I assume you would not turn her away, if she needed to return? Nor turn down the fees?”

  “We want only what is best for the child,” said the older nun, fitting her spectacles back on, and looking rather more closely than before at the father. “But I am convinced you will find she belongs here in the real world, with you.”

  “This,” he looked around him, “is not the real world. I make sure of that. But I will take it under consideration, certainly. She may be as easy as she is good.”

  The younger sister clasped her hands and leaned forward. “You can’t imagine how good, monsieur. You simply can’t imagine! I wish we could keep Viola forever.”

  “If it were entirely up to me, you could,” said the father.

  “Good as she is,” said the elder nun, “she was made for the world. And the world will gain by having such a perfect young lady in it.”

  “The world has a habit of ruining perfection,” remarked the man.

  “But there are good people everywhere,” put in the younger.

  The man rose abruptly. “Well, when you depart, there will be two less of them here,” he said.

  The two nuns jumped to their feet with embarrassment. “We have kept you too long,” said the bespectacled nun, looking reproachfully at the empty water glasses, as if they were to blame for their own luxury.

  “Not at all, not at all,” the man said. But he moved swiftly to the door leading out to the garden and clapped his hands.

  “Bring the flowers,” he called. “The sisters must be going now.” He half turned. “Will you take the train back tonight?” he asked indifferently.

  “Yes, we have so much to do.”

  The girl appeared as if she had flown to the door. In one hand she carried a large bouquet of pink roses, in the other white. She had artfully arranged other flowers as well—blue lupine and pale-gold lilies. She went to the older nun first. “Will you choose?” she pleaded. “They are exactly the same, except the color of the roses.”

  The elder nun smiled at the younger. “You choose, sister. You care more than I do for color and beauty.”

  “Oh no, I couldn’t,” answered the other, blushing.

  “I will choose then,” said the father smoothly, handing the pink flowers to the elder and the white to the younger. Both sisters murmured their thanks, and the younger nun buried her nose in the roses.

  “I will be breathing these all the way home,” she told the girl.

  “I wish I could give you something that would last!” cried Viola.

  “We mustn’t keep the good sisters waiting,” said the father impatiently. He walked to open the door while the sisters embraced the girl and said their goodbyes, with tears on both sides. The man looked over their heads.

  The girl stood quivering as she watched them go, rising up on her tiptoes to see them pass out of sight, down the front path, and away. “I will miss you!” she called. Her father stood with his shoulder to her, also watching them go.

  “You must learn to be less emotional,” he said, when he was sure they were alone again.

  “Yes, Papa,” she said.

  “It isn’t good for you.”

  “I’m sure you are right,” she said. She stood in the center of the room, as if unsure where to go next. He busied himself with something by the entrance, some figurines whose placement no longer pleased him.

  The girl caught her breath with a little gasp. “There’s someone out in our garden!” she said.

  “Perhaps a workman,” he said. “The garden doesn’t keep itself, you know.”

  “I think it’s a lady,” observed Viola. “She looks like a moving statue. She is trying to hold still.”

  “A moving—” He went impatiently to the open door and saw something that made him jerk his head back for an instant. Then he went out into the garden.

  A woman glided forward silently. When she had drawn quite close she asked, “Is anyone here?”

  “Someone you are allowed to see.”

  She entered the house noiselessly.

  Viola let out a soft cry, not exactly of welcome. “Oh, it’s Madame Merle!”

  The woman held out her two hands, and the girl came forward timidly. At the very last instant she put up her face to be kissed.

  “I came to welcome you home,” said Madame Merle.

  “That was kind of you,” said Viola. “Though you visited me just last month.”

  The man turned his head quickly to the side. “Did she?”

  “Yes, I had to be in France on other business,” said Madame Merle smoothly. “I brought you a little muff, do you remember? But I expect it’s too warm to need it now.”

  “I remember you said I’d be leaving the convent soon,” said Viola.

  “Is that right?” the child’s father asked.

  “I don’t remember. I suppose I knew she’d be coming home for summer vacation. All children like vacations, don’t they?”

  “Viola, go into the garden and pick some flowers for Madame Merle,” he said.

  “If it won’t tire you, after your journey,” added Madame Merle.

  “Oh no, I love the garden. I am happy to go.”

  “I’m glad the nuns have taught you to be obedient,” said Madame Merle. “That’s what all good little girls must learn.”

  “Yes, and bigger girls as well,” said the father. “It is essential—the most essential thing.”

  “I have high grades in obedience always,” said Viola. “But I’m afraid the nicest flowers are already gone.”

  “The nuns beat you to it,” Osmond told Madame Merle. The two adults stood close together, without touching. They spoke in low voices, not with any great intimacy, or even out of necessity, for they were saying nothing that Viola couldn’t hear, but rather as if out of long habit.

  “Shall I go out now?” asked Viola.

  “In a moment.” Madame Merle approached. She took Viola’s hand and looked at the small, delicate fingers lying in her own hand, as if reading the girl’s palm. “I hope the nuns always made you wear gloves,” she said. “Though I hated them when I was a child.”

  “I like them,” said Viola.

  “Good! Then I’ll buy you a dozen pair!”

  “In all pretty colors?”

  Madame Merle laughed. “Are you fond of pretty, colorful things?”

  “Yes—but just a little,” said Viola, rather primly.

  “Then they will be just a little pretty,” said Madame Merle, dropping her hand. The girl skipped quickly away.

  “Run out to the garden now,” said her father.

  The two adults stood facing into the garden, watching her go. Then Madame Merle turned to Osmond. “Do you think she will miss Mother Catherine?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “The elder nun. The one with the glasses.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I have no idea. I suppose so.”

  “You must discourage that,” she said.

  “Must I?”

  “Perhaps one day she’ll have another mother.”

  “I don’t see why. She has about twenty of them at the convent.”

  Clara Merle shrugged with impatience. She was wearing a full, belted silk dress the color of a soft summer sky. The blue brought out the blue in her eyes, and the paleness of her frosted hair, nearly white-blonde, as was the fashion. “I would have hoped you’d driven to France and gotten Viola yourself.”

  Osmond picked up the two empty crystal glasses and brought them over to a small sink—an artist’s sink, made for washing out brushes—and began to wash them carefully.

  “I am an indifferent driver,” he said.

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “My driving?”

  “Your indifference.”

  He dried his hands carefully on a soft linen towel, then
set the crystal goblets upside-down to air dry. “Isn’t it a little late,” he asked, “to complain about my indifference?”

  Madame Merle kept her eyes on the girl out in the garden. Viola moved uncertainly from bush to bush. “I am not speaking on my own behalf, but on yours.”

  “So you’ve always said,” he answered.

  She turned on him with an uncharacteristic flame in her pale-blue eyes. “And you doubt me still?” Her hands were clenched. With an effort, she loosened them, and when she spoke again, her voice had regained its usual smoothness. “I want you to make an effort.”

  Osmond threw himself into a chair, stretched his long legs, and crossed them at the ankles. “You have to remember how lazy I am.”

  “I beg you to forget it.”

  Osmond raised his eyebrows. “You beg me? That’s new.”

  “I wish to God that it were,” she said with her lopsided smile.

  They were interrupted by the reentry of Viola, who approached hesitantly, holding a handful of lilies and a few blood-red roses. “I didn’t know what you would like,” said the girl, hanging back.

  “I’ll like whatever you give me, because it comes from you,” said Madame Merle, beckoning her to come closer. Once again, Viola approached and lifted her forehead to be kissed, with a dutiful expression. Madame Merle stooped to bestow the kiss, but then turned aside at the last moment.

  “You don’t much like to be kissed, do you?” she asked.

  “I don’t mind,” the girl said bravely.

  “But look, she’s bleeding!” Madame Merle said, with real concern.

  “It was only a little hidden thorn,” said Viola.

  “Don’t you have a Band-Aid?” Madame Merle swung on Osmond, who had not risen from his chair.

  “Of course I do. Upstairs. Cara, go on up, and wash off your hand. The box of Band-Aids is under the sink.”

  “I can go with her,” said Madame Merle.

  “No,” said Osmond. “I haven’t raised her to be coddled, and neither have the good sisters. You’re able to take care of this yourself, aren’t you?” he asked his daughter.

  “Bien sûr,” said the girl. “Of course I am.”

  “Good,” he said. “Let me look.” Viola went obediently to her father and held out her hand. He nodded. “Only a small flesh wound. I think you’ll live. Run along now. Don’t get blood on the carpet,” he added half jovially.

  Viola turned to Madame Merle. “I hope you like the flowers,” she said in her high, clipped voice. Then she turned and ran lightly up the stairs, cupping the wounded hand in the other.

  “I do, very much!” Clara Merle called after her.

  A not altogether affable silence reigned downstairs. Madame Merle found a vase, and arranged the red roses with a judicious eye, adding water from the small tap. The bouquet looked sparse and stiff, no matter how she moved the stems around.

  “Dogs and children never take to me,” she said.

  “Ah, well. Luckily, I don’t have a dog,” said Osmond, watching her. “Besides, I don’t see such virtue in being liked.”

  “Yet I know a young woman who’s recently come into a large fortune, simply from being likable.”

  “Oh, well . . . young women do that sort of thing all the time.”

  “Don’t be odious,” she said. “That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  “About young women?”

  “This particular one. She’s here in Rome, and I would like you to . . . make an effort.”

  “What good will it do me?” he asked bluntly.

  “It might entertain you,” she said.

  “I don’t lack entertainment,” he said. “I don’t relish other people’s society. I’d just as soon be alone.”

  “It might do you a great deal of good. You and Viola both.”

  He winced. “I could tell this was going to be tiresome. Out with it. Who is this young woman, and why should I care?”

  “She’s a niece of Mrs. Sachs. You remember Mrs. Sachs, don’t you?”

  “The Jew? I presume the niece is also Jewish?”

  “Don’t pretend to be worse than you are,” she said coldly. “You’re bad enough without embellishments.”

  “A niece sounds like someone with hair ribbons. Someone who minces when she walks.”

  “Libby doesn’t mince.”

  “So she has a name,” said Osmond, crossing his arms across his chest.

  “Of course she has a name!”

  He pretended to consider, then shook his head. “Libby. No. I don’t like it.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “It sounds vulgar.”

  “She is not the least bit vulgar, I promise you. She is twenty-two or twenty-three, well bred, and graceful. I met her in the North of Ireland and liked her right away. I think you would admire her too.”

  “What is she—an Irish coed?”

  “She’s an American heiress.”

  “You’ve said that sort of thing before, and it doesn’t always bear out. Is she beautiful, poised, clever, quiet, and rich? Otherwise I’m not interested. Rome is full of dingy people; I don’t need to meet more of them.”

  “Libby Archer isn’t dingy; she’s as bright as the morning star. And she fits your description to a T.”

  Osmond waggled his hand. “Loosely speaking, you mean.”

  “No, I mean exactly. She is in fact beautiful, poised, clever, virtuous, and rich. And she’s just inherited a tidy fortune, free and clear. I know it for a fact.”

  Osmond ran one hand through his grizzled hair. “What do you want me to do with her?” he asked.

  Clara Merle shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. I’d like to bring her into your orbit.”

  “Isn’t she meant for something finer than that?”

  “I have no idea what people are meant for,” said Madame Merle. “That’s for higher minds to discover. I only know what I can do with them.”

  “I’m starting to pity this young lady,” he said.

  She stood and he rose to his feet as well. “If that means you’re starting to take an interest, I am glad to hear it.”

  The two stood face-to-face; then Madame Merle adjusted the neckline of her blue dress.

  “Won’t you take your flowers with you?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I have places to go, and I don’t like carrying flowers in the street. It looks so common.”

  “You never look common,” he said. “And you look especially fetching today. Your color is high. Like a Perugino Madonna. You never look as enchanting as when you’re hatching an idea. You should promote them just to enhance your looks.”

  “I wish you had a heart,” she said. “It has always worked against you in the past, and it will work against you now.”

  “I’m more sentimental than you think,” he said. “It’s very touching, what you are trying to do for me. I feel it more than you think.” He reached one hand out and stroked her hair, as if he were stroking the flank of a horse. She stood very still under his touch, looking at him with her large eyes. If someone had just walked into the room that moment, they might have thought she was afraid. “But I don’t see why I should give a damn about this niece when, really when . . .”

  “When you’ve never cared about me?”

  “When I’ve known a woman like you.”

  She moved as if to go up the stairs, and then stopped. “I won’t make Viola say goodbye. She doesn’t like me. But I think she’s had enough of the convent.”

  “I will take your opinion under consideration,” he said.

  “I hope so. As to this other matter,” said Madame Merle, over her shoulder. “Do your best.”

  “My best to what?” asked Osmond.

  “Why, to marry her, of course.” Then she was gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was the height of June before Madame Merle arranged for Libby and Gilbert Osmond to meet. She had given the matter her deepest consideration. Madame Merle was nothing if not d
eep. She knew that Mrs. Sachs was impressed by Osmond and his exquisite manners, so it would have been an easy matter to wrangle him an invitation to her house. Or there were any number of concerts and gallery openings that season where the two might have been made to cross paths.

  Libby was eager to meet people—the world was open to her, as her aunt had said. Madame Merle possessed a small income but a large circle of friends. Mrs. Sachs was glad to leave the socializing aspect of Libby’s education to her friend. The older lady was feeling her age these days and tired more easily. She would not have said that she pined for her late husband, but she felt as if the center of things had dropped out. And she hadn’t seen her son, Lazarus, in months—he stayed fastened to the Riviera, listening to his new transistor radio, from what she could tell, but making up one excuse after another about why he could not travel to Rome. She was worried and disappointed, and both of those emotions fatigued her.

  Madame Merle was delicate and cautious in how much she said to her young friend about this man, Gilbert Osmond. She had already spoken of him, and she knew that Libby had a good memory for such things. She would not for the world appear to oversell the man; if anything she tried to underplay his charms.

  “He can be shy and awkward around new people,” she warned Libby. “He may not want to be ‘met.’ He’s peculiar that way. He worries that people won’t have a good time. He prepares and agonizes over every detail. And then they show up, and he acts like a wounded prince living in exile.”

  “He doesn’t sound like anyone else in Rome,” said Libby, her curiosity aroused. She suddenly hoped very much that she would be welcomed by this shy, hermetic character.

  “Gilbert Osmond isn’t like anyone you’ve met anywhere in the whole world,” answered Madame Merle gaily. “Well, let me see what I can do to inspire an invitation.”

  Libby was therefore gratified and surprised when, some few days later, she received an invitation to Gilbert Osmond’s villa on the Palatine Hill. The note was written on a creamy paper bordered in a deep purplish-red color like the last drops of wine in a glass. Even the handwriting was distinctive—so beautifully formed that it seemed almost feminine, yet at the same time suggested a masculine hand. The message seemed to have been written in a fountain pen; the ink was very black. He had written, “I would be glad to meet—and for you to know my daughter, Viola.”