Glass Mountain

by Cynthia Voigt

  “Embarrass me,” Miss Sarah said.

  “Make a toast,” Mr. Theo said. “And why shouldn’t she?” he demanded of his father.

  “Well, get on with it, if you must,” Mr. Mondleigh said. “Stand up.”

  Mrs. Mondleigh stood. She raised her glass. “I want to propose a toast to…”

  “The bridal couple, we know that, you didn’t have to make such a production out of it. Or did you want to include Sarah and her young man too?”

  “Brad, his name is Brad,” Miss Sarah told her father. “To Brad, Mother?”

  “A toast to love and marriage,” Mrs. Rawling suggested. “Is that what you were thinking?”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Mr. Rawling raised his glass. Glasses around the table were raised and drunk from.

  “That wasn’t what…That wasn’t my toast,” Mrs. Mondleigh said.

  “What is it then?” her husband asked.

  “About how Theo’s right, it’s the last private time, and with Sarah’s news…her good news…”

  “Coming like a bolt out of the blue,” her husband finished for her. “I know, Elaine, I know just what you mean. No offense, young man,” he told Mr. Wycliffe, “you look presentable to me.”

  It was tears that sparkled in Mrs. Mondleigh’s eyes. She didn’t look at anyone. Tears sparkled on her cheeks. “I don’t know what I did, that my whole family thinks it owns…I must have done something. Wrong. Mustn’t I? Sarah? Theo? That’s why I want to leave. After the wedding, of course.”

  “What do you mean?” Mr. Mondleigh demanded.

  “I mean leave home, David, leave you, and live…”

  “Just say what you mean, Elaine, and sit down.”

  “Now Sarah’s married, and Theo’s getting married…”

  “What the hell is going on?” He pulled her back down into her seat. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  There was a silence.

  “Is she drunk?” Mr. Wycliffe asked Miss Sarah.

  “Mother,” Mr. Theo scolded, “this isn’t the time or the place, even if you’re serious—”

  “It’s all right, Theo,” Alexis said.

  “No, it is not all right.” His nostrils flared.

  Mr. Mondleigh sat absolutely still, jaw clenched.

  “Mummy’s never done anything like this before in her life,” Miss Sarah told her husband. “She doesn’t drink, Brad. So don’t ever say that again.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Rawling said. “I think it’s time we said good evening,” she announced. She folded her napkin and set it on the table. “Tomorrow’s a busy day.”

  “I’m sorry, Theo,” Mrs. Mondleigh said.

  “What kind of a joke is this?” her husband asked.

  “It’s not a joke, David. And don’t think I’m crying because I’m upset. I’m crying because…”

  There was a silence.

  “Finish your sentence, woman. We’re all waiting, if you notice.”

  “Mrs. Mondleigh,” Alexis asked, “are you all right?”

  Mrs. Mondleigh nodded tearily. “I hope you won’t think I’m trying to ruin your day, dear.”

  Mr. Wycliffe pushed back his chair. “I’m going home.”

  “Allie? Martin?” Mrs. Rawling asked brightly. “We should be going too. It was a lovely dinner, Theo.”

  “I hope you’re not upset,” Mrs. Mondleigh apologized to all.

  “And I hope you’re satisfied,” her husband answered. “You needn’t think I’ll give you a divorce.”

  “What if the young people are right about…the real bonds. They may all be in the heart. Do you ever wonder?”

  “Sarah? Are you coming with me?”

  “Allie? You’d better go with your parents.”

  “We’ve been divorced for…years, my dear. And you never even knew it.”

  “That’s ridiculous. That sounds like some book. Or some soap opera. You don’t mean it, you know you don’t. I don’t know what’s gotten into you. What’s gotten into you? You’d be ludicrous, a woman like you, at your age, walking out on me, the single life at your age—It would be ludicrous. You’re too sensible for that. I’ve always admired your good sense, and I can’t believe you’d do something so out of character. I think you need a vacation, that’s all. You always wanted to go to Mexico, didn’t you? You could go to Mexico. For a month. Or a season. Take Sarah, if she’d like to go, she looks peaky. I’m worried about you, Elaine. I am. You don’t have to speak—here, here’s my handkerchief; there you go—just shake your head if I’m right. If you didn’t mean it. If it’s just some—mood, just shake your—I thought so.”

  He looked around but I was the only one left in the dining room.

  31

  The Bridegroom

  The Mercedes waited in front of the house. I put Mr. Theo’s suitcase into the trunk, which closed with the satisfying sound of heavy steel perfectly articulated.

  Mr. Theo looked all around him, raised his face to the sun, breathed in deeply. “Well,” he announced. “This is it.” He descended to the sidewalk. “You’re sure I can’t persuade you? I know Allie has some bee in her bonnet about a couple, but you’re getting married too, aren’t you? So you’ll be a couple.”

  “I’m sure, sir,” I answered. “It’s time for a change.”

  “I won’t try to persuade you.” He held out his hand, and I shook it. “Wish me luck, Gregor.”

  “It seems to me you already have the luck, sir.”

  “I guess I do. Finding the right girl is the secret, isn’t it? Now, you’re clear about tomorrow?”

  It was the third time he’d asked me, and the morning was young. I recited it again: “The two o’clock train and I’ll bring the car back into the city.”

  “You have a set of keys?”

  I nodded.

  He moved around to the driver’s side and stood there, looking at the brownstones that lined the street, then up at the sky, breathing deeply. “At least I’ll be out of range for the fallout of whatever Mother gets up to. I’m not sorry to miss that.”

  I waited.

  “You’d think I was putting off leaving.”

  I was thinking just that.

  “Well, no man wants to get married. Good luck to you too, Gregor. Let me know if there’s ever anything I can do for you. You’ve got the recommendation?”

  I did.

  “And Mackey’s office will answer any further questions if anyone has any. I’ve told him, unconditional raves.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I was ready to have him drive away.

  “You have Mackey’s number?”

  I did.

  He got into the car and put on dark glasses. He looked across at me. “You did pack the marriage license?”

  “It’s in the case with your passport, sir.”

  “You’d think I was nervous. Oh well, marriage is probably like what they say about murder, the first one’s the hardest.”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir,” I told him. “I’ve never murdered anyone.”

  Mr. Theo laughed and turned on the motor. The street was temporarily untraveled, so he pulled out and was at last gone.

  32

  I Meet the Bear Lady

  I was one of the first at the church. Mr. Wycliffe seated me, at my request, on the aisle at the rear of the groom’s side. He looked darkly handsome, youthfully handsome, romantically handsome. “She still hasn’t said a word,” he reported to me.

  “Sir?”

  “About the baby. Why hasn’t she told me?”

  I couldn’t have said. The organ played restrained Bach. Gradually at first, then in a rush, the church filled, until the scent of flowers fell back before the perfumes and colognes of the guests, and cut stones battled with stained glass to capture the eye.

  On his way by my pew, seating the last arrivals, Mr. Wycliffe leaned over to tell me, “Now she wants to spend a month on Lake George. She even has a house there. I don’t know why she thinks it’ll be so easy for me to get away fr
om the office for a month. On short notice.”

  “But you will be able to?”

  He nodded. “She’s up to something. I don’t know…God, life gets complicated, loving someone, wanting her to be happy. Look—there he comes, there they are.” He hurried away.

  A minister, arrayed in his nuptial vestments, holding his prayer book before him, now waited at the front of the church. Mr. Theo and his brother, both in tails, came out to stand by the minister. They looked over the quieting congregation. The organ switched to Mendelssohn. From the distance, the men looked like three puppets, without individual character. They looked like animated costumes. Mr. Theo stiffened, in alarm I thought.

  Turning my head, I saw that a woman had entered the church, as if it were for her that the processional pealed. She was a ripe blonde, who seemed to invest with sensuality even the innocent act of speaking her request into the ear of the usher. Her timing was remarkably bad.

  I raised my hand, to indicate the empty seats next to me. The usher hustled her over and she sat down quickly, her cheeks flushed as if she were embarrassed, or had had to rush to make the occasion. “Thanks, friend,” the familiar husky voice said. “This place is hard to locate. They say,” she said, “small towns are easy to find your way around in, but you can’t prove it by me.” Then she moved a little away from me and sat back, upright in the stiff pew, dressed in dark blue with lace at her throat and wrists and a single pearl in her ear. Her hair tumbled in curls down her back.

  The usher returned from seating Mrs. Rawling. The music rose to a crescendo. We all stood up. The ceremony had begun.

  I watched it out until we all rose again, at its conclusion. Mr. Theo, with Alexis on his arm, returned her down the aisle, married. Alexis wore yards of white satin and yards of lace. Her porcelain skin glowed. Her smile seemed genuine. She didn’t look for me. She stepped serenely into her future and I wished her well.

  The woman beside me was fumbling in her purse, so I gave her my handkerchief. She mopped at her eyes, as bridesmaids and ushers swept down the center aisle, two by two while glad music played. She blew her nose.

  The front pews poured forth family.

  “I always cry at weddings,” the woman said. “That’s that, I guess. She’s no beauty, is she? Fantastic skin, though. She’ll be good for him, you can tell. Do you happen to know, is there a back exit from this place?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Let me show you.”

  We slipped into the side aisle and back toward the altar, against the flow of traffic. On the street, a limousine was pulling away, with others lined up to follow, once they were filled. We took a shady path around to the parking lot.

  “Here’s your hanky,” she said. “And thanks.”

  I didn’t know if she was as much at a loss as she seemed. “I don’t know where you’re going now…?”

  “Back to the city, if I can find the train station again, whenever the next train is.”

  “I’m driving into the city,” I told her. “I’m leaving now, and if you like I could take you.”

  Her smile for me had sympathy in it. “So you weren’t invited to the reception either? I wasn’t exactly invited to the wedding, truth to tell, but you’re allowed to, aren’t you? I always heard anyone could go to the wedding, in the church. But anyway”—she stopped walking—“thanks, but I don’t think I should—” She stopped speaking and shook her head at herself. “Who am I trying to kid?” she asked me. “You must be OK, you’re the friend of a friend, right? Besides, this is the country, not like the big bad city. I’d be glad of a ride, truth to tell. It would be a help. Otherwise I’ll just sit in the station and wish I was someplace else.”

  We moved on toward the car. I unlocked the door for her and opened it, but she had drawn back. “Wait a minute. This is Teddy’s car. Isn’t it?”

  I gave her time to work it out.

  “What are you doing with Teddy’s car? Who are—? Wait a minute, wait a minute here. I thought you sounded familiar. You’re the butler, aren’t you. Are you the butler?”

  She got into the car and leaned across to unlock my door. “Aren’t you? On the phone?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “This is funny, this is really funny. You know who I am?”

  “You have a distinctive voice,” I told her. “An attractive voice, if I may say so.”

  “You certainly can say so.” She was smiling as I started the motor, but it faded as we pulled out of the parking lot, leaving the church and the milling guests behind.

  “So here we are, the butler and the mistress,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  “Gregor.”

  “So, Gregor, here we are. How does a drink sound to you? I could use a drink, after that. I don’t know why I thought I had to go, but I did. So I did. And that’s that. A drink, and a little consolation, that’s what I’d like. You’re awfully good-looking for a butler.”

  I liked her, I have to admit it. “A drink sounds tempting,” I told her, “but I should warn you, I seem to have temporarily given up sex.”

  “I may do that myself, Gregor. What we’ll do is, we’ll drink to Teddy. Can I have that hanky again?”

  I passed it to her.

  She sniffled beside me.

  The road led us on.

  “I should have known better than to come, but truth to tell? I love him. We’ve been pretty steady now for over a year. It’ll be two years in the fall since we got introduced, and we always had a good time. Never once not, which is something, isn’t it. It’s not as if I thought he’d ever marry me. I’m not that stupid. I never thought that, and it’s not as if he’s the only guy around, either. It’s just—I know him.”

  She blew her nose.

  “I guess you’re bound to end up loving someone, sooner or later. But I never kidded myself,” she said, resolve in her voice. “And I won’t start now. All the money in the world wouldn’t give me what she’s got.”

  I had stopped at an intersection and looked over at her. She was a strikingly attractive woman, long-legged, with a wide, full mouth. She wore her sensuality as unselfconsciously as a pansy bears its broad, velvety flowers. “Not looks,” she answered my thoughts. “I’m much prettier, I know that. And sexier.” She went on, trying to make me understand. “Even in that doll’s dress—Do you know how much a dress like that costs? It’d make you cry, Gregor, honest it would. But she’s no dolly, she’s…So I guess I’d better just start to forget him.”

  How, I wondered, did Theodore Mondleigh manage to get these women? What was it he had? Money, I answered myself, and it was a bitter thought.

  “Trouble is, Gregor, a guy like Teddy, I can’t forget him.” Her laugh was without rancor. “He thinks it’s just sex, you know? He’s a real babe in the woods.”

  33

  Hope Abandoned

  I’m a rational man. I know that worms have eaten men, and why—and also why not. I’m not without experience of women, of life, of what feels like—although it is not and never was—heartbreak. Grief and hope go together, like stocks and bonds. I almost hoped that Theodore Mondleigh would be a complete turn-off for her, that the chemistry would be all wrong, that their pheromones would jangle.

  I had invested everything in my personal self, and it hadn’t been enough.

  But there is always plenty to do. I went to movies, plays, concerts, readings, museums, and galleries. I read Barron’s with my morning coffee and altered some investments. In the evenings, after I had eaten and cleaned up, I went back upstairs to my rooms. My living area had a large plate-glass window, a double-glazed trapezoid that opened out to both a skyscape and a cityscape. Sometimes, under the tangential fall of sunlight at evening, it seemed that I looked out to a Renaissance city of towers and curved windows and stones as warm as flesh. I filled my rooms with music, the ordered inevitability of the Brandenburg Concertos for preference; I sat in a chair and divided my interest between Bleak House and the black buildings before me, pricked, like the nighttim
e sky, with light.

  And of course I thought. You make a decision, then one road leads to another, way leads on to way, until you find yourself in some dark, pathless forest, when all the time you thought you were on your way home. I understood that.

  And how what has happened apotheosizes into fate. The past is fatal, the future has possibility.

  It was time for a change. I thought of the Southwest, with its vast barren spaces. I thought of the high-headed Rockies. I thought of New Zealand’s breathtaking geography.

  I considered my financial position: I had invested and had an income a man could live off in comfort, if not splendor. Or a woman. I had a wardrobe that was likely to last a lifetime. A gentleman of independent means, I could be that.

  I considered myself: school, a BA first, and then perhaps—I looked around my room—architecture, or interior design. There was museum curatorial work, which would require further degrees. Or I could return to my family.

  They were alive and well, I knew that. I was alive and well, they knew that. I thought they would, with reason, be satisfied with my success. I wouldn’t have to stay there, I could just return, to mark the adventure’s end.

  Meanwhile, I followed routines. I set the answering machine every day. “You have reached the Mondleigh residence. Please leave your name and number. A happy Bloomsday to you.”

  There was no message. I wasn’t surprised.

  “…on the anniversary of Victoria’s accession to the throne.”

  Whirr, beep. “This is Alfred Jones at Domestic Services, Mr. Rostov. As I told you, we don’t ordinarily list overseas positions, but I have made some inquiries for you. There is an opening for a caretaker in New Zealand. I must tell you, however, that the owner is a man of dubious reputation. Let me urge you to reconsider. With your experience and recommendations I could place you next month in Hawaii, Chicago, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, or Boston. All of these are suitable positions for you, with generous salaries. I hope you will reconsider before our appointment next week.” Beep, beep, beep.

  “A happy Walpurgis Night to you.”