Colony

by Anne Rivers Siddons

  “I’m saving Liberty for you,” Grammaude said, looking up at me. Her face was serene.

  “Oh, Grammaude…don’t, please,” I cried in distress. Why had I not foreseen this? “I don’t want Liberty. I can’t handle it. You know I’m only here this summer because there was nowhere else and because you’re here. You won’t care who has it after you’re gone. Let it go. It could be good money for you—”

  “I will care,” she said, and smiled, but she said no more.

  He came the next day. I only realized I had been waiting for him when I looked up from the sofa on the sun porch, where I had been reading in the late afternoon while Grammaude napped, and let a long trembling breath go when I saw him coming over the stile in the stone wall. I knew then I had been walking lightly, as on unstable earth, and breathing lightly, as you do when you are trying to be very quiet, ever since Grammaude had told me the day before that he was in Retreat. All right, then, I told myself. Here he is. You have a few moments. Look inside and see what this silly business with the breath is. Yesterday you thought you felt only disgust and pity. What has changed?

  What has changed is that he is here in front of me and I have not seen him for twelve years, and he hurt me nearly to death, I thought clearly. I am afraid he can do it again. The fear blazed up into panic, and my heart began the dreadful half-forgotten pounding, and I struggled for breath even while I made my lips curve into a rigid smile as he came up on the screened porch and looked in at me. The sun was behind him, and I could only see his silhouette.

  “Hello, Warrie,” I said, and clenched my fists so hard that my nails bit into my palms. I thought my voice sounded all right, but I knew I could not manage another word. I sat smiling, waiting.

  “Hello, Darcy,” he said, and the panic gave way to plain fear. It was not the voice I remembered, which had sucked my breath from my body and turned my bones to water. It was still his voice, rich and soft and with that hint of other shores in it, but it did not touch me anywhere except in my ears. I felt the iron band around my chest ease a little, and my heart slowed.

  “May I come in? I know your grandmother sleeps about this time. Otherwise I wouldn’t intrude. I know she doesn’t want me here. But I wanted to say hello. I won’t stay long.”

  It should have been a disarming little speech, humble and dignified at the same time, but it wasn’t. There was mockery under it, and something else under that: what? A kind of obsequiousness, a smack of the mountebank. I had never heard it before. The fear leaked out like dirty water, and I knew I would be all right.

  “Please do,” I said.

  He came into the sun porch and I could see him plainly. Despite what Grammaude had said about him, I was genuinely shocked. What had I ever seen in this man? What was there here that had made me abandon myself so totally to him? This man was soft and slack through the belly and shoulders, a roll of flesh spilling over his belt under a too-tight black T-shirt. He was deeply tanned, but there was a grayness under it, and his face, that had been a young hawk’s, was blurred and pouched now, and webbed with tiny lines. The hooded gypsy eyes were deeply sunken and red-veined. I knew that Grammaude was right; he was a drinker. I had seen that stigmata every day in the hospital. He had a neat round bald spot, like a tonsure, tanned to leather, on top of his head, and the thick black hair was streaked with gray and still worn long around his neck and ears. He was…old. I knew he must be only thirty-five or so, but still he was far past youth. I felt profound, crawling shame at the thought of what we had done together, this man and I, and a faint nausea, and that was all, except to wonder if I looked as used and worn to his eyes as he did to mine.

  “Sit down,” I said finally. “Can I get you something? I was just thinking I might have a glass of wine.”

  He sat down on the edge of the chaise and smiled at me. I smiled back, unwillingly. Fragments of him were still there, then, under the wreckage. It was almost his old smile.

  “Thanks, no,” he said. “I’m doing my best to quit. That’s one reason I’m here this summer. I don’t think it will come as a surprise to you that I’ve had a bad problem with liquor; I can see that in your face. But some coffee or iced tea would be nice. Only if there’s some made, though. I really won’t be staying.”

  I went into the kitchen and brought back a tray with iced tea and some of Beth Willis’s blueberry muffins. I thought of a truism we heard frequently at the hospital: admission is the first step toward healing the addict. Warrie Villiers admitting a weakness was unimaginable. It was a step I would admire in anyone else. The least I could do was give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “Well,” I said, passing tea and muffins to him, “Grammaude tells me you’re interested in Retreat property. That surprises me somehow; I never thought you cared a lot about the colony.”

  “I can see why you thought that,” he said, looking down into his glass. Then he looked at me, a long, serious look. “I was pretty snobby about meeting people and joining in that summer, wasn’t I? I don’t know; I guess I changed somewhere along the line. Europe will do that to you; in the circles I ran in, you get old and cynical pretty quick unless you’re very strong. I wasn’t, obviously. There came a time when I realized I wanted and needed…permanence. Quiet, real things that don’t change, people who remain constant. And when that happened, I thought about Retreat. I hadn’t, in years. So I came over this spring to open the cottage, and I found that a lot of the old places were in danger of going to outsiders with ideas something like the ones I used to have, and it struck me all of a sudden as a really awful thing. I had some money from Mother—I suppose your grandmother told you she died last year—and some from my second wife. I’m not particularly proud of how I got that. And I thought, What better thing to do with it than try to keep this place like it’s always been? I know that must sound fatuous to you; this has been part of your family’s heritage for three generations, and I’ve only been here one summer that I can remember. But this place really gets hold of you, Darcy.”

  He pronounced it “Daircy,” as he always had. I looked steadily back at him. It sounded reasonable, even admirable. It also sounded absurd in that soft, exotic voice. What could this man, this product of so much sinuous slackness and corruption, know of permanence and quiet? But a memory, buried all those long years, surged into my mind, something he said the first time I ever met him: “This place sits softly on your heart.”

  “So they say,” I said neutrally.

  “But you do not think so?” he said, leaning back on the chaise, still looking keenly into my face. “No, I don’t think you do. I could always read that little cat’s face. Yet here you are.”

  I flushed. The allusion to my face was gratuitous and familiar; it presumed far too much.

  “I don’t care about Retreat one way or another,” I said. “I’m here this summer because I haven’t seen Grammaude for a very long time and because she’s failing and I’m between jobs. It seemed a good time. I doubt that I’ll come again.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said. “It would be pleasant to have a friend nearby in the summers. I think I am no longer that to your grandmother. I really regret it.”

  My face burned and I stared at him. Could he really not remember, not understand, what had happened that last summer? Could he possibly have thought I would be a friend to him, or be surprised that Grammaude no longer was?

  “I’m sure you’ll find friends, Warrie,” I said. “I understand quite a few old ladies up here already think you’re the chosen one. With the old ladies on your side, you can’t lose.”

  He laughed, his old nasal laugh.

  “They are charming, my old-lady friends,” he said. “I’m truly sorry your grandmother isn’t among them. I think she thinks I’m trying to hustle her out of her cottage, but nothing could be further from the truth. I only wanted to assure her it would stay as it is. I thought, since you had not been back for such a long time, you were probably not interested in Liberty, and I know her son and his wife are n
ot. I still hope she’ll reconsider my offer.”

  “If she says no, she means no, Warrie. You must respect that. Whatever she wants to do with her cottage is her business,” I said.

  “And yours?”

  “None of mine. You were right about that. I don’t want Liberty. I just want her to be able to decide what she wants to do with it without pressure. And I plan to do whatever I can to see that happens.”

  He grinned again, faintly, and raised his iced tea glass and saluted me.

  “The old fire still burns,” he said. “You have grown up, haven’t you, Darcy? A formidable woman, and a very handsome one. I’m glad to see that; I was afraid my unspeakable behavior that last weekend might have damaged you somehow.”

  “Not in the least,” I said, anger quickening my breath. “Not an iota. Not even the ghost of one. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go start dinner. Grammaude likes to eat at six.”

  He got up and picked up my hand and bowed over it, very slightly.

  “Might I tempt you to come and share dinner with me sometime soon?” he said. “Your grandmother too, of course. I’ve turned into quite a good cook.”

  “No,” I said levelly. “I don’t believe you could tempt either one of us. We’re living very quietly this summer, Warrie. Grammaude is very frail. And you’ll forgive us, I know, if we don’t entertain.”

  “Well, in any case I shan’t give up on you,” he said, moving to the door. “You were my first two friends in Retreat. I’m not going to let you go so easily.”

  “I don’t think that’s your decision,” I said, heat and redness flooding up my neck to my cheeks. His eyes tracked them, and he laughed.

  “Not everything about you has changed,” he said, and went out, closing the screen door softly. I stared after him, dizzy with anger. He was beneath contempt; I would not receive him at Liberty again. I would hook the screen doors and refuse to talk to him if he called; I would not sit on the sun porch again and risk his seeing me there. Grammaude was right. There was nothing left in Warrie Villiers that could hurt me.

  I got no chance to refuse him the house, though, because he didn’t come again, and he did not call. I did not even see him from the window of my room, which gave onto the roof of Braebonnie over the stone wall; I had been keeping the old orange shade down so that he could not see me inside, but when days and then weeks went by and I saw nothing of him but his figure, getting in and out of the black sedan in his driveway and twice from a distance at the post office, I raised the shades again. By keeping them lowered, I had only flooded the room with hot red light. By tacit agreement Grammaude and I began to have our predinner cocktails on the sun porch once more. Neither of us had spoken of Warrie Villiers since the day she told me he was back. I thought she knew nothing of his visit.

  On the second night we sat on the sun porch again, however, she smiled at me over the rim of her martini glass and said, “I gather the fort is still secure.”

  “I’m sorry?” I said, knowing full well what she meant.

  “Warrie wasn’t able to melt you with his rueful smiles and protestations of change.”

  “No,” I said, grinning. “You were right. He’s pretty awful, isn’t he? How did you know, by the way?”

  “Saw him come over the stile and came out and listened, like any reasonable woman. I don’t know what I’d have done if you’d let him suck you back in. I’m having a hard enough time with some of these old fools who think he’s the savior reborn. He goes somewhere to drinks every night.”

  “You don’t believe him, about the alcoholism and the change of heart and all?”

  “I believe him about the alcoholism, and I’m sorry,” she said, her fine-etched face growing grave. “He’s never had an easy moment in his life. I’m sure of that. It’s just that he’s responsible for most of it and will never see it, and that’s the part that’s dangerous. As for the change of heart—well, it happens, I suppose. I just don’t believe it in his case. I think he’s here to punish us in some way, not to save us. I think that’s probably why he came the time before.”

  I stared at her. It shot through my mind that she had had a sudden small stroke, or something similar, the words were so bizarre and spoke so obviously of paranoia. But her dark face was as it had been all summer, alive and quick with intelligence. Only now a shadow of worry lay over it.

  “Why would he want to punish us, Grammaude? Nobody here has ever done anything to him; he’s never even been here except that summer, and then it wasn’t we who harmed him, if you recall.”

  “I recall better than you can possibly know, Darcy,” she said. “But you forget, he was here when he was very small, with his mother. He’ll have remembered that, I think, no matter what he says. And there was harm done to her, or at least I imagine he would see it that way. He would think it grievous harm, and it was I who inflicted it. I cannot imagine what she might have told him, but I feel sure it is me—and, because of me, you—whom he wants to punish. I think Warrie has had only one great love in his life, and it was neither of his wives and none of his other women. His love died last year, of the life she led. If it were not for me, she might have led a far different life, perhaps in a far different place. Perhaps even here in Retreat. And so here he is, determined to lead it for her. More than that, even. Determined to own it, as she never could.”

  “You mean his mother? Grammaude, what on earth could you possibly have done to her? She was a grown woman when she left here the last time.”

  “No.” She shook her head, looking out at the satiny mauve of the sunset bay. “No. Elizabeth was never a grown woman.”

  “You said you only convinced her to…stand on her own feet, was it? I wish you’d tell me what you meant.”

  “I will, darling, when it’s time. One day soon, I promise. It’s not important because he’s not a threat to you any longer. That’s all I ever cared about. And I can tell he’s not. He can’t get his hands on you and he can’t have Liberty, so he’s simply…not important. Let’s enjoy having the sun porch back and have maybe one more of these before dinner. And then I think I’ll start that new Martha Grimes. I’ve been putting it off until a night there was nothing on TV.”

  As July faded into August, I became gradually aware that the colony was neatly split over the matter of Warrie Villiers and his avowed mission in Retreat. With the coming of August, traditionally the busiest month in summertime Maine, the luncheon and cocktail parties escalated, and there was a regatta and tea every weekend afternoon at the yacht club, and dances and card parties and movies almost every evening. Everyone who had been putting it off all summer had an enormous pay-back cocktail party, and it was possible, if one wanted, to go out every noon, twilight, and evening for the entire month. Neither Grammaude nor I wanted to, but we ventured out to the ones she felt we could not refuse, and at each one Warrie was the subject of heated conversation. With her undetectable but infallible social antennae, Grammaude invariably knew ahead of time which gathering he would not be attending that evening, and it was to those that we went, and it was at those that the war—for it was that, a little war—was waged.

  “It’s just not right for one person to own so much property up here,” the younger people would say. “It’s dangerous; he could do anything with it. We don’t really know him, after all. Who knows where that money comes from? You know what his mother was.”

  “It’s not you who has to pay the taxes and insurance on these old barns,” the indignant older ones would retort. “It’s not you who lives on a fixed income and can’t do the upkeep and can’t find help. What would you have us do? We’ve known his grandparents and some of us his great-grandparents; his family has been here longer than almost anyone’s. This way we can keep our cottages and have the money to keep them up, and not see them sold to just anybody. Do you want people from Florida or Texas to come here and put in swimming pools, for God’s sake?”

  “No, but how do you know he means what he says?”

  “How do
you know he doesn’t? What could he do but resell them? We’d have to do that ourselves, or you would when we’re gone.”

  And so it went, night after perfect amethyst night, for it was one of the loveliest summers I have ever seen on that coast. Cool, bright, blue-edged, crisp—and salted with the faint corruption that was Warrie Villiers and his foreign money. I hated the thought so much I simply stopped listening to the never-ending debate, which in any case went nowhere. I sipped my drinks and went out onto porches or terraces and looked at the still twilit bay and smelled the ripe pineladen smell of highest summer, that absolute pinnacle that was like a jeweled gear frozen in the moment just before it ground forward again toward autumn. It filled me up and smoothed me out and sang in my blood and ears like wine, and I was determined to let nothing and nobody spoil it. Warrie Villiers was so far from my thoughts in those few perfect days that he might as well not have existed.

  But then I came home from the hardware store in Blue Hill one afternoon and found him leaning over my grandmother as she lay on the sun-porch chaise, striking his palm with his forefinger as he drove home point after point to her, and saw her white, still face looking resolutely up at him, and I whirled on him like a dervish.

  “Out!” I said furiously. “Out this minute! What do you mean coming over here waving your finger in Grammaude’s face like that? You know she doesn’t want you here, and neither do I. I want you to leave this instant. Look at her, she’s white as a sheet.”

  He got up and nodded to Maude, his face flushed. He looked crestfallen and contrite. I stood between them, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. He turned away and started out, and then turned back.

  “Mrs. Chambliss, I’m truly sorry,” he said. “I didn’t come here to hound you, and I can see now how I must have sounded. I just…I wanted you to know that I have arrangements with about half the cottages along this side of the shore now, all the way down to the yacht club and around the other way up to the Aerie. I thought you’d feel more comfortable about what I’m doing if you saw that your oldest friends and neighbors trust me. I’ve even got a promise from your son that he’ll think about my offer. I really am on your side—”