Ilsa

by L'Engle, Madeleine;

  “If Monty doesn’t come home soon I’ll have to do something about it,” Ilsa said.

  “I suppose you will.”

  “I’m going to give him till the end of the week.”

  “Then what will you do?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  We lapsed once more into silence. Médor was chasing a chipmunk. Brand and Beulah came running around the house, then disappeared again. After a while Brand came back, her face scarlet with heat, her hair as wet as though she’d plunged it into a bucket of water.

  “Mamma?”

  “Yes, ladybird?”

  “May Beulah and I go make some lemonade?”

  “If it’s all right with Mattie Belle. You ask her.”

  Brand ran off. “I’d like to forbid her to play with that Jackson child,” Ilsa said.

  “Why?”

  “She told me last night that Beulah had said we were decadent. Neither of them knew what it meant. I suppose Beulah nicked it up from that frightful mother of hers. I’d just make things worse if I didn’t let Brand see Beulah. She hasn’t anyone else to play with, anyhow. Poor little thing, she can’t seem to get on with other children. She hasn’t enough guts. I don’t know what’s the matter with her. I’d have been ashamed to let another child boss me the way she lets Beulah. But that’s something she’s got to fight out for herself. I just wish I could stop her from being hurt by things that aren’t her fault.”

  Ilsa dropped her hands loosely into her lap, like Cousin Anna—a gesture most uncommon to her. I watched her for a moment, as she lay in the hammock, then looked back out at Médor who had caught her chipmunk, but, with her poor battered little brain, couldn’t think what to do with it. Some kind of instinct told her that she ought to kill it, but she couldn’t figure out how. She would hold it in her mouth and look over at Ilsa with a puzzled expression, then she would drop it and pick it up again, hold it, and look beseechingly at Ilsa. But Ilsa was staring straight ahead of her, engrossed in her thoughts. Finally Médor dropped the chipmunk, and before it could run away, she had rolled over on it, and was lying very still, looking over at us for approbation. When she finally wobbled unsteadily to her feet and twirled around to look at her prey, she saw that she had succeeded, for the chipmunk was dead, smothered. With a joyful yelp Médor picked it up and came tearing toward us, falling all over her huge puppy feet, stumbling up the steps and dropping the chipmunk, picking it up and dropping it, picking it up, and finally laying it in triumph at Ilsa’s feet. Ilsa didn’t move. Médor looked up at her uncomprehendingly and barked, loud and sharp. Ilsa rose and went into the house, not noticing the dog or her trophy. Médor’s tail went down and she backed, bewildered, into a corner of the porch and sat there, hurt and betrayed.

  I picked up the dead chipmunk and put it in the incinerator; then I went into the house after Ilsa. She was in the drawing room, standing by the piano, picking out the rosy-bush song.

  “Ilsa,” I said. “You’ve hurt Médor’s feelings awfully.”

  “Why? What did I do?”

  “She caught a chipmunk for you and brought it to you and put it down in front of you, and all you did was to get up and stalk into the house.” I don’t know why I was so upset about that crazy hound’s being hurt.

  Her face went blank for a second. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t see it. Where is she?”

  “Nursing her wounded feelings on the porch.”

  She went out and I sat down at the piano, staring up at the water-color sketch of Aunt Elizabeth.

  After a moment the phone began to ring, so I got up to answer it. I was surprised to hear Cousin Anna’s voice, because she never talked on the phone.

  “Hello,” Cousin Anna said, shouting into the phone as though she were trying to make her voice carry over the rooftops from her house to the Woolfs’. “Hello, Ilsa?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s me, Henry.”

  “Who?” She almost deafened me. I had to hold the receiver away from my ear.

  “Henry Porcher. Your cousin.”

  She couldn’t seem to understand. “Oh.… I must have the wrong number. Can you tell me what to do? I want to talk to Ilsa Woolf.”

  “Cousin Anna, this is Henry Porcher. I’m over at Ilsa’s,” I said. I found myself shouting into the phone almost as loudly as she was. “Ilsa’s out on the porch. I’ll get her in just a minute. Are you all right?” I yelled.

  “For heaven’s sake, Henry, what’s the matter?” Ilsa’s low voice came behind me. “You’re bellowing like the bull of Bashan. Who is it?”

  “It’s Cousin Anna. She wants you.”

  “Oh.” She took the receiver from me. “Hello, darling,” she said. “Are you all right? What are you doing on the telephone?”

  I heard Cousin Anna’s voice, blurred and raucous, from the other end of the wire, but no words were distinguishable. The gull-like squawking was so different from her usual well-modulated speech that I almost burst out laughing.

  “Good heavens,” Ilsa said. “When?… Didn’t they write you or anything?… But why didn’t you tell us before?… Of course we’ll come over.… Right away.… Are you happy, my dear?… I’m glad, then.… All right.… Good-bye.” She turned back to me, looking baffled. “Anna’s brother William is home.”

  “What!”

  “Yes. I was bowled over, too.”

  “But why? He hasn’t lost his New Jersey church or anything, has he?”

  “No. His wife died last year, and he’s retiring.… It’ll be good for your Cousin Anna to have someone in that huge house with her besides Barbara. Barbara’s an angel but Anna needs someone to talk to.… She was always very fond of William.… Go round up Brand and send the Jackson child home, will you, Hen? I want to put Médor in the pen so she won’t run off and get lost while we’re gone.”

  “Hunting dogs don’t get lost.”

  “Médor does. Hurry, please, Henny. I told her we’d be right on over.”

  “Do you think I should come? I mean—”

  “You’ll have to drive me.”

  “Oh. All right.” Ilsa was so careful with her gestures and movements that only occasionally was I reminded of the trouble she was having with her vision, although I still felt hot with shame when I thought how I had disbelieved her motive in wanting to go to Baltimore.

  When we got in the car she said to Brand, “Your Cousin William has brought a boy with him, bird; Lorenzo Moore, I think your Cousin Anna said his name was. A little orphan from the parish he and his wife adopted a few years ago. He’s about ten now. Maybe he’ll be someone good for you to play with, Brand.”

  “I don’t think I like boys,” Brand said.

  “Perhaps Lorenzo won’t be like most of the boys in town. Don’t decide not to like him before you meet him.”

  “All right. Mamma, why is Uncle Henry driving instead of you?”

  “Well, it’s more polite to let the gentleman drive, you know, ladybird.”

  “But you always used to drive.”

  “I’m just learning manners in my old age.”

  As we drew up to the house Barbara came hurrying down the white steps. “Miss Ilsa, Miss Ilsa,” she called as she ran panting up to the car.

  “What is it, Barbara?”

  “Mr. Woolf he just called and he say you come home right away. He sounded real mad. I told Miss Anna and she say you better go on back home. She say why don’t you leave Brand to meet Lorenzo and they all bring her back after supper and pay you a call.”

  “That’s a fine idea,” Ilsa said. “Hop out, ladybird.”

  “But Papa’s back! I want to go home and see Papa!”

  “I expect your father’s tired,” Ilsa said. “He’s been off on this business trip for a long time, you know, and he probably wants to wash and have dinner and get a little rested the very first thing.”

  “I wouldn’t bother him.”

  “Darling,” Ilsa said. “I want you to do as I say without any fuss. Cousin Anna’ll bring you hom
e right after supper. In the meantime you are to be nice to Lorenzo. He’s a stranger here, and he probably feels lonely and shy. He’ll be very grateful to you if you make him feel at home, and so will I.”

  Brand got out of the car slowly. “I’ve never talked to anyone who was adopted before,” she said.

  “He won’t be any different from anyone else,” Ilsa assured her. “Except if your Cousin William wanted him, he’s very likely nicer. Run along, now.”

  “Well, good-bye—”

  “Good-bye, bird.”

  We waited as Barbara took her by the hand and drew her up the steps and into the house. Then I turned the car around. Ilsa leaned back on the seat and closed her eyes.

  Monty came out on the porch as we drove up. His face, white and puffy, was bruised and swollen under his eyes. “Where the hell you been?”

  “We went over to your Cousin Anna’s,” Ilsa said quietly, going ahead of him into the house. “You know that. You phoned there.”

  “Oh, yes, uh huh. Thought I might find you there. Well, aren’t you going to give me a kiss? Fine welcome you’re giving your husband.”

  Ilsa stood still in the dim ancient-smelling hall and raised her face. Monty grabbed her roughly into his arms, kissing her hard against the mouth.

  “Well, what are you staring at, Henry? Never seen a man and woman kiss before? Never kiss a woman yourself?”

  “Monty, be quiet,” Ilsa said, pulling away from his embrace. “Henry was good enough to drive me back from your Cousin Anna’s.”

  “Why’n’t you drive yourself?”

  “It’s been difficult for me to drive lately.” She went into the drawing room, and Monty and I followed.

  “Why? Very good driver.” He picked the marble group of the little boys and the horse up in his arms and put it on the floor, almost unbalancing himself with its weight and falling on top of it.

  “I told you my eyes were bothering me, Monty.”

  He straddled the horse. “Used to ride this when I was little. Remember, Henry? Pa used to put it on the floor and let us ride it. Must give it to Brand to ride.” He turned suddenly and shouted at Ilsa. “So you didn’t go to Baltimore?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “The obvious reason. I was waiting for you to come back.”

  “Why?”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “Hah!”

  “And I didn’t want Brand frightened.”

  “Could have sent her to Silver, or Cousin Anna. Thought you had it all arranged.” He slid down the tail of the white marble horse onto the floor.

  “That wouldn’t have kept her from worrying, and I didn’t know when you’d come back or in what condition you’d be. She picked up the marble horse with much more ease than Monty and put it back on the shelf. “I’m going in the kitchen to get you some food and coffee.”

  “Not hungry.”

  “Just the coffee, then.”

  He flung himself down on one of the shrouded chairs. Ilsa went out to the kitchen. It seemed to me that she flinched as she went through the rice portieres, as if she had come to them before she expected to.

  “God,” Monty said. “What a time. What a time. Been down to Miami. What a time.” He turned around in the chair so that he was lying down, his head dangling over the seat, his legs up over the back. “What a time,” he kept saying over and over. I knew I ought to leave, but I just sat there at the piano bench and watched him.

  “Over at the Silverton house?” he asked suddenly.

  “Yes.”

  “What for? What all you go over there for?”

  “Cousin William has come back from New Jersey.”

  “Cousin William? Who the hell Cousin William? We got enough kin already without having a Cousin William sprung on us.”

  “He’s Cousin Anna’s brother, the one who had a church in Charleston and then in New Jersey,” I said.

  —The one who was engaged to Aunt Elizabeth, the one who never forgave your father and who kept Mamma from taking communion in Charleston and lost his church because of it; the one who sent us into retirement in a hotel with a yellow veranda and doves sobbing on the summerhouse roof; the one who kept us away from home till Mamma died. That one—I thought.

  “What he want to come back here for?” Monty asked. “Done enough damage already. Let him keep away.”

  “He’s retired,” I said. “I guess he just wanted to come home.”

  “Home,” Monty said. “That’s right. Can’t stay away too long. Start to feel lonely. Had to come home.” He twisted himself around suddenly, knocking the chair over. He then looked about the room, and walked toward Ilsa’s straight desk chair. With a great effort, as though it were very heavy he moved it in front of the door so that anybody entering would have to walk around it.

  “You’d better move that chair away,” I said.

  He shook his head craftily. “No. Leave it be. Want to see something.”

  Ilsa had evidently gone out to the kennels and let Médor out for the puppy came galloping into the room, skidding on the floor and rolling up one of the raffia mats. I got up and started to straighten it as Ilsa came in with a pot of coffee. Before I knew what was happening or had time to shout a word of warning she had walked into the chair. The coffeepot fell from her hand and crashed to the floor, spattering the scalding liquid over her feet and ankles. She didn’t say anything or stoop to pick up the pot, but turned and walked out of the room. Monty stared after her, his mouth open.

  “You better clean that mess up,” he said to me, and followed her out.

  I got some rags from the closet under the stairs and mopped the spilled coffee up. The glass top to the percolator was broken and I put the pieces in the wastepaper basket by Ilsa’s desk. Then I took the pot and went out to the kitchen.

  Ilsa was standing very tense, very still, in front of the stove. Monty had his arms about her, bending over her and rubbing his cheek against hers. She stood stiff in his arms, her face white, her lips set.

  “Honey, does it hurt much, did I hurt you much?” he was pleading.

  “It’s all right.”

  “Sure enough you didn’t see the chair? You didn’t see it at all?”

  “No.”

  “You better go to that doctor in Baltimore.”

  “That’s what I told you.”

  “We’ll go tomorrow. Come with you. Made some money on the horses in Miami.”

  “Thank you. I want to go alone.”

  “You be all right on the train alone?”

  “Naturally. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

  “Bumped into that chair.”

  “Chairs don’t usually stand in front of doors.”

  “Honey,” Monty said, “Ah, honey, honey.…”

  I put the coffeepot down on the kitchen table and went back to the drawing room.

  44

  Cousin Anna, Cousin William, and Lorenzo Moore came over with Brand shortly after nine. It was the first time Cousin Anna had left her own house and grounds in years. She looked around the drawing room.

  “Couldn’t change it much, could you, Ilsa?” she asked. “I remember Violetta and Cecilia thought this a most elegant and beautiful room. William and Elizabeth and I always hated it. William, this is Ilsa Brandes Woolf, John Brandes’ daughter.”

  “How do you do, my dear,” Cousin William said. He was a kind, tired-looking man, with thick ash-blond hair and a well-groomed Vandyke beard, the color of Cousin Anna’s hair and Silver’s, the color that does not turn with age. He wore thick spectacles; through them his eyes were a vague brown blurr. He took Ilsa in his arms and kissed her. “I saw you the day you were born,” he said, “so I’m afraid I’ll have to remark on the way you’ve grown.”

  “This is Ilsa’s husband, Montgomery Woolf,” Cousin Anna said.

  Cousin William held out his hand. “Yes. You look like your father. How do you do.”

  “How do you do, sir.” Mont
y took his hand and bowed. “We are delighted to welcome you home.”

  Cousin Anna snorted and turned to me. “And Henry Randolph Porcher, son of our sainted Cecilia and Henry Randolph Porcher, the elder.”

  Cousin William shook hands with me, as Cousin Anna beckoned to Lorenzo, who was standing shyly in the corner with Brand. “And this is Lorenzo Moore.”

  “How do you do,” Lorenzo whispered to us. He was a skinny little boy with beautiful big gray eyes and a fine beak of a nose. He stood with his pale legs wide apart and his small bony hands clasped behind his back as though bracing himself against our regard.

  Cousin Anna and Cousin William both looked at the water color of Aunt Elizabeth.

  “That’s new since I was here last,” Cousin Anna said.

  “What?” Ilsa asked.

  “The picture of Elizabeth.”

  “Yes. I found it in the attic.”

  “One of Violetta’s attempts, I see.” Cousin William went over to the picture and peered at it through his glasses. “Funny how Elizabeth’s personality managed to come through even Violetta’s artificiality.”

  “Tell me,” Ilsa said in a low voice, going over to him. “How did you happen to see me the day I was born?”

  “I baptized your mother shortly before she died.”

  “Did you know Mother at all?”

  “No, my dear. I’d never seen her before.” He looked at her intently. “I see what Anna meant when she said you were like Elizabeth. I pray that none of the unhappiness and horror that came about before your birth will visit itself upon you.”

  “The sins of the fathers,” Ilsa said. “Isn’t it seven generations?”

  “Yes. But you weren’t related to most of the people involved until you married young Montgomery.”

  “I was related to Father, though, and he seems to have caused—or at any rate started—most of the trouble. I wish you’d known my mother. Father never seemed to want to talk to me about her, and of course I never asked him. I’d like to know what she was like, what kind of a person she was.”

  There was a loud thump as Monty put the marble horse on the floor and offered it to the children. They were both too big for it, but both, fortunately, too tactful to refuse. Monty would probably have forced them to climb onto the patient white horse that Mattie Belle scrubbed once a week with soap and water, if they hadn’t obediently straddled it without being told.