Yesterday afternoon, right after lunch, there had been a knock on her door as Ellen was dressing for the beach. She threw a robe over her bathing suit and went to the door. Mrs. Carmichael was standing there. She had never come to Ellen’s room before.
“Well, my dear,” the Old lady had said, “do you realize what day it is? This is our last full day here. Hurry up.”
“Where are we going?”
“I promised I’d take you on the beginning of my walk. Come along.”
“All right,” Ellen said. She slipped on a pair of sandals, and still wearing her yellow terry beach robe, followed Mrs. Carmichael along the narrow balcony that skirted the second floor of the hotel and down the broad stone steps that led to the terrace.
They started along a little path that led through a grove of banana trees and up the hill toward the sugar mill. “My father’s mill,” Mrs. Carmichael said, pointing with her cane. “The lizards own it now.” They went a little farther. “The house was here,” she, said. “It burned in a great fire a long time ago.”
Then they went down the other side of the hill, through another banana grove, through a broad field where lazy donkeys grubbed in the dried brown grass. “All sugar cane once,” Mrs. Carmichael said. Then they came to a tall tree and Mrs. Carmichael stopped there.
“It was here,” she said. “It was under this very tree they fought.” She prodded the earth with the top of her black cane. “It was on this very patch of ground.” She looked upward. “Under this very sun, I suppose.” Her eyes gleamed brightly, but there were no tears.
“Why do you come here?” Ellen whispered. “Why do you torture yourself like this?”
“You!” Mrs. Carmichael snapped. “You said you came here to forget. I come here to remember!”
“But it was so long ago.”
“It doesn’t make any difference,” she said. “I come here because I hope someday to die here, where he died.”
“But you mustn’t,” Ellen said. “You mustn’t do this to yourself.”
Mrs. Carmichael’s voice was far away. “It was right here,” she said. “A duel, What a foolish way to die. I took Edward’s body back to Newburyport. It was what he had wanted. It was winter, and everything was frozen. My heart was frozen too.”
“And you stayed in Newburyport to be near him.”
“No. Because I had nowhere else to go. I hated every memory of Newburyport, but I couldn’t come back here while my father still lived. And he lived for a long time. I had to wait nearly thirty years for him to die—until, at last—”
“But I don’t understand,” Ellen said.
“It was thirty years before I could come back to where he died. His grave is here somewhere. Father never marked it.”
“But who—”
“The Frenchman. I loved the Frenchman. Father made me marry Edward—a business arrangement. He was getting too old to command the lighter fleet himself, he said—though he went on commanding it for thirty years, after Edward. He wanted Edward. They were very much alike, Father and Edward. But Edward hated the tropics, didn’t want to stay. But when Father gave me to Edward, he agreed to stay.”
“I see,” said Ellen.
“A duel! Father’s idea. Only the Frenchman was supposed to die. But they both died, and—ah, well, that was all right too, I suppose, with Father. I used to see him whip the blacks with the flat side of a machete. Look,” Mrs. Carmichael said, turning suddenly to Ellen, “life is a sort of duel, it seems to me. Not a killing duel, but it is combat. You have to fight. A woman has to fight sometimes for what she wants. I never fought Father until it was too late. But you can fight if you have an ounce of grit. I mean marry that schoolteacher. Your mother is a fool. She’s in love with that Kent man. Don’t act so shocked. I’ve watched her. She’d marry him if he’d divorce his wife. But he won’t. Go your own way. Marry the schoolteacher. Come on, let’s get back. I don’t feel like finishing my walk today.”
That night Mrs. Brier had come into Ellen’s room. “Aren’t you dressed, dear?” she asked. “Tonight’s the farewell cocktail party. Everyone’s gathering downstairs on the terrace.”
“I don’t think I’ll go, Mother,” Ellen said.
“Why not, for heaven’s sake? Darling, you’ve been a stickin-the-mud this whole trip. Won’t you at least put in an appearance tonight?”
Ellen crossed the room to the window and looked out. Below, the cocktail party—the last cocktail party of the last night of the season—was under way. Mr. Kent, in Mrs. Carmichael’s chair, was doing an imitation of Mrs. Carmichael, pretending to be pounding the stones with a cane. There was a roar of laughter.
“Hurry up, dear,” Mrs. Brier said.
“I have things to do tonight,” Ellen said.
“Ellen, what’s come over you?” Mrs. Brier asked. “Will you please snap out of it and slip on a dress and come downstairs?”
“I’m going to write Jimmy a letter, for one thing,” she said.
“Ellen!”
“I’m going to write Jimmy a letter.”
“Please stop that sort of talk.”
Ellen turned and faced her mother. “I am,” she said. “And I’m going to tell him just what you’re afraid I’m going to tell him.”
Mrs. Brier, in her blue silk print, stood there folding and unfolding her hands. Finally she turned on her heel and walked out of the room. “I wash my hands of you!” she said.
For a while Ellen had watched the party on the terrace. Mrs. Arnold arrived, wearing a bright native-print skirt. There was her mother with the Kents. It was growing noisy; voices were pitched higher, full of expectancy for what the evening held. Gathered there, by their very intimacy they seemed to draw a curtain around themselves that excluded everything beyond them. There is only us, they seemed to be saying. There is nothing but this terrace, this evening, these cocktails, this talk.
Standing at her window, Ellen noticed that everyone on the terrace faced inward, toward one another, their backs turned against everything that lay outside.
The sun was going down. No one watched it as it started its swift, spectacular slide into the sea. They were like a herd of pigeons in a park, Ellen thought, all pecking at the scattered kernels of conversation. This conceit pleased her, somehow. It would please Jimmy too. It was strange to think that in the morning they would all have flown away.
WATER WON’T QUENCH FIRE
Dolly looked out the living-room window and said, Now wasn’t that the limit? It was going to rain. Wasn’t that just like up-North weather? But when no one answered her she turned around and saw that Barbara had stepped into the kitchen and was out of earshot. With great care Dolly took a cigarette out of the silver box on the coffee table, lit it, and inhaled deeply. Then she picked up the box and examined the hallmark on the bottom. “Sterling!” she murmured appreciatively.
“Of course,” said Barbara, coming in again with two bottles of beer and glasses. “Jeff picked it out. Want a beer?”
“Oh, you know I don’t drink, dear!” said Dolly.
Barbara set the bottles down. “You don’t? Since when?”
“Oh, since a long, long time.”
“Not even a beer? To celebrate your arrival?”
Dolly lifted her left wrist and glanced at the tiny egg-shaped watch that dangled among the bracelets. “W-e-e-ll,” she said, extending the vowel and punctuating it with a sharp stream of smoke, “it is three o’clock.” She laughed nervously. “It’s almost the cocktail hour. I’ll have one, just one.”
Barbara emptied the beer into the glasses and handed one to Dolly. Dolly took her glass, and skirted the coffee table to the sofa. Barbara crossed the room to a small, pink velvet chair; with one hand, she fished inside the pocket of her pale-gray shantung shirt. “Got a cigarette?” she asked.
“Why, Barb, there are thousands of them here in this box.” She reached for the box, opened it, and tossed a cigarette to her sister. “Catch!” she yelled, and screamed hysterically as Barbara
grabbed for it and missed.
Barbara reached down and picked up the cigarette from the floor.
“Hey,” she said, “take it easy.”
Dolly sat back in her chair, her shoulders shaking. “Sorry, Barb,” she said.
“You seem kind of nervous,” Barbara said, looking at her.
“Do I? Maybe I am. Seeing you again and all.”
Barbara picked up one of the table lighters and lit her cigarette. “Stale,” she said. “Jeff likes to keep cigarettes around in boxes. He thinks it’s classy, or something. He doesn’t mind if they get stale. He doesn’t smoke.”
For a moment or two the two sisters sat smoking, studying each other, saying nothing. Dolly fidgeted with a silver charm bracelet. She was the older girl, but the soft afternoon light in the living room flattered her and softened her features, so that she might easily have been mistaken for the younger. Her hair, which was not its own color, was drawn back from her face more severely than Barbara’s, which fell in natural blonde waves. And her skin, clouded now under makeup, was pale. Her eyes were deepened with mascara. Barbara, who was just twenty-five, had a fuller face and figure. Her mouth was possibly a bit too wide, but she did her best to correct this feature by holding her lips in a manner that might have suggested a pout—a pout on a pretty face. Still, if someone had walked into that room at that moment he would have seen at first glance two emphatic young women. But this impression would not have been final. Dolly’s pallor would have emerged later; Barbara’s wide, friendly smile would have erased the sulky look and replaced it with a look of unaffected naturalness.
“Well,” Barbara said, smiling now, “how’ve you been? You look fine, just fine.”
“Me?” Dolly asked. “Oh, I’m just blooming. The Florida sunshine was just what the doctor ordered.” She picked up her glass and sipped from it. With the toe of her black pump she began a little rhythmic tapping on the rug. She crooked a silver-tipped finger and scratched the monogram that had been traced on the side of the glass. “Expensive,” she said.
Barbara laughed dryly. “Sure, everything here’s expensive. Look at my shoes.” She extended one foot. “They were very expensive. Jeff likes things that way. Did you expect to find me living in squalor?”
“Oh, no!” Dolly exclaimed. “Of course not. But it’s been such a long time. Three years, actually, since I’ve seen you. And when I last saw you Jeff was—you know—just getting started. Just struggling along.” She paused a moment. “I suppose he must be making all sorts of money now.”
“He does all right,” Barbara said. “We get along.”
“Your home is—well, it’s beautiful, Barb. Really, from the way you described it in your letter, I thought—”
“You should see some of the houses around here,” Barbara said. “This place is nothing. I’ll give you our twenty-five-cent tour of New Hope tomorrow. They say here that the mechanics live on Ferry Street and the fairies live on Mechanic Street. Tomorrow, we’ll go out and laugh at the natives.”
“Well, I’d certainly like that,” Dolly said absently.
“You’d turn green.”
“Yes.”
“How was your trip?”
“My trip? Up here? Dreadful. All the way up in the plane I sat beside some terrible little I-don’t-know-what with a bag of sandwiches!” She laughed. “And I think he must have taken a shine to me, Barb, because he kept offering—oh, well! Never mind the dreary details. Suffice it to say I’m here. And tired!”
“It’s wonderful to see you again, Dolly.”
“Yes. Now, why did you ask me to come?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you want me to come? I mean, I’m delighted to see you, Barb. And it was sweet of you to send me the ticket. But I mean, why so sudden—after three years? You sounded so urgent in your letter—”
Barbara stood up and flipped her cigarette into the fireplace. Then she went to the sofa and plunked herself down beside Dolly. “I need your advice,” she said finally.
“You need my advice? About what?”
“I’m thinking about divorcing Jeff.”
Dolly gulped her beer. “What?” she asked.
“Yes. It’s—well, it’s a long story. It just doesn’t seem to be working out, that’s all. And you—you’ve been through the mill, Dolly. You’ve been divorced. I thought maybe you could give me some pointers.”
“Pointers?”
“Yes. How. Where. How much. Et cetera.”
“Are you serious, Barb?”
“Sure I’m serious.”
“Barb!”
“What?”
“I don’t know what’s come over you. You sound so—so callous. You sound as hard as nails.”
Barbara laughed. “Maybe I’m in with a bad crowd.”
“Well! I don’t know, I just don’t. I’m shocked, actually.”
“You never really expected it would work out, did you? Me, married to Mr. Suburbia, U.S.A.? A knight in shining black attaché case? Do you know why we live way the hell out here? Because he thinks that the farther away from the city you live the richer you look. So he spends nearly four hours a day on the goddam train.”
“Don’t talk that way,” Dolly said. “Please.” She paused. “I mean—don’t you love him?”
Barbara picked up her glass and held it in front of her face, staring through the amber liquid. “Love him? Oh, I love him, I suppose.” She looked sharply at her sister. “You loved Danny, didn’t you?”
“Is there another woman, as we say?”
“Ha!” Barbara said. “I doubt it. He’s too hooked on status to take on another woman. It wouldn’t look right, you see.”
“Oh dear.”
“And besides he’s too busy. He’s very busy being busy because that’s the way you get ahead, says he—by being busy. Work all day—come home at night and work some more.” She turned and looked at Dolly. “Do you realize that it’s been weeks since he and I have had an intelligent conversation? About anything? He’s so wrapped up in his everlasting business deals that he doesn’t have time for anything else.”
“But you said he takes an interest in this house.”
“This house! Oh, yes, that’s another story. Do you know why he takes an interest in this house—why he likes things like silver cigarette boxes? Like all this stuff?” She gestured around her. “It’s because he thinks they’re an asset to the damn business. He thinks this is the way we ought to be living.”
“Oh.”
“And I’ve got a feeling that’s what he thinks I am—another damned cigarette box. That’s why he takes such an interest in how I dress. Oh, he’s generous! But it can’t be me he’s thinking about.”
“But you do love him.”
“Well, I just said. You loved Danny, didn’t you?”
Dolly took a swallow of her drink. “Oh, yes,” she said softly.
“So you see?” Barbara stood up, her glass in her hand.
“Where are you going?”
“We’re out of beer. I’m going to fix us something serious to drink.”
“Barbara, do you think you should? I mean it’s only three o’clock, and—”
“Quiet. I’m getting us a drink.” She walked out of the room and banged open the kitchen door in the distance.
“Oh dear,” said Dolly to herself, looking again out the window. “It is raining.” She rose and stood uncertain for a moment, then stepped to the chair where she had left her bag. She removed her compact and, with a small soft brush, dabbed at her cheeks. “A fright, a fright,” she whispered to her image in the tiny mirror.
When Barbara came back Dolly was sitting on the sofa, stroking a cushion with one hand. “I love your slip covers, Barb,” she said. “Where did you get them made?”
“I don’t know,” said Barbara. “Somewhere.”
“They’re lovely.”
“Yeah. Here’s your drink,” Barbara said, handing her a glass.
Dolly looked up innocently. “Oh, did y
ou fix me one? I couldn’t touch it. Really, honey, I never take anything stronger than beer.”
“Shut up and take it.”
Dolly hesitated, then took the glass and tasted the liquor. “Well,” she said, “it is refreshing. What is it? Scotch?”
“Bourbon.”
“Oh. Well, you can see I’m no connoisseur. Now if I say or do anything silly—”
“I’ll forgive you,” Barbara said. “You can do no wrong. Blood is thicker than water.”
“Or bourbon?” Dolly asked, and giggled. She took another sip.
“I suppose it is funny,” Barbara said.
“What is?”
“Me. Getting a divorce. I suppose it doesn’t strike you as being very serious.”
“Now, Barb,” Dolly said, “don’t get scoldy. You said you wanted my advice. Now, please, just let me think about it for a minute or two. I want to have time to mull it over a bit.” She began the little tapping again with her foot.
“Mull away,” Barbara said. She went to the sofa, sat down, and kicked off her low-heeled sandals. “And stop that,” she said.
“What?”
“That tapping thing you’re doing. It drives me crazy.”
“Sorry.”
Some time later Dolly’s eyes were shining, and she was saying, “Well, as I just said, I got a divorce. But I was only twenty-two, twenty-three then. I’m thirty-seven now. If I were getting a divorce now, I might do it differently.”
“Thirty-seven? How differently?”
“Well—differently. Like, maybe not get a divorce at all.”
“You mean you wish you hadn’t?”
“Oh, no. No, I’m glad, I suppose. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. Danny was—oh, you know how Danny was.”
“A lush.”
“Oh, yes, that—but—”
“You mean you’re sorry now.”
“Oh, I don’t know about sorry—” She broke off suddenly. “That plant,” she said, pointing. “It’s huge—what is it?”
“Huh? Oh, I don’t know. Some damn thing.”
“It’s beautiful. Does it blossom?”
“Sure, I guess it blossoms. If I remember to water it. Guess who brought it home with him one afternoon. And set it right there. For me to take care of. Guess.”
Heart Troubles Page 15
