“Oh, of course,” said Victorine.
“Perhaps,” said the old lady, a delicate rose colour coming into her cheeks, “he has never mentioned me.”
“But I remember you coming to call,” said Victorine, “very well.”
“That,” said the old lady.
“I thought you were so distinguished and so beautiful,” said Victorine and added impetuously, “because you are.”
“Oh, my dear child!”
“May I have another cup of tea?”
“Indeed you may, and do try it in the saucer, it’s much nicer and rather fun.” She laughed very engagingly and Victorine carefully tipped her hot tea out of the lovely cup into the saucer.
“And Homer—your father—” she corrected herself, “is quite well?”
“Oh, yes,” said Victorine, “he’s never sick.”
“He was a lovely boy at fifteen.” The old lady was sitting straight up in her chair, looking back over the years; although she was facing Victorine, she might not have been there. Victorine seemed to have a talent for withdrawing herself and often became a confidante without wishing to. “Ah, I remember as if it were yesterday, when he came into the pantry at the Stuyvesants’, I was only a kitchenmaid then, it was several years before I rose to parlourmaid. He was so pretty, I could not keep my hands off him.” The old lady stopped and said no more as if she had made a mistake.
But Victorine simply did not take it in; her dreams, like Allison’s, were made of sterner stuff and perhaps she thought, which did not at all detract from her charm, that the old lady was a tiny bit off. That would account for the eccentricity of her table manners and the funny little room she chose to receive her friends in rather than the magnificent drawing-room downstairs with two pianos in it, and a rosy carpet three inches thick (although there, too, on the chairs, the little dog had left his mark). Thinking along these lines, she smiled encouragingly at the pretty old lady, but the old lady suddenly seemed to withdraw within herself and assumed an aloofness that Victorine recognized as her true self, The Great Lady. She thought she was about to be dismissed and said, “Yes, I really must go.”
“So I have been indiscreet,” said the old lady. “You didn’t know, then!” A sad, rather beseeching look came into her violet eyes. “I should have known better at my age,” she said. “You would never have come. You won’t come again!” Old Sadie Lovejoy took a tiny lawn handkerchief from one of a number of little pockets and covered her small nose. “I must have caught cold,” she said with dignity.
“Know what?” said Victorine, not meaning to ask a question.
“That I married out of my station,” said the old lady. “You may go any time you like.” She rose, at the same time ringing a little silver bell for Hilda. Victorine really had no idea what she was talking about, but realized she had stayed too long and should go. In spite of the old lady’s coolness of manner, she said, “I’ve had a lovely time, may I really come again?”
“Indeed you may, dear! Oh my dear child!”
•
And that is how a dreamy friendship on Victorine’s side, and a real need for old Sadie Lovejoy, was consummated one fall afternoon. Victorine did not realize that attempting to live a daydream, to force it, almost, to come true, was dangerous, and the old lady, too, was living an existence that was meaningless except to herself. They were, perhaps, two of a kind in a peculiar sense, a pas de deux.
There is no doubt that the parlourmaid had, under the loving tutelage of Fitz, her husband, and from observation of his friends, and with a talent for imitation, become over the years a lady who could not be distinguished from her betters. She did really become a great lady in everything but the prerequisite of birth. The townspeople treated her with respect, and as I have said, after a little ill-natured steam, on the part of the wives of the old guard, had evaporated, she was accepted in county society, and a semiannual exchange of cards had taken place. The old servants, it is true, who had been the original help and had been trained by Fitz’s first wife who had been a Miss Montmorency, had left, in what is called, a body, at the parlourmaid’s elevation. Partly from loyalty to their deceased mistress and partly from pure snobbery, and the inability to adjust themselves as their betters had to a changing world. One had remained and still lived in, although too old now to handle the least of the chores, he kept to his bed, the octogenarian butler, Yeats. The new group of servants had no reason to complain of their charming mistress and never, even if they suspected the misalliance, discussed her beginnings in the servants’ hall or ever showed her the least disrespect. The little sitting-room that she retired to for a good part of the day was considered an eccentricity of the aged. On the other hand, it is hard to say how much make-believe went on in the big house, but at least everyone played his part and attended to his cue.
(Fitz’s two married daughters by his first wife had never forgiven their Papa his second marriage and had never come back even to his funeral.)
The spirited mare who had thrown her master was in pasture. She had been startled to find Fitz suddenly in the path in front of her and had lowered her handsome neck and roughly nosed his body. At the smell of blood she had reared, and in a panic galloped home, the stirrups beating at her sides doubly terrifying her. Warm mash and oats had finally comforted her, but she would never take the path again and permitted no one to ride her for long.
At Fitz’s violent death, Sadie Lovejoy had again become “that woman,” and gradually the calling had ceased, invitations to Green Acres regretted. As a matter of fact, Victorine was the first visitor in a decade!
But Sadie Lovejoy had not chosen to take a little villa in Florence, or remove her half-witted son to Switzerland for treatment, or with her inheritance return to the old country. She chose the status quo. She did not mean to retreat. She did not dismiss a single servant, with the exception of Fitz’s valet, and she lived in the big house alone, exactly as she had with Fitz, rising at the same hour, lunching in the crimson dining-room and dressing for dinner each evening at eight. The stark sitting-room with the original little metal trunk in it that she had crossed, in steerage, the Atlantic, was the only exception to her queenly ritual, dignified ménage, and like the lady she was, she never made any excuses for preferring it.
Even the bridle paths were kept free of brush although no one used them, excepting occasionally, Fool Fred, who liked to pretend he was a horse.
Victorine was never asked to luncheon or to dinner but she was expected for tea, and giant pound cakes were baked especially for her. If she did not show for a week the pound cake, with its keeping quality, got even better; limp and firm and egg-yellow, it soon became Victorine’s favourite food, it seemed to sustain her dreams, and old Sadie Lovejoy was quite happy when she took just one more piece. So used was Victorine to the tea hour that it happened she need not be announced, and she often pushed open the great door and beat a path, almost, to the little sitting-room. She was too well brought up to investigate the rest of the house at these times and did not look into the big rooms or examine the library shelves, much as she would have liked to. That is how it happened on a day in December that arriving a little early she heard voices in the library which was to the right of the entrance hall and she hesitated. She thought of backing out but she longed for the sweet old lady and the pound cake. She did not mean to see but did, Fool Fred, in the old lady’s arms. Neither saw her and as she could not retreat she passed by, the deep carpet stifling any sound of her footsteps, and went on upstairs. The tea things were as usual laid out and the tea urn was bubbling, the top dancing up and down from the escaping steam. She did not hesitate to turn down the little alcohol lamp, she felt so at home.
Chapter XI
Fool Fred
Victorine mused.
We left her, you remember, sitting alone while the tea urn bubbled and steamed and the silver top jumped up and down; it was a pleasant music, rhythmic and tuneful to her ears; it soothed her. She did not ask herself any leading que
stions about what she had seen in the library, but that she was not supposed to have seen Fool Fred in the old lady’s arms, she sensed. What it meant was beyond her and she simply accepted it as being just that, beyond her.
“Child.”
“I came so early.”
“Not at all, I shall ring for Hilda.”
Immediately, Hilda, who must have been at her mistress’s heels, came in with five slices of pound cake.
“You may go,” said old Sadie Lovejoy, “and you may lay out my black satin with the jet trim, I should like a shawl, too, it is rather chilly, my Sorrento shawl.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And Hilda, were there any messages while I was at the market?”
“No, m’lady. Shall we serve the pineapple you chose?”
“What pineapple, my girl?”
“I beg pardon, ma’am.”
“You may go.”
Victorine and the old lady scarcely spoke and they looked, both of them, very pretty and contented, but as Victorine lifted her third piece of pound cake from the silver plate she felt suddenly as if something were wrong. A presentiment of some sort took away her appetite. She returned the slice to the plate and looked at the old lady.
“It’s of no consequence,” said the old lady. With one small hand, laden with rings, she was pressing up her left breast; she smiled at Victorine, but two big tears formed in her violet eyes. “I have had a tiresome afternoon,” she said. “You will find the smelling salts in the top left-hand drawer . . . thank you, dear.”
“Madame!” Hilda came in without knocking. “It’s Mr. Yeats.”
“Will you mind your manners, Hilda!” said the old lady. “Do you not see I have guests!” But she stood up and added, “I shall come at once.”
“I must go,” said Victorine.
“You will do nothing of the sort,” said the old lady with unusual asperity. “I may need you, come this way.”
Sadie Lovejoy easily, it seemed, light as a feather, climbed the three flights of back stairs that led to the tiny hall bedroom of the octogenarian butler, Yeats, who lived in. Victorine did not even say to herself, what next? but she breathed a little hard from the unexpected and hasty exertion. The old lady did a surprising thing, she slipped off her big jewelled rings and put them in one of her little pockets, and as she knocked, with what Victorine noticed was a complete change of expression, from assurance to what seemed close to timidity, she smoothed with her other hand the front of her dress as if it were an apron.
“Come in.” The voice was thin, without volume, as though it travelled along a string.
“Mr. Yeats, are you ill?” asked the old lady anxiously.
Yeats lay back against coarse linen pillowcases covering a number of thin pillows on a metal bed. His room was clean but as stark as the old lady’s sitting-room, and under the bed could be seen the end of a green metal trunk. But on the bureau were a number of framed photographs of ladies and gentlemen, and a bunch of fresh carnations were next his bed. Victorine had caught the scent of them through the keyhole.
Yeats looked even older than he surely was. His skin was waxen yellow, his pale eyes were sunken, and the lower lids no longer held their shape firmly underneath but drooped like a mastiff’s, showing bright pink. His sparse eyebrows were incredibly high and arched, his nose tight and thin and his mouth a straight dark line, black, like dried blood. He looked at the old lady with a feeble grimace.
“You sent for me, Mr. Yeats?” she said.
“You took your time,” said old Yeats, a slight colour reaching his cheek-bones. He had the look, in spite of his disability, of extraordinary dignity, and even now of authority. He glanced at Victorine, “Cook’s niece?”
“A little friend,” said the old lady.
“You know it’s not allowed,” he said, “the master did not like it.”
“Oh,” said the old lady, quickly, “she’s a little gentlewoman.”
“Not likely,” said Yeats.
“She is indeed!” said the old lady with spirit.
“None of your impudence,” said Yeats. He closed his eyes wearily.
“Do you want something?” said the old lady. “I was afraid you were ill—a glass of something? I’ll soon be bringing your dinner.”
“I’ve no appetite,” said Yeats. “It’s a great bore,” he said, in the tone of voice of the county squires he had served so long, “to be cooped up here like this.”
“I know, Mr. Yeats.”
“You!” the old man gave a feeble snort and choked on it, “with your airs,” he managed to finish.
“Oh, Mr. Yeats.”
The octogenarian butler looked the lovely Mrs. Fitz Lovejoy up and down and with some effort smiled, “As pretty a piece as ever,” he said. “I never blamed Mr. Fitz for taking you on, my dear,” he said with an unmistakable leer that age had not deleted. “Ahh! The old days, what a little minx you were, with the young bucks, and the old gentlemen, too, in the pantry!” Again he choked and turned purple, “Ah-ah-hh!” he sputtered. “What was the name of that young lad you took to bed one Christmas Eve . . . ah, ah, ha!”
The old lady turned on Victorine. “Get out of here!” she hissed.
Victorine was so frightened she turned white.
“Come, come, Sadie, temper, temper!” Yeats admonished, wagging a long finger at her and winking at Victorine
The old lady trembled. “May I be excused, Mr. Yeats?” she said.
“Bring me the evening paper,” he said, “and let’s see what the gentry are up to, and I’d like a whisky and water with dinner.”
“I selected a lovely pineapple,” said the old lady, calming herself. She smiled at the ancient butler and there seemed to pass between them a fragile and tenuous understanding, real affection, a bond. And the useless old servant, confined to his bed, still held the respect of the household help, no matter how much they had, or had not, bettered themselves over the years.
But Victorine, as she followed her beautiful Mrs. Fitz Lovejoy down the narrow stairs, fought back the tears that filled her eyes. She did not know that there was more to come and that the old lady’s tiresome afternoon and old Yeats’ bawdy talk in front of her had set off a chain reaction of some sort and she, Victorine, would suffer for a number of things of which she was completely ignorant and certainly not responsible.
It had at last come over her that the scene she had witnessed was no part of her pleasant daydream, it was real and it shocked her. Never would she have imagined anything of the sort and her tact that had never deserted her before, did.
“Mrs. Fitz Lovejoy,” she said, “I had better not come again.”
“Little snob,” said Mrs. Fitz Lovejoy coldly.
“I?”
“Yes, you with your pretty ways. I thought you knew. Everyone knows, it’s not likely you can’t have heard.”
The old lady did not realize how hard it was even now for Victorine to accept reality.
“You mean it is true,” whispered Victorine.
“How stupid you are,” said the old lady.
“You were the parlourmaid?” said Victorine. “You!”
“I thought you loved me, that a little lady loved me,” said Mrs. Fitz Lovejoy sadly. It was painful for Victorine to see her submissiveness.
But the old lady turned on her again, “What are you doing snooping around here!”
“Snooping,” said Victorine tearfully, almost inaudibly.
“My son is an idiot!” the old lady shouted and she fell into an overstuffed chair covered with rosebuds. “As if you didn’t know!” she choked.
Hilda rushed in, “Go away, miss, you are disturbing m’lady!” and Victorine did go. It was as if she had been cruelly awakened and must face a long day. As she pushed open the heavy door she saw the little dog. He was waiting patiently to be let in. He slipped quickly between Victorine’s legs into the house. He had been rolling in manure and had thought it best not to bark. The strong astringent smell of him filled Vic
torine’s nostrils and she did not mind it.
“Ppsst!”
Victorine raised her head. Fool Fred stood against a back-drop of dark woods, dressed in white duck pants and a light shirt, spotlighted as if in a theatre. With one hand he gesticulated, beckoning to her, the other he held against his mouth.
Without any hesitation she went towards him and he turned, and she followed him along the bridle path into the woods.
“Think nothing of it,” were his first words. His voice was gentle and penetrating, it went to her heart and she started to cry.
“I, too, am an outcast,” said Fool Fred, but he said it with a certain amount of pride. “I recognized you,” he said, “in the village, I knew by the way you walked, by the withdrawal in your eyes, by your tact and sweet manners that you were afraid.” He stepped aside, “Would you like to see my friend horse?” he asked, “for the time being?”
Victorine, soothed, and yet fascinated by the sound of him, felt a definite reprieve and stopped crying. “Horse?” she said childishly as if a weeping kid had been handed a red ball, “Ball?”
“I, too, am a horse,” said Fool Fred, smiling at her.
“I know,” said Victorine.
“I consort with horses,” he said quietly.
“A horse is a very intelligent animal,” said Victorine.
“There you are mistaken,” said Fool Fred, but he did not elaborate. They walked, tandem, on the narrow path, silently, for a little while. Fool Fred’s back, his wide but delicate shoulders, his slim hips, the way the white duck pants clung to his buttocks and the calves of his legs, his bare ankles and sneakered heels were all attractive to Victorine and she looked at nothing else.
Without turning, but in a clear voice, Fool Fred said, “If my mother offended you it is because she is a queen, but that of course you know.”
Victorine said nothing.
“I am a bastard,” he said and again there was a ring of pride in his pleasant voice.
“My father was a bastard before me,” he said. “Do you read books? Fitz means bastard, you know.”
Victorine Page 12
