“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, it’s a completely stupid theory. You know that, don’t you?”
“May I remind you this is your mother you’re talking about,” she said in mock reproach. “I very much doubt she’s said a stupid thing in her life.”
“Well, in this instance I’m afraid she has.”
“At any rate, I’m leaving. I need to travel. I’ve been here too long.”
“But I thought you liked it here,” he muttered.
Sensing she wouldn’t be able to keep her emotions in check much longer, Miss Prim stood up resolutely.
“Please, don’t get sentimental,” she said with apparent nonchalance as she made for the door.
“I’ll miss you, Prudencia,” said the Man in the Wing Chair, raising his head.
“That’s very gallant of you, but it’s not really true and you know it.”
“Is that honestly what you think?” he said hoarsely, just before the librarian opened the door and left the room.
Miss Prim pulled the study door shut behind her and scurried along the corridor to the first-floor landing, then up a flight of stairs until at last she reached her bedroom. She closed the door quietly, took off her shoes, lay down on the bed, and, after staring at the coffered ceiling for a few moments, burst into disconsolate tears. Why was she always crying these days? She’d never been an emotional woman. If she was honest with herself, and just then it wasn’t hard to be, what she felt for the man couldn’t be called love. It had been an attraction forged practically against the odds. Perhaps it had been the challenge. Perhaps even an infatuation; but it wasn’t love. So was she crying out of pique? That must be it, she sighed, wiping away tears. For some reason, no doubt her conceited vanity, over the last few days she’d convinced herself that he felt something for her. And though he might have been attracted to her—she couldn’t rule it out—it was nothing like love.
Lost in thought, she heard a floorboard creak outside her room. Somebody had stopped in the corridor but did not want to make their presence known. She got up from the bed and stole toward the door. Her heart thumping, she didn’t hesitate another second—she grabbed the handle and flung open the door.
“What are you doing there?” she asked in surprise.
Septimus’s blond, disheveled head retreated.
“I wasn’t listening,” he said with absolute conviction.
Miss Prim’s expression softened and she gestured with her head for him to come in.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” he said, glancing at the half-packed suitcase on the bed.
“Who told you?”
“The gardener. He hears everything through the study window. Why are you crying? Has someone smacked you?”
The librarian, who had picked up a silk-jersey blouse and delicately begun to fold it, was startled.
“Smacked? No, of course not. Do you cry only when you get smacked?”
The child pondered for a few moments.
“I never cry,” he said firmly. “Not even when somebody smacks me.”
“That’s good,” Miss Prim heard herself say. “I mean, sometimes you need to have a cry, but it’s good not to cry over just anything.”
“Maybe I could cry in a war,” reflected the child. “In a war I could probably do it. It’s probably justified then.”
“Completely justified,” she assured him.
“Hey,” said Septimus, seeing the tears sliding silently down her cheeks. “I’d rather you didn’t cry so much.”
“I’m sorry I can’t oblige. Unlike you, I cry in peacetime as well.”
The boy observed her flushed face closely and then ran his eye over all the cosmetics bottles on the mantelpiece.
“What can I do to make you stop crying?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid,” replied Miss Prim, touched. “This advice won’t be any use to you now, Septimus, but when you grow up and see a woman crying, remember that the best thing you can do is absolutely nothing.”
“That’s really easy.”
She burst out laughing and started to dry her tears.
“Easy? Wait till you’re older. There’s nothing harder.”
“Going to war is probably harder, and also hunting a whale with a harpoon,” the boy remarked, his attention now drawn by something outside the window.
“Maybe hunting a whale with a harpoon is,” she conceded.
“You know what?” said the child, his gaze now fixed on the floor. “I think we’re going to miss you.”
“And I’m going to miss you,” she murmured. “Come here. Will you give me a kiss?”
The boy recoiled.
“No,” he said firmly, “no kisses. I never give kisses. I hate them.”
“I think you’ll get over that too when you’re grown up,” she said, smiling.
“Don’t bet on it,” replied the boy before rushing out.
“So you’re leaving,” sighed Mrs. Rouan, offering Miss Prim a chair at the old marble table in the kitchen.
The librarian sat down and accepted the mug of duck consommé that the cook kindly served her.
“That’s right, Mrs. Rouan, I am.”
A fire was burning cheerfully in the hearth and a stew was simmering on the wood-fired range. Outside, the sun seemed to have hidden itself away and leaden clouds promised a night of snow.
“We’re going to miss you,” mumbled the cook. “I know things haven’t always been easy between us.”
“No, they haven’t,” said the librarian softly.
“I don’t like change, I never have. And to tell you the truth,” the cook glanced furtively into the stewpot, “I don’t like new women in the house. They all have their own ways of doing things, and God knows, as you get older it’s hard to change.”
Miss Prim smiled sweetly.
“I quite understand, Mrs. Rouan. And I’d like to apologize for the times I might have upset you or been insensitive.”
The cook smiled back and patted Miss Prim’s hand with one of her own plump, time-worn hands.
“Oh, we’ve both been rather pigheaded, miss. I’m not an easy woman; I never have been. I’m used to things running my way. Take the master’s mother—we had our ups and downs at first, too.”
“Really?” said the librarian, trying unsuccessfully to picture her employer’s mother brooking any argument from the cook.
“Of course she’s an older lady, and she’s used to domestic staff. She realizes that the cook is the heart of a house and that it’s best to get on with her. But she is definitely not an easy woman.” And, lowering her voice to a whisper, she added: “Did you know she’s half German?”
“Austrian.”
“Same thing. The first time I met her she asked me to make a strudel. I said very good, no problem. I’d always made it for the children. Ah, but it wasn’t a normal strudel she wanted. She wanted a Topfenstrudel. Do you by any chance know what that is?”
Miss Prim assured her she’d never heard of such a thing.
“That’s what I said. Madam was very considerate, of course, and she wrote out the recipe. But no one likes having a lady come into her kitchen on the very first day and ask for a Topfenstrudel and, to cap it all, give you the recipe. Do you know what I mean?”
She nodded sympathetically.
“So what is a Topfenstrudel?”
“It’s just a strudel with a cream-cheese filling,” grumbled the cook. “They call cream cheese Topfen. Well, anyway, it’s not difficult to make, not at all. So I took the recipe and I made it, of course. What else could I do?”
“And did she like it?”
Mrs. Rouan got up and returned to the range. She lifted the lid of the stewpot, leaned her old head over to inhale the smell, picked up a wooden spoon, and tasted the contents with an air of satisfaction.
“That was the problem,” she explained, sitting down at the table again. “I spent all morning on the wretched thing. I bought the best cheese I
could find and I followed the recipe to the letter. And when it was ready and we took it to the table on a lovely Meissen platter decorated with leaves from the garden, do you know what she said?”
Miss Prim declared that she couldn’t imagine.
“ ‘Mrs. Rouan,’ she said to me, ‘Mrs. Rouan, you haven’t brought the Vanillesoβe. Where’s the Vanillesoβe, Mrs. Rouan?’ ”
The librarian hid her smile in her consommé cup.
“ ‘I don’t know anything about a Vanillesoβe, madam,’ I said to her in all seriousness. ‘In my entire life as a cook, and let me tell you I’ve worked in a lot of houses, I’ve never heard of Vanillesoβe.’ ”
“And what is it?” asked Miss Prim.
“Vanilla custard, no more, no less. How was I to know? And how was I to know that Topfenstrudel was served with it?”
Prudencia hastened to confirm that no one could have guessed such a thing.
“But I have to say, she is a lady,” continued the cook. “Of course she didn’t back down at the time. But the next day she turned up in the kitchen and she said to me: ‘Mrs. Rouan, the Topfenstrudel was delicious yesterday. But I can see that the children are used to your strudel. So, if you wouldn’t mind, from now on we’ll give up on the Topfenstrudel and Vanillesoβe, and go back to your strudel.’ ”
“And it all ended there,” sighed Miss Prim with a smile.
Mrs. Rouan got to her feet once more and lowered the heat under her stew.
“Now this has to be left to rest for two hours,” she muttered. “What were you saying?”
“I said it all ended there.”
The cook looked at her, eyes wide.
“End? Quite the opposite. It didn’t end there, miss. That’s really where it all started.”
Miss Prim nodded pensively and gazed out of the window. Thick flakes of snow had begun to fall on the garden.
“Mrs. Rouan, do you remember the tart I baked on my birthday?”
The woman smiled good-humoredly.
“I do. The master and the children loved it. It was very kind of you to have some sent in to us here in the kitchen; we all liked it very much. It’s an old family recipe, isn’t it? They’re the best.”
From beyond the garden, the path and the fields came the distant, solemn sound of the abbey bells.
“They’re ringing for Vespers,” said the cook.
“I know,” Miss Prim whispered, eyes fixed on the landscape. “Mrs. Rouan, would you like the recipe for my tart?”
The cook was amazed.
“But, miss, I thought the recipe—”
“I thought so too,” grinned Miss Prim. “Would you like to have it?”
Eyes shining with emotion, the cook extended her rough hand and laid it on top of the librarian’s.
“I’d be honored, miss, I really would.”
* * *
I “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?” John 18: 37–8, KJV
4
Miss Prim worked her way diligently through the list of people she had to visit before she left. She knew that news of her departure would spread quickly around the village, and she didn’t want her friends to find out from anyone but her. As she walked through San Ireneo to Horacio Delàs’s house, she recalled the day of her arrival. She’d hurried through these streets, annoyed that she couldn’t find a taxi, and hardly noticed the austere beauty of the stone houses or the charm of the cheerful, neat shops. She’d been completely oblivious—she of all people, who so loved beauty—of the beating heart behind these walls.
A week had passed since she’d discovered her mistake about her employer’s feelings, and the pain had been replaced by a serene inner sadness. It was more than disappointment in love—Miss Prim rebelled inwardly at the thought of succumbing to such a sickness of the soul—it was the prospect of having to leave this delightful place, its quirky people, the way of life. She didn’t want to go, she admitted to herself as she crossed the village, she really didn’t. But what was the alternative?
“I remember when you arrived, so young and inexperienced and knowing nothing about the place.”
Having offered his guest a seat, Horacio settled himself in the old armchair from which he cast his kindly, measured, intellectual gaze upon the world and shot her a searching look.
Miss Prim cleared her throat before replying.
“It was only six months ago, Horacio. I hope I’m still almost as young.”
Smiling, her friend poured her a glass of wine and cut her some cheese with an enormous knife.
“But now you know so much more about us.”
She nodded, raising the wineglass to her lips.
“And yet you’re leaving us,” he continued. “Was that conversation really so difficult? Could you not turn the page and stay?”
Miss Prim looked at him sorrowfully. She had asked herself the same question every day since the night she had spoken to the Man in the Wing Chair. Couldn’t she carry on as before? Ignore it all, pretend it had never happened, simply continue with her job?
“I can’t,” she said.
“Are you really so much in love with him?”
She hopped up and went to straighten one of the pictures that lined the sitting room walls.
“I don’t know,” she said, resuming her seat. “I mean, it probably isn’t love, it may just be infatuation. But it isn’t really that. As least, not only that.”
“So,” he asked, “what else is it?”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how to explain. It isn’t always easy to know what one feels, Horacio. There are submerged currents colliding, then combining and merging.”
“Skeins,” murmured her friend.
“Skeins?”
“Yes, that’s right. Like we used to help our mothers or grandmothers unravel as children. Of course it’s not easy to know what one feels, Prudencia, especially when the feelings are intense, if not contradictory. Human nature is complex.”
Prudencia accepted another piece of cheese.
“In a way,” she confessed, “I think I’m angry with him.”
“That’s quite normal,” replied her friend. “Pride is one of the big tangles in the skein.”
“I’m not proud,” she protested, discomfited at being compared to a tangle of wool.
“Of course you’re not, my dear. But what about self-esteem?”
She weighed the question.
“Possibly,” she admitted.
Horacio smiled to himself and started paring the rind from the cheese.
“Let’s call it self-esteem, then. You felt rejected and, quite understandably, it was painful. Though, unless I’m much mistaken, you weren’t actually rejected, were you?”
“That’s true,” she said, momentarily encouraged.
“But, even so, you’re sure he doesn’t have feelings for you, are you?”
Again, she reflected before replying. Outside, through the windows, a low gray sky hung over the village.
“I can’t say with absolute certainty,” she sighed. “But I can say that even if those feelings exist, he’d never allow them to become anything deeper. I’ve found out that there’s a much more powerful reason for it than I could have imagined. A reason so powerful that it’s not just something that is related to him, but is a part of his very being. Do you see? He may feel attracted to me, Horacio, or he may not. But even if he did, he wouldn’t let it go any further. And he’d probably be right, because it might not work.”
“Reason and will,” murmured her friend. “You can’t understand that, can you? You’re all emotion.”
Miss Prim shifted in her armchair. She didn’t want to talk about reason and emotion, she didn’t wish to be accused of sentimentality again, and she definitely didn’t intend to embark on another long and tedious discussion of the matter.
As if he’d guessed what she was thinking, Horacio asked: “Have you ever wondered what would have happened if things had turned out
as you’d hoped? If he had fallen in love with you?”
She admitted that she hadn’t given it much thought.
“You’d probably have embarked on a relationship that would have ended in marriage much sooner than you expected.”
Miss Prim half closed her eyes, determined to picture such a scene.
“And . . . ?” she asked, seemingly pleased with what she’d glimpsed.
“And? My dear Prudencia, marrying a man like him would mean being radically married.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean being truly married, married till death do you part. Divorce would not be an option, my dear; that’s what I mean.”
Absently, she took another sip of wine. She’d always found the thought of being loved until death rather moving, but also deeply troubling and, to be honest, it made her feel a little dizzy.
“Fine,” she said guardedly, “divorce would be out of the question, for him. But if it didn’t go well, nothing would prevent my divorcing him, would it?”
“True,” said her friend. “It wouldn’t. But you’re an honest person. Would you think it right to enter into such a marriage knowing that you weren’t as fully and utterly committed to it as he was? Wouldn’t you feel bad knowing that there was this difference between you? Would you be able to look him in the eye knowing that if the marriage hit the rocks, you’d jump ship while he would stay on deck?”
Miss Prim, who’d never contemplated such a possibility, had to admit that she would indeed feel bad.
“And another thing, Prudencia. Could you live with the knowledge that, despite your divorce, there was someone who would, his whole life, until his very last breath, consider himself married to you?”
At the same time attracted and frightened by the awesome beauty of this image, she accepted that such a point of view was valid.
“In any case,” she said wistfully, “it would never have come to that. I know him well enough to be sure that he wouldn’t have consented to a civil wedding, so really I wouldn’t even have had the option. I could leave him, of course, but would that change anything? I’d always feel tied to him, because I’d know that he’d always consider himself joined to me.”
Awakening of Miss Prim Page 18
