Everlasting (34 page)

Another photograph showed Catherine seated behind her desk at Blooms, talking on the phone, pen in hand. She was wearing a designer suit in a navy wool pinstripe, a mock man’s suit complete with white shirt and English rep striped tie. In another shot, Catherine and Kit were caught in a camera flash at a charity ball at the Met. Kit was in his tux, Catherine in a full-skirted emerald evening gown. Behind them towered a massive arrangement of flowers, done for the gala, of course, by Blooms.

“My secret?” Catherine was quoted. “Organization. A superb staff both at work and at home. I learned the hard way, by trial and error, in my business, to structure, delegate, and categorize. I just apply the same principles to my home life.”

* * *

“
W
hat a pack of lies,” Catherine said, reading the article. “But I’m the modern woman, I couldn’t say I owe it all to my delicious husband.”

“That would be a lie,” Kit said. “You are organized. You do delegate. You do have a good staff.”

“But if I didn’t have you, and time alone with you, I’d lose my mind,” Catherine said. “Oh, Kit, sometimes I feel like one of those poor criminals tied to four different horses, being pulled bodily in four different directions.”

“Roll over. I’ll give you a back rub,” Kit said.

It was a cold January Sunday. Before their children were born, Catherine and Kit had agreed that they would bring up their children themselves and not leave them solely to the care of governesses and nannies and maids. Sundays would be family time, they decided, but after Lily was born they changed their minds. Sunday mornings would be family time. Sunday afternoons would be reserved for the two of them to be alone, a luxury they sorely needed.

This morning they had been awakened by Andrew, who raced into their room and crawled into bed with them for tickles and hugs. Catherine had gotten Lily from her crib and changed her, and the four had gone down to the kitchen for a leisurely breakfast of pancakes and bacon. Then they’d all dressed and gone out to play in the snow. Kit and Catherine pushed the children on sleds down the slight incline at the side of the house. Kit and Andrew built a fort while Catherine watched Lily eat snow. The pony Santa had given Andrew for Christmas had whinnied and pranced back and forth in the ring, begging for attention. Kit and Catherine brought their children back into the house, gave them hot baths and warm lunches, then settled them into their rooms for quiet time.

Now it was early afternoon, and their nanny, Mary, who loved having Sunday mornings to sleep late, was on duty with the children, and Kit and Catherine were secluded together in their bedroom. They lay together, looking at the article about Catherine in
Vogue
.

Catherine rose to slip off her clothes, then stretched out naked on the bed. She was still nursing Lily, but Lily was also getting solid food, so her long large breasts were not uncomfortably full. She raised herself up on a pillow to keep from crushing her breasts, which were sensitive. She was so very tired. A back rub was just what she needed. As Kit moved his hands over her shoulders and back, she took deep breaths, relaxing, trying with each exhalation to breathe away thoughts of the world outside this bedroom.

Deep breath: first, their children. Lily was over her cold, and the antibiotics had cured the ear infection that had caused the little girl to wake screaming a few nights ago. As Catherine rocked Lily, she’d remembered the nurse who had been with her during her labor with Andrew. It had been a long hard labor. When the doctors and Kit had gone out into the hall to discuss whether to give Catherine a spinal or a C-section, Catherine had cried to the nurse, “It’s really not the pain I mind. It’s the lack of control. I
hate
not being in control.” The nurse had smoothed Catherine’s wet hair off her forehead and smiled down at her. “Oh, honey,” she’d said, “this is the easy part.”

Catherine had thought the nurse was nuts. Now she understood. Here at their White River home, she and Kit had a full staff: a housekeeper/cook and caretaker, Mr. and Mrs. Bunt, who lived in a suite on the first floor off the kitchen, and Mary, the nanny, who lived on the third floor. They’d hired a maid, Angela, to run the apartment in the city. Kit had told Woodrow and Spiegel that although he’d accept a partnership, he didn’t want the toughest cases, because he wanted time for his family, and Catherine had delegated more and more work at Blooms to Shelly, Sandra, Jason, and Carla.

But still every day was crowded, rushed, sometimes nerve-racking, always exhausting. Children were such mysteries, so fragile and dependent on the adults in their lives, and their health went through such dramatic changes: croup, colds, rashes, sudden pains, and even when they were in perfect health, Mary wanted to put Andrew on his pony, or Kit wanted to teach the children to swim. Suddenly to Catherine the world seemed a maze of dangers: ponies could kick, water could drown, on the most peaceful summer day a bee could sting.… Since Andrew’s birth, Catherine often felt she’d never been at rest except at night, when she knew both children were tucked away in bed, healthy, asleep.

But now they were safe and healthy. Vaguely, through the walls, she could hear their shrill laughter and thumps: they were building a house of blocks with Mary. They were safe.

Deep breath: Blooms. There had been all kinds of snags setting up GardenAir, the wholesale flower importing business, but now after three years most of the problems had been worked out and the profits were finally beginning to roll in and promised to increase dramatically in the coming months. Piet was always in Amsterdam, except for the executive meetings twice a year, so Kit had no reason to be jealous, and Catherine had no reason to feel guilty. She was too busy, too much in love with her children and her husband, to even remember how she had once felt for Piet.

Also, Kit was becoming increasingly involved with Blooms and GardenAir. At first she had only talked over specific problems and plans with him as they sat at dinner or during the drive from White River to New York for a play or an opera. He’d responded with such a fresh point of view, such sound and logical advice, that they were now in the habit of spending one night a week at the Blooms office together. Kit’s involvement with the inner workings of her company as they sat alone in the darkened building deepened the intimate connection between them, drew them even closer together.

But Catherine did feel guilty about the others at Blooms. The family atmosphere there had dissolved. It was her fault, she knew. She no longer had time for giddy dinners with Jason, and the attention she gave to Sandra or Carla’s personal gossip was all too brief. Sandra, who had grown daughters, understood and went her own calm way, but Carla had often complained of feeling left out. The entire staff had pointed out that Blooms, while holding its own in the competitive floral trade, was no longer the hottest shop in New York, and in response to their grumblings, Catherine had agreed to do the
Vogue
article. The publicity would boost sales and status for a while and keep her employees too busy to complain.

Shelly was a more serious problem. He worked hard as always, but in the past three years he had started to play hard, too. More nights than not he was out drinking, dancing, partying, always with the “right” people, always insisting when Catherine questioned him that it was all good for business. Just before Lily’s birth, Catherine, swollen, restless, unable to sleep, had gone in to Blooms at dawn, something she hadn’t done for months, to discover that Carla was off buying the flowers. Charming Shelly, often too drunk or too tired, had persuaded her to take over this early morning task so he could go home to sleep. Catherine had reproached Shelly, but he’d responded with accusations of his own. He’d told Catherine she was ignoring her business, and Catherine knew he was right—with poor Carla, weeping and martyred, trying to take all the blame herself. Catherine had settled it all by hiring a new florist, a quiet man named Leonard, who didn’t have the flair for arranging that Jason did but knew how to judge the quality and freshness of flowers and was willing to make the early morning runs. Shelly was now free to sleep late, and accordingly, he gave more time to the importing business. It was working out. Shelly was a grown man. He’d be all right. Eventually he’d get married and settle down.

Deep breath: finally, Everly. Kathryn was seventy-nine and becoming more reclusive and eccentric with each passing year. She’d refused to fly to England the past few years to visit the Boxworthys and Ann, who had graduated from college and was working full-time at the British Everly. The international travel was too difficult for her, Kathryn claimed, and her family understood. But in the past few months she’d refused to leave her house even for day trips. She’d declined to come in to the city for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner at the Eliots’. When they’d said, very well, they’d come out to see her, she’d said flatly, “No. Don’t come. It’s too much bother. I don’t want any presents, I don’t want to give any presents, and the day means nothing to me. Don’t clutter up my life.”

Worst of all, Kathryn wouldn’t see a doctor. Clara, her maid, who was almost as old as Kathryn, assured Catherine and Drew and Marjorie that Kathryn was in good health and, in her idiosyncratic way, in good spirits. She just preferred to be alone with her house, her plants, her books.

During the past summer, Kathryn had agreed to let Catherine sow an unused field at Everly with wildflowers for Blooms, but she’d refused to enter into any contractual or written agreement. “If you’ll let me lease space from you, Grandmother, I can write off certain expenses,” Catherine said. “We could hire more gardeners. Perhaps even have some work done on the house.”

“It’s my house, my garden,” Kathryn had said testily. “I’m happy with it as it is.”

Catherine worried that her grandmother might forget their agreement, might suddenly snap and tell her she couldn’t use the field or pick the wildflowers. More than that, she worried about what would happen to Everly if someone didn’t start attending to it soon. Deep down, of course, she worried about who would inherit Everly—but that was a subject she didn’t dare broach with her cantankerous grandmother. She didn’t want to offend her. Even more, she didn’t want to hurt her. When they worked together on a sunny day among the flowers and the weeds, she loved her grandmother more than ever. During those moments, the rest of the world, even Andrew and Lily and Kit, faded, and the brown spots on Kathryn’s hands blended with the freckles on the lilies and the dots on the back of the jolly ladybugs, until Catherine felt she was part of something blurred and timeless.

Deep breath: Kit. Here he was, rubbing her shoulders and back so that she was warm and relaxed. Outside, the fierce wind howled and frosted the windows white. Inside, on their wide warm bed, she felt like spring, like summer, blooming with fragrance and beauty and hope. All that they had first guessed from touching had come true: they were right for each other. She was speed, passion, color, light; he was stability, endurance, depth, safety.

Now she rolled over to face him. She’d gained weight after having the children, and her body was silvered here and there with stretch marks, yet she felt completely lovely and unabashed.

“I’m so happy,” she said. “I wish this could last forever.”

* * *

I
n August Catherine received a note from Ann, who was in England, living and working at Everly.

Dearest Catherine,

Excuse this scribbled mess, but I never have time to write a proper letter, we’re all so busy. I just wanted to tell you I’m thinking of you a lot these days. The gardens are flourishing and so many wonderful things are happening, I wish you were here to share them. Will you ever come over again?

Love, Ann

Catherine sat holding the note, thinking.

With Andrew’s birth, Kit’s parents had at last let go of their anger and welcomed Catherine and their grandson into their home and lives. Every summer of their marriage, Catherine and Kit had gone, first with baby Andrew, then with Andrew and Lily, to Maine, to spend two weeks of August at the Bemishes’ summer home. For Kit, this was heaven. He sailed around the familiar islands and coves, played tennis with old friends, and showed his children the tree house where he had played as a child.

For Catherine, these visits were tedious and dull. She hated sailing, especially with the children on board, even if they did have life jackets on. She couldn’t understand why anyone would go to so much work to have fun. She hated tennis, she hated trying to swim in the frigid water, she hated being dutifully civil to her in-laws. No matter what she did, it seemed Joan Bemish always reproached her in her gentle Puritan voice: if Catherine fed Andrew carrots, was she sure she was giving him enough protein; if she fed him hamburgers, was she giving him enough roughage? She knew Joan meant well, and she surely loved her grandchildren. Her own parents wouldn’t notice or complain if she gave her children gin and tonics. And really, Catherine didn’t mind letting Joan nurture her only grandchildren, she only minded having to stand aside politely while Joan did it.

At the beginning of this summer, she summoned up her courage to tell Kit how she felt about going to Maine. Kit was baffled. “Well, Catherine, I don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t like, but … if you don’t like to sail, or play tennis, or sunbathe—well, what do you like to do?”

What Catherine liked to do, she realized, was to sit by herself at the British Everly, looking at flowers and waiting for cream tea. It had been years since she’d had that luxury, and as she told Kit about it, she realized it all would be changed, destroyed, even, if Kit and Andrew and Lily were there, pulling on her, needing her attention. Drew would run down the hedgerow screaming like an Indian. Lily would eat the dirt and probably the flowers. Kit would be bored to tears.

“Why not go over by yourself?” Kit suggested, breaking into Catherine’s maudlin reverie.