Camilla (24 page)

“That doesn't have anything to do with Jacques,” I said.

My mother seemed to wilt. “No,” she said in a small voice. “No, I know.” Then she said, “Darling, I—oh, darling, I know it looked awful but it wasn't as awful as it looked.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because I'm going away, and after I go away I'm never going to see him again. I don't love Jacques, not the way I love Rafferty. And he knows that—I mean, Rafferty does.”

“Then why do you see Jacques?”

“But I'm not. I mean—oh, darling, don't. You're so frightening sitting there and staring at me with those accusing green eyes. I thought—it seemed to me I ought to say good-bye to Jacques.”

“Is this the first time you've seen him since—since the night you tried to kill yourself?”

“Oh, darling, don't say that—I don't think I ever really meant—I was half out of my mind that evening—”

“But is this the first time you've seen Jacques since then?” I asked.

“No,” my mother said. “No—not quite—but almost—and after this—after next week I'll never see him again.”

“Then why did you see him tonight?”

“I told you, darling—there are certain responsibilities—I thought I owed him at least a good-bye, after—”

“But, Mother,” I asked, “if you knew you didn't love him, if you knew it was Father you loved, then why did you go on seeing him?”

All at once my mother looked exhausted. She leaned back against the chaise longue. “Oh, darling,” she said, “you're too young to know anything about love. It isn't anything as—as simple as you think it is. It's the most horrible—the most complicated thing in the world.”

“I don't think it's simple,” I said.

“But you don't know,” my mother said. “You have to be in love yourself before you could understand.”

I am, I said to myself. I'm in love with Frank.

And suddenly I knew entirely and completely that this was true. David had seen it all along, but I only knew it now as I looked down at my mother's little puckered face, so small and childish, as she lay back against the chaise longue. Perhaps love in capital letters was complicated, but the fact that I was in love with Frank seemed suddenly the simplest and most inevitable thing in the world.

“Sometimes I think the world would run a lot better if it weren't for love,” my mother went on, “but if it weren't for love I couldn't live. Your father could. That's where—that's where we're so different. He has his work, his buildings. Oh,
Camilla darling, how jealous I've been of those buildings. I've been far more jealous of his buildings than I ever would have been of a woman. At least I could have understood the thing in a man that makes him love a woman.”

“But Father loves you,” I said flatly.

“Yes,” my mother said. “I know he does. But I only know it once in a while, and then it's so wonderful I—I want—I need to know it all the time. And Jacques—”

“What about Jacques?” I asked in the same cold voice with which I had been speaking to my mother and which I had never used to her before.

“Jacques—oh, darling, don't you see it isn't Jacques at all? It's just that Jacques gives me what I want from Rafferty. At first I thought it was Jacques—that I loved him— but now I know it was never Jacques. It was Rafferty all along.”

“Mother,” I said then, sharply, “you said you were going away. Where are you going?”

“Oh, darling, now Rafferty will be angry—but I suppose I must tell you, since I've gone this far. We're going to Italy.”

“When?”

“Next week.”

“But I don't want to go to Italy!” I cried. For the moment I forgot about Mother and Father and Jacques. All I could think of was that if I went to Italy I would not be able to see Frank.

My mother began pleating the rose-colored velvet of her negligee between her fingers. “That's just it, darling. Rafferty and I are going alone.”

“Oh,” I said, and I was immeasurably relieved.

“You see, darling,” my mother went on, “we've been talking
about you a great deal, Rafferty and I. We've both felt that you've changed this winter, that Luisa and Frank Rowan haven't been good for you—”

“It hasn't been Luisa and Frank,” I said.

“But, darling, you
have
changed—and you've been just walking out of the house without telling us where you were going and not coming home till all hours—and you're not old enough yet—and you're always with Luisa or now Frank—”

“It's not Luisa or Frank,” I said again.

And my mother repeated, “But, darling, you
have
changed.”

And I thought angrily, Don't you know why? You, of all people?

She knew, because she said then, “I know a lot of it has been my fault. I don't think I ever should have had children. I'm not—I couldn't ever be a really good mother. I was—I was almost glad when I lost the baby that came after you—it was only because I knew Rafferty wanted another—”

“You didn't want me, did you?” I asked, still in that strange cold voice that issued from my mouth but that seemed to have nothing to do with me, to be no part of Camilla Dickinson.

“Camilla!” my mother cried. “You mustn't say things like that, ever! I love you—I love you more than my life. How can you say I don't want you?”

“I don't mean you don't want me now,” I said. “I mean you didn't want me then.”

My mother got up from the chaise longue and came over to me and knelt down beside me. She put her arms around me and began to kiss me with little frantic kisses. “Darling,” she said, “I couldn't ever remember a time when I didn't want
you, ever, ever, ever.” I let my head drop down onto her shoulder and she said, “Camilla, do you mind too terribly about our going to Italy, your father and I? It's—I think everything will be all right if we go away together—truly, truly, I think everything will be all right and I'll never make you suffer again the way I've made you suffer this winter. I do know that I've made you suffer, darling, that was one of the reasons I— Darling, I never
wanted
to make you suffer. You know that.”

“I know,” I said. “And it's all right about your going to Italy. I don't mind staying in New York.”

“But, darling, you're not staying in New York.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, jerking away.

“Well, darling, your father and I—I know it's partly my fault because I haven't been the kind of mother I should have been, but—you
have
been getting out of hand—and we thought it would be best if you went to a good boarding school for the rest of the year.”

“No,” I said, and stood up with such violence that my mother lost her balance and sat down on the carpet at my feet. She did not attempt to stand up, but sat there, reaching up to the hem of my skirt with her hand, like a little dressmaker.

“Darling, it's all decided. It's all settled,” she said in a low voice.

“Couldn't you have consulted me?” I asked harshly.

My mother got up onto her knees again and it was almost as though she were praying to me as she said, “At first we talked about taking you with—and then I thought it would be better if we went alone—and better for you, too, in the end, darling. And Rafferty thought so too. He thought you
weren't quite ready to come with us. And we thought you'd enjoy boarding school.”

“I don't want to leave New York,” I said. “I like the school I'm at now. Please get a governess or a companion or something for me and let me stay here. Please, Mother!” My voice rose in urgency and now I was praying down at her as she knelt there on the carpet.

But she said, “Camilla, oh, my darling baby, there's nothing in the world I can do about it. I'd like to give you anything in the world you want, you know that. But Rafferty and—it's just that it's all settled.”

“You mean you're sending me away just because of Frank and Luisa?”

“That's part of it—but just in general—your father and I thought it would be what you needed. We thought you'd like it. Most girls are terribly excited about going to boarding school.”

Perhaps I might have been a year ago, or six months ago. But I hadn't met Frank then. I hadn't learned then what it was like to be in love. I didn't know much about boarding schools but I didn't think there was much place for love in them. And no place for Frank.

My mother stood up and said, “Darling, it's terribly late. You should have been in bed long ago, and there's school tomorrow. You can try to talk to your father if you want to tomorrow—but it won't do any good.”

She was right. It would do no good. It was all settled. I would have to go. I said, “Good night,” and went back to my room.

I undressed and got into bed and I couldn't sleep. I lay there and there was nothing but a great ache over all of me
because now I would have to leave New York and perhaps Frank would never kiss me. I got out of bed and went over to the window and the black shocking night air rushed at me and I wanted to burst into tears, to cry loudly, loudly, as I might have not so many years ago when I was still a child. But I just stood still, by the window, and then I slammed the window down and leaned my forehead against the cold glass and looked out into the courtyard. On the roof of the apartment house across the way I saw a shadow moving and then I realized that there was someone leaning against the parapet. As I became more accustomed to the dark I saw that it was a woman and she was just leaning there, quite quietly; and suddenly she flung her arms out in a gesture of despair or anger and turned around and went back in. There was an oblong of yellow light as she opened the door that led back into the house, and then darkness again as it closed behind her. I stood there a moment longer and then went back to bed. I thought, I will see Frank tomorrow.

I lay there and I held on to the thought of Frank like someone in a boundless ocean holding on to a spar of wood. It was the only thing that kept me from going under the cold dark waters. The land behind me was gone, and I could not see the land ahead, but the knowledge that I would see Frank the next day kept me afloat.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Luisa was not at school. Luisa is never ill and I worried about her off and on when I wasn't worrying about myself and my own problems. As soon as school was over I hurried down to the coatroom. Frank was waiting just outside the door for me. I jumped when I saw him though I had been hoping that possibly, possibly he might be there—even though I knew his school let out later than ours.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi. What's wrong with Luisa?” Then I saw that Frank looked unusually solemn and my heart jumped within me in fear like a fish leaping out of water.

Frank took my hand and we started walking down the street. “Mona kept Luisa at home today to talk to her. I don't know just what about. But there was certainly a mess at our apartment last night, Camilla. I hope you never have to go through a mess like it. Not that Luisa and I were supposed to go through it, but when Mona and Bill have a little discussion, nobody in the neighborhood's likely to get much sleep.
Anyhow, I cut trigonometry this afternoon because I wanted to talk to you. Bill's firm wants to send him to Cincinnati.”

“Oh,” I said, and the fear stayed in my heart as I waited for Frank to continue.

“I don't know whether he's going or not. I think it means a good raise in salary and we could certainly use it, except that it would mean Mona would have to give up her job on the magazine and she doesn't want to do that.”

I nodded. I knew that the magazine was more than a job to Mona; it was some kind of symbol.

“I think Bill should go to Cincinnati,” Frank continued. “His job—well, it hasn't been much of anything, up to now. Maybe it's paid for food and rent but it certainly hasn't paid for anything else. Mona's sent Luisa and me to school; sometimes I think she's done it just to spite Bill, so he'd feel he couldn't take care of his own kids. Luisa and I could have gone to public school perfectly well. And Mona pays for our clothes and of course her own, and every time she buys a shirt or a tie or a pair of pajamas for Bill she lets him know he wouldn't have a stitch of clothes on his back if it weren't for her. That's a lousy position to put a man in and Mona's a fool to do it.”

Frank spoke in a quiet, dispassionate voice, and I felt that again I was learning, that I would have to try to think about my parents with the same loving objectivity. Because there was no question about it: Frank loved Mona and Bill.

He said, “Sometimes I think some devil in Mona just deliberately makes her do the things that will make Bill resent her most. Anyhow, I think he should go to Cincinnati and take Mona with him.”

“What about you and Luisa?” I asked.

“Well, I suppose we'd have to go too. I don't want to, but I think we owe it to Bill.”

“I'm going away too,” I said in a low voice, looking down at the sidewalk, and it seemed to me that now everything was over, over, that just as my life was beginning, everything in it that I cared about was coming to an end.

“You? Where?” Frank asked in a startled way.

I continued to look down at the sidewalk. “Mother and Father are going to Italy for the rest of the winter. So I'm going to some boarding school.”

“When?” Frank asked.

“Soon. Next week, I think.”

Frank said what I had been thinking. “Winter's just started and now all of a sudden it's almost over. Or it's been stopped and we have to start it all over again somewhere else. And I liked the way it was starting right here. I wish it didn't have to change.”

“So do I,” I whispered, because I was very near to crying.