Fallen Beauty (21 page)

When he gets to my door, he turns. “Will you come to the table for dinner tonight?”

“I haven’t decided if I’ll forgive you by then.”

He leaves the room, wounded, and I take comfort in the knowledge that I can still control some men.

LAURA

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my sleeve and leaned on my shovel. Another winter storm had dropped a fresh six inches on the six we already had. The snow mounds on either side of the walk were almost as tall as Grace, and she loved using the mallet Gabriel had given her and a stick of kindling to chisel away at the snow, while he worked at his sculpture just up the street.

“You’re dropping little piles all over the walk I just shoveled,” I said to her in mock exasperation. She looked up at me with an impish smile, the lenses of her glasses foggy, wet, and covered in smudges.

“Honestly,” I said, removing her glasses and sliding them under my coat to polish them with the bottom of my sweater. “How can you see anything?” Once they were shiny, I noticed a crack in one of the lenses.

“Gracie,” I said. “When did this happen?”

She shrugged.

“Now we’ll have to go back to Dr. Hagerty,” I said, dreading the thought of disturbing him, being around his mournful wife, putting out money I didn’t have. I tried to put the damaged glasses back on her face, but she dodged me and refused to wear them, so I folded them and slid them into my pocket. As I did, Everette came up the walk with his shovel in hand. He looked me up and down, pausing to consider my jodhpurs.

“You look like Amelia Earhart,” he said with a forced laugh.

“If you’re referring to my snow pants,” I said, “I couldn’t very well wear a dress to shovel snow.”

“Mrs. Miller down the street is wearing a dress and boots, and I’m sure she’s both warm and comfortable.”

“Did you come here to give me fashion advice or help me shovel?”

“The latter,” he said, “and to invite you to dinner tonight.”

“Where’s Marie?”

“She saw you shoveling while she shook out our rugs, and insisted that I help you.”

“I don’t need help,” I said. “And besides, it might hurt your chances at reelection to associate with someone like me, out in the open.”

He laughed. “Actually, it might help. Politicians should be democratic, helping all kinds of people.”

There was something invigorating about standing in the snow sparring with my brother-in-law. As much as he frustrated me, I found honesty—no matter how cruel—to be a comfort. I still didn’t want to accept his dinner invitation, however. The thought of an uncomfortable meal with them instead of sneaking off into the woods for talk and music with the wood nymphs, as I had affectionately begun to think of them, did not appeal to me. I had been putting off Marie and Everette quite a bit, however, and did miss my sister.

“Will you join us?” he again asked.

I took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll bring a side dish.”

“Fine. I’m glad to hear it.” His voice softened and he looked down at his snow boots, kicking at a frozen pile. “We could use a little friendly chatter at the table.”

Everette’s humble posture took me aback. It wasn’t something I’d often seen in him, if ever. He looked up at me.

“Five thirty all right?”

“Yes, that will give Grace time to finish listening to
Uncle Don
on the radio.”

“Good. I’m glad that’s settled.”

Everette began shoveling the fresh snow on the sidewalk by the street while I worked on the path to the shop. I noticed that Everette kept stopping to watch Gabriel at work on the statue. He’d stare at him for a little while, then turn back to shoveling, then stop again—on and off, like a light switch. I didn’t know what he expected to see. At one point, Sam and his dog walked up to Gabriel and Sam shook the other man’s hand. They gestured back and forth a bit, and Sam talked with great animation about the sculpture. After a few minutes, Sam shook Gabriel’s hand once more, and set off toward the bridge with Blue. He did not carry his guitar with him, so I imagined that he must not live far away.

“Where do you think he’s from?” Everette asked. “He looks like a hobo with that long hair and wolf dog.”

“The man talking to Gabe? I’m not sure.”

“Gabe? Are you on such friendly terms with him?” Everette rested his arm on the shovel’s handle, peering at me. I cursed myself for my slip.

“No, that just came out,” I said. “Gabriel seems like such a formal name.”

Everette narrowed his eyes before returning to his chore. We made quick work of it, in spite of Grace’s fresh snow tracks. I wanted him to leave me alone, but he seemed intent on staying. Perhaps he wanted to escape Marie. I couldn’t be rude, so I offered him some of the soup I had on the stove.

His face was unreadable. “No, I’d better not.”

I nodded in agreement.

On the front porch, Grace and I stamped the snow off our boots. Everette watched me sit her on my lap and pull off her tiny boots, and when I finished, Grace raised her arms to him. He hesitated, then reached for her and carried her inside so her feet would not get wet. When he put her down, she insisted he take off her snowsuit. He looked at me, helpless. I shrugged.

“You’ll have to get used to it,” I said, “with your own little one on the way.”

He removed her snowsuit and placed it by the fire, while I stirred chicken noodle soup on the stove, and slid two slices of bread into the oven. I put on a kettle of hot water for tea, and sliced a small block of Swiss cheese. Everette was just leaving when the bell on the front door rang, and the fabric vendor stepped in, carrying two large boxes. I was surprised to see him despite all the snow, and silently lamented that he had picked now, of all times, to arrive. He placed the boxes on the floor with a thump and stamped his boots, leaving hunks of snow drying in pools on the wood floor.

“Cash on delivery today,” he said.

“That’s quite an order,” said Everette. “More work for the church, or is the
old lady
in need of more gowns?”

I ignored him and wrote out a check. The man thanked me, and helped me carry the boxes to the supply room. Once he left, I closed the door and went to set the table, trying to avoid Everette’s eyes.

“I guess I’ll be off now,” he said. “We’ll see you tonight.”

I nodded, and as soon as he was out the door, I rushed to the closet and tore open the boxes to see what treasures lay inside. Glints of silver, white, and ice blue fabric were stacked like layers of snow. I knew I’d need to work at night to make sure no one caught me sewing the witch’s wardrobe. Even if I stayed late at Everette and Marie’s house, I knew I’d work tonight. I’d begin creating for the woman I said I’d never serve.

•   •   •

I
imagined I could hear the fabric calling to me on the winter gusts that rattled the windows of Marie and Everette’s house while we dined. If the fabric were animated, it would be a long, pale woman with platinum hair and ice blue eyes, like Gabriel’s Madonna. She’d be sad and lost—a drifter with no place to settle her love-weary bones.

“Laura,” said Marie, a look of annoyance on her face.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Where is your head tonight?”

“I guess I’m just tired. Distracted. The winter feels heavier this year.”

I glanced at Everette, and he looked down at his lamb chops.

“I was saying that the doctor says the baby is measuring large. I’m not due until March but maybe I’ll deliver early. I do seem to have a lot of false contractions.”

“You hear that, Gracie?” I said. “Are you getting excited for a baby cousin?”

She smiled. “I like babies.”

“You’ll look so grown-up next to him or her.”

“I want boy,” said Grace.

“Really,” said Marie. “Why is that?”

“Like baby Jesus.”

“How nice,” I said.

Our Lady of Grace Church had recently put out the large Nativity set with the empty, waiting manger. Grace had been asking about it every time we passed, and she was excited for the day they’d finally add the infant to the display.

I enjoyed church more these days, though my primary reason was shameful. Watching the choir in their gorgeous new robes while Agnes wore a look of stony distaste was deeply satisfying. I wouldn’t indulge too much reflection on the other reason the building had felt warmer: Gabriel had started attending.

While Marie and I cleaned up dinner, Grace pulled Everette into the parlor to play pickup sticks with her. If he wasn’t comfortable with her, she wouldn’t let up until he was. I looked out at them with a small clench in my heart. How nice it would be to have a husband to play with Grace while I tended to chores or work. It would make life so much easier to have another set of hands to tuck her in, bathe her, take her sledding, if such a husband existed. I cherished Grace, of course, but it was exhausting being the only parent.

A finished painting on the easel above where they played caught my eye. It was an oil on canvas of Stony Kill Bridge from the banks of the stream. Icicles that had frozen at the edges reached down toward the water. The trees were done in blacks and browns in sharp contrast to the cool whites of the snow. Their limbs hung like hunched skeletons and cast deep shadows. Glimpses of gray sky between the branches and the sharp icicles gave one an ominous feeling.

“That’s a striking picture,” I said. “I’m chilled just looking at it.”

“It’s reflective of my soul.”

Marie’s flat voice troubled me. I would have rather seen high emotion—fiery tantrums, bold statements, anything but this terrible blankness. I worried about her mental state. She seemed so melancholy. And suddenly the danger of what I was doing with Millay hit me in the gut.

“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” I said quietly. “What can I do? How can I help?”

She stared out at Everette and Grace until her face crumpled with tears. I pulled her into an embrace and rubbed her hair. She clung to me, and I felt another stab in my stomach. She pulled away, and I wiped her face with my fingers.

“Have you spoken to Father Ash?” I asked.

Her face contorted in horror. “No! What, am I to tell him that we got intoxicated at some wanton female’s house, and instead of leaving when we saw what kind of place it was, I got drunker while my husband dallied with her?”

I flinched at her description and tried to imagine such a thing before shaking the image from my head. “It’s what confession is for,” I said.

“I’m sure he’s never heard anything like that.”

“And I’m sure he has. It’s why there’s a sacrament for it. The burden is too heavy for you to bear.”

“I don’t think I can,” she said.

“I’ve confessed everything about what brought Grace into this world, and while it hasn’t fixed it, it has allowed me to live and to breathe. You have to try. You have to make Everette try. Give it away or it will continue to haunt you.”

She looked out at Everette once more, and he turned to us in the kitchen. When he saw Marie’s tears, he went to her, and she began to cry again, but allowed him to embrace her. He held her head to his chest and stared at me over her shoulder, his expression troubled. It touched me the way he held her, and I left them alone in the kitchen.

Grace and I cleaned up the pickup sticks.

“Why Auntie cry?” she asked, staring into the kitchen through her cracked glasses.

“She doesn’t feel good,” I said.

“She sick?”

“Yes,” I said. “But she will get better.”

I bundled Grace for our walk home. We left soon afterward, and once I’d put Grace to bed, I sat at the window and stared at the half-finished statue, thinking, praying, making peace with what I knew I had to do.

The next day I sent Millay a telegram with only two words.

I can’t.

•   •   •

VINCENT

I
throw the full vase of roses at the wall, sending glass and broken flowers showering the hard wood in a sopping mess.

“I can’t!” I yell.

I cross the room and snatch the paper from Eugen’s hands. Two miserable words. Where am I in these words? How can she dismiss me after all our progress? Laura is so selfish. I throw the paper in the fire and clutch the mantel.

“This is madness,” I say. “I’ve never seen one as inconstant and capricious as this damned seamstress. She has no respect for me, for who I am, for what these robes are. Doesn’t she understand that she will drape a piece of herself in history by her creation? Thousands of people will see her work. Her art will be asked about, noted in columns, sought out. But, no, she
can’t
.”

“You must stop this fit, Edna,” says Eugen. “You will strain yourself. You are taking on too much.”

“Don’t you tell me what I know,” I say, feeling the tears hot on my face. “It’s as if I’ve become irrelevant. My wishes are ignored, swept aside, rebelled against. I have no say! Not with George, my mother, my sisters, not even some damned lowly, outcast dressmaker in a nothing town.”

I collapse in a heap on the hearth rug, and feel Eugen lift me and carry me to the bed. He is mumbling and frightened. I’ve disturbed the only constant presence in my life. I know I will never drive him away—only death will separate him from me. But what if I drive him there through my hysterics?

Maybe that would be best. Then I will have lost everything and I can fully embrace the grave, which waits for me like an open mouth, wanting to swallow me, tuck me in the earth, cut me off from everything of beauty.

LAURA

December passed like a sleepless night. Christmas came and went. My telegram had gone unanswered, and the boxes of unused fabric tormented me from their hiding place, deep in the closet. I refused to touch any more of the down payment they’d given me, so I again ran out of money, and I wondered how I would pay them back.

Grace continued to wear her broken glasses because I could not go to Dr. Hagerty without a way to pay, obligating him to help us for free. I would not take advantage of him. He had already been kind enough to fashion these tiny glasses for a child. He’d written papers on optometry for children using Grace as a case study and had assured me it helped him more than it did me, but I did not believe that could be true.

After shivering in the cold for three nights after the New Year, I awoke the next morning with new resolve. I couldn’t sit passive any longer; I had to seek work. It couldn’t be at the church. I didn’t want to put Father Ash in a bad position. Agnes’ friends would no longer use my services for dresses. I decided to offer to provide linens for the hospital. My parents had done so years ago, but with the expansion of the facility, the need had become greater than what we could offer. I was determined to find a way to reinvolve myself with the hospital, even if in a small way.

The new maternity ward might be the best place to start. While sewing blankets and diapers for Marie’s baby, I’d remembered how easily such tiny items could be made. Perhaps they could use my services. Marie thought it was a good idea, and volunteered to keep Grace for me while I went to inquire.

Approaching the building brought back a tumult of painful memories. Marie was resigned to having her baby there, in spite of her proclamation after my father’s passing that she would never enter its doors. I hoped Marie’s birthing experience would give us new, positive associations to drive out the bad ones. When I stepped through the front doors, however, Darcy Dempsey was leaning on the front desk chatting with the admissions secretary, a woman with whom we’d attended school. It humiliated me that Darcy would see me begging for employment, and I tried to turn around, but she spotted me.

“Good morning,” she said.

I was trapped. “Hello.”

“How can I help you?” asked the secretary.

I tried to think up a lie as to why I’d come when I was further mortified to see Daniel round the corner. He stopped when he saw us at the desk, then continued toward us.

“Hello, Laura. What brings you here?”

I looked from him to Darcy to the secretary, and blurted out, “Maternity.”

Their faces were horror-struck, and I realized that they thought I was pregnant.

“Not for me,” I said. “I’m looking to see if I can provide linens for the babies in the ward.”

“Oh, well, you’ll have to talk to the secretary there. Just down the hall and to the right,” he said.

“Thank you.” I hurried away from them, imagining their whispers and speculation. I wished I could have turned around to leave, but now that they were watching me, I felt obligated to continue.

I rounded the corner and proceeded to the shiny new wing of the hospital, born of Agnes’ fund-raising and planning. Employment in its construction had kept many men in town, and their families, from destitution. The wing looked out over the meadow, and I could just see the overgrown amphitheater at the bottom of the hill. I turned my attention to the woman seated at the admissions desk.

“I’d like to speak with whoever is in charge of linens for the maternity ward,” I said.

“May I ask what this is in reference to?” asked a woman of about fifty, whom I didn’t recognize.

“Sewing opportunities.”

“For volunteer?”

My face flamed. “No, for pay. I own the town dress shop, and when my parents were alive, they sewed linens for the hospital. I wanted to see if I could renew the partnership for the new maternity wing.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We have a virtual army of volunteers who knit and crochet everything from diapers, to booties, to blankets for the ward. The ladies’ choir of Our Lady of Grace is in charge of coordinating volunteers. In fact, Dr. Dempsey’s wife just left after delivering a whole box of booties.”

My stomach roiled and I trembled with frustration. “I understand,” I said. “Is there anyone with whom I can discuss whether my services would be useful in some other capacity?”

“I apologize, but you’ll need to speak with Dr. Dempsey about that. You will have to visit his secretary and schedule a meeting. She’s on the second floor, at the other end of the hallway.”

My head hurt. I turned and began to head down to the other corridor, hoping to run into Daniel again, and this time without Darcy nearby. They had both disappeared, however, so I had to go upstairs to find his secretary. She politely informed me that his schedule was booked solid. I agreed to see him in two weeks, and after she penciled me into his appointment book, she handed me a card with the date and time of my appointment.

On the way home, I stopped at the library to see if they had any need for linens, window treatments, or table coverings, and Mrs. Perth was kind but could not help me. Their funds had been sharply reduced since the crash. I asked at the Crandell Movie Theater, noting the tears in the curtain, but the manager said they didn’t have money for repairs. As a last resort, I even went to the church to see if anything needed to be replaced, if any albs or coverings were needed, but since I had made them not long ago, they were still holding steady from my craftsmanship.

Gabriel wasn’t working on the statue, and because of the frigid temperatures, there were barely any people on the streets and sidewalks. The clock tower chimed the hour, reminding me that I’d told Marie I wouldn’t be longer than an hour. Today’s search having proved fruitless, I decided that I needed to look in nearby towns for work. I’d have to brave the icy roads on my bike, but if I took it slow and if Marie could watch Grace, I’d make it. Perhaps I could place an ad in the paper, and being removed from my own town, people wouldn’t judge me.

A thought suddenly occurred to me. The necklace my lover had given me: I could sell it. It was only costume jewelry, but it looked expensive. Besides, I didn’t know why I’d held on to it all this time. When I visited another town, I’d take it to a pawnshop and rid myself of it.

Late that night, I again stared out into the blackness, trying to think of a way to support Grace and myself. I felt too tired and discouraged to attempt a visit to the wood nymphs, so instead I searched through my library pile for a book to take my mind off of my troubles.

At the bottom of the stack I found
The Harp Weaver and Other Poems
by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I had picked it up in a moment of weakness and curiosity, and wished I had not. I stared at the book for a long time, and finally opened to the first poem. The candle wasn’t throwing off much light, since it had burned down to a nub, but I was soon so immersed in the words, I did not notice. It was as if Millay was reading in my ear. I could hear her voice speak the words of the ballad of the poor mother who would do anything to provide for her son. Her devotion to him led her to a magical harp, on which she spun clothes for him. She wove all night, the finest garments she could, until she died, and all that was left of her love for him was the clothes she had made.

When I shut the book, tears were running down my face. How did a woman like Millay create such poetry, such words that spoke to the human heart? How could she know my soul, years before she’d even known me?

I crawled into bed, miserable and confused. My thoughts snuck to the fabric in the closet, but as they strayed, I pulled them back. Instead, I imagined happy times, good things, adventures like sledding and ice-skating with little Grace. My fantasies soon gave way to sleep, but it did not last. At eleven o’clock, a banging on the back door awoke me. I bolted up in bed, my heart racing, terrified for Grace and myself. I tried to ignore the sound, but it continued insistently.

I stepped carefully down each stair until I reached the final riser, and was able to peek around the corner. The large, shadowy figure of a man showed through the curtain. My heart was pounding. With no weapon of any kind, I had no way to defend us. Should I pick up Grace and try to run out the front door? I crossed the kitchen and grabbed a knife, praying I wouldn’t have to use it, and rushed back to the bottom of the stairs.

“Miss Kelley.” A muffled voice came through the door. “Please, let me in. It’s Eugen.”

•   •   •

H
e seemed too large for my house. My small rooms and furniture didn’t suit his big frame, his high emotion, his raw and uncensored speech.

“Why must you torture her?” he asked. “You don’t have to make love to her. You just have to fulfill a contract. You broke a contract. You have our check but you have provided no service when you said you would.”

“I . . . I know what I said, but things changed. I’ll get your money back to you.”

“What changed? Nothing has changed. All that is different is your mood, your whims. They are like the wind in the trees.” He put his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Boissevain,” I said. “Truly.”

“What, then? What was said to make you go from a woman smiling at my table to a rash and fickle lover, giving and taking away as her young lover gives and takes away?”

“It’s this! All this talk of lovers! How can you stand to live that way?”

“Why is that your business?”

“Because my brother-in-law was one of those lovers and it has nearly driven my sister mad. She can’t move forward, and if I take up with you people, she will never understand.”

“You are not making a deal with the devil. You are making a couple of capes and robes.”

“It feels like a betrayal.”

He stood, scraping the floor with his chair. I looked up at the ceiling, wondering when my little one would come scooting down the stairs, awakened by the arguing in the kitchen. Mercifully, she slept on.

Eugen walked to the window and placed his hands on the sink, gazing out into the moonlight. I followed his gaze and saw a horse-drawn sleigh down by the road at the back of the field.

“They are reliable, the horses. More so than any automobile,” he said. “They could take you to and from Steepletop if you’d like a place to work where you will not be found. We could harbor you, your daughter, for any number of hours or days. We would do anything to accommodate you.”

“How can I explain?” I asked.

“You can tell the truth,” he said. “You can’t starve for the indiscretions of your family. Your own have nearly done you in.”

It was my turn to sit at the table. I felt weak, defeated. From town, to family, to these people. It was getting too hard to keep up with all the battles.

“Why tonight?” I asked. “What brought you here in such a panic?”

“Vincie had a breakdown. Her mother wrote her a poem that stank of death, and now she thinks her mother will be gone. If her mother dies, Vincie will lose her soul. I thought I might have to take her to the Doctor’s Hospital in New York, and I might still, but I thought that one last try with you, a diversion and realization of what she imagines for her book tour in the form of a goal, might help to align her again. When she has focus and goals, she can cope. When things are in her control, she gains the strength she needs to persist. If you don’t come, it will seem to her that she can control nothing—from her mother’s health, to George Dillon, to the passage of years—which will lead her further into despair and drinking and, ultimately, destroy her.”

I looked at this man, plain and honest before me. His love for his wife overwhelmed me. I felt a terrible surge of jealousy that a woman like her had a man like this who would quite literally do anything for her, even if it made him unhappy, or inconvenienced, or half-mad himself. Why wasn’t he enough for her? Why all these extraneous people? But larger than my feeling of jealousy was my pity for him, and my wish to survive.

“I won’t come to Steepletop to work,” I said, “but I will do the work. I give you my word.”

He began to cry. This large man began to cry in my kitchen, quiet, moving tears of gratitude. I stood and picked up from the counter a clean cloth, which I handed to him. After he wiped his face, he reached for my hand and pressed his warm lips to it.

“Thank you, sweet girl.”

•   •   •

T
he pleasure of working with exquisite fabric filled my nights as a lover would.

I’d fantasize about the work all day, the feel of the silks, velvets, furs, the glint of shiny silver lines in crumpled silver fabric, the sheen of moon blue spread over my lap like light on a snowy field, the precise stitches and birth of plans from sketches on paper. Eugen had advanced me more money, so I again had electricity. We ate well. The release of pressure gave way to lightness. In a strange way, it was one of the happiest times of my life. Why was it always in the times of selfish secrecy that I gained the most calm and pleasure?

A small bit of hurt and longing remained inside when I’d watch Gabriel walk to the forest at night and glance back over his shoulder at my house. Sometimes he’d see me in the window and nod. Sometimes he wouldn’t look up at me, though I thought he might want to.

The first of the wardrobe was complete in a week, and Eugen arrived mere hours after I’d sent the summons. He parked far away, snuck to the back door, embraced me, and poured out his exuberant gratitude, a wash of words so heartfelt, it brought a smile to my face. I promised I’d start on the cape as soon as I received word from Millay that it met her standards, and that word came in a touching note on Steepletop letterhead and written in her hand, praising my creation as an act of perfect art, a conjuring of emotion through fabric that would amplify her meaning to her audience and even to herself. Like an eager pupil, I began the next garment in earnest, thrilled by the new project, the regular pay, the praise of my talent, which fed my daydreams until I could barely concentrate on anything else.

I’d been making such fast progress that one night I decided to take off and visit the wood nymphs with Grace. She was excited to go to the pond at night, and even more excited when I told her about the musicians, the dog, and the other children. I had her bundled and ready, and when Gabriel passed behind our house that night, I stepped out with my little one to join him.