The Finishing School (32 page)

“There are a couple in the refrigerator, if you want to slice
them,” said my aunt. “And when you thanked him, what did he say?”

I took a knife from the counter and began slicing the tomatoes carefully onto a plate. I had hoped she would not pursue the topic further. “Well, he played another piece. It was this poem he had set to music.” I had forgotten the poet’s name, and anyway I didn’t want to mention that it was in German. I remembered what Mott had thought about Julian DeVane’s staying in Argentina too long during the war, when everybody knew Argentina sympathized with the Germans. “And then she and I discussed the poem. What it meant and all that.”

“Sounds very educational,” said Aunt Mona. “I would have enjoyed that kind of afternoon myself. You know, if he hadn’t behaved so abominably to Beck, she and I might have found a lot to talk about. I don’t pretend to be as well traveled or as cultured as she is, but I would be a ready listener. And I might have been able to give
her
a few tips, as well. On decorating, for instance. I really think she liked my house, and I could have suggested—in a tactful way, of course—some ideas to perk up that old house of theirs.”

Now would be the opportune time to tell them about our proposed picnic on the mountain, I was thinking all during my aunt’s fanciful picture of her might-have-been friendship with Ursula. Ursula had said we could go next Tuesday if the weather was nice, and it would follow naturally out of the topic right now if I could announce casually that “Ursula DeVane” had asked me to go up to the mountain where there was this historic old hotel and we would have a very educational expedition. I could get the whole thing over, in the presence of my mother, who I was sure would allow me to go even though she was not as enthusiastic about my friend as my aunt was. But I hesitated, and then my mother changed the subject, and then Jem appeared for supper, and then Becky, and the opportunity was lost.

“Pass the butter for the corn.”

“ ‘
Please
pass the butter for the corn,’ Beck.”

“Oh,
you
want the butter for the corn?”

“Beck, that’s not funny. I want you to be a lady. I may not
have had much when I was growing up, but my aunt did teach me manners.”

“
Please
—pass—the—butter—for—the—corn,” intoned Becky, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. Her mother pushed the plastic butter container across the table.
“Thank—you,”
intoned Becky like a robot. As she proceeded to slather butter on her corn, she shot me a smirk.

“What do you think’s happened to that little boy who lost both his parents on the
Andrea Doria?
” Jem asked.

“His aunt and uncle have taken him, darling,” said our mother. “Don’t you remember? We read it in the newspaper. He and his three younger brothers will be raised by the aunt and uncle.”

“Does that still make him an orphan? Or are orphans just children who have to go live in an orphanage, like Mott did, when their parents die?”

He’s still an orphan,” said my mother. “Anybody who’s lost both parents is an orphan.”

“Then
you’re
an orphan,” Becky said to my mother. “Both your parents are dead.”

“Well, technically, yes, I suppose I am. But the term is usually reserved for children.”

“I was a real orphan,” said Aunt Mona, warming to the subject, “and so was your father, Jem. My brother, Rivers, and I lost our parents when we were very young, much younger than the boy on the
Andrea Doria.
My mother and father were out one evening delivering life-insurance policies from door to door, or sticking them in people’s mailboxes, because it saved on postage, you see. My father had just started himself this little insurance business. And as they were pulling back onto the road after putting a policy in a mailbox, a farmer in a truck came along in the dusk and hit them head on.”

“Did they die instantly, like the parents on the
Andrea Doria?
” Jem wanted to know.

“Well …” I saw Aunt Mona and my mother exchange a look. “Pretty
much
instantly. Our mother lived a few days, but she didn’t know anything. And then our aunt came down
to Georgia and got us, and took us back to Virginia to live with her.”

“Will the boy be much
poorer
now?” asked Jem.

“Oh no, all those people are very rich,” said Aunt Mona. “After all, the boy’s parents had the deluxe suite on the ship. That was the part that was hit. If they had been traveling third class, they might still be alive today.”

Becky took a ferocious bite of corn and narrowed her eyes at her mother.

After supper, I dawdled about, putting off the moment when I must tell my mother about going to the mountain with Ursula, a task I knew would grow harder the longer I put it off. If I told her tonight, however much she reserved her approval of Ursula, at least she couldn’t say I hadn’t informed her of my plans ahead of time. I helped Aunt Mona load the dishwasher. I wandered out into the warm evening and climbed part of the way up the hill to the old, abandoned farmhouse, where, to my disgust, I saw children playing. I turned away and started down again, stopping to watch the sky. The clouds still had bright sun on them, as did the tops of the trees; but the grass was already wet with dew and there were lights on in the houses. It got dark much earlier now than it had a month ago. Soon it would be dark by suppertime. Then the darkness would steal away more and more of the afternoon. When I got home from school, there would hardly be time to hop on my bike and ride up Old Clove Road and back before dark. And even if I did, it would be too cold for anybody to be waiting in the hut by the pond. The Finishing School would be closed.

When I finally got around to going to my mother’s room, I was not happy to find Becky there, making herself at home on the bed, while my mother sat in front of the typewriter, halfheartedly pecking at a typing lesson. She looked amused and slightly embarrassed over something, and Becky looked very proprietary and pleased with herself, her long legs stretched out the length of the bed, her arms folded Indian-style across her flat bosom. They
looked very intimate, the two of them. What could they have been talking about?

“Where’s Jem?” I asked, standing haughtily in the doorway.

“He’s watching television with Aunt Mona,” said my mother. “Come in and sit down, darling. I was getting so bored with my typing.”

Becky grudgingly removed her legs from the lower half of the bed so I could sit there. I crossed the room and sat down in a chair. I wanted my mother alone but was too proud to say so. So far, during my friendship with Ursula, I had honored Aunt Mona’s injunction not to “open old wounds” by discussing the DeVanes in Becky’s presence, although Becky surely knew I went there often. But what could I do if she planted herself in my mother’s room?

“I only came to ask if it was all right if I went on a picnic next Tuesday,” I said, suddenly afraid I might not be allowed to go.

“Next Tuesday?” asked my mother. “I don’t see why not. Is it with—?” She hesitated, also aware of Aunt Mona’s concern over Becky’s “wound.”

“Ursula DeVane,” I said clearly, watching my cousin, who did not even blink. “She’s going to take me to that old hotel on the mountain, the one Aunt Mona told us about when we first came up here; you know, it’s real old. We’re going to go up there and look around and hike and take a picnic.”

“Well, let me know what you want to take, and I’ll buy it when we go to the supermarket on Saturday.”

“Oh no, she’s making the lunch. You don’t have to do anything.”

“Oh,” said my mother. She sighed. “Well, I hope the weather is nice on Tuesday.”

“So do I.”

Nobody said anything else. My mother frowned over the typing exercise book and tapped a few keys. Becky eyed me covertly from under the fringe of her bangs. I wanted to get up and go, but I wanted to drive Becky out first. More and more, lately, she hung around my mother, had a little crush on her; was always
asking her familiar questions, yet never using her name; was always trying to wheedle praise and compliments from her.

Then Becky stuck out her legs full-length again and wiggled her toes. “I
still
think you ought to write to him,” she announced to my mother, in a feisty voice.

“Write to who?” I asked.

My mother blushed.

“Craven Ravenel,” said Becky.

I knew my mother had told Becky all about meeting the Ravenels at the theater in New York. I had considered it unnecessary, myself, but understood that it was my mother’s kind way of including Becky—who, after all, had been treated to the famous dance-card story—in our outing. But this detestable familiarity on Becky’s part was too much. I wondered how my mother could permit it. Obviously they had been discussing Craven Ravenel when I came in, and Becky wanted me to know it.

“There is no reason to write,” my mother told Becky firmly. To me, almost apologetically, she explained, “Becky has been letting her imagination run a little wild.”

“But he wanted you to write,” persisted the obdurate Becky. “He gave you his
card
, didn’t he?”

“That was just politeness, Becky. Any gentleman would have done the same. I had just told him of your uncle’s death and he felt sorry for me.
Any
kind old friend would have said, ‘If I can ever help out, let me know.’ Which is what the card meant. But I don’t need any help. Why”—she patted the IBM typewriter—“before this year is out, I may even have a job.”

“I
still
think you ought to write,” said Becky. “Maybe his wife will get sick and die, you never can tell. Then he could marry you.”

“Becky, I really can’t let you talk like this. It’s disrespectful to the memory of your uncle Rivers. I don’t
want
to marry anybody. And … I think this conversation has gone far enough.”

Becky shrugged and raised her eyebrows. She looked intently down at her toes. My mother’s face was an interesting study, for she had not been able to keep out of it her old, non-motherly delight in wicked remarks; but the quick flush of naughtiness had been replaced at once with an exaggerated
frown, meant to instill respect and bring the proceedings back within the bounds of propriety. I remembered this “double look” of hers from our former life: my father, especially when he was in those dangerously high spirits, late in the evening, would often say things that you could see tickled my mother’s fancy even though they offended her ideals of propriety.

After a moment, Becky, affecting lassitude and boredom, said in her high, toneless little voice, “I think I’ll go up and see what’s on TV.”

My mother and I were left alone. There was an unusual awkwardness between us. I identified something in this room that hadn’t been here before: a nostalgic, exotic scent. My mother was wearing perfume again: her old perfume. I started to say something about it, but couldn’t decide whether she would be pleased or not. Who had she been wearing it for—
Becky?

“Will you … will you be glad when school starts?” she at last asked, looking at me thoughtfully.

“Oh, I guess. It’ll be nice meeting some more people my own age.” I knew, with a daughter’s true instinct, that this was what she wanted to hear.

“I suppose you’ll see your friend Miss DeVane less often,” mused my mother, “when you get caught up in school life again.”

If only she knew how my heart ached at that thought. But I kept my feelings out of my face and answered like a good, simple girl: “Well, I won’t neglect her
totally.
Joan Dibble, either. After all, they’ve been my two best friends this summer.”

My mother gave me an odd little smile.

I prayed for it not to rain on Tuesday. Tuesday dawned bright and clear and cool, perfect for our plans. (Nine years later, I would pray for sunshine on my wedding day. The sun shone; there was not a cloud. It seldom occurs to us to pray that the consequences of such days will be equally bright, as long as we can have what we want on those particular days.)

Ursula came at ten to pick me up. Once more she stood in our hallway and dazzled my aunt and elicited reserved pleasantries
from my mother. She wore a khaki shirt and pants and heavy brown boots, which made her look quite different from the way she had looked in her flamenco-dancer clothes. After we drove off in the old green station wagon, she said, “Your mother is a cordial woman, but I puzzle her. I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s more like she’s afraid I like you too much.”

“She probably thinks I’m Sapphic,” said Ursula, shifting into high gear and shooting down a country road whose ditches teemed with blue, purple, yellow, and white wildflowers.

“You’re what?”

“Sapphic. After the sixth-century
B
.
C
. Greek poetess Sappho. She loved women the way most women love men. I’m not built that way myself, but I suppose I lay myself open to suspicion—never been married, live with my brother, oh, I know the kinds of things people imagine! I have had some experience with that kind of thing, though. A young girl tried to
devour
me at that school where I taught French in New York. It got unpleasant at the end.”

“How did she try to devour you?”

“Well, it started off with a harmless schoolgirl crush. I was used to that sort of thing, in teaching, becoming the object of a crush. It’s not a bad thing, in itself. It’s gratifying to know you can influence young lives: it keeps you up to the mark. And it’s good for the girl, in that she outdoes herself to please you in your subject, and therefore learns more. But Kitty went too far. Oh, she was a very clever girl, Kitty was, used to getting everything she wanted from her father. Her mother had died when she was a little girl and she’d had nannies and then been sent to Swiss boarding schools until the war broke out. Then she came back to New York, which was her father’s base of business—he was a diamond merchant—and entered our school. We got on immediately because she was more cosmopolitan than most of the other girls, having lived abroad so much, and there was a certain unconventional style about her that amused me. Also, she was by far the most fluent student in my class—having learned so much French at her Swiss schools—and she and I used to carry on
these hilarious dialogues in class when we were constructing those romantic scenarios I told you about: you know, the ones to make the girls want to learn French.” Ursula giggled. “I remember once she took the part of Marius DeVane, making his first overtures to his visiting American cousin. Of course, I didn’t call him Marius—we named him Jean-Louis. Jean-Louis De Rossignol.
Rossignol
means ‘nightingale’ in French. What a success Jean-Louis De Rossignol was in that class! Oh God. But then Kitty’s father invited me out to dinner, ‘to discuss Kitty’s problems.’ We went to a very expensive restaurant, and he really put himself out to charm me. He was a suave, canny sort of man, good-looking in a swarthy, Levantine way. He started out by telling me how much Kitty thought of me. ‘I’m very fond of her, too,’ I said. Then he told me the disturbing circumstances of his wife’s death: when Kitty was only a baby, he had taken his wife abroad with him on a business trip. While they were staying in a villa near a small coastal village in Spain, he and his wife had a horrible argument and his wife locked herself in the bathroom and swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. It was a bid for sympathy, of course; he was supposed to knock down the door and sweep her off to the hospital. He knocked down the door and got her to the car, only to realize he had no idea where the nearest hospital was. He kept driving along this deserted road, hoping he was headed in the right direction, and then he had a flat tire! Well, you can imagine the rest of this story, can’t you? He had to walk miles to the nearest house with a telephone, and when the ambulance finally got there she was already in a coma, and she never came out of it. It was a hair-raising story, and he told it well. Poor little Kitty, I thought; no wonder she is always hanging around, bringing me presents that are embarrassing to accept because they’re too expensive for the kinds of presents girls should give teachers: she’s
never
had a mother. At least I didn’t lose mine until I was ten, and, in my case, I contributed to her departure, but poor Kitty. And I said something to the effect that the girl must have felt a huge
lack
, all these years. Which of course played right into his hands, that canny businessman. Over dessert, he proposed.”