Fellowship point, p.39
Fellowship Point, page 39
He smiled at me and raised his eyebrows. We gazed at each other, and all the feeling in the world passed quickly between us. I think.
“I read something else interesting,” Karen said. “Maine was part of the Missouri Compromise. It entered the Union as a free state so Missouri could be a slave state.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“I forgot about that,” Virgil said. “What an awful compromise.”
“I hope you’ll keep reading these history books as you organize them. We could learn a lot during these dinners. Maybe you’ll pursue history in college,” I said to Karen.
“Maybe,” she said, and looked at her plate. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“That’s fine, it’s better not to have. I was told when I went to college to find out who the great professors were and to take their courses no matter what the subject.”
“I read a book,” Nan said. “I was in the book.”
I made a little book for her, about her saving us from an angry moose. She enjoys these stories of her bravery.
“You are a heroine,” Virgil said, and met my gaze.
CHAPTER 29 Agnes, Leeward Cottage, July 1961
Dear Elspeth,
Summer is in full swing here. I know—not an original remark. I am settling down, settling in.
First of all—Polly is here! Life is a thousand times better being able to see her every day. Yes, we giggle, because we are both happy. Nan is back on her feet and mingling with the other children, always watched over by Robert Circumstance. It’s moving to see the care he takes of her, and how he explains to her that he’ll be back when he has to leave her out. One only has to watch the games to see that he is the one who works out higher systems of play. He also knows about the plants beyond their labels and teaches the children to respect them. His intelligence is palpable. He will go beyond this place, no matter what his mother wants, and I must open the door for him.
Oh, you’re curious about Virgil? No, I don’t mind you asking, not at all! We are together every day, talking about books, especially his, and talking about everything else you can imagine. He is endlessly solicitous toward me, sometimes to the point where I wonder how he sees me. I remind him I am still young by running and being silly. He’s very affectionate, always holding my hand and walking with his arm around me. He kisses me on the lips, but it isn’t a passionate kiss. It hurts to even write that down, but I have to. I have to tell you the truth, Elspeth. It puzzles me, though. He seems, if I may say so, interested. So what is he waiting for?
The other day Polly and I were sitting out on the lawn, and Virgil walked by in the distance. He looks so free now, and so in his element. His hair is longer but brushed. His shirt untucked but stylish rather than vagrant. I suppose my feelings are hard to hide.
“Look at you smile,” Polly said.
“What?” My defensive posture, developed courtesy of our mother’s contempt.
Polly knows this. “It’s me, Nessie.” She poked me with her elbow. “You think I haven’t seen every look on your face since you were a baby?”
I blushed. “Is it that obvious?”
“To me it is.”
I ran my hands over the meadow grass in search of a particular size and shape of blade. When I’d found it I wet it on my tongue, threaded it between my thumbs, and blew. Polly smiled knowingly.
“Has anything happened?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how to answer that. It feels like everything has happened, but what you mean—no.”
I saw how this must look and sound from the outside. But Polly, good old Polly, said, “Tell me about the everything.”
I tried, but it’s hard to describe the texture of feeling that passes between two people when they are alone and excited and looking into each other’s eyes for the deeper meaning of the words they are speaking.
“Give it time, Nessie. He is writing a book about a woman who died. He may need to be loyal to her to stay in the mood.”
Her words embarrassed me, because I hadn’t thought of anything as simply obvious. Once again Polly’s intelligence about everyday life put my brilliance to shame.
“Good point,” I managed. Elspeth, it’s a sin what a know-it-all I am.
“Be patient, Nessie. It’s not your way, we all know that. But do it now.”
“I suppose I don’t have a choice.”
There was a pause. “And be honest with yourself about the extent of his feelings for you.” She laid a hand on my arm. Was that meant to rub away the sting of her words?
“You talk like I’m a girl.”
“Isn’t that the case in this situation? I don’t want you to confuse admiration for attraction. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Thank you. Though I don’t know that getting hurt is the worst thing.” I gripped her hand and changed the subject. “And why are you smiling this morning?” She was. She usually did, but I detected something else, something I hoped for. I was leaving it to her to tell me, though.
“You see? We know each other very well.” She placed her right hand over her abdomen. “It’s three months now. She’s due at Christmas.”
“Oh, Polly, that’s so wonderful.”
She beamed. “It is. It really is. I haven’t told anyone, though. I want her to be mine alone until I can’t hide her any longer.”
“Dick?”
“I haven’t told Dick.”
“That’s not like you.”
“I’m forty-one, Nessie, same as you. I think this is a moment when we need to take the opportunity to be unlike who we were as girls and young women. So it is like me now.”
“I like that, Pol. And of course I’ll keep your secret.”
“That’s why I told you.”
What will my life be by Christmas?
CHAPTER 30 Agnes, Leeward Cottage, September 1961
Sister,
I was already upstairs in my room. The day was over. Nan was asleep down the hallway, Virgil had gone back to the Chalet, Karen was long gone. I was reading and daydreaming, feeling content and drowsy, so it startled me when Star barked. The sound rattled me and I swatted the air in his direction. He gave me his look that meant he wasn’t buying into my blame.
I had dropped my book onto my abdomen and I picked it back up. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark. An aside—I have gotten a laugh out of it. What a brilliant way to write about fascism. According to Spark’s standards I am in my prime. She doesn’t make much of a case for that being a good thing.
I began to read again but was distracted by Star’s low growl.
The walls creaked. Such is Leeward Cottage. I was not frightened or worried—I never am here. I probably should be in this old spooky house and no one for miles—but I’m not, in spite of Karen’s lurid descriptions of murders and peculiar deaths in Maine that she’s been reading about in the old histories in the library. Cabin fever. Skirmishes with Indians. What would it have been like to settle here but know nothing and get very little news?
Did I hear footsteps? Yes, no, yes, no, yes. I lay the book aside and sat up.
I have heard his footfalls for months now. Sometimes light, now very heavy, they always expressed the grace in his body—as if gravity were pulling him upward rather than down.
Should I stay where I was or get up? I had no time to make a decision. He knocked and came in before I had time to worry about how I looked. Oh, I don’t really worry, not around him—what can I do anyway? I am who I am. I wear what I wear. I had on a pair of Daddy’s flannel pajamas.
Virgil entered, wafting the mineral scent of a cool night. In his right hand he gripped a piece of paper, and as I leaned toward him he brandished it as if he might swing it like a cutlass and whack off my head. His anger was palpable.
“It’s a disaster!” he shouted.
I waited, not saying a word.
“I can’t get it right! What is wrong with me?”
Ah. He was talking about his revision. No wonder all the drama.
He had fallen into my arms once before. I’d wondered if it would happen again. I longed to comfort him. But he paced and didn’t come closer.
“Let me get up, and meet me in the kitchen,” I said.
He nodded and left. I put on my robe and combed my hair. I rinsed my mouth and went down, followed by Star, of course.
He had pulled out the Scotch. A glass was waiting for me.
“Your book is good,” I told him. “Very. That is not in question.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know about books. Your editor loves it, remember?”
“I don’t know why. It’s awful.”
I must say, I was somewhat impatient with this line. I had already helped him so much. I reminded myself he was still fragile in many ways, and that I should let him rant. How did I know this? From watching Polly all these years with her males. I used to get impatient with her for indulging them, but I have learned that letting Virgil express his misery is the quickest path to peace. I’ll have to thank her for demonstrating what to do.
“I see,” I said. “So what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You could start over.”
He nodded. “I could, but there are a few decent pages.…”
And so it went for another hour, until he had regained his confidence. I must say I was gratified by effecting the change in him. I even had him laughing by the time he decided to go. Could I live that way, though? Honestly, I don’t know. Would he do the same for me, or would any man? I’d never seen it. Do women not ask, or is the notion of the helpmeet so ingrained that we all believe support travels in one direction only? Why wouldn’t women want the same, and why wouldn’t men realize that? I would want equality if I were in a relationship. Virgil is more like a project, or a young cousin like Archie Lee. I suspect he’d be flummoxed if he thought I needed him in return.
I walked him to the door and we stepped outside into the dark. It was a clear and starry night, and without consulting each other we walked farther into the darkness to marvel at the heavens. There wasn’t need of talk, and we didn’t. We stood next to each other, in the bigger night. I could have asked him what he believed in, or how broadly he could imagine, or what era he thought he really belonged in. What could he have said that would have been more eloquent than this sweet silent communion?
What was he thinking?
He put his arm around my shoulders and I slid mine around his waist.
“This is how I always want to feel,” he said.
“Me too.”
He kissed me. At least I thought so. Yet now that I am back in my room, I cannot say for sure that it was a real kiss.
I will have to do the most annoying thing—wait and see.
CHAPTER 31 Agnes, Philadelphia, Christmas 1961
Dear Elspeth,
The big excitement in my neck of Philadelphia this year is baby Lydia. She is just starting to smile, which apparently is a major development in human growth. Polly is besotted with her. It’s lovely to see. I enjoy being with them—it’s a light, contained atmosphere, totally focused on the baby’s expressions. We try to talk, but we are interrupted by the bizarre contortions of that little face. She is extraterrestrial. I am awestruck by it, but Polly takes it in stride, so I am awestruck by her.
I brought my work with me, a picture book I’m writing for Nan based on the stories I tell her. It’s called When Nan Walked Two Miles, about the first walk we took together all around the Point. I may do a series, where Nan will do this and that and the books will be about what she does. My drawings are awful, but if I can improve I’ll try to sell them. I have to make money—I cannot count on the company to support me. I want to be self-sufficient. I wasn’t raised to be, but that was a mistake both our parents made. They trusted their own version of the past too much.
Polly asked me about Virgil, and I gave a brief report. He has behaved toward me as always, with utter respect and a kind of adoration. We haven’t spoken about love, though it is everywhere around us and between us. Every day I tell myself to bring it up, be direct about it. But I have wandered into an arena of life I know nothing about, and where my brusque ways don’t have a place. And there’s this: I don’t know if it’s because I saw what I saw in the hospital, his turning orb—that sounds ridiculous, but I don’t know what better to say—or if I have against my will absorbed ways of behaving around men that I don’t approve of but can’t help. So we are suspended between silences and uncertainties, though pass through happy days.
Loving someone—loving like this—is the most forgiving lens.
In other news, Star immediately recognized everything about our Walnut Street house, and Mrs. O’ Hara had a plate of meat ready for him and has been feeding him fresh-cooked food three times a day, winning him over completely. I am still working on my jettisoning. I want everything to be spare, but it could take a few years to get there. Polly is talking about moving out of the city to Bryn Mawr or Haverford now that she has four children. It makes sense, but what will it be like not to have her close everywhere? She agrees and sighs, but proximity to me isn’t her prime consideration. Well—I must be an adult about it.
For New Year’s Eve I’ve accepted an invitation to a dinner dance. I may also wander down to watch the Mummers.
I am looking forward to 1962!
That was the last of the notebooks, but Maud looked in the box anyway, in case she’d missed something. How could the story stop in the middle? Maud wanted more—she had no doubt there was more—but she suspected putting her in this position was part of Agnes’s plan.
She placed all the notebooks carefully back in the box and left them on the table in Agnes’s study. She had some time before she had to catch the train, so she picked up the next volume of the Franklin Square series. Soon she was immersed and amused and feeling more relaxed. Yet something had been tugging at her brain as she read the books, some distant echo that she couldn’t place. Something about the style, the sensibility, the sometimes odd configuration of words. Here was a perfect example—the character Gail talking about a mystical experience she had in the Zendo: “It made foolish the whole project of words.” Hadn’t Maud recently read that same odd phrasing? She stared at the page until her eyes swam, and suddenly the names of the girls—Susan, Nola, Gail, Eve, and Annie—darted around and rearranged themselves into an anagram. AGNES.
PART FIVE Discernment
CHAPTER 32 Polly, Haverford, March 2002
“JUST BE CAREFUL THAT HE isn’t taking advantage of you. Is he paying his own way?” James leaned over his plate to take a bite out of the grilled cheese sandwich Polly had made for him, but he kept his eye on her.
The question felt to Polly like an inflating blood pressure cuff, designed to measure the truth about her inner state. She still felt her childhood compulsion to confess her thoughts, and it tended to override her knowledge that in most instances, she wasn’t obliged to. She had settled on a simple method of counting to three before she answered a question that might incriminate her, though often she blurted before she took the time, and often it didn’t help. In this case she’d known the question would arise, and she was prepared. More or less.
“Knox is my son, James, as you are. He is in a difficult moment in his life now. He’s doing a lot around the house, and he’s keeping me company.” There. That was the answer she’d planned, and it came out well.
“So you are paying for everything. Don’t take this the wrong way, but for the sake of my children I feel obliged to point out that what you give him subtracts from their inheritance. I just want you to think about that, Mother.”
Polly put her spoon down and looked at him. He was clean-shaven, and dressed in a navy-blue cashmere sweater over a collared shirt. He wore a wedding ring and Dick’s Hamilton watch on an alligator band. He stopped in on Wednesday evenings and at some point on the weekends for a meal if he had nothing more important to do. He was determined to be a good son. Polly, because she loved him, let him believe he was succeeding, but he didn’t come close to how Theo listened to her or how Knox, since he’d move in, noticed what would make her life easier and did it without being asked. James fulfilled his schedule and that was that. If she told him what was lacking, he’d defend himself mightily and honestly not understand. She was sure Agnes disliked him, though she’d never say so. Agnes had a code and lived by it; there were things she’d never say. Sometimes Agnes’s dislike popped into Polly’s mind just at a moment when she was in danger of feeling that way herself. Agnes saved her from herself. It was enough for one of them to look askance at James.
“James, you know perfectly well the trusts are set. I couldn’t spend that money if I wanted to. And I don’t.” She gazed at her sandwich regretfully. She’d been looking forward to it, but it wouldn’t taste like anything now.
Skeptically, he raised his eyebrows at the same time as he nodded. He didn’t believe her. He would be watching. Polly got all that. She wished he’d just leave. He wore her out when he came, and though she didn’t have the capacity to tell him not to visit, she often found herself dreading it. Her worst thought, one she’d buried as swiftly as possible, was that the wrong child had died. It literally took her breath away when that sentence had formed in her mind, and she’d questioned her claim to being a good person ever since. She clung to what Agnes had said decades ago about Jimmy Carter having sinned by lusting in his heart after women other than Rosalynn. “Thoughts are real, but they aren’t sins,” she’d said with absolute finality. “Only actions qualify as sins. Though there is no such thing as sin.” Polly hoped that her thought wasn’t a sin, but she’d never felt the same since she’d had it.
“I know Knox,” James said. “I’m not at all mystified as to why Jillian left him. That’s only the reason she gave. I know she claimed 9/11 had awakened in her a desire for more, a bigger life—but frankly, though she didn’t express this explicitly, I know it’s also him. He’s dull. You know it as well as I do. He’s also a moocher. That’s what worries me.”
