“Nonsense, Victoria. It’s the best possible thing. Lots of little girls would give their eyeteeth for such a chance. New York—you’ll love New York! And Constance—you’ll love her too, just as I do. She’s such fun, Vicky. She goes everywhere; she knows everyone-but-everyone—you’ll have the most wonderful time. She’ll take you out of yourself, wait and see.”
“I don’t think Daddy would have wanted me to go. Or Mummy. They didn’t like her, Uncle Steenie—you know they didn’t.”
“Ah, well, there were reasons for that.” Uncle Steenie averted his eyes and waved his hands. “Forget all that, darling. None of it matters. All that is in the past.” He took a small nip and gave me his most roguish glance. “Anyway, that’s not strictly true. There was a time when your papa liked Constance very much indeed….”
“Are you sure, Uncle Steenie?”
“Absolutely sure. And she
always
liked him. So that’s all right, isn’t it?”
He gave me his pink-and-white smile and, before I could argue any more, popped another stale chocolate truffle into my mouth. I left England on the
Queen Mary
on November 18, 1938, one month before my eighth birthday. We sailed from Southampton.
Aunt Maud was not well enough to accompany me to the docks, so I said my goodbyes to her in London, in her once-famous drawing room overlooking Hyde Park. I was escorted to Southampton by Jenna, who was to travel with me, by my two uncles, and—at my request—by my friend Franz-Jacob. They all gave me presents for the voyage. Uncle Freddie gave me a batch of detective stories. Uncle Steenie gave me an orchid, which had a carnivorous look. Franz-Jacob gave me a box of chocolates.
This present he produced at the last moment, on board ship, standing near the gangplank. Most of the other well-wishers had returned to the quay; my uncles were already ashore, and waving; the first confetti and streamers were being thrown.
“Here.” Franz-Jacob pulled from his pocket a square gold cardboard box. It contained, I later discovered, eight exquisite hand-dipped chocolates, one for each year of my life. They were decorated with crystallized violets like amethysts, and with strips of angelica as green as emeralds. They lay couched in their smart box like so many jewels. Viennese chocolates: they must have been specially sent, I think, by his family. Franz-Jacob presented this present with a small stiff bow, so his lank hair fell across his pale forehead.
I was very touched that he should have gone to so much trouble but anxious not to embarrass him by appearing emotional. So I thanked him and clutched the box tight and hesitated. “I shall miss you, Franz-Jacob,” I risked at last.
“You will not miss me. Distance is of no object between the hearts of friends.”
He had prepared that small speech, I think, for he said it in a rehearsed and formal way. We looked at each other uncertainly; then, English fashion, we shook hands.
“I shall write every week, Franz-Jacob. You will write too? You’ll let me know where they send you next?”
“But of course I will write.” He gave me one of his impatient looks. He took from his coat pocket a pair of brown leather gloves, which he put on and carefully buttoned at the wrist.
“I will write each Saturday. I will enclose a mathematical sum in each letter.” He came as close as he ever came to a smile. “I keep an eye on your progress—yes?”
“No algebra, Franz-Jacob. Promise me, no algebra.”
“Certainly there will be algebra. Algebra is good for you. Please remember this.”
I think he knew I might cry, and tears would certainly have embarrassed him. The ship’s horns blew, which startled me. A woman next to me threw a bright-pink paper streamer into the air; I watched it coil out, flutter, then fall.
When I turned back, Franz-Jacob was walking stiffly down the gangplank, and out of my life. I did not know it then—which was fortunate—but Franz-Jacob, whom I would have trusted with my life, would not keep his promise. He never wrote to me.
The tugs were engaged, the hawsers’ freed; we began to edge away into the harbor. Jenna and I stayed by the rail for a long time, looking back through the drizzle of rain. On the quay a band played; my uncles waved; Franz-Jacob stood still. Their figures became smaller and smaller until, although we strained our eyes, we had to admit they were invisible.
That is what I remember of my leaving: Franz-Jacob, and the promise he never kept. I forget the voyage that came after it, and I never dream of it. The ocean liner, the view of the Atlantic from its decks—all that has gone. But I do dream sometimes, of the city that waited, the far side. I see Manhattan then as I saw it for the first time, a foreign place of startling loveliness. There is mist on the water; I can taste the morning on my mouth; winter sun glints upon a Babylon of pinnacles.
Constance stands waiting on the pier. She is dressed in black from head to foot, whereas I have only a mourning band sewn on the sleeve of my Harris tweed overcoat. In my dreams Constance greets me as she greeted me then. She advances. She clasps me in her arms. Her clothes are soft. I smell her scent, which is as green as ferns with a damper, hungrier smell under it, like earth.
She is wearing gloves. She touches my face with those gloves. Her hands are tiny, almost as small as my own. The gloves are of the finest kid, tight as a second skin. How Constance loves to touch! She touches my hair. She smiles at my hat. Her face becomes serious. She frames my face in her hands. She examines my features one by one. The pale skin, the freckles, the muddy and indeterminate eyes—and something she sees there seems to please her, for she smiles.
It is as if she recognizes me—although that is impossible. I stare at my godmother. She is radiant.
“Victoria,” she says, clasping my hand in hers. “Victoria. It’s you. Welcome home.”
“It’s you—”
Miss Marpruder was to say the very same thing to me, thirty years later, when she found me on her doorstep, unannounced.
“It’s you—” she said again, and her face crumpled. She seemed unable to go on.
She did not add “welcome back.” She simply stood there, blocking her doorway—Miss Marpruder, who had always been so hospitable. We stood there awkwardly, staring at each other, while an ugly blotch mounted her cheeks. Beyond her, I could see the familiar sitting room and that defiant red couch. One sagging chair had been drawn up, close to the TV set; the set was tuned to a hospital soap opera. Miss Marpruder’s mother was dead now, I knew. She lived alone, and I could smell the loneliness; it seeped out into the hall.
“Prudie,” I began, mystified by this reception. “I tried to call. I’ve been calling and calling, all weekend. In the end I thought—”
“I know you called. I guessed it was you. That’s why I didn’t answer.”
I stared at her in consternation. There was no attempt to disguise the hostility now in her voice.
“Go away. I don’t want to see you. I’m busy. I’m watching TV—”
“Prudie, please, wait a second. What’s wrong?” She had been about to close the door in my face, then changed her mind. To my astonishment, her face contorted with anger.
“Wrong? You’re wrong—that’s what. I know why you’re here—it’s not to see me, that’s for sure. You’re looking for Miss Shawcross. Well, I can’t help you—wouldn’t, if I could. I don’t
know
where she is. There. Is that plain enough for you?”
“Prudie, wait. I don’t understand.” I put out my hand to touch her arm. Miss Marpruder reacted as if I’d attempted to slap her.
“You don’t understand? Oh, sure—believe that, you’ll believe anything. Little Miss Successful—oh, we’re doing real well now, I hear. All the big fancy clients. Kind of funny, isn’t it—how many of them used to be your godmother’s?” Her speech was rapid, as if launched on a tide of pent-up resentment. Under its force I took a step back, Miss Marpruder a step forward.
“You
used
Miss Shawcross—you think I don’t know that? You used her; now you’re trying to use me. Eight years—I don’t set eyes on you in eight years.”
“Prudie, I haven’t
been
to New York in eight years. Only to change planes. And anyway, I wrote to you—you know I’ve written. I wrote when—”
“When my mother died—oh, sure.” Miss Marpruder’s eyes filled with tears. “You wrote. So I’d owe you—that it?”
“Of course not. Prudie, how can you say such a thing?”
“Easy. Real easy—because I see now what you’re like. I didn’t one time, maybe—but I do now, and it makes me pretty sick.”
She advanced on me once more; she was trembling—with the effort to convince me of what she said, I thought at first. Then I changed my mind. It occurred to me that at least some of this anger was self-directed; it was as if Miss Marpruder were also trying to convince herself.
I held my ground. I said, as quietly as I could, “Prudie, all right. I’ll go. But before I do, I’d just like to make one thing clear. I won’t have you thinking I poached Constance’s clients. It isn’t true. Constance and I work in totally different ways, you must know that—”
“Is that so? How about the Dorset place? How about the Antonellis?”
The names tripped off her tongue as if long rehearsed. I stared at her in bewilderment. “Prudie,
listen.
They both asked Constance to do the work first. When she refused, they came to me.” I paused. “Those are the only two clients of mine who ever had any connection with Constance. I have made my own way, Prudie. At least give me the credit for that.”
“She turned them down?” Miss Marpruder seemed to shrink back into herself. She gave a puzzled look, a shake of the head.
“It’s true, Prudie.”
“I guess so. It could be. You may be right. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I was mad at you…. I’m tired. I guess I haven’t been sleeping too well. You’d better go now. I told you—I can’t help you.”
“Prudie, is something wrong?”
“Wrong?” She said the word with great bitterness. “What could be wrong? After all, I’m a lady of leisure now! No crises to deal with. No rushing to get the subway every morning. Watch the TV twenty-four hours a day if I feel like it. Oh, sure, I’m fine all right. I’m retired.”
I stared at her. I could not imagine her retiring, and I could not imagine Constance’s business functioning without her—unless there was some new and younger replacement, of course.
Pity twisted in my heart. Miss Marpruder, now the animus had left her, did look aged. There were runnels in the thick powder on her face. The tendons of her neck jutted. Her permed hair had thinned. I realized, guiltily, that I did not know her age.
“Sixty-five,” she said, as if she read my mind. “And before you ask—no, it wasn’t my idea. I never wanted to quit. Miss Shawcross … she retired me. Two months back. I argued, but she wouldn’t listen. You know how she is, once she’s made up her mind….”
“Prudie, I’m terribly sorry—”
“I’ll adjust. I’ll get used to it. She’s running it down, you know—the business. Like she’s ready to quit, herself. That’s why she let me go. I guess.”
She must have read my expression, because she spoke again before I could frame the question.
“Oh, she’s not ill—not her! Still beautiful. Still full of energy. But she’s changed. Since you left—maybe it started back then. And it hit her hard, your uncle Steenie dying like he did. She’s sick of it all, I reckon. She wants to travel—she told me that.”
“Travel? Travel where? Prudie, I called all the hotels. She’s made no reservations. Her friends aren’t expecting her—at least, they tell me they’re not—”
Prudie shrugged. Her face became closed.
“I wouldn’t know. She had her route mapped out—she said that. I don’t know where; I don’t know when. And I didn’t ask.”
“Prudie, please. That can’t be true. You must know where she is and where she’s going. You always did. I must see her. I need to talk to her. Now Steenie’s dead … she’s my
past,
Prudie. There are things only she can explain. Surely you can understand that?”
She hesitated. She fiddled with the glass beads and for a moment I thought she would relent. Her expression became gentler. She nodded once or twice.
“Sure. I can understand. When my mother died, there were things, things I wished I’d asked her, things only she could’ve told me, but I hadn’t asked, and then it was too late.” She stopped in an abrupt way. Her face hardened. “So I understand. Makes no difference. I told you. I can’t help.”
She took a step back. Behind her the television blared a new tune.
“Can’t, or won’t, Prudie?”
“Take your pick.” She shrugged. “That’s my favorite program starting now. I don’t want to miss it, okay?”
“Prudie—”
“Just leave me alone,” she said, with another little spurt of anger. And, for the second time, a door was shut in my face.
I think, if that meeting with Prudie had not taken place, that I might have given up and gone home. The dream of Winterscombe had remained with me all evening, on the edge of my consciousness: I felt my home pulling me back.
I might have said then, the hell with Constance. But the meeting with Prudie changed that. Perhaps Prudie—once my friend—had turned against me of her own accord, but knowing Constance’s ways, I doubted it. It would have been subtly done, I thought: no overt recriminations, just a matter of nuance, Constance’s drip-technique of tiny asides, small but telling hints. Had Prudie understood, finally, that she herself had been used? Was that why she had been so quick to accuse me of using Constance? I considered that charge, which I knew to be untrue, and it made me angry. I suppose it also hurt; since I still loved Constance, she retained the power to wound me.
Two women.
I remembered Mr. Chatterjee. I thought that by some fluke he had been correct, had pointed me, anyway, in the direction of resolution. Who was Constance? Was she the good godmother of my New York childhood, or the bad? Was it my mother, as Vickers had said, who had banished Constance from Winterscombe—and if so, why? What was it my mother had known about Constance that I still did not?
Your father liked her once, Victoria
—
liked her very much indeed. And she always liked him….
A sly suggestion, made thirty years before, yet never forgotten. I wished that voice would go away; I wished they would all go away—but they would not.