Up a Road Slowly (15 page)

The world was against me that evening. Alicia was mad. Danny was mad. Aunt Cordelia was irked because I hadn't told Danny that I was staying after school, thus causing him to make another trip. I told her that he had not come back to meet me, that he was going into town for some other reason—he hadn't told me what—but she said, nonsense, that he'd called to find out if I was home and a few minutes later had started down the road.

I went up to my room and tried to think of what it would be like when Brett and I were married; I thought about how I would inform my entire family that be it Thanksgiving or Christmas or any other holiday, if Brett were not welcome, then they could count upon it, Julie would not be on hand either. I thought of how I'd stand by him and comfort him with my love and loyalty. But try as I would, I couldn't get Brett to emerge in my daydream as a wronged but valiant and heroic figure; I kept seeing him behave like a sullen child in spite of all my efforts.

It was getting late when Brett finally called to ask if he could come out for a while and talk over our English assignment. He sounded sleepy and morose; I thought of what Danny had said about his having a beauty nap, but I pushed the thought aside and told him joyfully that yes, he might come out. Aunt Cordelia, who sat beside the table reading, said, “Until ten, Julia; no later.” She didn't lift her eyes from her book.

Brett and I sat in the living room and talked; Aunt Cordelia did not come in to meet him. If it had been Danny who was calling on me, there would have been a pleasant welcome for him and some sort of refreshment. Not for Brett. She remained seated with her book at hand, her knees crossed, and her foot swinging back and forth with what appeared to be mild agitation after some of Brett's remarks.

He wanted help, of course, with the paper on
Civil Disobedience
. He had a notebook ready and his pen poised above it. “Tell me how to begin it, sugar,” he said wearily, knowing, I suspect, that it was going to be tiresome business in getting a clear dictation from me and then expending precious energy in putting my words down on paper.

“I can't tell you what to say, Brett; I just can't do that. Why don't you write in your own words just why you think Thoreau felt that a man is justified at times in not paying his taxes, in not fighting for a cause in which he—”

Brett slammed his notebook shut. “How am I going to say it in my own words? I haven't read the stupid thing, and I have no intention of reading it. If you don't want to help me, just say so.”

I thought that foot beside the dining room table was going to fly through the door. Even my love cracked a little.

“Well, I can't do your paper for you, Brett, if that's what you mean. I've been doing too much as it is. We're going to get in trouble, both of us; Alicia told me so this afternoon.” Let Aunt Cordelia hear it, I thought; I supposed that it was just as well.

There wasn't any love in Brett's eyes as he sat staring at me. Finally he said, “So that's it, is it? You're afraid of getting your own neck in the noose. It's all right if I flunk English again, but you're not going to get in bad with your precious stepma. Lord, how I hate schoolteachers,” he said, for the second time within twelve hours.

We sat for a while in silence, and Aunt Cordelia's foot quieted down as if it were waiting. I was so mad at that point that I was ready to tell Brett that our romance was over. But Brett changed his tactics suddenly and swept down my defenses.

He said, “I'm sorry, honey. Forget the whole lousy business. I might just as well flunk English again, because it's a sure thing that math is down the drain.” He shrugged, and taking both my hands, drew me to my feet. “Don't be mad, little sugar; come out to the car and say good night,” he whispered.

He was so handsome, so masterful looking with his height and his beautifully wide shoulders. I commenced to melt in the warmth of his sudden tenderness. We went down the long path toward his car, Brett's arm around my waist, his cheek resting against my hair. When we reached the end of the path he said, “Let's go for just a little walk, honey; just a few minutes together.”

“I can't, Brett—it's getting late. I simply can't. Aunt Cordelia will—”

There was another flash of anger. “Look, Julie, are you letting that old woman run your life? If you are, you can count me out. I'm not coming out here to be told that you can't help me out of a tight spot, you can't take a little walk in the woods, you can't do anything. I thought you loved me, but if you don't, all right, say so. I'll begin looking around somewhere else.”

The next minute we were walking back into the woods—just a short, little walk to show that I loved him.

It was a wonderful night; the world looked as if it had been dipped in some liquid silver poured out of the moon. The woods were so still and radiant that it brought a catch of wistfulness to my throat. Such beauty ought not to be wasted in small talk. I thought of Jessica and young Lorenzo watching that moon together, matching their flashes of imagery, fitting them together into a perfect mosaic of poetry:

I wished that Brett would say those lines to me as we walked in the moonlight, and that I could then say:

I felt a longing for Brett to understand my feelings, for an affinity between us such as must have existed between Jessica and young Lorenzo that radiant night.

But Brett had not read much of Shakespeare, and even if he had known every play and every sonnet by rote, he would not have been at that moment in a mood to quote any of the immortal lines. His arms were suddenly holding me very tightly. “I love you so much, little honeybun, little sugar—” I didn't much care for the pet names, but that night he could have run down the entire dessert menu of a well-stocked restaurant and I wouldn't have objected.

We stood close in one another's arms and Brett was whispering, “You understand, don't you, sugar, don't you, Julie, baby—?”

Julie, baby, was indeed beginning to understand. The word was beginning to come through clearly to her, and Shakespeare was fading away into the background like muted music contrasting with the tumult of a mighty drama.

Then, as if on cue, there emerged from left wing a dapper, slender figure which advanced airily to center stage, laid aside an ancient golf bag, and extended a cordial hand toward the leading man.

“Kingsman, dear boy, what luck to have run across you,” Uncle Haskell exclaimed gaily. He immediately pretended to be chagrined at having burst in upon us, but I knew Uncle Haskell; he did not know the meaning of chagrin.

“So awfully sorry to have intruded upon a tender moment, children,” he said playfully. “Still, it's my good fortune to have found you, Brett. Do you know that you were the subject of a telephone conversation between me and one of the best known producers in New York not more than two hours ago?”

Brett was staring at Uncle Haskell a little stupidly, but I could see that his interest was beginning to come through the fog. He liked Uncle Haskell; he wouldn't for very long, but that night my uncle seemed to be opening up new vistas for Brett.

Uncle Haskell disposed of me in a hurry. “Julie, my pet, I think you'd better run along now. Brett can tell you his good news tomorrow. I have an idea that Aunt Cordelia would like you safe inside. Ten o'clock comes on apace, you know.”

I felt weak and ill with humiliation, anger, anxiety, and uncertainty. I lingered a few yards away and listened for a minute or two while Uncle Haskell unfolded his story. He would never have considered merely sending an amorous young man on his way and giving an amorous young niece a brief bedtime lecture. Uncle Haskell's soul would have revolted at the image of himself as an upholder of morals; he preferred to achieve the same result by means less hackneyed. Thus, his story that a producer in New York, beside himself with joy in producing Uncle Haskell's play, had telephoned to ask about a prospect for a part—“a minor part, mind you, but not an unimportant one—” My uncle was pouring the soothing unguent on Brett's bruised feelings. Brett, of course, was young and inexperienced; still, Uncle Haskell had told E. J. that this young fellow was extraordinarily handsome, had a natural grace and flair for the dramatic—

I had heard enough. That Brett was weak, I had to admit, but he didn't deserve cruelty like this. I ran through the woods and up the steps to the old porch swing where Aunt Cordelia was waiting for me.

I expected a lecture, but she was strangely quiet. Let me forget to dust the living room or mend a torn blouse, and she would hold forth at length; let me run off into the woods with Brett Kingsman, and she had nothing to say. Finally, when she didn't speak, I said, “I'm sorry, Aunt Cordelia; I shouldn't have gone out there tonight.”

She put her hand on mine for a second; that was all, just the faintest pressure on my hand. After that we sat in silence.

We heard Brett's car roar down the road after a while; then later, a long time later, we heard Uncle Haskell emerging from the woods, his pleasant voice humming,
My heart at thy sweet voice
, and I wondered if he were deliberately hurting himself by remembering that aria which Katy Eltwing had loved to hear him sing. He seemed cheerful enough, however, when he glimpsed us among the shadows and waved to us.

“Good night, my girls,” he called, and strode away toward his carriage-house apartment.

“You sent him out there for me, didn't you, Aunt Cordelia?” I asked after a while.

“He went of his own accord,” she said quietly. “I was frightened tonight, Julia. For the first time that I can remember, I gave way to panic. Then I called Haskell. I guess you realize that he has never in his life lifted a burden from me; that is why your father and Jonathan have disliked him so much. But tonight, he did. He treated me the way a strong brother treats a sister when she is weak.”

Upstairs in my room I stood at the window and looked out at the silver world.

It was a long way from Shakespeare, but it gave me a bit of comfort to think in blank verse at the close of a particularly wretched day.

 

 

 

T
hat spring, which marked the end of my junior year in high school, was a difficult one for me. When Brett had the hard news straight from Uncle Haskell that E. J. had felt the academic record of Bishop's protégé made an interview unnecessary, Brett was through with me, my family, and any person who had a kind word for any one of us. He immediately began taking Carlotta Berry to all the spring activities at school whereupon Carlotta glowed and began regarding me as if I were a country cousin. Even Danny refused to let bygones be bygones, and he invited Eden Brownlee to go to the prom with him when he knew that I had no choice but to stay at home. Ted Bolling, who, Alicia said, had brightened at the mention of my name, had in the meantime brightened at the presence of a young secretary from the English department. I was a social outcast as suddenly as I had become the envy of half the girls in school when Brett first paid attention to me.

The loneliness and sense of loss left an aching void inside me, and the knowledge that everyone knew I had been jilted was an added stroke of bitterness. I chose not to remember Brett's inadequacies, but to dwell upon his attractiveness, his moments of tenderness; there were many sweet memories, and they made the bitterness of Carlotta's taking over everything that had belonged to me very hard to bear.

I wrote a little poetry as a release, and it helped somewhat, although even in my misery, I knew that it was not very good poetry. I grew apathetic about my schoolwork and did a C paper on
Civil Disobedience
for Alicia, who made no comment, but shook her head ever so slightly when she handed it back to me. It was a pity; I had intended writing a really superior paper for her on that day when she made the assignment.

From my window I watched the full moon—a moon that reminded me of Brett—become shadowed, little by little until there was only a deep blackness in the woods at night. I would sit there wakeful, hour after hour, and wonder if this aching around my heart, this sense of being alone, forlorn and unwanted in a world where there was gaiety and love for others of my age, was going to continue for all of my days.

Everyone in my family was kind to me that spring. Father came out and took me for long drives; Alicia gave me a crisp, white suit with a coral blouse that would have sent me into raptures ordinarily; Laura wrote that she and my small namesake were looking forward to visiting me in August. And Aunt Cordelia was wonderful. There was not one sermon or high and mighty word from her. I think that I began to love Aunt Cordelia that spring.

Day followed day, each heavier than the other, for six weeks or so, and then the miracle happened. I have often thought about that miracle: surely the weight under which I had labored had gradually been lessening and the miracle was not a miracle at all. I think not though; it still seems like a miracle and this is how it was:

I had gone to sleep in sorrow and longing; I awoke the next morning—and something had happened. It was a bright summer morning and every leaf on the trees outside seemed to have been polished, glittering as they were in the sunlight. The white curtains at my window moved just a little at the touch of the breeze that drifted inside, and my room somehow became a vivid picture to me as if I had pulled aside some veil of indifference and was suddenly aware of it. The walls were as pale as they could get and still be called yellow; the surface of the old walnut bureau and bookcase that Aunt Cordelia and I had refinished was deep with lights which were absorbed in its brown depths. There were white throw rugs on the floor—white rugs that Aunt Cordelia had allowed me to have against the judgment of her practical mind—and there was the small rocking chair upholstered in worn velvet which had been hers when she was a girl. On my desk stood a framed photograph which my aunt had allowed me to keep, the photograph of a lovely young girl smiling at the thought of Jonathan Eltwing, and of a blond young man standing in a studied pose, and a little girl who looked like Laura, laughing at the camera that photographed her.