Hers the Kingdom (19 page)

     In his charming Queen Anne style cottage—as he called it—in Pasadena, Charles Emory arranged dinner parties and teas, and all manner of pleasant diversion for the two women. There were theater parties and seats at the opera. Often, Willa and Owen and I were his guests. Just as often, Sara's visit would end with a trip to the seashore in Santa Monica.

     I was glad that Sara was coming, this time more than ever. I needed to talk with her, needed the clarity of thought that was her talent.

"Don't you find it wearing," Charles asked Willa as they stood watching Helen Emory smile up at Owen while they danced, "being married to a man women can't resist?"

     The back parlor had been cleared. The music and the din of conversation masked Charles' soft, insinuating words. But Willa had heard.

     "Why should Mrs. Emory be interested in my poor husband," she asked, "when she has such an utterly charming husband waiting for her in San Francisco?" From experience, Willa knew that the one person who never fell victim to Charles Emory's acerbic tongue was his uncle.

     "Willa, I am quite serious," Charles insisted, though his voice said he wasn't, "women do make fools of themselves over Owen, and I have been wanting to ask you for a long time, a very long
time—doesn't it trouble you in the least?"

     Willa considered him then. In a teasing voice, she answered, "No. It doesn't trouble me in the least because Owen has yet to make a fool over any one of them."

     "Yet to?" Charles asked.

     "Wouldn't it be better for you to ask Owen these questions?" Willa came back at him, suddenly feeling very tired of Charles Emory and his baiting.

     Before he could answer, she added, "Charles, you really can be tiresome, did you know that?"

     "What is this, a family quarrel?" Sara asked, joining them, tucking a hand into Charles' arm.

     "We've just been admiring Helen admiring Owen," Charles said, the edge of bitterness in his tone betraying him. "And I have been asking poor Willa how she puts up with all the pretty women badgering Owen."

     "They simply cannot believe," Sara said in carefully measured tones, "that he is not interested. So don't say 'poor' Willa, Charles. Say 'poor' pretty women."

     Willa thought,
I wish I didn't have to look into Sara's eyes.

     Large parties tired me, and Owen's parties had a way of going on into the early hours. I excused myself to Willa and slipped off to my room. Before long, Sara knocked on my door.

     "I am sorry it took so long for me to get here," she began, "Helen was to leave for San Francisco a week ago, but she delayed so I couldn't leave—propriety demands, you know. Then, when Willa and Owen invited all of us to the party tonight, well, Helen wanted to come and . . ."

     Sara often had to be coaxed to finish a sentence, but this time I had too much on my mind to probe for the rest.

     "You mean, you aren't staying on with us?" I asked, clearly chagrined. "I'm terribly worried about something, about," I began to stammer. "I need to talk to you, to have you help me sift out." I couldn't seem to get going.

     Sara kicked off her shoes and sat on the end of my bed. "Wait," she said. "Start over. Tell me. There's plenty of time, now."

     I told her then about Willa's not wanting to have another child, about Willa's painful lack of interest in Wen.

     "Since he was sick," I explained, "Willa has been scrupulous about spending time with him, giving him much more of her attention, making sure we really are sharing in his care. You know how Willa is—once she decides on a course of action, nothing will sway her. It has made Owen happy, I can see that. But Owen sees what he wants to see. I have watched her with the child, and . . . well . . . they look so forlorn together, I don't know. I think it troubles Willa terribly . . ."

     Sara looked at me steadily. I could see that she was thinking, pulling together the threads of my rushed account, trying to find some reason. Finally she said, "I suppose . . . I suppose she just doesn't want to have to share Owen with anyone. Wen adores his father, and of course she has to share with him. But to bring yet another child into the world to make demands on Owen's time, well . . ."

     "You mean, it's nothing to do with how Willa feels about her children?"

     "Oh," Sara says, "it has everything, really. Some women marry men they care nothing about, knowing they will have children to love. But Willa loves Owen . . . it's funny, but we were just talking about that—Willa and Charles and I—about how Owen attracts women. But it's not just that, there is something about Owen that is not . . . how can I say it? Not forthcoming."

     "Forthcoming?" I asked, not knowing what she meant.

     "Not giving," she answered. "And something more," she rose and walked away from me, so I had to strain to hear, "Owen is afraid."

     "Of what?" I wanted to know, worried that she had some knowledge I did not.

     "Just afraid," she answered vaguely, "all the time."

     "I don't understand," I said, prodding her, not willing to let this sentence trail off.

     "It is, well . . . Willa loves Owen in a great, wanting way, a way I think he can't meet."

     "Can't?" I asked.

     "Yes, can't." Sara frowned and made an effort to be more explicit: "Except on the surface, Owen is really not all that different from all the other men of substance, the business barons. He is driven in the same way to make a substantial fortune—money for the sake of money—and to have his name on buildings and philanthropic works. He wants to wield some political power, perhaps. He wants sons, a loving family. Nothing so very different, actually. What is different, and complicating for Owen, is his health. In spite of how he looks, he
is
fragile. Willa knows it, even if she won't admit she does. Owen is scarcely into his thirties, yet he is aware of his own mortality in a way the rest of us are not. It pushes him, that knowledge. It makes him want to accomplish everything now, it makes him need to move fast. And he knows he has a limited amount of energy, that he must conserve it. Which means he must choose, must eliminate all waste motion . . . and emotion. Willa wants more than Owen can give, she wants it all. It hurts, loving like that."

     I looked hard at Sara then. She turned her face away from me, but I pulled it back. I made her look at me, and when she did . . . when she turned her eyes to me, I heard a small quick intake of breath, an exclamation of sorts, and for a time I did not realize that the sound was mine.

     "Oh, Sara," I said, out of breath, "who?"

     I knew, of course. Charles. It had to be Charles.

     "You love him?" I asked, knowing that I had to hear it.

     "Yes," she answered calmly, her eyes steady on me, wide and dark, the pupils dilated, black on black.

     "Does he know?" I asked.

     She answered, "Yes."

     I took a very deep breath, feeling tired, terribly tired, and tried to keep the pity from my eyes.

     "And he?" I asked.

     "He is in love with Helen Emory," she said evenly, relating a fact. "They spend as much time together as they can—my presence, of course, makes that possible."

     "Sara," I said, more sharply than I had intended, "why?" I wanted to shake her, to slap her, to do anything to stop that even, accepting tone.

     "Why not?" she answered, "What have I to say about it? No more than you have to say about Owen bedding Willa. No more than you have to say about Willa's feelings for her child."

     Sara's eyes seemed to grow, to get larger. Her face, close to mine, expanded. Dark circles moved about the periphery of my vision and slowly, slowly began to shut down, close in, until all I could see were her eyes, huge and hurt, black on black.

     Suddenly, Willa was there, fanning me.

     "Too much excitement," she said, "these stupid, silly parties are too much altogether, sweet girl. Are you feeling better now, dear?"

     "Sara!" I called out, suddenly frantic that she might have left.

     "I'm here," Sara answered from the darkness behind Willa. "I'm here, Lena," she said again, moving forward to take my hand.

     "Please," I said, too weary to speak, slurring my words, "please, Sara, don't leave."

     "Sara is staying," Willa said gently, "Owen went to see Helen and Charles to their carriage."

     That made me start to cry, and I could not stop. I heard Sara say, then, "I'm going to stay here tonight, Willa. I'll sleep on the settee. You go along, please."

Sara stayed the whole of the month. In all of that time, she spoke of Charles and Helen in passing, as if our conversation had never
happened, as if I didn't know. Twice I worked up my courage, determined to confront her, but the words stuck in my throat. And yet . . . and yet, it didn't come between us, it did not divide us. I don't know why.

"Whatever are you doing?" Willa asked Arcadia, a note of amused surprise in her voice. They were sitting on the floor of Wen's room—Arcadia and the child—stacking bars of Poor Man's Soap like so many blocks.

     ". . . seven, eight, nine, ten . . ." Wen counted.

     "Where did you get all of this—" Willa tried to keep from laughing, so that the words finally popped out, "—soap?"

     "This . . . soap . . . as you say," Arcadia mimicked Willa, "belongs to the Señora. And these," she pointed to a stack of books, "belong to me."

     Willa picked up each book in turn:
"Mill on the Floss, Jane Eyre, Deep Down, Tom Brown at School, East Lynne, Adam Bede . . .
Ummm," she said.

     "Ummm?" Arcadia asked.

     
"Tom Brown at School?"
Willa asked.

     "It was part of the . . . gift."

     "Gift?" Willa raised her eyebrows.

     "The gift I got for buying twenty bars of Poor's Soap."

     "But you said the soap was the Señora's," Willa reminded her wickedly, "so how can the books be yours?"

     "The Señora never reads English," Arcadia shot back, and the two women, conspirators, laughed together.

     The Señora had a great deal of money but she did not like to spend it. Arcadia had no money of her own, so she had found ways to get those things she wanted. Her inventiveness became a game—and some of these games required another address. Willa, of course, had been happy to oblige. Now she sat down to help Arcadia and Wen change the wrappings on the soap—
sneezing in unison as the smell of the soap took them by surprise.

     "This is terrible," Willa said to her friend. "No one will ever invite you anywhere, if you smell of this soap."

     "I know," Arcadia answered, laughing through the tears the soap brought to her eyes. "I'm afraid I've caused a bit of a problem this time."

     "Well, you can go camping with us if you stay in another tent," Willa said.

     "Camping?" Wen called out, "camping to the Malibu?"

     "Yes," Willa answered, smiling at her son.

     "When?" Wen and Arcadia asked in unison.

     "Papa says day after tomorrow, if the weather holds . . ." Willa said, but Wen was already out the door, his short legs churning, running, pounding up the stairs on his way to his father's study. He sounded a long, loud "Whoooeee" that carried throughout the house.