(page 356)
AFTERMATH
"My fair-young cousins; human flowers,
Adorning this gray band of ours, -
Upon the green and fragrant bankss-
Where bloom your sweet and scented ranks,
May one "wild oat" ne'er stay or drop,
To propagate a sinful crop.
But in your sunshine's golden glow,
May you to full perfection grow,
To guard the honor of our name,
Dearer by far than wealth or fame." - A Bicknell Idyl
"What's this?"
"Malcolm wrote it." I said.
"Yes," she glanced down at the first page with a little smile. "Market Analysis: Its Principles and Methods." she read. "Of course. Malcolm. Who else could have written this?"
"It's dry, yes. That's not my point. There are two-hundred pages there, Millicent, and an outline. He was nearly finished, and I knew nothing about it until two days ago. He wouldn't have told me unless... until it was published."
She looked at me, uncertain.
"He isn't going to complete it now." I said, replacing the manuscript into a drawer atop a stack of other partially constructed articles on inflation, business cycles, and various other subjects that interested Malcolm. "He's lost his will to do anything but sit there and... THEY did this to him-Christopher and Corinne did this!"
"I heard about Christopher and Corinne." she said carefully.
"What did you hear?"
"That they eloped."
"They didn't elope," I almost shrieked, "Malcolm threw them out!"
It was the first time I acknowledged to myself, much less to another, that I felt conflicted about the way we had handled the situation with Corinne and Christopher. I missed them, yet I firmly believed that Malcolm had done what was right. John Amos approved of Malcolm's choice, so how could I speak against it?
"He threw them out?" she repeated, "I can't believe Malcolm would do that to Corinne."
This was a man who could turn out his beloved daughter without a penny. I had stood with my husband that day, backing him up. I supported that decision,
as I supported most decisions, even if I didn't agree wholeheartedly. The realization made me uncomfortable with what it told me about myself, but it was too late to change now.
"Believe it." I said, tired of the whispers, the veiled questions from everyone-from those we could safely call friends, to those who were only curious for the sake of propagating gossip. Most of the time, I felt that everyone I encountered was part of the latter group. I had greater concerns, and I didn't feel able to cope with my family being reduced to a spectacle. Lately, I'd been willing to lose my closest friend, because I felt I couldn't trust anyone.
This lack of trust and my lack of free time had nearly made strangers of Millicent and me.
I didn't blame Millicent for not understanding how I felt about Corinne's enforced absence, and about the effect it had wrought on Malcolm. In some ways, losing our daughter felt like another death. So much time, emotion and energy is poured into raising and loving a child that to lose it all at once is crippling. Well-meaning people make hurtful and stupid remarks, in a misguided attempt to comfort. This had been the case after Mal and Joel died, and it was happening to a lesser degree again, now. Millicent could not understand how I felt; she didn't have the words to restore any of the joy I'd lost.
"Our luggage from their graduation trip hadn't even been unpacked yet when Malcolm-" I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself, but I could not forget the desolate look of the library when I'd returned home from the hospital that awful day, to see a fountain pen lying on the desk, just where it had fallen from Malcolm's fingers, a mug of black coffee gone cold and untouched next to his papers.
"They were too closely related, and they well knew it!" I said. "There is no excuse for what they are doing! One CANNOT love indiscriminately. Simply calling it love doesn't negate the fact that it is incest." I heard Malcolm's voice echo in my mind what he frequently expressed.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't have revealed so much of our troubles or my thoughts concerning them, but rumors were prevalent, and I doubted if anything I could say would come as a surprise to Millicent. And Millicent wasn't just anyone, I reminded myself, feeling guilty for my disloyal thoughts. She did care, and she wasn't one for spreading gossip.
"Selfishness-that's all it is! Christopher-that paragon of virtue-" I said, letting sarcasm creep in, "thought nothing of destroying us. Even if Corinne wasn't, Christopher was certainly old enough to understand how carrying on an affair with our daughter would taint the opinions people have of us. He didn't care about us enough even to stop and consider how such a scandal would impact our entire existence. Malcolm's business relationships have suffered, many of these men were social acquaintances as well. They've done incalculable damage to the Foxworth name, and to my husband's credibility."
Of course, it wasn't Malcolm who had dealt with the aftermath of the scandal. Because of his illness, it had fallen to me to attend to our interests, which was why I was still in town at six o'clock in the evening in Malcolm's office, file folders and miscellaneous papers spread before me on his wide desk.
I sat back in the chair, and looked across at Millicent. She turned from me to stare out the window, a window whose view did not offer any distraction,
for the only view beyond the glass was a brick wall of the neighboring building. I doubted that Malcolm ever saw even that much; he didn't choose to see anything outside of his immediate sphere of control and thought. The office, too, lacked color, characterized by functional, comfortable furniture, but no personal objects; there wasn't a single family photograph on Malcolm's desk. It was very much the office of one who dislikes ostentation in his workspace.
"You are so angry." said Millicent softly, almost to herself, and it occurred to me that I must present a formidable picture. "That is more manageable than sadness, isn't it?"
I held myself rigidly still, not looking at her.
"Why not call it a day, Olivia?" she waited, then determinedly forged on. "Have supper with me before you go home. Why, I haven't seen you in a month of Sundays."
I nodded, relenting, and swept what I'd been working on into the top drawer of the desk, locking it and the file cabinets before leaving the office. We pulled on coats and scarves and walked out into the first snow of autumn.
"I've never been as exhausted as I am now." I admitted. "I've never worked as hard as I have in these last few months, Millicent. Is this what it's been like for you all these years?" She smiled, but didn't reply. She didn't want to wait for the trolley, so we walked the few blocks to her house. "This is what it's been like for Malcolm all along, and to think how I used to resent the late hours he had to work! I even suspected that he lied to me, some of those evenings when he claimed to be working late."
"I'd see him downtown now and again, and he was always in a great hurry."
"Too busy to be polite and say hello, I suppose." I said wryly. We entered the house by the side door into the warm, clean kitchen.
"I didn't mind. I've never been one of his favorite people."
She never said so, but I knew she disliked Malcolm. It was mutual, though Malcolm was not as reticent on the subject, and freely expressed his dislike of her to me. I'd thought until recently that Millicent had no discernible reason for her dislike, for in social situations, he could be agreeable, even charming when it suited him to be so, and anyway, Millicent rarely ever saw Malcolm.
I'd only recently discovered that during the height of the depression of the last decade, Malcolm had purchased several properties in the business district,
one of them being the building where Millicent's shop had been housed for the last eleven years. I wondered if he'd increased the cost of renting the space.
Had there been some other problem I was not aware of? I wondered if this awkward circumstance was the reason for her marked coolness toward him on the rare occasion when they met in my presence, but I could not bring myself to ask.
"Looks like Carrie's been here," she said, looking around at the tidy kitchen. In a corner, clothes sloshed around in the wash.
"How is she?" I asked.
"The baby's due any day now. You know, I think she's much happier this time around."
"With her marriage, you mean?"
"Yes." she went on to expound upon the virtues of her new son-in-law, and to show me recent pictures of Caroline's older child, Molly, who had started at the Venable Elementary school that fall.
"Isn't she sweet." I said. "She looks so much like your mother."
"Yes," she said pensively. "It's a shame Mother won't know it. She has so few lucid days, now. She doesn't recognize any of us, and she's paranoid-afraid of spies. She is convinced there are radios hidden in the walls. She says she hears voices. Molly thinks it's a game, naturally, and encourages her. It's funny, but sad, too."
"Molly's pleased as punch about having a real baby to play with soon." she went on. "If it's another girl, Carrie says they'll call her Noreen. It's my second name-Caroline's, too." she grimaced. "That was Mother's idea, but I've never liked it."
How I envied Millicent at that moment. She was the one who was truly rich, with her family well and happy and loving around her, and grandchildren to bring her joy.
She filled the kettle and put it on to boil, brought out a jar and spooned out ginger-peach tea, then surveyed the contents of her pantry.
"Let me help you with that." I offered, as Millicent began making a complicated-looking winter stew.
"Not this time. Sit there and rest. You've had a long day."
She was being kind, but I could not relax when I knew I really should be at home. I began to pace about the small kitchen as I waited for the kettle to boil. I reorganized her spice rack, and then restored it to its former incomprehensible system.
"So how is he getting on, Olivia? How is he coping with-" She struggled for the right words, but there was no delicate way to refer to Malcolm's health,
and such severe impairments.
"With being a cripple?" I said bitterly. She reddened. "Not well, but that's to be expected. He wants a busy schedule, lunching with men, talking with customers,
going on business trips. He wants competition again, challenges, responsibilities and triumphs, but," I sighed. "his doctors say all of that would be too much of a strain."
"It must be a difficult change to accept so abruptly, for one who was once so active."
Her words were tinged with a mild regret, but somehow, they lacked sympathy.
"It hasn't been easy." I acknowledged.
Malcolm wanted to work; he must work, but he could not-at least not yet. I believe he thought that hard work alone could save him, and that was impossible.
I wasn't making his transition easier. I had such mixed feelings, and at times, I had been unkind, even cruel to Malcolm, just because I could be, and because I held long-term grudges.
"It wasn't your confession to make; it wasn't your place to tell John!" Malcolm had ranted at me the previous week, after discovering that I'd confided our secret about Corinne's origins to John Amos. "It's none of his goddamn business, Olivia."
"And how are you coping, Olivia?" inquired Millicent.
"I'm all right." I said dismissively. "My mother suffered a long illness before she finally died. It was a long time ago, and I was in school and didn't often do the day to day tasks of nursing her, but I still feel accustomed to this."
"You'll get by. You are amazingly resilient."
"I do wish people would stop saying that to me! All it means is that I tolerate what others would not."
"You still have your husband; you are not alone."
"What kind of husband do I have?" I demanded in a fit of self-pity and anger. "An invalid who can't-"
I stopped abruptly, aware, belatedly, of Millicent's empty house, and uncomfortably conscious of the fact that she truly did have to survive alone. She thought she was being kind in reminding me of what she must see as the positives in my life, but how wrong she was!
"He can't do a lot of things, but you can. Now he can't work incessantly. That should make you happy, I'd think. Why do you punish yourself so, Olivia?
It isn't even necessary for you to work as much as you do."
"I do have to work." I insisted, but she ignored that, not understanding that staying busy was all that kept me sane, that I needed to be the businesslike and balanced person I was when submerged in work.
"It's not as if the two of you would ever be turned out of your house, or go hungry, or lack in any way." she stopped, dropping her gaze to the carrots and celery she was chopping, as if knowing her words were futile.
If I'd thought before reacting, if I'd said something like: "And we don't have to listen to our neighbor practicing cello, either," I could have lightened the moment by making a joke of it-of what Millicent herself usually found humor in, her tiny house, of all that made her life different than mine. But I had lost my ability to make light of anything, so I rose from the chair, disappointed that she did not understand me after twenty years of friendship.
"I'll call Carrington, and go home." I said crisply.
"No, Olivia. Stay. I'll drive you home later. I'm sorry. I've overstepped. The last few years have been a real hardship, and I'm wrong to believe you haven't been touched by trials too. I know better."
"Never mind it." I said, waving away her apology with a gesture Malcolm often used. "I'm sorry, too. I am tired and too thin-skinned just now."
She gave me a smile that meant all was forgiven, for, of the two of us, Millicent was truly the resilient one.
"And so how is the work going? Do you enjoy it at all?"
"I think I will, but there are some problems now." I said.
The men Malcolm worked with didn't want a woman-not even the wife of Malcolm Foxworth-making key decisions and issuing orders. They had to be convinced that I was capable of stepping into Malcolm's shoes, and undoubtedly they believed his judgment must have been impaired after his heart attack to have permitted me to try. It would take a long time to gain their respect, to vanquish their doubts and condescending attitudes, and it was to be one of the most difficult periods in my life.
"Malcolm expects me to keep everything running as before, and to oversee matters, since he is unable. I don't think he trusts his own people, though most of them have worked for him for two decades or more. It's just a vague distrust. But it's disheartening, for I'm finding that, very likely, his concerns aren't groundless. I've been going over the books, and I've discovered some false accounting. It's Matthew Allen, I'm almost certain."
"Olivia, surely not? Matthew's known him and worked with him for ages!"
"Since Malcolm's been ill, Matthew's come to see him only twice. Matthew calls himself a friend, yet the minute Malcolm's out of the way..."
"What will you do?"
"I'm not sure, yet. I don't know how I'll tell Malcolm of my suspicions."
I poured a second cup of tea, added sugar, and sipped the restorative hot liquid.
"And Matthew isn't making it easier for me-not that I expect anyone to smooth the way for me, but he is constantly looking over my shoulder. And it's not only Matthew, it's everyone, even the women. Even the secretaries don't want to follow my instructions. I may have to replace them all, though I hate to do it." I glanced at my watch. "I'll have to be taking my leave, soon."
"Didn't you say Malcolm's nurse leaves at eight, on weekdays?"
"That's right. But I'd like to have a word with her before that." I said, idly picking up a nearby book, Elizabeth Page's lengthy historical novel. "I never did get around to reading this."
"Take it, if you think you'll like it. I can never make time to finish it."
"It might be a suitable diversion to get me through Christmas." I tucked the book into my handbag.
"Speaking of Christmas," she said, crossing to a cabinet in the short hallway between the parlor and kitchen, from which she retrieved a folded packet.
"If I am to have it ready for the party in time, you'll need to come in and confer with me about your dress."
"A dress?"
"I have the most gorgeous green fabric, similar to this. It will look marvelous on you." she always was given to exaggeration of this sort.
Frequently now, I tended toward plainness and solid colors in my everyday dress, finding it best reflected my state of mind, but formal attire was another matter, and I examined the fabric, trying to disguise my lack of interest. I would not have need of such a dress for a long while, yet.
"I don't know, Millicent."
Impulsively, she turned and hugged me.
"I'm so sorry, Olivia. You've had a difficult year."
"Too many of them."
I reached home and found Malcolm and John reading together, still an uncommon enough sight to surprise me, but I was pleased. They were in the north salon-a smaller and warmer place to be in the middle of winter. When I joined them, John's manner took on the attitude of one giving a kind of performance, projecting as if not two, but dozens of listeners surrounded him.
"Some people," intoned John, "eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
As time went on, these sessions studying with John Amos became more frequent, more necessary. I was grateful to him for bringing us this little solace,
this great hope. In many ways, John strengthened our bond and renewed us during a very sad time. O God, I thought, Thou hast rejected us. Thou hast broken us; Thou hast been angry; O, restore us. And He was restoring us, slowly-so slowly that some days, I wondered if we were making any progress at all, but John always reassured me that we were.
Losing Mal and Joel weakened Malcolm, and his failing health continued the process. He had lost a lot of weight while in the hospital. It took Malcolm a long time to regain coordination and strength; his hand had to be guided so that he could feed himself, and when he was able to attempt walking again,
he leaned on a cane for support. He tired easily, so that walking was not frequently an option, and he was often impatient with his own clumsy efforts.
He could not, now, even climb the stairs unaided, so we had made over my small office beyond the library into a room for him.
I tried to banish negativity, but frequently, I thought that this was who Malcolm should have been in twenty years, not now. That quality which had made Malcolm larger than life-even to me, at times-was gone, along with his dignity and his youth, gone forever. He was only middle-aged, but in an instant,
he had been made old-we both had been made old, our middle years stolen.
That Corinne and Christopher should be living happily somewhere, while we suffered was almost more than I could bear. The injustice of it embittered me toward the two of them, in the same way I'd once felt toward Malcolm, and it changed me, too. I had the feeling that if I could resent Malcolm I would once again know who I was, but even the old grudges were weakening.
We were both changing. At times it disturbed me, and I grasped at the remnants of the person I'd been before so much tragedy had altered my outlook and my loyalties. Sometimes,
I would mentally list my grievances against Malcolm, but finally had to acknowledge to myself that they were often as much about what I had withheld from him as about all he had not given me, and I found I could no longer feel as strongly slighted as I once had.
But how could I have failed to recognize the nascent closeness between Christopher and Corinne, and what it meant? How was it possible that John Amos had guessed-a man who could not know what such a relationship was? John Amos viewed-with thinly concealed disdain-all romantic ties as anathema to his ascetic ideals, as though such worldly desires were beneath him. I could understand this. I agreed with John Amos, to some degree. I had been brought up on Puritanical sensibilities and morals, and I could never quite shake the nagging belief that lustful thoughts and feelings were sinful, although mine were confined to their rightful place.
John Amos had, indirectly, been reinforcing this idea, though not specifically, and not to me. John's comments were just vague enough not to be offensive,
and always they were directed to a contumaciously unrepentant Malcolm. Slowly, however, over the course of the last three years, John had been chipping away at Malcolm's arrogant attitude. I felt a strange, fleeting sadness about this, though it was for the best; it was for the preservation of his soul.
With this in mind, perhaps, I went into the Swan Room one day, intending to make it my final visit there, to resolutely pack away all of our confusion.
I intended to pack away all that had belonged to Malcolm's mother, and have it taken to the attic, or disposed of in some other way. It hardly mattered now-no one but Mrs. Tethering ever entered this room-but somehow, it seemed necessary to tie up this loose end. It was a task long delayed, and accomplished too late to matter. But I found I couldn't bring myself to handle Corinne's and Alicia's things, as though they had the power to contaminate me.
I perched on the stool by the vanity table, and looked about, wondering what precisely was the sinful hold this room had over us all. In the mirror's depths I only saw a reflection of my younger self, coming into this room several times during those first months, before Mal was born, trying to expunge my memory of that first day's unpleasantness, trying to understand what had gone wrong so early in my marriage. I didn't want to associate this room with that day forever; I was unable to cleanse my memory of it completely. I could not permanently lock up this room and wish it away, but I had eventually found a way to allow the dark memory to loosen its grip on me. My son had probably been conceived that afternoon. It had been foolish superstition, but I couldn't help worrying that Corinne's insalubrious shadow would follow him as well.
The evil of this room had left its mark on us again, on our daughter, and there was no way to relegate it to the past. Was I responsible in some minor way?
I should have defied Malcolm and insisted that this horrid room be redecorated altogether.
"That wouldn't have been a bad idea." Millicent said when I showed her the Swan Room some months later. "It would have been suitable for a frivolous young girl, but not for an older woman, surely."
"Oh no, Malcolm's mother did not grow old here. In fact, she only lived at Foxworth for six years. She was just eighteen when she married Garland."
Millicent did not ask questions, perhaps assuming that, as many women did until recent decades, Malcolm's mother had died in childbirth. The scandal of Garland's first wife running off with another man was an old one, and Foxworth history was not likely to be of much interest, so I did not speak of it.
"I've only ever seen one photograph of her, and it's long since been lost. She was quite pretty, from what I can recall of an old picture. This was her room,
and then Alicia's."
"Its shades of color don't quite meld together, in my opinion. I can't believe anyone thought this a good idea! It is hideously ugly-too pink." said Millicent.
Yes, it was an ugly room; why hadn't I seen that before? She didn't know about the secrets of this room and what it meant to me, and still, she had intuited right away that it wasn't a place of beauty.
"You can take any of these things-anything you think you can use."
"I've never seen the like." she said, opening the closets. "Molly would love to play dress up with all of this finery."
As she chose what she wanted, I became absorbed in my own thoughts. I lost track of time conscious of the surreal sensation which came over me when I was alone here. Time ceased to have meaning in the silence of the Swan Room, but it was not a restful silence.
I remembered how Malcolm spoke of his mother and women like her with excessive loathing. And then, I recalled how he had said, with as much tenderness as I'd ever known him to express toward me in those first days: "They are exactly what you are not."
On that long ago afternoon, Malcolm had insisted that the Swan Room was not our house, that it had nothing to do with our house. If only that had been true!
I believe he had good intentions in the beginning, but his mother's influence was too strong.
If only I'd been strong enough for the both of us-if only I'd insisted we leave Foxworth Hall once Garland brought Alicia to live here! Now and then, I speculated about how different life might have been if Malcolm and I had made a home of our own-one not filled with Foxworth relics, a house which was entirely ours, rather than this inheritance of ghosts and traditions.
It was, of course, absurd to long for what had never been more than a pleasant daydream, but the regret of not having pursued that fresh start deeply saddened me sometimes. Would a clean slate have made a difference for us? I believe it would have, and in thinking this, I came closest to understanding that Corinne's leaving was for the best, and that she had to go, whether with Christopher or without him. Malcolm could never be made to understand this.
If we had moved out, then Christopher most likely wouldn't have been part of our lives, and despite the events of last summer, I had moments of gratitude for the happiness he'd brought. We would have been just as alone with our memories. Empty rooms are the same anywhere-in Foxworth Hall, or some other place.
It occurred to me for the first time, that my disgust over Corinne and Christopher's relationship probably stemmed partly from my own unfortunate beginning in this house. Why did everything lead back to the Swan Room, Corinne,
and a tendency toward the impure and depraved, with love named as the justification for such sin?
Love-I was beginning to have an aversion to the very word! If that was what love made of people, I was glad not to be under its influence. I had rarely seen any favorable results of love. It made people unforgivably selfish, and careless of the welfare of others. This was a belief Malcolm and I shared.
We had both been harmed by love, and if love did exist in any form between us, it must necessarily be called by other names-duty, commitment, constancy,
perhaps.
But how had this disastrous turn of events happened? Where had I failed in Corinne's upbringing? What moral standards had I not imparted to her? Strangely,
Malcolm did not seem to blame me. He had no energy left for any but self blame. I thought of Corinne often, going over and over the past three years, searching for answers.
It was impossible for me to understand what had possessed her to act as she had done. Malcolm and I-in two weeks' time-passed through the entire gamut of love's range, from our first meeting to the ultimate act of union. No need for words, or lengthy consideration or delay. What did I know of love? What did I know of unsanctioned caresses, of kisses that paved the way to the forbidden? Passion's temptation must be very strong when coupled with love, and Corinne believed she was in love. But she was only eighteen! She should know nothing of that sort of temptation. Girls of Corinne's generation knew so much more than we had at the same age, Millicent often said. The thought made me shudder, made me feel the magnitude of my failure as Corinne's mother.
Sometimes, waking in the small hours of the morning-especially on holidays when I missed her most, I tried to imagine Corinne, my daughter-not the stranger who had left us. I found her silver bangle bracelet in the Swan Room, and it made me sick to think how easily she'd left behind this last gift Joel had sent her. At first, it upset me that she cared so little, but then I realized she had forgotten it in the bustle of their forced departure. Now she would not have even this inexpensive trinket to remember him by. Was it so easy for her to forget us, and to forget her brothers?
Malcolm's decision was meant to be final, but I did not know how I might feel if we heard from Corinne. I expected to receive a letter or phone call any day-dreaded and hoped for it, but December came, her birthday passed, and there was no communication.
I wondered who she was, once she lived away from us. I tried to imagine what kind of life she was forming for herself; I envisioned a modest, modern house decorated with a bricolage of elegant cast-offs. Corinne-unlike Joel-had not left this house with a trust fund to fall back upon. She would have to grow up quickly. She would have to make do with less than she'd ever had, with the restrictions of wartime rationing.
What Christopher could not provide would soon cause problems between them... or would it? Against all of the odds, would the two of them be successful and happy? I could not see them returning to Foxworth Hall, nor could I see myself visiting them, even after I knew their whereabouts in Pennsylvania.
Here my daydreams collided with reality. God would seek them out where we could not, and their sin would not be forgotten, even if I weakened.
I upbraided myself for allowing my thoughts to wander to Corinne at all. Any sympathy I harbored for her would undermine my faith, and I could not take that risk. I had to stop remembering what she had meant to me, so these moments of softer contemplation were lost in the greater bitterness that solidified with time.
Millicent came to the house unexpectedly on Christmas Eve, bringing a pumpkin pie and the holiday cheer we lacked. The thoughtfulness of the simple gesture meant much to me. John was away on the week's vacation I insisted he take, so that first Christmas without Corinne was a day which would have passed by uncelebrated, if not for Millicent. She attended church with us that night, and seemed as affected by the music and service as I was. Even Malcolm was in better spirits by the time we returned home, and I was grateful that she'd been more successful than I at drawing him out of his brooding state. We were generously invited to Christmas dinner the next day.
"I suppose you can't face the family crowd?" asked Malcolm, after Millicent left us. The direct question surprised me.
"No, I don't think I can." I said truthfully. "And anyway, it would probably be too much for you."
"Well, you can call tomorrow and tell her that."
"They are nice people." I said, though I was glad to have an excuse not to go. "It will probably be the grandchildren, Millicent's daughter, as well as her mother."
"We will not be an afterthought to someone else's family." he said, with more vehemence than the situation warranted.
"Aren't you feeling well? Are you in any pain?" I asked, automatically reaching for the nitroglycerin tablets. I refilled a carafe of water, and placed it within easy reach on his bedside table.
"Just put the radio on, will you? I want to hear the news."
Millicent spent more time with me at Foxworth Hall than she had ever done. Malcolm never quite warmed to her, but he grew to enjoy Molly's visits, for Millicent brought her along occasionally, once Caroline's time was taken up with the new baby. The little girl had little use for Malcolm, but he watched her with a wistful gaze I could only conclude was the result of his thinking of Corinne-of seeing a memory of her childhood sunniness in Molly, and it brought him out of his dour moods for a time.
Malcolm and I often sat together into the late hours of the night, reading, sometimes talking, but never about the past. We lived in the present, and life did settle into new routines over the following few years. I began to work from home almost exclusively, which turned out to be a better arrangement. There were gradual improvements in Malcolm's health, though he complained a good deal, before subsiding into resignation about his helplessness. His ill-temper wasn't new, of course, but now it was another symptom of his own internal struggle.
Malcolm, who preferred to sleep with a window open in almost any type of weather, often complained that the little room beyond the library was draughty.
The food wasn't prepared to his liking, and he blamed the new cook rather than the bland, altered diet his doctors recommended. The man hired to paint the house one summer was doing a poor job, according to Malcolm, and over charging us. I had made a mistake in hiring an unqualified nurse once... There was no end to what he could find to complain about, and it usually came down to what he perceived as my poor management. The encouragement and help I could offer was limited. He sensed when I was tired, and grew irascible if he thought he was being neglected.
By spring, when Malcolm's depression hadn't lifted nearly a year after his heart attack, something had to be done. I wheeled him out onto the terrace, into the morning sunshine.
"I want to be taken back inside." he said.
"First, I want you to look around, Malcolm. This is all yours. You built it into something beyond anything Garland, or any of your relatives could have dreamt." I began.
He looked at me-through me, his eyes devoid of expression, and of interest.
"You might have lost everything in '29. So many did; think of the Camdens, the Pattersons. It's because of your advice that others didn't make the same mistakes, and some survived. It's because of you that we are still here today."
"What does that matter? If we don't lose it after this, it's because of you." he said, and this was such an exaggeration that it could be taken for nothing but a compliment. There was a silence, heavy with the weight of all that might have been said but wasn't, then he went on: "And I don't know what it means.
I don't know what it's all for, Olivia."
"For you," I said, then, after a pause, "because you care about it."
"I did."
"You will care about it again."
"I wouldn't be so certain."
"I am certain that the man I married would not be conquered by this." I said, my hand resting on his shoulder.
"I am not that man now, Olivia." he said quietly.
For a few moments, a distant lawn mower and the rustle of leaves overhead were the only sounds, as I absorbed this, and wondered what I could possibly say that might make some difference to him.
"But you are essentially the same, Malcolm. You have never been weak, and you aren't now."
"You didn't bargain on this, did you?"
He looked up then, and his blue-frost eyes met mine. There was more life in them than I'd seen since his heart attack. If not for that brief spark of will which had once driven him, I would not have continued to speak; I would have given in to the defeat he seemed close to accepting.
"You'll be well and strong again soon. This is temporary." I said firmly. It was just one of a chain of like lies that linked together the days through the coming years. Malcolm knew it was untrue just as well as I did, but we kept up the pretense of believing the fiction.
"And until then," I continued, bringing out his manuscript, "I found this. Malcolm, I think you ought to finish it before it becomes dated. There is valuable information here."
He took the sheaf of papers reluctantly, but soon he was absorbed, his interest engaged. It was a small step, but it was progress, and looking out into the sunlight that blanketed my garden, I felt a slow, quiet contentment-not joy, not happiness, never that-but a deep satisfaction in my well-ordered life.
Year by year, we became more isolated, and less involved in life as it had formerly been. Eventually, telephone calls and social invitations all but ceased,
once it was apparent that Malcolm's full health would not be restored. Were we uninterested? Yes, that is true to some degree, but I have wondered since if we were also becoming afraid, and distrustful of the world outside.
Malcolm was in a weakened state, and I, too, felt drawn down, compelled to fade into the gray space that life had become. The blandness of our days became the ordinary state of our existence, but I was free, excused, not missed at gatherings and parties. I could spend days as I chose. I could follow radio serials, tempt my appetite with delicacies which Malcolm could no longer enjoy. I spent entire afternoons working in the gardens. The south wing became my own roomy sanctuary, shared with no one. I redecorated the common rooms twice in three years, but changes of any kind seemed pointless now when our rooms and our lives were to be vacant. We were no longer young, we had turned against our daughter, and the world had no use for us.