The grayness of mid November had spread properly over Kingsport, which was not brightened by the occasional light snow. Leafless trees stretched their branches towards the lead gray, bullet gray sky. Headlines of the newspapers announced in strident capitals: Georges Clemencau was elected Prime Minister of France for the second time. British troops are in Jaffa. General Maude, who led the Mesopotamian campaign, has passed away, he is succeeded in his post by General Marshall, an able man of British sensibilities. Di, wearily looked at the headlines, as she was waiting for the tram to pass the crossing. Di slipped, unnoticed, into a side street, and along a winding route ended up at the doorway of Helene's cafe.
With her other hand, she gently opened the door, the hoarse-throated bell tinkling above the door, as always. Standing in the darkened doorway, by the clothes racks, Di noticed two things, firstly, that Winnie was performing, as she was lounging effortlessly next to battered piano, secondly, that Colin, accompanied her in a way that seemed professional, but very stiff. In the dim, shabby, dusty spotlight, Winnie seemed to sparkle, even here.
Glancing past Winnie, Di saw Madeleine and Isabelle sitting at the familiar side table, a half-empty tea tray in front of them. Carefully, Di went around the small tables along the wall of the cafe so as not to disturb the show and sat down on an empty table not far from Madeleine´s table by chance. Isabelle, grinned at Di, and soon a shadow fell on her the table, and Di could smell Helene's fresh, light orange blossom perfume as she brought a small green glazed teapot full of Di's favorite tea. Nibbling a piece of crumbly cinnamon bisquit, Di settled into listening, the tenderness of Winnie's voice and her performance, as she sang something about wishes and fairytales, that little haunting rasp, brought light tears to Di's eyes, again, as the set wound slowly into cloisure, cascade of notes shimmering clearly into silence.
Afterwards, as Winnie sat down at Madeleine and Isabelle's table, Di walked up to them and said in her best teasing Blythe style, "I think a few people here today may have fallen in love with you today, Winnie, as you are looking splendidly seasonal with that deep garnet red dress of yours, as it is soon Christmas-season, but there was not one christmas-carol, in the program, or were there and I happened to miss them?"
Isabelle laughed brightly and remarked in undertone "If you only knew." Winnie's voice was gently impish as she replied, "My dear lamb, do not talk utter nonsense. Instead have some more tea, and please, do stop looming so. I get a slight cramp in my neck when I have to look up." Di, noticed that Madeleine seemed steady and calm, as always, but a little subdued, for some reason as the conversation started between them again.
Isabelle gently ribbed, Madeleine, the topic somehow related to cacti, how Madeleine had almost run into one, even though it had been in full view next to the couch, on the windowsill. Madeleine countered, softly, "Unlike you, I'm not used to sharing my living space with spiky plants, so naturally I'm careful." Winnie, said, "Careful is one word for what you were, if memory serves, but others come to mind. I blame it on the chianti, completely." Isabelle leaned back nonchalantly in her chair, so that her heels scraped the worn wooden floor, as she said, " Well, you can't always worry Maddie, that is simply uncontenable, it was extremely pleasant to see you having fun for once, in extremely captivating lovely company, and of course, I'm also partly referring to myself."
Curious, Di glanced at Madeleine, who had a slightly tired smile on her face, and she looked like Gertrude Oliver had after one of her turns when the low pressure had given her a shocking migraine. Madeleine nodded, lightly, and said quietly, in a low voice, "Waiting is just so painful, and haunting, but it is good to know that Venice, it still stands."
As if those words had been a signal Winnie rose gracefully and planted a soft kiss on Madeleine's cheek and crept over to the piano, flipping through the notes furiously. With interest, Di noticed how Colin, that colorless pianist, looked in Winnie's direction with his heart in his eyes, or so it seemed, before soft, fatal notes broke through the soft light conversation that prevailed among the few customers who had remained in the café, as Winnie rendered, a song the likes of which Di had never heard before. It was melancholic nostalgic, full of pent-up sadness, disappointment and anger, but also burning love, with cutting, heart-rendering emotion that literally burst forth.
Time heals everything
Tuesday, Thursday
Time heals everything
April, August
If I'm patient the break will mend
And one fine morning the hurt will end
So make the moments fly
Autumn, winter
I'll forget you by
Next year, some year
Although it's hell that I'm going through
Some Tuesday, Thursday, April, August Autumn,
winter, next year, some year
Time heals everything, time heals everything
But loving you
as she listened Di noticed that her thoughts revolved around Alice - because that song, its refrain perfectly described her current state of being, as those final painfully earnest, soaring notes flew. Di looked up as Madeleine next to her was frozen, like a statue of salt. She met Isabelle's fixed attentive gaze, which also lingered on Madeleine´s shadowy features. Fierce applause shook the floor, Di noticed how under the cover of noise, Isabelle asked something from Madeleine. Of course, it was natural to be concerned about Venice, although that city still seemed to be in danger, but perhaps not as much as before.
Di could almost feel Walter's soft whispering voice in her ear, saying, "Oh, Doss, Venice, one day, we will both walk the banks of the Arsenale, and dip our toes in the water of the Lido, and walk, as so many before us, but so have I thought of Jerusalem. Do you remember what Tasso writes in his immortal verses:
Heavenly Muse, that not with fading bays
Deckest thy brow by the Heliconian spring,
But sittest crowned with stars' immortal rays
In Heaven, where legions of bright Angels sing;
Inspire life in my wit, my thoughts upraise,
My verse ennoble, and Forgive the thing,
If fictions light I mix with truth divine,
And fill these lines with other praise than thine.
Thither thou knowest the world is best inclined
Where luring Parnassus most his sweet imparts
And truth conveyed in verse of gentle kind
To read perhaps will move the dullest hearts:
So we, if children young diseased we find,
Anoint with sweets the vessel's foremost parts
To make them taste the potions sharp we give;
They drink deceived, and so deceived, they live.
My mind, Time's enemy, Oblivion's foe,
Disposer true of each Noteworthy thing,
Oh, let thy virtue might avail me so,
That I each Troop and Captain great may sing,
That in this Glorious war did famous grow,
Forgot till now by Time's Evil handling:
This work, derived from my Treasures dear,
Let all times listen, never age outwear.
Walter had quoted softly, as he had been leaning against an vibrantly leafy old grandfather of an oak tree. There had been lecture notes all around him, in colored notebooks. Their first Redmond term, had glowed around them, and the playful squirrels had run on the lawn in circles, there had been scent of Apples in the wind. And Di had thrown his brother´s direction a blade of grass and replied, "Clastle´s in the Air, dearest brother of mine, as long as we get through this first." Walter had wiped the grass with his long-fingered and ink-stained hand and said quietly, half grimacing, "Doss, Doss, you're always so sensible." Then he had recited Blake, like it had been a prayer.
Pity would be no more,
If we did not make somebody Poor:
And Mercy no more could be,
If all were as happy as we;
And mutual fear brings peace;
Till the selfish loves increase.
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.
And seeing those inkstains raised a small thrill in her heart, because surely if he was writing again, all was soon well, or as well as they could be. With a start, Di woke up from her memories, the sweet pain of which didn't hurt so much anymore, maybe she was numb to it. Her attention suddenly sharpened, for Winnie had stopped singing, and at the same moment the door to the cafe opened, and fresh rain air blew in.
A new customer arrived, the woman stepped from the shadows into the light. Di, let out a choked gasp, for Helene´s cafe was perhaps the last place in the world where Di expected to meet Christine Stuart Dawson. Di, found her hands shaking as she looked carefully at the woman who had trampled all over her happiness. Christine Stuart Dawson seemed to be scanning the cafe, as if looking for faults, and then her gaze fell on Winnie, and that gaze sharpened, just a touch, as they locked eyes, for one moment. Di, knew that her skin was tingling, someone let out another gasp, maybe it was Isabelle. Tea and coffee mugs clinked softly, along with cakeplates, no one seemed to notice that stilled, almost frozen tableau near the piano.
Then, to Di's surprise, Christine Stuart Dawson walked past Winnie, to the counter, where Helene was wrangling with a few customers. Then Christine's eyes fell on Di's and a small mocking twinkle lit up in her damson colored eyes, and gracefully she walked over to their table, in effortless socialite style. "I don't usually go to places like this at all. This cafe is like a little hole in the wall, full of rustic charm, but the whispers are going around Kingsport, so when I had the chance I came to check if the tea and cakes are really as delicious as they say, it is so rarely so. This place is eminently fit for librarians, and Redmond co-eds, and here you are, Miss Blythe, and Miss Dobson, if not Bluenoses." Winnie had arrived, and in her hand was her everlasting glass of water, with slight scent of juniper-berries in it. Christine's smile widened as she said with a side long glance to Winnie, "And lovely thespians too."
Thight, strained silence fell, among them as Christine moved to her own table, where something delicate and ethereal-looking, a pastry, was laid out. Di was almost smothered by conflicting emotions, for she wanted, how she wanted to storm at that table and scratch that alabaster skin, until deep blood scratches, would shine, but her Shirley pride held her still. Suddenly Di felt Madeleine sigh as if relieved, as Christine sailed across the café, with a regal nod to Helene, and out of sight, into the darkening night of Kingsport.
Di, half heard Isabelle say, in a delicate musing way, "Interesting encounter. Winnie, are you just going to look at that gin, or maybe drink it at some point this year?" Di, forced herself to ask, "Winnie, so you know the one who was here?"
Sharp dark eyes locked green-gray eyes, as Winnie brushed the hair that had fallen off her forehead with an irritated gesture, as she replied in a low voice, " At some point you realize that in life there are encounters that may or may not last, but they leave a mark in one way or another. Although it seems you already know that, intimately. But to answer your question, yes, I do, I did, years ago."
Di, nodded slowly.
On the other side of the table, Isabelle had fallen silent, and there was something appraising in that silence, but Di couldn't tell who that appraisal was aimed at, or why. Madeline, in her deft way broke silence as she smiled and said softly, "Di, can you maybe play us something? Colin is good in his own way, but if I had to choose, I'd rather listen to you." And soon the whole cafe echoed with a ragged, rousing song, as Di played old crowd favorite, Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag.
Sometime later at Primrose Hollow, Di casually closed volume of Torque Tasso on the ornamental side desk in Primrose Hollow that someone, Nan most likely, had left there, in that haphazard pile there were also run of the mill Byron, Shelley and blue Keats, along with smattering of Austen and Henry James. Slowly the wall clock ticked, and suddenly that small repeating sound seemed almost insurmountable.
At that juncture the door opened and Nan, with Alice, at her heels arrived, home. They were loaded with post-packages, and there were very becoming flush on Alice´s features, due to cold air, that Di tried to ignore, most unsuccefully. Out of breath, Nan placed her rose red neckerchief on the hanger and said, "The Head-Matron is almost too efficient. It would be interesting if she and Mrs. Marshall Elliot would cross paths, who would win?"
Alice said quietly as she walked into the kitchen, "I don't know Mrs. Marshall Elliot very well, but I think she would, if not with seniority." Nan, looked cautiously in Di's direction and remarked, "I was expecting you at the Red Cross Sewing Club tonight, but I only got Alice and a few of the girls from our course with me. We did get our qouta sewn for the week, though. By the way, it just so happens that Sue Ridley's accommodation for upcoming spring term has fallen flat, or so her friend said. And you get along well with her, as she has been with you in Milne's courses? She has some talent with a pen, and watercolors, I seem to remember. And I thought that Faith's room was free ." Di, said quietly, "You rather thought it would solve other things. Don't be so transparent Nanlet. Faith's room is Faith's, now and always. How can you imagine it would be given to anyone else. We will manage, somehow."
In the kitchen, Alice leaned against the cupboard, exhausted, her fingers felt rough from hours of meticulous sewing, and she still half felt the threads slipping between her fingers, back and forth, as the embroidered flowers were slowly completed on a thin muslin sheet. Nan had been chatting very enthusiastically with doe-eyed Sue Ridley. A light, airy laughter had sometimes glowed in that lighted hall, which was as always full of baskets and piles of towering sheets, and official forms.
Alice carried the tea tray into the living room, and found that Nan had gone upstairs, with her post-haul. Only Di was there, watching the flames burn brightly, in the fireplace, and she seemed to be humming quietly. Cautiously Alice said, "Was it a rough day, at your Redmond lectures? After mine, Professor Milne had another idea, for soon upcoming Christmas-season, that I´m quite keen on. Did anything special happen to you?"
Di, straightened her posture extremely slowly. Alice felt a shiver run down her spine as Di said, "I've tried to give you and your grief space. I think I've succeeded, at least somehow. In the last few days I've found myself reflecting on things I never used to. Before, my life was divided into absolutes, friendship or infatuation, and or hate, and all these I have felt towards you in the last weeks, and which I still feel. But, the fact that we still share this common space, and we have to communicate and live together, but still separate, it's unsustainable, for me. I'm so right now scattered that I will definitely fail in my upcoming finals. So I propose a kind of compromise, which would perhaps be temporary." Alice, breathed quietly, as she said seriously, "So you want me to move out, is that what you're thinking, or planning perhaps?" Sap filled wood popped in the fireplace. Di, was silent and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she nodded lightly.
Day later in the evening hours, Di passed the bathroom, the door of which was slightly ajar, she glanced inside. It was Alice, she had clearly just washed her hair. She leaned against the tub, wrapped in faint bluish-gray silk, the softness of which Di remembered too clearly under her fingers, along with that bliss that had very often followed. Alice straightened her shoulders, and shifted her weight, and began to sing, lowly, something that wasn't a Czech at least, but had the soft tune of a folksong, for a few moments the music glowed in the bathroom, as the acoustics of the place multiplied it, and then, Alice, sighed quietly, and Di no longer knew why, and for what reason, whether it was for musical pleasure or for some other reason.
Di stood rooted to the spot until the smell of burnt bitter stearin filled the bathroom as two burnt out candles went out on a small shelf built into the wall. Slowly, with the utmost care, Di crept away, as Mahler's notes filled the room.
In their room, Nan, glanced questioningly at Di as she said, "You did get letters from home, one is from Spider at least. It's funny that she has the best handwriting of all of us." Di, tore open the letter, the envelope of which was written in Mumsy's clear hand.
October 1917 Ingelside
My darling lass. Your last letter was a bit worrying my dear. How I wish you could open your heart to me like your twin sometimes does but it's never been your way. Instead, you write your feelings - all of them in your stories, like I used to.
Without knowing the details, I can only say that all friendships have different shifts and drifts. I hope you are honest, but not too. Namely, there are certain emotions with which you have to be careful, and with them you have to wait for the right moment and time.
The thought that someone has hurt my child is unbearable, but growing pains and pain are part of youth, because how else would you ripen in the sun of life, like peaches in the Mediterranean sunshine?
One more piece of advice, if I may give it, which I fondly remember my Patty's place era. Did you know that sometimes we fought like cats in a sack, as there are always internal alliances among flatmates, but somehow harmony was always found, eventually.
After a while, Ingelside will be full again and the Christmas silence will fill the house and maybe we will spend time with the Merediths, together.
With all my love, Anne
The corridors of Gardiner Hall were cool and shadowy. Dorian softly streightened the sleeve of petrol blue cardigan that Di had knitted for him as an early Christmas present as he laboriously, with aching legs, walked towards his destination. Dorian carefully knocked on the blue parlor door, and soon he heard Papa's voice, saying, "Come in!"
Amazed, Dorian glanced at the tea set on the low shiny lion-legged table, for never, ever before had any guest been allowed to drink from Grandmother Constance's heirloom teacups, which were of extremely thin, almost translucent porcelain, with graceful golden vines and a pale mauve hue.
Papa was leaning against small settee, looking neat as ever, but by the window looking out on the grounds was an unknown dark-haired woman, wrapped in a pale purple embroidered scarf, and a narrow dark skirt, the hue was for mourning. When she turned, Dorian blinked, for she looked like Aunt Dorothy, but the small differences were clear. The woman's face was finer, and sharper, and the look of her dark eyes was weighty. She said in a low sonorous voice, with a foreign accent, blending her vowels. "Roy, you didn't mention how much your son resembles your late wife, that resemblance is remarkable, in places."
Dorian noticed that Royal gave the dark-haired woman a steady look and said curtly, "Yes."
In the translucent light from the lamps, the dark-haired woman smiled, tiredly.
Dorian poured himself some tea, and glanced at the dark-haired woman, who seemed as if she was expecting some kind of disaster to arrive at any moment, but only a small gilded clock from the 18th century ticked the hour mark on the great-great-great-grandfather's table. And the dark-toned paintings of past Gardiner generations, watched from their frames, as always.
Adeline entered in blue parlour with a small basket on her arm and said uncharacteristically cheerfully, for her, " Roy, I happened to meet Christine recently, oh few days ago now, while I was doing my errands, we had lunch. She was raving about a certain cafe, with peculiar intensity, even though we have more important things to do than sit in a cafe listening to some performer, when there is canvassing to be done. Sometimes dear Christine's perspective is completely skewed, I guess that's what artistry does."
Adeline sniffed, and continued pointedly, "I wondered why Thompson was carrying a small assortment of traveling trunks upstairs. But now it's clear. Final doom has fallen on us, we might as well open the doors of Gardiner Hall to all the people if we're going to house her here. What would our late uncle think of this, I wonder?"
Roy poured brandy into his glass and said sharply, "Adeline, my patience is wearing thin. You seem to have completely forgotten your politeness. Aren't you going to say hello?"
Adeline, smiled stiffly and turned without a word, and the clack of her French heels echoed for a moment in the corridor, until a deep silence fell again.
Roy, smiling wearily, raised his glass slightly ironically and said, "This time I have no ginger lozenges in my pocket, and the only tribunal was Adeline, but she's enough I think."
Those words sounded strangely familiar, like some story that had been told in this same room. Dorian frowned and looked at the dark-haired woman more closely, she looked familiar, but he just couldn't think of where he would have met her.
Roy, offered the woman a glass of cognac, and said formally softly, with a warm twinkle in his eyes, " I notice that I haven't introduced you anyway. I'm sorry, Dorian, this is my cousin, Claire, who has traveled here, across war-torn Venice. "
There was a crash and Dorian realized he had dropped Grandmother Constance's teacup on the floor, it had broken in two. On the table Kingsport Hearld, declaired, " Venice fights still. The British have achieved a significant victory at Cambrai, Western Front, with low cost at casualites, as tanks were victorious!"