CHAPTER 9

CHRISTMAS DAY came with its still magic. The hurrying and anticipation were over, and for a day the world rested and wondered.

By mute agreement neither Wimpole, Boothy nor I mentioned the previous evening. It was like an unpleasant dream, and it left in me a vague residue of disturbance. I tried to forget it, but it came back again and again like a shadow. I started at every footstep outside, expecting it to be Val.

“What’s the matter?” Boothy asked as I sat quietly under the tree, making a neat pile of the presents and tissue paper. “Are you longing for the excitement and intrigue of a necking party?” I glanced up at her, alarmed, and she grinned. “Oh, please, on bended knee, let me tell Wimpole. You don’t have to be there.”

“I don’t care,” I sighed. “Isabel isn’t supposed to know, that’s all.” I looked down at the six pairs of stockings she had given me. “Thank you, Boothy,” I said. “It was very nice of you to give me the stockings.”

“Oh, come off it,” Boothy snorted. “You know you wish I’d given you money instead.”

“No, really I don’t. And the books look wonderful.”

“I wish you’d stop being so polite, it makes me nervous,” and she went off singing “Deck the Halls” in a loud and cheerful voice. I wandered around, and found Wimpole in the kitchen basting the turkey.

“I’ll have several chores for you later on,” she said brightly. “I hope you’re feeling co-operative.”

“Anything at all,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”

She put down the spoon and looked at me anxiously. “Are you all right, dear?” she asked.

“Just because I’m being nice on Christmas Day, everybody thinks I’m sick,” I almost shouted.

“Not at all. It’s just that usually you don’t like to help and sometimes you forget your manners.” She smiled. “I don’t need you yet, so go get dressed and talk to old Professor Bean when he comes.”

By four, the bowl of eggnog was out (“Anyone who wants whiskey will have to come and ask for it,” Wimpole said firmly) and half a dozen people sat around the living room, talking quietly while carols played on the radio. Boothy’s canaries flew about the room, and our tree—looking frumpy and overdressed if you compared it to the Boyds’—shimmered in the fading light. Wimpole, in a blue satin dress, lit the candles, and Boothy’s restless face looked, for once, peaceful. Professor Bean told me more about the beauties of Scandinavia, adding:

“Though there are some aspects you’re too young to appreciate, my dear! Ha, ha!”

“You mean their morals are looser?” I asked, trying to sound as though I said that sort of thing all the time.

“Well, I suppose you could put it that way,” said the professor, glancing at me hastily. “Now, how about a nice glass of eggnog?”

I talked for a while to the Renfords, a kindly couple from New Canaan, who told me of the problems of their teen-age daughter and thought that I, being almost the same age, could throw some light on them. It seemed she was a chain-smoker; she wore far too much lipstick; she wore black leotards around the house, and she would have nothing to do with the community square dances given by the Teen-Agers’ Club. I had no idea why she did any of these things, but I could understand about the square-dancing. I suggested that perhaps she found things dull so she was pretending to be somebody else. The Renfords said they didn’t understand how she could find things dull, with such nice classmates and activities in the town, and why should she want to be someone else, anyway? I wandered over to Mrs. Branch, who exchanged recipes with her psychiatrist. She told me that was all over, and she was at last plumbing the depths of her personality.

“It’s so cleansing and purging,” she said. “I tell him everything—everything. It all stems from my early impressions of sex...” She stopped and put her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I forget you’re so young,” she said. “Everyone is so free and equal in this house, I hardly think of you as a child. Tell me, do you like school?”

“Not particularly,” I said.

“Oh, my dear, but these years are so important. You just don’t know! Some day you will long for them. You don’t realize that you are at a most vulnerable period.”

“I do,” I said. “I feel very vulnerable.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Branch. “Well, that’s good.”

Our neighbors, the Menloes, dropped in. Mr. Menloe edited a magazine called Bundle of Joy, for new mothers. Every time he saw me he said that whenever I had a baby, he’d give me a free subscription. The senator from up the street dropped in, sitting on the edge of a chair with his glass of eggnog and glancing at his watch. He liked to try and visit everyone on the street at Christmas, which meant he could only stay ten minutes at each house.

“When you’re old enough to vote,” he said to me jovially, “I’ll stay fifteen minutes.”

Since nothing was to happen till I was older, I wandered to the window. Wimpole stood there in one of her moments of contemplation, smiling over her company.

“Did you set a place for Val?” I asked.

“Yes, dear, but you mustn’t depend on her coming. Her family might have arranged...”

“Oh, Wimpole,” I said, mentioning it for the first time, “it was so awful last night!”

She hesitated, and looked at me. “It didn’t seem like a very congenial group, did it?” Sometimes Wimpole was so tactful I wanted to scream.

“It was ghastly,” I said. “Let’s admit it. Val is miserable. Wimpole, can’t we get her out of there?”

“She isn’t ours, dear. We have no power over her.”

“But we’re the only ones who care anything about her.”

“That doesn’t mean we can have her.” She put her arm around me. “Sometimes things are very unfair. All we can do for Val is love and encourage her, and hope she’ll come out all right.” She smiled. “Dinner is about ready, and you might help me now.”

 

The candles flickered lower, and the remains of a once-flaming plum pudding sat on the table, crumbled unrecognizably. The wine glasses had been emptied and filled, and the brandy glasses replaced them. I looked over at Renata Renford, who had drifted in just before dinner. She looked utterly bored, and she sighed periodically, as though the business of living was too much for her. Her parents looked at her occasionally with anxious smiles. Mrs. Branch was growing sentimental over her brandy, and saying what a beautiful thing Wimpole had created, here, in this house, and it was all because her soul was beautiful and clean. Boothy and Professor Bean were discussing what Boothy could deduct from her income tax. I sat next to a little Italian woman, who was one of Wimpole’s classmates in the electronics course. She snapped and bristled, and hurried through everything as though she had to rush back and slap together three radios. I was allowed a half glass of wine, which had a dry, papery taste. It made me feel mellow, however.

“Ah,” said Wimpole, raising her arms in a beneficent gesture of good will. “Here we are, an assorted group from all professions and walks of life, united over the Christmas board.”

Boothy snickered amiably and raised her glass, and Renata Renford sighed and gazed out of the window with mysterious longing.

“Oh, Avis, you are far too good,” said Mrs. Branch. “You make me feel so very simple and uncluttered.”

“I’m beginning to feel pretty cluttered with all this booze,” barked Professor Bean, whose face glowed redder and redder. He leaned over to Renata, who certainly was pretty, as well as I could tell for all her make-up. “Hey, young lady, what’s the matter? Got some Yalie on your mind?”

To my surprise, Renata blushed, and her parents changed the subject. So all Renata’s interesting problems stemmed from some boy? I sighed, and felt disillusioned. Are boys really that important? There had been such a dearth of males in my life that the question was honest enough, but it had a hollow ring. Of course they are, a voice from nowhere said. It’s just that you’ve been unfortunate enough not to know that they’re important. You’ll find out, Gilbert. You’ll find out. The voice had the curious wisdom of Val when she was in one of her oracular moods.

We started to drift upstairs to the living room, amid complimentary groans from the guests.

“It would be nice, dear, if you’d just stack the dishes,” Wimpole said at the stairs. “You don’t have to wash them, Florida comes tomorrow.”

“Oh, let me help,” said Mrs. Branch enthusiastically. “I just feel I must express my gratitude for all this in some small way. Such tasks are good for me, Dr. D’Anvilliers says so.”

She seized a dishcloth and whisked around, after putting on one of Wimpole’s frilly aprons. I started to throw away the turkey carcass, then remembered Boothy’s pea soup, and left it in the pot, as a hint.

“Oh, my dear, you are being brought up in the right way,” sighed Mrs. Branch, putting things away in the wrong places. “I only wish I had had your opportunities. I was brought up by strict uncompromising parents in a dreadful town in Minnesota. I was frustrated from the moment I was conceived. When I came to New York I went mad, simply mad, and that’s why I am the way I am now.” She sighed. “Here you see the greatness of life from the moment you are pushed out in your stroller. You identify yourself with life forces and great movements. You grow strong...”

“Mrs. Branch,” I said thoughtfully, still feeling mellow, “what do you think about men? I don’t know any.”

She put down the gravy boat with a slight plop. “My dear, I am absolutely the last person to tell you about men. I am terribly confused in my attitude to them.”

“Well, why are they so confusing?”

She looked at me, a rather wistful smile on her small bird-like face. “I wouldn’t think of telling you,” she said softly, “because the most interesting part of your life will be finding out.” She wouldn’t say any more, but kept watching me with a little half smile, and I decided that Mrs. Branch was really rather nice and I felt sorry for her. It seemed that men were her undoing, and I told myself firmly that they should certainly never be mine. But why, I wondered, do I keep thinking about them?

There was a timid knock at the door. Without saying anything, I put down the dishtowel and walked into the hall. Val’s face was peering through the glass, her hair covered with snow. She didn’t smile, but just stared. I opened the door.

“Gilbert, I’ve got to talk...” she began hurriedly.

I poked her and pointed toward the kitchen, and then Mrs. Branch appeared at the door, polishing a wine glass.

“Why, who is this poor little thing?” exclaimed Mrs. Branch. “She looks like a snowman. Come in, child, into this beautiful, clean house.”

“This is Mrs. Branch,” I said hurriedly, wondering how I could get rid of her. “This is Val Boyd.”

“How do you do,” Val muttered, and looked at me wretchedly.

“Mrs. Branch,” I said, “I don’t think Val feels very well. I wish you wouldn’t mention her being here when you go upstairs. She gets...sort of attacks, and she just has to lie down on the floor for a while till they go away.”

“On the floor! Oh, Dr. D’Anvilliers says it’s a recognized form of therapy. I take it her attacks are...physical, or are they psychosomatic?”

“Physical,” Val said firmly. “I have a prison knee.”

“Prison!” She put down the wine glass and came over to scrutinize Val. “Oh, my, what a noble forehead you have, child. Why, it’s wonderful. I’d like to sketch it.”

“Mrs. Branch,” I said, trying again, “please don’t feel you have to help any more. You’ve done everything that needs to be done. Please go up and have some brandy, and I’ll just stay with Val a minute till she feels better.”

“Of course, dear. I wouldn’t think of upsetting the routine of your beautiful home.” I almost laughed, but she meant it. “I’ll just skip along. Do bring this lovely child up, when she feels better.”

“Sure,” I said, and Mrs. Branch handed me the apron and trotted up the steps. The hall was quiet, and Val looked at me.

“Do you have any food?” she asked. I led her to the turkey carcass, and she pulled up a stool and began to pick at it. I didn’t say anything. She sat there chewing and pulling bits of meat off the turkey. Then all of a sudden she pushed the turkey away, and leaned her face on her arms and began to cry.

“Oh, Val, what’s the matter?” I asked miserably, trying to comfort her. “What’s happened to you?”

She said nothing; she couldn’t. She sobbed and sobbed, as though she had been wanting to for a long time, but just hadn’t been able to find the time or place. I stood beside her and waited. Finally she began to get control of herself. The sobs started to die away, and she said, “I haven’t done that in a long time.” She looked up. “I’m sorry. I’m spoiling your Christmas. Merry Christmas.”

Just when I loved her most, she was most exasperating.

“Merry Christmas! Oh, same to you.” Her face was a curious mask of unhappy pride. She looked at me for a long time, then sighed.

“I’m not even sure what I want to tell you,” she said. “I’m so mixed up. And you always have that you-could-knock-me-down-with-a-feather expression.”

“If you’re afraid of shocking me,” I said grimly, “I get tougher and tougher every day. Nothing bothers me anymore, absolutely nothing.”

She grinned. “Who’s upstairs?” she asked. I told her. “What’s with Mrs. Branch?”

“She has a psychiatrist,” I said.

“She’s kind of carried away, isn’t she?”

“She thinks Wimpole’s soul is beautiful and clean.”

She pulled the turkey back and started at it again. “Gilbert, all sorts of queer things have been going on.”

“So I gathered.”

She turned around on her stool, and to my surprise, pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “Don’t tell,” she said. “Well, you know I’ve been going out all the time with my parents, to 21 and places.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve met all sorts of people. Isabel and Arthur know everybody. In fact, I’ve hardly seen them alone since they’ve been here. They start out nobly enough, but before we even get where we’re going, somehow we’ve picked up everybody and his little brother.”

“Nice people?” I asked.

“Oh, some yes, some no. All rich and all drink. They all seemed to be amused by me and amused that Isabel was dragging her daughter along. They seemed to expect me to perform, or something, like a trained monkey. One night we were at a party at somebody named Joe Bird’s apartment. Joe Bird is one of the nicer ones, and he has a piano, so I played. Usually I don’t.” She looked up. “You know I hate to play for people unless they appreciate it.”

“I know,” I said, thinking of how long she had scorned playing at our house, until Wimpole cajoled her into it.

“Joe Bird knows a lot about music. So I played, and he sat down on the bench with me and played too, and we had a fine old time. Then...” She coughed over her cigarette and threw it into the sink. “Then he asked me to have dinner with him the next night.”

“He did!” I exclaimed, impressed. “How old is he?”

“Oh, old. About thirty, I suppose. I said I didn’t go out with men. Then he said how about lunch? So I laughed and said I’d bore him with my infantile conversation. He said I was refreshing.” She glanced over at me. “So I went out to lunch with him.”

“Did Isabel let you?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell her. I said I was having lunch with a school friend. We had lunch and then he said he wanted to hear me play again. So we went back to his apartment, and he tried to kiss me.” She was talking faster and faster. “He was very nice about it, and I said I was too young, and he said he understood, and he was sorry, and then he said he’d wait five years and come back. That was all.”

“Oh. Well, what’s so bad about that?”

“I’m not finished. Then I went to Sylvia’s party...”

“And you necked,” I finished for her. There was a silence.

Finally Val said, “Honestly, you sound like a prissy old aunt. It isn’t that awful, you know.”

“But those horrible Trinity boys. Did you neck with one of them?”

“No, I necked with...” The bravado began to go out of her voice, and she started picking her fingernails. “When the lights went out, I decided I wouldn’t,” she said slowly. “I went and sat over by the window telling myself I’d just wait, and after a while I’d go. And then...before I knew what was happening, I found myself necking with somebody named Peter Davidson. It just happened, like...boom.” She waved her arm. “I’ve never felt like that before. It was just as though I’d been picked up by a gust of wind and blown somewhere, and I couldn’t stop myself. It was...it was really something, Gilbert.” She looked up at me slowly. “You should try it sometime.”

“I will, sometime. But when I do, I’ll just decide. I won’t get blown away.”

“Yes, you will. Just wait. That’s the best part. You go into a sort of trance...” She got up and walked over to the icebox. “Then I came to. Here I was, necking with somebody named Peter Davidson from Groton, and that’s all I knew about him. I felt horrible. And then do you know what I thought of?” She smiled ruefully. “I thought of Henry. And the minute I did, I wanted to cry. I felt just awful, so I got up and said good-by to Peter and went into the john.” She smiled oddly. “You don’t look shocked.”

“I’m not shocked.” I sat down and leaned against the sink. “It’s just so funny...I thought you’d forgotten all about Henry.”

“I thought so...no I didn’t really. He’d come back at odd moments, like the voice of my conscience. He’s so awful, and yet he seems to mean everything good. The way I feel about Henry is real...too real. And I don’t care if I never see Peter Davidson again, which I probably won’t.” She began to pace up and down. “But Gilbert, it’s all wrong! I’m supposed to be necking with Peter Davidson every night, and I’m not supposed to care about red-haired pianists I’ve never even met! It’s not normal...that’s why I’m so mixed up.”

“I don’t think it’s so great to sit around in a dark room every night necking.”

“But everybody else does it.”

“Everybody at Norton? That doesn’t make it normal.”

“But it’s all I have, or all you have. What do you call normal?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Val, stop worrying about it.” I got up off the floor. “All you think about is how you stack up beside everybody else. What do you care? I don’t.”

“You’re braver.”

I looked at her. “Was that what you were crying about?”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, then she shook her head. “The worst part happened today,” she said slowly. “Just before I came over here. We had Christmas dinner—sort of—sent up from downstairs. Then everybody sort of went off by themselves, the way they did last night. Finally I went into my room, and there were Isabel and Joe Bird—he was there too. I heard their voices, and then they were quiet when I came in.”

“Were they necking?” I asked, before I could stop myself.

“Necking!” She stood up and came over to me. “She’s my mother!” I said nothing, and she watched me for a moment. “They were reading the Bible,” she said quietly. I looked up. “They’d seen it on the table when they came in, where I left it. They sort of looked at me, and Isabel said something would have to be done.” She looked at me wretchedly.

“Why do you leave it around like that?” I asked.

“‘Well, because I’m fool enough to think my own mother won’t go nosing into my stuff. I felt awful, Gilbert. If only Joe Bird hadn’t been there too...they went out and left me, and then I came over here.” She started walking up and down. “Whenever I don’t know where to turn, I come to you and Wimpole.”

She looked at me, waiting for me to say something; but I felt it was beyond my power. Her emotion exhausted me. I could feel love and pity for her, but when the events of her life overwhelmed my ability to sympathize, all I could do was to feel tired, as she did, and wish to crawl away into a corner till it was all over.

“Val,” I said wearily, “you get yourself into the damnedest situations.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

I looked at her helplessly. “It’s all too much for me,” I said. “Nothing like this ever happens to me.” Her face was disappointed, and I hated myself for failing her, when she had finally come back to me. I decided to make a try. “What do you think she’ll do about it? She can’t make Henry leave town.”

She smiled wanly. “She might send me off to another school, or something.”

“Oh, nonsense. Everybody gets crushes, and their mothers don’t ship them away.”

She looked toward the door. “Where’s Wimpole?” she asked.

I sighed, and said, “Listen, I’d better go up for a little while. They might think I’ve died, or something. Do you want to come, or wait here?”

“I’ll wait. Can I talk to Wimpole?”

“I’ll try and send her down.”

I went upstairs, feeling curiously relieved to get away from her for a while. I needed to take stock. When I got upstairs, people were just beginning to leave.

“We thought you fell in,” said Professor Bean. “You must have done those dishes three times.”

Mrs. Branch came over and whispered, “I told your mother about that lovely child. Is her attack over?”

I smiled. “It’s all over. She’s resting.”

“Odd she should come here to have her attack. Hasn’t she a home? But even if she has, it couldn’t be like this one.”

The cold air blew through the door, and they went out one by one, thanking Wimpole and Boothy, and saying what a nice girl I was, even though they hadn’t seen much of me today. I said I was sorry, but didn’t try to explain. The moment they were gone, Wimpole said, “I’ll go to her,” and went down the stairs.

Boothy and I went into the living room and sat among the fallen pine needles, tangerine peels, and sticky brandy glasses. Boothy looked over at me.

“Val,” she said, “will end up either on the concert stage or in the electric chair.”

“You don’t think she’ll just be medium-happy?”

“No,” Boothy said. “She’ll never be either of those things.” She got up and began straightening up the room, in a desultory way. “What’s the trouble?” she asked. “Is home life too much for her?”

“It’s...” I stopped. I could hear her sobbing again, from downstairs. “Oh, Boothy,” I said miserably, “can’t we do anything about her?”

“No,” Boothy said. “You can’t help people, Marian. Everyone has to fight for himself.” She was standing next to the window, looking out. “That’s what your mother and I are doing.”

“Boothy, why don’t you and Wimpole get married?”

She turned around and grinned. “Oh, I don’t think Wimpole is my type.”

“No, seriously.”

“It isn’t so easy, after a while. It seems so easy at your age...there’s so much possibility. Then slowly it begins to narrow down.” She looked at me. “Would you mind having a stepfather?”

“A stepfather...I’d adore it,” I said fervently. “If he was nice, that is.”

“Wimpole wouldn’t marry anybody who wasn’t.” I heard Val’s voice from below, emphatic, trying to make a point.

“Why are we waiting here, Boothy?”

“To see Curtain, Act Two, I suppose. Do you want to tell me what the trouble is?”

I sighed, and told her. When I finished, Boothy said:

“Enter the opposite sex, and enter trouble. Val is a very attractive girl. She doesn’t look any thirteen, either.”

“What will happen to her?” I asked, frightened.

“Maybe she’ll meet some nice boy.”

“But she’s too young.”

“In some ways, yes.” She stalked across the room. “I’m not a star-gazer. I don’t know. I wish I did. That kid wrings my heart. There’s so much there...she could be bigger than any of us.”

There were steps on the stairs, and Wimpole came in.

“I’m keeping her here for the night,” she said. “I’ve talked to her mother.”

“Oh, good,” I said.

Wimpole looked at me. “I think the best thing all of us can do is leave her alone. She wants to...” There was an odd catch in Wimpole’s voice. “She wants to play the piano.”

“That’s nice,” Boothy said.

“She wants the living room to herself. I said we were going to bed anyway. She’ll creep up to the spare bedroom when she’s ready.”

“Wimpole, can I give her her Christmas present first?”

“That score? Why don’t you just leave it for her on the piano?”

“But I...”

“Dear, there are times when people must be alone.” She smiled. “Do you understand? It isn’t that she thinks you don’t love her. Do you see that?”

“Yes,” I said, and felt tears welling up. I went upstairs slowly and undressed, and got into bed. From below, I could hear Wimpole walking around her room, and then silence when she got into bed too. There was a moment when we all seemed to be waiting, in all of our rooms, and then from the living room the music came.