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“The carriage is waiting, Eliza. Are you ready?”
“Quite. Is the Professor coming?” An older woman looked at the younger, though not very attractive, woman with an air of indignation only those withered with age can rightfully supply.
“Certainly not. He can’t behave himself in church. He makes remarks out loud all the time on the clergyman’s pronunciation.” The young woman turned to the man still seated in the elegant parlor.
“Then I shall not see you again, Professor. Good-bye.” The old woman swept over to the man who, though much younger than herself, still held the grace of age etched into his face.
“Good-bye, dear.”
“Good-bye, mother. Oh, by the way, Eliza, order a ham and a Stilton cheese, will you? And buy me a pair of reindeer gloves, number eights, and a tie to match that new suit of mine, at Eale & Binman’s. You can choose the color.” There was a cheerfulness to his voice, a carelessness that seemed willfully oblivious to the young lady’s furrowed brow.
“Buy them yourself.”
“I’m afraid you’ve spoiled that girl, Henry. But never mind, dear: I’ll buy you the tie and gloves.”
“Oh, don’t bother. She’ll buy them all right enough. Good-bye.”
I felt struck, entirely dumbfounded by the unusual affair. How many times had I seen the same thing—read those very words—and yet the soft English drawl that brushed my ears was far more real than any ink slathered over a page.
“Wonderful, Brendan.” Harrison praised as he marched forward to the edge of the stage. “Wonderful. Now, if we could just run that last scene once more we can all go home and get some rest.”
“You want us to do it again?” The young woman whined, her voice now completely bereft of all grace and beauty provided by the English language. “Well, I am going home. You all can stay and do it without me.” She clambered down from the stage and stormed past Harrison without so much as a glance in his direction. To his credit, he seemed to hardly blink at her spoilt behavior. Instead, he turned back to those still remaining on the stage.
“I suppose rehearsal is over then. Tomorrow is Sunday, so I will see everyone bright and early Monday morning.” I grabbed my jacket from the theatre seat beside me and stood just as Keane came striding down the carpeted aisle with his hat under his arm. Before I could speak, his hand was at my elbow, edging me onward at a thrilling pace toward the door and out into the streets of evening. Window lights poured into the street in long yellow streaks upon blackened pavement. When we had rounded the block or so between us and the car, Keane laughed triumphantly and grasped my arm with an exhilarating amount of force.
“By God, Lawrence,” He breathed. “I haven’t felt that thrill for years; the words, the articulation, the wonder of it all. It’s marvelous. Simply marvelous.” I glanced at my companion’s face as we strode rapidly onward. His blue eyes sparkled like a thousand lights laid out low over a glassy sea. There was a pleasantness to them, a long past longing hence fulfilled in a matter of instances wound together into a moment far too precious to be rightfully described.
“Mr. Harrison was right.” I said. “You were incredible.”
“Pshaw. I was adequate. Nothing more.” How easily he said those words, how quick he was to brush them aside without so much as a nod to their meaning. Yet oh what pride there was in his face, and what dignity there was as the foundation for such a marvelous man as this. I would be the first to attribute him to ill temperament and, at times, utter neglect for the world at his fingertips, but he was a man different from all others. When he stood I stood. Where he walked, I walked. And, paying no heed to age or stereotypical roles, I could not help hoping that even the slightest bit of him might rub off onto me, that I might be such a fine human being as he.
Even if he should deny it.
Keane’s steps slowed as we neared the car. We had refused a chauffeur, for reasons I believed to be more than obvious. A third constant variable meant another set of ears to hear even the most private of conversations and a mouth to carry them to the general public. Fortunately, Keane—man of many talents that he was—was able to skillfully drive in America, just as he was in Europe. I slipped into the passenger seat beside him.
“I still think you were magnificent.” Keane grunted, though he could not hide the slight tug to the tip of his ear.
Old habits are difficult to break.
As we rounded the bend separating the seaside from the city itself, my companion began to hum merrily and drum his long, slender fingers against the steering wheel. Though I had often considered myself knowledgeable in the realms of classical music, his deep, melodic song drifted in and out between Vivaldi and Beethoven as natural as the summer breeze. Notes leapt from pitch to pitch with nary a falter. Key changes were bested by a quick adjective of the voice. It might have been considered childish, the constant singing that broke between each song with a gentle ease, but there was nothing false or foolish about him, just as his intelligence could not be measured in one area alone.
True intelligence never can.
––––––––
MR. HARRISON’S HOUSE by the sea was stationed above the whispering waters with a presence so modern and overbearing, one could not fully escape from it’s grasp. The plain, almost dull, white of the exterior meant nothing in comparison to the bright colors decorating each and every room. There were, of course, the less mind-shattering greens, beiges, and blues one could always expect, but the pinks, yellows, and other eccentric fabrics created something far different from which I had ever laid my eyes. And yet, sleep came without a qualm.
The next morning when I drifted slowly from the depth and warmth of the night to the cool of the morning, I found my mind whirling with thoughts and ideas so abominable that all I could do was hope a swift walk along the shore would banish them to the fire from whence they came. I got up immediately and began shuffling through the new suitcase filled with clothes that stank of starch and were as stiff as some ancient woman. There was a bathing suit (which I sincerely prayed I would never wear), a few pairs of rather eccentric pants, a few shirts, and—
And then I saw it, the lethal weapon that would doom me to a hell I wished not to walk.
The thing far more despicable than the devil himself.
The thing I hated more than sin.
A dress.
Damn.
The color was not the problem, for I had always been rather fond of such a light blue (though perhaps not the exact shade). It was the idea of the thing—the principle—that burned my soul. The skirt was long and folded into vertical creases, while the upper portion was specifically made to emphasize those imphamous curves and caves of a woman’s figure. Illogical though the perfectionist’s illusion may be, it still existed to expect nothing less from the garment. It was the epitome of a grounded womanhood, built upon a femininity completely incapable of defending itself against anything more threatening than a slight fashion fopa or—heaven forbid—a farce while out to coffee. Complete femininity damned even the most capable of women to complete helplessness. The opening of a door was left to a male escort. The men drove the cars. The men worked in office buildings or shops. The men played politicians, pushing and prodding forein nations with little more effort than chess pieces on a wooden board. The men ruled the world.
Or so we women had been taught at the dusk of childhood innocence.
But then there had been the wars, both the first and second, to prove to the world the strengths of a woman; that the world would not revolve on its axis without our constant assistance. While the men slaughtered themselves on the battlefield, we had changed their bandages, clothed their aching flesh, and fed that pit in their stomach until the curtly thanked us and slogged back into the hail of bullets.
And yet, there was a dress.
Clearly it had not been I who had chosen such a truso, and Keane would most certainly never dare do such a thing. It had been left entirely to another.
Much to my eternal regret.
I at last emerged into the morning sun with what I believed to be a reasonable compromise of color between a pair of brightly plaid trousers and white shirt. So armed, I trudged gradually down toward the ocean and began walking along the seashore. The sand glittered gold as waves of silver lapped upon their grainy treasure. Even in America I could not withhold that sense of glory in the presence of such sheer majesty. There was always such power in the waves as they whispered their forbidden tales of ships lost at sea, or the approach of those still yet to come. It was as if they had captured the whole of time within their watery hands and allowed only the briefest moments to drip through their fingers before they carried all the pains of one’s past out to the sea. There was darkness in it too, an anger not even the purest of hearts could fully quell. It was there in the deafening roar as it threw itself desperately against the rocks. She flew with a hopeless cry as one who wished for the end without consideration for how it occurred. She held the lost spirits of a thousand sailors whose ship had not fulfilled the promise of safe passage, or those despite widows and lost loves who flung themselves onto her surface with pockets of rocks and other heavy objects. Final glory was all she wanted as she grabbed at my ankles with her wickedly cool fingers.
The end. The end. The end.
And yet, as I caught a glimpse of a wooden arm cutting along the heart of her, I knew but one thing.
It was just the beginning.