Eden Burning (58 page)

“I don’t want to hear that, Marjorie.”

“That first time here at Eleuthera, I knew it, too! I saw it!”

“You knew more than I did, then.”

“I ought to mutilate her face so you wouldn’t look at it anymore. Throw lye on it, the way the natives do here.”

He was astonished. “Why? You don’t care about me, about us. You haven’t in a long, long time.”

She didn’t answer. Furious tears were falling and she groped for a handkerchief, not finding one. He gave her his.

“You don’t care,” he repeated. “We hardly ever sleep together anymore.”

“Really,” she mocked, “for such an ardent lover as you are—”

He interrupted. “I know I haven’t been for a long, long time. Doesn’t that tell you anything? I’m young, I’m healthy.” His voice rose passionately. “This is no life, two solitary beds—”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Moderate your voice, you fool! Do you want the servants to hear such talk?”

“The servants! The servants! They’re human beings like you and me. Don’t you think they have eyes in their heads? I don’t have your sense of propriety—”

“Keep your voice down, I said! Megan is napping! Do you want to frighten her awake?”

At once he whispered, “If we hadn’t had Megan we’d have ended this long ago, Marjorie. We’ve been using her,
both of us have. And I should never have brought you here. It was wrong of me. It wasn’t fair to you.”

“You know damn well I’ve tried to make a go of it. I’ve run your house and entertained your guests and been a credit to you”

“Yes. Yes, you have.” But the chasm between us is wider than St. Felice, he thought, and would have opened if we had never heard of the place.

“I do my best to take care of the defective child you gave me, too.”

This cruelty silenced him and he bowed his head while she continued.

“My child wouldn’t have been like this if it hadn’t been for your family.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” he said dully.

“Apparently, I do, since you seem quite willing to dump us. Trading us off for a tract of land and a new woman.”

He raised his head. She wanted to cheapen his feelings, he understood that. He wasn’t going to let her.

“I’m not ‘dumping’ you,” he said angrily. “I intend to take perfect care of you and Megan. Always, even if you should—establish yourself. No matter.”

“Establish myself! In what, please tell me? What chance have I had to learn anything? I’ve thrown my life away for you!”

He wondered scornfully what things she would have learned and done if she hadn’t “thrown her life away” for him. But no, that wasn’t fair; she was an intelligent woman and this was nineteen-eighty; in other circumstances she would have done other things.

“Or maybe you meant establish myself with another husband? A rich one?”

“Whether you do or not is immaterial. Megan is my responsibility. But I hope you do find another husband, someone more suited to you than I’ve ever been,” he added bitterly.

“And what about Megan? All of a sudden, you’re so willing to part with her! A new development, to say the least.”

“We’d have to anyway. She’ll have to go to a special school, eventually. You know that.” His heart ached. “Oh, don’t you see how sorry it all is? For you, for me, for Megan? But from the day she was born we’ve lived as if we’d abandoned all hope for ourselves, and that’s not right! No human being should be required to do that. We’ll do the best we can for her, all our lives, but—”

“You bastard.”

“Why? Because now I’m the one who wants to end this charade? It was all right last month when you threatened to walk off with the child if I didn’t do what you wanted me to do. That was all right! It’s your damned pride that’s injured now, that’s all. ‘What will people say?’ Well, you needn’t worry. I’ll be chivalrous. I won’t talk.”

“You bastard.”

“If it makes you happier to say that, keep on saying it.”

“Oh, go to hell!” she cried, with her fist against her mouth.

He knew she was ashamed of weeping before him and he looked away.

“Oh, go to hell,” he heard again. The door slammed and her high heels clattered on the stairs.

   A few days later he rose early and looked in the mirror at a face gone haggard, spent with turmoil and lack of sleep. As if he were counseling it, he spoke aloud to his face.

“Yes, it’s better to be honest, even to go through this pain. Divorce is terrible. It’s a rending, breaking. Destruction. When you marry you’re sure it will last. But what did I know? Nothing. Nor did she. Glands, that’s all it was. That and illusions. Strange to think it’s all turned to hatred. No, not hatred. Anger. She’s more angry than I am, though. A woman’s pride. There must be someone who’s right for her. A
Wall Street type. Someone less—less what?—than I…. Less intense, maybe. She’s better off, in a way, than people like Kate and me. We look into each other’s souls, we want everything from each other. Well, you can’t help what you are.”

At the edge of the terrace he had built a large feeder, filled with sugar, for the yellowbirds. It had been intended to amuse Megan. But her attention span was too short, not more than half a minute. They were standing there now, when he came downstairs, Marjorie pointing out the birds while Megan, not interested, looked in the other direction. It struck him that Marjorie already looked like a visitor, a stranger.

Hearing him, she turned around. Her eyes were darkly circled and he felt a sudden painful pity.

“Well?” she said. The syllable was clear and cold as a chip of ice.

Once again he made an effort at concilliation. “Well, I hope you’re feeling better, that’s ail.”

“As if you give a damn how I fee!!”

“Believe it or not, I do.”

“If there’s anything that disgusts me, it’s a hypocrite!”

“Whatever other faults you’ve found in me, I can’t think hypocrisy is one of them.”

She bit her lip. Her lower lip was raw.

“As long as we’re going to do this, wouldn’t it be better to do it decently and quietly, Marjorie?”

“Decently and quietly! The next adjective will be ‘civilized,’ I suppose. ‘A civilized divorce.’”

“Why not? You want to go. Why not go in peace?”

“In peace! With another woman waiting to move in while my bed’s still warm.”

Megan was staring. He wondered whether any of this could be making an impression on the mind behind those apathetic blue eyes. And he spoke very gently.

“In case you are having any—thoughts about yourself, I want to tell you something. You’re a very desirable woman,
Marjorie. This isn’t a case of someone else being more attractive. You’re a lovely woman. People turn to look at you—”

“A hell of a lot of good that does!”

She put her face in her hands. She walked to the end of the terrace and sat down with her back to him. In her proud reserve she was struggling silently with herself; he knew, having seen her do it often enough. Sad, he turned away to the morning’s moist glitter.

After a while, hearing the chair scrape, he looked up.

“All right, Francis. Call it quits.” She spoke rapidly. “I’ll go to Mexico or wherever the lawyers say it’s quick and easy. I don’t want any complications.” And with some bitterness, she added, “I’m sure you’ll be overjoyed to hear that.”

“I’m not overjoyed about this at all, Marjorie.”

“You’ll have to keep Megan with you until it’s over.”

He nodded, the lump in his throat being too thick just then for him to speak. Instead he picked Megan up, rubbing his cheek against her hair.

“Daddy,” she said, then struggled to get away. He put her down.

“I’m sorry I said some things I didn’t mean, Francis. About throwing lye. And about your giving me Megan.”

“Of course I knew you didn’t mean all that. People say things when they’re angry. I do, too.”

“No, you never do. I don’t think you ever said anything really nasty to me.” For the first time since this crisis had begun, she looked straight at him.

He was touched. “I’m glad you’ll remember me that way.”

Horses, being let out to pasture, whinnied beyond the fence. A child, one of Osborne’s boys probably, called out, making cheerful morning noises.

“You know, Francis, I must say, in all fairness, it hasn’t been entirely bad here.”

That was one thing about Marjorie: regardless of her angry pride, she was usually able to be honest and, upon reflection,
to soften both the anger and the pride. He had always thought of this trait as her morning-after quirk. Also, because she was a realist, she knew when it was time to advance and when to retreat.

He said now, “I want you to be happy, Marjorie. I really do.”

She clenched her fists. “How I hate to fail! I ask myself how it could have been different. You can’t know how I hate to fail! Hate it!”

Her vehemence did not surprise him. “I know you do. You can’t bear not having things perfect. It would be better for you,” he said gently, “easier, if you could. I only hope you’ll find—”

“You hope I’ll find someone else to love me? I’ll tell you something. I don’t think all women really need to be loved, not the way you’re talking about, anyhow. I’m never unhappy being alone. Oh, you’re thinking of my going to parties and all that, but that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the inner self. Maybe I don’t really want anybody, after all. That’s why I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”

Perhaps it was true and perhaps this was only bitterness. If it was bitterness, and he hoped that was all it was, it would pass.

He put his hand on her shoulder. “I told you, though, I’ll always take care of you. You needn’t worry.”

“I never doubted that, Francis. But I’ve been thinking—I did a lot of thinking last night—maybe I’ll start a business in antiques or get a job in the field. I’d be doing what I want to do, in a place where I want to be.”

“You’d be good at it.”

“Yes, far from the madding crowd. Surrounded by beautiful things right up to the deluge. I’m certainly not one for politics or civic betterment, as you well know.” She gave a short laugh, almost as if she were laughing at her own expense.

The child was trying to eat grass.

“No, no!” Marjorie cried, taking it from her. The child screamed and the mother picked her up, comforting, straining under her weight.

And Francis, watching, knew that he was tied to the mother through the child and always would be, tied with a strong cord, not to be sundered.

“It’s not the way we wanted it to turn out, is it? But it’s no one’s fault. Remember that, Marjorie.”

She nodded. “I’ll take Megan down to the beach.”

“I’ll be in the office if you want me.”

And they walked away, in opposite directions.

Francis and Kate were to be married in the ancient Church of the Heavenly Rest, that rugged pile on top of the cliff with the sea at its feet and the forest at its back. Early that afternoon Francis and Tee drove cross-island together.

They had been talking since her arrival two days before, talking of Kate and Margaret, of Marjorie and Megan, of politics and farming, talking as they had not done since he had been a boy coming home from school to the little yellow upstairs sitting room where she would be waiting to hear about his day.

Now suddenly a silence fell upon them. Too many emotions had come too close to the surface. Even the marvelous fulfillment of this his wedding day came close to pain; always, joy quivers in the lee of sadness.

Yesterday he had put Megan on a plane to join Marjorie in New York. Thank God, the parting had held no pain for the child at all, otherwise he could not have borne it. She had simply walked away, sucking a lollipop, not looking back.
Oh, he would see her again, of course he would, but it would not be the same. It had ended, tied neatly in a package, addressed and sent away. End of a phase.

His mother touched his arm.

“You’re thinking of Megan.”

“Yes.”

“She will be better off with Marjorie. A good school, a residence for her special needs—”

“But you! You say this to me while you yourself will never—” He stopped. This was the one question it was fruitless to ask her. But, to his surprise, this time she answered.

“There are no rules always right for everyone. Every one of us is the result of what came before.”

Curious, he glanced at her, but her face was averted and his glance fell across her dark head to the silver-green of cane along the road.

“I may know what I ought to do and be unable to do it.” Her voice was a murmur, so that he strained to hear. “But you mustn’t think of me as some sort of sickly martyr; I’m really living very well—”

He interrupted. “Of course I know that! I know how you live. And yet—I must tell you—as close as you’ve been to me, to all of us, I’ve always felt, I feel as if some part of you is hidden. It’s like a locked door, a curtain…. I think my father felt it, too.”

She didn’t answer, but turning, gave him an unfathomable look and dropped her eyes.

“Well, I knew—we all knew—yours was a strange match. No two people could have been more different from each other.”

Still she made no answer.

“In your time, though, I realize divorce wasn’t all that simple. Also, you had four children.”

And again she looked away, her eyes wandering over the wind-bowed cane, her voice murmuring something he barely
caught: “I would never have broken his home.” He thought he heard her say, “I owed him everything,” but wasn’t sure and couldn’t ask, because abruptly she raised her head and with a little toss admonished him. “Enough of me! I’ve come for a wedding and I want to hear about it.”

“Well, you know it’s to be the ceremony, that’s all, especially since you have to go home right afterwards.”

“I’ll come again in the winter, I promise.”

“I’m glad. You’ll love Kate when you know her better. She’ll love you,” he said gratefully. “A couple of cousins are all she has. They’re coming today. And our new P.M. will be there. Also his mother-in-law, the widow of the last P.M. You remember, I’ve told you about Patrick.”

“I remember.”

“I miss him.” He had a flashing recall, a glimpse of night, of headlights streaking the lawn and Patrick saying something, hesitating, wanting to tell him and not telling him—what? He blinked, returning to the present. “His mind—oh, perhaps it sounds pompous or foolish, I don’t know—but his mind just seemed to reflect my own so much of the time. It was almost a mirror-image. Made him very easy to talk to.”