The Lady of Situations (20 page)

But he wasn't going to put his mind on that. "Would I figure at all in your plans?"

"The last thing you need is a divorcée in your life. Believe me, I'm taking as good care of your career as I am of Tommy's."

"But what
am
I to you, Natica?"

She had been gazing at the ceiling as she smoked. Now she turned, propping herself on an elbow, to contemplate him with a kind of affectionate curiosity. "I think that you, my beautiful man, are not quite real. You're like Cupid visiting Psyche in the dark, except I'm allowed to turn on the light and look at you. So long as I don't tell anyone, that is. And I think that's just the way you and I had better leave it. I've wronged one man, and I don't want to wrong another. No, I mean it, Stephen!" She pressed a hand to his lips to still his protest. "And now I really must get dressed and catch my train. Tommy is going to meet me at the station."

Stephen in the next days was uncomfortably aware of the beginnings of a reaction on his part that he hated to recognize as relief. But relief at what? He had no desire to give up the affair or even to contemplate an Averhill without Natica. No, it was more likely simply relief that nothing more would be expected of him than what he was only too willing to provide. Natica, in other words, was permitting him to have his cake and eat it, to be an idealistic teacher at a church school and have a passionate mistress on the side. What was it about him that made first Annette and now Natica so determined to let him off the hook? Why were they so keen on protecting him? He did not quite relish Natica's calling him, as did his mother, her "beautiful boy."

Yet it certainly simplified life at school to regard the affair in Natica's fashion as something not quite real. His classroom teaching was going very well at last; his dormitory ran almost without problems. And he was beginning to feel that he was having some success in establishing himself as a liaison between the faculty and the sixth form; the headmaster himself had commented on it. Making love to Natica was far less distracting to his academic duties than always dreaming about it; his life fell into two separate compartments which perhaps did not have to conflict so long as one contained elements of fantasy. Indeed, when he saw Natica, so trim and cool and neat, taking her place at Tommy's table at lunchtime, it seemed hardly possible that she could have been naked in his arms the week before. Did her peremptory nod of recognition not almost deny it? Their lovemaking in his memory seemed to take on more the aspect of guilty thoughts than of guilty deeds, and what man could blame himself for the former?

Giles Woodward alone seemed to know what was going on, but his loyalty to Stephen was now such that he too had become part of the fantasy.

"I wouldn't have too many more of those dentist appointments if I were you, sir. Your teeth look just fine to me."

"You sound like Brangäne in the second act of
Tristan.
"

"Shall I wave my scarf? Remember, when she did that, it was already too late."

What, however, contained no note of fantasy was Wilbur Knight's visit to his classroom one morning when Stephen, alone there, was correcting tests. The Latin master, even more solemn than usual, closed the door behind him and approached Stephen's desk, but did not take a seat.

"I have a matter of the utmost gravity to take up with you, Hill. I have been apprised of your assignations with Mrs. Barnes in my wife's apartment."

Stephen, flushing, jumped to his feet. "Mrs. Knight has told you?"

"Mrs. Knight has told me nothing," was the gravelly retort. "What would my wife know of such matters? It was the janitor who informed me when I visited the apartment yesterday. He wanted me to know the kind of use that Mrs. Barnes was making of the flat so generously loaned. When I told my wife, and suggested that you might be the man, she was appalled, almost incredulous. She said she had merely suggested that you pick Mrs. Barnes up there and drive her back to school. There had never been any idea of your spending a night."

"May I ask what you plan to do about this, sir?"

"Needless to say, I have passed a sleepless twenty-four hours. My first duty, of course, is to the school. I wish to avoid a scandal if it can be done without dishonor. And I find it hard to believe that you are a man who could fall into the sin of adultery without the strongest temptation. I have known and liked you since you were a boy here, and you have been kind to my wife. I have even obliged myself to consider that Mrs. Knight may, all inadvertently, all innocently, have created a kind of hothouse for the passions by inviting young persons of opposite sex to read erotic poetry in her parlor on afternoons when they should have been outside breathing the fresh air. Anyway, I have resolved to give you the opportunity to redeem yourself. If you will give me your word of honor that you will at once break off your intrigue with Mrs. Barnes and not renew it, my lips will be sealed."

Stephen hesitated. The offer was too generous to be spurned. But Natica, with the collapse of her fantasy, seemed to burst upon his brain with a new reality. He found himself actually trying to bargain with the old man.

"I give you my word of honor that I will not meet Mrs. Barnes again in that manner while I am a member of the faculty of this school."

Knight frowned. "I don't like the qualification. Are you considering resigning?"

"I am not, sir. But as you mentioned the school as your primary consideration, I thought I should tie my promise to my connection with it."

"Dear me, I had not thought you so lawyerlike. But very well. I suppose I must be satisfied with that. I had hoped you might demonstrate some shame at your conduct. But I reckon that is not within the scope of your generation's allowances."

"May I thank you for your moderation, sir?"

"No sir, you may not. I cannot so soon forgive your abuse of my wife's hospitality. Time, however, may mitigate my rigor. It will depend on your conduct in the future."

When he had left Stephen felt, absurdly, like a boy at school again whose twenty demerits, the maximum he could receive at a time without expulsion, had been forgiven by a kindly master whose good will he had now sedulously to recultivate. He knew, at any rate, that he could not risk seeing Natica alone again; he wrote her an account of what had happened and slipped it into her hand as the school assembled to enter the dining hall for lunch. Her quick glance seemed to indicate that she knew just what his letter contained (Mrs. Knight, of course!); she put it in her purse without a word.

Nor did he hear anything from her. He waited until after chapel the following Sunday and then sought her out in the garth where she was waiting for Tommy to change from his robes. Some visiting parents were also in the garth, waiting for sons who were choir members, but the flagstone paths between the flower beds led to secluded comers, and taking her by the elbow he guided her to one. He asked her softly if she had had time to think things over.

"What is there to think about?" Her tone was impatient, almost angry. "We knew it had to come to this sooner or later. We're lucky to have been caught by Knight and not someone else. He can hardly let it be known that his wife was running a bawdyhouse."

"Is
that
all you have to say?"

"Well, what more can I say? We knew the chance we were taking."

"But I need you, Natica! Don't you need me?"

"You know I do. What's the point of going on about it?" Then, seeing a couple approaching, she paused to be sure that her voice was under control. "My need, after all, is greater than yours. A handsome rich bachelor is never going to be at a loss for a mistress. Believe me, my dear, if I sound cool it's because I've been preparing myself for this so long."

"Couldn't we meet in vacations? I know I gave my word, but I'm not really on the faculty when I'm away from school, am I? Suppose you and Tommy were to borrow one of the family's cottages at Redwood next summer?"

"And carry on under your mother's eye as well as his? Dream on, my friend. No, no, this has to end. There's no other way."

"Natica!"

"Well, can you face the consequences? Public disgrace for us both.
And
for Tommy." She seemed to be almost panting now with controlled exasperation. "The loss of your career here. The anguish of your parents?"

He was silent.

"Well, can you?" Her tone had a rasp.

"What can I say?"

"Well then, there you are. Be a man. It shouldn't be too hard, when you hold most of the trumps."

She waved her hand at someone, and he turned to see Tommy approaching them.

He did not see her privately again in the next two weeks, and the time passed in the strange blankness of suspended animation. He tried to lose himself in his classes and in his new assignment of third form gymnasium, and he fought down his shame at the possibility that he was succeeding.

Succeeding? Was he trying to lose himself or find himself? Had Natica ever been quite real to him? Certainly he could not fool himself that he was real to her. He knew that she was simply frustrated, crazed with her restricted life. She had not even tried to make him think otherwise. There would be other men for her. Ultimately she would leave Tommy. And wasn't the deeper reality for himself in the school and the teaching life that he had counted on to sustain the ideals and aspirations of boyhood?

And then he found a letter from her in his mailbox.

When I told you that our affair was my first, I said nothing but the truth. And I have been as careless as inexperienced. When I missed my period by two weeks I went to a doctor in Boston who confirmed my suspicion. When I told him my predicament he had the humanity to write the name of another doctor on a card. The latter has agreed to do the necessary—it will be very simple and riskless, being so early—but I shall need a thousand dollars, and I have no hesitation in applying to your fuller purse. There can be no question of my having the child (in case you have scruples about abortion, though I can't imagine why any man should), as Tommy has not had what I believe the lawyers crudely call 'access' since our first so pleasant but costly night at Estelle's flat. Please make the check out to cash. I know I can count on you.

What was most to elate him in the days that followed was that he had not even for a moment considered giving her the check. Destroy his own child? It was unthinkable. In one blinding moment, standing in the hall of the Schoolhouse, her letter in hand, oblivious of the passing crowds of boys at recess, his doubts and fears vanished. There was only one thing to do, and the absolute imperative made all consequences trivial.

He went directly to her cottage, careless now of who might be watching. He found her in the kitchen, uncharacteristically watching a pot on the range. She gave a little cry when she saw him.

"Why have you come here? It's most indiscreet, in the middle of the morning."

"Listen to me, Natica. Listen to me first, and then nothing else will matter." She took in the new firmness of his tone and sat down at the kitchen table, rubbing her hands in her apron. "I want you to have that baby. I want you to divorce Tommy and marry me. I want you and I want my child. Nothing else in the world matters to me."

Her tensely staring eyes gave no indication of what she might be thinking.

"It doesn't matter whether you love me enough to be my wife. Anyway, you certainly care for me more than you do for Tommy. Now our first duty is to the baby. Oh, Natica, don't tell me you don't want to have that child!"

She appeared to be thinking hard. "I want it if I can give it a decent life. Suppose Tommy refuses to give me a divorce?"

"Then we can go off together. To Europe maybe. And have the child there. Those things always work themselves out in the long run. And the advantage of my money is that we can wait for the long run."

"But oh, Stephen, the school and your job! I can't do that to you, even for the baby."

"What was it you said yourself? That my father could buy me a new school?"

"Maybe he won't after this."

"What's a job compared to the life of my son?"

"Your son?"

"Or daughter. Or triplets, if you like."

"Good heavens." She covered her face with both hands and remained so for several silent, motionless moments. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse. "Oh, Stephen, don't tempt me!"

"Only promise me this. Don't do anything until I've talked to a lawyer friend of mine in Boston. He's the most brilliant man I know. I'll see him tomorrow if I have to cut every class!"

When he left, he not only had her promise. He was convinced that she would have the baby if he could provide a feasible way. And he was convinced that he wanted that baby more than anything else in the world.

S
TEPHEN SAT
in Joel Sapperthwaite's narrow white-walled office in State Street, confronting the concerned, handsome features of his former tutor. Joel was not yet a partner in the famous old firm of Saltonstall & Meyers, but everyone knew that he soon would be. He had fairly reeked with the aura of future success ever since, a stocky Yale senior from Montana on a "football" scholarship, he had spent a summer at Redwood as mentor to the twelve-year-old Stephen. Stephen had made a hero out of Joel, who, like everyone else, had made a heroine out of Stephen's mother, and the tutor and all the Hills had maintained a warm relationship ever since. Stephen even suspected that his father had put Joel through Harvard Law.

"Let's clear up one thing, Steve. Have you told your parents? And wouldn't they rather you went to their lawyers in New York?"

"I haven't told them, and I'm not going to until I have to. I want to present them with a
fait accompli.
What's the point of upsetting them when I'm absolutely determined in my own mind what I'm going to do?"

"And Mrs. Barnes agrees?"

"She has promised me to do nothing until she hears what you advise. But I'm convinced she wants the baby if it can be arranged."

"And Mr. Barnes?"

"I don't know what his attitude will be. But does it really matter? He can't stop her from leaving him. He can't stop us from going off somewhere until the baby is born. Surely, no matter what he does, we can eventually get married somewhere, can't we? And I don't care where."