Circled Heart (32 page)

“This was very thoughtful of you, Johanna.”

I didn’t know how to respond to his serious tone and feeling a loss for words, said with a flippant tone, “Since I’m so selfish and undisciplined, it’s nice to know I may have one redeeming quality.”

At my comment, he looked up from the book to state, “Her words hurt.”

“Yes.” No flippancy now, just acknowledgment.

“They were malicious words intended to hurt. Let them go. They say more about the speaker than they do about you. You have more redeeming qualities than anyone I know, and I have a wide circle of acquaintances.” Drew rose suddenly, stepped out into the hallway and returned with something clenched in one hand. Standing next to my chair, he dropped a small box covered in sable brown velvet into my lap. “I’ve left a small token of regard for your grandmother on the hall table and was going to do the same with this, but you’re looking so gloomy, I thought you needed cheering.”

“I’m not one to mull and mope so my gloomy moods usually pass quickly.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the small box that now lay on the rich blue satin of my dress.

“And then reappear in your dreams.”

That remark made me look up at him as he stood beside me. “I’m not sure I should ever have shared that personal detail with you.”

“You may tell me anything, Johanna. At anytime for any reason. I told you I’m good with shared confidences.”

“Yes, I imagine you are.” Because you have had too much practice, I thought, especially with women. My tone may have betrayed my thought because he stepped away from my side abruptly and sat down again.

“Your turn to open” was all he said, but for a moment I thought I had seen a spark of irritation and an inclination to argue in his eyes. The look disappeared as soon as I lifted the cover of the little box.

“They’re beautiful, Drew.” A pair of earrings lay before me, a diminutive dangle of amber beads on each delicate, flowing gold wire. I wasn’t just being polite. The earrings were beautiful, the beads faceted in such a way that when I held the clusters up before me, the gems caught the firelight and reflected a quick sparkle onto the wall. I continued, “But I can’t accept them.” Despite my words, however, I continued to finger the earrings, the tiny amber beads as liquid and golden as drops of dark honey.

“Why?”

“They’re too expensive.”

“That’s all relative, Johanna, and you know it.” He spoke in a dry, practical tone without an ounce of emotion. “Proportionately speaking, your friend Mr. Goldwyn could give you a pair of gloves that would be much more expensive for him than these earrings were for me. Knowing you, I doubt it’s the expense that truly bothers you.”

“They’re too personal,” I admitted reluctantly.

“A proper gift is impersonal, then?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know what you mean.” Something changed in his tone that shifted my attention from the earrings to his face. “I bought them because the beads are the exact color of your eyes and the curve of the wire reminds me of the curve of your lips. That is very personal.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not going to take them back so do what you want with them. Wear them, I hope, but that’s up to you.” Then because I was still staring at him, he added, “Don’t look at me like that, Johanna. How did you put it before? ‘I have no ulterior motive. It’s Christmas and presents are a tradition.’ Just accept graciously as I did. There’s something to be said for good manners.” I snapped the small box shut and smiled.

“You’re right. I love the earrings and, of course, I’ll wear them. Thank you.” Then, as he had quoted me, I returned the favor. “This was very thoughtful of you, Drew. Now if you’d like, I could bother May for a cup of coffee or I could find the few drops of sherry that Uncle Hal left at the bottom of the decanter.”

“No, thank you. It’s been an interesting evening, but it’s late and I should let you go to bed.” We both stood as the hall clock struck midnight.

“Interesting is a very charitable word for this evening. Usually we attend the midnight candle service at church on Christmas Eve, but unfortunately tonight that family tradition got lost in the fracas.” We walked together to the front door.

“You’re going to let the confrontation bother you much more than it should,” Drew predicted. “People are people and tonight everyone acted true to type. Nothing that happened was your fault.”

“I wonder. As much as I hate to admit it, I think Aunt Kitty may have me pegged pretty accurately. I am undisciplined at times and I’m afraid I do expect special privileges or at least take them for granted. I’m always evaluating my motives, worried that I’m acting self-important or condescending. Grandmother calls it hypocritical elitism.” Drew shook his head with a touch of asperity.

“What an idiot you are sometimes, Johanna. You’re none of those things and I forbid you to change.” He put his hand on the doorknob, then turned back to ask casually, “I’m having friends over on New Year’s Eve. Will you come?” When I hesitated, he said quickly, “If you have other plans or would rather not, that’s fine.”

“No. No, I don’t have plans, I mean. I’d like to come. Is it formal?”

“A party at my house? Hardly. It will be a gathering of the peculiar and the eccentric, and their attire will reflect the personality of the group. Wear what you want but you needn’t dress up.”

“Which am I?” He looked at me without comprehension and I explained, “Peculiar or eccentric, you said. Which am I?”

Drew bent down to kiss me lightly on the lips. “Neither. Both. Good night, Johanna. Sleep dreamlessly.” After he left, I took his advice and did just that.

Out of the bosom of the Air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

Chapter Fourteen

The days between Christmas and New Year seemed a fairly useless and insignificant time, a quiet interlude between endings and beginnings. The last week of 1912 began with a sense of marking time, Christmas Day subdued after the uproar of Christmas Eve and the next day, Thursday, much the same. I wanted to talk to Crea but felt intrusive. She did not exactly avoid me, but we shared no confidences and I sensed a dignified austerity about her intended to keep me at arm’s length. Grandmother rested most of the week and by Friday morning I was restless and impatient for something with no clear idea of what the something was. I spent Friday at the Anchorage going over plans for the classes I would begin again in January. Toward the end of the day, one of the young women experienced false labor pains, and I stayed with her while we sent for the doctor. Nothing came of it, though, and before leaving I stopped by Hilda’s office to wish her a happy New Year.

“And to you, Johanna. I’m glad you’re with us. We all appreciate your energy and intelligence. It’s hard to believe you’ve been here only eight months. It seems much longer than that.”

“I hope that’s a compliment,” I answered, smiling.

“A very heartfelt compliment. Take next week off if you’d like. Aside from Melody’s baby I don’t anticipate anything out of the ordinary, and Eulalie and I can handle that situation when the time comes. The pantry’s stocked and there’s coal in the basement. I promise to call if we need you unexpectedly.”

“Are you hinting that I’m not needed?”

“I’m telling you you’re not needed—at least for the next few days. I never like to think of your taking the train when it’s so cold, so stay home where it’s warm. We’ll see you bright and early the Monday after New Year’s. The women are already looking forward to your new classes. You’ve become famous.”

“Infamous, more like, but thank you, Hilda.” She made the offer as a gift and a compliment, but I heard her words with dismay. Time on my hands again, rattling around the large house with Crea and Grandmother and making more of a nuisance of myself than usual. Idleness did not become me.

As it turned out, the time was not so heavy, after all. Peter visited on Saturday to offer an apology for the Christmas Eve scene and stayed long enough to tell me that his mother remained unappeased.

“I apologized to her for raising my voice, but I will not allow her to speak of Crea disrespectfully, so we’re at an impasse. I’ll be relieved to leave for school next Thursday. I put Jennie on the train to Boston to spend the New Year holiday with Carl and his parents, so Mother has nothing else to occupy her mind and her displeasure hovers over our house like a large, dark cloud. If I don’t leave, I’ll say something even stronger and what good will it do? Mother’s never going to change.” I felt a pang of sympathy for Peter as he stood in front of me, clearly upset by the discord in his family but resolved not to be browbeaten into submission. He glanced up the stairs.

“I don’t suppose—”

“Crea won’t see you, Peter. We had a brief talk about it last night. She came to tell me she was moving out.”

“What?!”

“Don’t panic. She and I reached a compromise that allows her to remain here and still keep her self-respect, but it involves not being thrown into situations where you’re present. I promised her that if she stayed, there would be no more ambushes or surprises.”

“I didn’t ambush her!”

“Crea doesn’t agree. She’s convinced that you and I colluded to throw the two of you together and she’s adamant that she won’t be a party to it. I hate to admit it, but I think she’s more right than wrong, and I’m going to respect her wishes. She’s a grown woman and it’s what she wants. I’m sorry.” Peter didn’t argue.

“What am I going to do, Johanna?” His tone held such misery I had to put my arms around him in a hug, no small accomplishment, he taller than I by half a head and much broader in chest and shoulder.

“I don’t know, my dear. Give it some time, I suppose. Finish your degree so you have an independent living and continue to send letters. Crea seems to consider correspondence acceptable.”

“Crea will never have me without Mother’s approval, will she?”

I shook my head. “You know her as well as I, Peter, so you know she wants to do the right thing.”

“And Mother will never give her approval,” he continued. “It seems hopeless, Johanna, and I don’t know what to do right now. I’m not giving up, though, because I know as sure as I’m standing here that there will never be anyone else for me but Crea O’Rourke. Tell her that, will you?” He took a deep breath. “I’m not one to despair. I’ll just trust that when I’m home again in February, something will have changed.”

Weeks later I would remember those words as an unintended prophecy, one fulfilled with such horror and grief that its culmination was simply unimaginable.

Sunday night I sat with Grandmother next to the fireplace. She had her feet propped up on an ottoman, wrapped in the woolen shawl Drew had given her for her birthday and reading the travel book he had given her for Christmas. I wanted to accuse her of flaunting Drew Gallagher in front of me but knew that was ridiculous. It was clear she honestly liked him and appreciated his gifts, both purchased with his usual impeccable taste. Some day I would wear the amber earrings he gave me but not in the near future. I had been incredibly stirred by the intimacy of his comparison to my eyes and lips, and the earrings still held too much emotion for me to put them on. It was enough to take them out of their box, to finger the smooth gems, to hold them up and explore the gold flecks in their liquid depths. I wanted to believe they meant more than just the next move in a sophisticated game of seduction, but I could not dismiss my doubts.

“Scowling like that will give you premature wrinkles,” Grandmother commented, and I looked away from the fire to find her gaze on me.

“Wrinkles are the least of my worries. Are you warm enough?” Outside I could hear the bitterly cold wind rattling around the eaves, but we still had no snow on the ground. “Green Christmas, full cemetery,” someone once told me, and I shivered at the memory of the words. Grandmother, despite improved color and regained strength, remained too frail for my peace of mind.

“At my age it seems a person is never warm enough, not even in August. What were you frowning over so intently?”

“Everything. Jennie and Carl. Peter and Crea. I sent a note of apology to Aunt Kitty, though I wasn’t exactly sure what I should apologize for. I haven’t heard a word in return. Is it just my imagination or is she growing more inflexible and unreasonable every year?”

Grandmother laid her book in her lap. “Kitty is the exact image of her mother—in face, form, and temperament. She was raised a certain way, and it’s unreasonable to imagine she is capable of changing now.”

“Everyone is capable of change.”

“No, Johanna. That’s just not true. When Harry announced he wanted to marry Kitty, I told him how she would be in twenty years, but he wouldn’t listen. Your grandfather and I had agreed years before that once our children were grown, we would trust their judgment and interfere as little as possible in their lives, so we did not press the issue of Harry’s choice of a spouse—or your mother’s, for that matter—but Kitty tried our resolve.”

“Did you disapprove of Father, too?”

“A man with a passion always has a certain element of danger about him. We would not have chosen him for our daughter, but Nettie loved him and he her, and I couldn’t disapprove of someone who made her so happy. He treasured your mother as much for the woman she would become as for the girl she was, and I appreciated that he realized the difference. David Swan was a man without an ounce of guile or greed in him, the most genuinely charitable man I ever met.” I had never heard her compliment my father before or speak so openly about him and Mother, and I was enthralled.

“I wish I could remember him better. Being with you and Uncle Hal makes me feel closer to Mother, but I feel I’ve lost Father. He’s not here anywhere, not in this house or in this city.”

“No. He wasn’t a man of the city. He was a man who looked like his roots—with the prairie in his eyes.” Amazingly, after a moment she said, “You should plan a trip to Kansas this spring, Johanna, after the threat of snow has past, see your father’s hometown, and visit his family. I’ve forgotten the name of the little place he was from.”

“Blessing,” I volunteered quickly.

“That’s right, Blessing, Kansas. It would be a good trip for you. No doubt your father’s family would be happy to see you.” I stared at her and then quickly looked away. I never thought to hear those words from her and later would have to take the time to mull over the significance of her change of heart.

“I know I’d be welcome. My Aunt Mary sent a Christmas letter and invited me for a visit again. She invites me every year.”

“Then you should go.”

“I never felt you wanted me to go.”

Grandmother smiled faintly before picking up her book again. “I have it on very good authority that everyone is capable of change,” she said.

On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, it began to snow fat, sodden flakes from a dark and weighted sky. Allen came by for a brief visit, ostensibly to wish Grandmother and me a happy New Year. As we chatted I noticed new lines along his forehead and an expression in his eyes I could not fathom and thought he might have something more serious than New Year’s Eve plans on his mind. After Grandmother left the room, I asked Allen bluntly if something else had brought him to Hill Street besides the desire to pass along wishes for the new year.

“I don’t see you very often anymore, Johanna,” was his oblique reply.

“I’m either here or at the Anchorage,” I pointed out. “You’re the one who’s frequently unavailable.”

“What do you mean?”

“I came to the dedication at St. Michael’s expecting to see you, but you were nowhere to be found.”

“I was there briefly.”

“So briefly that I never caught a glimpse of you, and I was there for the entire service. I sent an invitation to your apartment last Friday, too, inviting you to Sunday supper, but I never heard a word in response.” He had the grace to flush slightly.

“I was out of town, Johanna. I didn’t get back until yesterday. I’m sorry.” I laid my hand on his as we sat together on the sofa.

“I’m not scolding you, Allen, only pointing out that you’re the one who’s been elusive lately. I know I’ve asked you this more than once but is anything wrong?”

In answer he leaned toward me, brushed his lips against mine, then moved closer and put both arms around me. For a moment I was so surprised I couldn’t say or do anything, but as he kissed me, more passionately than I anticipated, I pushed him away with an equal fervor.

“Allen, stop that!” I commanded, more astonished than anything else. He let go of me instantly and sat back against the cushions. I expected an apology, I suppose, or at least an explanation, but when he finally spoke that wasn’t what I heard.

“You said you were spending this evening at Drew Gallagher’s. Is he the reason I’ve missed my chance with you, Johanna? While I was working hard, trying to make something of myself, were you slipping away to someone else?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Allen! We’ve been friends several years but only friends. You know you don’t care for me in any other way, and I know you never wanted more than that.”

“How could you possibly know that? You’re always busy, always with a cause. It’s hard to keep up with you, Johanna.”

“Those words don’t rate a response. Really, Allen, what is this all about? I’ll never believe you care for me in any significant way or that you’ve ever thought of me as anything other than a friend or sister. You certainly don’t love me.”

“You’ve become an expert on the subject of love, have you?” His question held a touch of bitterness and something gentler besides, a wish, perhaps, or an unarticulated grief.

“Hardly, but I know what we feel for each other is friendly affection and nothing more.”

“Someday,” he told me, rising, “you’ll find out you’re not always right, Johanna.”

“I’m right about this,” I insisted, following him out into the hallway.

“It must be wonderful to be so certain all the time and able to disregard other people’s feelings because they don’t agree with yours.”

“Allen, don’t take that tone. When have I ever been other than transparent with you? When did I ever lead you to believe that I would welcome anything besides friendship from you? Don’t turn me into a flirt or a villain. That’s not fair.”

The pleading in my tone must have reached him, for he put a hand under my chin and said gently, “So even you can’t read minds. I’m sorry if I distressed you, Johanna. It won’t happen again. You’re the farthest thing from a villain I can imagine.” I watched him walk out into the early evening dusk, snow falling so heavily by then that it quickly hid him from view.

Something had not rung true in that whole exchange, something missing from Allen’s voice or something there that shouldn’t have been. I couldn’t decide which. By the time he left, however, it was late enough that I had to hurry to get ready for Drew’s party, so I pushed the unexpected and slightly repellent incident to the back of my mind to bring out later when I could give it more thought.

Crea came to see me off for the night, silently fastening the buttons up the back of my dress and then stepping back to look at me.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you in black before, Johanna. It’s very becoming. Is the dress new?”

“No. I’ve worn it before and with Drew, but I thought the shawl would hide the fact that it’s a repeat. Not that anyone would care, I suppose, and Drew Gallagher is much too polite to point it out even if he noticed.”

“I don’t think he misses much about you.”

“He likes to give that impression, but I don’t know if it’s true or not.”