Quiet Dell: A Novel (5 page)

“Charles—” She could not answer. He’d thought on this, to help them, and was quite serious, and would be deeply wounded.

He took her response as encouragement. “I’m doing very well, and will do even better when this wretched Depression ends. There is no need to sell the house. Let me support and help you as one who loves you, as your husband, Anna, devoted only to you. Let us truly be a family.”

She leaned toward him, her heart pounding. “But, Charles. Wait, please—”

“Yes, Anna? Yes?” He put his face gently against hers.

Her temple fit against his smooth, warm cheek, and she felt the tense, strong line of his jaw. Fleetingly, she thought, If only he was different. But he was not. “Oh, Charles,” she whispered, “what you suggest entails such sacrifice. I cannot let you.”

He whispered in kind, in a rush of emotion. “That is over, Anna, that is over. It has not made me happy and it is over.” He pulled away to look at her. “Understand that I dedicate myself to you and the children completely; I will not deceive you or myself, ever, ever again. I pledge my fidelity and my means and my life.” He saw that she was crying, looking at him as though stricken. “I will make you happy, Anna. I love you completely. I can be a husband to you, in every way. Let me.”

Anna gripped his arm. The room, the very air, seemed to pull her backward as though into a deep well. “Heinrich once denied himself, and sacrificed his true desire at my request, completely and for always, and then he died, Charles, he died. But for me, oh, I know he would have lived—”

“Anna, what are you saying? It was an accident, a motorcar—”

“A streetcar, Charles, in the Loop. Yes, in the snow. There was a great deal of snow, on the tracks and everywhere, and the crowd—” She stood suddenly.

“Shhhh, Anna, be quiet, be quiet and try to breathe.”

They were in the kitchen. He was holding her in his arms at the sink and bathing her face with cold water, icy water that tasted of salt. He pushed her sleeves up and held her wrists under water that dropped in galloping clumps into the deep double sink.

“Anna, sit down.” He helped her into a kitchen chair and knelt beside her. “You aren’t making sense.”

“You are so good, Charles, so good to me, and I thank God for my good fortune, that I am not required to accept your sacrifice, but I ask you to wait—” She pushed him a little away, bracing her arms against him. “Trust me, for I will explain in time, and you will be my good friend, just as you are now—”

“Of course I’m your friend. And you must listen to me. Heinrich
died in an accident. Whatever was between you had nothing to do with it. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.” Her eyes were wet and dark.

“You are confusing regret with responsibility. It was reasonless. That is the meaning of ‘accident.’ ” He paused. “Anna, why have you never told me of these feelings? Why did you never speak of this?”

She looked past him, into the room. “So much is becoming clear to me. A great change must happen. Is about to happen.”

“Anna, the change should be that I am here with you, and we are married. Promise me that you will not dismiss me. Think on what I’ve said, when you are calmer. And you must not make any decisions that we don’t discuss. Look at me, Anna.”

She took the wet, squeezed towel with which he’d bathed her forehead, and held it to her face. She would not tell him, and she would not take advantage of him. His offer had moved her, blinding her with remembrance. “Yes, all right. I’m all right, Charles. I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s very hard to be alone,” he said.

“Yes, it’s hard.” She smiled at him tenderly, knowing she was not alone. The letters in her room were a presence, constant and deep.

“I’ll stay a few days. We’ll think it through,” Charles said. “Do you mind?”

“Of course not; you’re welcome to stay.” She drew him to her and kissed his forehead. How would he, how could he ever, find the heart’s companion she had found? The world would not allow him.

He stood and lifted her to her feet. “Are you recovered?” He sighed as she nodded affirmation. “Anna, I feel as though we have traveled a great distance. I’ve surprised you, I know, but I’ve told you of my deepest hope. Anna, depend on me.”

“Charles.” She realized he must have carried her into the kitchen like one of Annabel’s pageant heroes, and touched her palm to his face. “We love you very much. It would never be Christmas here without you.”

A crash resounded from the living room. They heard Hart’s cries of “Duty! Duty! Give it up!”

“I’ll go,” Charles said. “We’d best have the pageant soon.”

•   •   •

Annabel has taken off her shoes in order to stand on the camelback sofa and attempt to hang the theater curtain for her pageant play. Grandmother had made the curtain long ago, for what Annabel can’t remember; it is red velvet in two floor-to-ceiling panels. Grandmother kept it rolled like a rug around a cardboard tube between shows, to prevent it wrinkling, and now Annabel is in charge of it. Last night Charles fetched a length of rope from his trunk in the garage and helped her thread it through the sewn panel at the top. Rope will hang it so much better than cord, and reach from one wall sconce to the other, across the living room. If only she had a piece of white organdy, big as a bedspread, gauzy and see-through, to hang as a backdrop with the Christmas tree’s lit candles shining through: heaven behind the players in the glade. It is the sort of idea Grandmother would have liked, and Annabel imagines Lavinia, just for a moment, standing as she did on Christmas mornings, in her vanilla wool robe with the silk cuffs. Her pink leather slippers were patterned after ballet shoes and fit so nicely, with one silk strap across. They are
palest rose,
and French. Annabel has them still, under her bed in a special box. She has put them on her feet, but they are far too big; Grandmother was vain of her long thin feet and high arches. Some nights, Annabel sleeps with them, for the kid soles are clean and smooth. Turned in together, they are the size of a thin doll tucked under her arm; Duty would sneeze at the lavender scent when he lay his head upon them.
Heaven is certain,
Grandmother had said. So it will appear in today’s pageant.

She reconsiders: a backdrop would only mute the effect. The players are in a forest, their backs to the glowing candles and tinsel shimmer. Annabel gazes around the room, balanced on the sofa back. “Hart,” she calls out. “Come and help me tie up the curtain.”

He appears from the hallway, tossing his juggling balls. Duty runs at his heels, ready to fetch one when it drops, for it always does. Hart glances at Annabel. “You’d better hope Mother doesn’t see you there.”

“It’s angled against the wall,” she says, “and won’t tip. You don’t have on your costume.”

“I’m not putting it on until the last minute.”

“Hart, you said one should wear one’s costume beforehand, to get into character.”

“It’s a window curtain. God’s sake, I’m not going to walk around in it.”

“It’s embroidered in gold and hangs quite nicely, if you’ll pin it like I said. And Mother doesn’t like you talking that way. Did you practice the voices?”

“Sister, I practiced for hours. What’s here? Your shoes? Thrown down just where I’m walking. I might have tripped!” He’s field goal kicker as well as quarterback on the freshman football team, and takes aim in perfect form, arms outspread, kicking one of her Mary Janes hard into the air. Duty is immediately after it, barking wildly. The shoe skims shining through the prisms of the chandelier and bounces off the wooden baseboard under the window, hitting the dog in the face. Duty snarls and grasps it by the strap, shaking it viciously.

“Hart, he’s going to mark it with his teeth, and make it filthy wet!”

Hart is after him, eyes alight. He catches the cord of the heavy brass floor lamp, which crashes to the floor resoundingly as he leaps over it. “Duty! Duty! Give it up!” The terrier races away with the shoe, skittering behind the sofa and out in a burst of speed.

Charles comes rapidly in from the kitchen. “Annabel, get down from there! I told you I’d hang the curtain. What fell? What’s going on? Anything broken here? Are
you
broken?”

“Nooooo.” She lifts her chin and peers at him through her lashes.

“Aren’t you the coquette. Did you tease Duty to mischief?” He helps her alight, as though from a coach.

She looks up, wide-eyed. “I never, Charles. Hart kicked my shoe to be smart.”

“And he is, very smart, but I hope he hasn’t broken your mother’s favorite lamp.” Charles rights the pink silk shade, reaching up under the fringe to feel for the bulb. “Ah, there. It was only loose.” He twists it tight, and the lamp glows again, lighting up the Chinese scene embroidered in the silk. “You’ll undermine your own play,” he tells her seriously, “with all this drama.”

“We haven’t hung the curtain or got the costumes on, or even lit the tree yet,” she says. “They’ll forget.”

“You’re not actually nine years old, are you?”

“My teacher says I’m more ten than nine, and might have skipped a grade.” She picks up her shoe and displays it on her palm. “I like your winter scarf, that you wore yesterday. It’s white.”

“You’re more thirty than twenty,” Charles says, “and yes, my scarf is white silk. You want it for your play.”

“Everyone is in white. Like angels.”

“Hall closet,” Charles says, “in the sleeve of my overcoat. As long as you won’t have the dog mauling it.”

She knew he would say yes. She hears Duty rush past again in the hallway, round the corner at the banister, and start upstairs, slowed by his ascent. He’s big chested and strong jowled, but short in the legs and sausage shaped; Hart will catch him easily.

Her mother stands in the doorway, holding Hart by the arm. “Are we put to rights here? Hart, be still. Let Duty go. He’s running because you’re chasing him. He’ll drop the shoe as soon as he thinks you’ve stopped playing. Charles, here are the paper sacks for the luminarias. Eight should certainly be enough, and I have glass holders for the votive candles.”

“What are luminarias?” Annabel, pleased, smoothes her lace-curtain cape.

“For your footlights. Charles’ idea. And you’re to do exactly as he says.” Her mother steps over to give Charles the sacks, and he drapes an arm around her, pulling her companionably close. Annabel notes that her mother fits under Charles’ arm, exactly as
the woman should fit to the man. Perhaps she will write a play for grown-ups, and her mother and Charles will perform it. She could dispense with a narrator and write herself a part at last.

“I’ll find Duty,” Hart says.

“No,” Charles replies. “I’ll find Duty. Fill these sacks half full with sand from the bucket on the porch. Then you will take them carefully to the kitchen, and your mother will set the candles. You must all make haste. Dinner is served at noon sharp.”

“Charles,” asks Annabel, “what is in that very big box behind the tree? I know you won’t tell. Do you know, Mother?”

“I have no idea.” She steps over to have a look. “Heavens, Charles, when did you bring in such a big box?”

“Last night. You were all dreaming of sugarplums. It’s for the children.”

“It’s a race car with a motor,” Hart says. “Or a team of sled dogs, asleep and folded up.”

Charles gives him the sacks. “To your task, my man.”

“Hart, your costume is on your bed,” Annabel prompts him. “For when you come in from the porch.” She knows what their mother will say next.

“Put on your coat and hat,” their mother tells Hart. “It’s snowing to beat the band.”

•   •   •

Annabel, her shoe in her hand, gazes at the crèche atop the shiny piano. She’s quite disappointed that the Verbergs aren’t coming, for they always clap loudly and make exclamations. And she will have to put up with Hart’s additions and tricks, as he must amuse himself. Grethe, her stalwart, can be counted upon to strike the right attitudes while Annabel says her words. They always have flowers at the end for Mother, but today there are no flowers. Hart said he had no allowance to spend on them; in fact, they’ve all made their presents for one another this year. Mother said this was the true spirit of Christmas, but Annabel knows they are being provident.

The piano is shut to save the keys, and Annabel places her shoe
there. The living and dining room sconces are gaslit and scarcely used, but one glows now above the crèche, day and night, until Epiphany. Grethe said it means the eternal flame, a phrase Annabel noticed but hadn’t time to question. Her present to her mother, in response to direct request, must be her “Play for Christmas,” and Annabel has typed the words, key by key, on the old Corona typewriter Charles had left in the back bedroom. The pages look well enough, with the cutouts of doves pasted on. Hart consented to type in the lines he planned to ad-lib, though he didn’t promise to say exactly those, for
ad-lib
meant to improvise, and one could never tell if Duty would perform as instructed. She told him he was so annoying to ruin her play and he lectured her about setting off the serious bits with humor, if she insisted on using a rag doll as a character. To make it up, he stapled the pages into a cover. The glade, he said, was a good idea, at least.

Annabel leans in to peer at the crèche and wishes for a magnifying glass, to see the faces on the figures. Only Grethe is trusted with the crèche; she prizes the Holy Family, the kings, the shepherds, the angel holding the banner, the sheep and cows that stand and lie in real straw. It was their mother’s crèche, in her childhood. Annabel looks closely at the white feet and delineated toes of Mary and Joseph, who are barefoot; the kings’ and shepherds’ feet are covered by layered robes and tunics. The colors were painted in Italy long ago; the white of the bisque seems to glow from within the pinks and browns and blues and scarlets.

Dreamily, Annabel scoops a handful of straw from within the stable and stuffs it loosely into the shoe she holds in her hand. She folds under the strap and puts the Baby Jesus, who lies molded in his swaddling clothes, into her shoe amongst the straw. She pulls her lace cloak around the Christ protectively and takes him to the big window, standing close against the glass to let him feel the cold. The Palladian window in the living room is like a door of falling snow, for the window starts at her knees and runs upward nearly to the ceiling. Annabel breathes with the snow, holding the shoe to her chest, until she hears sounds upstairs. Quickly she covers the
Christ with her hand and moves to the piano. The crèche scene is much changed. Joseph’s flared fingers are alarmed. Even the animals gaze pointedly at the empty porcelain hole, and Mary’s prayerful expression strikes in Annabel a tiny thrill of fear. She puts back the Christ, which fits snugly in, porcelain lip to lip, like one tray inside another.