Regret Not a Moment (9 page)

“It’s not self-pity exactly. I guess I’m just cranky from being in bed all this time,” said Devon, ashamed that she had succumbed to such an unworthy emotion within minutes of her sister’s arrival. But Grace was so sympathetic, so comforting. And Devon had always shared her deepest secrets with her.

“You’re not just cranky,” said Grace sternly. “Tell me what’s bothering you. I know something is.”

Devon did not respond immediately. It was difficult to articulate her emotions. There was fear… of loneliness, of emptiness. There was longing for John Alexander. There was bewilderment at his hasty return to New York, at his failure to appear for the hunt. There was depression that she might never know love. There was even a certain—she hated to admit it, even to herself, but there was a certain desperation in the way she felt. As though she would never find someone to love. As though she was being punished for refusing the many offers of marriage that had come her way.

“Grace… I’m scared,” Devon said, silent tears beginning to make their way down her bruised face.

“Scared? Of not getting better?” asked Grace, bewildered.

“Not that,” said Devon, reaching for a handkerchief and gingerly blotting the tears from her sore face.

“Then what? Are you afraid to ride again?” Grace could not imagine such a thing, but she could not imagine anything else that could evoke such sadness in Devon.

“Grace… it’s something else. Promise you won’t tell Mother and Father?”

“Of course, if you don’t want me to.” She made the cross-my-heart gesture they had used since childhood.

“I’m afraid I’m never going to know what it’s like to be in love—and have a man love me.”

“Devon, that’s ridiculous!” exploded Grace, surprise jerking her body erect in her chair. “How could you think such a thing? You’ve refused so many men. You could have any man you want.”

“Not any man,” Devon said quietly, trying to hold back the tears. She would not meet her sister’s eyes. Instead, she looked down at the comforter and picked at it in a childish gesture of nervousness.

“Are you talking about someone in particular?”

Devon knew that confession would be painful, but she needed the release. “Yes, I mean someone in particular,” said Devon, raising her eyes to meet Grace’s. “I don’t know if I’m in love with him. I don’t see how that’s possible. I’ve only known him a few weeks.”

“What are you saying? That there’s no hope with this man?” asked Grace, leaning forward in her chair in an attempt to hold Devon’s gaze.

“I don’t know. But, Gracie, it’s not just him. I’m afraid I’ll die without ever having known…” Devon could not finish her sentence, could not look at her sister, she was so ashamed.

Grace looked at her sympathetically. She understood what her sister meant. Grace was an extremely sensuous woman and could not imagine life without love—or without lovemaking. “You don’t ever have to resign yourself to… that,” said Grace softly.

“But I’ve never been in love. I’ve never wanted to marry any man I met, except this man.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is John Alexander. He lives in New York. He was here on a visit.” Devon went on to explain the circumstances of their meeting and his subsequent courtship of her.

“Do you want to marry him?”

“How is that possible? I’ve known him such a short time. All I know is that I want to… he makes me feel…” Devon paused, too embarrassed to describe the physical longing he aroused in her.

“You mean you would like to make love to him, whether or not you marry him?” asked Grace bluntly.

“Grace! How can you say such a thing!” Devon exclaimed, shocked that her sister could discern the very idea she was unable to stifle in her own mind.

“Don’t be priggish, Devon. It’s done all the time in Paris. Women make love with a lot of men who aren’t their husbands. Some of them do it after they marry, some before. It’s perfectly natural to desire a man. In fact, I’m surprised you’re still a—” Grace did not finish the sentence, but raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“Grace! Of course I am! Mother and Father would die if they could hear you.”

“Well, they can’t, so it doesn’t matter,” Grace said dismissively, scooting her chair closer to the bed. “Look, my dear. You are almost twenty-five, and you’ve been much too sheltered. You’ve got to grow up and face the facts of life. If you want this man for a husband, try to marry him, but if you just want him, you should satisfy yourself. It’s positively unnatural that a beauty like you has never made love. There, I’ve said it. Don’t look at me with that shocked expression. And one more thing. It is possible to fall in love with someone in a week, or even a day. I know plenty of happy couples who knew each other only a short time before marrying. And I know some divorcees who had long courtships and engagements. Time has absolutely nothing to do with love.”

“Grace, you’re the one who’s being unrealistic. It’s fine for you to sit there and tell me to make love to a man, but what about the consequences?”

“What consequences?” demanded Grace. “If you mean pregnancy, there are ways to protect against that, as I’m sure even you know. If you mean your reputation—just make sure you don’t do it here. This John Alexander, for example, lives in New York, doesn’t he?”

“Yes…” said Devon vaguely. She was not thinking about such mundane things as addresses. She was trying to envision the audacious act of beginning a love affair. How did one go about such things, she wondered. Unconsciously, she picked up the hand mirror by her bed. She peered into it, as though expecting to see a change there. But no, her face was the same. Talking about an illicit love affair had not transformed her in any way. Was it possible then, that committing such an act could go undetected.”

“New York is perfect,” declared Grace. “It’s a big city. You can be relatively anonymous. Paris would be better yet,” she concluded breezily.

“But Grace, if I did want to marry him, wouldn’t doing something like that ruin everything?” What Grace was saying flew in the face of everything she had been taught. A husband’s respect was contingent upon his wife’s being a virgin, wasn’t it?

“Devon, I barely recognize you,” Grace scolded. “Where’s your old sass? Where’s your sense? If you want to marry this man, you should certainly try to do it. In which case, you wouldn’t want to drag him off to bed a few weeks after meeting him. But if a man truly loves you, and you make love with him, that should not end his love for you.” Grace looked Devon squarely in the eye and nodded at the end of her sentence, as though to underline the truth of her words. “If he doesn’t love you, and you desire him madly—well, Devon, you’re twenty-five years old. I think it’s time you acted on your desires! There, you’re looking shocked again. Would you please take that wide-eyed expression off your face.”

Devon tried to comply, but her mind was reeling from her sister’s words. Could a lifestyle such as Grace was describing really make her happy? She didn’t think so. Devon reached her hand out to Grace’s and clung to it tightly. “Grace, if I never marry, I’ll be so lonely.”

Grace shook her head in denial. “Marriage has nothing to do with loneliness. There are women who live for years with men without ever marrying. Sometimes they grow old together. Sometimes not. On the other hand, there are women who are married for thirty years who grow old alone when their husbands die. Or who get divorced. Sometimes, if a marriage is unhappy, it’s worse than being alone. Believe me, marriage is no insurance against loneliness.”

“But if you marry, you have children, and that helps.”

“Sometimes, but not always. Anyhow, there are women who have children without marriage.”

“Grace! I could never do that!” said Devon, quickly withdrawing her hand from Grace’s as though she had been stung.

“You never know what you can do until you are faced with the situation,” said Grace quietly. “Devon, I’m very upset by this conversation. Something has happened to your confidence. You’ve never had all these fears. You’ve always been the bravest person I know. Why are you doubting yourself?”

Devon leaned back wearily against the pillows and in a slow monotone told her sister of her recent conversation with Helena. “And it made me realize,” Devon concluded, “that no matter how beautiful or how smart everyone says I am, I might have to spend my life alone!”

Grace was uncharacteristically quiet as she digested the story. She could see how the behavior of Alexander followed by the accident and the conversation with Helena could have demoralized any ordinary woman, but her sister was not ordinary. Devon was special. Exceptional.

Devon, who had closed her eyes at the conclusion of her story, was rudely brought to attention by her sister slapping the arm of the chair with the palm of her hand.

“How dare you?” Grace demanded. “How dare you let these picayune events change your whole way of thinking about yourself? You’ve always been independent. You’ve traveled all over. You’ve said and done what you wish. Now, you’re letting that idiot Helena, who can’t even compare to you in any category, make you feel small. You’re letting a man you’ve only known for a week make you feel hopeless. You’re acting like a coward. But Devon, you’ve never been a coward! If your face wasn’t so sore, I’d slap some sense into you!” Grace finished hotly.

“A coward? What do you mean by that?” Devon raised her voice to match her sister’s.

“You’re worried about everything! You’re worried about defying Mother and Father. You’re worried about defying society. Well, Devon, a third of your life is probably over, and you’re just sitting here wishing, like a convict wishes for freedom. Only you’re not in jail. You’re free to go after what you want and it’s high time you did it! I’m surprised and, I must say, disappointed, that you haven’t done so before now. Since when have you been such a shrinking violet?” Grace asked mockingly, fury still evident from the flush in her face.

“I am not! I have to live my life here. I can’t just do crazy things. That may be what women do in Paris, but they sure don’t do that in Virginia!” Devon retorted hotly.

“But you don’t have to live your life here! That’s my point. You like to travel. You have a trust fund. You can live your life wherever and however you want. Furthermore, if you
do
want to live your life here, then you shouldn’t let that stop you from going after what you want. Just he smart about it. You don’t take out an ad in the paper,” said Grace sarcastically.

Devon had no response. It was difficult to imagine defying the conventions of a lifetime.

“Devon, you have a choice to make here. Something that could determine the whole course of your life,” said Grace, reaching for Devon’s shoulders and holding them firmly when her sister tried to pull away. “Listen to me. You have always been special. You can choose the coward’s way of life. That would mean you don’t take anything unless someone offers it. You don’t satisfy your longings. You let other people tell you how to live your life. And, because you’re a woman, you resign yourself to either marriage or spinsterhood. Nothing in between. But, Devon, you’ve never exactly fit the society mold. You’ve always been more outspoken, more independent than is conventional. Your very nature demands that you break away. If you try to stifle that impulse, you’ll be a very unhappy person, far more unhappy than any scandal could possibly make you.”

Grace lifted the hand mirror and held it in front of Devon’s face, forcing her to look in it. “Devon, look at you. You were meant for love. You were meant for adventure. That’s your destiny; not sitting here lamenting your lost youth like some shriveled-up old maid.”

Beneath the bruises and cuts, Devon saw the beauty to which her sister referred. She saw it objectively, as though studying a painting. To waste it? To waste her desire, so ripe, so perfectly ready for expression? It seemed sinful, more sinful than any illicit act of love. Grace was right, she thought. She must make a choice. She could succumb to the role other people assigned her, or she could make her own way in life. She had never been passive before. Why allow an odd confluence of events to make her so now? Grace was right in pointing out that Devon’s thoughts had limited her, not her situation. In reality, nothing in her life was any different now than before, when she had been happy. Events had demoralized her, but she had brooded long enough. It was time to get on with her life!

Sitting up straighter in bed, Devon placed the mirror facedown on her lap. Turning to her sister, she simply said, “Grace, thank you so much for coming.” Then, in a gesture of the most delicate tenderness, she took her sister’s hand, raised it to her lips, and kissed it.

JOHN Alexander heaved a sigh of relief as he signed the last letter in the pile his secretary had left on his desk. It had taken him almost two weeks to clear up the work that had accumulated while he was in Virginia, and he was finally finished. He pulled out his gold pocket watch and grunted in irritation as he saw the time. Eight o’clock. It was not difficult to lose track of time when the sun set so early, as it did in late November in New York. But that was not normally John’s habit, because although he liked his work, he was not compulsive about it. As an extremely wealthy man, he felt that his work was neither a means to prove himself nor a way to earn money; he regarded it simply as useful and interesting.

Normally, John would bid his secretary a cheery good evening at no later than six o’clock. From there he would go to his men’s club for a drink, or possibly a game of squash. Afterward, he would stop at his Park Avenue duplex to change for supper or the theater. Most often such evenings would end at Loretta’s, but of course he had not been to Loretta’s in almost two weeks and had not been inclined to find someone new.

He still felt guilty about the way things had ended, but he had convinced himself that Loretta was tough enough, and selfish enough, to find herself a replacement for him in short order. After all, the tantrum she had thrown had probably just been a bit of theatrics. Actresses were high-strung and they seemed to enjoy such scenes. He would never forget the time the actress lover of his friend Charles Wittingham had emptied an entire bottle of vintage champagne in poor Charlie’s lap. In front of everyone at “21.” And that quarrel had been about whether she and Charlie should take the train to the mountains for the weekend or drive instead. He tried to picture Devon doing such a thing. She was high-spirited certainly, outspoken even, but he could not imagine her doing anything undignified.