Superior Women (7 page)

“I’ve been thinking,” Lavinia says to her father, in the dark red leather library, full of books that no one reads. “You’re really right, Mother does hate it at the farm. It doesn’t seem fair to wish that on her, at Christmas.”

“Ah, that’s my considerate girl.” Mr. Harcourt suppresses a sigh of relief.

Her gray eyes meet his, so similar, in a level, serious look. They appear, father and daughter, to be two people speaking the truth; they both appear to be kind and concerned.

Mr. Harcourt then asks, “How about your young man, though? It won’t be too hard to entertain him here?”

“Oh no, there’s always something to do. All the parties. You know.” Not quite looking at her father, speaking vaguely, Lavinia adds, “Besides, he might not even be able to come. Those ROTC guys are always getting restricted.”

“Oh.” If Mr. Harcourt senses duplicity in all of this he gives no sign; perhaps he is relieved not to have to meet the boy? He next asks, “Well, have you given any thought to your Christmas present?” and he smiles.

Lavinia looks down modestly before she answers, “I really need some clothes. Maybe a coat?”

In a pleased, surprised way her father’s smile deepens. “You’ve read my mind!” he tells her. “I’ve been giving some thought to coats for young ladies, in all that famous Boston cold. I thought—well, what would you say to a really good fur coat? A good dark mink? It would be a sort of investment.”

He is always generous with Lavinia; still, this offer comes as a surprise. A couple of years ago, when she was at boarding school, Lavinia wanted a nice fur coat, just a simple sheared beaver, and her father really hit the ceiling: remarks about new-rich Jewish girls (“Jewesses”), vulgar little fifteen-year-olds in fur. So that now, when he offers mink, Lavinia is sorely tempted; she can so easily see herself in mink, she knows that she is perfect for some dark, glossy fur, her hair the perfect contrast, her height perfect to carry it off. Harvey was dying to give her a mink coat.
But:
she cannot appear in mink, meeting Gordon, mink would be something that neither he nor anyone in his family could afford. She will have to settle for a really good black wool coat; no one not knowing a great deal about clothes, and Gordon knows nothing at all, would guess how expensive it will be.

Demure, Lavinia says to her father, “Oh honestly, Daddy, I just don’t know. Don’t you think that maybe, with the war on and all, I should just get a plain black wool coat?”

“Well, of course. Whatever you say, my darling. But come to think of it I’m sure you’re right. And I’m proud that you had the thought.”

Gazing at each other in mutual satisfaction, Lavinia and her
father lift similar long chins, in similar gestures of pride and self-deception.

“Look, I can’t even listen to your excuses for not doing my coat on time. I am leaving for Boston on Friday morning. I am coming in here on Thursday afternoon to pick up my coat. At that time you will have it ready. Is that clear?”

Gray eyes flashing, chin raised, Lavinia delivers this not-pretty speech to the large pale-brown woman who is sitting on the floor, her face on a level with the hem of Lavinia’s new coat, her mouth full of pins, her right hand clutching a stubby piece of chalk. Lavinia does not look beautiful, at that moment, but her pale face has terrific power, nobility, almost. At boarding school, in the senior play she was Joan of Arc, and she could be playing Joan right now, so convincing, so driven by a sense of mission is she.

The pins prevent the Negro woman on the floor from saying anything at all, but her eyes express acquiescence. Resignation (she hardly has much choice).

Lavinia smiles. “You do the most wonderful work,” she says, and now she is very pretty. “And it’s not quite right around the waist. I want it to fit perfectly. Like all my clothes.”

Getting off the train, on a Friday night that is also New Year’s Eve, Lavinia is very beautiful. With the perfectly fitted, perfectly simple black coat (that cost more than the month’s salary of the Negro fitting woman), she wears perfect black suede shoes, with high thin heels, and a filmy pale pink scarf at her throat. As she steps down carefully from the high train, off and into Gordon’s arms, she sees her own beauty reflected in Gordon’s eyes. In his kiss.

Whatever has been wrong will now be all right. He loves her entirely, as she loves him. They are perfect for each other, perfect together.

They break apart to look at each other, and kiss again.

Gordon says, “Well, we’d better start. I’ve got the car, old Potter’s off skiing in New Hampshire, the bum.”

“Oh, Gordon, that’s perfect.”

He picks up her bag. “Say, what’ve you got in this thing, your rock collection?”

She laughs, although she has heard the joke before; it is what Gordon says whenever he carries anything of hers, even the green book bag that he bought for her at the Coop. His first present. Thinking of this, of presents, it comes to Lavinia that later that night, at midnight, maybe, Gordon will give her the tiny gold fly, the emblem of his club. You are not supposed to give them away, and if he did it would mean—not exactly an engagement, but something important. A symbol. A little frightened (suppose he does not give it to her, ever?), Lavinia realizes just how much she wants that tiny fly.

“Well, how about it?” asks Gordon. “Dinner at the Pudding, okay?”

Well, it is not okay; they go to the Pudding all the time, and now, in wartime, the Pudding is not an exclusive place; it has been turned into an officers’ club, officers from everywhere, all over the place. All kinds of men, who would not under normal circumstances belong to a club at Harvard, or even be at Harvard. Lavinia is more than a little tired of dinner at the Pudding, although tonight, for New Year’s Eve, there will be a band, and dancing. But she had been hoping, well, hoping for dinner in Boston, maybe dancing there: the Ritz, or at least the Fox and Hounds. However, however, she firmly tells herself, nothing like that is important, really. What matters is how handsome Gordon is, with his thick almost blue-black hair, his lovely fine mouth and clear pale skin. His blue eyes. What matters is love. “Oh, wonderful,” says Lavinia, convincingly, smiling up at Gordon, clutching his arm delicately against her breast.

At the Pudding Lavinia and Gordon know a lot of people, but tonight fewer than usual of their friends are there for dinner. They are all having dinner in Boston, Lavinia imagines. However, she is pleased to see that Gordon leads them to a small table, where they will be alone. They can talk.

They have had a couple of old-fashioneds in the bar downstairs;
they are seated and talking about their dinner—maybe some wine?—when suddenly there is a loud clumping noise in the dining room, above all the din of silver and glassware and conversation. Everyone looks up, Lavinia and Gordon too, and there is Potter, who is supposed to be skiing in North Conway. Here he is, though, with a huge cast on his leg. Potter Cobb.

Laughing, his face flushed and his pale blond hair less sleek than usual, he is moving toward their table, hobbling along. As he approaches they can see that both his progress and his balance are impeded by two heavy bottles, one carried in each hand. French champagne—Lavinia knows that label.

Potter is in love with Lavinia, he has been since they first met, last fall, at an after-game party. But he loves her in a pleasant, silent, untroubling way. Lavinia is used to inspiring such feelings, and she really likes Potter, he reminds her of some of her very nicest cousins. But tonight her heart sinks a little at the sight of him.

Potter is sensitive, generally, and his manners, of course, are impeccable. And, tonight, he seems to sense that he should not be there with them, with Gordon and Lavinia, despite his gifts of champagne. “Well, talk about barging in with four left feet,” he says, somewhat breathlessly. “But I couldn’t resist showing you this terrific piece of contemporary sculpture that seems to have landed on my left foot. And just as I was going out of the house the old man pressed these cold bottles into my moist hot hands. As a matter of fact I wasn’t at all sure you’d be here tonight.”

“Well, where else?” To Lavinia, Gordon’s voice has an uncharacteristically hearty sound; it seems to boom. “And pull up a chair if you can make it,” Gordon says. “Of course you’ll have dinner with us. And you can tell us all about your bloody skiing accident.”

Lavinia smiles in an automatically flirtatious way at Potter, who responds, “Our Southern beauty is yet more beautiful, wouldn’t you agree, Gordon, old man?”

“Definitely, definitively. Come on and sit down, you old fool.”

Potter really didn’t have to sit down and have dinner with them, Lavinia is thinking. He could have one glass of wine, and tell them about his stupid ankle, all in about ten or fifteen minutes. Not stay
all through dinner, ordering even more wine, and until dessert and coffee.
Brandy.

But that is exactly what Potter does; he stays and stays and talks and talks and talks, and orders drinks that he insists are to go on his tab, like some garrulous rich old uncle. “In all my skiing years I never saw ice like that,” he seems to have said several times.

“What you mean is that you
didn’t
see the ice,” chimes in Gordon. To Lavinia, it is not an especially funny remark, but the two men really break up over it. In fact Gordon seems to be having a wonderful time, and worse, he does everything to encourage Potter to stay with them.

At some point in all the ski talk, Lavinia catches a familiar name: George Wharton. A demon on skis, according to Potter. George Wharton, the beloved of foolish Megan, although Megan doesn’t seem to see him very often.

And so Lavinia asks, “George Wharton, really? Was he by himself up there?”

“Oh, you know George? Well, he was with Connie, of course. Connie Winsor. They’re practically engaged. But you must know Connie too, if you know old
George.
”

“Well, not exactly. He’s just sort of the friend of a friend.”

By that time they are drinking brandy, and the dining room is almost empty; everyone else is downstairs, dancing, celebrating New Year’s Eve.

Potter says, “Well now, I insist that you two kids go on down and rush into the fray on the dance floor. I absolutely insist.”

Well really—at last. But when Lavinia looks over at Gordon she sees that his pale face is paler yet, is dead white, and breaking out in sweat across his forehead and on his upper lip. Gordon is drunk; he is going to be sick.

Probably just in time, he gets up and lurches across the room, to the men’s room. Lavinia does not watch him go, nor does she look up when Potter says, “Well, the poor old guy. All my fault, really. Ordering all that stuff,” and he looks regretfully in the direction of his departed friend.

Gordon does not come back. More time passes; a weak conversation limps along between Potter and Lavinia, and still no Gordon.

At last Potter says, “Well, I’d really better check.” He gets up and clumps across the floor.

In his absence Lavinia peers at her own face, in her small gold compact; she is okay, she sees, nothing smeared or shining, or out of place.

Looking embarrassed, Potter comes back alone. “I think I’d better take you home,” he says. “He’ll be okay, but it may take some time. I’ll come back later and pick him up.”

Lavinia smiles, radiantly. “I’d love for you to take me home,” she says.

Potter drives slowly, in the big car that, although actually his, Lavinia thinks of as Gordon’s; they have spent so much time necking in it. In the streets of Cambridge people are blowing horns, making noise, all over Harvard Square. There is a near traffic jam; it takes almost twenty minutes to get from the Pudding over to the Radcliffe dorms—twenty minutes during which Potter and Lavinia do not speak. It is easy not to, with all that noise outside.

Somewhat surprisingly, Potter parks the car at the far end of the quad, near the tennis courts, where Lavinia and Gordon often have parked; it is darkest there. Potter’s intentions seem innocent, however; he only asks, “Want a cigarette before you go in? Actually it’s quite early, for New Year’s Eve.”

Not answering him, on a quick impulse which she neither understands nor examines, Lavinia moves toward Potter; her hands reach and clasp the back of his neck, her mouth presses his.

For an instant Potter simply allows himself to be kissed, like a man savoring some new sensation, passively. But then, very gently, smoothly, knowingly, his hands reach into her coat; he pulls her to him, and he is kissing her deeply, as Lavinia thinks, How odd this is, we might be anyone at all, any couple on New Year’s Eve. How impersonal sex is, really, after all. She thinks all that even as she responds, returning his kiss and the pressure of his body.

At last they separate. For a moment Lavinia is afraid that Potter will say something wrong, will say that he loves her, or something, ruining it all. Instead he reaches into a pocket, probably for a
handkerchief. She is also afraid that he has come to some false conclusion, that his silence is ominous.

Having found the handkerchief, Potter offers it. “You need this?”

“Thanks, I have one.” Lavinia applies her own small handkerchief to her mouth, and then, expertly, fresh lipstick, as though she could see in the dark.

Potter says, “You’re very beautiful, you know, Lavinia.”

She smiles, as she thinks that that was the perfect thing for him to say. Exactly right, not spoiling or defining anything. She smiles upon him, in the dark, as she says, “I’d better go in now.”

He clumps along beside her to the steps of Barnard Hall, where, of course, they do not kiss again. Lavinia touches his arm. “Thank you, Potter. Really, thanks very much.”

“My pleasure.” He makes a gesture as though touching his hat to her (so like Potter, that) and then he is gone.

Lavinia does not hear from Gordon all the next day, New Year’s Day. Rather expecting that he will just come over, in Potter’s car, probably, and take her somewhere (she plans to be very kind and understanding; anyone can drink too much) she spends the day alone, reading, but she is all dressed, all day, in one of her best white sweaters, and she stays carefully within range of the floor phone; she has let the girl on bells know where she is. Thank God the dorm is almost deserted, and especially that none of her friends are around: no Peg with her booming questions, “Well, where’s Mr. Shaughnessey keeping himself today?” Or Megan, with her too-intelligent, hypersensitive eyes; Megan would not ask but she would visibly wonder. Cathy at least would be incurious; in fact heaven knows what Cathy is thinking, most of the time. Very possibly she disapproves of a nice Catholic boy like Gordon taking up with a wicked Episcopalian. (Gordon has told Lavinia that his religion is not very important to him, but sometimes she wonders: does he only say that for her benefit, in the same way that he says that he never really cared for his old girl friend, Marge?)