The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales (35 page)

On the train home, Mayfred rode backward in our large drawing-room compartment (courtesy of Donald Bailey) and the landscape, getting more southern every minute, went rocketing past. “You can’t guess how I spent my time when Donald was in the hospital. Nothing to do but sit.”

“Working crossword puzzles,” said Jamie.

“Crocheting,” said Eric, provoking a laugh.

“Reading
Vogue,”
said Ben.

“All wrong! I read Edgar Allan Poe! What’s more, I memorized that poem! That one Ben wrote on. You know? That ‘Ulalume’!”

Everybody laughed but Ben, and Mayfred was laughing, too, her grand girlish sputters, innocent as sun and water, her beautiful large white teeth, even as a cover girls. Ben, courteously at the end of the sofa, smiled faintly. It was best not to believe this was true.

“‘The skies they were ashen and sober;

The leaves they were crispéd and sere—

The leaves they were withering and sere:

It was the night in the lonesome October

Of my most immemorial year. …’”

“By God, she’s done it,” said Ben.

At that point Jamie and I began to laugh, and Eric, who had at first looked quizzical, started laughing, too. Ben said, “Oh, cut it out, Mayfred.” But she said, “No, sir, I’m not! I
did
all that. I know
every
word! Just wait, I’ll show you.” She went right on, full speed, to the “ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.”

Back as straight as a ramrod, Ben left the compartment. Mayfred stopped. An hour later, when he came back, she started again. But it wasn’t till she got to Psyche “uplifting her finger” (Mayfred lifted hers) saying, “Ah, fly!—let us fly!—for me must,’” and all that about the “tremulous light, the crystalline light,” et cetera, that Ben gave up and joined in the general merriment. She actually did know it, every word. He followed along open-mouthed through “Astarte” and “Sybillic,” and murmured, “Oh, my God,” when she got to:

“‘Ulalume—Ulalume—

’Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!’”

because she let go in a wail like a hound’s bugle and the conductor, who was passing, looked in to see if we were all right.

We rolled into Chattanooga in the best of humor and filed off the train into the waiting arms of my parents, Erics parents and selected members from Ben’s and Jamie’s families. There was nobody from Mayfred’s, but they’d sent word. They all kept checking us over, as though we might need washing or might have got scarred some way. “Just promise me one thing!” Mama kept saying, just about to cry. “Don’t y’all ever go away again, you hear? Not all of you! Just promise you won’t do it! Promise me right now!”

I guess we must have promised, the way she was begging us to.

Ben married his Sylvia, with her pedigree and family estate in Connecticut. He’s a big professor, lecturing in literature, up East. Jamie married a Catholic girl from West Virginia. He works in her father’s firm and has sired a happy lot of kids. Mayfred went to New York after she left Donald and works for a big fashion house. She’s been in and out of marriages, from time to time.

And Eric and I are sitting holding hands on a terrace in far off Italy. Midnight struck long ago, and we know it. We are sitting there, talking, in the pitch-black dark.