The Lone Pilgrim (9 page)

The lunch was not a success, and Elizabeth and her mother parted in terrible tempers.

One week later was the Rodkers' annual Christmas party, and Elizabeth was loaded for bear. Her first step was the purchase of a black velvet dress that was low in the back, low in the front, and sleeveless. Next was the gardenia she wore in her hair. She looked quite beautiful, but her mother could not approve of the dress and she found the gardenia excessive. Nelson, however, found her ravishing and told her so. But Nelson's praise was not her goal: she was after James. She had decided that a little public bad behavior was exactly what she needed. It was time to get her mother off her back, outrage the Rodkers, and put to rest once and for all her imitation of a well-composed young woman. She could also blitz what she considered their tidy plans for her: a safe marriage to nice Nelson, or someone very like him.

As soon as she had knocked back several glasses of champagne, she felt up to putting her plan in operation. This was to flirt slowly and blatantly with James. Then, if he was as dashing as she imagined, she would seduce him and then make it known. Before he went back to England, she would dump him. She was about to edge herself over to him when she felt that warm hand on her forearm.

“Darling, Harriet says you haven't said hello to her.”

“Harriet can go to hell,” said Elizabeth, so fortified by Piper Heidsieck that she ignored the threat of vengeance in her mother's eyes.

She approached James Rodker. Next to him the healthy Nelson palled. James looked haggard, tortured, just the sort of deep and troubled man you find in novels.

“Hello,” she said with a big smile. “I haven't seen you since I was a little girl.”

“Well, well, well,” said James, “aren't you grown-up?” He turned her around and led her to a sofa.

“So you're Nellie's little pal,” he said. “I've been hearing so much about you.”

“I've always been hearing about you,” Elizabeth said.

“Tell you what,” said James, “as soon as the whole crowd is here, let's you and me sneak out for a drink and talk about all we've been hearing. What say?”

“All right,” said Elizabeth, though this was not quite as she had planned. James had jumped the gun on her.

But things worked out well enough. They made a public exit on the pretext of going out for a bag of ice and had the pleasure of watching Harriet Rodker's lips compress, but before she could speak, Elizabeth and James were out the door and into the elevator.

He took her to a bar around the corner, a dull, wood-paneled place—the sort of bar you can take your son to after a hockey game. They sat in a wooden booth and sipped their drinks in silence. James lit his pipe and smiled a knowing smile.

“So, here you are. The little number they've tucked away for brother Nellie,” he said.

“I am not tucked away for anyone.”

“No, on second thought, you wouldn't be. Girls like you play for higher stakes. Love or income, or preferably both.”

“I don't play for any stakes,” Elizabeth said.

“How refreshingly young you are,” said James. “Mother implored me to be kind to you.”

“As opposed to what?”

“As opposed to dragging you by the hair, knocking you out, and catching a social disease, or giving you one.”

“Have you had many social diseases?”

“Oh, several. I have contracted social diseases in Hong Kong, Saigon, and the town of High Wycombe.” He set his dead pipe down on the table. “Little girls like you—I beg your pardon—women like you are meant to blush, or don't you blush any more? Probably not.”

Elizabeth realized that the romantic James was rather drunk. He then began a long discourse on the subject of the nuclear family, quoting extensively in French from a sociologist Elizabeth had never heard of. Then he launched into an explanation of the English economy, and Elizabeth realized that for all that he was haggard he was extremely dull.

Suddenly he stared directly into Elizabeth's eyes.

“Have you the keys to your apartment?” he said, and, without waiting for an answer, continued, “Give them to me.”

Elizabeth was old enough to have been flirted with and propositioned many times. The men she liked best were straightforward, brave enough to state their intentions. The keys James Rodker wanted he wanted to clean his pipe with, she was sure. The easy way with which he made his request indicated to her that this was a well-used ploy. If you forked over your keys, he cleaned his pipe. If you fluttered, James took this as encouragement and ended by using your keys to come and sleep with you. Elizabeth handed over the keys and watched James dig the ashes out of his pipe.

“Clever girl,” he said.

“I think we ought to go back,” said Elizabeth, who was beginning to feel sleepy. She was profoundly disappointed. James was not a man she wanted to flirt with, and she felt a cold coming on.

“Not so fast,” James said. “I'm going to tell you about all those things you've heard about me.” And he commenced to describe his college career, the flat he had inhabited in London, the girls he had lived with in Paris, the bar girls he had slept with in Saigon, his position on his paper, and the number of famous friends he had. Elizabeth had to suppress a yawn.

“All right,” said James, paying the bill. “Back to the arms of the family. Don't you find it public-spirited of our lovely Nellie to work with the less fortunate?”

Elizabeth swallowed. “Nelson's all right.”

“You, of course, are partisan,” James said. “Nellie is an insect.”

When they returned to the party, Elizabeth realized that they had been gone for two hours and the smug smile James wore announced that they had been up to no good.

Elizabeth spent the next week in her apartment wrapped in a quilt. The cold she had expected materialized. In addition to being ill, she was angry. From Holly she had learned that James Rodker during his stay had not come home several nights and dropped her name frequently. Thus, it was assumed that she and James were up to further evil doings. She said to Holly: “I know I set out to seduce him, but he's just too awful. And besides, look at what he's done! He's set me up! He comes home to rub his parents' nose in it and he used me!”

“Unthinkable,” said Holly.

On the afternoon of New Year's Eve Elizabeth was curled up dozing under her quilt. In a few hours she would dress and go to the boozy, happy party Holly gave each New Year's. Elizabeth felt neither happy nor much in the mood for a party. She was brooding heavily but was interrupted by the doorbell. She started—it might be Roy Howard, who sometimes dropped by on whim. But it was not. It was Nelson Rodker.

“Hello,” he said. “I was in the neighborhood and I heard you were sick, so I decided to drop by and see you.”

This was most unlike Nelson. He was wearing a beautiful suit and gold cuff links. The wind had blown his hair about and made his cheeks blaze. He looked healthy but very serious.

“I guess you came to find out if I was sleeping with your brother,” Elizabeth said.

“You're hardly the sort of girl to sleep with Jimmy. He's far too dull for you.”

“How would you know?”

“I didn't come to fight with you or to check up on your behavior.”

“You came as a kindly gesture to an ill friend.”

“I came to see you because I wanted to.”

“And to report back to our parents that I'm still alive and that James isn't hiding under my bed?”

“Elizabeth, what is wrong with you? I always think of you as a free spirit and here you chain me to my family.”

“You are your family,” Elizabeth said sulkily.

“I am most certainly not my family. I don't like my family and I never have. My family is silly, stuffy, and rigid. You're not the only one who behaved yourself and got out fast. What do you think I am?”

“A model boy,” said Elizabeth.

Then Nelson did a most un-Nelson thing. He took the quilt from Elizabeth's shoulders, lifted her to her feet and gave her the sort of kiss she had never associated with Nelson or anyone like him.

“I came to tell you that I love you,” said Nelson. “I've been wondering for months if I love you because I was told to when I was a child or if I just love you. Well, I just love you.”

They stood very close for a long time, the quilt lying at their feet.

“I don't know what to think,” Elizabeth said.

“I want to know if you hate me because you expect it of yourself or if you actually hate me.”

“I don't hate you,” said Elizabeth.

“Do you think you could love me?”

Elizabeth discovered that her head was on his shoulder and that her arms were around his neck.

“It seems to make perfect sense,” she said. “But things don't happen this way, do they?”

“Some old friends fall in love, all of a sudden,” Nelson said.

“Whatever it is I feel, it seems to have hit me all at once. Or maybe it's crept up on me without my knowing.”

“I'd like to take you to Holly's party,” said Nelson.

“That's not for hours.”

“Oh,” said Nelson, “I'm sure we can find a way to pass the time.”

“This will certainly amaze everyone,” Elizabeth said.

“Only if we tell them,” said Nelson. “A secret romance is one thing, but a secret romance worth keeping a secret is quite another. Just the thing for us, don't you think?”

They smiled ravishing smiles. As they stood with their arms entwined, they agreed that it was just the perfect sort of thing for them.

Intimacy

On a cold day in late March, a man named William Sutherland sat in the living room of an apartment in Boston drinking a brandy and soda. Perched on the arm of the chair he sat in was Martha Howard. Six years ago she had been Martha Runyon, an unmarried girl of twenty-eight. Now she was married and settled. The apartment William was visiting in was the parlor floor of an old town house. A fire burned in the fireplace. On the mantel, paperwhite narcissi were being forced in a painted bowl. It had begun to snow—large, wet flakes that fell against the window and melted.

Six years ago Martha and William had met at an archeological conference in the South of England. Martha had been on a fellowship. William was on loan from his university in California, away from his wife and two small daughters. Martha wasn't away from anything. What belongings she had were stored in the attic of her parents' house. She had never lived anywhere for very long—she was used to traveling. The conference lasted three weeks during which William fell in love with Martha and was successful in getting her to fall in love with him.

It had not been clear to Martha what was happening to her. She was somewhat solemn by nature, although life had not given her very much to be solemn about except love, which in her experience existed only as a state of uncertainty, was bound to bring pain, and generally involved unrequitedness, or separation and, in the end, suffering. That it might be easy—as easy as friendship—confused her. No one had ever loved her effortlessly. She had had two serious love affairs, the second of which she was recovering from when she met William.

William was neither grave nor solemn, and the world had battered him some: he had been married for twelve years. He had watched his father and his mother-in-law die. One of his children had almost been killed in a school bus accident. There was something rich about him—affection came easily to him and he was generous with it. The marriage he had made was indestructible, but he knew that he might someday be powerfully moved. He had had several very brief affairs, but the fact was that he had never fallen in love outside his marriage until he met Martha.

The sight of such a grave girl piqued him. She was tall and dark and wore her glossy, dark hair in one thick plait down her back. At first he thought that all he wanted was to see if he could make her grin, but when she finally smiled and her face lit up, that radiance gave him pause to contemplate the laws of cause and effect. He knew what had hit him, but Martha looked to be a slow study, someone who would have to be educated out of the examples of bad experience. He asked if he might drive her in his rented car to a pub he had passed in the next town. It was called The Sun in Splendour—the name had struck him. It looked like a suitably quaint and dark place to take a girl. Martha, who had attended his seminar and raised some points in it, thought the offer of a drive was a way of continuing a conversation. She had no idea that he was dying to drag her away from the conference and off with him alone.

Once seated in the pub he courted her, but flirtation seemed to drive the possibility of smiling right off her face. She looked alarmed. After several drives, and many hours of talk, William stated his case. He told her that he had fallen in love with her. Her face closed up immediately: he was married. She did not want anything to do with a married man. She was confused and upset by his attention. She was not used to people coming after her, she said. That puzzled William. A smile like hers ought to have caused some commotion, he thought.

It took a few more days, but, after some skillful coaxing, Martha fell in love as easily as you slide off a warm rock and into a pool of clear, sweet water. She hardly knew what she was feeling until she was in William's arms. Once she admitted it, she settled into the first romantic happiness she had ever known. The weather was on their side. They drove out into the countryside. They went exploring. They consulted their guidebook and toured ruins, castles, and monasteries. William was staying in England for two weeks beyond the conference. Martha's fellowship included a year at the University of London. They had four weeks left together. That sped everything up: they were serious at once—serious without any context. They felt that they were conducting their love affair outside time, on the rim of the universe. In that short space they established what courtships are meant to ratify: the ease and trust that come to lovers fortunate enough to find a friend in the beloved. When William finally flew back to America, they had vowed to keep in contact, and in fact they had written faithfully for all those six years.