Those Harper Women (37 page)

Edith felt the warm color rise to her cheeks. “Please tell me what you want,” she repeated.

“Isn't it you who wants something?” she said. “I have heard you want me to go away.”

“You're quite right. I do.”

Monique pouted. “Why didn't you come to me first?” she said. “Why did you go to your father? He hurt me very much.”

“I'm sorry about that,” Edith said. “But in a way I think you deserved it.”

“Ah, Edith,” she said. “I? Who have meant so much to your father for such a long time?”

“And who have also helped destroy my mother.”

She sighed. “I do not know your mother. You should have come to me first. I would have listened.” Then her smile faded. “I'm ready to talk now. I'm ready to go now. All I need is the money.” She held out her hand. “Give me the money.”

Edith considered it. “You're ready to leave for good?”

“For good.”

“They say the Atlantic is full of submarines. How do you propose to go?”

“Never mind how. I'll go. If you give me the money.”

“How much money?” she asked.

“From you, three thousand Danish
kroner.
”

“That's quite a bit,” Edith said. And it was: Though it amounted in American money only to about five hundred dollars, it was for Edith in those days a sizable amount. With that much money she could run her household for a long time.

“It's what I need.”

“Where do you expect me to get that much money?”

“You're a rich girl.”

“My father may be rich. I am not.”

Monique shrugged. “You can get it,” she said.

“Will this cover yourself and your husband?”

She smiled brightly at Edith now, but her hand was still outstretched, the palm curved upward. “Why of course! Louis and I always travel together. We're
friends!
”

“I'll have to think about this,” Edith said.

“But I need it now. If I'm going to go, I need the money now.”

“I don't believe you,” Edith said carefully. “I don't believe you have any intention of leaving. This is just a scheme of yours to extract a little money out of me. The answer is no.”

With another little sigh, Monique sat down on the stone garden bench, the skirts of her yellow dress falling about her. “Oh, you are not nice,” she said. “I thought you would be nice to me. I hate this hot place so. It's killing me, this hot place.”

“I'm sorry.”

A slender water pipe with a spigot at the top rises from the ground by the stone bench where Monique Bertin sat that day—the spigot to which the gardeners attach the garden hose when they water—and Monique suddenly reached for the tap, and said, “Is this fresh water? May I have a drink? I've heard about your famous well, Edith.” Kneeling by the tap, she turned on the water and let it run into her mouth, drinking deeply. “Ah!” she said at last, sitting up again and turning off the water. “Cool and good! Not as sweet as the well water in France, but cool and good.” With the back of her wrist she wiped her dripping chin—a peasant's gesture, Edith thought—and smiled at Edith. “I thought you would be so nice,” she said. “You have that nice husband, that handsome husband. They say he is so nice.”

“Please leave my husband out of this,” Edith said.

Monique put her hand on the spigot again. “Forgive me—I can't resist this—” she said. And this time she lowered her whole head beneath the tap, and let the water run full across her face, her throat, turning her head and letting it soak her dark hair. “Oh, this feels so
good!
You should try this, Edith—so cooling.” Her hands splashed in the water, carrying handfuls of it to her face and arms and shoulders, splashing it across her bosom, the tiny silver crucifix spinning and shining in the sun.

“The water in my cistern is very low,” Edith said. “Please don't waste it like this.”

But Monique ignored her. “And wouldn't it be sad to think of what your nice, handsome husband would do if he knew how close—how very close, Edith—you and Louis have been to each other? Or what your father would do? Or what everybody on the island would say?” She turned off the water and shook her dripping head. “May I borrow a hairbrush, Edith?” she said, and she held out her hand again in that same flat gesture.

“A hairbrush?”

“Yes,” she laughed. “My hair.”

“This is blackmail, then, isn't it?”

“Blackmail? Blackmail? I do not know what that means. All I want is three thousand Danish
kroner
, so I can leave this island. Three thousand Danish
kroner
, and a hairbrush, please.”

Slowly, Edith went into the house. She took a hairbrush from her dressing table. On the dust divider, underneath one of the dresser drawers, was where, in those long-ago days, she and Charles kept the envelope of household cash. She would have to justify the money to Charles somehow if he ever discovered it was missing. Then she went downstairs again and out into the garden.

“Oh, that's a pretty brush. Silver,” Monique said.

“I might have known you people would think of something like this,” Edith said. “Just tell me one thing. Did you get your—information—from Louis?”

She laughed gaily. “I do not know of what you speak!” she said. Brushing her hair, sending out spatters of water like sparks from the brush, sparks that flew through the sunlight and settled on the walk—her hair was a waterfall of those bright sparks—she said, “It didn't take much thinking, really. All I want is to be able to leave this place. When you didn't give me the money freely, I had to think of something.” Brushing, brushing, her golden hand holding the long silver handle of the brush like a pistol, she brushed her hair until it gleamed flat against her skull.

“Here are your three thousand
kroner,
” Edith said. “Take it and get out. Leave this island and never come back. Don't you ever, either of you, dare to come back!”

“Thank you, Edith,” Monique said, taking the money.

“Call me Mrs. Blakewell.”

She gave Edith a droll look. “
Mrs
. Blakewell,” she said.

For a long time after Monique had gone, Edith stood at her window, absolutely still, her temples pounding, unable to move, staring out at the garden where the silver hairbrush lay on the grass by the stone bench, exactly as though Monique had thrown it there.

Looking at its gleam, the silver object assumed a queer significance. She thought: Must my whole life be trapped forever in that moment there, in the gatehouse, that August afternoon years ago? Even though, looking back, it seemed such an unimportant moment?

That night, at the Governor's Ball, Edith and Charles passed through the receiving line to the strains of Strauss. Then, after a glass of champagne, with his arm resting lightly around her waist, they joined the dancers. The Governor's wife spoke to them. “How beautiful you look together,” she said. “Beautiful young people …” They danced on.

A little tipsy from the champagne, she held Charles tightly and told him what she had decided that afternoon. “Charles, let's leave this island,” she said. “Let's sell the house and go back North. It was a mistake for us to stay here. It was a mistake for you to work for Papa. You're miserable here and so am I. It's a rotten place.”

He smiled at her and started to speak, but they were interrupted by a roll of drums, and turned to face the orchestra. There was a toast to President Wilson, and to the King, and the glasses were shattered. Then, reverentially, the two anthems were played—first “The Star-Spangled Banner” and then the stately and mournful “
Der Er Et Yndigt Land
”—“There Is A Lovely Country”—the Danish hymm. Throughout the ballroom, ladies touched white handkerchiefs to their eyes, and the men stood stern and stiff as ramrods, letting their own tears fall unheeded, but Edith Blakewell, holding Charles' arm, was too excited with the simplicity of her solution to be moved by the ceremony of changing flags—under one flag or another, the island would always be the same—and she thought, yes, there is a lovely country somewhere, and we fill find it, you and I.

When the anthems were over and the dance music began again, Charles said, “Come out onto the terrace for a minute. I want to tell you something.” She followed him and when they were outside, away from the music, he said, “I'm joining the Army.”

“What?” she said, not comprehending it. “What did you say?”

“I'm going to the war.”

“But
why?
” she gasped. “This is Europe's war! America isn't in it. This war has nothing to do with us.”

“We'll be in it before long.”

“You're doing this—just to get rid of me!”

He shook his head. “It has nothing to do with that. I leave in three weeks for New Orleans. Then to Fort Leavenworth, for my commission—”

“You can't leave me! You can't leave Diana!”

“I'm doing it for your own sake.”

“Well you can't.
I won't let you!
”

“Edith—”

“You can't!” she screamed. “You can't! I won't let you!”

The next afternoon Monique Bertin reappeared in the garden. “It wasn't enough,” she said with her little smile. “I need two thousand more Danish
kroner.
” She held out her hand.

And so who was there left for Edith to appeal to but her father? They sat in his office and, once more, they were holding little glasses of Kentucky whisky. He listened to her for a long time, saying nothing, and, while she talked, his eyes grew sadder and more remote. He interrupted her only once, when she told him about Charles and the Army. “He's wrong about that, of course,” he said. “I have friends in high places in Washington, and they assure me that America will stay out of the war.”

When she finished he said, “Then it's true about you and Bertin.”

“Did she tell you?”

He drummed his fingers on the top of the desk. “Ah, Edith,” he said, “I can see you'd never be able to run the sugar business. What in the world ever made me think you could?”

“Just help me, Papa.”

“I'll see that you get your five thousand
kroner
back. That part of it is no trouble at all.”

“Do you need any more proof of how destructive those people are? Will you get rid of them now, Papa?”

He shook his head. “Poor little Monique,” he said. “She's a silly, headstrong child. No, your problem goes deeper than that. These stories she threatens to tell—they're becoming a little more widespread, I'm afraid, than I think you realize.”

“Started by the two of them!”

He waved his hand. “That's not important. The important thing is to keep Charles from hearing them. For your sake and the baby's sake—for the family's sake. If there weren't some basis of truth in them, it wouldn't matter.”

She nodded.

“Let me think about this,” he said. “Give me a little time. Come back tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'll take care of Monique.”

She stood up to go. His eyes were still far away. “At least I've been relatively discreet in my little affair,” he said. “It's a pity you couldn't have been as discreet in yours. No, you would never have been able to run the sugar business …”

When she came back the next day, he said, “I have found the solution, quite a simple one. It solves both problems—the problem of Monique and the problem of Charles.” He pulled open a desk drawer and pulled out a thick stack of papers. “Charles was never cut out for this business either,” he said. “And so,” he riffled through the papers, “I'm going to set things up for the two of you a little differently …”

“Charles is tired of having you set things up for us. That's part of the trouble.”

“I'm setting things up so that both of you can be independent of me. For the rest of your lives you'll be free to go and do as you wish. I'm going to give you, now, the share of my estate that would normally come to you under my will when I die. Do you have any idea how much money I estimate that to be?”

“No,” she said softly.

“A million dollars. That's quite a bit of money, isn't it? This is a favorable time for you to take it, too. Until the Treaty of Cession becomes final in March, we are still operating here under the laws of Denmark. You will probably be able to avoid this new United States tax on incomes if I set it up now the way I plan. And as for Charles—”

“What about Charles?”

“I gather he has been disturbed by the thought that he is living off a rich wife. So I am giving him an equal amount, free and clear.”

“He won't take it.”

“He's taken money before. He can't refuse this much. They won't let him refuse. His family is not that well off. Yes, this will keep him with you, Edith. You'll both have everything you want. As you said yourself, this island is no place for either of you. If Charles wants, he is welcome to any position he chooses in my New York office, but that will be up to him. He can do as he pleases.” Then he said, “Aren't you going to say thank you, Edith? I've solved all your problems and made you a rich woman.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Well, then.”

“I just don't know what Charles will say.”

“I do. You see, I've already gone over all this with him.”

“And he said yes?”

“He asked me only one question—what
you
thought of it. That's all he cares about. If you agree, he agrees. And you do agree.” He stood up, and his eyes clouded over. “You'll both be free,” he said. “Free of me. Whom you hate so much.”

“Don't say that, Papa.”

“I do say it. Now run along.”

Waiting for the spring rainy season to come, there is always a desperately sweet smell in the air, a smell of rain in the wind blown across ripe sugar cane, and mixed with it are the smells of tobacco-plant flowers and perhaps jasmine, and the flamboyant and grape trees in blossom, and through it all the spice of salt from the sea. They rode side by side through this warm wind, and she felt lightheaded and almost sad to be leaving St. Thomas forever, as the cottonwood trees, in green arches, flew by over their heads and sea birds in the sky kept pace and pebbles spurted out from the red earth beneath their horses' hoofs. “Let's do more of this when we get North again,” she called back to him. “The way we used to do in Morristown. Remember? Let's see if we can find a house in the country, Charles, where we can keep horses.”