Arcadia Falls

25



I left Ivy in the chapel sketching another scene—she informed me she sketched three a day and spent the afternoons teaching drawing to the younger children. I went to find Sister Margaret, trying to calm myself as I walked through the long stone hall to her office. “She spends her mornings in there ‘working,’ but really I think she just stares out her window,” Ivy had said. “She hasn’t been right in the head since they told her the convent has to be moved. Good luck getting anything out of her.”
I tried to persuade myself that if Sister Margaret really had gone senile I couldn’t blame her for not telling me about Ivy. At any rate, there was little to gain in chastising an old woman. After all, I had left my child in her care and clearly she had been cared for. In the short conversation I had with Ivy, I sensed that she was the pet of the nunnery. She had her own room, she told me, disdainfully dismissing the notion that she would share quarters with the babies; she ate with the nuns, and she had her mornings free to draw. When I asked if she wouldn’t prefer to live with a family, she sniffed and said she wasn’t the family kind. “I prefer to be on my own.”
Perhaps I should have been glad for her self-sufficiency, but I felt chilled by it.
I knocked on Sister Margaret’s door, but when there was no answer I opened it myself. Ivy had been right. The old nun was turned away from her desk so that she could look out her window. It was a lovely view, just as I remembered it from the day I had told Sister Margaret that I was pregnant. You could see the East Branch rolling through green hills, past the white steeple of Easton’s church, and toward the blue mountains beyond. Was she imagining, I wondered, the valley flooded and turned into a lake? When she turned to me at the sound of my footstep I was startled to see that her once-sharp blue eyes were covered with a milky film, as though her eyes had been flooded as her beloved valley soon would be. She couldn’t see the view at all.
“Sister Margaret,” I said gently, all my anger dissolving, “you probably don’t remember me. I’m Lily Eberhardt. I came here sixteen years ago—”
“Lily Eberhardt,” she said, her face creasing into a web of lines as she smiled. “Of course, I remember you.” She reached out her hands and I realized she meant me to put my hands in hers. That must be her way of “seeing” people, I thought, stepping closer. As I laid my hands in hers, though, I had a strange and sudden fear that she would place her hands on my belly as she had the time I told her I was pregnant. But of course she didn’t. She gripped my hands in hers and crooned, “Such talented hands! They gave us St. Lucy. I told the man from the water company that they couldn’t possibly think of putting such beautiful paintings under the water. He had no answer for me.” She smiled slyly. “So you see, your pictures have saved us. I knew it was a good day that you came here. You brought us such beauty!”
I sank down to my knees in front of Sister Margaret, still clasping her hands. “I brought something else here,” I said. “Do you remember? I had a child here—a baby girl.”
The old woman raised her hand, index finger pointing to the sky. I thought for a moment she was pointing to heaven, admonishing me to God for my sins, but then she touched her finger to her pursed lips and said, “Shhh. It’s a secret. The baby girl that the painter took. She’s a secret.”
“You mean the baby girl that the painter had,” I said, but Sister Margaret waved my correction away, her crabbed arthritic fingers trembling in the air. “Yes, I did tell you to keep her a secret. But when no one came to take her—”
“Such a beautiful baby, of course someone wanted her.”
“But she came back, didn’t she?”
Sister Margaret tilted her head to one side and then placed her trembling hands on either side of my face. “You came back. I thought you would.”
I sighed with exasperation. What difference did it make? “Yes, I came back. I’d like to take Ivy back with me now.”
“Ivy?”
“Yes, Ivy, my …” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t own my own child to one of the only two people alive who knew she was mine. I knew then the terrible truth: I’d felt no bond of love or affection toward that strange, homely girl I found in the chapel. Except for one thing. I’m not the family kind, she had said. Well, we had that in common. I was no better at being a mother than she had been at playing someone’s daughter. “Ivy St. Clare,” I said, beginning again. “My new protégée. I’d like to offer her a scholarship at our new arts school.”


And so I brought Ivy to Arcadia … oh, not right away, of course. First I had to convince Vera that we could single- (or double-) handedly start our own school. She was skeptical at first, but when she saw how determined I was, she gave way.
“I suppose this is your way of making up for not having children,” she said one evening as we sat before the fire in Fleur-de-Lis. “I’m afraid we women can’t avoid the mothering instinct in the end.” When she said that, it occurred to me for the first time that Vera might regret not having children. Had I been wrong all those years ago not to trust her with my secret? Might she have accepted my child? It was an awful thought given how things had turned out, but I banished it from my head as I went forward, putting my plan into effect. I had plenty to keep my mind occupied in the coming year if I wanted our new school to open by the next fall. I needed teachers, classrooms, art supplies and, of course, students—some of whom, it became immediately clear to me, would have to be paying students.
“I hate to say it,” Vera said when she looked over the figures with me, “but if you ask Fleur Sheldon to come, a dozen of the Sheldons’ friends will send their daughters as well. With their tuition, we’ll be able to support a dozen scholarship girls.”
I had to agree, even though I hated to admit Fleur Sheldon. It wasn’t that I had anything against the girl. In fact, I felt sorry for her. She was so clearly talentless, but Gertrude would not see that and forced Fleur to apply herself to her artistic studies day and night. No expense was spared. The most exclusive instructors were hired and the poor girl was dragged around the great museums of Europe and forced to copy the masters. What a waste! If only poor little Ivy had been given Fleur’s education and opportunities! But I would rectify that imbalance now—and if it meant fleecing the Sheldons’ pocketbook, so be it.
It happened just as Vera predicted. Vera wrote a letter that Christmas to Gertrude Sheldon inviting Fleur to join the Arcadia School of the Arts. By March, we’d gotten applications from fourteen full-paying students. I posted notices at the Art Students League inviting applicants, and Dora and Ada recruited from the city schools and settlement houses where they taught pottery. Then I wrote to Sister Margaret inviting Ivy—and whatever other deserving girls she might recommend.
“I’m afraid no one’s more deserving than Ivy St. Clare,” she wrote back. “She will be missed here, but I’m confident that she is going where she belongs.”
Was that, I wondered, a veiled reference to our relationship?
It hardly mattered. By late spring we had chosen eleven scholarship students including Ivy and enrolled fourteen paying students. When I sent out the final notices to our accepted applicants, I sent one more to a girl who hadn’t applied at all—Mimi Green’s daughter, who I figured must be close to sixteen by then and who, if she had any of her mother’s talent, would be just right for the school. I suppose I wanted Mimi to know that I appreciated how she’d kept my secret all these years. Mimi’s response was a terse “No thank you.” I never again tried to contact her.
The girls arrived in the last week of July. We had no dorms yet, so they stayed in the main house, sharing two or three to a room. All except Ivy.
“I had my own room at the orphanage,” she told me on the first day. “I can’t sleep with the sound of other people breathing.” If it had been anyone else I would have told her to make do, but how could I deny her anything when her whole life had been one of want because of me? I gave her the room I had before Vera and I moved to Fleur-de-Lis.
Mrs. Byrnes sniffed with disapproval when I asked her to get bedding for Ivy’s room. “Will the lady be having her breakfast in bed as well?” she asked. “Shouldn’t the girls here on scholarship have to work to help earn their keep?”
“I want no distinction made between them,” I told Mrs. Byrnes. She raised her eyebrows but didn’t say a word. I knew what she was thinking. I had already made a distinction. I realized then that I would never be able to treat Ivy dispassionately. I would always be trying to make up for what I hadn’t given her. And yet I could tell that being indulged was not what she needed. She’d already been the pet at the convent. Here she needed to be challenged—but someone else would have to do the challenging.
After dinner that night, while Vera and I were sitting by the fire going over the accounts, I casually mentioned my idea for Ivy. “I’ve been thinking you should have one of the students as your personal assistant. Someone who can take care of the little details that distract you from your work—appointments and correspondence and such.”
“You always take care of those things,” Vera said, looking up from the account book.
“Yes, but I’ll be too busy now with the school and I think it would be good if someone else knew how to attend to such things—”
“You sound as if you’re thinking of leaving.”
I looked up and saw she’d gone pale and her jaw was clenched. The hand that held the pencil above the account book was trembling. I was startled by how frightened she looked. Was she that afraid of losing me? It should, I suppose, have flattered me, but instead it made me feel a little frightened myself. Not that I had any thought of ever leaving, but what if I did? What would Vera do? Would she let me go?
I shook the thought off. After all, I had no intention of going anywhere. Where, at any rate, would I go?
“Of course not, darling,” I said, trying to sound casual. “You can’t get rid of me, Vera. I’m yours for life. I only thought … well, that poor orphan girl, Ivy St. Clare, she’s used to doing odd jobs for the nuns. She’s like you. If she doesn’t have enough to engage her energies, I’m afraid she’ll become broody. I think she’d make a good assistant for you.”
“Yes, she does seem quite bright. Tell her to come to my office tomorrow after class. She can help sort through next year’s applications.”
The next day I found Ivy at breakfast and told her that Miss Beecher had asked specifically that she be her assistant.
“Me?” she asked, looking none too pleased. “Why would she want me? She doesn’t even know me.”
“Ah, but she does know you through your drawings and paintings. She looked at all the submissions of the scholarship applicants and she was most impressed by your work. She chose you especially for the scholarship and she’d like to get to know you better. And she really does need help sorting through all the paperwork. I’m afraid I’m hopeless with such things.”
I saw the girl thaw a bit under the warming influence of praise. “Well, I am good at organizing things,” she said a trifle condescendingly. “Of course, I’d be happy to be Miss Beecher’s assistant.”
And so, with only a few lies and a little flattery, I fitted Ivy and Vera together as neatly as I might fit together the pieces of a puzzle. And fit together they did. It was almost as if she were Vera’s child and not Nash’s, they suited each other so well. Vera was demanding, but Ivy thrived under her orders. She worked day and night to make things just right. Vera had only to voice an idea and Ivy would make it happen. At the end of the fall semester, for instance, Vera mentioned that it was a shame there was no sculpture class. By January Ivy had found a teacher and ordered marble and clay. Her only fault was that at times she was so single-minded in carrying through Vera’s wishes that she didn’t care whom she stepped over to get her job done. When the marble arrived for the new sculpture class over the Christmas break, she had it delivered to the pottery shed without a thought to how it would inconvenience Dora and Ada. When I mentioned it to her she stared at me as though I were speaking a different language, as if the feelings of two people meant nothing. I often think she has something missing. Like the girl in the fairy tale who’s been raised by wolves, she seems to lack an essential part of being human.
I do regret that I was never able to form a close bond with Ivy myself. I blame my own self-consciousness around her and my fear of overfavoring her. At the end of that first year, I admitted to myself that I had lost the opportunity of telling her that I was her mother. She wouldn’t thank me for the knowledge and she wouldn’t forgive me for deceiving Vera. Nor could I ask her to keep such a secret from Vera, whom she clearly idolized. I settled for knowing that I had given Ivy a good home. A year-round home. As the other girls made their plans for the summer vacation, Vera asked Ivy to stay on. “She has no place to go,” she said to me when she explained that Ivy would be given her old suite of rooms in Beech Hall.
I would have been content, I think, if Virgil Nash had not reappeared on the scene.
His name had come up in our initial lists of teaching candidates. “I’m sure he’s grown too rich and famous to stoop to teaching at a girls’ school,” I had said, hoping to discourage Vera. The truth was I didn’t want Virgil coming into contact with Ivy. Although I could not detect any resemblance to him in her odd pixieish features, I had a superstitious dread that he would sense a kinship to her. Vera, however, had insisted on writing to invite him. I promptly deposited the letter in the kitchen stove. When he didn’t respond to Vera’s invitation she concluded that I was right; he had grown too important for the likes of us. All would have been well if Gertrude Sheldon hadn’t conceived a desire for her child to be taught by the great Mr. Nash. Over the summer break she approached him herself about teaching at Arcadia. I’m not sure what she said to persuade him (whether she offered him money or threatened to withdraw her patronage from him), but whatever she did, it worked. When the school reconvened in August he showed up unannounced, driving a Cadillac convertible and smelling strongly of gin. He was still a handsome man, but his face had a sort of cast over it, like the wax mask we used to make bronze models, and his eyes had lost their keenness. When he reached into his car for his valise and paint box, his hands trembled. I almost pitied him. But then when Vera turned to tell Mrs. Byrnes to get a room ready for him, he looked me up and down as if measuring me for a suit of clothes and I stopped feeling sorry for him.
“We can’t have Mr. Nash stay in the Hall,” I said. “Not with all these young girls.”
“Afraid I’ll prefer the young ones to you, eh, Lily?” he asked. “You needn’t be, y’know. You’re still looking fit.”
I felt the blood rush to my face and I turned away to hide my reaction, coming face to face with Ivy, who had stolen up behind me. She stared from me to Nash and back again. For the first time I saw that they did resemble each other in one feature. They had the same cold eyes.
“Ah, Ivy, just in time,” Vera said. “You can take Mr. Nash down to Briar Lodge. He can share accommodations with Monsieur Paloque. I’m sure you won’t want the noise of a houseful of silly girls distracting you from your work.”
Nash smiled at Vera and then he turned to Ivy. “You are completely right. How could I work surrounded by such loveliness?” he asked Ivy with a rakish tilt of the head.
I saw Ivy take in Nash with her cool assessing gaze and then I watched in horror as that cold shell broke. She blushed and returned his smile. Poor Ivy! She had encountered only a handful of men in her cloistered life and never one remotely like Virgil Nash. She instantly fell under the spell of his careless flirting. I was so horrified that I blurted out, “I’ll show Virgil to the Lodge.”
Vera looked surprised, and I knew that later I’d have to come up with some reason for my seeming eagerness to spend time alone with Virgil Nash. For now I just wanted to get him away from Ivy. “Ivy’s much too busy greeting the new girls.” I caught Ivy glaring at me, but I slipped into the Cadillac obliviously and drummed my fingers on the armrest while he took his leave of Vera and Ivy. When he backed the car up, he rested his arm on the back of my seat and I felt his fingers graze my neck. I only hoped Vera hadn’t seen. He left his right arm draped indolently over the back of my seat as he piloted the car down the drive toward the Lodge. I swatted his arm away from me as soon as we were out of sight of the Hall.
“Stop that! Pay attention to the road. You’ll get us both killed!”
“Your solicitude for my welfare is touching,” he said. “And all these years I thought you’d completely forgotten about me.”
“I have.”
“So why so quick to be my escort, Lily? What was all that about? You couldn’t possibly think I was seriously interested in that little monkey.”
“That little monkey—” It was on my lips to tell him she was his daughter, but I stopped. Nash would never be able to keep such a secret to himself, certainly not when he was drinking. “She’s special to me … to me and Vera. I don’t like to see you playing with her feelings. She won’t understand. She grew up in an orphanage, taught by nuns. She has no experience with men like you.”
“So it’s not because you’re jealous?” he asked, stopping the car in front of the Lodge. I was relieved to see that it was quiet. Monsieur Paloque, the drawing master, had not arrived yet from his summer on the French Riviera.
“No. You know I don’t feel that way about you. All that happened between us is in the past. If you have any idea of taunting me with it, then I’ll go to Vera and tell her everything and ask her to make you leave. I don’t know what you think by coming here anyway.”
“I had hoped,” he said, his voice suddenly somber, “to recover my muse. I haven’t painted anything worth a damn since the summer I was here eighteen years ago.”
“But you’ve made plenty of money,” I told him. “That was your choice.”
“Yes, it was my choice.” He sighed. “Maybe it is too late. I thought if I came back here I might capture a little of that old magic.”
I glanced at him and saw that he was staring at me, but it wasn’t with lust. There was longing there, but not a longing for things of the flesh. “If you’re really here to paint, and not to run after the girls …”
“I’ve had my fill of girls. I’d give ’em all up for one painting I wasn’t ashamed of. I’ll tell you what: I promise to stay away from the girls—and especially your little monkey—if you do one thing for me.”
“I won’t betray Vera,” I told him. “I’ve been faithful to her since that summer with you—”
“I don’t mean that. Believe it or not, Lily, that’s not how I want you. I confess, I do think of those nights we spent in the barn. But what I want is to paint you—there in the barn—with the light coming through the cracks in the walls, making patterns on your skin…. I’ve been doing some sketches….” He reached into the backseat of the car and took out a worn leather portfolio. He untied it and shook out loose sheets of drawing paper. They fluttered into my lap like autumn leaves. I picked up one and saw a figure of a naked woman standing in a doorway, her back to the viewer, her body striated with bars of shadow and light. I knew at once that the figure was me.
“You promise to leave Ivy alone?” I asked.
“Ivy who?” he asked in return.
I like to think that I said yes to Virgil to keep him from Ivy, but I have to confess that when I saw that drawing I knew what I had been missing since the summer I’d spent with him. I didn’t miss the physical intimacy we’d shared. I was much happier with Vera on that account. I missed what he saw in me: I missed that part of me only he seemed to see—a part that was more animal than woman. I felt that way again when I began posing for him and I felt it when I saw the paintings. Nash was right. His muse had been waiting for him here at Arcadia. The paintings he did of me that year were the best he had done since that first summer. Even Vera, when she saw them, had to admit that they were the real thing.
My darling Vera. I knew it made her jealous that I was posing for Nash, but she withstood the pangs of her jealousy for the sake of the art that came out of those sessions. I believe she was able to because she trusted me so well. She would never suspect that I was capable of betraying her. Her trust so humbled me that I was more than ever determined she never know what happened between Nash and me so long ago.
It was Ivy whom I had the most trouble with. True to his word, Nash never flirted with her again, but the damage had already been done. She was clearly smitten with him. She took all his classes and sought him out in his studio at the Lodge whenever she could. She would even sneak down to the barn to watch him painting me. When I scolded her for spying she accused me of being afraid of what she might see—and what she might tell Vera. By spring I was grateful when school ended and Vera suggested that she and I go away for a few months before the next school term.
“We can’t be slaves to the school,” she told me. “And besides, Ivy will be here to watch over things. We can afford to go away for a while.”
I was relieved to get away from Ivy’s prying eyes, but even that made me feel guilty. How could I resent my own child when she was what I had made her? I resolved during our travels that I would concentrate on getting closer to Ivy when we returned. I would find a way to befriend her.
When we returned to Arcadia just a few days before the start of fall term, though, I found that Ivy had become more than ever set in her dislike of me. She had used the time we were gone to establish herself as the mistress of Beech Hall and the ruling force of Arcadia. She’d pried out of Mrs. Byrnes all her stories of arcane festivals and rites and declared that the school year would begin with a pagan bonfire at which she, Ivy, would play the winter goddess. I laughed when I first heard her plans, but then she reminded me of the May Day festival of our first summer here and asked why it was any different. Was it that I wanted to play a role? If so, I could play the summer goddess who cedes her power to the winter goddess. I assured her that I wanted nothing to do with such a charade, but when Vera heard of the idea she insisted I go along with it. “You’ll look lovely as the summer goddess, and it will set a good example to the girls. Unless …” She faltered, looking uncharacteristically unsure.
“Unless what?” I demanded.
She sighed. “Unless you’re really afraid that Ivy is taking your place. You know it’s not like that. No one could ever take your place with me.”
I blushed to think she would suspect me of such petty jealousy. Especially when it was my own child I’d be jealous of—although of course she couldn’t know that. I’d have to go along with Ivy’s little play now, or else I’d look spiteful and insecure.
I wore the same white dress that I’d worn for May Eve so many years ago, with a wreath of daisies in my hair. When I appeared at the bonfire I was startled to see that Ivy was wearing an almost identical dress. She’d found an old photograph and copied the dress. On her the simple shift hung straight and severe. Instead of flowers in her hair she wore a wreath made up of twisted holly and ivy. Standing before the bonfire, she was a forbidding figure—a wrathful pagan deity. I gave a little speech about passing the mantel of inspiration to the next generation and ended it by handing her my wreath of flowers. She tossed the flowers into the fire and then called on the other girls to chase me from the campus.
I knew that this would be part of the “rite” so I wasn’t surprised, but I was taken aback by the energy of the girls who chased me. I tried to make light of it, but I wasn’t as young as I was on May Eve. I ran through the orchard and then ducked behind the Lodge, hoping that I wouldn’t have to run uphill, but Fleur Sheldon spotted me and alerted the other girls. I could have just turned myself over to the girls and then been escorted up the ridge, but I hated to show my age—plus I had gotten my second wind. In fact, I ran so fast that soon the shrieks and laughter of the girls faded behind me. Caught up in the spirit of the game, I decided to play a little trick on them. At the top of the ridge I tore a strip of lace from my dress and draped it over a bush right by the edge of the clove. I was planning to hide behind the bushes and let them all think for a minute that they’d chased me over the ridge. Then I’d show myself before anyone became too worried.
As I turned around, though, I found Ivy standing at the edge of the clearing watching me. She’d outrun the other girls, but because she was so quiet I hadn’t known she was so close.
“You’ve spotted my little trick,” I said. “Unless you’d like to be a part of it.” I smiled, hoping to establish a bond by sharing a secret together. She approached slowly, her eyes on the piece of cloth fluttering on the branch at the edge of the cliff.
“Miss Beecher would be upset …” she began.
“Oh, Ivy! I wouldn’t play a trick like that on Vera. We’ll tell the girls I’m all right before the news gets back to Vera.”
“… but she’d get over it in time,” she finished. She looked up, her eyes meeting mine. The look I saw there was as cold and empty as the night sky. I became immediately aware of how close we stood to the edge, how easy it would be for her to push me over … and then the clearing was full of the loud jubilant cries of young girls.
“Be off, Summer!” they cried. “It’s Autumn’s time now!”
“That’s right,” Ivy said, too low for anyone to hear but me. “It’s my time now.”


After the First Night bonfire I knew I’d have to do something to change the relations between Ivy and me. I would never gain her friendship as long as she saw me as her rival in Virgil’s affections. I continued to pose for him—he was working now on a series of three bronze statues for a show at the National Arts Club to be held just after Christmas—afraid that if I stopped, Ivy might push herself forward into his attention. And although I’d come to trust Virgil not to take advantage of her, I couldn’t bear to think of her making advances to the man who was in reality her father.
This, then, was the burden I endured these last few months. How could I turn Ivy away from Nash without telling her the truth? Throughout this fall I fretted over this conundrum until I made myself quite sick with worrying. Vera could not help but notice how preoccupied I was and it raised in her once more the old demon of jealousy. She began to resent the time I spent posing for Nash and would even remark upon it over dinner, asking Nash quite pointedly if he wasn’t done yet, and hadn’t he committed his subject to memory enough to be able to continue without a model.
“Every time I look at Lily, I see something I hadn’t seen before,” he answered.
Vera’s face turned an angry red. Nothing infuriated her more than the idea that Nash knew me better than she did. The truth is that Nash did see me more clearly than Vera did. I’m afraid it was obvious to everyone that she was jealous of him, although I think that the girls mostly thought that she was jealous of his talent and success, not of me. Ivy wasn’t so blind, though. She watched me carefully whenever Vera and Nash and I were in the same room, and she noted the growing hostility between Vera and Nash. I could see how uncomfortable it made her. She might be infatuated with Virgil Nash, but she still idolized Vera. She couldn’t bear to see the two of them at odds. Finally last week I went to Nash and begged him to leave Arcadia. I said nothing about Ivy but spoke only of Vera’s jealousy.
“As long as you are here, there will be no peace between us,” I told him.
He looked up from the clay model he had sculpted of me—the last of the three and the smallest. In this one I stood in a pool of water, looking over my shoulder, as if I were Diana surprised at my bath. The pool at my feet was full of water lilies, a reference to my name. It was my favorite of the three statues and it was hard to be angry with Nash while looking at it. “You’re throwing me out of paradise?” he asked.
“It won’t be a paradise if you stay,” I replied.
Nash sighed. He turned the statue around on its revolving plinth. Then he looked up and grinned at me. “To tell you the truth, I was getting a bit restless. Teaching Fleur Sheldon is enough to drive a man mad. It’s like trying to teach a monkey to paint. If I make my escape, do you promise not to give the Sheldons my forwarding address?”
“I’ll tell them you disappeared without a trace!” I promised, “On one condition.” I touched the head of the little statue. “Would you make another copy of this for me to keep?”
He put his hand to his chest. “I’m touched you want a reminder of me. Of course! I’ll have it ready for you at the barn the day I leave.” I didn’t tell him that it wasn’t of him I wanted a reminder; it was of myself as I once had been.
We agreed that his imminent departure would remain our secret until after the Christmas Day dinner that marked the end of term.
That was yesterday. After dinner, Nash followed me into Vera’s office where I’d gone to retrieve a book she wanted me to bring back to the cottage. She had gone on ahead of me, so I wasn’t afraid of her seeing us together, but I asked him to close the door anyway.
“Your statue will be ready by four tomorrow,” he said. “Will you come to the barn to take it as my farewell present to you? My train leaves at five.”
“Yes,” I told him. “I’ll be there by four.”
“And have you kept your promise to me and kept my new address a secret from that little monkey?”
“You shouldn’t be so cruel to her,” I said. “She can’t help how she is. It’s how she was raised—”
“Or not raised,” he said.
I had to agree. For all her hovering over Fleur, Gertrude Sheldon was a curiously neglectful mother. She left the girl alone here over the break while she went to Europe on a skiing holiday, for instance.
“It’s just that I feel sorry for the poor girl,” I said. “If only she had a little talent—”
“Dear Lily.” He put his hand to my face and for a moment I was afraid that he would embrace me, but he let his hand drop. “Always looking after everyone but yourself. I hope that will change now. I’ll see you tomorrow then, at four in the barn.”
I spent last night and this morning writing in this journal. Vera has gone to the Hall to finish replying to the Christmas cards we received. I chided her for working on the holiday, but in truth I was glad that she gave me the time and privacy to complete this. Or almost privacy—Fleur Sheldon was here earlier, wanting to show me some of her drawings. I felt bad for the girl, abandoned by her mother for the holidays, and spent a half hour with her. I had to tell her I had an urgent appointment in town with Dora and Ada in order to get her to leave.
I will put this journal behind the beech panel in the mantel, above the hearth that has been the center of our lives together. Ivy is coming soon to pick up some papers and I will send a note to Vera telling her—in language only she will understand so it will be safe from prying eyes—where to find it. Then it will be up to Vera to decide whether she will still have me or not. I can’t continue to play a role. When I look at the paintings Virgil Nash has done of me this last year and a half, I see a woman who stands naked in the sunlight as if she has nothing to hide. That is the woman Nash sees when he looks at me and that is the woman I want to be again and I can’t be that woman if I continue to keep the truth—about Nash, about Ivy—from her. Even if Vera can’t forgive me—and yet I can’t believe she won’t have the heart to—it is better to live honestly than continue to live a lie.
And so, my darling Vera, this part of my story ends here. It’s up to you what the next part of my story will be. I put myself entirely into your hands.