Miss Bertram barks. “Oh, honey, everything’s about the money.”
“Not to me. I hate it. It distorts everything; it obscures what really matters. People will lie and cheat and do all kinds of things for money, and when they have it, they aren’t any happier than they were before.”
“Is that true? I guess I wouldn’t know. Sure is nice to have enough money, I’ve always thought.”
I turn away from the bench to face her. “Of course no one wants to be poor. But wealth . . .”
“Then I guess it’s a shame you’ve got so much, isn’t it?”
“I haven’t got it. I’ve made sure of that. It’s all gone—or going—to Evelyn. In trust.”
Miss Bertram’s expression goes all bemused. She’s stopped halfway across the garden, just on the other side of the miniature canal, and under the shade of the garden her complexion loses its honeyed undertone, so that she appears almost as a shadow herself. Except for her eyes, which are bright and curious, riveted to my face, and more specifically to my lips, from which those rather bold and revealing words have just escaped.
“To Evelyn?”
I hesitate. But the secret’s already out, isn’t it? “Yes.”
“Well,” she says. “Well.”
“I just don’t want it. I don’t want to wonder whether someone’s making love to me because of my money. And the attention. The way the newspapers—the newspapers—” I seem to run out of breath. Or words, or something. The will to speak.
“I see.”
“Do you?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “You can do as you like, I guess. But it seems to me, you’ve just made your money poor Evelyn’s problem instead. You’ve made her the object of all this unseemly desire. And poor child, she’s not yet three.”
My lips move, shaping words that don’t come out. A bird starts singing in the trees nearby, and such is my ignorance of birds and their distinct voices, my city dweller’s inattention to the details of nature, that I don’t have the slightest clue which bird it is. A faint panic stirs at the base of my brain, from which I’m told such instincts rise.
And maybe Miss Bertram recognizes my panic, or maybe she thinks she’s overstepped her bounds. The sharp, bemused position of her face softens, and she holds out her hand. “Come. Come on back to the house, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. Evelyn’s having her cookies. And you look as if you could use a glass of lemonade.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. Come on, now.”
I start forward obediently. She takes my hand to help me over the canal, before she tucks it into her elbow, and we leave the garden so quickly, I don’t have a chance to say good-bye. Just a quick glance over my shoulder before the bench disappears from view, and then we strike off through the rows and the beds, toward the main house and the promised lemonade.
December 24, 1919
Dearest V,
I imagine I really shouldn’t write to you just now, as I’m feeling immensely sorry for myself and have, in consequence, drunk far too much wine at dinner. You see, this is not quite how I imagined my first Christmas Eve as a married man. I had dreamt of a roaring fire, and a tree trimmed with all sort of ridiculous objects, and a dog at my feet, and Sammy in his pajamas, and best of all my wife at my side, curled up perhaps on an old and venerable sofa. Possibly she should be in the family way by now, and I should be rubbing her poor feet, as properly belongs to a husband who has got his wife in an interesting condition. We should be speaking of the happy year just past, and the delights to come in the year ahead. When the hour is ripe, we should retire upstairs to our bedroom, where I should make my wife comfortable in whatever way she likes best, or at the very least provide a warm shelter in which to give her rest during the holy Christmas night.
Alas, my dream remains inside my head. There is no fire, roaring or otherwise, as the temperature hovered around seventy-three degrees for much of the afternoon; no dog, no comfortable sofa. Sammy and the other children are all abed. The tree is a meager one, hung with tinsel made hastily from old wrapping paper by my heroic housekeeper, who realized my melancholy around four o’clock this afternoon, I believe, and did her best to lift my holiday spirits.
But worst of all, there is no wife. Dogs and trees and sofas may be dispensed with, but Virginia is essential to my Christmas contentment, and so I have retired to bed in hopes of conjuring her here somehow, at least in spirit: so far I have succeeded in picturing your hair and your face and that glorious, supple tall figure of yours, but for some reason I cannot find your eyes, even though I know their color and shape. I cannot picture them somehow, and it grieves me so much, I can hardly hold this pen to paper. Forgive me. I hope I haven’t upset you. Or perhaps I hope that very thing: isn’t that why I’m writing these letters to begin with? To move you, to soften you toward me, so that this dream of mine may become reality by next Christmas.
Next Christmas! There we are. I’ll think of that instead. The house will be finished by then. This room will be new-painted and furnished. I have tried to imagine how you would want our bedroom to look, and I’m afraid it’s rather hard going, as the decoration of houses was the very last thing we were ever inclined to discuss. But I have the feeling you would like something in the classical style, with plenty of light from a series of tall French windows, one of which should open onto a balcony—what they call sleeping porches here, because it grows so hot and close during the summer, you would rather sleep outside, on a balcony screened against the mosquitoes. I think you would like something open and airy and light in color, and simple furniture, and plenty of shelves for books. I hope you won’t be disappointed when you see what I’ve done, though of course you can redecorate in any style you like.