After Christmas, Diccon returned to the city. He dropped by only to let us know that he’d found a place to stay with “friends.”
It was probably a good thing, not seeing very much of Diccon. I really was feeling overwhelmed, steeped in work. I still had a long way to go with The Birthday of the Infanta.
I was concentrating hard on the intricacies of a ruff adorning the neck of a young noble boy, when there was a knock at the studio door. Then Diccon’s voice.
“Hello? Hello . . . Pamela?”
He stood next to me. I could tell he was uneasy. He looked quite fine in his charcoal overcoat, soft grey scarf, and rather beat-up fedora, but his manner was sheepish. His closeness, his pipe smell—it was too much. I love him, I thought. I can’t bear this. I felt lightheaded. I tried to continue drawing, but I had to put the pen down. My hand was trembling. I knew that this was not to be a happy visit.
He was going away again, he told me. Jane Cassidy had invited him down to her winter home, Bellevue, in Virginia. Her husband was away on an extended trip to Des Moines—she thought Diccon would find it a quiet place to write. He could ride Sukey, his favorite horse.
How jolly.
“But you only just got here, Diccon. For God’s sake, can’t you stay in New York for at least a bit longer? It seems you’re always trying to get away from me . . . it’s true, isn’t it?”
“Not at all, Pamela, it has nothing to do with you, really. . . .”
“Well, what has it to do with, then?”
“Just what it is . . . a chance to see a new part of the country, and, well, I’ve started on some poetry again . . . you know, I’ve found I do seem to work better in the country than in the city, I don’t know why. Remember . . . in Wales . . . how I wrote . . . ?”
“I wish we could go back to Wales! We were happy there!”
“But Pamela, I don’t see that this is about our happiness or lack of happiness. . . .”
“Oh, God, just go, Diccon. Just leave. I don’t want to talk to you any more. I’m too busy, as you can see”—I waved at my drawings—“I’ve got to get these finished on time!”
The door shut with an accusatory thud. I turned to my drawing. Angrily, I wiped away quick tears, and kept working.
I hated the story of the Infanta.
Even if I hadn’t been miserable about Diccon I would have hated it. It was a withering tale of a twelve-year-old Spanish princess, abominable in her mocking cruelty to the court dwarf who loves her. The young dwarf is plucked from a happy life in the woods solely for the Infanta’s amusement, only to discover, by looking in a mirror for the first time, that he is ugly and deformed. He dies brokenhearted at the feet of the jeering princess.
. . . the Chamberlain looked grave, and he knelt beside the little dwarf, and put his hand upon his heart. And after a few moments he shrugged his shoulders, and rose up, and having made a low bow to the Infanta, he said:
“Mi bella Princesa, your funny little dwarf will never dance again. It is a pity, for he is so ugly that he might have made the King smile.”
“But why will he not dance again?” asked the Infanta, laughing.
“Because his heart is broken,” answered the Chamberlain.
And the Infanta frowned, and her dainty rose-leaf lips curled in pretty disdain.
“For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts,” she cried, and she ran out into the garden.
For all her cruelty, though, the Infanta had the right idea. A heart was a miserable thing. I could have done without my own.
pamela
I don’t know exactly why Diccon wrote to me from Virginia. Later, Jane would offer me her theory, that he was using a twisted bit of logic, that he felt she was going to eat him alive and he wanted me there to diffuse the situation. He was all nonchalant, said he thought perhaps he’d write to you, see if you’d like to come to Bellevue. He said you were fond of me and that you’d shown an interest in learning to ride and perhaps I could give you a lesson or two. I told him, “We don’t need a chaperone, you know, Diccon.”
But Diccon, stubborn as always, had gone ahead and invited me down.
Of course, I should have refused. I should have known better than to be pleased, but I told myself that it was his way of apologizing to me.
And so I wrote to say I’d take the train down. Said he must teach me to ride a horse while I was there. Said I would bring down the Infanta drawings, that I must work six hours a day because of the contract. I sent him my love.
I’d never been to the South. I’d read about the old plantation houses, but in my mind’s eye they’d always turned into a sort of English country house. Bellevue was nowhere near as grand, as kingly, as the estate I’d envisioned, but it was entrancing nonetheless. The tree-lined drive was fairy-tale beautiful, with a spectacular branched archway overhead. It was ghostly now in winter, casting ragged shadows. The house itself was three stories of faded, pinkish brick, skirted by a huge veranda. Six columns supported a graceful second-floor porch. The home had been in her family for ages, Jane said. It had been a working tobacco plantation once, but they’d had to sell off hundreds of acres.
Inside, Bellevue looked as if not much had changed since Jane’s grandparents—or perhaps great-grandparents—had lived there. The rugs in the parlor were rich but worn, the balding arms of the Queen Anne chairs were little more than a network of gray thread, and the wallpaper, mottled with amber stains, curled away from the wall. A statue of a boy blowing a bugle stood in the far corner. The little tableau on the mantelpiece was quite forlorn— two cracked Chinese vases set on trivets of carved black wood, a dented and tarnished silver candlestick, and a dusty beehive clock that always read ten past four.
Bellevue had seen better days, but it was a comfortable place.
Perhaps things will work out after all, I thought.
The very first morning, I asked Diccon to give me a riding lesson.
“Why don’t you go out with Jane a few times?” he said, “When you’ve got the hang of it we’ll all take a ride. I’ve really got to stay here and write.”
Jane read my disappointment. She shook her head and made a “There’s nothing to be done, so let’s get on with it” sort of face.
In the barn, I stood by Lulu, a gentle old roan mare, while Jane went about saddling the horse. I breathed in smells of sweet straw and dusky animal, and pondered the array of leather and metal contraptions hanging on the wall, all a mystery to me.
“I may have to adjust the stirrup further, but let’s give it a try.” Jane came around to help me mount the horse. “Just put your left foot here, I’ll help.”
“Jane,” I interrupted. “I really, really do wish to learn to ride. Truly—it’s just that now . . . well, now we’re alone I want to ask you a question, about Diccon. . . .”
“Which is?”
Nervously, I stroked Lulu’s flank. I couldn’t look at Jane.