The Passions of Emma (59 page)
He didn’t want to know of something he might not be able to forgive.
He went up to her where she stood at the window, close enough to touch, although he didn’t. She smelled of her lilac perfume, and cold fur.
“You went for your walk,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered. She spoke softly, like someone just waking from a deep sleep.
“You’re cold.” He brushed droplets of mist from the smooth
shell-like roll of her hair. He wanted to ask her what she was thinking.
shell-like roll of her hair. He wanted to ask her what she was thinking.
Instead, he turned away from her, picked up a pair of studded leather bellows, and began to puff air at the fire.
In the days of December that followed, Geoffrey spent as much time as he could with her, even though he could never find the words he needed for the question he thought he should ask. He wanted to believe she needed him, and so he was there.
She wasn’t always easy to find, though. She spent so much time walking out-of-doors, even though it was close to Christmas, and the winter was a cold and wet one.
Today he found her in the old orangery. He’d never before been to this place where she did her sculpting; he’d never been invited. Nor had she ever offered to show him her work, but then, he thought perhaps she had feared he would think it amateurish.
The door was partway open and he paused on the threshold before going in. A pale yellow sunlight washed down from the glazed glass roof, splashing watery patterns on the tiled floor. She stood staring at a strange something made of bronze, and although he couldn’t see her face, she had an odd, suspended look about her. As though she’d been standing there in just that way for centuries.
He walked in, his cane tapping on the tiles. She turned, and he was shocked to see tears streaming down her face.
“Emma, darling,” he said, hastening to her side. “What is it?”
She spun away from him to stare at the strange bronze something again. “I’ve been afraid to come here, afraid of what I might feel, of how it would hurt so. But then I got to thinking. Mama might have smashed Bria while I was away, and at that moment I became more terrified of
not
coming. I had to see, to know that she was all right, and she is. She is! Isn’t she beautiful?”
not
coming. I had to see, to know that she was all right, and she is. She is! Isn’t she beautiful?”
Geoffrey tried to look admiring as he viewed the strange
something. It was a mask of a woman’s face, he finally decided, but it was hardly . . . Well, for one thing, it was much too large to be a proper face. And for another, the features were much too harsh and strong to belong to a woman. His poor Emma, she really didn’t have any talent at all. No wonder she had been reluctant to show him any of her creations before this.
something. It was a mask of a woman’s face, he finally decided, but it was hardly . . . Well, for one thing, it was much too large to be a proper face. And for another, the features were much too harsh and strong to belong to a woman. His poor Emma, she really didn’t have any talent at all. No wonder she had been reluctant to show him any of her creations before this.
She didn’t seem to care whether she had his approbation anyway. She had gone back into that suspended state, where she didn’t even appear to be breathing.
“You’re not thinking of taking it up again, are you, your sculpting?” He really rather hoped not; her nerves were still much too delicate for such a stress.
She shuddered, breaking her stillness, and looked out the milky windows toward the bay. The water slept, smooth and gray, under the blue-white winter sky. “No,” she said. “That would take much more courage than I could ever find right now.”
Her face held such a sweet sadness, it made him ache to comfort her. Without quite realizing he was doing it, he slipped his arm around her waist and drew her to him. He had thought to be careful, to give her more time after her illness. But here he was kissing her, and it was too late.
Her mouth was cool and soft, and he ended the kiss much too quickly to know whether he’d gotten a response. And he didn’t dare try again.
“I thought we would go skating today,” he said. “They say the ice at Collins Pond is the best it’s been all winter.”
“That would be nice, Geoffrey,” she said. But he saw no feeling on her face now at all.
Sunlight danced on the delicate lacy collars of ice that rimmed the rocks and trees, and the harness bells jangled a roundelay tune.
The wind the sleigh made cutting through the snow stirred the gray fur of Emma’s collar in a soft caress against her cheek.
The wind the sleigh made cutting through the snow stirred the gray fur of Emma’s collar in a soft caress against her cheek.
But she was sorry now she’d agreed to come, for she could feel the fear stirring inside her. When she was at home, at The Birches, in that calm, familiar place, she felt returned to herself, to the girl she’d been long ago. As though she’d just met herself again, after a long and perilous and frightening journey away.
She slipped her arm through Geoffrey’s, leaning in to him, hanging on. He turned to her and smiled. In the subdued winter light, his eyes were the soft burnished color of old silver. She thought she and Geoffrey cared about each other, only they didn’t always feel it, and that didn’t seem to matter so much anymore. Among the many things she was now afraid of, one was letting go of Geoffrey’s arm.
They walked down to the pond with their skates tied together, hanging around their necks. Geoffrey had her sit down on a rock so that he could lace hers up for her.
They skated side by side, she and Geoffrey, arm in arm. The cold bit at her nose and cheeks, and the wind in her face felt wonderful, and to her own surprise, she laughed. Although her laughter sounded fragile in the thin air.
At the wide end of the pond, some Irish kids were playing a game of curling, sweeping the stone disk back and forth over the ice. And shrieking and whooping and trying to slash one another with their curved sticks while they were about it. Although the skaters appeared to be boys, for a moment Emma thought she saw Noreen among them.
She uttered a little cry and started after them, trying to pull away from Geoffrey. But he held on to her arm.
“Whoa there, darling,” he said. “Where are you going?”
She let him lead her away. She let his gentle, familiar hands lead her back to the rock, where he took off her skates. She let him bundle her up in the cutter and drive her home, where the holly wreath on the door and the lamplight spilling from the windows onto the snow on the sills made a welcoming sight.
As they crossed the pine-garlanded hall, laughter and a tinkling rendition of “Jingle Bells” floated out from the family parlor, and they followed the sound of it.
The parlor was aglow with the white firefly light of the Christmas-tree candles and smelled of ginger lace cookies and eggnog. Maddie sat in her wheelchair alongside the fire, and she was the one who was laughing.
Stuart Alcott stood before her, holding a music box with a twirling ice skater on the top of it.
“Stu!” Geoffrey exclaimed, a wary surprise in his voice.
Maddie looked around and her mouth widened with a smile so bright it rivaled the candles on the tree. “Look, Emma. Stu’s come home for Christmas.”
“And bearing gifts, too,” Stu said. And as Emma watched, he picked up Maddie’s hand and put the music box in it. The tune was winding down but neither of them seemed to notice. Stu looked down into Maddie’s eyes and he smiled. A smile that bridged depths, gulfs, worlds, and unimaginable spaces.
And the look she gave back to him went even further.
How she loves him, Emma thought.
How I loved Shay.
I
n Bristol they called it the “unlocking season.” That time when snow fell in soft plops from the trees and the ice broke up in the streams with cracks louder than any Fourth of July rocket. When young ferns and flowers first poked their noses out of the warming earth, and the birch and beech leaves began to unfurl.
n Bristol they called it the “unlocking season.” That time when snow fell in soft plops from the trees and the ice broke up in the streams with cracks louder than any Fourth of July rocket. When young ferns and flowers first poked their noses out of the warming earth, and the birch and beech leaves began to unfurl.
Emma Tremayne’s unlocking came about as slowly as the spring thaw. In those first weeks of the new year, she had often gone back to Collins Pond—not to skate, but to watch the Irish boys play their games of curling. She never thought she saw Noreen again, but still she went. It was the wildness in the boys’ laughter that drew her, and the way they hurled themselves across the ice, heedless of thin spots and cracks and the dead branches hiding there to trip them. Their foolish bravery, she thought, was painful to see.
She never could bear watching them for long, and so she would turn with a soft, aching cowardice toward home and the familiar things. The soothing tone of Geoffrey’s voice when he spoke her name, the solid comfort of his arm when she leaned on it. The sight of the birches, black and bare, etched against a white winter sky. The smell of wet clay in the old orangery, the clay that she prepared every morning as if she were a real sculptress, with real work to do.
Although she never dared to make anything with the clay, she
would knead it for hours. The feel of it oozing through her fingers—soft and warm and smooth as living flesh—stirred a strange, hot restlessness inside her. Like the wild and reckless freedom she could hear caught up in the ice-skaters’ laughter, it made her remember too much. And she felt a disappointment in herself, that she couldn’t make herself be less afraid.
would knead it for hours. The feel of it oozing through her fingers—soft and warm and smooth as living flesh—stirred a strange, hot restlessness inside her. Like the wild and reckless freedom she could hear caught up in the ice-skaters’ laughter, it made her remember too much. And she felt a disappointment in herself, that she couldn’t make herself be less afraid.
One morning in March, when the birches dripped with ice melt and the sun rose pale and shrunken in a bleached-blue sky, Emma awoke determined to pay a call on Bria’s girls. She told herself it was a promise she had made, a promise she must keep. But that day she only drove as far as the scrolled iron gates before she turned the carriage around and had the grooms put it away.
That afternoon, it snowed again—winter’s final gasp. Emma stood at her bedroom window and watched the flakes drift onto the silent woods, and she wished that she could be like the birches and have slept through these past months, to awaken in the spring with her heart healed and her fears forgotten.
It was some time before she dared to try taking the carriage out again, but on that day she made it through the gates, although her heart pounded and her palms were damp beneath the soft leather of her gloves. She drove as far as the corner of Union and Thames Streets, but there she stopped to look at the house from a safe distance.
She was shocked at how shabby and small the place was—that clapboard shack, perched on stilts. How it could be so small and yet hold so much . . . How it could hold all of a woman’s heart. She looked at the house, and the broken pieces inside her shifted and ground together, hurting her so that she gasped aloud.
I belong in there
, she thought. She belonged in that kitchen with its faded wallpaper and worn linoleum; she belonged to the family who ate supper at that table with its brown oilcloth, to the man who slept in that white iron bed. She belonged to the friend whose spirit still tended to the teakettle whistling on the stove.
I belong in there
, she thought. She belonged in that kitchen with its faded wallpaper and worn linoleum; she belonged to the family who ate supper at that table with its brown oilcloth, to the man who slept in that white iron bed. She belonged to the friend whose spirit still tended to the teakettle whistling on the stove.
But there was an ocean to cross between knowing where you
belonged and having the fire in your heart to go there. And Emma Tremayne had lost her courage to set sail.
belonged and having the fire in your heart to go there. And Emma Tremayne had lost her courage to set sail.
One day, when mist clung to the cold waters of the bay and spring was still pent up in tight red buds on the branches of the birches, Emma went to Saint Mary’s cemetery and stood before Bria’s grave.
The marker was a simple stone, etched with her name and the years of her life. The last time Emma had been here, the dirt had been mulchy brown and raw, the stone freshly carved, the letters white scars in the smooth gray granite. Now already the grave had sunk a bit at the edges, and winter had pitted and scarred the granite marker with tiny cracks.
Emma knelt and traced the letters in the stone. “Bria,” she said, and the pain of saying her name was an unbearable thing.
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