Tarnished Gold

  "I'm not babying myself," she continued. "I used to have breakfast in bed occasionally. And everyone expects me to now, of course, but I am not going to appear to be one of those spoiled women your mother talks about," she said. She thought a moment and then said, "I never realized exercise was so important for a pregnant woman. I always thought they had to lie in bed and be waited upon hand and foot, but your mother thinks it should be exactly the opposite. She says unless the woman has some problem, she never tells her to stop working. Some have worked right up to the day she's delivered them."

  "Mama's delivered enough babies to know," I assured her. "One time she delivered four in one day: a baby boy in the morning, a pair of twin girls in the afternoon, and a baby girl in the evening."

  She nodded and then, after a pause, screwed those inquisitive eyes on me and asked, "You don't sleep well these nights, do you?"

  "No."

  "You wake up a lot and moan and groan. I can hear you through the ceiling sometimes. You've got to control that," she warned. "Remember, the window is open at night."

  "I don't realize I'm doing it," I said. "Did I wake you and Octavious?"

  "Not Octavious. His bedroom is across the corridor," she said quickly.

  "You don't sleep in the same room?" I asked before I could stop my tongue.

  She fixed her eyes on me with a stone glint this time. "No. We have different sleeping habits. It's not uncommon. My mother and father slept in separate bedrooms from the first day they were married."

  I said nothing.

  "You knew Octavious was sleeping in his own room anyway, didn't you?" she said with a tone of accusation. "You're snooping around the house now. You're into every nook and cranny, I suppose."

  "No, madame. I. ."

  "It doesn't make any difference," she said, and then gave me one of her crooked smiles. "You can't tell anyone anything about this place and our lives or it will be known you were here and then questions will be asked and you'll have ruined everything. Then, instead of your baby having a good home and all that he or she needs, he or she will be labeled an

  illegitimate child and it will all be your fault. You understand that, don't you?" she asked, sounding more concerned than threatening.

  "Of course, madame. I don't mean to be snoopy. I just meant . . ."

  "You'll learn for yourself one day," she said, and then sighed. "You'll learn just how hard it is to live with a man. Men are more than just physically different; they're more selfish. They want to be satisfied all the time, no matter how we feel. All they care about is their own raging lusts," she said, practically spitting the words.

  She leaned forward and then in a loud, raspy whisper, she said, "It's because of their hormones. They overflow and it makes them throb all over until they get satisfied. That's what my father told me."

  "Your father discussed such things with you?" I asked, unable to hide my surprise.

  She shrugged. "My mother was too prudish to do so. She wouldn't even tell me about the birds and the bees. Do you know we had skirts on our piano legs because my mother thought naked piano legs were too suggestive?" She laughed a thin laugh and then screwed her face into a serious expression and added, "Of course, young people in my time weren't as concerned about sexual matters as they seem to be today.

  "It was different then," she continued, looking around as if she could see the room twenty years ago. She smiled softly. "Things were less complicated. Everything was in its proper place. Courting was more civilized, proper. I so wanted it to be that way forever, but . . ."

  I just stared at her, but she looked like she was gazing through me. It gave me the shudders because she appeared to be talking to herself more than to me. Something she saw in her own memory made her eyes hateful and small. She shuddered and twisted her lips into a crooked smile before continuing.

  "Octavious has never forgiven me for our honeymoon," she said angrily. "He accused me of planning it that way. He said I should have known, have kept track with the calendar."

  "Calendar?" I wondered aloud. "I don't understand." She blinked her eyes and then looked at me and smirked. Then she sat back, wagging her head.

  "Girls like you drive me mad," she began. "You have your fun, but you don't know what's what with your own bodily functions."

  I shook my head, still confused.

  "Octavious accused me of having a period for three weeks instead of one," she snapped with impatience. "I know you know what a period is."

  "Oui, madame," I said. "Of course."

  "Well, sometimes mine's irregular and it just worked out that way after we got married and Octavious couldn't gratify his lust on our wedding night, nor the night after or the one after that. Is that spelled out simply enough for you to understand, or do I have to draw pictures?"

  She looked away and then, when she turned back, there were tears in her eyes. "It's very difficult when your husband is not sensitive to your needs. It's just better for a man and a woman to have separate bedrooms. It was better for my mother and it's better for me. Does that satisfy your need to know? Does it?" she demanded.

  "I'm sorry, madame. I don't have a need to know the private details of your life. I didn't mean to pry."

  "Of course not. You didn't mean to come barging into my life either."

  "No, Madame Tate. I did not," I said firmly. "It was the other way around. Octavious came barging into my life."

  She glared a moment and then her face softened. "You're right. Of course. Anyway, we shouldn't be having this kind of nasty talk. We have to cooperate and help each other get through this ordeal," she said in a sweetened voice. "Have you had enough to eat?"

  "Oui, madame."

  "Good. Take your exercise then. Wait," she said when I started to rise. "I'll walk with you. I want to study how you walk."

  "How I walk?"

  "Yes. Pregnant women do walk differently. I've seen you rubbing your lower back when you walk sometimes. You have a sort of pregnant waddle."

  "Oh," I said. I nodded and she followed along, keeping a step or two back so she could analyze and imitate me. I tried not to be self-conscious of my every move, but when someone is studying you under a magnifying glass, you can't help but think about every gesture, ever movement in your face, every twinge in your legs and back. I found I was even holding my breath at times.

  But after a while, the walk through the house became more pleasant because she began to explain things, point to this work of art or this vase and tell me its history, who bought it and why. She explained why she held affection for certain of her household possessions. I noted that anything her mother bought, she spoke about with joy, but things her father bought seemed to resurrect painful memories. As she went on about them, I realized that most of the things her father had bought, he had bought to compensate for some sad moment or something he had done that had displeased her mother. She called them "Gifts of Repentance," and then added, almost casually, "That goes for my wonderful dollhouse, too." She looked mean, wrathful, when she said it.

  "Didn't you love your father, Madame Tate?" I asked softly.

  She replied with a short, thin laugh, and then said, "Love him? Of course. He demanded it."

  "How can you demand love?" I asked.

  "My father could demand the sun to rise or fall." "I don't understand," I said.

  "Be happy you don't," she replied, and then, with her hand on her 1pwer back as if she really did suffer from the same aches I experienced, she groaned and added, "I've walked enough. Watch the time," she warned, "and be sure to get upstairs before anyone can discover you."

  She left me standing in the corridor.

  On my way back upstairs, I paused in the doorway of the den and gazed up at the portrait of Gladys Tate's father. What sort of a man thought that love demanded was any sort of love at all? I wondered. His painted eyes seethed to be shooting needles my way and his firm lips appeared caught in a sneer. I didn't linger and went up to my tiny world even though I had more time to wander abou
t this dark and foreboding house.

  Gladys Tate had lived up to her promise to Mama: She had kept Octavious from me from the day I had arrived. Only once or twice did I hear what I was sure was the sound of his muted voice below, and once, when I was gazing out the window at night, I thought I saw him standing in the shadows looking up at me, but either I imagined it or he stepped back into deeper darkness and was gone in an instant.

  Almost a week after Gladys Tate had told me about her disastrous honeymoon, I went downstairs after hours to take my bath and empty my chamber pot as usual. After I undressed, I studied the changes in my body,, noting the stretch marks on my breasts and abdomen. It was harder to. get in and out of the bathtub, too. Every muscle seemed to be aching these days. I had a good soak, brushed my hair, and put on my nightgown, but the moment I returned to my quarters, I sensed something different.. When, you have spent. as much time every day m a room as small as mine was for as long as I had, you get so you can smell the slightest change, much less see it The lamp was very low, so I turned it up, and when I spun around, .I found him standing there in. the corner, his back to the wall.

  "Monsieur Tate!" I exclaimed.

  He stepped forward quickly, his finger on his lips. "Please. Don't scream."

  "What is it you want?" I demanded. "You frightened me," I said angrily.

  "I had to sneak up here, of course. I'm sorry," he said.. "Please, relax. I'm not here to hurt you or bother you,"

  "What do you want?" I demanded, my heart thumping like a tin drum.

  He wore a white cotton shirt and a pair of dark slacks. His hair was combed neatly, and the aroma of his cologne reached my nostrils in waves. He smiled.

  "I just want to talk to you for a few moments," he said, his hands up to keep me from screaming.

  "We have nothing to say to each other. I must ask you to leave immediately," I said, jabbing my finger toward the door and then pressing my nightgown against my bosom to give me some more cover from his searching eyes.

  "I don't blame you for hating me," he said. "Nothing I can say will change what I have done to you or make things better, but I thought since you have been here awhile, you might at least understand a little more about my situation, and perhaps, I was hoping . . you would be somewhat more sympathetic."

  "I don't understand anything except you are a horrible person, mean and selfish."

  "Perhaps I am," he admitted. "I don't want to be." He lowered his head. I retreated to my bed and sat with my arms folded over my bosom. With his eyes staring, I couldn't help but feel naked even though I wore my nightgown. He raised his head and smiled again. "How is everything?" he asked. "Is there anything you need?"

  "My freedom," I replied.

  He nodded, the thin smile evaporating. "I understand everything's going along as it should and it won't be much longer."

  "To me each day seems like a week, each week a month, and each month a year. Not to be able to go outside when the sun is up, to have to walk through the house on tiptoe and stay within the shadows until I feel like a shadow myself, is torture," I pointed out with tears in my eyes.

  "I'm sorry," he said, his voice cracking. Then he added, "I pray for your forgiveness every night. I know you probably don't believe that, but it's true. Despite what I have done, I am a religious man. Why, Gladys and I haven't missed a Sunday service since we got married. We even attended church during our honeymoon."

  "It's not only my forgiveness you must pray for, monsieur," I replied, my voice as cold as ice. If indeed there was any forgiveness to sprout in my heart, it was far too early for the seeds to open. I was still in the winter of my suffering, and my heart was far from a fertile place for a pardon to blossom.

  His smile returned, and even in the dim light I could see it was a small, tight smile.

  "If you are referring to my asking for the forgiveness of my illustrious wife, I don't think the weight on my conscience is as heavy as you would imagine. By now, even confined to these quarters and restricted in your movements around our home and property, you must have reached a realization about our relationship," he said.

  "That's not my business."

  "I know. Unfortunately, it's no one's business but my own. Remember the things I told you at the pond? They weren't lies, only now you probably see it's even worse than I described. We haven't been as husband and wife for some time. I'm hoping that when the baby is born and she becomes a mother, things will change."

  "Monsieur, none of this--"

  "Oh, Gabriel," he said, falling to his knees and reaching out for my hand. His gesture took me by surprise. I held my breath, but my heart continued to pound like rain in a storm drain. "I want you to understand everything. Only then will you perhaps find some small place in your heart for an

  infinitesimal amount of forgiveness."

  He swallowed hard and then continued. "Gladys and I don't sleep together because making love for her is too painful. She just lies there and whimpers. Can you imagine what that is like for me? I'd like to be a real husband and sire children with her as I should, but she makes it so difficult."

  "Why tell me, a stranger? Why not bring her to a doctor, monsieur?" I asked in my same hard, sharp voice. I had used all my power of pity for Mama and myself. I certainly had nothing left for him, the man whose lust had shut me up in this tiny room.

  "Because a doctor can't help her unless he can wipe away years of horrid childhood memories," he blurted.

  I felt a wave of blood flow up my neck and pulled my hand back from his.

  "I do not understand, monsieur," I said, even though the dark thoughts had been lingering in the corners of my mind from the day I had discovered the strange drawings in the closet and the damaged dolls. These thoughts were so horrid and frightening to me, I kept them smothered.

  "Gladys's father used her . . . sexually, when she was just a little girl," he said, and I gasped. "I realized something was wrong from the first day after we had been married. In order to postpone our consummation of the marriage, she secretly had one of her laborers butcher a pig and put some of the blood into a small bottle, which she brought along on our honeymoon and then used to pretend she had gotten her period. One afternoon, toward the end of our week, I found the bottle buried in a drawer. When I confronted her with it, she broke down and cried and babbled some of the past.

  "Naturally, I was horrified. Her father was a well-respected and important man, a man I personally admired. He had brought me into the business and treated me like a son from the first day forward. It was he who arranged for my courting of Gladys, and although she was somewhat aloof from my advances, I thought it was only because of her shyness. She had never had a boyfriend before me, really.

  "So I was willing to give it time, and when our marriage was arranged, I thought we would surely learn to love each other and things would be fine. When I discovered her past, I confronted her father, who, as you might know, had been suffering from emphysema for some time. It had grown very serious. He could barely get around and spent most of his time confined in bed, hooked to an oxygen tank. It looked like an umbilical cord and he shriveled until he appeared no more than a baby. I was running the business already."

  "What happened after you confronted him?" I asked, unable to prevent myself from being interested in his story even though apart of me abhorred the details.

  "He denied everything, of course, and told me Gladys had always been a fanciful child who actually believed her own imaginings. He begged me not to give up on her, however, claiming I was the only hope she had for a normal life."

  "You believed him?"

  "I didn't know what to believe. It didn't seem to make any difference whether or not it was true. The result was the same. Gladys was, as one psychiatrist I conferred with told me, impotent. He said he had seen other similar cases in which a woman's psychological condition actually affected her ability to get pregnant. He called it mind over matter. "Oh, I forced myself on her a number of times, hoping to break through this wall o
f frigidity, but it has, until now, proven impenetrable. Can you understand what it has been like for me to live under such conditions?

  "I had made promises to her father and accepted her and the holy sacrament of marriage, but . . . I am only a man with a man's needs and

  weaknesses.

  "I know," he said quickly, "that is no excuse for what I have done to you, and it's laughable for me to even suggest you forgive me because of it, but I wanted you to understand that I am not an evil person and I do suffer remorse." He lowered his head..

  "You denied it when my father first came to you," I. reminded him,

  "Who would have admitted such a thing to Jack Landry? He looked like he would tear my arms out and rip off my head. I was terrified. I know his reputation. Don't think my legs weren't quaking under that desk when you and your father burst into my office and I tried to frighten him with my own threats.

  "I know you have no reason to believe this now, but I was preparing to send you money to help you with your pregnancy and with the child. I was going to do it anonymously. I never expected your father would go to Gladys, and as you remember, I was quite surprised by her reaction and decision.

  "Well," he said, sitting back, "that's the whole truth. Now you know it and perhaps you won't hate me as much as you did."

  "How much I hate you isn't what matters," I said, and then I added in a softer voice, "I don't hate you. Mama always says hate is like a small fire kindled in your soul; it eventually burns away all the goodness and consumes you in its rage."

  "She's right and you're very sweet to tell me that. That's what's made this so terrible, your goodness." He smiled. "Really, is there anything I can do for you? Something I could bring you?"

  "No, monsieur."

  He stared at me and smiled. "I wish I had been born years later and met a girl like you first," he said.

  "But my father doesn't own a big cannery," I reminded him.

  His smile widened. "You're a very clever girl besides being a very beautiful one, for someone who claims she hasn't been with men very much," he said. "Tell me the truth now. There were others, weren't there?"