Читать книгу Kings Row - Henry Bellamann - Страница 6

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Parris Mitchell’s mother had died when he was born, his father less than a year later. Since then he had been cared for by his maternal grandmother. She adored him, and he adored her. Doubtless she spoiled him in some ways, but she had trained him to the observance of an old-fashioned, Old World courtesy that made him somewhat conspicuous. Because of this he appeared older than he was, and sometimes a shade theatrical. Children, for the most part, thought him a bit queer, but adults approved of him.

His grandmother, Marie Arnaut von Eln, was wholly French. Her family came originally from Lorraine. She had been twice married, the second time to a wandering German aristocrat who had come to America to make a fortune. He did not make a fortune, but after various enterprises had bought lands at Kings Row because of some fancied similarity of the soil to that of his native German province. He built a house of foreign fashion, laid out elaborate grounds, and planted extensive vineyards. He manufactured sufficient wine to drink himself to death, and left his widow with debts and unpaid taxes far beyond the value of the land.

Marie von Eln was a resourceful woman. She employed French and German labor and turned the vineyards into a nursery. It had prospered, and she was now, twenty years after her husband’s death, accounted a wealthy woman. Not so rich as the Sansomes, or the Skeffingtons, or the St. Georges, but more than comfortable.

Kings Row had never known quite what to make of her. She was a “foreigner,” but obviously did not fit into the usual categories of what were always derogatorily referred to as “the foreign elements.” She had the bearing and manner of an aristocrat, and her sense of humor was of the kind that often made the women of Kings Row uncomfortable. One could never be sure what it was that amused her. Everybody knew her, and everybody called her “Madame.”

She was slight and quick of movement. She had black hair, threaded with gray, a high Roman nose, and extremely delicate hands. Her face was lined with innumerable thin crisscross wrinkles—like the cracks in an old glaze—but her high cheeks, faintly rose, were apple-smooth. Her dark blue eyes under the heavy bands of her almost masculine brows were deeply set in tragic shadows. Their grave expression was partly due to affliction: Madame was almost blind. She habitually wore a few fine diamonds set in black enamel.

Madame von Eln spoke French or German by preference. She emphasized, underscored, and generally illumined her discourse with graphic movements of hands, shoulders, and eyebrows.

Parris bore a striking resemblance to her.

She was waiting now for him to come home from school. Laying aside the thick reading glass, she thrust a sheaf of papers into a drawer and closed it. She patted the waves over her ears, gave a twist to the taffeta bow at her throat, and waited. She smiled a little. It was almost a smile of coquetry. Her quick ears had caught the sound of running steps on the lower terrace.

“Bon soir, grand’mère.” He held her very tight and kissed her four times on each smooth cheek. He rubbed his face against her hair. “Ma belle grand’mère!”

“Mon enfant.” She held him off and put up her lorgnettes. “Tu es fatigué?”

“Moi? Non. Pas du tout.”

“Mais, elle est ennuyante, cette Venable, n’est-ce-pas?”

He laughed. She liked the trick he had of keeping his short square teeth tight together when he laughed.

“Mademoiselle Sally? Jamais. Elle est drôle!”

“Drôle?” She nodded. “Ah, oui, c’est bien possible.” There was a shade of malice in her smile. “Oui, c’est bien possible!” Then, in English, “You are hungry?”

“Of course.”

Madame called, “Anna!”

A short fat maid appeared so quickly that one suspected that she had been waiting at the door.

“Anna, dass Kind hat Hunger.”

The maid smiled broadly. “Was willst du—Milch, Brod—eine Pastete?”

“Was für Pastete gibt es, Anna?”

“Kirsch—ganz frisch.”

The trilingual discussion continued without anyone being aware of the shifts from one tongue to another. Parris decided on the cherry pie, and Anna left the room with a loud rustle of starched petticoats.

Madame turned to her desk again. “Go with Anna, please, Parris. I have more work.”

He started to speak, checked the words, and went softly out.

Madame von Eln’s house was as individual as she was herself. The plastered walls of the big square rooms were whitewashed. Bright rag carpets covered the floors and gay prints hung at the windows. There were rows of potted plants in all of the deep windows. The furniture was nearly all of sycamore, made in the cabinet shops of the asylum for the insane. All of the pieces were massive and plain. There were patchwork quilts on the beds and some rather garish religious prints. There were none of the knickknacks common to most houses. People exclaimed when they saw it, “Quaint! Charming!”

Madame always shrugged indifferently. “Peasant style,” she said. “It is comfortable and convenient.”

Lately Parris had realized the difference between his home and other houses. Home was comfortable and he loved it, but he thought red velvet curtains and flowery Brussels carpets very elegant. Sometimes he wondered if his grandmother was less rich than he had supposed.

One thing he was self-conscious about. His grandmother smoked cigarettes. He had seen country women smoke pipes, and it seemed quite the same. Once he had asked her not to smoke when he had visitors. He had been disconcerted and mystified beyond measure by her laughter. But she respected his wishes, and he never mentioned it again.

After the cherry pie he went directly to his piano practice. The square rosewood piano was old, and the keys were yellow, but it was in good tune. Very slowly, very carefully, counting aloud as he practiced, he attacked the Bach piece “in four flats.” Fifteen minutes passed—half an hour. He began again at the beginning for the tenth time when his grandmother came to the door.

“What is this that you play?”

“It is an Invention.”

“Indeed. Is that something important?”

“Herr Berdorff says so.”

“It is extremely ugly. It must be frightful to learn such a thing! Come with me—it is enough of this—this Invention as you call it and it is your birthday. I have a present for you.”

Parris lay in bed listening to the little sounds of the night. He was very happy. It had been a beautiful evening, and his present—all those books! His “belle, belle, belle grand’mère!” It would be nice when vacation came and he could stay at home. But in thinking of that he felt a tightening in his chest. He had heard Anna say that Madame was growing old. Anna said he should never wish time away. Old! Someday his grandmother would die—sooner than other boys’ mothers who were much younger. He had had another grandmother, but she had died a long time ago. Terror seized him. He took the edge of the quilt between his teeth so he wouldn’t cry, but it was no use—he was already crying. His throat felt like stone.

No, no, no! Le bon Dieu would never permit that. He remembered once that his grandmother had shrugged her shoulders contemptuously at something Anna said about trusting the good God. Was it—was it possible that his grandmother knew something she had never told him—that perhaps—perhaps there wasn’t a bon Dieu at all, just as he had found out when he was a very little boy that there was no Santa Claus and no real giants?

He turned his face down into the pillow and pulled the covering over his head.