The Finishing School Read online

  I don’t know why, but I felt instinctively that my preoccupation with Ursula should not be revealed to my mother. I wasn’t sure I understood the full extent of it myself. But I was sure my mother would think it odd if she knew how present this woman was in my mind, and she might also feel threatened by another woman’s competition for her daughter’s affections. A story that wasn’t really a falsehood, but more like the outer shell of the truth, came to my aid. I told my mother that what had made me like this woman—in addition to the fact that she seemed so warmly interested in me—was that she lived the kind of life that reminded me a lot of the one we had lost.

  (Here I could not help noticing the sad, almost wincing look that appeared on my mother’s face, but I told myself, with a hard heart, that she deserved a little punishment for having deliberately removed us from all traces of that life.)

  “You know,” I elaborated, “the kind of life where people stay in the same place all their lives, maybe even in the same house, and where you know who everybody’s grandparents were in town … and listening to classical music, and arranging flowers in vases, and talking about history … that kind of thing.”

  I told my mother that Ursula DeVane had said her family was descended from the Huguenots that Louis (I forgot which one) had chased out of France, but that I didn’t know much about her history except that she had studied drama at the Royal Academy in London and had taught at some girls’ school in New York—some finishing school—but that now her life seemed to be dedicated to her brother’s career and helping him make a comeback. “Mr. Cristiana says she is sacrificing herself for her brother,” I added, thinking my mother, in her present state of mind, would approve of sacrifice. I did not say anything about the mother in the insane asylum, however, or about Julian DeVane’s old fight with Mr. Cristiana.

  My mother had listened to all this in a pensive reverie of her own, and, at last, she said: “I keep forgetting that you spent so much of your childhood with older people. I hope I didn’t do wrong, letting you stay with Honey and Father when I went off with Rivers to college in Charlottesville. Maybe I was trying to have my cake and eat it too. But they did want you so much, they would have been heartbroken if I had taken you away, and you seemed so happy there, you wanted to stay. But I hope”—and she passed her hand gently over my hair—“I hope I haven’t gone and made you into an old person before your time.” Then she told me to go and enjoy myself tomorrow. “This Miss DeVane must think you are good company, otherwise she wouldn’t have invited you. Poor woman, she probably gets lonely all by herself in the country with just her brother. And from what Mona implied, he’s a bit of a problem.”

  After these generous words, I felt a pang of shame at having decoyed my mother. But it had to be this way. There were other loyalties here, loyalties I didn’t completely understand. I only felt the force of them. It was like Mr. Cristiana choosing between patriotism and the horses in some way, I decided. Though I got confused when I tried to trace out the analogy.

  At three twenty-seven on Sunday afternoon, I wheeled my bike out of the garage and set off from Lucas Meadows, glimpsing, in the lookalike picture windows of the houses I sped past, the reflection of a girl in white blouse and white Bermuda shorts flashing along in a series of moving frames.

  At a quarter to four, I reached the Cristianas’ farm. No humans stirred about the place. I was glad, because I would have had to stop and be polite. The only creature in sight was the active Turk, tensely trotting around his paddock. He hugged the fence and lifted his head over it at a self-conscious angle, as if he were playing to an audience of fillies.

  I dawdled on the next winding stretch of road, afraid I would arrive too early. And then, afraid I might be late, I raced around the final curves. I was out of breath when I knocked shyly on the front door of the house.

  No sounds came from inside. I knocked louder. I put my ear to the door and strained to hear sounds of approaching footsteps from within. Nothing. Only the sound of a truck approaching on Old Clove Road. A man and a woman riding in the truck stared out at me curiously as they passed the house. I saw myself through their eyes: a lanky, anxious girl all in white, petitioning for entrance to the aloof stone house. I tried to peer in the nearest ground-floor window, but it was at too steep an angle from the doorstep. Could she have forgotten? Could they have gone away for the afternoon? There was no old green station wagon in sight, but maybe the timbered outbuilding on the other side of the driveway served as a garage. Its doors were closed.

  Then I remembered she had said they would be down on the terrace if the day was nice. I went around the side of the house, by the lilac bush where, from the bus, I had seen her cutting blossoms that day, and then I came upon a whole new aspect of the place I would never have guessed at from the road. A steep lawn sloped down to a semicircular stone terrace. All around the terrace bloomed masses of red poppies. Beyond the poppies lay the fields, and beyond the fields rose the soft, undulating mountains, with the suddenly sheared-off ledge at the northern end and the mysterious tower atop it. From where I stood now, I could look down to the left and see, across the fields, the shape of the pine forest, jutting out like a wedge of pie pointing toward the mountains. From up here, you would not guess the presence of the pond or the hut, hidden within the trees. I thought I could pinpoint exactly where Ed Cristiana had made us turn our horses around, so we would still be hidden by the pines from this house’s view—and “he” would not see us and take it out on her.

  And there “he” was, down on the stone terrace, sitting next to her. They had their backs to me and were facing the fields. There was something haughty and majestic about their posture as they reclined in the old-fashioned lawn chairs. Waiting for the curtain to go up on their afternoon’s “amusement”? On a low table before them were spread the tea things. A third chair, which I assumed had been placed for me, was turned sideways from the view and facing them.

  Feeling very unsure of my capacity to provide amusement, I started down the hill, turning my toes in a little to keep my balance. Shouldn’t I call out to them, rather than creep up from behind?

  Then, as if she had known I was there all along but had wanted to give me an opportunity to appreciate the picture they made first, Ursula DeVane turned in her chair and waved me down with a grand sweep of her hand. And then he turned, too, to watch me approach. My first impression was shock: from here he looked younger and handsomer than anyone had led me to expect.

  But then, when I reached them, and he stood up to be introduced, I saw that Julian DeVane was not young. In an eerie way, the outlines of youth had frozen themselves on the features of an older man. He was still handsome—beautiful might have been an apter word—but the beauty had something desiccated about it, like a dried flower that has been preserved in shape and color but not freshness.

  “How do you do?” he said quietly, shaking my hand. He was a slim, proud-looking man, more delicately built than his sister. He should have been the girl and she the boy; he would have been strong, then, and she would have been the beautiful one. He had wavy, sandy-silver hair, which he wore much too long for the fashion of those times, when men considered it suspicious if their hair was long enough to move. But I expected he was a bit vain of the way it lifted in waves over the crown of his head and flowed softly back to the nape of his neck. His eyes were the same deep brown as hers, but they did not flash and penetrate as hers did: they had a somber, rather weary, in-turned cast. He had on sandals and khaki trousers and a kind of shirt I had never seen before: it was worn outside the trousers and had colored embroidery on it.

  “I was just telling my brother what a picture of youth and spring you were as you came down that slope,” said Ursula. “You are a walking metaphor of spring. Isn’t she, Julie?”

  The brother nodded in a pleasant, world-weary way, and they both stood gazing indulgently at me as if I were some puppy Ursula had brought home. Ursula was wearing a light green two-piece dress that nipped in at the waist and fl
ared out in a peplum over the hips: a fashion that had been in style when I was a little girl. It was still a pretty dress, but too formal for the occasion, I thought, especially when worn with those old brown thong sandals. She had also put on lipstick, which made her look older. Had they dressed up for me, or did they do this every Sunday?

  “Ah, we’re embarrassing her,” said Ursula. “Do sit down, Justin, and be tolerant of two old siblings envying you your youth. The tea ought to be steeped by now.”

  We all sat down, and while Ursula was pouring the tea from a pretty blue-and-white china teapot, Julian DeVane asked me how long it had taken me to ride my bike here from Lucas Meadows. For the first time, I was aware of his stutter. It was the kind of stutter in which the speaker has learned to press hard on the reluctant letter and wait until the word comes. His slight handicap made me feel easier in his presence. He passed me a platter of open-faced sandwiches (very nicely arranged combinations of cream cheese, cucumber, and watercress, and egg salad with chopped onions and a curl of anchovy on top) and I noticed his graceful, long fingers with their nails clipped very short.

  After I had taken a sip of tea and complimented Ursula on the sandwiches, I felt less of a child. It was grown-up, as well as safe, to tell a hostess that her food was good. I could see they approved of my manners, so, seizing on a good thing, I looked around the terrace for a minute and said what lovely poppies those were and how nice it was down here.

  “Father built this terrace himself,” said Ursula. “He designed it and had the bluestones cut from a quarry up in Woodstock and put in every one of them himself. It was his present to our mother, right after they married. She liked to sit down here and look out at the mountains. Sometimes she would sit for hours. When I was a little girl, I used to watch her and wonder how anybody could sit still for that long.”

  I stole a look at the faces of brother and sister as Ursula was describing their mother. But I saw nothing in the expression of either to give away that she had been in an insane asylum.

  “Did … did she plant all these poppies?” I asked.

  “No, Father planted those,” said Ursula, helping herself to another sandwich. “He was the gardener. This used to be a show-place in summer. Well, who knows, maybe it will be again, when our ship comes in, eh, Julie? I have something of a green thumb myself. Father loved red flowers in particular. Red tulips, poppies … later in the summer, that whole area to the left of the terrace will be a blaze of red bee balm: the ‘Cambridge Scarlet’ variety. But Father hated yellow flowers. I remember when he was so sick, in his last days, if anybody sent yellow flowers to the house, he made me get rid of them immediately. He wouldn’t have a yellow flower in his garden. One time”—she laughed mischievously—“he got into an awful rage because, overnight, some kind of yellow flower had sprung up all over his garden. Julie and I were sent out to pull up every single one by the roots. Do you remember, Julie?”

  Julian DeVane nodded. “F-father was a man of very strong likes and dislikes,” he explained to me.

  “Ah, yes,” agreed his sister fervently. “Father had certain ideas about the way life should be, and if life dared to contradict … why, he pulled out the contradiction like an offending weed.”

  Julian DeVane uttered a harsh laugh. There was a silence. The two of them sat there, obviously remembering the father, who did not sound to me like a very sympathetic person.

  “What is your favorite color?” Ursula asked me, leaning forward in her chair and clasping her hands as people sometimes do when they are “encouraging” a young person to talk. I found her changed slightly in attitude toward me, in the presence of her brother; when we had been alone we had been more like equals.

  “Well, I used to like red myself,” I said. “But lately, I think, I prefer blue. Or sometimes”—I sighed, thinking gloomily of my room—“just a clear, pure white.”

  “Lately? Why lately?”

  I hesitated. “Well, because of the room I have now, at my aunt’s house. It’s this terrible color. The thing is, my aunt painted the room just to please me, so I can’t say anything. But it’s driving me crazy.”

  “Wh-what color is it?” asked Julian DeVane. He, too, sat forward in his chair, and the delicate, world-weary face perked up with a sudden interest. I caught the quick, amused glance between brother and sister, and decided to sacrifice Aunt Mona in order to be “amusing.”

  “Its official name is ‘Raspberry Ice.’ But no raspberry was ever that color and there’s nothing the least cool or icy about it. It’s this sickening color, sort of between muddy pink and lavender. And, to make things worse, there are the curtains.”

  “Oh, do tell us about the curtains!” said Ursula, wriggling in her chair. She looked triumphantly toward Julian as if to say: See? I told you she wouldn’t be a bore.

  “Well,” I began, relishing my role as a successful performer, “they have these milkmaids all over them. Everywhere I look, I see milkmaids, because not only are they on my curtains but they’re on the dust ruffle around my bed and they’re all around my dressing table … which is really my uncle Mr. Mott’s former desk. Sometimes … sometimes when I have to open the center drawer, you know? And I part the skirt of my dressing table and see those thick wooden legs of Mr. Mott’s old desk? Well, it’s like having a man spying on me in my room.”

  Ursula burst out laughing. Julian DeVane had a delighted, superior smirk on his face, as though this was exactly the sort of story he liked to hear.

  “But the worst part about the milkmaids,” I went on, resolving to go all the way in order to win their approval, even if it meant making light of one of my most serious thoughts and abiding fears of late, “is, I’m afraid they’re going to do me in. I mean, everywhere I look, there they are, with their full skirts and their little milk pails and their shallow, beauty-contest smiles. What if I wake up one morning and look into my mirror and discover I am like them? I don’t mean I’d have a milk pail or anything, but that … well … I’d suddenly be just like everybody else. I’d no longer remember what it felt like to be me … before I lived in that room.”

  Although I had meant to keep it light, my voice faltered and I could not hide the anxiety I felt about the subject.

  “I don’t s-see that happening to you, somehow,” said Julian DeVane. He said it quite gently, with no ironic or superior overtones. I saw I had made him like me, made him take me seriously, and I couldn’t help liking him in return.

  Looking thoughtful, Ursula poured everyone more tea. “The influence of a place is no light matter,” she said. “Some places threaten your very essence. While others reinforce your sense of who you are. There’s a threat there, too, of course. I sometimes wonder if this place doesn’t encourage me to be too much myself.”

  “Wh-what do you mean by that, Sissie?” asked her brother, turning to her with respectful attention. In the eager look he gave her, I felt I could read many moments of their childhood together: “Baby Brother” pricking up his ears when Big Sister started to lecture about some aspect of life that she had discovered first.

  “Oh, you know, Julie. Everybody around here has formed their opinions of us. They formed them years ago. Because they’ve always known us—or think they have—they take it for granted we will behave in a certain way. And so we do. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s why I envy Justin here in no small way. Despite her unfortunate room, and all those milkmaids threatening to swallow her with their smiles”—and Ursula gave me her warm and singular smile—“she can start her life over and be anything she chooses to be. Nobody knows what she was like back in Fredericksburg. She has lost all the props that defined her. Nobody knows all the peculiarities and character traits of her forebears so they can pretend to recognize those traits in her. She’s a clean slate. When she meets new people, or new challenges, she is free to respond to the unique demands of the moment. Whereas I often feel I have been playing the same part in a show that’s been running too long. I have a starring role, of cour
se: I’m the sophisticated woman who’s gone away to far places and come back again; who can be counted on to provide a bit of mystery and speculation for the provincials to chew on, as cows chew their cud.”

  This last comparison struck me as funny and I laughed.

  “What part have I, then?” asked Julian DeVane.

  “Ah, you know quite well what your part is,” his sister scolded him playfully. “You are the natural genius to whom I have devoted my considerable energies. If we want to be symbolic about it, you are pure, inspired art and I am the practicality and the ambition and the driving force that art needs if it is to impose itself on the world.”

  “The dear old world,” said her brother sarcastically, shaking his head so that the silvery-sandy hair rippled in the light. “That’s where my sister and I differ,” he explained to me. “I could be perfectly happy p-playing my music to the birds and the trees—and my memories. She believes it will be all wasted unless I perform before crowds of coughing idiots.”

  “Oh, Julie, how can you say that! You know you are capable of electrifying an audience. If you’ve forgotten, I have all those reviews from South America to remind you. It’s wrong to want to hide your light under a bushel. You used to tell me you wouldn’t be satisfied until you had performed on the concert stage of every major city in the world.”

  “That was in the old days, when I was still looking for something,” he replied, giving her a meaningful look. “Now I’m not looking for it anymore, so why c-can’t I stay home and play for the birds—and my sister?”

  There was something teasing in his manner, yet something serious at the same time. I had the feeling they had had this conversation many times before, that it had become almost a game with them—a game they could even play in front of a third person—but that, underneath, there was a subtler battle going on. I was reinforced in this belief when Ursula went suddenly deflated in her chair. But then she rallied and said casually, “You can play for me anytime you like. I’m your captive audience and you know it. So, for that matter, are the birds. I’ve heard them sing with you.”