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assumed that you felt no guilt at all  though Priss has always maintained that you must. Priss has the gift
of putting herself into other people's souls and understanding what must be going on deep within them
even when the outer person shows no sign of it. And she did not even know you."
"I am hoping," she said, "that I can have the honor of a close friendship with my stepdaughter-in-law. If
you can say again what you said yesterday, Gerald, and mean it. Can you forgive me? Will you?"
He smiled at her, all the warm affection and trust she had used to see in his face there again. "Priss was
right," he said. "She so often is. The one flaw to my peace of mind has been my enduring resentment of
you. I have accepted my father for what he was and am no longer hurt by the memory of his dislike. I like
the person I am, even though I am not the person he would have had me be. And I have the memory of
my mother back. She did not desert me, Helena. She was banished  by my father  and forbidden to
see me or communicate with me in any way. I visited my aunts and found out the truth from them."
"Oh, Gerald "Helenasaid, feeling all the old pain for his brokenness.
"Sometime," he said, "perhaps I could tell you the whole story. It brought pain. It also brought ultimate
peace. She loved me. And you loved me. I have thought about it during the past few days and have
realized that it is true. You were very good to me  and not for ulterior motives as I have thought since.
You did not plot. You were merely  young and lonely. But even if all my worst fears had been correct,
Helena about my mother, about you  they would not be an excuse for the failed, miserable life to which
you thought you had doomed me. I am an individual with a mind and a will of my own. We all have to
live life with the cards that have been dealt us. We all  most of us  have the chance to make of life what
we will. You would not have been responsible for my failed life  I would have been."
"You are generous," she said.
"No." He shook his head. "Just reaching the age of maturity, I hope. Have you really denied yourself
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happiness for thirteen years,Helena?"
"I did not deserve it," she said.
"You deserve it now." He twirled her again. "And happiness is yours for the taking, is it not? I believe he
is fond of you, Helena. I do not wish to divulge any secrets, but you must know anyway. He told Priss
and me when he came to Brookhurst that he loves you. We have both seen since coming here that it is
true. He is the man for you, you know. He is strong and assertive and yet sensitive and loving. It is quite a
combination. You must be happy to be having a child. I remember how you used to share your
disappointments with me when you were first married  because you felt you could not talk to my father
on such a topic, you said. How you longed for a child! And how good you were with the children you
encountered  myself included."
"I have been afraid of being a mother," she told him.
"Do not be." Their roles had been reversed, she realized suddenly. He was the comforter, the reassurer,
the one to convince her that she was capable of love and worthy of love. "All the little children here adore
you, Helena, including Peter, who is shy of almost all adults except Priss and me. He fought with the rest
of the children this afternoon to be the one to hold your hand in their circle games: You will be a
wonderful mother."
"I am so old," she said, pulling a face.
"God  or nature if you will  does not make mistakes," he said. "If you are able to be a mother at your
age, then you are not too old to be a mother. Enjoy it. Parenthood is wonderful,Helena. Exhausting and
terrifying and wonderful. Like life."
"Gerald," she said. But there was nothing more to say. Some feelings were quite beyond words. And
hers at this particular moment ran far too deep even for tears. "Oh, Gerald."
He smiled.
* * *
"You want to dowhat?"
Edgar bent his head closer to his wife's, though he had heard her perfectly clearly. The ball was over, the
guests who were not staying at the house had all left, the house guests had begun to drift away to bed, the
servants had been instructed to leave the clearing away until morning. And he was eager to get to bed.
Helenahad glowed all evening  especially after the waltz which he had wanted, but which she had
danced with her stepson. She looked more beautiful even than usual. Edgar was feeling decidedly
amorous.
"I want to go skating," she told him again.
"Skating," he said. "Atone o'clockin the morning. After a dizzyingly busy day. With a mile to walk to the
lake and a mile back. In arctically cold weather. When you are pregnant. Are you mad?"
"Edgar," she said, "don't be tiresome. It is so bourgeois to feel that one must go to bed merely because it
is late and one has had a busy day and it is cold outside."
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"Bourgeois," he said. "I would substitute the word sane."
But she whirled about and with a single clap of the hands and a raising of arms she had everyone's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]