I shook the thought off. After all, I had no intention of going anywhere. Where, at any rate, would I go?
“Of course not, darling,” I said, trying to sound casual. “You can’t get rid of me, Vera. I’m yours for life. I only thought … well, that poor orphan girl, Ivy St. Clare, she’s used to doing odd jobs for the nuns. She’s like you. If she doesn’t have enough to engage her energies, I’m afraid she’ll become broody. I think she’d make a good assistant for you.”
“Yes, she does seem quite bright. Tell her to come to my office tomorrow after class. She can help sort through next year’s applications.”
The next day I found Ivy at breakfast and told her that Miss Beecher had asked specifically that she be her assistant.
“Me?” she asked, looking none too pleased. “Why would she want me? She doesn’t even know me.”
“Ah, but she does know you through your drawings and paintings. She looked at all the submissions of the scholarship applicants and she was most impressed by your work. She chose you especially for the scholarship and she’d like to get to know you better. And she really does need help sorting through all the paperwork. I’m afraid I’m hopeless with such things.”
I saw the girl thaw a bit under the warming influence of praise. “Well, I am good at organizing things,” she said a trifle condescendingly. “Of course, I’d be happy to be Miss Beecher’s assistant.”
And so, with only a few lies and a little flattery, I fitted Ivy and Vera together as neatly as I might fit together the pieces of a puzzle. And fit together they did. It was almost as if she were Vera’s child and not Nash’s, they suited each other so well. Vera was demanding, but Ivy thrived under her orders. She worked day and night to make things just right. Vera had only to voice an idea and Ivy would make it happen. At the end of the fall semester, for instance, Vera mentioned that it was a shame there was no sculpture class. By January Ivy had found a teacher and ordered marble and clay. Her only fault was that at times she was so single-minded in carrying through Vera’s wishes that she didn’t care whom she stepped over to get her job done. When the marble arrived for the new sculpture class over the Christmas break, she had it delivered to the pottery shed without a thought to how it would inconvenience Dora and Ada. When I mentioned it to her she stared at me as though I were speaking a different language, as if the feelings of two people meant nothing. I often think she has something missing. Like the girl in the fairy tale who’s been raised by wolves, she seems to lack an essential part of being human.
I do regret that I was never able to form a close bond with Ivy myself. I blame my own self-consciousness around her and my fear of overfavoring her. At the end of that first year, I admitted to myself that I had lost the opportunity of telling her that I was her mother. She wouldn’t thank me for the knowledge and she wouldn’t forgive me for deceiving Vera. Nor could I ask her to keep such a secret from Vera, whom she clearly idolized. I settled for knowing that I had given Ivy a good home. A year-round home. As the other girls made their plans for the summer vacation, Vera asked Ivy to stay on. “She has no place to go,” she said to me when she explained that Ivy would be given her old suite of rooms in Beech Hall.
I would have been content, I think, if Virgil Nash had not reappeared on the scene.
His name had come up in our initial lists of teaching candidates. “I’m sure he’s grown too rich and famous to stoop to teaching at a girls’ school,” I had said, hoping to discourage Vera. The truth was I didn’t want Virgil coming into contact with Ivy. Although I could not detect any resemblance to him in her odd pixieish features, I had a superstitious dread that he would sense a kinship to her. Vera, however, had insisted on writing to invite him. I promptly deposited the letter in the kitchen stove. When he didn’t respond to Vera’s invitation she concluded that I was right; he had grown too important for the likes of us. All would have been well if Gertrude Sheldon hadn’t conceived a desire for her child to be taught by the great Mr. Nash. Over the summer break she approached him herself about teaching at Arcadia. I’m not sure what she said to persuade him (whether she offered him money or threatened to withdraw her patronage from him), but whatever she did, it worked. When the school reconvened in August he showed up unannounced, driving a Cadillac convertible and smelling strongly of gin. He was still a handsome man, but his face had a sort of cast over it, like the wax mask we used to make bronze models, and his eyes had lost their keenness. When he reached into his car for his valise and paint box, his hands trembled. I almost pitied him. But then when Vera turned to tell Mrs. Byrnes to get a room ready for him, he looked me up and down as if measuring me for a suit of clothes and I stopped feeling sorry for him.
“We can’t have Mr. Nash stay in the Hall,” I said. “Not with all these young girls.”
“Afraid I’ll prefer the young ones to you, eh, Lily?” he asked. “You needn’t be, y’know. You’re still looking fit.”
I felt the blood rush to my face and I turned away to hide my reaction, coming face to face with Ivy, who had stolen up behind me. She stared from me to Nash and back again. For the first time I saw that they did resemble each other in one feature. They had the same cold eyes.
“Ah, Ivy, just in time,” Vera said. “You can take Mr. Nash down to Briar Lodge. He can share accommodations with Monsieur Paloque. I’m sure you won’t want the noise of a houseful of silly girls distracting you from your work.”
Nash smiled at Vera and then he turned to Ivy. “You are completely right. How could I work surrounded by such loveliness?” he asked Ivy with a rakish tilt of the head.
I saw Ivy take in Nash with her cool assessing gaze and then I watched in horror as that cold shell broke. She blushed and returned his smile. Poor Ivy! She had encountered only a handful of men in her cloistered life and never one remotely like Virgil Nash. She instantly fell under the spell of his careless flirting. I was so horrified that I blurted out, “I’ll show Virgil to the Lodge.”
Vera looked surprised, and I knew that later I’d have to come up with some reason for my seeming eagerness to spend time alone with Virgil Nash. For now I just wanted to get him away from Ivy. “Ivy’s much too busy greeting the new girls.” I caught Ivy glaring at me, but I slipped into the Cadillac obliviously and drummed my fingers on the armrest while he took his leave of Vera and Ivy. When he backed the car up, he rested his arm on the back of my seat and I felt his fingers graze my neck. I only hoped Vera hadn’t seen. He left his right arm draped indolently over the back of my seat as he piloted the car down the drive toward the Lodge. I swatted his arm away from me as soon as we were out of sight of the Hall.
“Stop that! Pay attention to the road. You’ll get us both killed!”
“Your solicitude for my welfare is touching,” he said. “And all these years I thought you’d completely forgotten about me.”
“I have.”
“So why so quick to be my escort, Lily? What was all that about? You couldn’t possibly think I was seriously interested in that little monkey.”
“That little monkey—” It was on my lips to tell him she was his daughter, but I stopped. Nash would never be able to keep such a secret to himself, certainly not when he was drinking. “She’s special to me … to me and Vera. I don’t like to see you playing with her feelings. She won’t understand. She grew up in an orphanage, taught by nuns. She has no experience with men like you.”
“So it’s not because you’re jealous?” he asked, stopping the car in front of the Lodge. I was relieved to see that it was quiet. Monsieur Paloque, the drawing master, had not arrived yet from his summer on the French Riviera.
“No. You know I don’t feel that way about you. All that happened between us is in the past. If you have any idea of taunting me with it, then I’ll go to Vera and tell her everything and ask her to make you leave. I don’t know what you think by coming here anyway.”
“I had hoped,” he said, his voice suddenly somber, “to recover my muse. I haven’t painted anything w
orth a damn since the summer I was here eighteen years ago.”
“But you’ve made plenty of money,” I told him. “That was your choice.”
“Yes, it was my choice.” He sighed. “Maybe it is too late. I thought if I came back here I might capture a little of that old magic.”
I glanced at him and saw that he was staring at me, but it wasn’t with lust. There was longing there, but not a longing for things of the flesh. “If you’re really here to paint, and not to run after the girls …”
“I’ve had my fill of girls. I’d give ’em all up for one painting I wasn’t ashamed of. I’ll tell you what: I promise to stay away from the girls—and especially your little monkey—if you do one thing for me.”
“I won’t betray Vera,” I told him. “I’ve been faithful to her since that summer with you—”
“I don’t mean that. Believe it or not, Lily, that’s not how I want you. I confess, I do think of those nights we spent in the barn. But what I want is to paint you—there in the barn—with the light coming through the cracks in the walls, making patterns on your skin…. I’ve been doing some sketches….” He reached into the backseat of the car and took out a worn leather portfolio. He untied it and shook out loose sheets of drawing paper. They fluttered into my lap like autumn leaves. I picked up one and saw a figure of a naked woman standing in a doorway, her back to the viewer, her body striated with bars of shadow and light. I knew at once that the figure was me.
“You promise to leave Ivy alone?” I asked.
“Ivy who?” he asked in return.
I like to think that I said yes to Virgil to keep him from Ivy, but I have to confess that when I saw that drawing I knew what I had been missing since the summer I’d spent with him. I didn’t miss the physical intimacy we’d shared. I was much happier with Vera on that account. I missed what he saw in me: I missed that part of me only he seemed to see—a part that was more animal than woman. I felt that way again when I began posing for him and I felt it when I saw the paintings. Nash was right. His muse had been waiting for him here at Arcadia. The paintings he did of me that year were the best he had done since that first summer. Even Vera, when she saw them, had to admit that they were the real thing.
My darling Vera. I knew it made her jealous that I was posing for Nash, but she withstood the pangs of her jealousy for the sake of the art that came out of those sessions. I believe she was able to because she trusted me so well. She would never suspect that I was capable of betraying her. Her trust so humbled me that I was more than ever determined she never know what happened between Nash and me so long ago.
It was Ivy whom I had the most trouble with. True to his word, Nash never flirted with her again, but the damage had already been done. She was clearly smitten with him. She took all his classes and sought him out in his studio at the Lodge whenever she could. She would even sneak down to the barn to watch him painting me. When I scolded her for spying she accused me of being afraid of what she might see—and what she might tell Vera. By spring I was grateful when school ended and Vera suggested that she and I go away for a few months before the next school term.
“We can’t be slaves to the school,” she told me. “And besides, Ivy will be here to watch over things. We can afford to go away for a while.”
I was relieved to get away from Ivy’s prying eyes, but even that made me feel guilty. How could I resent my own child when she was what I had made her? I resolved during our travels that I would concentrate on getting closer to Ivy when we returned. I would find a way to befriend her.
When we returned to Arcadia just a few days before the start of fall term, though, I found that Ivy had become more than ever set in her dislike of me. She had used the time we were gone to establish herself as the mistress of Beech Hall and the ruling force of Arcadia. She’d pried out of Mrs. Byrnes all her stories of arcane festivals and rites and declared that the school year would begin with a pagan bonfire at which she, Ivy, would play the winter goddess. I laughed when I first heard her plans, but then she reminded me of the May Day festival of our first summer here and asked why it was any different. Was it that I wanted to play a role? If so, I could play the summer goddess who cedes her power to the winter goddess. I assured her that I wanted nothing to do with such a charade, but when Vera heard of the idea she insisted I go along with it. “You’ll look lovely as the summer goddess, and it will set a good example to the girls. Unless …” She faltered, looking uncharacteristically unsure.
“Unless what?” I demanded.
She sighed. “Unless you’re really afraid that Ivy is taking your place. You know it’s not like that. No one could ever take your place with me.”
I blushed to think she would suspect me of such petty jealousy. Especially when it was my own child I’d be jealous of—although of course she couldn’t know that. I’d have to go along with Ivy’s little play now, or else I’d look spiteful and insecure.
I wore the same white dress that I’d worn for May Eve so many years ago, with a wreath of daisies in my hair. When I appeared at the bonfire I was startled to see that Ivy was wearing an almost identical dress. She’d found an old photograph and copied the dress. On her the simple shift hung straight and severe. Instead of flowers in her hair she wore a wreath made up of twisted holly and ivy. Standing before the bonfire, she was a forbidding figure—a wrathful pagan deity. I gave a little speech about passing the mantel of inspiration to the next generation and ended it by handing her my wreath of flowers. She tossed the flowers into the fire and then called on the other girls to chase me from the campus.
I knew that this would be part of the “rite” so I wasn’t surprised, but I was taken aback by the energy of the girls who chased me. I tried to make light of it, but I wasn’t as young as I was on May Eve. I ran through the orchard and then ducked behind the Lodge, hoping that I wouldn’t have to run uphill, but Fleur Sheldon spotted me and alerted the other girls. I could have just turned myself over to the girls and then been escorted up the ridge, but I hated to show my age—plus I had gotten my second wind. In fact, I ran so fast that soon the shrieks and laughter of the girls faded behind me. Caught up in the spirit of the game, I decided to play a little trick on them. At the top of the ridge I tore a strip of lace from my dress and draped it over a bush right by the edge of the clove. I was planning to hide behind the bushes and let them all think for a minute that they’d chased me over the ridge. Then I’d show myself before anyone became too worried.
As I turned around, though, I found Ivy standing at the edge of the clearing watching me. She’d outrun the other girls, but because she was so quiet I hadn’t known she was so close.
“You’ve spotted my little trick,” I said. “Unless you’d like to be a part of it.” I smiled, hoping to establish a bond by sharing a secret together. She approached slowly, her eyes on the piece of cloth fluttering on the branch at the edge of the cliff.
“Miss Beecher would be upset …” she began.
“Oh, Ivy! I wouldn’t play a trick like that on Vera. We’ll tell the girls I’m all right before the news gets back to Vera.”
“… but she’d get over it in time,” she finished. She looked up, her eyes meeting mine. The look I saw there was as cold and empty as the night sky. I became immediately aware of how close we stood to the edge, how easy it would be for her to push me over … and then the clearing was full of the loud jubilant cries of young girls.
“Be off, Summer!” they cried. “It’s Autumn’s time now!”
“That’s right,” Ivy said, too low for anyone to hear but me. “It’s my time now.”
After the First Night bonfire I knew I’d have to do something to change the relations between Ivy and me. I would never gain her friendship as long as she saw me as her rival in Virgil’s affections. I continued to pose for him—he was working now on a series of three bronze statues for a show at the National Arts Club to be held just after Christmas—afraid that if I stopped, Ivy might push herself forward into his
attention. And although I’d come to trust Virgil not to take advantage of her, I couldn’t bear to think of her making advances to the man who was in reality her father.
This, then, was the burden I endured these last few months. How could I turn Ivy away from Nash without telling her the truth? Throughout this fall I fretted over this conundrum until I made myself quite sick with worrying. Vera could not help but notice how preoccupied I was and it raised in her once more the old demon of jealousy. She began to resent the time I spent posing for Nash and would even remark upon it over dinner, asking Nash quite pointedly if he wasn’t done yet, and hadn’t he committed his subject to memory enough to be able to continue without a model.
“Every time I look at Lily, I see something I hadn’t seen before,” he answered.
Vera’s face turned an angry red. Nothing infuriated her more than the idea that Nash knew me better than she did. The truth is that Nash did see me more clearly than Vera did. I’m afraid it was obvious to everyone that she was jealous of him, although I think that the girls mostly thought that she was jealous of his talent and success, not of me. Ivy wasn’t so blind, though. She watched me carefully whenever Vera and Nash and I were in the same room, and she noted the growing hostility between Vera and Nash. I could see how uncomfortable it made her. She might be infatuated with Virgil Nash, but she still idolized Vera. She couldn’t bear to see the two of them at odds. Finally last week I went to Nash and begged him to leave Arcadia. I said nothing about Ivy but spoke only of Vera’s jealousy.
“As long as you are here, there will be no peace between us,” I told him.