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Authors: Jeanne Mackin
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avoid touching each other’s hands in this exchange that the effect was stronger on them than actually holding hands would have been. That moment was, I believe, the closest Beatrix ever came to coy flirtation.
“I do not recognize the flowers they have painted,” he admitted, handing back the fan after a moment.
“That is because they don’t exist. They are, as far as I can tell, a strange hybrid of peony and calendula. They were the painter’s fantasy.”
“I see. Poetic license.” The music changed yet again, to a quick-paced polka, and the room filled with the laughter and shrieks of the dancers, the rustle of silk and clink of glasses, younggirls dressed in garden colors, their partners in black and white, whirling and changing formation like shards in a kaleidoscope.
This is wrong, Beatrix thought, feeling overwhelmed. We should be in a quiet garden; we should hear birds, people speaking in the distance. She shifted restlessly, and he misunderstood, thinking she was tired of his company.
“Sadly, I see someone I must speak with,” he said after a few more moments. “You will excuse me?”
Beatrix should have spoken that line; the woman should be the person to end the encounter and the conversation. But there had been little conversation, only that magnetism of their two bodies leaning slightly toward each other.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I must find Mother. I have left her too long.”
“Perhaps we will meet again.” He took her hand and kissed it, formally. “I hope so.”
Had her silence offended him? Beatrix worried. She was, then, too inexperienced to know that his confusion was even greater than her own, that he could no longer sit close to her without putting his arm about her waist, and that, of course, was impossible.
She watched him go, his back stiff and straight in the black evening jacket. His clothes were not of the most recent fashion, and that added to a timelessness about him, a sense of age beyond his own youth, as if he walked surrounded by an invisible crowd of ancestors. They are never alone, these Europeans, Beatrix thought, even when they seem alone. A sudden urge made her want to call him back to her. She did not.
She looked to the side and saw young Mr. Whipple watching, disapproval on his face.
“That was your rescuing knight from the Borghese, wasn’t it?” Minnie, gliding effortlessly through the throng, came and sat on the marble bench next to Beatrix.
“Yes.”
“He has gone into the yellow salon. I just saw him with a young person who seems to be on warm and familiar terms with him.”
“It is none of my affair,” Beatrix said.
Is this how it begins? thought Minnie. With a Roman? Rome was so far from New York. Would she become one of those lonely mothers who received cards and foreign shawls and leather purses in the mail, but almost never saw her daughter? I want my daughter’s happiness, she told herself. And I want her close to me. Is it impossible to have both?
Minnie, herself an only child who had lost her own mother at a young age and had been for years separated from her husband, realized how dependent she had become on her daughter’s companionship. They began and ended each day together, could finish each other’s sentences, knew each other’s preferences and dislikes. To lose that closeness at a time of life when she was unlikely to find an intimate relationship—not that she wished to remarry—would be a difficult thing. Beatrix was so woven into the fabric of Minnie’s daily life that she thought she could hear that fabric tear when she saw Beatrix sitting with her Roman acquaintance.
Minnie considered the situation. A careful, calculating mother would, at this point, accept or at least plan for the inevitable andmake gentle and subtle inquires about the young man. He seemed well-bred, perfectly acceptable. But who was his family? What were his prospects? Minnie was alert only to the fact that her twenty-three-year-old daughter had
“I do not recognize the flowers they have painted,” he admitted, handing back the fan after a moment.
“That is because they don’t exist. They are, as far as I can tell, a strange hybrid of peony and calendula. They were the painter’s fantasy.”
“I see. Poetic license.” The music changed yet again, to a quick-paced polka, and the room filled with the laughter and shrieks of the dancers, the rustle of silk and clink of glasses, younggirls dressed in garden colors, their partners in black and white, whirling and changing formation like shards in a kaleidoscope.
This is wrong, Beatrix thought, feeling overwhelmed. We should be in a quiet garden; we should hear birds, people speaking in the distance. She shifted restlessly, and he misunderstood, thinking she was tired of his company.
“Sadly, I see someone I must speak with,” he said after a few more moments. “You will excuse me?”
Beatrix should have spoken that line; the woman should be the person to end the encounter and the conversation. But there had been little conversation, only that magnetism of their two bodies leaning slightly toward each other.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I must find Mother. I have left her too long.”
“Perhaps we will meet again.” He took her hand and kissed it, formally. “I hope so.”
Had her silence offended him? Beatrix worried. She was, then, too inexperienced to know that his confusion was even greater than her own, that he could no longer sit close to her without putting his arm about her waist, and that, of course, was impossible.
She watched him go, his back stiff and straight in the black evening jacket. His clothes were not of the most recent fashion, and that added to a timelessness about him, a sense of age beyond his own youth, as if he walked surrounded by an invisible crowd of ancestors. They are never alone, these Europeans, Beatrix thought, even when they seem alone. A sudden urge made her want to call him back to her. She did not.
She looked to the side and saw young Mr. Whipple watching, disapproval on his face.
“That was your rescuing knight from the Borghese, wasn’t it?” Minnie, gliding effortlessly through the throng, came and sat on the marble bench next to Beatrix.
“Yes.”
“He has gone into the yellow salon. I just saw him with a young person who seems to be on warm and familiar terms with him.”
“It is none of my affair,” Beatrix said.
Is this how it begins? thought Minnie. With a Roman? Rome was so far from New York. Would she become one of those lonely mothers who received cards and foreign shawls and leather purses in the mail, but almost never saw her daughter? I want my daughter’s happiness, she told herself. And I want her close to me. Is it impossible to have both?
Minnie, herself an only child who had lost her own mother at a young age and had been for years separated from her husband, realized how dependent she had become on her daughter’s companionship. They began and ended each day together, could finish each other’s sentences, knew each other’s preferences and dislikes. To lose that closeness at a time of life when she was unlikely to find an intimate relationship—not that she wished to remarry—would be a difficult thing. Beatrix was so woven into the fabric of Minnie’s daily life that she thought she could hear that fabric tear when she saw Beatrix sitting with her Roman acquaintance.
Minnie considered the situation. A careful, calculating mother would, at this point, accept or at least plan for the inevitable andmake gentle and subtle inquires about the young man. He seemed well-bred, perfectly acceptable. But who was his family? What were his prospects? Minnie was alert only to the fact that her twenty-three-year-old daughter had
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