Part 6 (2/2)
Disappointers for days, but the weeks pass, a ain picks up his pen, his devotion has been restored It is inevitable that each of us will be misunderstood; this, it seems, is part of twentieth-century wisdom
Let it be said that Daisy Goodwill has saved every one of Barker Flett's letters; she has theh she would be hard put to tell you just where they are In a drawer somewhere Or a cardboard carton
Her letters to hiraphs of her dating frouess how she must have looked as she neared the end of her train journey to Ottawa-although, as a captive of her own draealready re full well that a wo you know she's shaking out her reddish-brown hair with its eruptions of gold The last of the sun's rays enter the trainand gather on the folds of her linen dress (Cut on the bias Ston, Indiana) She is clasping her hands firether on her lapsprightly female determination And she hopes the line of her jaw, like Garbo's, conveys a similar attitude
What will she say to him? What will be her first words?
A scene offers itself up: she is taking his hand, shaking it gravely, holding herself a little aloof so as not to alarm him She speaks quietly, sincerely of her journey No, she is not overly tired
It was really very pleasant Scenery just heavenly The ood will, while patiently waiting for candor to establish itself
What if they have nothing to talk about? Nothing in co She will put her ether Gloveless Ringless A stranger ed in an act of silent prayer, and in a sense she is, for her concentration has a devout intensity
She is traveling to Barker Flett as to a refuge It coar Hill to be the daughter of Cuyler Goodwill and the step-daughter of Maria, not in that house, not in Blooe, it is out of the question This last year she has been in danger of beco an eccentric or else one of those persons who does not bother to put a saucer under her cup
Her father's tiresoht of its evangelical offering: as with a chunk of Indiana limestone, he says, a person can split off his life in one direction or the other; the choice is open
But no such choices are available to her at this tie-or so she thinks A person arbitrarily named A person accidentally ht in a version of her life, pinned there
A thought comes into her head: that lately she doesn't ask herself what is possible, but rather what possibilities remain At this h her return train ticket lies safely in a pocket of her leather handbag Curiously, she is not afraid, knowing as she does that love is mostly the avoidance of hurt, and, furthermore, she is accusto her glance or crowding her concerns into a shadowy corner
She closes her eyes for alike so brave and chilly-and thinks of these last few days of travel
Everything she has seen or done has jagged edges around it Her various conversations with strangers go round and around in her head, exhilarating but also exhausting-that man at the Falls, wasn't he the limit! All of theo back She will have to row in her head, wild as they are, sending out tentacles, scenes, whole conversations
How good it is to see you again, Uncle Barker
Her lips ainst the trainOne slender ar hands with the air Such a pleasure After all these years
Maybe now is the tietting things straight; with the truth, that is
She had a golden childhood, as she'll be happy to tell you Her loving adopted ”Aunt” Clarentine, her adoring ”Uncle” Barker
Wararden full of flowers
And then at age eleven finding her real father, a remarkable (everyone said so) self-made man who showered her with material plenty, as well as the love of his heart
Well, a childhood is what anyone wants to remember of it It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction Which is why you want to take Daisy's representation of events with a grain of salt, a bushel of salt
She is not always reliable when it comes to the details of her life; erated, wildly unlikely (You will already have realized that no person in this world could possibly be as insensitive, as cruel, as her mother-in-law, Mrs Arthur Hoad, is made out to be) Daisy Goodwill's perspective is off Furthermore, she imposes the voice of the future on the events of the past, causing all reat ju out important matters (her expensive, private education, for instance-Tudor Hall, Long College) The acts of her life form a sequence of definitions, that's what she tells herself Writing letters to her Uncle Barker, she elects the language of childhood, deliberately naive, wistful, girlishly irresponsible, safe Sos close up and so herself in a sunny light, hardly ever giving us a glimpse of those dark premonitions we all experience And, oh dear, dear, she is cursed with the lonely woination and thus can support only happy endings
Still, hers is the only account there is, written on air, written with i read his Bertrand Russell, Barker Flett has long since cast off a belief in conventional overnricultural Research), he is co woht explain, but Daisy is not really his niece His ward? No, his guardianshi+p has never been formalized What is he to do? Hoill he explain her presence
It occurs to him that his housekeeper, Mrs Donaldson, who coht be prevailed upon to stay overnight during the period of Daisy's visit
He asks her, delicately setting out the problem She bluntly refuses She has her own fao hohs, iain His life with Daisy has not even begun, and already there are all these vexing problems to be dealt with
”In one hour I will be there,” Daisy writes in her travel journal, underlining ”there” three times
It is unbearably hot on the train, but she has ed, with the conductor's assistance, to open aAs a result her hair is blowing about wildly, and the fading sunlight shi+nes through it, so that she appears to be wearing a kind of halo or else a hatof her heart she stows her journal away safely, or so she thinks, and replaces her gloves She holds herself upright, rigid A stillness that purifies Barbara Stanith a head of foxy hair
She is overwhelmed at tiiveness
Now darkness is coradually, and the Ontario sky fills up with dia to do with her The villages that rush by are foreign and unyielding They seem to turn their backs on her At the end of the railway car, on the other side of the aisle, four aed are they in this cheerful ah pleasure of each other's coht be snatched suddenly frolance in her direction
She knows that when the train arrives in Ottawa, all of these men will hurry off into the contained nexus of their real lives, while she is about to hurl herself into whatever accident of fortune awaits her She will accept ”it” without protest, without question, for what choice has she?
She is powerless, anchorless, soft-tissued-a woman Perhaps that is the whole of it, that she is a woman Yes, of course
It occurs to her that she should record this flash of insight in her journal-otherwise she is sure to forget, for she is soed to learn again-but the act of recording requires that she re for her pen and for the notebook itself This isAnd so she forces herself to sit quietly, her pulse racing, as the train rolls into the gentle, shadowy outskirts of Ottawa, capital of the Dominion (Do-min-i-on) of Canada
He is at the station a full tenhe'll need a cushi+on of calhts, his body too ”Well, well,” he plans to say to her, draining the drama off the moment with his heartiness, ”so you'veabout the heat Or perhaps?-he doesn't knohat Everything seeone unsteady
He wouldn't drea, varnished benches No, he pulls hiht, his shoulders, his back, his hands clasped behind him, and paces theup into the do, yes indeed He exaranite pillars with their classical pedi hard as though he ain have an opportunity to see this clearly
His life is on the cusp of change Love, that sudden dissolving of art and nature, of language itself, is about to overcolances up at the station clock Yes, the train is on time On theAlso worrying
And there she is Co an eye for an ankle Not Barker Flett He has no eye at all Nor any notion of what is owed hied years earlier
Here she coloved hand already extended as she moves forward, and for a moment he believes he esture, : how nice to see you, and was the train crowded? Did you find a place next to the ? Are you exhausted?
Instead he takes her in an embrace Not a real eether No His hands reach out and lightly graze her shoulders, then travel down to her upper arhtly da it with his fingertips, cradling it He has forgotten all his resolve; his blood is on fire
Her knees are shaky after so ht of the station unbalances her, and she can think of nothing to say