Page 27 of Surrender to Love

Choose, he had said. At the time she had not wanted to think of the meaning of what she had been told and had put all her efforts into not letting him see how deeply upset she was. But already—she could see it now—the safe, solid foundations of her life had started to crumble and nothing would ever be the same again. Never, ever! What she had left was choices. Belatedly, too many different choices.

“Alexa!” She heard Aunt Harriet’s voice, impatient and brusque, and the sound of her black leather boots going along the polished wood floor of the passageway. “I trust you will be down in a very few minutes. They are all here.” Thank goodness Harriet had gone on instead of opening her door to discover her staring into the mirror.

With an effort, Alexa lowered her fists from her aching temples and unclenched them, wiping her clammy palms down the sides of her rustly black gown that was buttoned all the way up to the high neck where she had pinned an ivory and jet brooch. Black was such an unsuitable color for a young woman, she had always been told. And she had never liked black, for it reminded her of the carrion crows who hopped along the tree branches outside her room and watched her with their beady black eyes. Oh, she hated black! But today, wearing black suited her mood—and after all, black was also the color of mourning.

Downstairs the usually sunny and airy morning room that had been her mama’s favorite room in the house looked so different with all the wooden shutters tightly closed and black crepe draped over the delicate white and gold French Provincial furniture that had been brought here all the way from England. Entering to take her place between Harriet and her father, Alexa found herself wondering almost savagely why everybody felt they must converse in hushed whispers. Did they imagine that the dead could hear and might be disturbed in their permanent sleep? The dead. What difference could it make now if they all sat here with their hands clasped together and their heads bowed while the bishop, who had come all the way from Kandy, and the little bald vicar from the church in Gampola read the funeral service? The dead couldn’t hear. The dead couldn’t know or care!

“It will be just the family and a very few close friends. That’s the way your father wishes it.” Aunt Harriet, in her usual competent way, had taken charge and seen to everything while their whole private little world was collapsing about them. Her father looked as if he wasn’t really here with them. He had been locked in his room when Alexa had arrived from Colombo yesterday, and she had not seen him until now. Harriet had said it was better so. In his black suit, with his shoulders hunched and his eyes unfocused, he had not yet shown her any sign of acknowledgment or recognition; a sad stranger who had taken the place of the confident, joking Papa she remembered.

The bishop cleared his throat as a signal that the service was about to begin, and Harriet pushed a leather-bound prayer book into Alexa’s black-gloved hands. She could not help glancing sideways. Was Papa really aware of anything that was taking place? Was he actually reading the words in the book he looked down at? Or was he thinking as she was that solemn phrases and responses read ceremonially out of a book could not assuage grief, any more than words of comfort and reassurance, no matter how well meant, could ease the pain of loss. The so-called “barbaric” customs that prevailed in other cultures and other parts of the world were surely more natural. What was more natural after all than to weep and wail and tear your hair and your garments until all the feelings of pain and anger at Death the Robber were spent? And to Buddhists and Hindus death was not an end but

a new beginning, like passing through a doorway into another room.

The monotonous buzzing of a fly somewhere in the room seemed to form a counterpoint to the droning voices and hushed responses. A funeral service, not a burial service, for the climate of Ceylon did not allow for delays and opened coffins that friends and relatives could parade past dutifully. No, the burial had already taken place by the time that the mail coach had delivered a dazed and confused Alexa back home. By then there had already been two freshly dug graves in the Gampola cemetery, and only Martin Howard and his sister Harriet had been present to watch the moist earth cover up the coffins that contained the mortal remains of Victorine and Frederick Howard, deceased.

Measles, Harriet had said. “Measles, of all things! First a feverish cold, and then... Your mama never said a word about not having had the malady herself, and of course she insisted on staying up night and day to nurse Freddy. Martin and I had it as children, and neither of us thought that she might not have. I suppose her system had become too weak to resist the sickness from all the sleepless nights and not eating properly, and she would not have the doctor over until they were both so ill that I took matters into my own hands. By then, of course, there was-nothing he could do. Brain fever. How could any of us have guessed? I saw no point in sending for you, since you have not had the measles yourself and it would have done no good to have had another patient on our hands.” Ah, strong, always practical Harriet.

Alexa’s fingers had begun to ache from gripping them together. Her neck and her shoulders ached as well—physical, outside hurts that even helped in some peculiar way. But inside herself she felt as if her heart had turned to ice. Perhaps Papa felt that way too as he stared vacantly down at his prayer book without turning over the pages while his lips moved automatically when it was time to make the responses. She had noticed how bloodshot his eyes were and how his hands shook as they held the prayer book; and she had wanted, for an instant, to fling her arms about him and bury her face against his shoulder that had always seemed so strong and reliable while she let the ice inside her melt into tears. But he hadn’t even seemed to see her or realize that she was standing there beside him, and so she had said nothing and done nothing, suddenly understanding in a painful, adult kind of way that he needed the protection of his self-imposed isolation that detached him, for a time at least, from the unbearable agony of reality.

“He’s going to need you more than ever now, Alexa,” Harriet had told her. “Especially when he comes out of the daze he is in. But until then we’ll have to manage on our own. Thank God you’re levelheaded and strong!”

Strong, Aunt Harriet had called her. But was it strength or only a self-induced feeling of numbness that kept her from breaking down and made her seem strong? Perhaps real strength lay in being able to disassociate yourself from anything too unpleasant to be faced; in being able to pretend successfully.

Pretending that she was the strong and levelheaded person Aunt Harriet expected, Alexa managed quite well during the funeral service, which seemed interminable, and even during the light luncheon that followed. No one expected too much from her, and even Harriet did not nag at her for merely playing with the food on her plate instead of eating it. As if she was in a kind of trance, Alexa was able to react to anything that was said to her, to answer questions, to thank friends for their condolences and even to give the necessary orders to the servants while Harriet was occupied with seeing everybody off. How odd it was that Mama wasn’t here too, standing by the doors that led out onto the verandah, laughing. Mama loved visitors! And there was no familiar sound of the piano from the other room—Freddy practicing his endless scales and arpeggios that used to annoy her so at times. No, she was only having a nightmare, and if she closed her eyes and opened them again everything would be back to normal.

“My dear, I’m going to leave as soon as the carriage is brought around. Perhaps you should go upstairs and lie down?”

Alexa had not realized that she had swayed slightly on her feet until she heard Sir John’s concerned voice and felt his supporting hand take firm hold of her elbow. He had traveled with her from Colombo, making all the necessary arrangements, soon after Harriet’s brief message had been delivered; and during all of the time it had taken them to finally arrive here he had not tried to press her into conversation, although he had listened intently when she felt like speaking and had limited his speech to brief comments on something she had said or to answering her questions. Her dear, wonderful, understanding Uncle John, her best friend.

“I don’t really need to lie down, not yet. And if you must leave at once then I’m going to see you off, of course.” Alexa tried to make her voice bright and cheerful, although from the sharp look he gave her she could tell that he was by no means taken in. Were they actually supposed to be engaged? Somehow the idea seemed as unreal and as impossible to believe as everything else that had happened recently. And now of course there could be no question of anything of the kind—anything official, at least. He’d only come up with the idea to save her from the consequences of her own foolishness, her unforgivable weakness. And because he’d wanted to make sure she would be taken care of and comfortably off, so that she need never be forced to marry for reasons of security alone. But everything was different now, and there was no need for poor Uncle John to make the supreme sacrifice, was there? Even Aunt Harriet had admitted that she was needed here, and Papa needed her most of all, for comfort.

When she saw Sir John off at the verandah steps Alexa reached up quite naturally to hug him and kiss his cheek as she always did when he ended one of his visits, saying, as she usually did. “You’ll come back very soon, won’t you? Will you promise you will?”

“Of course I promise. But, Alexa, I want you to make me a promise too.”

She looked at him with a slight frown of puzzlement drawing her dark brows together, wondering at his sudden seriousness, and he said quickly, trying to make his voice sound light: “It’s nothing you need frown over, I assure you, my dear. Just promise me—as your best friend in all the world, if you still think of me as such—that you will not hesitate to send me word if you should happen to need a friend. Or anything else, for that matter. You understand? Not too hard a promise to keep, is it now?”

Walking back into the cool stone house with its wood paneled walls and floors that always smelled faintly of lemon wax, Alexa had to pause a moment to let her eyes adjust to the sudden contrast to the bright glare of the sunlight outside. Everyone had left, and how silent the house seemed, suddenly!

“Alexa? Oh, there you are. I was hoping you had finished with your farewells by now. There is a great deal to be done, and I am going to need your help.” Aunt Harriet’s brisk voice put everything in place as it was, bringing Alexa sharply back from her impulse to daydream herself into the past again.

“The sun was so bright outside I... But where is Papa? I cannot believe that I have not spoken a word to him since I have been back. Nor seen him either, until this morning.”

Her impulsive words brought a strained, impatient sigh from Harriet “I know, my love. I know. And that is only one of the things that we will have to talk about, you and I. But for the moment there are a countless number of things that have to be done and orders to be given, the accounts to be gone over as well. I’ve tried to do the best I could, along with everything else that needed attention, but it has been getting harder and harder as things seem to keep piling up.”

Alexa said stubbornly: “But what about Papa? Surely he needs to throw himself into anything that might take his mind off... Oh, I do understand how very lost and bereft he must feel, because I feel exactly the same way too. And perhaps if we could talk together, he and I... Aunt Harriet, don’t you think it would help him to talk? And to realize that at least we still have each other?”

“Alexa, please. I know you mean well, but we are all under such strain that we are none of us our usual selves. What you must try to understand is that some wounds go deeper than others and that everyone grieves in his own fashion. Your papa needs to be left to himself for some time; and in this you must allow yourself to be guided by me, since I have known him since we were children together and have grown to understand his moods. As you have seen for yourself, he has chosen to shut himself off from painful reality; and until in his own time and his own way he is able to accept what has happened, we will just have to be patient and try to manage.”

After a slight hesitation Alexa’s battle-squared shoulders slumped and she sighed. “I’m sorry. I suppose I did not quite understand and was being too precipitate, as usual. But I do want to be useful, and to help you—and Papa too, of course.” She managed a falsely cheerful smile with an effort. “Won’t he be surprised and glad to find—when he feels better, of course—that we haven’t let everything go to rack and ruin? Tell me, what needs to be done most urgently of all?”

Chapter 15

There was more than enough that had to be done, Alexa soon discovered, to occupy both her mind and her time for most of the day and leave her, thankfully, almost no opportunity for morbid introspection. Not since that first afternoon when Harriet had thrown open the door to Papa’s small office, gesturing wordlessly at first, until Alexa’s shocked eyes had had enough time to take in everything.

The rolltop desk, usually so tidy and neat with papers and correspondence stored in the correct pigeonholes, was now all cluttered with sheets of paper and open ledgers that had more papers piled on top of them; and the wooden cabinets where Papa had kept his files were all standing open, while some of the files themselves had been left lying on the floor.

“And now you can see for yourself how difficult things have been.” Harriet’s grim voice had aroused Alexa from a state bordering on stupefaction. “ I have no head for figures, as you well know; and of course Martin has not been himself since your mama took ill. With harvest time approaching I really do not know how we might have managed to muddle through for the past fortnight if Letty Dearborn hadn’t been kind enough to send her own foreman over to help us out! But of course she has her own coffee crop to see to as well and we cannot continue to impose. I had thought that if we divided between us the list of things that have to be done we could probably manage to scrape through, at least until Martin is himself again.”

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