Chapter 3 #2
“It’s all my fault,” moaned Miss Mott, anxiously twisting the belt of her dress. “I should never have called you, I should never have involved you in all this. Now your mother’s angry. I’m so stupid! I don’t have any strength of character, I never had, but I shouldn’t let my problems—”
“Please, Eugenia, don’t worry. None of that is your fault, and in any case it’s not important. Right now we have to discuss how to resolve this, what you want to do with your life and whether there’s a place in it for your husband.”
At this, Prudencia cleared her throat quietly.
“Yes, Miss Prim?” he asked, raising his head and looking at her for the first time since she’d entered the room.
“Would you like me to go after your mother?”
“I’d be very grateful. I can’t leave Miss Mott in this state, but I was a little abrupt with Mother. I’m sorry you had to witness it.”
Again she felt a pang of envy, a strange, inopportune envy combined in equal measure with something very like compassion.
“That’s okay,” she replied, “I’ll go and talk to her.”
As she came out of the house she saw the old lady sitting with her maid on a bench beneath a camellia. Miss Prim approached slowly and sat down beside her. The maid slipped away to fetch the car. Once she’d gone, the old lady spoke.
“I expect you’re wondering why my son said what he did, aren’t you?”
“Definitely not,” she replied. “It’s a family matter.”
“It is indeed.”
“Although, since you’ve asked, there is one thing I don’t understand.”
The old lady turned toward her, interested.
“Tell me, what don’t you understand?”
“It’s just that I’m surprised at your son mentioning something so personal in public. It’s not like him.”
The elderly lady picked up a pale pink camellia blossom from the ground and began sorrowfully to pluck the petals.
“No, it isn’t, but he couldn’t help it.”
“Why not? I’ve never met anyone with his gift for avoiding discourtesy.”
“Why not? Because he blames me, my dear, and when a son blames his mother, much as he might want to avoid it, the feeling surfaces sooner or later.”
Miss Prim now picked up a flower herself and stared at it as she spun it around between her fingertips. It was beginning to grow dark and the air was becoming colder. All of a sudden, she removed her scarf and slipped it around the old lady’s shoulders.
“People sometimes say things without thinking. They’re not expressing what they feel but rather the tension of the moment, or even a desire to win the argument.
I don’t think your son was showing his grief or resentment when he said what he did; I think he simply wanted to put an end to the conversation. ”
The old lady shivered in a gust of cold wind and then looked straight into the librarian’s eyes.
“My dear Prudencia, there are times in life when we’re all faced with a dilemma we’d rather not have to deal with.
For each person the dilemma might come in a different guise, but in essence it’s always the same.
There’s a sacrifice to be made, and you have to choose the victim: yourself or those around you. ”
In her turn, Prudencia slowly began to strip the petals from the camellia flower.
“Of course, when your children are involved the decision shouldn’t be difficult.
They always come first. You live, you watch, you listen, play, teach, all the while thinking of them.
But then one day the great dilemma arrives, the one that touches your heart, crushes your spirit, threatens your self-esteem.
It turns up one day and presents you with a choice between two paths, each ending in sacrifice.
If you take the right-hand path, you have to sacrifice yourself; if you take the left, it’s your children who suffer. Are you following me?”
“Please, go on.”
“Put like that it sounds rather cold-blooded, doesn’t it?
You must be wondering how anyone could choose the left path and sacrifice their children.
But it’s not that simple, my dear, because when you decide to take the second path you never allow yourself to see reality as it is, without excuses.
You tell yourself that if you don’t pursue your own happiness, they’ll suffer too; that you have a right to be happy and you only get one life; that it’ll be better for them, they’re young, they’ll get over it.
But the truth is, you make a choice and there is always a price to pay. ”
Miss Prim turned toward the old lady and took her cold hands in her own. For the first time she appeared hunched, small, and fragile.
“I was faced with just such a dilemma, Prudencia. The details don’t matter now. All you need to know is that I could have chosen the right-hand path. But I chose the left. That’s the one I chose.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the horn as the maid pulled up to the house. As the two women rose and Miss Prim walked her companion to the car, tiny snowflakes started falling on the garden.
“You need to get home, you’re frozen. I’ll stay and wait for your son, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried, dear, I stopped worrying a long time ago,” she replied as Miss Prim helped her climb in.
Once the car had driven off, Prudencia went to join the Man in the Wing Chair, who was taking his leave of a smiling, composed Miss Mott. As they walked to his car, she asked gently: “So, has everything been sorted out?”
He took off his coat and placed it around his employee, who was silently grateful.
“Yes, all sorted out.”
“Is she going to take him back?”
“She is, as long as he meets certain terms, which he assures her he’s prepared to do. I’ve spoken to him on the phone and I think he means it, but I want to see him in person and explain the plan to him more clearly.”
“The plan? There’s a plan?”
“Of course there’s a plan.”
“But you’re not going to tell me what it is, are you?”
“Quite right.”
They walked on in silence. The paths of San Ireneo were becoming blurred under snow when he asked: “Is she all right?”
Miss Prim searched for her words before replying.
“I think so, but she seems very sad. She believes you blame her for something that happened many years ago.”
The Man in the Wing Chair was silent for a moment.
“I don’t. I forgave her many years ago, when I was still a boy. It’s she who blames herself, but she can’t see that. It’s easier to project blame into the eyes of others and defend yourself against that than to find it within yourself, where there’s no possible defense.”
“But you said something very harsh to her this afternoon. I was staggered that you could say such a thing in front of everyone.”
While her employer took out his keys and unlocked the car, she wondered if she had said too much. Once he’d started the engine and switched the heating on full blast, he turned to her and spoke.
“My mother’s problem is that she can’t submit to any authority.
She lost her parents years ago, and she lost her husband.
She takes no account of her relatives’ views—she never has—and especially not her children’s.
There’s no human or spiritual discipline to which she’ll subject her will.
She just has her own opinions, and they’re the only tribunal that’s permitted to judge her when she makes a mistake.
Can you imagine what you would be like if you didn’t have anyone close who was capable of influencing you?
Anyone to point out your flaws, to confront you when you went too far, to correct you when you did something wrong? ”
Miss Prim said that she certainly couldn’t imagine.
“My mother doesn’t have the blessing of someone to tell her what she absolutely doesn’t want to hear.
This evening she was about to make a mistake and a weak, innocent person would have paid for it.
I couldn’t let it happen, that’s all. There’s no bitterness or blame or accusation whatsoever in it.
Quite the contrary: I love my mother deeply, believe me. ”
Miss Prim again experienced the envy that had lingered all afternoon. They were almost back at the house when she remembered that there was something she wanted to ask him.
“What beauty will save the world? ” she murmured.
He peered at her through the gloom inside the car.
“Dostoyevsky, Prudencia? Dostoyevsky? If I were you, I’d start worrying.”
Miss Prim, snugly wrapped in her employer’s coat, gave a happy grin, unseen in the darkness.