Seasons of the Heart Page 4

  Once Roger had left the room, Eva sighed deeply and poured herself a stiff drink. She felt no sense of triumph. She knew what he had said was true. He was not equipped to make a living without her. He hadn’t been trained for anything, and he hated Simon’s business. Well, she’d make it up to him. And he would find another woman, and forget this Stella. Perhaps she could send him to the Riviera.

  When Roger went back to see Stella, he felt like a cad. He was bartering her life for his, but he felt helpless to do otherwise.

  “Darling, I will support you for the rest of your life. But much as I would like to, dear, I just cannot marry you.”

  Quite composed, she answered, “But you knew that from the very first night we slept together, didn’t you?”

  “Frankly, at first I was just overwhelmed by your beauty. But I would marry you now if I could.”

  “So … what’s stopping you?”

  “Fear, Stella.”

  “Fear? Of what?”

  “Poverty. We’d have nothing to live on if we got married. How long do you think you’d love me then?”

  “I don’t understand. What’s going to happen to your money?”

  “If I marry you, my sister Eva says that she will cut off my trust.”

  “Your sister? What about your money?”

  “My parents left everything to Eva. While she is alive, she has control over every penny. As long as I don’t marry you, I can give you and the child a generous allowance.”

  “And the money is more important than the baby and I?”

  “Stella, darling, if I don’t marry you, I can take care of you and the child. You can have everything you want.”

  “You’re a bastard. A weak, spineless bastard!” Stella cried. “Get out—get out!”

  When Stella heard the door close behind him, she slumped to the floor, weeping uncontrollably. How could she have allowed herself to fall in love? Everyone she had ever loved had left her: first her mother, then her father, now her lover. She would never love anyone again … never.

  The next week she lay in bed, bleeding profusely from the abortion. She’d gone through the ordeal alone. There was no one to help her, she felt, least of all God.

  As soon as she recovered sufficiently, she took a room at the YWCA. Though she had no money of her own, she refused to take any from Roger. She floated from one demeaning job to another; for obvious reasons she could not go back to I. Magnin’s.

  As the months passed, Stella found that she preferred being alone. Only on occasion would she treat herself to dinner at some small, out-of-the-way restaurant, or, once in a while, she would take a streetcar out to Golden Gate Park and listen to the free concerts.

  It was on one of those rare occasions that she found herself sitting next to a middle-aged man who seemed much more enthralled by the music than she. They didn’t speak, but when Stella rose to leave fate intervened. She dropped her purse, which the man quickly returned, using it as an excuse to start up a conversation. It seemed harmless enough, though Stella realized that he was escorting her from the park.

  As she stood at the curb waiting for the streetcar, he said, “You are such a delightful young woman. I wonder if I might buy you dinner?”

  That simple request had a sobering effect on Stella. For a brief moment she remembered the first night Roger had waited for her after work. Then, in spite of herself, Stella accepted the invitation. The evening was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Still, she found herself accepting another date, and another….

  Six months later, they were married. Abe Gottlieb was a widower of sixty, with two grown sons and apparently modest means, which mattered little to her. He provided a roof over her head, and food in her stomach; and she didn’t need to worry about satisfying his passions. He had become so accustomed to his first wife’s constant headaches that he felt that part of his life was over.

  Abe was kind, and at that point in Stella’s life she could ask for nothing more. But as time passed she began to want more out of life than safety, and it was with relief more than sorrow that Stella woke one morning to find that Abe had passed away in his sleep. At thirty, Stella became a widow.

  They had lived so frugally that she was in a state of shock after the will was read. Her reward for her years of boredom amounted to $25,000. Since Abe had kept a tight rein on the purse strings, she assumed that he had very little, and for years she had been too apathetic to long for material things. At first she was overwhelmed with joy. Then she learned that he had left over $200,000 to his sons, and the fact that she was forced to go back to work filled her with resentment. The Depression still made jobs scarce, and she was terrified that Abe’s money would soon be gone and she would be powerless. There was only one way to protect that precious $25,000, she decided. She had to get married again.

  When Stella met Ben, she knew that he was perfect for her. Here was a man who could be easily dominated. His business was in trouble, but she was soon convinced that it was less the fault of the economy than his own mismanagement. She was certain that in her hands the business would again thrive. Her confidence was not conceit. Life had equipped her with the toughness it took to survive.

  Ben himself was unaware that he was like a lamb being led to the slaughter. At first, Stella had considered simply buying him out. But then she decided that in a man’s world, a woman with the title of “Mrs.” was in a better position to run a business, and after careful thought, she agreed to marry him.

  For all of Stella’s resolve never to allow herself the luxury of caring for anyone else, she found it difficult not to respond to Ben’s gentle affection. In spite of herself, she fell in love.

  During their courtship, Ben made her feel more important than his child. But soon after their wedding, she realized that his daughter came first in his heart. It was pretty little Ann who was her father’s darling. Once again, Stella felt that she had been duped. She had allowed Ben to unleash feelings that had been frozen for over ten years, only to find that someone other than she held the key to his heart. Soon her tentative venture into love withered and Stella decided she was being used. She took care of Ben’s house, Ben’s child, Ben’s business! And no one wanted to take care of her. Why should she try to make life easy for the adorable Ann?

  And now, Ann had brought Phillip Coulter back into her life. Roger’s nephew! Even after all these years, it was still so painful. Strangely, time had softened her feelings of anger at Roger and intensified those against Eva Coulter. It was Eva who had forced the weakling Roger to abandon their baby, and all because she thought that Stella wasn’t good enough for her precious brother.

  Without volition, tears welled up in her eyes as she thought for the first time in years about the tragic way Roger’s life had ended. Stella had pieced together what had happened through the lurid newspaper accounts.

  Roger’s voyage to Europe had not been a vacation, but an exile. He had joined that group of rich expatriates who flitted from Paris to the Riviera in a never-ending search for new amusement. He had gained notoriety as an occasional houseguest of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and had been visiting them in Antibes when his Bugatti had careened off the Corniche after a wild night of drinking with the wife of a Spanish diplomat. Whether or not they were having an affair Stella never could find out, but she had had no pity for Eva Coulter when she saw her picture in the paper at the funeral, swathed in black, blotting her tears with a handkerchief. Eva was the one who had sent Roger into oblivion.

  It had taken Roger’s death to soften her anger, but it left her with some deep regrets. The greatest of which was that she had lacked the courage to have his baby and had instead been forced to raise another man’s child. The thought of Ann brought her abruptly back to the present. She knew that if she were to come face to face with the Coulters, the fragile new life she had built would shatter. Eva would not hesitate to tell Ben the truth about the affair with Roger, and Stella would be left alone without pride or dignity. She knew she had no choice but to
destroy Ann’s love affair with Phillip Coulter. Stella would not leave herself open to attack for Ann or Ben or anyone else.

  She knew her actions would appear totally unreasonable, but she intended that Phillip Coulter would never set foot in her house. If she got lucky, maybe the strain would break up their relationship. If not—well, she certainly would not attend the wedding.

  Ironically, when Stella first met Ann she had been prepared to love her. It was Ben’s obvious favoritism that had made her jealous of the little girl. Even today, if Ann had brought home almost any other man, Stella would have been inwardly delighted. In fact, she would have done everything possible to encourage a relationship that might lead to marriage. For if Ann married and moved out, then, for the first time in their marriage, Ben would have to turn to her. Only the cruelest of gods could have made Ann choose the son of her worst enemy.

  Chapter Five

  ANN DID NOT SAY anything to Phillip about the situation at home. For the first week of their betrothal, she made sure that Phillip met her directly after work. When he dropped her off at the house, she made excuses as to why she couldn’t invite him in—excuses which grew increasingly lame, even to her own ears. As the weekend neared, Ann was besieged by anxiety. She wanted Phillip to believe she came from a happy, loving family. She was worried that his parents would learn that Phillip had not been invited to meet her parents and even more concerned that she and Phillip would have no place to be alone over the course of their year’s engagement.

  Finally, at the end of the second week, Ann decided to plead with Stella directly.

  Saturday morning, before leaving for work, she summoned the courage to say, “Stella … do you think that you and I could talk for a few minutes? Like two sensible people?”

  “Of course,” Stella said. She poured two cups of coffee, handed one to Ann, and sat down. “Now, what is it you want to talk about?”

  “Stella, I want to apologize for the other Sunday. I know that your intentions were sincere, and I do thank you for that. But—I am in love with Phillip and I am going to marry him. More than anything, I want to be able to bring him home and introduce him to you and Papa. Would it be asking too much if I invited Phillip here, for Sunday dinner perhaps?”

  Without rancor, Stella replied, “Quite frankly, it would.”

  Ann burst into tears. She had been so sure that if she pocketed her pride and begged Stella, her stepmother would concede.

  “Stella! You don’t mean it!” Ann sobbed. But the grimly unyielding expression told Ann that Stella mean it.

  “How can you treat me this way?” Ann cried. “It’s just not fair. This is my father’s house, too, you know!”

  “No, my dear,” Stella retorted coolly. “This house and everything in it belongs to me.”

  “But, Stella, you have no reason not to have Phillip come here. He’s wonderful. Really, he is.”

  “The truth is, Ann, that I am utterly opposed to this—affair. I think it’s beneath you.”

  “Affair? Stella, you’re making it sound like something sordid, and it’s not. Phillip and I are engaged!”

  “Well, it’s some fine engagement, I must say! I don’t see any ring on your finger. He said he didn’t want to marry you for a whole year? I don’t believe he’s serious.”

  “Phillip can’t afford to buy me a ring right now, Stella. But we are engaged—we are!” Ann covered her face with her hands.

  Stella looked away stonily. She knew how unreasonable she was being.

  Finally, Ann raised a tear-stained face and said, brokenly, “Stella, I never thought I’d say something like this to you, but you’re cruel! Why are you denying me the one thing in the world I need from you?”

  “You don’t need anything from me, Ann—you never have. Why are we continuing to pretend? You’ve never liked me, and I’ve never liked you. You’re not my child. And you have your precious papa to dote on you.”

  “Why did you marry Papa anyway, Stella? You never loved him either,” Ann said, almost inaudibly.

  “Let me tell you something. He and I would have been a lot happier if we hadn’t had you to deal with.”

  Shaken beyond tears, Ann got up from the table. There was no compromise possible; she could see that now. As she left the room she said, “You have no reason to do this to me, Stella. No reason at all.”

  Upstairs in her room, Ann stood trembling uncontrollably. What could she do? Her first thought was to move out of the house. Maybe she could share an apartment with one of the girls from Magnin’s. But she didn’t want to hurt her father. The knowledge that his wife had driven his daughter from under his roof would surely kill him—Ben would be willing to let her go only on her wedding day.

  For the first time ever, she called in sick. She sounded so distraught that they didn’t question her. Then she phoned Phillip at his office, where he spent Saturday mornings doing legal research. “I have to talk to you,” she pleaded. “Can you get away? Please.”

  “Ann, darling, you sound awful. Are you all right?”

  “I really need to see you, Phillip.”

  “Of course, darling. Where shall we meet?”

  “How about the Tosca Café, where we were the other night?”

  “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  The sight of her pale, drawn face as she walked to his table made him instantly apprehensive. Was Ann having second thoughts?

  “What’s wrong, honey? Please tell me. I love you.”

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, Phillip …” she began.

  His heart skipped a beat. She was breaking it off. “Tell me what?”

  She hesitated. “It’s my stepmother. She’s making my life such a hell, Phillip.”

  Phillip relaxed. Thank God it wasn’t some problem about him. “In what way, darling?”

  “I don’t know how to say this, but for some inexplicable reason she’s opposed to our engagement. In fact, she doesn’t want me to see you at all.”

  “Why? She doesn’t even know me,” he said, surprised.

  “That’s just the point. I can’t even argue because I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “Suppose I have a talk with her?”

  But Ann shook her head. “No, Phillip. It would only make things worse. There’s just no way that anyone can change her mind. It’s as if she were insane on the subject.”

  Phillip didn’t understand, but realizing how distraught Ann was, he reached for her hand across the table. “Don’t worry about it, dear. Perhaps she’ll change her mind when she understands how serious we are about each other. And if she doesn’t—well, I’m marrying you, not your family.”

  It had been a long time since Ann had felt as secure as she did at this moment. She allowed herself to be comforted by his words and his strong hand on hers.

  “My father wants to meet you very much,” she said. “In fact, he can hardly wait. Can we all have lunch one day this week?”

  “Yes, of course. Any day.”

  “Oh, Phillip—I do love you so!”

  Chapter Six

  EVA COULTER’S OBJECTIONS to Phillip’s proposed marriage had nothing to do with the fact that Ann Pollock was too young for her son or that Ann was Stella Burke’s stepdaughter—something which she did not know. Unlike Stella, she didn’t raise her voice; nonetheless her opposition was just as unwavering.

  “You’re much too young, Phillip,” she protested.

  “Too young for what?”

  “To assume the responsibilities of marriage.” She sighed. “You know, darling, that I only want to do what is best for you.”

  “Really? And are you so sure what’s best for me?” Phillip had seen through his mother’s pretenses for as long as he could remember. He knew that Eva Coulter treated anyone she loved as a personal possession, and demanded their constant adoration.

  “You don’t want me to get married at all, do you, Mother,” he said, trying to make her confront the real issue.

  “Why, that’s not true!
” Eva said aggrievedly. “One of these days, if you found a lovely girl, I would be delighted.”

  “But I have found a lovely girl.”

  Eva was shaken by his open defiance. This just wasn’t like Phillip. Summoning all her patience, she replied gently, “Perhaps … but I’m sure that if you think about it, dear, you’ll realize how ill-timed this is.”

  “And when would be the right time, Mother? When I’m fifty or so?”

  “Now, dear, you must not get angry. It has nothing to do with age.”

  “What does it have to do with, then—money?”

  “The country still hasn’t really recovered from the Depression, Phillip. And marriage is a serious undertaking.”

  “Look, Mother. This really has nothing to do with finance. The truth is that you’re advising me to forget the whole thing and give Ann up.”

  “Why, Phillip, that isn’t what I’m saying at all!”

  “Mother, you forget that I’m an attorney. I make my living recognizing contradictions. First you said that I was too young; then you said that it had nothing to do with age. Then it was a question of money; then it had nothing to do with money. Make up your mind, Mother. What exactly is the problem?”

  Eva started to protest but was silenced by Phillip’s look. “I’m not asking you for your permission, Mother. I’m planning to marry Ann as soon as possible.” He waited for her to digest the fact. “Now, I’m bringing her home for dinner on Sunday, and I’d appreciate it greatly if you would treat her graciously and with warmth.”

  Phillip’s tone made it plain that he would brook no opposition. He wasn’t in the mood for any of Eva’s games. Ann had given him back something he’d thought he’d lost: the desire to succeed. She had become his inspiration, his reason for living.

  By God, he was going to work his tail off in that law firm, and in a year—no, less than that—he would be able to go to them for a big raise, one that would enable him to support Ann in the style he wanted. And no one, including Eva, was going to deny him. Looking her squarely in the eye, he said, “Well, Mother?”