Scattered leaves swirled down the street, blowing across the yards and the windshield of the cab. I had seen this street in every possible season, in every possible weather and yet I was shocked to find it so unchanged. The war had changed everything else, everything except the yellow brick house on Ellis Avenue.
There it was crouching on the corner, shielding its inhabitants from the world and from change. The cab driver got my suitcase out of the trunk while I pulled my Red Cross cape more tightly around me. I had forgotten how cold the Chicago winds could be in early spring. I thanked the driver, and as the taxi drove off, I stood in the gathering dusk looking at the house.
I took a breath, picked up my battered suitcase, adjusted my hat, and started for the door. The doorbell sounded deep in the house. I heard hurrying footsteps and then the door swung open. Josie in her black uniform and crisp white apron looked out blankly at me.
We stood there for a moment until recognition dawned in her face. Then she cried, “Miss Val, oh Miss Val. I didn’t know it was you. Why, oh why, didn’t you tell us you were coming? Oh dear, your room and your father…. Oh! This is so wonderful, but we just didn’t know. Everyone will want to see you right away.”
Josie helped me off with my cape. “Dinner is being served, and you will need to change. John will bring up your bags --- there should be enough roast beef, I will just set another place---your father will be so surprised --- I just don’t---“ Josie stopped in confusion.
I touched her sleeve gently. “Don’t bother him now, Josie. I will just wash my hands and then I will surprise him myself.”
Josie looked relieved as I knew she would. She had not wanted to be the one to upset the schedule, even on an occasion such as this.
“Don’t worry about my suitcase either, Josie,” I added. “I’ll just wear what I have on.”
I knew that Papa would not approve of the uniform at dinner. He would not want to be reminded of where I had been, and what I had been doing for the last two years. But for one evening he could be reminded. Then I would take the uniform, fold it up, put it away and with it I would fold up a part of my life. But I would never forget these last years, which no matter the difficulties and horrors, had belonged just to me alone.
The house seemed to close in around me as I walked down the hall towards the dining room. I had never realized how very plush it was. It was simply home and what I was used to. But now after two years of barracks and tents sunk in mud, cold and damp accompanied by the booming of guns, the house almost overwhelmed me. The deep carpeting softened my footsteps. Huge pictures in gilt frames loomed from above and heavy, dark, ornate furniture hugged the walls all exactly as I remembered it. Yet, I saw it with a stranger’s eyes. Now that I was back home for good, I supposed that I would become part of it all again, but for the moment I felt like a guest.
I walked through the double doors into the dining room, and there sat Papa at the end of the table alone where there once had been five of us. The hair and the neatly trimmed beard were the same, but greyer than when I had last seen him. He looked bent and smaller somehow.
“Valerie?” It was both a statement and a question. I walked towards his end of the table, and he rose giving me a brushing kiss on the cheek and a slight hug. “You are just in time for the roast, and no one does one better than Emma. I am sorry that you did not have time to change before dinner, but then we cannot keep the roast waiting, and we had no idea you were coming.”
“This is my uniform, Papa. I thought you might like to see it.”
He looked up briefly. “Well, tomorrow night you will have time to change into something more appropriate, and perhaps begin to see to some of the household arrangements. I feel the last few years have been an unfortunate intrusion in our country’s history and I, for one, am very glad they are over. Things will be returning to normal now. You are home and that is all I care about. You stayed over there far too long as it is. James was home months ago, right after the armistice. He said that you could have come home too, but you volunteered to stay over there and come home with the last group. You were always one for foolishness.” He paused for a long moment to take a bite from his plate and then continued, “I don’t want to hear what you have been doing. I heard more than I wanted to from James. It is enough that you waited tables and cooked food. I don’t want it talked about at my own table.”
I was surprised. Not by his words, it was the same old thing that I had remembered from years gone by. I was surprised that it no longer affected me. I waited for all the old feelings of helplessness and anger to wash over me, but nothing happened. Instead of a strong figure that tried to thwart my every move, all I saw was a small grey-haired man who had suffered from life in a different way than those of us who had gone off to war. Maybe in some ways even more. At least we had gone out to meet events, but he had stayed locked up in his own thoughts and life as one by one those around him had left or changed.
After dinner Papa went into his study for his customary coffee and brandy. As he left the dining room, I called to him and then went over an gave him a light kiss on the cheek. He looked startled and then said in a low voice, “Welcome home, Valerie.” He hurried from the room as I brushed away a tear that rolled down my cheek. A tear for all the wasted years.
The door to the tower room was closed for of course no one had been expecting me. I walked slowly in, looking around at the green rug, the pink and green flowered paper and hearing all the echoes of two small girls growing up together.
A soft knock at the bedroom door, followed by that sure, quiet tread and I was in Nanny’s arms.
“Josie told me,” Nanny murmured and then stopped as she fought back the slow trickle of tears that ran down her face.
“Oh, Nanny,” I said hugging that small, upright body to me. This was my real homecoming. This ageless woman in black who had overseen and guided us for as long as any of us could remember.
Nanny disengaged herself from my hug, quickly wiped away her tears and then in her old brisk voice said, “Are you all unpacked? You don’t want your thing to get too wrinkled.”
I laughed out loud, and even Nanny ventured a smile. It was the sound of all our days together. Nanny guiding, reminding, and prodding, and also in her own straight-backed way loving.
I sat on the edge of the bed, Nanny across the room in the armchair. I was sitting fully clothed on the bed, and not only did Nanny not say anything, she did not even look as if she wanted to.
“The house seems the same,” I said.
“Yes, though your father is much happier now that the war is over. He didn’t like the upset --- the strange flours not having Miss Dienst here to play because she’s German. Now that she can play again in the evenings, he is much happier.”
“What about James?”
“Hasn’t he written to you?”
“I haven’t heard from him since he visited me last year. He didn’t like what he saw.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He was always such a stickler. Especially with you and …” Nanny faltered and then went on. “He’s the one who told your father what kind of job you had. I wasn’t going to.”
“Its’s just as well he knows. No point in hiding the truth from him. There was always too much hiding in this house. What about James?”
“He’s engaged.”
“To whom?”
“Florrie Sharpless.”
“Not Florrie!”
“He will probably not be in until late tonight. That Florrie is always wanting to go somewhere. You have had a long day of travel. Why don’t you get a good night’s sleep, and you can see James in the morning.”
Nanny gave me a hug and then looked at me, studying my face.
“What are you going to do, Valerie?”
“I don’t know. Papa expects me to stay, but I’m not sure that I can. I have an offer of a job in Geneva. Maybe I will take it.”
On my way home I had passed through Switzerland, stopping in Geneva. Switzerland looked exactly as it had on that final family trip to Europe. It had remained untouched by the war, as if its snow-covered mountains sparkled under a different sun that the rest of the world. I could see Trixie everywhere as she had been in the last moments of girlhood; skating on the lake, her cheeks flushed, her hands tucked warmly in a white fur muff --- running down the pension steps, her skirts flared behind her, beating me to the carriage.
I had not gone to Geneva, as in the past, to sink into the stately parade that had been Europe before the war. I was looking for a job, one that would enable me to keep the independence I had found. Dressed in a severe grey suit bought in a hurry in Paris, I had applied for a job.
I never really believed that someone would hire me --- pay me to do something---but I had to try. My only skill was in languages, so I went to the head translator at the League of Nations. After some rigorous tests in both French and German which I passed with ease, he hired me on the spot. He even was positive about my time in the Red Cross. He commented merely that he was sure I would wish to go home to my family after being away for so long. I could return and start whenever I wished.
I had been so sure I would take a job, if offered. Now I hesitated. First there was Papa. Since coming home, I felt was looking at the family with a new clarity. It had always seemed as if it were Papa that I rebelled against. Papa’s rules, Papa’s schedule. Now I realized that all of that had really been secondary to Mamma in a very quiet, subtle way. We were to make up to her for her other losses and she wanted us controlled and near at all times --- especially Trixie and me.
And what of Papa? I knew now that there were two sides to a marriage. Mamma had not been a passionate woman. It seemed as if she were always alone in that huge bedroom. Since Papa could not have her, perhaps he had demanded the best in service and food from the servants that she trained. Perhaps his retirement to the house and his music was his form of striking back. James, Trixie and I had been lost in their quiet, desperate struggle. We were to give Mamma her reason for living and give Papa another well-trained ornament to his life.
Could I leave when I was just beginning to understand what had been going on in this house all those years? Or was it best to go so that I would not get trapped into its smoothly functioning emptiness?
I turned to Nanny. “What do you think I should do?”
“Dearie, that is a decision no one can make for you. I will stand behind whatever you want to do. You know that. I just hope you don’t want to go selling furs and jewels again. I’m not sure John could take it.” We both smiled. “I was the one that used to tell your mother that someday you would wake up and there wouldn’t be any way to put you to sleep again. Your mother was afraid of that day. You were the strong one---willful and headstrong. We could see it when you were little. You mother was a shrewd woman. She made you feel responsible for Trixie. She tried to turn that energy and willfulness into a channel where it could be controlled and held. It wasn’t fair. You needed a life of your own, not to be made into your sister’s guardian.”
I felt as if a final weight was being lifted from my shoulders. Tears stung my eyes as I managed to say, “I loved her so much and I always thought it was my fault----“
“It was no one’s fault dear girl. It was just a great tragedy, but doubly so if you are cut down by it too. Do whatever you must but live your own life.”
Nanny gave me a hug, and then quietly slipped out of the room.
The next morning I woke up at five. It was dark outside, and the house was still and quiet. No traffic noise rose from the street below, and I knew that even Emma would not be in the kitchen yet. It was hard to believe that for years I had slept my life away, lying in bed until eight and then being served tea and crackers. At least I could get dressed, although I could not leave my room until the rest of the house stirred.
I slipped out of my nightgown and looked for a dress in the closet. My old brown challis was there although it was rather loose. The food had not been particularly good or abundant at the end. I reached for the ring on the dresser. It still hung from an old piece of shoelace. Now I could put it on the gold chain Mamma had given me when I turned sixteen, but I liked it just the way it was. I slipped it around my neck and put it under my dress. It felt cold as it hung there between my breasts. Just as cold and hard as the knot in my stomach when I thought of Matthew.
I had loved him, and it was over. He had been the one man in my life, and there would never be another --- not for me. I could have spent a lifetime with him, soaring above a life to which I had never belonged, above the dances, teas, and calls that had left me tongue-tied, embarrassed, and out of place.
I had been afraid of coming home to Ellis Avenue---afraid that I would be swept up again in frustration and rebellion. But I realized with a swelling sense of freedom that I was more than this house. I had moved beyond it and in doing so could now look back on its inhabitants with compassion. Even some of the pain in my memories of Trixie were assuaged --- my thoughts filled more with the joyful, saucy little girl she had been. I could no longer blame this house or any of its inhabitants for what I was. It was my own responsibility now for what I was and what I could become.
Before breakfast I slipped into the kitchen to see Emma. She looked just the same in her stripped apron as she threw her arms around me and burst into tears.
“We’re all so glad to have you home, Miss Val. Now that you’re here to stay it will seem more like old times. We all prayed for your safety.”
“Thank you, Emma. And I wished for some of your good food. Nobody cooks like you do.”
Emma blushed with pleasure and hugged me saying, “You’re skin and bones. We will have to fatten you up.”
I hugged her back and said, “It will be my pleasure to have the full treatment.”
I left the kitchen smiling and came down the hall towards the library where I was going to get a book to read for later in front of a blazing fire. One of my daydreams in France.
It was then I saw James. All thoughts of our past differences flew out of my head and all I could think of was that this was my brother --- the person with whom I had shared a childhood, this house and above all Trixie and Arthur.
“James,” I called as I hurried towards him, and then stopped suddenly as though pushed away. He had turned around and was standing very still. His face was colorless and drawn. The lines around his mouth looked bitter. There was no move to even shake my hand.
Finally he said, “When did you get home?”
“Last night. Nanny said you were out with Florrie and I was too tired to wait up.”
‘Good thing you didn’t. We were out rather late. I was beginning to wonder if you would ever come home.”
“Of course I would. I had to --- to see all of you. But I think maybe I will be taking a job in Geneva.”
“Doing what? Found a restaurant that will have you?” He turned on those words and strode into the library. I hesitated for only a moment and marched in behind him. He had flung himself in a chair and started lighting a cigarette.
“Not a restaurant, the League of Nations, translating and interpreting. James, what’s happened? Can’t we even talk? We are the only ones left. Don’t shut me out.”
James turned in the chair. “It’s nothing you can understand so why explain. Anywa,y I should be over the moon. I’m getting married.”
“Yes, Nanny told me. To Florrie. I didn’t even know that --- well that you cared about her.”
“Well, you don’t know a lot of things. You couldn’t know what it is like to be strangled from the time you were born, to have the life squeezed out of you. They don’t bother to do that with girls.”
“Oh, yes they do. You just didn’t take the time or effort to notice.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. You wanted to break free, but you wanted us to remain perfect ornaments at home. Trixie was to be beautiful and marry someone you approved of. I was to stay home and take care of Mamma and Papa and run the house and see to Sunday dinner when you deigned to visit. I want something more out of life than that.”
“And I suppose that something more is Matthew Brandt.”
“I only wish it were. He died of his wounds in a hospital in France.” I waited for some comment from James, but he just took a drag on his cigarette and looked at the floor. “I learned something precious from him though. You have to be a complete person first, you can’t wait for something from the outside to change everything. It has to come from inside. Then the outside things will happen.” I spoke from my heart hoping the words would somehow reach this bitter, defeated man in front of me.
James looked up at me for a long moment and then said, “Still the same old Val.” A faraway look came over his face. “I was the only one in on your secret that summer. My room was on the third floor you remember, and I could just see the far paddock. What a battle you waged. That stupid little pony must have bucked you off a million times. I was close to telling someone so that you would have to stop. And then you rode him. I think I stood there in my pajamas and cheered.” His eyes focused again and he rose from the chair crushing out his cigarette in an ash tray. “I never would have gotten back on that silly horse after the first few times.”
Then he brushed past me and walked out of the library, the thick carpet muffling his footsteps, the house swallowing him up.