know it all (chapter 23, part 3)

(Mrs. Beale observing her grey garden.)

*

They turn left on Esplanade Avenue. Behind a high wall, through a patio thick with banana trees and yellow blossoms he ushers her into the little iron door and up the stairs to the room where the lady sits in a canopy bed at the center of an unlit room that smells, overwhelmingly, of roses.

“Who’s there?” the old woman calls out in a high, childish voice.

“It’s me,” replies Robin. “And I brought someone for you to meet.”

“Oh. It’s you. Well come on over. I was just resting my eyes.”

It takes a couple moments for Eleanor’s eyes to adjust to the dimness to make out the details of the old woman propped against the pillows with white cotton ruffles buttoned up to her chin and spidery white hair piled high on her head with bobby pins. Her skin is so white she almost glows. Robin nudges Eleanor forward to take the hand held out to her—it feels cool and soft as linen.

The old lady smiles at Elle. “Did you bring me a present, Robin?”

“Mother, this is Eleanor Westwood Chandra, my star pupil.”

The ancient coquette bats her watery eyes and pulls her closer. The grip of that bony hand is surprisingly firm. “Let me see what a pretty little thing you are.” The pale blue gaze flicks from the silver high tops to the cutoffs and the old Till Tuesday t shirt with the stretched-out neck. “Look at those dark eyes of yours. Gypsy’s eyes. You could hypnotize a leopard or lure sailors to their death with lashes like that. But my dear, what have you done to your hair?” Elle looks at Robin, who just shrugs and smiles. The old lady tells him to bring a hairbrush from the dressing table.

Eleanor sits on the edge of the bed with her hand held tight in that grip while Robin fetches the brush. The old woman chats with her son while she pulls the yellowed boar bristles through Eleanor’s curls. She pulls a bobby pin from her own head to fasten the lock off Elle’s forehead.

“Now you are a proper young lady who will be able to see where she is going. And the boys will see you coming, too. What do you think, Robin?”

Robin shrugs. “What do I know? I’m just her teacher. Either way is fine with me. I think short hair is practical. You could use your head as a duster to get the cobwebs out of the corners. You can use it as a pipe cleaner.”

The old woman grabs Eleanor’s hand again. “I think you will find that Robin talks a good deal about himself because he is young and doesn’t know any better. Boys mature so much more slowly than we females, don’t they? Why, you are maturing right before our eyes like a lovely exotic flower, aren’t you? Tell me dear, what do you want to do when you grow up?”

Eleanor doesn’t hesitate. “I want to be rich.”

The old woman turns to her son. “Did she say rich?”

“Yes,” Eleanor repeats. “I want to be very, very rich.”

“Oh. Well.” The old woman and her son wear the same amused expression. “And will you marry a rich man?”

“I’m not so sure about that. I’m not sure I’ll marry.”

“Let me tell you something. There will always be people clamoring to tell a girl where to go and what to do if she wants to settle down. It’s easiest to follow the trodden path. But what if she wants something else? Who will help her?”

“I don’t need any help.”

“Well that is good, my dear, because a girl like that will have to do for herself. She’ll have to learn how to care for herself, feed herself, make her own bed and sleep in it too. A girl like that will grow up to be alone, like me. A lonely old woman, unloved and uncared for.”

Robin rolls his eyes. “You’re not alone, mother. We’re right here.”

“Don’t be a fool, Robin. You know what I’m talking about.” She turns back to Eleanor. “It is much better to be surrounded by people who love you, don’t you think? Find a good man who will give you lots of babies, my dear. Children are god’s greatest gift. I was nearly fifty when the good lord gave me Robin here; I was already a grandmother myself. When my husband passed, I had six children to comfort me, four girls and two boys, and too many grandchildren to count. Now it’s time for me to sit back and let others take care. It’s my turn.” She’s looking at Robin when she says, “If you don’t get married and have children, you’ll always be alone. You’ll die alone.”

“And that must be our cue to leave.” Robin stands and smiles, says their goodbyes. Eleanor stumbles back down the narrow steps and out the door through the pungent loam of the secret garden to the wide sidewalk where she stands for a long time gaping up at that wall that looms and leans and crumbles like every other wall along Esplanade.

Robin grabs her elbow and leads her down the sidewalk, chatting away. At the park down the street he finds a hackberry tree—“celtis occidentalis makes a cool patch of shade but no berries this time of year; you should see the mess they make”- and he leans her against the big warty trunk.

Rubbing his back against the bark he asks her, “What do you think?”

“About the tree or about your mother?”

“Either one.”

She rubs thoughtfully then finally says, “I think you should measure her soul. I bet her soul could be measured, for sure.”

He laughs. “It is a heavy, heavy soul.”

“She’s so… old. And so white. I’ve never been that close to such an old white lady before.”

“So maybe you haven’t seen everything before, Miss Elle.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

His laugh is long and loud and for the first time she feels like a child, completely ignorant of things in dark bedrooms behind tall crumbling walls.