KALEIDOSCOPE II
Cynthia Hatch
PART 21
Gillian paused in her dissertation and shot Catherine a self deprecating smile. "Listen to me. You're probably thinking what is this stupid woman going on about? Gone fifteen years, and she thinks she's got everybody's number."
"I wasn't thinking any such thing," she assured her, "and I certainly don't think you're a stupid woman -- believe me."
"Good gracious, the tea's gone!"' Father made the announcement in the tones usually reserved for the detection of an intruder or a structural disaster. Catherine hadn't even noticed him come in, and now he stood at the desk beckoning. "Kipper, run to the kitchen and fetch some more tea before the recital begins -- and tell Mary we shall need some more popcorn too."
"I'm afraid we're responsible for the tea shortage," Catherine confessed as he took his place.
"And the popcorn." Gillian added. "Look at that -- I must have eaten a ton."
"A very unscientific estimate," Father assessed wryly. 'I scarcely fear you need worry about the excess calories, Gllian. No doubt you will have bounced them all off by morning. I only wish I could do the same."
'Now, Father, you don't look like you've gained a pound since I left here."
"Well," he said, failing not to look pleased. "I do what I can to stay as physically fit as possible under the circumstances."
Catherine, who'd never seen him do anything more strenuous than pick up a book, wondered what that might be. His injured hip severely limited the kind of physical activity he could undertake, and she couldn't quite picture him chinning himself on a convenient pipe. No doubt he burned off most of his calories just worrying about everyone else.
Her eyes went to Vincent's across the room. He had taken a seat next to Kanin and Olivia, and, noticing that his own customary place was occupied, he apparently intended to stay there. She smiled at him, trying not to look too disappointed, and felt the comforting touch of his love, reaching out to her across the room. The sensation was almost tactile.
She made an effort not to continually gaze at him as the recital began. This time the music flowed more smoothly. Somehow between pursuing the arts of roller skating and drawing -- the little musicians had found time for the self-discipline and devotion that had been Father's recommendation.
Once she stole a look at him to find that Luke was sitting on his lap, sucking his thumb, his other chubby hand playing with Vincent's hair. The sight played havoc with her heartbeat, and it was a long time before she could drag her attention -- and her thoughts -- back to the quintet at the center of the room.
Haydn escaped any further insult, and no grating sounds had caused the audience to recoil when the concert ended. She watched Vincent returning Luke into Olivia's care, although it was a moment before he could fully extricate himself from the grasp of that dimpled fist. He was coming toward her now, and everything in her took note of each step. By the time he reached her side she could no longer trust herself to look at him, not if she didn't want to spoil -- with one enraptured look -- Gillian's notions of St. Catherine.
"The prototype failed," Gillian greeted him.
"Yes, I know, but it's safely disconnected. We can try again tomorrow."
"How are the new chambers coming, Vincent? Have you had a look at them?"
"Some of them, Father. They're near completion, but we've had no one to spare from the work crews."
"You might want to take a look at them yourself, Gillian," Father suggested. "Before they're all spoken for. I understand Kanin's created some remarkable improvements -- whole apartments really, rather than our usual single chambers."
"Oh, I like where I am just fine, Father. I'm not big on modem housing. Isn't that Jamie over there? I think I'll ask her if she could spare me some time tomorrow."
"Father, my tummy feels bad."
This forlorn comment came from Molly who stood at his chair, her little face vaguely reminiscent of the color Catherine had helped her mix earlier.
"Where does it feel bad?" he asked her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Inside -- where all the popcorn is."
"I see. Well, perhaps we should get you off to bed and have a look just to be sure. If you'll excuse us." he said, " I don't imagine I'll be too long."
"We should pay our compliments to the orchestra," Vincent commented when they were alone.
"And then, could we not stay here? We haven't had any time together. Couldn't we just be alone for a while?"
He looked at her a moment, but she never doubted he would grant her request. "If that is what you'd prefer, Catherine."
It was some time later before they could make a graceful exit, one that didn't seem pointedly rude to the friends gathered there, and once out in the passageway, a sense of awkwardness seemed to hover between them. He had yet to take her hand.
"I just need to talk, Vincent, that's all. I haven't seen you all week."
"Where should we go?"
He wasn't looking at her, and she had the distinct impression that he was finding this difficult. "I don't care. Any where's fine."
He started walking, still not touching her. but when they arrived at his chamber he only collected his cloak and guided her back outside. His pace was slow, making it easy for her to stay at his side, but the reticence she could feel, surrounding him in a way that made her feel strangely distant, tore at her tattered nerves.
"Vincent. is something wrong? Are you angry with me? Is it because I teased you earlier -- about the duck?"
"Catherine." The way he caressed her name told her she was being foolish. It spoke of his chagrin that she could even imagine he was upset with her. "I will think of the agwees -- always -- with great fondness, I assure you." He held out his hand, and she took it, realizing he still hadn't explained the reluctance she felt in him, but she decided to comfort herself with the knowledge that he wasn't annoyed and with the incomparable pleasure that came with the powerful hand holding hers.
She felt he was concentrating intently on something -- what she couldn't guess, but neither spoke again until they'd come to the stairway that she knew ended just above the Great Falls. That place held potent memories for them both. and it surprised her that he would take her there now -- to a place so remote, so romantic, so filled with the echoes of their attempt to clarify their relationship and where it was going. But descending the wide stairway hewn in the rock, he stopped, sweeping his cloak behind him. and sat down.
"It's quiet here, Catherine. We can talk. Tell me what's distressed you so this week."
She sank down on the step below him. looking up, uncertainly, but she saw only his genuine concern, his infinite capacity for listening.
The story spilled out easily under his gentle gaze -- the Vermeer and the photo taped over it, the bag with its smiling picture, Roberta Gomes' vacant grin. even the jibes about the mentality that lay behind Byron Stark's carefully crafted image.
"It's been awful, Vincent. This woman is in imminent danger, and people are making crude jokes."
His sympathy poured over her, like healing waters, and he reached out to brush a strand of hair from her eyes. "Laughter can be a release, Catherine -- for pain or tension, as well as joy. It may not mean that everyone is oblivious to the suffering."
"That's what Joe said," she conceded. "A release for tension . . . like the agwees?"
"Yes." The smile in his eyes was very gentle. "Like the agwees."
"For some reason this case is really getting to me. I'm not sure I'm handling it very well."
"Catherine," he hesitated and caressed her hair again. "I have felt your disquiet -- I know how deeply you want to help, but you must be prepared for the possibility that all your work -- all your heartfelt intentions -- may not be enough to save this woman."
She knew he hated to add his own note of pessimism to her already troubled thoughts, that he did so only because he was genuinely fearful of her reaction if the worst should happen.
"I know. I know that there may be nothing we can do, but I have to try, Vincent. I can't give up, when there's so little time left."
"No," he said quietly, dropping his eyes. "You cannot give up."
Silence settled between them, and with it the tense restraint that thrummed along their connection. She wanted desperately to relieve it, but wasn't sure what avenues were open to her. There certainly wasn't anything that she could see at the moment worth laughing about. At last she looked up at him. "Vincent, I was going to ask your forgiveness for my rudeness earlier, remember?"
She looked at him expectantly, but even this pleasant game seemed to have lost its appeal. He drew in a sharp breath. She could feel resistance gathering in him, as if he'd been asked to do something unpleasant. The hurt and confusion must have shown in her eyes, as his own flooded with regret, and he leaned toward her.
He met her lips, his fingers drawn inexorably to the arch of her throat, hovering down its length, reverently, with the barest whisper of a stroke. His kiss was impossibly tender, impossibly expressive of the love he could not withhold from her, but it was she who bloomed under it, inviting the deepening of it with a fevered abandon he was powerless to ignore, and he gave her what she wanted, the erotic power in him released as easily as if he'd never had it in check.
Her hands tangled in his hair, urging him forward, until she felt the tightening of his grip on her shoulders, and he pulled her up into his lap. She was shaking now, drinking him in with an insatiable thirst, her own anguished longing reflected in the desperate way he clutched her to him.
His groan rent her consciousness, as he tore his mouth from hers, gasping, "Don't do this, Catherine . . please," With trembling hands he lifted her and set her back down on the step, his head bowed into his open hand.
"I don't believe this, Vincent.' Her own voice was very low. Raising it, she was sure, would betray its trembling, might even give rise to the scream she felt building inside her. 'We can't keep doing this. It's going to destroy us both."
"Catherine, I know the torment. I --"
"Then end it, Vincent. You can, you know. It's always been up to you."
"No." He shook his head, refusing to go on.
"Sometimes," she said, and now the waiting tears were evident in her voice, "sometimes I wish that we had never..."
"That we had never kissed?" he finished for her, raising his head to look at her with that lucidity that saw though any pretense.
She nodded. "In a way. I never thought it would lead to us torturing each other -- to this tension that drowns out the peacefulness we always had together." He didn't flinch, but she could see the hurt deep in the crystal blue, and the storm within her broke. "Oh, God, I don't mean that, Vincent, I don't." She clutched his knee, letting her forehead sink against it, the tears wetting the soft fabric. "I wouldn't trade a minute -- a second -- of any of it. It's made me happier than anything I've ever known, only I don't understand why we can't just....can't... just...complete it."
She felt the comfort in the hand that was stroking her head. the anguished sympathy flowing through their bond, but still he didn't speak. After a moment, she set up, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. "I get the feeling sometimes," she said, choking back the last of the tears. "that we've stumbled into a fairy tale, and that you're under a kind of spell."
"Perhaps that was your mistake, Catherine," he said quietly, and she could feel his withdrawal, as if she'd stung him. "You hoped for a prince, but there is no transformation possible -- not for me and . . . not for the other."
"I didn't mean it that way." she asserted, laying her hands on his knee. 'What I meant was there's a spell keeping you from being who you really are, making you worry too much about the dark things inside you. That spell is your own fear, Vincent. I hoped I could ease it for you, make you see that there's no need for it."
"Perhaps you have."
"Have I? It seemed to me after the other night, when we both felt the nearness of that darkness, When we both wanted so desperately to make love and you still had the power to control it -- I thought that would convince you that we could love each other the way we were meant to."
"'You don't understand." His voice had fallen to a whisper.
"Then it's time you told me, Vincent." All her love, all her patience had brought them no closer to their dream than this awful impasse. There seemed nothing left but to push. "I can't fight what I don't understand, and I can't fight the feelings I have for you. Speak to me, Vincent. Tell me."
The sensation whirled through her -- so like the break in her own resolve that had loosed her tears -- but more frightening somehow. The snapping of some rigid structure whose inflexibility had doomed it to shatter.
Instantly, he was on his feet, towering over her, his eyes boring through hers with the hard brilliance of diamonds. "What would you have me tell you, Catherine? The thoughts that you imagine seek only to protect you -- that care only for your own happiness? The desires that make even the image of your sweet face before me an agony? Do you imagine it is only a mindless instinct I struggle against? What I would do, Catherine . . . what requires every ounce of my strength... not to do , . . is more terrible than that. It has method and awareness and no regard at all for your right to choose."
She sat, paralyzed, staring up at him. His body, poised on the steps above her, was rigid with tension, but the words spilled out -- a passionate avalanche over which he seemed to have no control.
"Would you have me condemn myself with the truth? Do you imagine that the words will give you peace? Hear them then. That I would take you right here -- right now -- on these cold stones. That I would love you, Catherine, until you were blind to everything but my face before you, deaf to everything but the sound of my voice. I would love you until there was no word on your lips but my name, no desire in your heart but for me, until your mind could hold nothing but thoughts of me, of what we share, until that world you live in ceased to exist. I would hold you to me, Catherine, with bonds of love that you would be powerless to struggle against, keep you here -- in the darkness -- with me. That is what I would do, Catherine -- me -- not the other -- not some dark, witless animal -- me."
He finished, struggling for breath, the relentless fire in his eyes that had held her immobilized, gradually fading, giving way to a restless panic, as his words echoed back to him. She sat stunned, unable to speak, unable to stop him, as he whirled and took the steps, two at a time, disappearing into the darkness.
How long she sat there, she didn't know. At some point she willed herself to move closer to the wall, resting her flushed cheek against the cool stone. It was quiet here, preternaturally quiet. There was only the faint sound of the waterfall some distance below, and the words torn from him ringing in her ears, too terrible -- too wonderful -- to fully comprehend. At last she became aware that he had returned, standing far above her in the shadows, but when she opened her eyes and looked upward, what she saw chilled her.
He was standing in the doorway, his hood pulled up, almost concealing his face. The sight was so reminiscent of another night, when emotions, untempered by thought, had flamed between them. She stood up, unsteadily, smoothing her skirt and climbed the steps toward him.
"I'll take you back," he said quietly, ducking his head away from her probing look.
She slipped her hand into his, saying nothing, and they walked silently together. What she would say next was too important to leave to chance, but it was hard to think, to plan. A part of her was still reeling from the impact of what he had said, giddy with the implications, but she knew the price he was paying for that honesty now.
His humiliation was real. He had let himself be goaded into a confession that he feared would frighten her or tarnish his image in her eyes, a confession he felt made him unworthy of the adoration she offered. His determination not to influence her decisions about their life together had crumbled under the collapse of his tenacious grasp on what he thought to be right.
She knew he was suffering, that his natural inclination had been to escape to some dark place where he would denounce himself for the pretensions he'd dared to voice, but the power that had made him return, unwilling to leave her alone in the darkness, was speaking to her now, telling her clearly of the recriminations tormenting him. Was he purposely letting their bond communicate these things to her, things he had no will to say, or had his outburst simply left him too drained to thwart it?
At the ladder under her building, they stopped, still not having spoken, and she was afraid, having delivered her safely, he would simply slip away. She stepped forward and reached out to remove the hood that sheltered his expression, but her fingers paused. She thought suddenly she should leave him this one small hiding, this single device to conceal his mortification, to retain his dignity.
Instead, she let her fingers caress his cheek. "Vincent, what you said to me tonight -- I know you think it was shameful. I can feel what you're going through, and I know you're afraid it's only complicated things between us even more, but you're wrong. Those words were what I've been desperate to hear for as long as I can remember. They weren't frightening to me, Vincent, or selfish. I want to belong to you."
He shook his head, his voice a tortured testament to the battle between passion and principle that had left it raw. "People don't belong to people, Catherine."
"Don't they? I don't mean to be used or manipulated. I mean to love, to cherish, to have someone you can put your trust in and know that it's returned. It's part of love, Vincent -- just as no matter how old you are or what distances might separate you, to Father you will always be his child. My heart is yours, and so am I. I do want to belong to you in every way possible -- I want that more than anything. I know there are things we still have to settle, things to work out between us, but those words will stay with me until we can. Don't regret them, Vincent. Don't hate them, because I love them. I love you."
She reached up and kissed him, lightly, tenderly on the lips, knowing his ability to speak had been exhausted, and turned to ascend the ladder into a world whose grip on her seemed suddenly as insubstantial as the steam that rose from the city grates, only to vanish into the light.