All He Ever Wanted(12)

Four days after the fire, and three days after our brief tea together, I sent a note to Etna Bliss, asking if I might call three days hence to take her for a walk. It seemed a benign request, one she might reasonably grant, as it would allow her to escape the stultifying and airless atmosphere of the Bliss household while simultaneously permitting her to hover near to home, as a walk necessarily must. Indeed, I had a reply by return mail. (For months afterward, this brief missive, being the first such in Etna’s hand and therefore of great significance to me, was attached to the mirror over my dresser in my rooms.)


December 9

Dear Professor Van Tassel,

I should be pleased to accompany you on a short walk on the twelfth of December at three o’clock in the afternoon.

Most sincerely,

Etna Bliss

As chance would have it, we had another snowstorm in the interim and then, on the day of the intended walk, a rather spectacular thaw, so that the streets were awash with that dreadful mix of melting snow and soot and mud we New Englanders call slush. I was in a bit of a quandary, having purchased my first new suit of clothing, a frock coat of English worsted, and a new pair of leather shoes from Brockton, both of which would be ruined if I ventured forth in them. I compromised by donning the new suit — thinking to sacrifice the cuffs of my trousers — but wearing my old boots, a concession to the weather. I was dressed near an hour too soon and so remained in my rooms, walking from window to window, sitting upon my bed, glancing at myself in the mirror (how vain we become when infatuated with another), and all the while ignoring the neat sets of copybooks on my desk, examinations which I was required to read and correct — testimonials all, I was already certain, to my somewhat pedantic and desiccated lectures of the fall. The copybooks reproached me in my perambulations, yet I, in turn, mocked them — for what single sentence amongst those hundreds of sentences could attest to even a fraction of the truth that held me in its grip? I had a fleeting moment of concern lest I never be able to return to my former demeanor and routine, a worry I dismissed in the next instant when I glanced at the clock and saw that the day had reached that longed-for hour of forty minutes past two o’clock, which meant that I could now reasonably set out to fetch Etna Bliss at her uncle’s house.

She was alone when I called, which was fortunate, since I was not required to converse with William Bliss, who might have wondered at my intentions and who would almost certainly have regarded me anew were he to have ascertained them. Etna had on a blue-and-gold dress of no coarse material, the gold calling to her eyes as if singing arias to them. Her hair was done up with some care, fashioned in intricate coils that seemed to disappear like roads vanishing on a map. The dress fetched in rather tightly at the waist, and I could not help but be gratified by the sight of the severe taper of her torso flaring generously, both above and below, into modestly veiled bounty. But did I not say it is the face I notice first in a woman? And this, of course, I did on that day, though the expression there, I am bound to report, was somewhat less than generous, even wary, as well it might have been. I was, after all, a stranger.

We exchanged some pleasantries, most having to do with the uncooperative weather, and of course I made inquiries as to the health of her aunt and niece (both wholly recovered). Then I watched for a moment (privileged witness) as Miss Bliss set upon her hair a gold velvet toque that perched just so at the crown of her head, affording me a captivating view of the back of her neck as she adjusted the hat in the hall mirror. I was so mesmerized by that sight that it was some moments before I realized she was waiting for me to hold out her cloak for her and help her into it.

For the first time, Etna put her arm in mine (so many memorable firsts that winter), and we set out along the walkway to Wheelock Street, whereupon we directed ourselves eastward, so as to walk farther out of town. Her boots were wet before we had even turned the corner. I wanted to lay down my cloak so that her feet might not be sullied by the dirty snow, but of course I could not — not only for the seeming excess of the gesture, which might have frightened away any sane woman, but also for the sheer impracticality of doing so at continuous intervals. In the strong sunlight, I could see Etna’s face more clearly than I ever had before, and perhaps I did detect some slight relaxation of her features as we left the house and she took her first deep breath of fresh air.

“Professor Van Tassel, it’s a lovely day,” she said suddenly and disarmingly.

“More lovely above than below, I fear.”

“No matter,” she said. “Far better that boots should have to dry of the wet than one’s body and spirit dry up for want of fresh air and exercise.”