delighted that for once he was remaining in her sight. When the crust on the slope was broken and packed, it made good running, and that odd, nearly compulsive rhythm of riding and skiing, riding and skiing, established itself.
It was a fine afternoon. There were snow clouds, but a bright and cheerful light beat through them. The country, seen from the top of the hill, was black and white. Its only colors were the colors of spent fire, and this impressed itself upon one?as if the desolation were something more than winter, as if it were the work of a great conflagration. People talk, of course, while they ski, while they wait for their turn to seize the rope, but they can hardly be heard. There is the exhaust of the tow motor and the creak of the iron wheel upon which the tow rope turns, but the skiers themselves seem stricken dumb, lost in the rhythm of riding and coasting. That afternoon was a continuous cycle of movement. There was a single file to the left of the slope, holding the frayed rope and breaking from it, one by one, at the crown of the hill to choose their way down, going again and again over the same surface, like people who, having lost a ring or a key on the beach, search again and again in the same sand. In the stillness, the child Anne began to shriek. Her arm had got caught in the frayed rope; she had been thrown to the ground and was being dragged brutally up the hill toward the iron wheel. “Stop the tow!” her father roared. “Stop the tow! Stop the tow!” And everyone else on the hill began to shout, “Stop the tow! Stop the tow! Stop the tow!” But there was no one there to stop it. Her screams were hoarse and terrible, and the more she struggled to free herself from the rope, the more violently it threw her to the ground. Space and the cold seemed to reduce the voices?even the anguish in the voices?of the people who were calling to stop the tow, but the girl’s cries were piercing until her neck was broken on the iron wheel.
The Hartleys left for New York that night after dark. They were going to drive all night behind the local hearse. Several people offered to drive the car down for them, but Mr. Hartley said that he wanted to drive, and his wife seemed to want him to. When everything was ready, the stricken couple walked across the porch, looking around them at the bewildering beauty of the night, for it was very cold and clear and the constellations seemed brighter than the lights of the inn or the village. He helped his wife into the car, and after arranging a blanket over her legs, they started the long, long drive. THE SUTTON PLACE STORY
Deborah Tennyson waited in her nursery on Sunday morning for a signal from her father that would mean she could enter her parents’ bedroom. The signal came late, for her parents had been up the night before with a business friend from Minneapolis and they both had had a good deal to drink, but when Deborah was given the signal she ran clumsily down the dark hall, screaming with pleasure. Her father took her in his arms and kissed her good morning, and then she went to where her mother lay in bed. “Hello, my sweet, my love,” her mother said. “Did Ruby give you your breakfast? Did you have a good breakfast?”
“The weather is lovely out,” Deborah said. “Weather is divine.”
“Be kind to poor Mummy,” Robert said. “Mummy has a terrible hangover.”
“Mummy has a terrible hangover,” Deborah repeated, and she patted her mother’s face lightly.
Deborah was not quite three years old. She was a beautiful girl with wonderful, heavy hair that had lights of silver and gold. She was a city child and she knew about cocktails and hangovers. Both her parents worked and she most often saw them in the early evening, when she was brought in to say good night. Katherine and Robert Tennyson would be drinking with friends, and Deborah would be allowed to pass the smoked salmon, and she had naturally come to assume that cocktails were the axis of the adult world. She made Martinis in the sand pile and thought all the illustrations of cups, goblets, and glasses in her nursery books were filled with Old- Fashioneds.
While the Tennysons waited for breakfast that morning, they read the Times. Deborah spread the second news section on the floor and began an elaborate fantasy that her parents had seen performed so often they hardly noticed it. She pretended to pick clothing and jewelry from the advertisements in the paper and to dress herself with these things. Her taste, Katherine thought, was avaricious and vulgar, but there was such clarity and innocence in her monologue that it seemed like a wonderful part of the bright summer morning. “Put on the shoes,” she said, and pretended to put on shoes. “Put on the mink coat,” she said.
“It’s too hot for a mink coat, dear,” Katherine told her. “Why don’t you wear a mink scarf?”
“Put on the mink scarf,” Deborah said. Then the cook came into the bedroom with the coffee and orange juice, and said that Mrs. Harley was there. Robert and Katherine kissed Deborah goodbye and told her to enjoy herself in the park.
The Tennysons had no room for a sleepin nurse, so Mrs. Harley came to the house every morning and took care of Deborah during the day. Mrs. Harley was a widow. She had lived a hearty and comfortable life until her husband’s death, but he had left her with no money and she had been reduced to working as a nursemaid. She said that she loved children and had always wanted children herself, but this was not true. Children bored and irritated her. She was a kind and ignorant woman, and this, more than any bitterness, showed in her face when she took Deborah downstairs. She was full of old-country blessings for the elevator man and the doorman. She said that it was a lovely morning, wasn’t it, a morning for the gods.
Mrs. Harley and Deborah walked to a little park at the edge of the river. The child’s beauty was bright, and the old woman was dressed in black, and they walked hand in hand, like some amiable representation of winter and spring. Many people wished them good morning. “Where did you get that enchanting child?” someone asked. Mrs. Harley enjoyed these compliments. She was sometimes proud of Deborah, but she had been taking care of her for four months, and the little girl and the old woman had established a relationship that was not as simple as it appeared.
They quarreled a good deal when they were alone, and they quarreled like adults, with a cunning knowledge of each other’s frailties. The child had never complained about Mrs. Harley; it was as though she already
