Letters (53 page)

Death to all of you, Jane said affably. I was in her element now—sizing up the competition—and she had of course reviewed the lot of us plus other direct and indirect beneficiaries of the will as possible authors of that letter. That she’d then come to me spoke for itself, she declared. She suspected Prinz, whose scruples were dubious but whose photographic expertise was not, or some unknown colleague of Drew’s, certainly not Yvonne. In either case, Jeannine and Drew might well know nothing of it, and
need
never. Would I help her?

I told her I was afraid to say no. Was she truly capable of “putting out a contract” on the person responsible? That was not what she’d said, she said: there were surely more ways than one to neutralize a threat, once the threatener was identified. Photographic negatives could be located and destroyed; effective counterthreats or other checkmates could be devised. Where was my imagination? Meanwhile, she assumed I had other appointments that afternoon, as she did, and there was no particular hurry about this inquiry, since no payment was being demanded or deadline set. Why didn’t I think about it for a while? And would I agree at least not to rush the will into orphan’s court until I had so thought, and we’d talked again about it?

When Jane is being Madam President, her briskness is a little false, at least professional, as it surely wasn’t back there with the photos and the Kleenex. She was
so
pleased to have had our chat; we didn’t see
nearly
enough of each other since Harrison’s death; we
must
get together socially, and soon. I tried the most obvious double entendre: Indeed it had been a joy to see her again, so little changed since old times…

Well, she declared: we’ll certainly get together. Soon. Toodle-oo now.

Ta-ta.

I wanted to believe her so unrufflable that, perfectly aware of my irony, she declined to acknowledge it because she found it vulgar, at least inappropriate. Similarly, that she quite remembered her past visits to my office, and to my room, and simply saw no reason to acknowledge the memory. But my whole sense of her told me she was oblivious to both.

Now I’m less certain. (It’s Saturday sunrise. I fell asleep over the chart table. I’m sore in every joint. We 69-year-olds can’t do the Dear-Diary thing all night like a teenager after a big date.) Of anything. Except that, as best we wretched Andrewses can love, Todd Andrews loves Jane Mack; has never ceased loving her since 1932; has never loved anyone else. How stupid my life has been, old man: empty, insignificant, unmentionable! How full hers, however “oblivious.” And who am I to speak of her obliviousness, who scarcely realized until last night that I’ve been in love with that astonishing woman for 37 years?

As Jane suggested, we got together. Not exactly “soon”: seven Fridays later, yesterday. I’d thought about those photographs in the meanwhile; had seen a bit of Lady Amherst and Ambrose Mensch (who seem to be a couple these days; lots of horny gossip; more power to them) out at the college, where things have been popping. Watched Drew and Reg Prinz in action out there too, and reinforced a few tentative conclusions. Germaine’s a stable, decent woman in an unstable situation: I see in her neither cupidity nor vindictiveness. If she’s involved in anything like blackmail, it’s against her will, so to speak. Mensch is an enigma to me: erratic, improvisatory. I can imagine him, as Lady A.’s younger lover, obliging her to do something uncharacteristic—but I daresay they’re more likely candidates for prurient photography than purveyors of it. And what would they gain? Drew is, as ever, more principled than effectual. His surviving black colleagues haven’t been in evidence in the Marshyhope riots: either they have other fish to fry or he’s still on the outs with them since the bridge business. And he’s too aboveboard about his probate challenge-in-the-works to be feasibly underhanded. Prinz is a cipher, “Bea Golden” a blank—who, however, commutes between here and that quack sanatorium of hers up in Canada, not far from Niagara Falls. Of Cook I’ve seen and heard nothing except that he has declined without explanation an honorary degree from Marshyhope this spring, one which he’d previously either been pressing for or been being pressed for by John Schott. A minor mystery, from whose rough coincidence with the blackmail business I can make no plausible inferences. That Niagara Falls postmark had led me to consider also, fruitlessly, certain recipients of and rejected applicants for Tidewater Foundation grants up in that neck of the woods: no dice, except that at least one of the latter strikes me as a certifiable madman. Then there was Jane’s “Lord Baltimore,” who dwells somewhere in those latitudes: I even considered the possibility that the threat was bogus, some bizarre test of Yours Truly, administered—but what in the world for, unless to try whether his famous old heart is breakable at last?—by the Widow Mack herself.

Nothing. And during and between these reflections and distractions, as the kids tore up the campuses and the cops and National Guardsmen tore up the kids and the federal government tore up our country and the Pentagon tore up others, I hauled, fitted out, and launched the
Osborn Jones
for its 69th sailing season: 10th as a pleasure cruiser under my skippership. The prospect, and the work, didn’t please me this time as they usually do. It’s not a handy boat, either for cruising or for living aboard of. Never was meant to be, certainly not for an old bachelor. It’s clumsy, heavy, slow, too laborious to handle and maintain, comfortable but not convenient. The conversion—like my life, I’d been feeling all April—had been competently done but was basically and ultimately a mistake. I’d heard nothing from Jane since the Friday of the Photographs.

So I decided to have a party aboard: Cocktails for Friends, Suspects, and Women I’d Realized Too Late I Love Only and Always. Last night, 5 to 7. Jane’s invitation urged her to bring Lord Baltimore along, if he happened to be in the neighborhood or was given to flying down from Canada for drinks. I’d like to meet the lucky chap, I wrote, trying to turn the knife in Sentimental Jealousy, which turned it in me instead. R.S.V.P. I left off the Regrets Only.

She didn’t call. By 4:45, with the deck and cabin Bristol-fashion, hors d’oeuvres out and bar set up, waiter and barkeep standing by, great wind pennant looping in the warm light air, even a gangway rigged between pier and gunwale, and faithful Polly nursing a drink while we waited for the guests,
I
was the one with regrets only: for having planned the stupid party (which I saw clearly now to be no more than a pretext for seeing Jane again, who was probably up in Canada with her large-tooled lover); for having lived out a life so stupid—no, so
stupidly:
it hasn’t been a worthless life, just a meagerly lived one—instead of ending it in 1937. At five nobody had arrived yet, of course; I felt like sending home the help and taking Polly for a sail. The movie people, we agreed, would probably show up even later than Regular People. Why had I breathed in and out, eaten and shat, earned and spent, dressed and undressed, put one foot in front of the other, for 69 years? Did
you
ever—but who knows what you ever.

At 1704 by the bulkhead clock (which I wouldn’t vouch for over Jane Mack’s watch) I saw her car come ’round the Long Wharf fountain: the only other big black Lincolns in Dorchester County aren’t automobiles. Up rose my spiritual barometer; sank when I saw
two
people in the back; rose again, part way, when the chauffeur handed Jane and Lady Amherst out. It occurred to me that Germaine Pitt had not been Lady Anything until her marriage—I know little of her background beyond a dim memory of the
vita
presented by Joe Morgan to the foundation trustees prior to her appointment—but she looked more to the manor born than Jane, if only because she’s so unassuming tweedy English, and My Love so American to the bone. It occurred to me further, as I handed them over the gangway, that Jane hadn’t indicated how confidential was the news of her betrothal and the name of her intended: as she hadn’t told me more than his given name and
nom de guerre,
as it were, I supposed it still a sensitive matter, and made no mention of it in our hellos. Nor did she in any way acknowledge my note on her invitation. A mad fancy struck me: not only had our interview been some sort of test, but her “Lord Baltimore” did not exist! She was not engaged; it was not Too Late…

I checked myself. That photo couldn’t have been faked. And for me it had been too late since 1937.

I introduced the ladies to Polly Lake and showed Germaine about the
Osborn Jones,
explaining what a skipjack was and how it came to pass that oysters were still dredged under sail in Maryland. She was politely interested: her late husband had enjoyed sailing out of Cowes, she said, in the Solent, but she herself was prone to motion sickness. However, she was mad about oysters: what a pity the season was ended. I thought to pick up on Lord Jeff, try whether I could sound her present feelings about his old affair with Jane; she forestalled me by inquiring about the
Osborn Jones,
whether I’d named it after the salty old voyeur in the
Floating Opera
novel or whether the fictional character and the boat were both named after an historical original. Ought she to ask Jane instead? she wondered mischievously.

I was impressed: a delicate maneuver, as if she’d read my thoughts and was gently reminding me (what in fact I’d forgotten for the moment) that during our trying days together in Harrison’s decline we’d had occasion to compare cordial notes on the apparent obliviousness of our friend Jane, both to the fictionalization of our old affair (which Germaine had heard about but not then read) and to Jane’s later fling with Lord Amherst, which Harrison sometimes alluded to.

Lucky fellow, Ambrose Mensch: I do like and trust Germaine Pitt. As if on cue, Jane saluted our return from the foredeck to the bar by explaining brightly to her friend that Captain Osborn Jones had been an old dredge-boat skipper whom I’d befriended back in the 30’s and introduced her to. He used to live alone in the Dorset Hotel, she declared, and preside over a collection of similarly aged guests called the Dorchester Explorers’ Club.

Ah, said Germaine. Even Polly rolled her eyes.

I pass over my cocktail party, Father of mine, because its radiant, miraculous aftermath so outshines it. Anyhow it was a failure in the sleuthing way, so far as I know; I’ve yet to check with Polly, whose idea of subtle investigation is the Disarming Point-blank Question put by a Fetchingly Candid Elder Lady—a device that not infrequently works, and a rôle she so enjoys playing that it’s scarcely a rôle. I’d told her, more or less, about the photos and the blackmail threat, as about all our office business. She was of course enchanted. In her immediate opinion there were but two imaginable suspects: Reg Prinz if Jeannine in fact contested the will, A. B. Cook if she did not. Therefore we’d invited Cook to the party; but a secretarial voice from his home, over by Annapolis, RSVP’d us his regrets: he was presently out of the country. Polly promised to give me a chance to observe and talk to the guests myself before she took charge of the inquiry. She also informed me (this was in the office, just after Jane’s appointment) that I was in love.

Absurd, I said. But true, said she. By six everyone had arrived: Mensch (who’s to get the honorary doctorate declined by Cook), Jeannine and Prinz and the movie crowd, Drew and Yvonne, and, for filling and spacing, some Mack Enterprises folk and a few foundation trustees. A ship of fools, Drew declared, and disembarked early: yet he said it mildly, and when Polly asked him whether he’d expected me to invite a delegation of his friends to blow up the boat, he kissed her cheek and said one never knew. Later I heard her asking Prinz whether he’d ever dabbled in still photography—couldn’t catch his answer, if there was one—and later yet I saw her at the bar, deep in conversation with Jeannine, no doubt asking what her plans were regarding her father’s will. Finally, to my surprise, she went about the boat looking at her watch and declaring her astonishment that it was seven o’clock already. Most took the hint. The movie folk had another party to go to anyhow, at Robert Mitchum’s spread across the river; Germaine and Ambrose, too, plainly had other irons in the fire. The Mack Enterprises and T.F. people remembered their several dinner plans; not a few invited Jane, who however declined, and/or their host, ditto, and/or Polly, who responded to some one or another of them that she’d be pleased to join them shortly, as soon as the party was tidied up.

An odd thing had happened, Dad. From the moment that Lincoln appeared on Long Wharf and Jane issued forth in a handsome white pants suit, blue blouse, and red scarf, I was, as the kids say nowadays, “spaced.” I’d been truly curious to hear what Germaine had to say about Cook’s declining that degree; I wanted to try to talk to Drew about the demonstrations at Marshyhope and Abe Fortas’s resignation from the Supreme Court, as well as about Harrison’s will, and to Jeannine about the progress of the film. But I had the feeling, unfamiliar since 1917 or thereabouts, that if I opened my mouth something outrageous would come out. After that initial tour of the boat with Germaine, I scarcely moved from the afterdeck, merely greeting guests, seeing to their drinks, and smiling sappily, while that white pants suit and its tanned inhabitant moved ever before my eyes. Ah, Polly, Polly: yes, I am, and passing odd it is to be, daft in love in my seventieth year!

Again like an old-fashioned teenager, I’d scarcely talked to Jane all evening, only hovered on her margins as she chatted with all hands back by the taffrail. Now that everyone was gone but her and Polly, I busied myself settling up with the help, excited that Jane had lingered behind, wondering why, still almost afraid to speak, wishing Polly would leave, half hoping she wouldn’t. Jane’s chauffeur came expectantly pierwards. It was still only seven-thirty. Now the three of us were together on the afterdeck with our last gin and tonics, and it occurred to me that Polly had
walked
down from the office; I owed her a lift home.

Could we go sailing? Jane suddenly asks. What a good idea! cries dear Polly, utterly unsurprised. We’ve no crew, says I, rattled. Jane guesses merrily she hasn’t forgotten how to sail: don’t I remember their old knockabout from Todds Point days, that we used to sail out to Sharps Island in? You’re hardly dressed for sailing, I point out. Listen to the man, tisks Polly; the best-dressed skipper on Chesapeake Bay. I don’t believe he
wants
to take us sailing, pouts Jane. Never mind
us,
says Polly airily: I’ve got me a dinner date, and if you don’t mind I’ll borrow your chauffeur to take me there; it’ll knock their eyes out. She was welcome to him, Jane told her—unless I really was going to refuse to take her sailing. Jane, I said (seriously now), there’s hardly a breath blowing. Very brightly she replies, Maybe something will spring up as the sun goes down. She goes so far as to take my elbow: If not, we can drift on the tide, like the Floating Opera.