The Incredible Charlie Carewe (2 page)

The room was full of the goings and comings of a lifetime. It had been hers and Elsie’s when there were nurses and governesses, when Doreen was an upstairs maid, and there was a couple in the kitchen. It had been hers to come back to from college after Elsie, the baby, married and moved to Los Angeles. It had been hers and Jeff’s and little Alma Bea’s in the summertime escapes from New York.

It had been the tense conference room when Charlie was in a jam and sought her out to intercede for him with Dad. Endless talks with Charlie’s always strange plea, “You’re a smart girl, Virgie, you can lie better than I can——” “Charles, even if I could, what good would it do? You flunked out, that’s all.”

“Just because I wasn’t there for the lousy exams—Fred was sick, I’ve
told
you—I had to be with my best friend when he needed me, didn’t I?”

“That was last week’s story, Charles. Spare me, please.”

“Well, Dad believed it—why can’t you use it?”

“Dad believed nothing of the kind. We let it ride because it was easier on Mum.”

“Easier on Mum! Mum’s got a chicken brain, and you know it——”

The pet name refused to come as Virginia, her temper rising, spoke sharply. “Beatrice Carewe had more than she could take from you, a long, long time ago. She knew it would kill her, to see her son turn into something she couldn’t fathom. She refuses to accept the fact that you are anything but her fine, handsome, charming little boy.”

“Well, I’m still that, you’ve got to admit!” And at that point Virginia would conclude the discussion in exasperation and Charlie would leave, grumbling that she and Dad were always carping at him, criticizing his way of doing things, when all he wanted was a little fun out of life.

And money would change hands, the press be hushed, an irate blowzy woman with a black eye pacified. The summer would pass with Charlie in the hands of a tutor, alternating between grumblings at confinement and a twinkling smugness at the ease with which he could cram the extra work. And yet another school would bow to the Carewe money and prepare for the entrance of Charlie, thoughtfully hopeful that its methods would bring out the best in the young man.

Walter Carewe had developed many “shoulds” in his life, most of which were reasonable and fine enough. He felt that he “should” always be understanding, sympathetic, and helpful. He felt that he “should” always be the perfect protector of his wife and children. He had worked to develop his “shoulds” but had failed to take notice of the impossible word “always.” In the atmosphere of his work as a corporation lawyer there was a safe emotional dryness, where work could be done and accomplished with a machinelike precision. Problems gave in to smooth, intellectual unraveling. Genuine standards, talent, education all worked for him to give him satisfaction and achievement. His mind and his heart were at peace and free in his work and in his working world. Also, he took pride in his lovely home, beautifully kept by his enchanting Beatrice, who graciously and happily bore him their three children.

Virginia, Charles, born a year apart, were vividly beautiful and pleasantly like him in appearance. Tall and dark children, they burned to blackness in the summer, with the sea and the sand and the adjoining Mercer’s woods for their playground. Elsie, two years younger, resembled Beatrice, in her blondeness and chubbiness, and was always the “no trouble” baby. She disdained the whoop-and-holler activities of her elder brother and sister, and preferred elaborate games of tea parties for her dolls on the lawn under one of the great oaks. It was she who went to dancing school with pleasure and poise and delight in her patent pumps and the swish of her dress, while Virginia and Charlie glowered in a corner and finally pressured their parents into giving up the whole idea. Of course Charlie’s more than mischievous tactics hastened their decision, because little girls were always running to Miss Andrews in tears and blushes with complaints of Charlie’s having said “a bad word” in their ears while dancing. And the live mouse that appeared regularly in the piano disappeared when the Carewe children didn’t come to class any more.

The time for fatherly lectures in the study began very early for Charlie. For Walter Carewe was proud of his fine-looking boy. Proud of his directness and his ability to admit with an unswerving gaze that he was wrong, that he was sorry, that he would “never do it again, I promise, Dad.” Always after these formal interviews Walter had a thrill of warmth for his boy, which soothed the troublesome annoyance that he didn’t seem to remember his promises the next day. “He’ll be all right, that boy. He’s just got a lot of spirit, but in time——”

In time, his “shoulds” would fall apart—his understanding would not always be complete, his sympathy would become a torture of anxiety, and his helpfulness exploited, with only the proper, empty words of gratitude.

One of Carewe’s “shoulds” often backfired. He felt that having one of the real solid fortunes in the country should always make him feel grateful. Wars and depressions might affect it, denting it or ballooning it at the periphery, but never coming near the point of affecting his or his family’s needs. But often he felt the lack of the incentive that his associates found, that galvanized them into effort; the striving for financial security. He was afraid of being tempted by laziness. In a world where “achievement” was synonymous with the amassing of money, property, influence, it was his sometimes difficult task to discard the semantics of his colleagues and look further, deeper within himself. He was rewarded with the sense of the human need to grow, the sense that growing in itself was life and that work was part of growth. But often he felt “left out” and apologetic when, on the golf course or over the usual nineteenth-hole drinks, there would be jubilant talk of the rise in the stock market, of Briggs’s success with a new bank merger, or the sound of pride in Anderson’s voice describing his wife’s pleasure in a new mink coat. He was often the target for good-natured envy and not so good-natured jealousy. And there would be a little-boy resentment at not having been allowed to “do it all by himself.” Then, at home in the citadel of his study, with the walls of books around him, the warmth of the snapping logs in the fireplace, with the fragrance of fine tobacco in his nostrils, he would look at the texture of the deep wine-colored carpeting, the lights on the fine woods and the leather of the furnishings, and the gratitude would come back, but with an uneasy feeling of unworthiness. Perhaps, alone, he never would have had all of this. Perhaps, alone and striving, he never would have been able to offer enough to possess his beloved Beatrice with her laughter like little bells, with the soft hands that seemed at home only when touching porcelain and silver, or nesting in filmy fabrics. And Virginia and Charles and Elsie, rushing to meet him in a tornado of “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” bowling him off balance with their bodies in a tangle of legs and arms. Perhaps he would just have been a duffer, as he was at golf. He, Walter Carewe, probably could never have made the grade without them.

Virginia was feeling gloomy and tense and older than her thirteen years as she waited for Charlie at their usual rendezvous on the beach. The tide had receded from the flat, round, table-sized rock, leaving three crescent-shaped pools of water in the center of its flat surface. In their shallow depths were bits of seaweed, pebbles, and sea anemone. Virginia poked a long brown toe to feel the soft tentacles of the anemone reach and curl about it, and to watch countless tiny fish flash away from the disturbance in a wink of an eye movement.

The children had named the area “Berry Pie.” On three sides of the stone were black walls of rock that supported the Point. From the beach they had decided that the serrated edges of the table made it resemble a giant pie in an oven; upon its surface the crescent pools were like the bubbling air holes that Cook made with the tip of her spoon. It was protected from the wind—a place to lie after a dip and dry out, and the walls had innumerable cuts and shelves where they could “keep things.”

Virginia wrung out the tail of her long black hair, braided it into a thick hunk, and secured it on top of her head with a bone barrette. Her stomach felt queasy as when she had swallowed too much sea water. Just the fact that Charlie was getting a talk from Dad in his study was not the only irritant in her mood. There was an unanswered question in her mind. For the first time in her life she felt on the wrong side of the fence. She felt that she had gone over to the enemy and that she had thrown in with the heretofore mysterious, hostile world of grownups. She and Charlie had been a unit, within their family unit. Dad and Mum were a unit. Elsie was another unit, like a small soft bud attached to the Mum and Dad unit. There was the also adult servant unit. The real world was the unit which contained herself and her brother. They swam and ran and played games, and had secret codes and words. No one could understand, when at the dinner table they would catch each other’s eye and be overcome with the giggles. Nor would they have been able to explain what particular word or sound or gesture had set it off.
They
understood, and something that would not have struck them funny alone was material for hysteria if they could share it.

To insure proper behavior in church they were usually separated by either one or both of their parents. Even so they had a difficult time maintaining their poise if a fly hovered over Mr. Ewing’s bald pate during the long sermon, or if they discovered a hat with too long a feather that trembled in the breeze, or with a shape which was incongruous to them. Their funny bones were sensitive. The serious face of their father, with an ever so slightly raised eyebrow, or their mother’s gently pursed lips, were usually sufficient to relax them back into boredom.

On one particular morning Virginia completely lost her sense of humor. It happened in a fraction of a moment. Just before one of the ushers reached them to pass the plate, Charlie had been looking at her, expressionlessly; as he caught her glance he dropped his eyes to his fist, opening and closing it too quickly for her to see. The children always made their own contributions of a coin from their weekly allowance, and the plate passed swiftly from Elsie’s dime, to Dad’s crisp bill, her own quarter, passing Mum, and Charlie dropped an unfolded bill. As the plate slid back, she saw that it was one of Elsie’s play-money five-dollar bills. Her father had also seen it, and quickly snatched it from the shallow basket, looking sharply at Charlie and slipping the paper into his coat pocket.

Virginia felt her heart throbbing in her throat in embarrassment. Always, she had understood Charlie’s and her own motives for foolishness, realizing the fact of their foolishness. It was the irresistible love of nonsense, like singsong words, or tearing up and down and falling over the sandy beach. Even nonsense that would make someone in the adult units angry was highly permissible, even though justly punishable. But this particular act suddenly and inexplicably transferred her into the adult unit. She reflected the quick astonishment on her father’s face. She looked at Charlie in a quick question, but he was unconcernedly scratching his nose.

There were a few bubbles in the pool on Berry Pie, where Virginia stirred her toes among the pebbles. There was one big bubble, and as a smaller one neared it, it snapped into and was made part of the larger bubble. She watched the process over and over, dreamily wondering why it seemed to have some connection with the sense of loss, an undefined feeling of disloyalty. She felt as though she had left her brother without saying good-by to him, and yet there was a conflicting feeling of having herself been betrayed. She was not used to these pressures and they were making her feel physically sick. She could not define them, and she wanted to be rid of them at all costs.

The sun dried her skin, sand had caked on her thin brown arms, and she brushed it off, irritably. She had decided to go back into the sea for another swim, when she saw Charlie loping toward her from the house. He had changed into his black knitted trunks, and hailing her with a “Hi! Come on, you!” tore full speed into the surf. Her feelings, her thoughts, and her queasiness disappeared in an instant, and she flashed after him, hitting the comb of the breaker into which he had disappeared. They pounded through the water barking like a couple of seals, then as she drew alongside of him they matched their strokes in a steady rhythm till they reached the anchored raft. Puffing and dripping and grunting, they clambered onto the hot dry surface, where they stretched out flat on their bellies with noises of mock exhaustion.

“Hey, you know sumpin’,” Charlie said, still breathing hard, “Lela promised Yorkshire with the roast beef tonight; I asked her, and she said it was too hot for such heavy stuff, and then I asked her again, and she said maybe——”

“
Charlie
——” Virginia stopped the flood. “What did Dad say—
please!
”

“Oh, nothin’!”

“What do you mean,
nothin’!
You were in there an hour, seemed like.”

“Nothin’, I tell you. He asked me why I put the fiver in, and I said I was getting too old to put just sissy coins in the plate.”

Virginia opened and closed her mouth with “Buts——”

“Buh! Buh! Buh!” Charlie imitated. “You sound like you’re blowing bubbles,” and he rolled on his back in a spasm of giggles.

“Listen to me, Charlie.” Virginia folded her arms and tightened her lips, and the fledgling body in the grown-up posture sent Charlie off into another gale. Virginia screamed, “You’re too old for sissy coins, but you’re not too old for Elsie’s play-money. You’re
nutty!
” Rolling off the platform, she beat the water in savage strokes, heading back for the beach.

The tide was beginning to finger the edges of Berry Pie as Virginia grabbed a towel from a rocky peg and started rubbing her soaking hair, muttering to herself, “I won’t speak to him for
three whole days
.” In the past, this magic formula had always worked whenever they were “mad” at each other. It was a nice peak of righteous indignation, from which either of them could graciously descend, usually in a matter of hours. The ceremony of absolvement was simple, because the punitive silence would interfere with some more important activity. “You sorry?” “Sure.” “Okay, let’s go!”