Theophilus North (47 page)

“Mrs. Venable
knows
this? Really knows it?”

“She confided it to my grandfather and to my Aunt Sally—to comfort them, I suppose.”

I strode up and down before her. “Why didn't she
confide
it to everybody—to her famous Tuesday ‘at homes'? . . . Oh, I hate the cliquishness and the timidity of your so-called privileged class. She hates unpleasantness. She hates to be associated with anything unpleasant, is that it?”

“Theophilus, I'm sorry I told you the whole story. Let's forget it. I'm under a cloud. There's nothing that can be done about it now. It's too late.”

“Oh, no, it's not. Where are the Michaelises now?”

“The Major's in a sanatorium in Chevy Chase. I suppose Mrs. Michaelis is in their home nearby in Maryland.”

“Persis, Mrs. Venable is a kind woman at heart, isn't she?”

“Oh, very.”

“Heaven knows she's influential and likes being influential. Can you explain to me why she hasn't used her kindness and her knowledge and her sense of justice to clear up this fog about you long ago?”

Persis did not answer at once. “You don't know Newport, Theophilus. You don't know what they call the ‘Old Guard' here. In those houses nothing disturbing, nothing unpleasant, may ever be mentioned. Even the grave illness or death of old friends can be alluded to only in a whisper and a pressure of the hand when saying goodbye.”

“Cotton wool. Cotton wool.—Someone told me that she invites the heart of the ‘Old Guard' to luncheon every Thursday. Some people call it ‘The Sanhedrin' or ‘The Druids' Circle'—is that so?—Are you in it?”

“Oh, I'm not old enough.”

I hurled an empty beer bottle into the sea. “Persis!”

“Yes?”

“We need an ambassador to persuade Mrs. Venable and ‘The Sanhedrin' that it's their responsibility and their Christian duty to tell
everybody
what undoubtedly happened on that ship. . . . They should do it for your
son's
sake.” She must often have thought of that for she clasped her hands tightly to conceal their trembling. “I think our ambassador should be a man—one for whom Mrs. Venable has a particular regard and who has the authority of an acknowledged social position. I have come to know the Baron Stams much better. He is a man of far solider character than you and your grandfather first believed, and let me assure you he hates injustice like the devil. For parts of two summers he has been Mrs. Venable's house guest. Have you observed that she has a real esteem and affection for him?”

She murmured, “Yes.”

“Moreover, he has a very real and deep admiration for you. Do you give me permission to tell him the whole story and to urge him to be this ambassador?—But you don't like him.”

“
Don't . . . don't
say that! Now you understand why I had to be so cold and impersonal. I was under a cloud. Don't talk about it. . . . Do—do what you think best.”

“He was leaving Newport today. He is staying over. He will have half an hour talk with Mrs. Venable tomorrow morning. You should hear him talk when he's on fire with a subject. It's late. I must ask you to drive me home. I'll drive as far as my door.”

I picked up the lap robe and held open the right front door of the car for her. The starlight fell on the face she turned toward me. She was smiling. She murmured, “I am not accustomed to the agitations of hope.” I drove slowly, taking neither the longest nor the shortest way home. A police car discreetly followed the great heiress into the town, then turned off.

Her shoulder rested against mine. She said, “Theophilus, I made you cross earlier this evening when I suggested a choice of presents from Grandfather and from myself as an expression of our appreciation. Will you explain that to me?”

“You mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, as this is to be a soothing little lecture I shall address you as Mrs. Tennyson. Let me explain, Mrs. Tennyson, that each of us is conditioned by our upbringing. I am a member of the middle class—in fact, of the middle of the middle classes—from the middle of the country. We are doctors, parsons, teachers, small-town newspaper editors, two-room lawyers. When I was a boy each house had a horse and buggy and our mothers were assisted in running the house by a ‘hired girl.' All the sons and many of the daughters went to college. In that world no one ever received—and, of course, never gave—elaborate presents. Such presents were obscurely felt to be humiliating—perhaps I should say, ridiculous. If a boy wanted a bicycle or a typewriter he earned the money for it by delivering the
Saturday Evening Post
from door to door or by cutting his neighbors' lawns. Our fathers paid for our education, but for those incidentals so necessary at college—such as a ‘tuxedo' or trips to dances at the girls' colleges—we worked during the summer on farms or waited on table at summer hotels.”

“Did nothing unpleasant ever happen in the middle classes?”

“Oh, yes. People are the same everywhere. But some environments are more stabilizing than others.”

“Are you telling me all this to explain to me why you were displeased about the present we wished to make you?”

“No.” I turned to her with a smile. “No. I'm thinking about your son Frederick.”

“Frederick?”

“In 1918 a woman who worked on Bellevue Avenue—and whom I think you know well—said to me, ‘Rich boys never really grow up—or seldom.' ”

“Oh, that's . . . superficial. That's not true.”

“Have you heard Bodo describe his home—his father and mother and sisters? Provincial nobility. Where the castle is part farmhouse—where the servants have stayed with them generation after generation. Now they take in paying guests. Everybody is busy all day. Austrian music and laughter in the evening. Mrs. Tennyson, what an environment for a fatherless boy!”

“Did he send you to tell me these things?”

“No—on the contrary. He told me he was leaving Newport in despair and that he would never again put foot on this island if he could help it.”

We had arrived at my door. I lifted my bicycle from the back seat. She walked around the car to take her place in the driver's seat. She put out her hand to me, saying, “Until that cloud of suspicion is lifted I have no word to say. Thank you for coming with me on this drive. Thank you for listening to my story. Is one permitted to exchange a friendly kiss in the middle class?”

“If no one is looking,” I said and kissed her slowly on the cheek. She returned it, as to Ohio born.

Presently I joined Bodo. He had not fallen asleep, but leaped from his car.

“Bodo, could you possibly stay in Newport until tomorrow noon?”

“I have already received permission.”

“Could you possibly have a private conversation with Mrs. Venable tomorrow morning?”

“We always have Viennese chocolate together at ten-thirty.”

I told him the whole story, and ended up with the job which was now on his shoulders. “Can you do that?”

“I've got to and, by God, I'll succeed—but, Theophilus, you idiot, we still don't know if Persis can love me.”

“I can vouch for it.”

“How? . . . How? . . . How?”

“Don't ask me! I
know
. And one thing more: You will be back in Newport on August twenty-ninth.”

“I can't.—Why? . . . What for? How do you know?”

“Your Chief will send you. And bring an engagement ring with you. You've found your Frau Baronin.”

“You're driving me crazy.”

“I'll write you. Get a good rest. Don't forget to say your prayers. I'm dog-tired. Good night.”

I walked back to my door. I had had an inspiration. Edweena would help me find the way.

Edweena

When in Tante Liselotte's room my eyes fell on Edweena and the tears rolled down my cheeks, my relief sprang not only from seeing a replacement; I was also seeing an old and loved friend. I
knew
Edweena—I had known her in 1918 as Toinette and as Mrs. Wills. During all the weeks at Mrs. Cranston's when she had been referred to so often—Henry's fiancée and Mrs. Cranston's “star boarder” in the garden apartment—she had never gone under any other name than Edweena. Yet I knew at once that my old friend must be the long-expected Edweena.

This is how I had come to know her:

In the fall of 1918 I was twenty-one years old, a soldier stationed at Fort Adams in Newport. On my advancement to the grade of corporal I was given a seven-day leave to return to my home to show my new-won stripe to my parents, to my sisters, and to the public. (My brother was overseas.) I returned to my station via New York and embarked on a boat of the Fall River Line for Newport. Old-timers still remember those boats with sighs of deep feeling. They offered all that one could imagine of luxury and romance. Most of the cabins opened on the deck by a door faced with wooden slats that could be shifted to temper the air. We had seen such accommodations in the motion-pictures. We could imagine that at any moment there would be a tap at the door, we would open it to confront a beautiful heavily veiled woman whispering imploringly, “Please let me in and hide me. I am being pursued.” Ah! We were traveling under blackout. Dim blue lights indicated the entrances to the interior of the vessel. I stayed up on deck for an hour, barely distinguishing the Statue of Liberty, the outlines of Long Island's coast, and perhaps the lofty joy-rides of Coney Island. All the while I was aware by a prickling down my spine that our progress was being observed through the periscopes of enemy submarines—baleful crocodiles below the surface of the water—yet knowing that we were not sufficiently important game to induce them to reveal their presence. Finally I entered the hull of the boat, which consisted of a vast brightly lit dining saloon, a bar, and a series of social rooms where all was carved wood, polished brass, and velvet drapery—the Arabian Nights. I went to the bar and ordered a Bevo. I noticed that other passengers were refreshing themselves from flasks carried in their hip pockets. (I was not then a drinking man unless opportunity arose, having solemnly taken the Pledge of life-long abstinence at the age of eight under the deeply moved eyes of my father and an official of the Temperance League in Madison, Wisconsin.) I sat down to dinner, hovered over by stately waiters in white coats and gloves. I denied myself the “Terrapin Baltimore” and ordered dishes from the less expensive items on the menu. The dinner cost me half a week's pay, but it was worth it. A soldier's pay was weightless. The government provided all his necessities; a portion was automatically deducted and sent to his loved ones; he was under the impression that the end of the War was, like his middle age, unimaginably remote. I had been told that the boat was completely filled. It would reach Fall River at about nine when passengers for Boston and the north would disembark. Those with tickets for Newport had to go ashore at six in the morning. I was in no hurry to go to bed and having finished my blueberry pie
à la mode
I returned to one of the many tables near the bar and ordered another near-beer.

At the table next to mine was an elegantly dressed couple quarreling. The chair of the woman was back to back with mine. At that time—to counteract the routine of my work at the Fort—I was assiduously keeping my Journal and was already composing an account of this trip in my mind. I have no compunction about overhearing conversations in public places and this one I could not fail to overhear without moving to another table.

The man may have been drinking, but his articulation was precise. I had the impression that he was “beside himself,” he was crazy. His wife, sitting very straight, was attempting to make her remarks both soothing and admonitory. She was at the end of her tether.

“You've been at the back of it all for years. You've been trying to put them against me the whole time.”

“Edgar!”

“All this talk about my having ulcers. I haven't got ulcers. You've been trying to poison me. You're in cahoots with the whole family.”

“Edgar! The few times I've seen your mother and brothers during the last three years have always been in your presence.”

“You
telephone
them. When I leave the house you telephone them by the hour.” Et cetera. “
You
got me blackballed at that damned club.”

“I don't know how a woman could do that.”

“You're sly. You could do anything.”

“You lost your temper at Mr. Cleveland himself. The vicepresident of the club—in front of everybody.—Please go to bed and get some rest. We have to get off this boat in seven hours. I'll sit here quietly for a while and slip into the cabin when you're asleep.” A woman had approached them. “You can go to bed, Toinette. I shan't need you until the ship whistles for landing.”

Apparently Toinette lingered. There was a shade of insistence in her voice. “I have some sewing to do, madam. The light is better here. I shall be sitting by the bandstand for an hour. I heard them say there might be some bad weather tonight. I shall be in Cabin 77, if you should need me.”