Ceremony of the Innocent (63 page)

“No. Women were,” said Francis. Charles shrugged, dismissing the remark.

“We are not too optimistic about permanent prosperity,” said Charles. “So we are being cautious. There has been no need to dip into the capital for Ellen and her children. The trust funds for Christian and Gabrielle remain intact; we are adding to them with any surplus income. No one can touch those funds, as you know. No one. Has Ellen suggested to you that she would like more income?”

“She knows nothing about money,” said Francis with some bitterness. “But I am her husband, and I do have some rights, you know. I have the right to protest the amount of her income. When Jeremy’s parents died two years ago they left their grandchildren a very handsome estate, though they left Ellen nothing at all. I think that most unfair. Considering that estate, I think Ellen’s income should be much increased.”

Charles played with a pen and tapped it on his desk. “There is no way at all to do that,” he said. “You’re a lawyer, Francis. The children’s estate, from their grandparents, is untouchable, according to their wills. They inherit the capital when they both reach twenty-one. In the meantime the estate is growing, though much of it is invested in what I consider dubious stock. Well.”

He studied Francis keenly. Once Jeremy had mentioned Thoreau to the effect that reformers had a secret “ailment.” He had said, to Charles, that it was very possible that Francis’ “ailment” had been too strong and sensible a father, too dominant a father. Charles, watching the dangerous scarlet stain on Francis’ thin cheekbones, suddenly doubted it; yet he did not know the answer either. It was impossible for him to guess that Francis did indeed have an “ailment,” and that soul-illness arose from the fact that no one had ever really loved him in the way he had subconsciously craved, a love that asked nothing and understood everything, and gave with tenderness. Walter had loved his son, though not in the manner so desperately needed by that son, and so, in despair, Francis had come to hate his father and desire vengeance on him and all that he was and all that he represented. Francis never consciously suspected that he hated his father; that would have done violence to his rigid principles.

But something moved in Charles, in spite of his dislike of Francis and his exasperation. It was pity. Here was a very rich man who lusted after his wife’s fortune, a man who spent very little on luxuries and was extremely penurious. He was living on Ellen’s income almost entirely, though he had not as yet persuaded her to sell the house on Long Island, which Jeremy had purchased and loved. He saved all he could from his own law practice—he had not been reelected the last time to Congress, a fact which he blamed on “the bourgeoisie who think of nothing but their purses.” To many of Jeremy’s old friends, Francis seemed detestable. Yet, Charles pitied him and did not know why.

He said, “I’m sorry, Francis, that Harvard did not accept Christian. But you listened to him when he insisted he couldn’t stand Groton any longer, and you allowed him to enter a cheap, second-rate day school in New York Your reasons are your own business. Still, had he been forced to continue at Groton he might have passed the entrance examinations to Harvard. Now I understand, from Ellen, that the best you can do for him is to get him accepted at City College, and even that will be a struggle. Too bad. He’s a very intelligent young man, exceptionally intelligent, though lazy. He couldn’t tolerate the discipline at Groton, either. It’s very unfortunate. He seems to lack ambition, too, though I’ve heard he is very keen about money.”

“He’s not a brute. He’s not grossly competitive! He’s not materialistic like most young men of his age. I resent your implication that Christian is greedy, Charles. He has a sense of responsibility towards his fellow man; he wants to help. We have long talks about this, when we are alone. He is naturally humanitarian!”

Charles saw the indignant scarlet increasing on Francis’ agitated face. Good God, he thought. Christian a humanitarian! So is a crocodile. Charles was amazed that even one such as Francis could be so naive, so unperceptive. But men like Francis were adepts at deceiving themselves, if it served some hidden reason, some aching illness in themselves.

“Ellen understands,” Francis continued, and his pince-nez glittered in the brilliant light of the day. “She is very happy that Christian has become so earnest concerning the necessary reforms we must have in our unjust society in America. She contributes lavishly to the many charities, and causes, I have been recommending to her. She is on many boards.”

“Yes. I know,” said Charles. He did not add: But it is her money, not yours, which you are using for your pet treasons against your country, the dangerous ideas, the malignant plots. And you aren’t even aware of what they really are, you poor miserable wretch! Charles’ light-gray eyes gleamed with quick temper.

He said, “Well, Gabrielle is doing very well at her finishing school in Connecticut, so we have no complaints there.” But Francis obdurately came back to the initial subject.

“I have thought that perhaps it would be possible for Ellen to draw on the capital of Jeremy’s estate for the purpose of contributing to worthwhile causes in this country. I think that would be possible under the terms of the estate—a necessary—shall we call it—expense?”

Charles was angry again. “‘Expense’? The will says ‘if necessary.’ That means,” he added with an elaborately patient emphasis, “if she needs anything more for necessities for herself or her children. There is quite a difference between ‘expense’ and ‘necessity,’ as you doubtless know yourself.”

“But, if it is her desire—If she gives from her present income, and then needs further income because her available funds have run short for necessities—”

“That,” said Charles very calmly, “would be a little chicanery, wouldn’t it, Francis?”

Francis sat up stiffly. “I do not see it in that light, Charles.”

“Let me tell you something, Francis. Ellen’s income is for her support. If she gives to ‘charity,’ let us call it with some kindness, it must come from her very adequate income, and not from the capital. Only in the case of a dire emergency, a prolonged illness or a period of wild inflation, could her funds be increased. I see none of these on the immediate horizon.”

He deliberately glanced at his watch. Then he said, with some formality, “I haven’t seen Ellen since you both returned from your tour of Europe. I hope you both enjoyed it. The last time Ellen had been there was with Jeremy, before the war broke out. How is she?”

“Somewhat disappointed that due to our breaking off relations with Russia we could not visit that fascinating country.” Francis’ pale eyes challenged Charles.

“Oh. You mean the Soviets. Well, I visited Russia before the war, when she was a comparatively free and civilized country, and well on the way to becoming a constitutional monarchy. I doubt Ellen would have been pleased to see the horror of that unfortunate country at the present time. She is entirely too sensitive to be happy in the company of assassins, murderers, slave masters, and bloody tyrants. I think that country would now turn the stomach of a stone alligator. Now, you really must excuse me, Francis. I must be in court in half an hour.”

Francis had turned very white and had become still. He stood up. He looked down at Charles, who rudely did not rise. Francis said, “You don’t know what you are talking about, Charles. You read too many of our excitable newspapers and vehement magazines and books, concerning Russia, and you listen to too many of our reactionary politicians, who have their own reasons for screeching lies.”

“And what do you read?” said Charles, his eyes like the points of polished steel. “And how is it smuggled into America? And by whom?”

But Francis turned away and left the office and Charles sat there alone for several moments, his hands clenched on his desk.

He told his wife, Maude, that night, of this conversation with Francis Porter. She listened in silence, without comment. Then she said, “I am worried about Ellen. I haven’t seen her since June, and neither have the majority of her friends, except for that execrable Kitty Wilder, who seems always to be in that house, according to rumor. But I have heard that she appears to be unusually subdued, even pathetic. Ellen never was assertive; I hear she is now too silent, too unsmiling, and rarely has a dinner party or goes to one. I have called a few times; she was ‘not at home.’ You know we have invited her and that man on several occasions to have dinner with us, or go to the opera with us, and she has invariably refused, with some dismal excuse. They have not invited us to their house for well over a year.”

“I doubt that you’d enjoy the company of her new ‘friends,’ or rather, Francis’ friends. Oh, they’re impeccable socially and financially, but they are what we now call ‘parlor pinks.’ I’ve met a few of them. No, you wouldn’t enjoy their company, nor would I.”

“Is Ellen still on Long Island, alone?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I think,” said Maude with quiet resolution, “that I will pay a visit to her tomorrow. Without calling first. I have some friends in the village, so if Ellen refuses to see me I can always call on them for an hour or two.”

“I don’t want you to be treated with discourtesy, Maude.”

She widened her lovely dark eyes at him and smiled with tender amusement. “I never recognize discourtesy, Charles, for I am a lady. And Ellen has never been deliberately rude in her life. She, too, is a lady. I don’t mind coldness and a lack of welcome, but Ellen is always polite even if she dislikes someone. As she dislikes us, for some reason still unknown. I am anxious about her, deeply anxious. Perhaps there is some way I can help her.”

Ellen sat alone in the gardens behind the white house whose porches were filled with light and the sound of the sea. Here, in the gardens, it was more quiet; the strong hot wind agitated the dark pines, the maples, the birches, the elms, and the oaks, and blew their leaves against a brilliant sky. Ivy ran in green waves over the back of the house; the flower beds were almost hurtingly colorful in the radiance. Ellen sat in a wicker chair under an elm; she had been sewing some petit point for a purse. It lay idle on her knee now as she stared at the pines. She wore a pale-blue summer dress of lawn, embroidered, and with a wide lace collar, and blue slippers to match. She sat so still that she appeared not to breathe, or to be half asleep, for her lids drooped even as she gazed at the trees. She was past her mid-thirties now, yet she had retained a curious girlishness of figure. There were lines about her full mouth which had lost the bright color of her youth almost entirely, and her pale cheeks were almost flat, her eyes wreathed in fine wrinkles. Only her hair was alive, so wonderfully red and flaming, and the wind loosened tendrils of it over her smooth forehead and ears. Her daughter had often impatiently urged her to “bob” it, and be “modern,” but Ellen could be unexpectedly firm at times. “Your father would not like it,” she would say, faintly smiling.

She was not thinking in the full sense of the word as she sat under the tree, nor was she fully aware of where she was. In these past four years she had lived in a state of abeyance; she would acquiesce to almost anything suggested to her, not entirely out of her old anxiety to please but out of indifference. There was a look of chronic exhaustion about her, though she was never conscious of being tired or driven. She lived each day and went to bed each night with the thoughtless and mechanical motions of an animal, dressing, eating, bathing, visiting when politeness insisted, smiling when a smile was expected, speaking when spoken to in a subdued, gentle voice, but never offering an opinion of her own, never animated, never overtly interested, never stirred to quickness or dispute. She saw beauty but never felt it as once she did. It was as if she gazed at a painting, with appreciation for its loveliness but without passion or involvement. When she was with friends she felt as if she were watching a stranger, while she herself stood aside and listened, not very engaged in the conversation, and almost completely withdrawn.

She lived and had her physical being only on the surface. She would read books and never remember their contents. The world moved excitedly about her but she was apart from it. It had been three years since Francis had entered her bed or even her room. She had not denied him; it would never have occurred to her to do so. But Francis, intimidated by her lack of response, her distant gaze, her lifeless submission, her uninterest in him and what he did to her, had finally ceased his overtures, his demands. He became, as he had been before his marriage, totally impotent. He had not stopped loving his wife; he had loved her too long, too passionately, too despairingly, for that. But Ellen was now farther from him than she had been during her marriage to Jeremy. He would look at her yearningly, talk to her, and she would answer him pleasantly, and he would feel no desire for her body. It had been a year since he had even kissed her. After all, he would sometimes say to the loneliness and wordless longing in him, he was nearly fifty now and no longer young and desirous.

Still, often watching her in her silences, he would ask himself: Of what is she thinking? What does she want? He saw that she quickened when her children were present, but it was more a ripple than an actual animation. He knew that she loved her son and daughter; her voice would soften and her eyes brighten, if only slightly. Then she would relapse into a smiling distance as she listened to them. At these times Francis would tell himself that Ellen, too, was no longer young. She had reached the placidness of middle age, a good hostess, a good mother, an obedient wife, amiable and agreeable, ready to answer any need of her husband or her children. If she thought of the absence of her husband in her bed she showed no signs of it.

Of what is she thinking? Francis would ask himself. If he had asked her she would have looked at him with mild surprise and would have said, “Why, I’m thinking of nothing at all, really.” This is what she believed. It was her only defense against life.

Sometimes she would tell Francis that she was grateful for his care for her children, and his concern for them. Christian was more mannerly and dignified than in earlier years, Gabrielle not so mischievous and quick with a cutting tongue. Yet sometimes her numb indifference was struck into uneasiness at a gesture from Christian, a fast sidelong look from Gabrielle, as they talked with their stepfather. The children, from the earliest childhood, had been extremely engaged with each other; they lived in an impenetrable world of their own from which they excluded all others, though they were excellent company to their friends, of whom they had many, and were very alive among guests. She often wondered at this aliveness, which fascinated outsiders, though it did not fascinate their mother. They seemed greedy for experience and adventure, for living. Everything interested them. They were indifferent to nothing.