Point of No Return (48 page)

“Yes,” Mr. Rush answered, “that's what Alice and everyone keep saying.”

“Let it run its course,” Mr. Garvin said. “They're always crazy to do some damn fool thing that you don't approve of and as soon as you approve of it they forget it. Have him around to the house. Give him your whiskey and cigars.”

“They all smoke cigarettes,” Mr. Rush said.

“Just let her see you like him,” Mr. Garvin said, “and she'll be tired of him in two weeks.”

“But I don't like him.”

“Well, don't tell Ruthie so.”

Charles never knew what had happened to that boy of whom Ruth Rush had been fond but he understood then why Mr. Lovell had told Jessica to be sure to bring him home that night and why Mr. Lovell had asked him to drop in sometimes in the evening, in those few short weeks before he took Jessica abroad. It was, of course, before John Gray was at leisure and began taking the eight-two regularly to Boston and before the Grays bought the Cadillac and finally joined the Shore Club.

Everything had seemed possible that evening. Those minutes at Walters's drugstore had a reassuring quality that carried even into the wallpaper room. Charles no longer worried about the creases in his trousers when he sat beside Jessica on the sofa. The Chinese junks and the pagodas on the wall and the studied elegance of that English furniture had a homelike, welcoming quality, as though it were natural and proper for him to be there with Jessica. They talked for a while about those arid days when they had hardly known each other. He told her about Earl Wilkins and about the Thanksgiving Day football game with Smith's Common High. He asked her whether she remembered Sam. Jessica was the only person with whom he ever talked freely about Sam, except of course with May Mason. He must have told her about Sam's going to the war and that he still could not believe that Sam was dead. He surely must have told her what he had said to Mr. Howell and Mr. Stanley at Wright-Sherwin, because it was possible to tell her everything or almost everything. He must have laid his whole life, such as it was, before Jessica Lovell in a magnificent, prodigal gesture and Jessica did the same.

There was nothing more lonely than being an only child, Jessica said, particularly in a place like Clyde. She always knew she belonged there without any sense of belonging, if you could understand what she meant. If she had been a boy she would have belonged more to it, because she could have moved about. She could have gone everywhere, as Charles had. Her father had often said that he would have sent her to school in Clyde, at least for a year or two, if she had been a boy, because the Lovells belonged to Clyde and they had always played a part in it. His own father, Grandfather Lovell, had sent him to school there for two or three years and he valued that experience more than any other. He was always saying that it had taught him to get on with all sorts of people, though Jessica had never seen this side of him. He often said that he was disturbed at how the school system had changed. It was run now by politicians and so many foreigners had entered Clyde that there was not the background of good Yankee stock in the schools that he had known. He had never wanted Jessica to learn the habits of some girls, particularly foreign girls, at grammar school. Though girls from nice families went there, from all sorts of solid, self-respecting Yankee families, they usually ended by speaking ungrammatically in high, nasal voices.

It was not that he was snobbish in the least. If her mother had lived, instead of dying so suddenly when Jessica was six, her father might not have wanted her to be so perfect. As it was, there had been a governess for her until she went to school in Boston and she never belonged anywhere at all. She used to watch the children, sometimes, going along Johnson Street to school. She used to see them at her birthday parties. (She was sure she did not know why Charles had never been asked to her birthdays, because Jackie Mason had been.) They used to play together sometimes but she never really knew them and no one, or hardly anyone, in Boston knew about Clyde. Her father always brought her home for week ends when she was at school in Boston. He never wanted to be away from her too long, after her mother died. He had always given up so much for her. It was the same way at Westover and Vassar. He was often at Poughkeepsie for week ends and they were always together at vacation time.

“I sound like Emily Dickinson,” she said.

She did not mean that she had not seen other men but there had always been something, something. It was just as though she had been asleep, or almost asleep, until that day at the firemen's muster.

“I don't know why it happened then,” she said. “I don't see why you liked me.”

“I guess it was your red hat and your hair,” he told her. “I don't exactly know how it was. You seemed to be looking for someone and there wasn't anybody else there but me.”

“I wasn't looking for you,” she said. “I was looking for Malcolm Bryant.”

“No, you weren't,” he said. “You were really looking for me. It couldn't have been anyone else, and you couldn't have been anyone else. And there's another thing.”

“What other thing?”

He found himself staring at the molding of the room, thinking of the time it had taken to saw and chisel its intricate design. There was just the faintest irregularity, something a machine could never duplicate.

“It wouldn't have happened if we'd known each other too well.” And then he thought of Malcolm Bryant and he began to laugh.

“What are you laughing about?” she asked.

“About that chart of Malcolm Bryant's,” he said. “It wouldn't have happened if we had both been upper-uppers. You'd have seen too much of me and we wouldn't have had anything to wonder about.”

They were sitting together on the sofa so close that her hair brushed his cheek, but she moved closer to him.

“Darling,” she said, “you don't really think that way about me, do you? It's so damned silly. You don't really?”

“Not right now,” he said, “or I wouldn't have told you.”

“Darling,” she whispered, “don't let anyone ever put us on a chart”; and then she drew away from him because Mr. Lovell was calling from the top of the stairs.

“Oh, Jessie.”

At least they did not spring guiltily apart; her hand was still on his shoulder when she answered.

“Yes, Father.”

“Is Charles there?”

“Yes, Father.”

Her hand dropped noiselessly from his shoulder and rested on his hand.

“You'll excuse me for not coming down, won't you, Charles?” Mr. Lovell called. “What was the name of the picture you went to see?”

“It was
Laugh, Clown, Laugh,
” Charles called back.

“Well, Jessie,” Mr. Lovell said, “when Charles goes, don't forget to put out the lights.”

There was no need to read the news notes in the Clyde Herald to find out what had happened to anyone in Clyde. The news notes dealt with engagement showers, illnesses, and the trips of citizens to visit close relatives, but the more vital matters never appeared on the printed page. These were retailed by word of mouth with bewildering speed, edited and exaggerated, cut and lengthened. This interest in other people's business was unmalicious in Clyde compared with what went on in any large office, for people in Clyde usually wanted to know about each other simply because there was human consolation in others' misfortunes, and at worst a mild envy in others' small successes, Charles had only told Jack Mason the whole story of his interviews with Mr. Howell and Mr. Stanley because Jack was his best friend and also because he wanted Jack to know that they were looking for someone to run the accounting department eventually. Jack had declared that he would say nothing about it, and Charles was sure that Jack had not, because they were friends and because Jack wanted a chance at that job himself; but in two days people were stopping Charles on the street to say they had heard he had left Wright-Sherwin and that it was fine that he had such a nice job in Boston.

Still, no one except Jackie Mason ever brought up with Charles his trip with Jessica to the movies. Actually all that Jackie ever said was that if
he
had invited Jessica Lovell to the movies he would certainly not have taken her to Walters's drugstore afterwards. He would have been afraid that she would have thought it was cheap of him or that he was trying to show her off. It would have been better to have taken her to the Sweet Shoppe on Dock Street. It was quieter at the Sweet Shoppe and the booths were more comfortable.

“You ought to think about those things,” Jackie said, “when you take someone like Jessica Lovell anywhere. Somebody around here always sees everything you do.”

He wanted to ask Jackie what someone had seen him do, but he did not want to talk about Jessica.

“I don't care what anybody sees,” he said.

“But you ought to care,” Jackie told him, and he looked very worried. “Now I never asked Jessica to the movies myself, Charley. I thought of it, but I knew how it would have looked. You know, I've been to call on Jessica sometimes, and you know what people began to say.”

“What did they say?” Charles asked.

“Oh”—a faint touch of color came into Jackie's face—“you know. How is it up there? That sort of thing. Of course, it isn't the same with you, Charley, as it is with me. They wouldn't say just that about you, but you know how people talk.”

All he had to do was to ask another question to learn what they were saying and it might have been better if he had, but the worries of Jack Mason were too like an exaggeration of some of his own worries for him to be comfortable with them. Besides, he had other things to worry about that May.

His Uncle Gerald Marchby had said as recently as the beginning of May that there was no reason to be concerned about his Aunt Jane. Dr. Marchby had been practicing medicine in Clyde for years, as his father had before him and as his son Jerry, who was now in the Harvard Medical School, might very well do after him, and Dr. Marchby had seen a lot of people live and die. There was no reason to feel that his uncle was wrong when he said that the Gray heart was only a cardiac condition common in older people and not serious in itself. At some time or other, he had entered the sickroom of nearly every house in Clyde, carrying his black bag with him and dealing imperturbably with shocking sights and sounds. That experience had given him the patient, inscrutable look which sets doctors apart from other people. There was no way to tell how much Gerald Marchby knew. You had to put your trust in inscrutability, but Charles as a layman could see that his Aunt Jane was not as well as she had been six months before. Still, Gerald Marchby only said not to worry, that Jane was in fair physical condition, that it was good for her to lose a little weight, and that everyone looked peaked after a hard winter. She liked attention, that was all. If she talked about making her will, so did a lot of other people after they reached a certain age. If she wanted her bed moved downstairs into the parlor and it made her feel easier, why let her. You only had to remember that people acted in certain ways when they got to be a certain age. They loved medicine and they loved attention.

Yet in spite of this reassurance when Charles called on her the Sunday before he started to work at E. P. Rush & Company he was disturbed by the thinness of her hands and by her general frailty.

“Charley,” she said, as soon as he had kissed her, “are you going to remember those letters in the right-hand drawer of the desk or had I better burn them now?”

Of late she had often brought up the subject of letters and once he had asked her what was in them and she had told him they were just old letters. She wanted them burned because she did not want parts of herself drifting around after she was gone. She wanted to go, when she was gone, and not have the family prying into everything.

“Why, no, Aunt Jane,” he said, “I wouldn't burn them now,” and then she began again about the silver.

“I wish I could get the silver settled once and for all. I had Mary bring it in here this morning and here's the list.” It seemed to him that her hand shook more than usual when she picked up the list. “I can't ever seem to get it settled because everything keeps changing.”

“Why don't you just leave it?” Charles said. “Everything can't be exactly right.”

“I don't know why everything shouldn't be,” she answered. “Everything used to be. Now, Charley, come closer.” He moved his chair next to hers and took her hand. “Now, tell me once and for all, is Dorothea going to marry that Elbridge Sterne or isn't she?”

“I guess she is, but you know Dorothea, she never talks,” Charles said.

“I don't see why she can't make up her mind,” she said. “Do you want that teapot, Charley?”

“Dorothea ought to have it,” Charles said, “even if she doesn't marry Elbridge Sterne.”

“You can have it if you want it, and Dorothea can have the spoons.”

“Don't worry about it,” Charles said. “Dorothea's used to the idea of getting the teapot.”

She sighed and put down the silver list.

“It's a Burt teapot.… Charles.” She was sitting very straight in her stiff-backed chair with her head half turned toward him. “Are you attentive to Jessica Lovell or aren't you?”

The word “attentive” as she spoke it had a delicate, half archaic sound.

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose I'm attentive.”

“Well,” she said, “I'm glad that someone tells me something.… Charles?”

“Yes,” he said.

“It isn't anything to be excited about. I'm not excited at all. I hope she is a nice girl, but there's no reason to be excited. Charles.” And she picked up the silver list from the table.

“Aunt Jane,” he said, “don't bother about the silver.”

“I'm not bothering about anything,” she answered. “I wish you'd go to the kitchen and call Mary. She never brings my medicine on time. And then you can read to me if you want to.”