Sincerely, Willis Wayde (37 page)

“What?” he asked, and it was a lot more important than the Buick. Sylvia laughed in an embarrassed way.

“An enormous silver soup tureen, like a pyramid, and I don't know what we'll ever do with it.”

It did not matter what they did with it. It was very kind of Mr. and Mrs. Jacoby.

Getting married, Willis often thought, was like moving without any preparation into a foreign country about whose customs one knew nothing. From the moment he had stepped out of the Buick to the time Sylvia and he finally drove away in it from the wedding reception, he was a stranger in a strange land. Everything was on an entirely different basis from what it had been before, because the Hodgeses were trying to make him a member of the family, and even his father and mother were like strangers. They were all waiting for him in the house at Craigie Street, and he was surprised to have Mrs. Hodges kiss him. Then his mother kissed him, then Laura, and then Tom's wife, Mary, who told him they might as well get it over with now that he was going to be an in-law just like her. Sylvia wanted to see him alone for a minute and so did his mother, because he was her boy and she hadn't laid eyes on him for four years, and he hadn't seen his father yet. No one seemed to know what had happened to Alfred Wayde and Mr. Hodges. They had simply disappeared.

Mrs. Hodges wanted Willis to see the presents right away, but Tom said Willis had to go to the city hall to see about the license before the whole place closed.

“If he doesn't get to City Hall today, he won't get married on Wednesday,” Tom said.

This was plain fact, but Willis found that Sylvia was pulling him into Mr. Hodges's study.

“Willis,” Sylvia said, “what are you going to get married in?”

“In a church, aren't we?” Willis said. “At least that was the last idea.”

“I mean clothes,” Sylvia said, and Sylvia looked strained and nervous.

“Well, won't a dark suit do?” he asked.

“No,” Sylvia said. “Mother wants you and your father to wear cutaways.”

“That's the first I've heard of it,” Willis said. “Nobody wore them at Lake Sunapee.”

“It's just Mother, darling,” Sylvia said. “She's all worn out. You and your father will have to go and rent them, with silk hats.”

“Silk hats?” Willis repeated. “I don't know whether I can get my father to do it.”

“He's got to,” Sylvia said. “And, Willis, have you got the ring?”

“Gosh,” Willis said, “I forgot about the ring.”

“You forgot it?” Sylvia said, and her voice broke tragically. “I suppose getting married is more serious for a girl than it is for a man. Do you want to marry me or don't you?”

“Now, sweetness,” Willis said. “Of course I want to marry you, or I certainly wouldn't have bought the Buick.”

“Willis,” Sylvia said, “if you mention that Buick again, I'll scream—I really will. That Buick hasn't got anything to do with anything.”

“It's only sort of a symbol, dear,” he said, “sort of like the ring.”

“You come here to get married,” Sylvia said, “and all you think about is a motor car.”

He knew it was a time to be patient and understanding and that girls were apt to be upset at such a time, but the trouble was he did not know what he ought to understand.

“You haven't even asked to see the presents,” Sylvia said.

It certainly was a time to be gentle and understanding, and he supposed all girls were nervous, and he could not blame Sylvia, because he was growing nervous too.

“Now listen, honey,” he said. “What's all the trouble anyway?”

At any rate the question changed her mood.

“Oh, Willis, darling,” she said, “I know I'm impossible. I'm sorry, dear.”

“There, there,” Willis said, and he put his arm around her. “It'll be all right when this is over. What sort of a ring would you like, honey? I saw sort of a cute platinum one the other day with little orange blossoms carved on it.”

“Oh, God!” Sylvia said. “Why didn't you think of chromium?”

“Why, sweet,” Willis said, “why chromium?”

“Because it's all over that Buick,” Sylvia said, and she hid her head against his shoulder. He could not tell whether she was laughing or crying, but at any rate he began to laugh himself.

“I was just thinking of something striking, sweetness, that would go with the diamond,” he told her.

“Oh, Willis,” Sylvia said. “Just put your mind on a plain gold band. I'll go to Boston with you tomorrow.”

He was relieved to see that she was growing calmer.

“Willis,” she said, “have you done anything about the bouquet?”

“What bouquet, sweetness?” Willis asked.

“Oh, God!” Sylvia said. “The bunch of flowers the girl carries to the altar. The man is supposed to buy it.”

“Is he?” Willis said. “I didn't know that, honey, but just you leave it all to me.”

“Just don't tell anyone I had to tell you,” Sylvia said.

“Now, sweetness,” Willis said. “I'm sorry I'm so dumb, but I haven't been married very often.” It was a pretty good joke and he had to laugh at it. “Just you wait till you see the bouquet I'll get you. It will be solid orchids.”

“Oh, God!” Sylvia said. “Oh no, not orchids.”

He was glad that Tom interrupted them. If they didn't go for that marriage license they would never get it.

“And we'll take your car,” Tom said. “It's like a motor hearse. I'm dying to ride in it.”

It might not have been a very good joke but it did put things on a lighter level.

“Come on,” Tom said, “and you're coming too, Sylvia. Where did you get that suit, Willis?”

“Brooks Brothers,” Willis said. “What's the matter with it, Tom?”

“I'm only admiring it,” Tom said.

Sylvia turned on Tom sharply. There was no doubt she was very nervous.

“You'd better admire it,” Sylvia said, “and maybe if you stop being a friend of the Little People, you can afford one like it some day.”

There was so much happening that Willis could never get events into chronological succession. He was constantly smiling and chatting with friends and relatives of the Hodgeses' whom he did not know. Sylvia was always saying in amazed tones that she surely must have told him who they were. Although he took pride in sorting out names and faces, it actually took years and several christenings before he got the Hodgeses' connections straight.

So this was Willis Wayde, they were saying. They had heard so much about him that they were very glad finally to see him. Sylvia had always been a wonderful girl. In case he did not know it, he was very very lucky to have found a girl like that. He knew he was very lucky, he answered. They were going to live in Rahway, New Jersey. They had not found a house yet, but they would stay in his apartment in New York until they got settled. Yes, he kept saying, it would be great fun to go house-hunting and buy furniture and things. Yes, he and Sylvia would motor around New England for two weeks, but they had no definite idea just where they were going.

Even his parents treated him sometimes like a stranger. His mother was shy with him at first. She had been worried, she said, as any mother would be, when Willis had written her that he was engaged to a girl she did not know. It was wonderful to discover that Sylvia was just the daughter-in-law she had dreamed of having—a good, sweet, sensible, intelligent girl, whom she seemed to have known always. Her family were all lovely people, too, particularly Professor Hodges. She had never thought that a professor in a great university like Harvard would have such democratic manners or that she would understand nearly everything he said. She told Willis all this when they were finally alone in the hotel.

“You've grown up so, Willis, that I hardly know you,” she said. “Doesn't Willis look handsome, Alfred?”

“Yes,” Alfred Wayde said. “He's been polished off, all right. How about a touch of rye, Willis?”

“Now, Alfred,” Mrs. Wayde said, “I wish you'd ever been polished.”

“Anyway you're getting me into a monkey suit,” Alfred Wayde said, “just because Willis is getting married.”

He was referring of course to the cutaway he was going to rent. Ever since he had heard of it he had not been able to get it off his mind.

“Now don't keep complaining about it,” Mrs. Wayde said. “You know you're proud of Willis.”

“Why, yes,” Alfred Wayde said, “I'd like to see this Jacoby who's giving him fifteen grand a year.”

“Mr. Jacoby wouldn't have given it to Willis if he wasn't worth it,” Mrs. Wayde said, “and you know it, Alfred.”

“Sure I know it,” Alfred Wayde said, “and I'm proud to have a boy who can shake money out of anyone.” He stopped and looked at Willis in a way that made Willis move uneasily.

“I'm proud of you all right, son. Here you are, not thirty, with motor cars, golf sticks, everything. There's only one thing bothers me about you, son.”

“Well, tell me what it is,” Willis said. “A lot of things bother me about myself, as a matter of fact.”

Alfred Wayde filled a pipe and lighted it. He looked older and heavier than he had at the Harcourt Mill, and all his motions were more deliberate.

“Now, son,” he said, and his voice was warm and gentle, “I know you've got to get along like all the rest of us. Boys like you have to try to be something they're not in order to get ahead, and if you try hard enough, no doubt you'll be what you want to be. You're marrying a real nice girl. She's a little thin for my taste, but no doubt she'll flesh out. There's only one thing bothers me.”

He stopped and lighted his pipe again.

“Just don't get too smooth,” he said, “or you'll turn into a son of a bitch. A lot of people do before they know it, son.”

“Alfred,” Mrs. Wayde said, “you ought to be ashamed.”

“I'm sorry,” Alfred Wayde said, “I apologize if I offended you, son.”

“You didn't,” Willis said, “and I know what you mean, and you said it before to me once. Do you remember?”

“That's right,” Alfred Wayde said, “up at Harcourt. I didn't mean to be repeating myself. And the Harcourts sent you presents, didn't they? Old Mrs. Henry and the Brysons, and Bill and Bess. It was nice of them, considering.”

“Yes, sir,” Willis said, “it was very nice of them.”

“Well,” Alfred Wayde said, “I'm going to bed now. My feet hurt in these new shoes.” He pushed himself out of his chair, walked slowly across the hotel sitting room, and slapped Willis on the shoulder.

XVII

Willis always liked to think that Sylvia's and his honeymoon had been a very happy one, and certainly before it was completed they had learned a lot about each other in little ways. He had learned, for instance, that Sylvia liked to smoke a cigarette in bed before she went to sleep, a habit which always alarmed him, and that she left shoes and slippers on odd parts of the floor, which one had to be careful not to step on. In fact Willis had almost dislocated his toe on a sharp heel of one of Sylvia's mules the third night of their marriage, and Sylvia had told him that it was his fault because he had insisted on walking around barefoot. Sylvia on her side had learned that he did setting-up exercises for ten minutes every morning and never left the top off his toothpaste tube or his shaving cream. Things like this meant more than you thought, and a honeymoon was surely a period of learning both to give and forgive. He had never known, for instance, that Sylvia wore pajamas instead of nightgowns.

He had heard that the most important recipe for a happy honeymoon was complete physical comfort, and he was glad he had taken this point seriously in spite of what Sylvia had said about economy. He had the good sense not to worry about costs, since, as he told Sylvia, you only had a honeymoon once. He had not told Sylvia where they were going because he had wanted it to be a surprise, and as a matter of fact it had been, very definitely. All he would tell Sylvia was that he had reservations at a place in the Adirondack Mountains and that they would have to hurry through New Hampshire and Vermont in order to reach there on time.

The name of the place was Chieftain Manor, which Willis had once heard Mr. Beakney say was one of the finest rest and recreation hotels that he had ever seen, and Mr. Beakney certainly had been right. Willis had never been to a hotel like Chieftain Manor, and he often said sadly to Sylvia in later years that he wished they might go there now—which was unhappily impossible, because Chieftain Manor closed its doors shortly after Pearl Harbor, never to open them again. It lay back in the past now, as something unique to remember, something never to be spoiled by revisiting later when one's tastes were better formed by wider travel.

Chieftain Manor was gone, and heaven only knew what had finally happened to the immense shingled building or the eighteen-hole golf course, the indoor and outdoor swimming pools, the bungalows and service quarters, the mountain trails and boathouses. Had the hotel burned down, or was it the property now of some real-estate development with ranch-type houses and imitation log cabins, or had the forest that surrounded it rolled back over it again? Willis did not know, nor did he want to know. He preferred to think of it as it had been—as beautiful as a dream of wish fulfillment.

He could seem to see it in his memory just as he had when he drove up over its half mile of driveway with Sylvia beside him. He could remember the autumn sunlight, the gold of turning poplars against the deep green of fir trees. Perhaps the past had given his memories a romantic tinge, but his initial impression persisted that Chieftain Manor contained everything that anyone could need in order to achieve happiness. It certainly had tried to contain everything. Once you passed through its front portals that overlooked the putting green and croquet lawn, there were passages branching off in all directions to shops selling linen and lingerie and jewelry, sport shops, book shops, barber shops, and hairdressers, cigar stands, newsstands, conservatories, and a broker's office. As Willis once said facetiously to Sylvia after they had the ground plan of the main building more or less committed to memory, it must have been that no one coming to Chieftain Manor had decided what to wear until he got there. He was surprised that Sylvia had not appeared amused. Occasionally there were times when Sylvia had not been quite herself at the Chieftain. October was like July, what with the club bar, the golf professional, the card room, the billiard room, the ballroom and the Club Evangeline with its New York atmosphere, and the Turkish baths, and the indoor swimming pool so cozily heated.