The Callender Papers (7 page)

I lifted my eyes to his, to tell him how wrong he was, but he raised his hand to silence me. “No, that's not my guess, now that I see it would be wrong. Something more sensible, Charlotte, or Jane. No, Jean. Yes, I
like
that. Here is my formal guess—Jean. Now you can tell me, what is your name?
Is
it Jean? Or any variation of that? You've got to give me a little leeway.”

It was astounding. I could only nod my head.

He lifted his face to the trees and crowed with delight. “I told you I was good at it, didn't I? Now you believe me. You thought I was being foolish, but I wasn't, was I? Of course, I wouldn't know your last name.”

“Wainwright.”

“How do you do Miss Wainwright? But I may call you Jean, mayn't I? After all, I just named you myself.”

“But how do you do it?” I asked.

“Ah—that is a secret. What would you have guessed for me? Not Enoch, of course, that's much too sharp and hard, much too stern and Biblical. I'm named after my grandfather—something of a rogue, whom the name Enoch suited as little as it does for me. If you were guessing, what would you name me?”

“I need to think carefully about that,” I answered. This was not true. I knew immediately I would have named him something strong and handsome, like Lancelot, or perhaps mischievous, like Robin, after Robin Goodfellow.

“You're right,” he agreed, as we passed on through the silent woods. “It does take careful thought. I do wish my father had been a man given to careful thought. I like that phrase. Careful thought. Most things do become clearer with its aid. More clear than people think,” he said. “However, I'm wandering off the subject. I do wander, I must warn you. Shall I tell you all about myself? Or would you rather be the first to tell? Since we're going to be friends.”

“You,” I said. He could not possibly be interested in me.

“I am old Dan's brother-in-law. Mr. Thiel, that is. One must speak respectfully of one's relatives. More precisely, I was his brother-in-law. My sister Irene was his wife. She has been dead these ten years.” When he spoke of his sister, his voice had no laughter, and his eyes grew serious. “Irene raised me because my mother died bringing me into the world. I often wonder what it would have been like to have had a mother; a mother is a terrible thing to miss. A child who has no mother I think deserves all the sympathy people have to give. Irene spoiled me, everyone said so, and I have to agree with them. It was wonderful. Here I am thirty-eight years old. I don't look it, do I? A gilded youth, that's what I look like. I have no occupation and am what in better days, in more elegant times, would have been called a gentleman. I have three children. Joseph is seventeen, and is perhaps too much like me. Victoria is fifteen and growing into quite a beauty. She should do well for herself, if we could just get her out of this village and into a respectable society. Then there is Benjamin, who at fourteen may be anything. I haven't insulted your age, have I? How old are you?”

“Twelve,” I said. “Thirteen in the fall.”

“I'd have guessed that,” he said. “Now you know all about me, you must tell me about yourself.”

“I live with my Aunt Constance, who was, I believe, a friend of your sister's.”

He thought about that. “I've never heard of her. Of course, Irene had any number of friends about whom I knew nothing. For several years, we lived very separate lives, when I was away at school, and then after I married. Irene did have secret leanings toward the suffragettes. Could your aunt be one of those?”

“Of course,” I said. “Aunt Constance says it is utterly unreasonable to deny women the vote; if you think carefully about it, you must see that women are as able as men. The major difference is—of course—education. She thinks women should be as educated as men. She has her own school in Cambridge. That is how I come to be here. Mr. Thiel is on the Board of Governors of the Academy.”

“Is he now?” Mr. Callender said, as if that surprised him. “What about your parents?”

“I know nothing about them.”

“But surely your aunt must have told you something.”

“No, nothing.”

“Don't you find that strange? If you are the child of her sister or brother, she should want to talk to you of your family. Unless of course—” he glanced
quickly at me and stopped speaking. His meaning was clear.

“She will tell me when it is right for me to know,” I said. But he had inserted a tiny grain of doubt. Why hadn't she told me? Was she keeping me in ignorance of some shameful secret?

“Ah, well, that may make a difference, of course. There are so many curious things that happen in the world, aren't there? At least you seem to trust your Aunt Constance, which speaks well of her.”

“Yes of course.”

“And where do you live?”

“In Cambridge, near Boston,” I repeated.

“You're a city child then? I was myself and it's a rare privilege, don't you agree? My city was New York. Do you know New York?”

I did not.

“I was born there and lived all my life there until my father moved us up here. Have you read about that yet in those papers you are trudging through?”

“I have noticed that he didn't approve of the munitions factory.”

“He didn't approve of much, my father. He didn't approve of the munitions factory, he didn't approve of the war, he didn't approve of the way his own father
kept him out of the army. The old man paid one of his employees three hundred dollars to enlist in place of my father. It was perfectly legal, and generous compared to what other men were getting for the same job. But my father didn't approve. My father also didn't approve of gambling, drinking, swearing, of eating too well or sleeping too much. He didn't approve of pleasure. I have always suspected that he didn't approve of life.”

I giggled.

“But then my father didn't know much about life. At the first honest blow old lady life handed him, he died. His heart just refused to beat under the circumstances. Almost as if he said to himself, ‘If this is what it is, I will have nothing to do with it.' ”

“What happened?” I asked, bold again.

“My sister died, under curious circumstances. Actually, she died after he did, but it was clear she would go. It's a pity she didn't die first, it made a terrible muddle. However, die she did, and although it was unpleasant, we have all come through it, because Callenders, true Callenders, survive. You'll notice that in those papers. And Dan Thiel has made quite a good thing out of it.”

We walked a ways in silence. The river ran beside us, going in the opposite direction. As we went uphill,
great boulders began to appear, as if they had forced their way up through concealing earth, like the earths secrets forcing their way into daylight.

“How do you and Dan Thiel get on then?” Mr. Callender asked after a while.

“Satisfactorily.”

Mr. Callender threw back his head and laughed. “And I know what that means. It means he goes out to his shed and paints, while you rustle through dusty papers.”

There was enough truth in that not to be contradicted.

“You are a diplomat, Miss Jean Wainwright,” Mr. Callender said. “Will you wait for my son Joseph and marry him and make a good man of him? He needs a cautious head beside his own. Will you propose yourself to save him?”

“I would not be a good match,” I said.

“There is that,” Mr. Callender agreed, “because an heiress would solve many of our problems. But the native habitat of heiresses is not such places as Marlborough, is it? No, it's the cities.” He spread his arms out as if to encompass an invisible world. “I do
miss
the city. The variety most of all, it's like—there's nothing like it, is there?”

He told me of the New York he remembered from his childhood, as we walked on up the hill toward the house. He could describe the seaport of New York so vividly that I almost saw it: the tall-masted ships, the sailors of different origins and colors. The sense of the whole world, gathered together in one place, the variety of it, the movement, the color. He spoke of New York as one familiar with all of its aspects.

“I was lucky to live so many years there. I'll try to look on the bright side. No reason not to is there? I had many happy years there. Father didn't dare sell the factory until Grandfather was safely dead. Father was a good businessman, surprisingly enough; at least he made money. But as soon as the old man died he closed the factory down. It seems that Father had the ability to be a successful businessman but not the courage. Don't you think?”

I wouldn't have known, and said so.

“I won't complain. It's a sizable fortune he left, although it's a Gordian knot at this point. Someday—” he said. He did not finish the sentence. “And what will you do with your life, Jean?”

I told him of my plans to further my education and then become, myself, an educator. He admired them, he said.

These conversations took us to his own house, where nobody stirred behind the white curtains on the windows to see us as we walked by at the foot of the lawn. “It's the second best, of course,” he said, “but comfortable enough for us.” We went on up to the waterfall. I was sorry we had come to the end of our walk.

“Now,” Mr. Callender said, with an air of mystery, like a magician about to perform some sleight-of-hand, “I am going to show you something only known to one living person. Myself. It was a secret between Irene and me. I must tell you about Irene someday. You've got a gift for listening, you must know that.”

He reached high up into an old beech tree and pulled down a long gray board. “Did you ever see anything like this?” he asked.

“It looks like a jumping board,” I said. “We have one in our garden. The little girls bounce on it.”

“You can do that with this too,” Mr. Callender said. He lifted it over his head and, standing close to the edge of the ravine, let it fall to the other side. “We used it for a bridge, Irene and I. Mr. Thiel was not one of my most ardent admirers, shall we say? So Irene and I met secretly sometimes. I enjoyed the game, as I
enjoy all games. It will make a handy bridge for you, won't it?”

The board was narrow. The falls, beneath it now, looked dangerous.

“I'll steady it with my weight on this side,” Mr. Callender said. He stood on the end of the board, near the edge of the ravine. “It's secure now. Here, you steady it and I'll cross. It's not nearly as hazardous as it looks.”

I stood on the end. He walked out to the middle, surefooted as a cat. At the center, where the drop was long enough to require extra caution, he began to bounce gently, his arms outstretched for balance. The board under my feet responded. “Isn't that dangerous?” I called.

He turned around and walked back to where I stood, his eyes mischievous. “Life is dangerous. How tedious life would be without some danger to wake us up. I wouldn't have taken you for a coward,” he said.

Of course, at that I had to walk across boldly, as if my heart were not in my throat, as if I were not frightened of falling off the narrow board into the water below, which foamed around boulders beneath me. It was with relief that I stepped off onto the other side; I disguised it as best I could.

Mr. Callender drew the board back and replace it in the same tree. “Will you come dine with us on a Sunday?” he called.

“I would like that,” I called back.

“That's good, because I know someone who won't.” Mr. Callender grinned. “Until we meet again, Jean Wainwright.” He raised his hat to me.

I waved and made my way across the glade. Mr. Callender became quickly invisible among the trees opposite, and even though I listened well I could hear no sound of his footsteps. I was recalling to myself our long walk and the conversation, when an unbidden memory came to my mind: this man, whom I had been so easily making friends with, was responsible for sending Mrs. Bywall to prison.

The idea was unpleasant to me. I determined to find out more about what had happened. I knew little about either of the people concerned, except that of the two, Mr. Callender seemed more frank, less secretive.

As I was returning to the house, trying to recall a turn of phrase Mr. Callender used, trying to determine what it was about him that made him so easy to converse with, I met with Mr. Thiel walking back from some pasture; burly and strong he looked, like a countryman not a painter. His boots were coated with mud, his hair matted with sweat.

“Look at you,” he said. I could have said the same to him but refrained. His presence cast shadows over my mood, but I would not let that dominate my spirits. “Mrs. Bywall made the dress for me.” I thought he might remark on the alteration in my appearance, but he chose not to. He waited without speaking for me to catch up with him.

“I've just come from her father's house. They farm this property for me, her parents and the two brothers.”

“I didn't know that.”

“It looks to be a good year,” he went on. “The corn is coming up nicely. I hear you've been to the village this afternoon.”

“How did you know that?”

“Young McWilliams told me.”

“It would be hard to keep a secret around here,” I observed.

He thought about that. “Some secrets seem impossible to keep. Others, no. I told Mac to come calling tomorrow. It's going to rain. I advised him to bring his Latin book.”

I was silent.

“You're not going to get angry at me again, are you? You have no cause.”

I supposed he was right. I had, after all, told him I wanted to know Mac. “No. I did see him in the village but we didn't speak.” Apparently, though, he had come running up to find Mr. Thiel, when it had looked to me as if he were settling in to fish all afternoon. I didn't care for that at all. “How do you know it will rain?” I asked, to change the subject.