Theophilus North (41 page)

I continued to listen gravely.

“Mr. North, I would like to make a request of you. I ask this not as an employer, but as the suffering mother of a suffering child. Elspeth says she will consent to go to Boston ‘quietly,' if the operation is postponed for two weeks and if I can obtain your promise to visit her there twice.”

“Certainly, ma'am, if the doctor permits it.”

“Oh, thank you. I'm sure I can arrange it; I
must
arrange it. A car and chauffeur will be placed at your disposal on both days for your trip and return.”

“That will not be necessary. I can find my way to Boston and to the door of the hospital. Please write down the hours when I am to call, the length of the visit, and enclose a letter which I am to present to the office of admission at the hospital. I shall send you a bill for whatever expenses I may incur, including the cost of the engagements I must cancel here. I do not wish any remuneration except those basic expenses. I think such an interview would be easiest for us if your son Arthur were present at the same time.”

“Yes, you can be sure of that.”

“Mrs. Skeel, since my visit last Friday has Miss Elspeth had a return of the migraine?”

“She was greatly improved. She said she slept ‘like an angel' all night. Her appetite improved. But last night—Sunday night —the pain returned. It was terrible to see. I longed to telephone to you. But Miss Chalmers and our Newport doctor were here. They believe you to be the cause of the whole trouble. They forget that this happened over and over again before you ever came here. And her father was here. The Skeels, for generations, have known very little illness. I believe his suffering to be worse than mine, for I have grown up among many . . . such illnesses.”

“Are we to have a class today?”

“She is sleeping. She is blessedly sleeping.”

“When does she go to Boston?”

“Even if the operation is postponed—as I shall insist—she will leave here Thursday.”

“Please tell Miss Elspeth, I shall be here Wednesday and that I shall visit her in Boston at whatever hour you name. . . . Mrs. Skeel, do not hesitate to call on me any hour of the day or night. It is often hard to reach me by day, but I shall leave you here a schedule of telephone numbers where I can be reached. You and Miss Elspeth must have the courage to face those who resist my visits.”

“Thank you.”

“I wish to say one more word, ma'am. Arthur is a very remarkable young man.”

“
Isn't he! Isn't he!
”

And for a moment we laughed, astonishing ourselves. At that moment a gentleman appeared at the door. There was no mistaking the former Count Jens Skeel of Skeel.

He said, “Mary, kindly go into the library. This foolishness has gone on long enough. This is the French tutor's last visit to this house. Will the French tutor kindly send me his bill as promptly as possible. Good morning, sir.”

I smiled sunnily into his outraged face. “Thank you,” I said nodding in the manner of a clerk who has been accorded a long-wished-for vacation. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Skeel. Kindly convey my deep regard to your children.” Again I smiled at the master of the house, raising my hand in a manner of saying “Don't trouble to see me to the door. I know the way.” Only an accomplished actor can be thrown out of a house and leave a room as though a favor had been conferred upon him—John Drew, say; Cyril Maude, William Gillette.

I was expecting a late telephone call that night, so I sat up reading. The call came at about one-thirty.

“Mr. North, you told me I might call you at any hour.”

“Yes, indeed, Mrs. Skeel.”

“Elspeth has been in great distress. She wishes to see you. Her father has given his permission.”

I wheeled to the house. There seemed to be lights in every window. I was led to the sickroom. Servants in breathless dismay, but dressed as though it were high noon, could be seen lurking in shadows and behind half-open doors. Mrs. Skeel and a doctor were standing in the upper hall. I was introduced to him. He was very angry and shook my hand coldly.

“Dr. Egleston has given me permission to call you.”

At a distance I saw Mr. Skeel, very handsome and furious. Mrs. Skeel opened a door a few inches and said, “Elspeth dear, Mr. North has called to ask how you are.”

Elspeth was sitting up in bed. Her eyes were bright and fierce after what I presumed to be a prolonged battle with her father and the doctor. My smile included all the bystanders. There was no sign of Miss Chalmers.

“
Bonsoir, chère mademoiselle
.”

“
Bonsoir, monsieur le professeur
.”

I turned back and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “I would like Galloper to join us.”

I knew that wherever he was he would hear me. He came forward quickly. Over his pajamas he was wearing a thick dressing-gown bearing the insignia of the school he attended. I let the onlookers see me take out my Ingersoll watch and place it on the bedside table. At a gesture from me Galloper opened wide the door into the hall and another into an inner room where Miss Chalmers was probably boiling.

“You have been in pain, Miss Elspeth?”

“Yes, a little. I don't let them give me those
things
.”

I turned back to the door and said calmly, “Anyone may come in who wishes to. I shall be here five minutes. I only ask that no one come in bringing anger or fear.”

Mrs. Skeel entered and took a chair at the foot of her daughter's bed. An elderly woman who had been turning the beads of a rosary in her hand—probably Elspeth's nurse since childhood—came in with an air of defying some order. She knelt in a corner of the room, still fingering her beads. I continued to smile about me as though this were a very usual call and as though I were an old friend of the family. Indeed, it was so unusual an occasion that the household servants gathered about the door, unrebuked. Several even entered the room and remained standing.

“Miss Elspeth, as I came up the Avenue on my bicycle, not a person could be seen. It was like a landscape on the moon. It was very beautiful. I was looking forward to seeing you. I was a little
exalté
and I heard myself singing an old song that you must surely know: ‘
Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage.
' Those lines, written almost three hundred years ago, must have brought comfort to thousands of men and women—as they have done to me. Now I am going to talk to you in Chinese for a moment. You remember that I was brought up in China. I shall give you the translation too. “
Ee er san
”—with a downward, then upward glide—“
See. Gee—der—gaw
”—with a rising inflection. “
Hu
” (a descending note) “
li too bay. Nu chi fo n' yu
” and so on. The first seven words are all the Chinese I know. They mean: “one, two, three, four, chicken—egg—cake.” “Mademoiselle, this means: “All nature is one. Every living thing is closely related to every other living thing. Nature wishes every living thing to be a perfect example of its kind and to rejoice in the gift of life. That includes Galloper's fish and Jacqueline and Bayard and everybody here, including you and Galloper and me.” Those were not the words of Confucius or Mencius, but a paraphrase of something remembered from Goethe.

I leaned forward and spoke to her in a low voice. “Let them drive you to Boston. The operation is going to be postponed and postponed. I am not only going to Boston to see you; I am going to see Dr. Bosco. Has he ever been here to see ‘The Deer Park'?”

“Yes. Yes, he has.”

“I shall tell him that you have been like a beautiful deer in the deer park, but that you want to be outside that iron fence. Your headaches are your protest against those bars. I shall tell Dr. Bosco to send you to your Aunt Benedikta's camp among those deer who have never known a cage.”

“
Can
you do that?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I know you can!—Will you come to see me there too?”

“I will try. But a man of thirty has cages and cages. Don't forget I shall see you more than once in Boston and for the rest of the summer I shall write you often. Now I have one minute left. I am going to put my hand on your forehead . . . and all the way home my thoughts will be on you, like a hand, and you will fall asleep.”

There was a hush. . . . Sixty seconds of silence on the stage is a long time.

“
Dormez bien, mademoiselle
.”

“
Dormez bien, monsieur le professeur
.”

I may not have galvanic hands but I can put on a galvanic performance. This time I chose as my model that of Otis Skinner in
The Honor of the Family
, after Balzac's story. Moving toward the door I smiled commandingly on those within the room and outside it, on the tear-stained face of Mrs. Skeel, on the Greek chorus of awestricken servants, and on the angry and frustrated faces of Mr. Skeel, Dr. Egleston, and Miss Chalmers who had joined them. I gained two inches in height, a cylinder hat rose from my head at a jaunty angle. I carried a short riding-crop with which I thrashed the jamb of the door. I was all assurance to the degree of effrontery—Colonel Philippe Bridau.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, Galloper—Charles Darwin expects every man to do his duty.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good morning, all.” I called back into the sickroom, “Good morning, Miss Elspeth. ‘
Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage
' Please say “No, they don't!' ”

Her voice rang out, “
Non, monsieur le professeur!
”

I advanced bowing to right and left and descended the staircase two steps at a time, singing the Soldiers' Chorus from
Faust
.

Hope is a projection of the imagination; so is despair. Despair all too readily embraces the ills it foresees; hope is an energy and arouses the mind to explore every possibility to combat them. On the bicycle ride to “The Deer Park”—through that mysterious landscape on the moon—
I had had an idea
.

It was arranged that I call at the hospital on the following Friday afternoon at four o'clock. I wrote Dr. Bosco, asking for a five-minute appointment to see him at that time to talk to him about his patient Miss Elspeth Skeel. I wrote that I had enjoyed many congenial talks with his great friend and colleague Dr. de Martel at the American Hospital at Neuilly near Paris. Dr. de Martel was another of the three greatest surgeons in the world. I had never met that eminent man, but hope leaps over obstacles. He had, however, performed an operation on a friend of mine, six days old. Besides, he was the
son of the
novelist “Gyp” (the Comtesse de Martel), a zestful writer with eyes wide open.

Dr. Bosco received me with a cordiality that immediately turned to professional impersonality. During the entire interview his secretary stood behind him, notebook in hand, open.

“What is your work, Mr. North?”

“I am tutor in English, French, German, and Latin; and children's tennis coach at the Newport Casino. I do not wish to waste your time, Doctor. Miss Skeel has confided to me that she dreads going to sleep because she is afflicted by nightmares of being caged. She is dying of cultural claustration.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She is an exceptional human being with a quick adventuring mind. But at every turn she is met by the tabus and vetoes of genteel society. Her father is her jailor. If I were talking again to your friend Dr. de Martel, I would say, ‘Dr. de Martel, your brilliant mother wrote that story over and over again. She believed in the emancipation of young women.' ”

“And so?”

“Dr. Bosco, may I make a request of you?”

“Be quick about it.”

“Elspeth Skeel's Aunt Benedikta—the former Countess Skeel of Denmark—has a camp in the Adirondacks where the deer roam freely and even the foxes and bears come and go as they wish—and where even a girl of seventeen will never hear a brutal and a life-denying word.” I bowed and smiled. “Good afternoon, Dr. Bosco. Good afternoon, ma'am.”

I turned and left the room. Before the door closed I heard him say, “I'll be damned!”

A few minutes later I was led to Elspeth's room. She was sitting in a chair by the window overlooking the Charles River. Her mother was sitting beside her; her brother was standing by the bed. After the greetings Elspeth said, “Mother, tell Mr. North the good news.”

“Mr. North, there is to be no operation after all. Dr. Bosco made the examination yesterday. He thinks the condition that alarmed us is clearing up of itself.”

“Isn't that splendid! When are you returning to Newport?”

“We're not returning to Newport at all. I told Dr. Bosco about my sister-in-law's camp in the Adirondacks and he said, ‘Just the place for her!' ”

So all my play-acting and heroics and prevarication had not been necessary. But I had enjoyed them. Elspeth's smile as her eyes rested on mine were reward enough. It implied that we shared a secret.

There was nothing left to do but to talk small-talk: the Harvard students sculling on the river; the departure for the Adirondacks at the end of the week; the wonderful nurses (from Nova Scotia)—small-talk. My mind began to wander. For me small-talk is a wearisome cage.

A nurse appeared at the door. She asked, “Is a Mr. North here?”

I made myself known.

“Dr. Bosco's secretary has called. He will be here in a few minutes. He wishes you to remain here until he comes.”

“I shall be here, ma'am.”

Zounds! What now?

Presently the doctor appeared. He gave no sign of having recognized me. He spoke to Mrs. Skeel. “Mrs. Skeel, I have been thinking over your daughter's case.”

“Yes, Dr. Bosco?”

“I think it advisable that she be given a longer rest and change than this summer in the Adirondacks. I recommend that she spend eight to ten months abroad—in the mountains, if possible. Have you friends or relatives in the Swiss Alps or in the Tirol?”