Theophilus North (46 page)

Dr. Bosworth gasped like a harpooned whale. “It wasn't in Persis's presence! It was on a ship. He shot himself in the head on the top deck of a ship. I told you he was
eccentric
. He was eccentric. He enjoyed playing with firearms. No reproach was brought up against dear Persis.” The tears were pouring down his face. “Ask anyone, Mr. North. Ask Mrs. Venable—ask anyone . . . some insane person sent around those anonymous letters—wicked letters. I think they broke my dear child's heart.”

“A very tragic situation, sir.”

“Oh, Mr. North, that's what life is—tragic. I am almost eighty years old. I look about me. For thirty years I served my country, not without recognition. My domestic life was all that a man would wish for. And then one misfortune followed upon another. I won't go into details. What is life?” He grasped the lapel of my jacket. “What is life? Can you see why I wish to found an Academy of Philosophers? Why are we placed on this earth?” He began drying his eyes and cheeks with an enormous handkerchief. “How rich this book of Bergson's is! . . . Alas, time is passing and there is so much to read!”

There was a knock at the door.

Persis entered, gloved and veiled for motoring. “Grandfather, it is a quarter past midnight. You should be in bed.”

“We've been having a very good talk, dear Persis. I shall not go to sleep easily.”

“Mr. North, I was wondering if you were in the mood for a short drive before retiring. I can deliver you at your door. The night air has a wonderful way of clearing the head after a difficult day.”

“That's very kind of you, Mrs. Tennyson. I would enjoy it very much.”

I said good night to Dr. Bosworth, and Persis and I started down the long hall. I have described “Nine Gables” as “the house of listening ears.” Mrs. Bosworth emerged from one of the sitting rooms. “Persis, it is most unsuitable for you to drive at this hour. Say good night to Mr. North. He must be tired. Good night, Mr. North.”

Persis said, “Get a good rest, Aunt Sally. Climb in, Mr. North.”

“Persis! Did you hear what I said?”

“I am twenty-eight years old, Aunt Sally. Mr. North has spent forty hours in learned talk with Grandfather and can be regarded as an established friend of the family. Get a good rest, Aunt Sally.”

“Twenty-eight years old! And so little sense of what is fitting!”

Persis started the motor and waved her hand. We were off.

The reader may remember from the opening chapter of this book that I was somewhat afflicted by the “Charles Marlow complex”—not, fortunately, to the extent of Oliver Goldsmith's hero. I did not stammer and blush and keep my eyes lowered in the presence of nice well-brought-up young women, but Persis Tennyson certainly presented the image (the lily, the swan) of what most intimidated me. I suffered that ambivalence which I had read was at the heart of every complex; I admired her enormously and wished I were many miles away. I was rattled; I floundered; I talked too much and too little.

She drove slowly. “I thought we'd go and sit on the sea wall by the Budlong place,” she said.

“At the end of the day I'm usually too tired to drive anywhere. But I don't need much sleep. I get up early and ride out there to see the sun rise. It's still quite dark, of course. At first the police used to think I was on some nefarious business and would follow me. Gradually they came to see that I was merely eccentric and now we wave our hands at one another.”

“I often take a late drive at this hour and the same thing happens to me. The police still feel they must keep an eye on me. But I've never been out at dawn. What's it like?”

“It's overwhelming.”

She repeated the word softly and reflectively.

“Mr. North, what magic did you use to bring about such a change in my grandfather's health?”

“No magic at all, ma'am. I saw that Dr. Bosworth was under some kind of pressure. I've been under pressure too. Gradually we discovered that we shared a number of enthusiasms. Enthusiasms lift a man out of himself. We both grew younger. That's all.”

She murmured, “I think there must have been more to it than that. . . . We feel deeply indebted to you. My grandfather and I would like to give you a present. We have been wondering what you would like. We wondered if you would like a car?” I did not answer. “Or the copy of
Alciphron
that Bishop Berkeley presented to Jonathan Swift? It was written at ‘Whitehall.' ”

I was disappointed. I concealed my bitter disappointment under a show of effusive thanks and some friendly laughter. “Many thanks to you both for your kind intention,” et cetera, et cetera. “I try to live with as few possessions as possible. Like the Chinese a bowl of rice . . . like the ancient Greeks a few figs and olives.” I laughed at the absurdity of it, but I had also indicated a firmness in my refusal.

“But, surely, some token of our gratitude?”

The privileged of this world are not accustomed to take no for an answer.

“Mrs. Tennyson, you did not invite me to join you on this ride to talk about presents but to give me an urgent message. I think I know what that is: There are some persons in and near ‘Nine Gables' who wish me
out
.”

“Yes. Yes. And I am sorry to say that there is something more than that. They are working on a plan to do you harm. There are some very rare first editions on the shelves behind my grandfather's chair. I overheard a plan to remove them gradually and replace them with later editions of the same works. These last years you are the only person who has come into the house who would realize their value. Their idea is that the suspicion will fall on you.”

I laughed. “Thrilling!” I said.

“I anticipated their project and substituted the volumes. The originals are in my jewel safe. If some unpleasant talk starts up about you I shall produce them.—Why did you say ‘thrilling'?”

“Because
they
are coming into the open.
They
are beginning to make mistakes. I thank you for removing those volumes, but even if you hadn't, I'd have enjoyed the showdown. I'm not a fighting man, Mrs. Tennyson, but I hate slander and malicious gossip—don't you?”

“Oh, I do.
How
I do! People talk—people talk hatefully. Oh, dear Mr. North, tell me how a person can defend himself.”

“Here we are at the Budlong place.—Let's get out and sit on the sea wall.”

“Don't forget what you were about to tell me.”

“No.”

“You will find a lap robe in the back seat to throw over the stone parapet.”

An untended field of wild roses was at our back. The flowers were entering their decline and the perfume was heady. Our faces were swept by the beams of the lighthouses; our ears were lulled by the dull booming and wailing and tinkling of the buoys. Above us the sky was like a jeweled navigators' chart. It was here that a few afternoons before Bodo had brought Agnese and Mino and me to his picnic.

As usual there were a number of cars in which were couples younger than ourselves.

“You advise me to resign from the work at ‘Nine Gables'?”

“You have brought us that great benefit. All that is left for you is the danger of certain persons' ill will.”

“You inherit it—conspicuously.”

“Oh, it doesn't matter about me. I can bear it.”

“With that spitefulness? You have your small boy to think of. Excuse my question, but why have you continued to live in that house?”

How calm she was! “Two reasons: I love my grandfather and he loves me—insofar as he can love anyone. And—where would I go? I hate New York. Europe? I have no wish to go to Europe for a while. My mother left my father long ago—before his death—and has been living in Paris and at Capri with a man to whom she is not married. She seldom writes letters to any of us. Mr. North, I often think that a large part of my life is over. I am an old widow-lady living only for my son and grandfather. The humiliations I am sometimes subjected to and the boredom of the social life do not touch me. They merely age me. . . . You were going to tell me how to get the better of malicious tongues. Did you mean it?”

“Yes . . . Since we are talking about matters that concern you closely, may I—just for this hour—call you Persis?”

“Oh, yes.”

I took a deep breath. “Have you reason to believe that in some quarters you have been the object of slander?”

She lowered her head then abruptly raised it. “Yes, I know I am.”

“I have no idea what these people are saying. I have never heard any reference to you that was not in terms of admiration and respect. I was told that your husband took his own life, alone, on the top deck of a ship at sea. I assume that malicious interpretations were circulated about that tragic event. I am convinced that nothing discreditable could ever be attributed to you. You asked me how one would go about defending oneself against slander. My first principle would be to state all the facts—the truth. If there is someone involved whom you feel you must shield, then one must resort to other measures. Is there such a person involved in this case?”

“No. No.”

“Persis, do you wish to drop the whole subject and talk of other things?”

“No, Theophilus. I have no one to talk to. Please let me tell you the story.”

I looked up at the stars for a moment. “I don't like secrets—unhappy family secrets. If you place me under an oath not to repeat a word of this, I must ask you
not
to tell it to me.”

She lowered her voice. “But, Theophilus, I want all those talkers and letter-writers and . . . to know the simple truth. I loved my husband, but in a moment of utter thoughtlessness—of madness really—he left me under a cloud of suspicion. You can tell the story to anyone, if you thought it would do any good.”

I folded my hands on my lap. In the diffused starlight she could see the welcoming smile on my face. “Begin,” I said.

“When I left school I was, as they say, ‘presented to society.' Dances, balls, tea-dances, debutante parties. I fell deeply and truly in love with a young man, Archer Tennyson. He had not been in the War because he had had tuberculosis as a boy and the doctors wouldn't pass him. I think that was at the bottom of it all. We were married. We were happy. Only one thing disturbed me; he was reckless and at first I admired him for it. He drove his car at great speeds. On shipboard once he waited until after midnight to climb the masts. The captain rebuked him for it in the ship's bulletin. I gradually came to see that he was a compulsive gambler—not only for money; that, too, but that did not matter—for life itself. He gambled with his life—skiing, motor-boat racing, mountain-climbing. When we were in the Swiss Alps he would descend only the most dangerous
pistes
. He took up lugeing which was fairly new then: toboggan descents between walls of packed ice. One day when my attention was distracted he picked up our one-year-old baby, placed him between his knees, and started off. I saw then for the first time what was in his mind: he wanted to raise the stake in his duel with death; he wanted to place what was nearest and dearest to him in the balance. First he had always wanted me beside him in the car or in the boat; now he wanted the baby too. I used to dread the approach of summer because each year he tried to break his record driving from New York to Newport. He broke everyone's record driving to Palm Beach, but I wouldn't go in the car with him. And all the time he betted on everything—horses, football games, Presidential elections. He'd sit in his club window on Fifth Avenue and bet on the types of automobiles that happened to pass. All his friends begged him to take a position in his father's brokerage office, but he couldn't sit still that long. Finally he began taking flying lessons. I don't know if wives go down on their knees to their husbands any more, but I did. I did more than that—I told him that if he went up in the air alone, I would never give him another child. He was so astonished that he
did
give up flying.”

She paused and showed uncertainty. I said, “Continue, please.”

“He was not seriously a drinking man, but he spent a great deal of time in bars where he could play the role of daredevil and—I'm sorry to say—could swagger. The story is almost over.”

“May I interrupt a moment? I don't want the story hurried. I want to know what was going on in your mind during those years.”

“In me? I knew that in a way he was a sick man. I loved him still, but I pitied him. But I was afraid. Do you see that he needed an audience for all this show of daring and risk? I had the front seat at the show; a large part of it—but not all of it—was to impress me. A wife can't scold all the time. I did not want to put a gulf between us. . . . He thought of it as courage; I thought of it as foolishness and . . . cruelty to me. One night we were standing on the deck of a ship going to Europe and we saw another ship approaching us in the opposite direction. We had been told that we would pass close to our sister-ship. He said, ‘Wouldn't it be glorious if I dived in and swam over to her?' He kicked off his dancing pumps and started to undress. I slapped him hard—very hard—on one cheek and then on the other. He was so shocked that he froze. I said, ‘Archer, I did not slap you. Your son did. Learn to be a father.' He slowly pulled up his trousers. He picked up his jacket from the deck. Those were not words that came to me at that moment. They were words I had said over and over to myself on sleepless nights. There were more: ‘I have loved you more than you love me. You love defying death more than you love me. You are killing my love for you.' I shouldn't have been weeping but I was, terribly. He put his arms around me and said, ‘It's just games, Persis. It's fun. I'll stop whatever I'm doing any time you say.' . . . Now I'll finish my story. It was bound to happen that he'd meet someone with the same madness, someone even madder. It was two days later. Of course, he met him in the bar. It was a War veteran with a wild look in his eye. I sat with them for an hour or two while that man crushed my husband with the narrow escapes he'd been through in combat. What fun it had been, and all that! A storm was rising. The barman announced that the bar was closing, but they gave him money to keep it open. I kept trying to persuade Archer to come to bed, but he had to keep up with this man, drink for drink. This other man's wife had gone to bed and finally, in despair, I went to bed, too. Archer was found on the top deck with a revolver in his hand and a bullet through his head. . . . There was an inquiry and an inquest. . . . I testified that on several evenings my husband and this Major Michaelis had talked about Russian roulette, as though it were a joke. But nothing of that came out in the serious newspapers and very little, as far as I know, even in ‘sensational' papers. My grandfather was greatly respected. He knew personally the publishers of the better papers. The incident was briefly reported in the inside pages. Even then I begged my grandfather to see that my testimony was published; but the Michaelises also belong to those old families that move heaven and earth to keep their names out of the papers. And it was that silence that's done me so much harm. It was closed with the verdict that my husband had committed suicide in a state of depression. I had no one to advise me or help me—least of all the Bosworth family. Mrs. Venable has been a dear and close friend to me since I was a child. She joined the family in soothing me: ‘If we don't say anything it will soon be forgotten.' She knows the Michaelises. She stays with cousins near them in Maryland. She knows the stories about him down there—that the neighborhood complains of his carrying on revolver practice at three in the morning and bullying the men at his country club about Russian roulette. . . .”