Читать книгу Wickford Point - John P. Marquand - Страница 16

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Cousin Clothilde slept in the long room which overlooked the river. From her window you could see where the channel curved past the point with its white pines, and you could see the white houses far across on the opposite bank. The river had a deep rich hue under the clear sky, and the spar buoys were bent upstream by the incoming tide. Cousin Clothilde was sitting up in a maple field-bed decorated by ancient, moth-eaten curtains. The room had been swept out and all the little odds and ends had been removed from the bureau and mantel, so that it looked white and bare and cool. It was almost like one of those rooms with a cord across the doorway which you might see in an old house opened to the public. It was like the room where Lafayette had slept or Washington's mother had died, and the furniture might have been contributed later by the Colonial Dames of America—not very good furniture, just odds and ends so that the room would not look entirely empty. Cousin Clothilde's brush and comb were on a low table before a blackened pier glass. There were a number of cigarette butts in the fireplace, three ginger ale bottles and some glasses on the hearth, and Cousin Clothilde was in a purple kimono which Bella's friend, Mr. Berg, had given her—it was not in good taste, as a gift or as a kimono.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "have you a cigarette?"

"I gave you all mine last night," I said.

Cousin Clothilde sighed.

"Everybody always takes my cigarettes," she said. "I don't know why none of my children can take the responsibility of having some in the house. Look in my upper bureau drawer, there may be some in there."

Cousin Clothilde's upper bureau drawer was mostly filled with stockings which did not match. There were also two broken Navajo brooches, one of my great-aunt Sarah's knitting needles, a yellow piece of Chinese ivory, a half-empty bottle of nail polish and a depilatory preparation, but there were no cigarettes.

"There used to be some there," said Cousin Clothilde. "I wonder if that girl of Josie's steals things. She might have stolen them."

This was the simplest explanation when articles were mislaid at Wickford Point, from the days of Aunt Sarah onward. Wickford Point always seemed to be surrounded by marauders and petty pilferers, obsessed by a particular desire to abscond with tooth paste, bits of soap and other toilet articles, or thimbles, needles and thread. Aunt Sarah also used to blame disappearances on the crows, for she had known a tame crow once that was always taking spoons out of the kitchen and hiding them under the shingles of the woodshed roof.

"Frieda is getting above herself," Cousin Clothilde said. "Bella lets her get too familiar. They're in the laundry too much together pressing clothes."

I sat down on the foot of the bed and looked out of the window toward the river. Cousin Clothilde liked to go over the general situation bit by bit without too much interruption. She sat quietly propped up in the four-post bed and gathered news of Wickford Point from all its diverging radii, like a general sifting information about the enemy.

"That child of Josie's—" Cousin Clothilde said. "There always seems to be one more. I don't think it's fair to any of the rest of us if Josie has any more children. That little Herman came naked into the parlor yesterday. It was all right because it amused Sid, and yesterday the cat had kittens in the china cupboard. I suppose we shall have to drown them, but I want to keep them long enough so we can see them frisk about. Sid loves kittens. The front door is stuck. I think it's because the house has begun to settle."

"I fixed it," I said. "A letter of Bella's got mixed up in it, one from Mr. Berg."

"I wish Bella wouldn't drop everything everywhere," said Cousin Clothilde. "Do you know I think her hair is beginning to fall out? Everywhere I go I seem to see Bella's hair, and I stepped on her lipstick yesterday. I thought Mr. Berg was delightful, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't," I said.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "you're always so hard on people. You'd be so much happier if you saw the nice sides of them and not the horrid sides. I thought Mr. Berg was charming. He's in business, you know." Cousin Clothilde sighed. "It's nice that Bella is getting interested in a business man for a change. What we need is some money in the family and a little peasant blood."

"How can he be hanging around here for a week," I asked, "if he has any business?"

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "it doesn't do any good to be so suspicious. You're able to hang around, aren't you? Then why shouldn't Mr. Berg? And probably Mr. Roosevelt is doing something to his business. You can't tell about those things."

"I can tell about Berg," I said. "He's just one of those people who appear, and Bella attracts them. All she has to do is to go out on the street and whistle and along comes a Berg." Cousin Clothilde had partially lost interest. She glanced out the window toward the river.

"Once I made a water-color sketch of the river from here," she said. "What are you getting up for? Do sit down and don't fidget. There are so many things I want to talk to you about, darling. Bella doesn't whistle to people. It isn't fair to say that about Bella."

"Then she shakes herself," I said. "She does something."

"Well, it's nice she can attract men," said Cousin Clothilde. "It's always much nicer when there are men around. Everyone is much happier, much less nervous. I wish Mary could attract men. It would make things so much easier. I wish you wouldn't be so hard on President Roosevelt, dear."

"President Roosevelt?" I said. "I haven't been hard on President Roosevelt."

"Perhaps you haven't yet," said Cousin Clothilde, "but you were going to be. I should have voted for him if I had remembered to register. I never can remember to go to that place where you have to read something out loud. I know he will look out for me. I can see it from his face."

"He'll look out for you," I said.

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "someone has to. I'm just about tired of looking out for everybody. First it's Sidney and then it's Bella and then it's Mary—they all keep getting into my pocketbook—and then Josie is always after me for things."

"What sort of things?" I asked.

"All sorts of things," said Cousin Clothilde. She sat in her bed, looking very young with her two heavy black braids, only faintly gray, falling over her purple kimono. "Josie doesn't seem to keep anything in her head. First we're out of soap and then we're out of toilet paper, and there isn't anything to eat except a few things that Earle pulls out of the garden, and there isn't any gin. I wonder if Frieda steals the gin, or it might be Earle who takes it. I really thought he was quite unsteady the other day. Or it might be that man who comes selling cakes and cookies. I saw him in the kitchen talking to Frieda. He didn't even have the manners to get up when I came in."

"I knew of a plumber once," I said, "who stole a quart of whisky."

Cousin Clothilde sighed.

"The point is," she said, "I simply cannot go on looking after everyone. I'm not as young as I used to be. It isn't decent to have an old lady looking after a lot of grown-up children who ought to be looking after her. Now I don't mind Sid. Sid is always so restful. Do you know what Sid is doing? He's thinking of a system of playing the stock market, and do you know what Sid said? He said that if I had only let him have three hundred dollars to buy some shares in a stock called Ginsberg Chemical—"

"Ginsberg Chemical?" I said. "There isn't any such thing as Ginsberg Chemical."

"You probably haven't seen it," said Cousin Clothilde, "and the name really doesn't make any difference anyway. It was just some company that made something. I think Sid said that they made it out of sawdust, but it doesn't make a bit of difference. Sid said if I had only put three hundred dollars into this company, it would be worth twenty thousand dollars now or even more. Sid knows all about it, and I wish that Archie had the sense that Sid has."

I found myself growing mildly interested. In fact it was always interesting listening to Cousin Clothilde. Nearly every day she could weave a pattern with words, much as the less gifted Penelope had woven her fabrics by day to destroy them again by night.

"Where's Archie?" I asked. Cousin Clothilde reached under a pillow and drew out two letters.

"He's in Detroit," she said. "He's motoring with the Willoughbys. The Willoughbys know someone who knows Edsel Ford, and they think that Edsel Ford may want a mural."

"How do they know he wants a mural?" I asked.

"People like that," said Cousin Clothilde, "always want murals. You only have to make them feel they want them. Archie thinks that if he can only meet Edsel Ford, he can make Edsel Ford feel that he wants a mural."

"What sort of mural?" I asked.

"Any sort of a mural that Mr. Ford wants," said Cousin Clothilde. "How should I know what sort of a mural he wants? But he must have a great many factory buildings. Archie can think of something."

"But Archie doesn't like machines," I said, "and the last time I saw him he said he was a Communist. He was going out to picket somewhere."

Cousin Clothilde folded the letter and put it back in the envelope.

"It doesn't make any difference whether you're a Communist or not," she said. "A Communist could do a perfectly good mural for Mr. Ford. Besides there was a Mexican Communist who did a mural for Radio City—that man who does things about soldiers stepping on nude people. What is his name? He was really charming."

"Well, they took his mural down," I said.

"Well," said Cousin Clothilde, "suppose they did. Mr. Ford can take Archie's mural down, can't he? Just as long as Archie does the mural."

"That's true," I said, "I hadn't thought of that." Cousin Clothilde opened her second letter.

"Sometime," she said, "I'll have to go back to the oculist. I keep having to squint my eyes to read, and my circulation isn't right. My hands are cold in the morning. I never could read Harry's writing." I was interested again. Harry Brill was my second cousin and her eldest son.

"What does Harry say?" I asked.

"He's coming up at the end of the week," she said. "He's motoring up from New York with Mirabel Steiner."

"What is he doing that for?" I asked. "Harry doesn't like Steiner."

"He's coming in her car," said Cousin Clothilde. "It probably is saving him a good deal, because he hasn't asked me for any money, and Mirabel Steiner loves it here, and she is so interested in everything. She's dreadfully interested in you. She said she would like to analyze you."

"Now look here," I said, "I told you—"

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "she won't be here long. Harry will have to get back. He's very busy about something. And besides he's going to Easthampton next week end. You won't really have to talk to Mirabel. You can just sort of keep going away." Cousin Clothilde held the letter at arm's length and squinted at it.

"I hadn't seen this part," she added. "His bridgework has broken down."

"What bridgework?" I asked.

"Harry's bridgework," said Cousin Clothilde. "Don't you remember when he did that dance on the Yacht Club float at the Mayhews' costume party? He was dressed as a Greek in one of those ballet dresses. He slipped and loosened three front teeth, and now his bridgework has broken down. He went to that dentist, you know, that good-for-nothing one that I used to like so much. Dr. Jess had to take every bit of his inlay out of my mouth. I don't see why you don't go to Dr. Jess, darling. His specialty is massaging gums."

A bit of summer breeze came through the open window, hot and moist and redolent with the smell of fresh cut grass. It was like a breath of sanity, for I was being involved in the intricacies of Wickford Point again, where every small thing was of importance and where the mind wandered languidly to this and that with a strange midsummer's madness. We had touched on nearly all the family and now we had come to the dentists. The Brills all had trouble with their teeth. They were rather proud of it because it was a family trait.

"I shouldn't worry about Dr. Jess," I said. Cousin Clothilde folded her letter.

"The only point is that Harry's bridgework will have to be fixed. It's going to cost over two hundred dollars. I suppose Harry and Mirabel will bring up some other people too. I hope they do—the girls will like it."

"Well," I said, "I'd better be going."

"Why do you have to be going?" said Cousin Clothilde. "I haven't even begun to talk to you. You're always running away somewhere. Didn't I hear the telephone ringing this morning? I suppose it was for Bella."

"That was for me," I said. "Joe Stowe rang me up—from Boston."

The delicate arch of Cousin Clothilde's eyebrows moved.

"Does Bella know it?" she asked. I nodded and the room was still for a minute, so still that I could hear a church bell ringing across the river. "She's going over to the Jaeckels'," I said. "I'm going to see Joe. He's in Boston at the Crofton."

Cousin Clothilde was motionless. She was looking at me hard. In spite of the wrinkles at the corners, her eyes were beautiful, the same violet as Bella's but lighter, softer. I knew what Hugh Brill had seen in them when he first rowed over from the Brill place, now a national shrine, across the river. I knew what Archie Wright had seen in them. He had tried to paint them often enough. I knew what Manet had seen in them at the time she had known him in Paris.

"Give Joe my love," she said.

"It might have worked," I told her, "if you hadn't—" I paused because there was no use going into details which she had never understood.

"Darling," said Cousin Clothilde, "I didn't do anything. I know you loved him, but it was all a mistake. It was the war and this and that. Give Joe my love. I wonder why it is I have so many white spots on my fingernails. There must be something wrong with my circulation. I wish you'd look at them, Jim."

She put her hand on mine so that I could see her fingers, and then again her thoughts drifted away and she began to laugh.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"I was thinking about their wedding," she said. "Darling, do you remember how Archie got tangled up with the cat and fell down the entry stairs, right into that strange Negro who came from the bootlegger, the one who was carrying the tray of champagne?"

"Yes," I said, and I laughed too. I nearly always laughed when she did. "And I remember how the tailor burned the back of Harry's trousers when he took them off to have them pressed. He was having it done in the shop right near the church downtown. Do you remember that?"

"Yes," said Cousin Clothilde, "so he couldn't go at all. He had to borrow a raincoat. I wonder if he ever returned it."

There was another silence and I could hear the church bell again, ringing across the river. The sound made me think that nothing which had ever happened at Wickford Point ever entirely left it, and that parts of everything which had happened were always waiting—ready to move forward out of nowhere when they were least expected. I was sitting on the edge of Cousin Clothilde's bed but the bell had brought my thoughts away to the abstractions of marriage and divorce. I was thinking that one could never tell in advance, no matter with what experience, whether any two individuals would achieve a successful or an unsuccessful marriage. There was too much hidden in every character, too many doubts, too many hesitations.

Then, while I was still thinking, Bella Brill's voice came to me out of the air around me, full of all those hesitations and those doubts. I was back for just a moment to the morning of that wedding day, suffering from the ghost of an old headache. I remembered how Bella had come into my room. She must have come while I was still asleep, for the first sounds that I had heard were thumping noises in the rooms below me, made by Mr. Morrissey arranging furniture for the wedding breakfast. When I opened my eyes my head began to ache and I saw Bella standing looking at me, wrapped in the Chinese robe which I had given her. It had been a good many years ago, but I could remember exactly how she looked then—dark-eyed and pale, half-frightened and half-elated.

"Jim," she said, "you've got to get up. Where were you last night?"

"Downtown at the hotel with Joe," I said. "I've got a headache, but don't worry about Joe. He'll be all right."

"I don't see why Joe should drink so much," Bella said, "just the night before he's getting married."

"It's just a custom," I told her. "The whole thing is custom."

"Well, you needn't have all got yourselves drunk," Bella said. "You have to get dressed right away, darling, and do something."

"Do what?" I asked.

"Everything," said Bella, "and I can't stand it if you ask me questions. They've all begun to come."

"Who?" I asked.

"Cousin Harriet's just come in a taxi from the station," Bella said, "and that bootlegger that Harry found is downstairs waiting for a check. And Archie won't get off the sofa."

My head ached worse when I sat up.

"What sofa?" I asked.

"Down in the parlor," Bella said. "He went to sleep there last night. He won't get up and Cousin Harriet doesn't understand it, and Sid is still asleep and Josie hasn't finished with my dress." I reached for my dressing gown.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Darling," said Bella, "it's eleven o'clock, and funnily enough I'm going to be married downtown at twelve, and do you know what they're asking? They're asking if I'm sure I want to marry him."

"Well, why aren't you dressed?" I asked.

Bella raised her clenched hands in a hopeless gesture.

"How can I get dressed if they haven't got my dress ready?" she cried. "And how can I tell if Joe's ready? How can I tell anything?"

"It's all right," I said. "You've got plenty of time. You do want to marry him, don't you?"

Bella raised her hands again.

"How many times," she asked, "do I have to say I do? Of course I want to marry him. I want to do anything to get out of here. Jim darling, everyone is downstairs."

"All right," I said, "all right."

"Jim!" Her voice was louder.

"Yes," I said.

"I've come to say good-by."

"Now don't be silly, Belle," I said. "You're not saying good-by to me at all."

"Well," said Bella, "it just seems that way. Everybody's making such a damn fuss."

"Don't worry, Belle," I said. "It's going to be all right. You couldn't find anyone better than Joe."

"Miss Bella," Josie was calling from the hall, "your dress is all ironed now, and it's just the dearest dress, and it's all taken in on the hips. Have you got something borrowed and something blue?"

I put my hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry, Belle," I said again. "It's going to be all right."

My mind moved over the scene, slowly and a little sadly, because I had been sure it would be all right once she went away with Joe.

There was one good thing about the family: at the last moment we all could pull ourselves together and behave quite well. We all got through the wedding and everyone made that trite remark that Bella was such a pretty bride. I could have gone on thinking about it further because Cousin Clothilde must have been thinking about it too, while her hand still rested on mine.

"Weddings are such queer things," she said. "It would be much better if people didn't make such a fuss about them."

"It would have been all right," I said, "if you had left them alone. No one would leave them alone."

Cousin Clothilde drew her hand away and Bella's wedding seemed to move away with it. The wedding had become one of those incidents again to be put away carefully and forgotten like old clothes which are not worn out enough to give away and yet which are too old to continue wearing.

"No," said Cousin Clothilde, "nothing could have helped it, dear. He was really perfectly impossible."

I began to speak but she stopped me.

"Impossible for Bella, I mean. Don't be hard on Bella when you think of it. I do wish she would marry someone else."

We were interrupted before I could answer. There were always sudden interruptions at Wickford Point which confused logical trains of thought.

The door of Cousin Clothilde's room opened. It was her daughter Mary. Mary Brill was in a gingham dress; she had a towel around her head, and she was holding three silk stockings and a brassiere.

"What will I do with these?" Mary asked. Cousin Clothilde sat up straighter.

"How should I know what to do with them, dear?" she said. "Do I have to tell everyone what to do with everything? Can't I rest here quietly in the morning without having everyone in the house come up and ask me questions? Whose are they?"

"I don't know whose they are," Mary said. "I found them in the laundry."

"Well, why didn't you leave them in the laundry?" said Cousin Clothilde. "What did you bring them in here for? Get them out of here, dear. I don't want to look at them."

"No one ever wants to look at me," said Mary.

This was a remark which Mary often made in the bosom of the family, but she must have known it was not true. A great many people enjoyed looking at her.

"It isn't you, dear," said Cousin Clothilde patiently, "it's just that I don't like to see a brassiere in the morning, particularly if I don't know whose it is."

"No one ever helps me about anything," said Mary. Her face seemed to break into triangles and circles. She began to cry and left the room.

"Now there," said Cousin Clothilde, "now what did I say that should have made her cry? I was perfectly sweet with her, wasn't I? I don't see that I said a single thing to disturb her. Of course I know why she's crying—it's because she doesn't attract men. Can't you show her how to attract men? I should think that you or Sid or Harry could show her. Can't you do anything about it?"

"No, I can't," I said, "and besides you're not really correct. Just don't keep turning her into a problem. When she's happy she attracts men enough—and better ones than Bella. You make her feel inadequate."

"Well, go out and talk to her," said Cousin Clothilde. "She'll only cry more if I do."

"It won't do any good," I said. "She only wants attention."

"Of course she wants attention," said Cousin Clothilde, "but she doesn't want it from me. Please go out and talk to her."