Ceremony of the Innocent (47 page)

“Yes. Well, they are both very intelligent, Miss Cummings.” He drank a sip of wine. “There are people in this world, Miss Cummings, who need protection against themselves, trusting and artless people.”

Again, she knew he meant Ellen, and she caught the corner of her mouth in her small white teeth. She glanced at her watch, which was pinned on her bodice. “I will be missed,” she said. “Thank you for your understanding, sir.”

“I will drive you home, Miss Cummings. It looks like rain now.”

“Thank you, but you must let me off a street away. It would look very odd otherwise.” She thought for a moment, then said with unusual passion, “There is Mrs. Porter’s maid, Clarisse. I know it is none of my affair, but she calls Mrs. Wilder frequently, speaking in French, concerning Mrs. Porter.”

Charles became freshly alert. Miss Cummings lowered her voice. ‘The maid speaks very—disrespectfully—of Mrs Porter. I have considered telling Mr. Porter, though that might be impertinence.”

“I don’t think so Would you rather I told him, without quoting you?”

“Oh. If you would.”

They looked at each other, thinking of Kitty. Miss Cummings said, “I fear Mrs. Wilder has a bad influence on the children. She seems very fond of them, I must admit, and I am afraid they prefer her to their mother. She is very quick and clever, Mrs. Wilder. The children seem more like her own.”

“I have observed that myself,” said Charles. “Strange, isn’t it?”

“Not really,” said Maude. “People who are alike in personality are drawn to each other.”

They stood up, while Maude drew on her gloves. Again their eyes met in awareness. “You will not leave, then?” said Charles.

When she did not answer he went on: “More than one person would miss you, Miss Cummings.”

Her pale cheeks flushed, and he touched her elbow gently and led her through the curtains, and then outside, to where his Cadillac waited. The sky had darkened, the street had grown dim, but it seemed to Maude that everything was flooded with exhilarating light and when she smiled at Charles now her whole quiet face was illuminated. “I will stay, sir,” she said.

“Good.”

The next day, with his card, he sent her a box of hothouse carnations, and she slept that night with the flowers beside her on a table, and the card under her pillow.

Two days later, over the protests of Ellen, and without explanation, Jeremy abruptly dismissed Clarisse. Kitty was dismayed when the tearful Clarisse came to her, saying, “Madam, it is that foolish woman, Mrs. Porter. She must have overheard me, though I was always discreet.” Kitty sympathized, but as Clarisse was no longer of use to her she gave her a five-dollar gold piece and patted her arm and dismissed her.

A little sly probing on Kitty’s part brought the news to her, with relief, that Ellen did not know why Clarisse had been discharged by Jeremy. Moreover, Jeremy looked at Kitty with blankness when she mentioned Clarisse’s absence to him. “Oh,” he said, “I never did like the woman, and she antagonized the rest of the staff. One must have harmony in the house, isn’t that so?”

“You are quite right,” said Kitty, and missed the hard gleam in his eyes. “I never liked her myself. I advised Ellen long ago to discharge her, but you know Ellen.”

“I do, indeed,” he replied, and she was pleased. So he knew Ellen for a fool himself!

Ellen did not know why she felt so depressed and melancholy at the beginning of summer when the family moved to its house on Long Island. It was true that Jeremy was more and more engaged in “business,” and that their circle of friends seemed to become smaller in consequence. (Ellen did not know that this was because many of them had become wary of what they called his “extreme notions,” with which they disagreed, though this did not prevent them from engaging his potent services when needed and his apparent power in Washington despite the fact that he was no longer a Congressman.) Jeremy traveled more and more, and Ellen concluded this was “business” also, and even the speeches he gave all over the country and the articles he wrote in various journals, including law journals, she considered were part of the mysterious world of men. That Jeremy was frequently discussed in the White House was unknown to her.

Even when he was home Jeremy spent several nights a week away from his family, either with Kitty, from whom he was gradually disentangling himself, or with little Mrs. Bedford, who was scandalously divorced, though not socially avoided for that reason, as she was enormously rich in her own right and of an impeccable family. Emma Bedford was much of what Kitty was, but in addition she was kind and affable and had a broad and charitable view of humanity which was not stained with sentimentality. (“What the hell, Jerry,” she would say in her light and merry voice, “we can’t help being human, can we, though some of us are more human than others, such as bitches and bastards. Who was it said that life is a tragedy to the man who feels, a comedy to the man who thinks? Yes. I think it is a great comedy, in the dramatic sense, and so long as one does not take it too seriously one is not in too much danger from his fellow man. Yes?”)

Unlike other men, Jeremy carefully concealed all signs of his infidelity from Ellen, for he loved her too much and was too solicitous of her, and his tenderness grew steadily. As for Ellen, had she known, it might have literally killed her, for her knowledge of humanity was still more instinctive than objective, and therefore not to be defined, and infidelity to her would have meant that Jeremy no longer loved her and had rejected her for some deadly fault of her own. She had not the slightest idea about the nature of the male sex and its irresistible bent for polygamy and desire for variety in women. When Kitty had once said to her, “It is totally unrealistic for a woman to expect her husband to be faithful to her,” Ellen was aghast. She had replied, “Kitty, you are exaggerating and being naughty, as usual. I would no more suspect Jeremy of being unfaithful to me than suspecting that of myself. It is an insult to Jeremy, and to all good husbands.”

Ellen never listened to gossip, or, if she could not avoid hearing it, she honestly believed that the stories were intended only to amuse, or that they were false and malicious. The very thought that a woman could be attracted to a man not her husband was not only repugnant to her but beyond belief. She was not unaware of the world about her, of the Lillian Russells and the Diamond Jim Bradys, but these existed in an incredible theatrical world and even so she was half convinced that this, also, was “exaggeration.” She read novels both in English and in French, but after all, they were “only novels,” and romances. That there were many Madame Bovarys about her she did not know, and as for Don Juans, such did not exist in Christian America. In this area Jeremy conspired with her innocence to keep corrosive knowledge from her, for her innocence, however irritating it might be to him at times, would have made her less endearing to him and his love for her might have been destroyed had she lost it.

“Ellen’s a true believer in the sanctity of the hearth and the purity of the marriage bed,” Kitty had once laughed to Jeremy. “Really, my love, she is like a child still, and,” Kitty added nastily, seeing Jeremy’s dark expression, “I think that is lovely, in a way.” When he did not answer she went on, somewhat recklessly, “Why is it, my love, that men consider chastity in women the one complete virtue, especially in their wives, when chastity is mostly lack of temptation or opportunity? Or fear of pregnancy?”

Jeremy had laughed, in spite of himself. “I suppose it all goes back to the rights of inheritance. Men want to be sure that their sons, who will inherit their property, will really be their sons, and not woods colts. And women are men’s property, too, which they don’t want to share with another man. Too messy.”

Kitty did not consider this paradoxical, though Ellen would have thought it bewilderingly so, and incredible. The love between a man and his wife was impregnable, in her conviction. Though she was far wiser than her contemporaries in many fields of knowledge, and more intelligent, Ellen’s knowledge of the true nature of humanity and its motivations remained fragmentary and disturbing. When she had a sudden insight it devastated her and she quickly turned her thoughts to something else.

Ellen hardly gave it words, but Jeremy’s long and frequent absences, and his late homecomings, left her lonely and bereft. She was a patron of the Metropolitan Opera Company and the Metropolitan Museum and various art galleries, and had begun to collect art for her houses. She had learned to paint, originally and delicately. Her days were taken up in lunches with ladies like herself, and she spent hours at her piano, playing and singing softly to herself. Her house was meticulously managed. Her children absorbed all her thoughts when she was at home. But there were long weeks, and long nights, when Jeremy was not at home, and she would feel the old sickening ache and longing for him which she had hopelessly felt from the time she was thirteen until she had married him. The weekends were the worst of all, for even the most marauding husbands considered it their duty to spend those days with their families. Ellen was too frequently alone, then, with no company, except for Sunday-afternoon calls for tea, which were brief, and so she was thrown more and more into the company of her mocking children, whom she would never be able to understand.

That Ellen could have easily taken a lover by a mere glance of her eye did not occur to her, though her beauty increased with time and many were the long and thoughtful looks which gentlemen gave her, and many were the tentative overtures, which she never recognized. Kitty recognized all this, however, and she raged inwardly with jealousy and hatred. What could men see in this blowsy creature, this overripe pear, this mindless fool? Kitty had detested Ellen for her youth and captivating charm from the beginning, but as Kitty was now middle-aged her resentment and derision sometimes tormented her for hours, and made her fantasize on disfigurements and calamities descending on Ellen, or even death. But the only revenge which seemed close at hand and realizable were Ellen’s children. She knew all about them; at times she felt a curious affection for them. Therefore, she cultivated them; too, they were Jeremy’s children. Never overt, Kitty was able, by smiles in her eyes and certain cockings of her head and certain writhings of her painted mouth, and certain intonations of her voice, to influence Christian and Gabrielle in their contempt for their mother. It did not need much effort. The contempt was already there, almost from birth. By this summer of 1912 both the boy and the girl had lost whatever affection they had ever had for Ellen, and they thought her incurably ridiculous and so a legitimate target for their mockeries, disobedience, tauntings, and disregard.

Once or twice a year, though Jeremy objected, Ellen took her children, and Annie Burton, to Wheatfield, “to visit poor sick Aunt May.” The children hated these excursions, and found May Watson even more contemptible than their mother, and Mrs. Eccles’ pampering of them did not give them much enjoyment. When Christian once complained to his father, Jeremy had said with his stern coldness, “There are many things in life, son, which we must do, even when they aren’t very interesting or pleasing to us, and you’d better learn that as fast as possible. We weren’t born just to have what you call ‘fun.’ We have responsibilities to others, too, and loyalties, and, as human beings, we have duties.”

“Yes, Papa,” Christian had replied, but Jeremy continued to frown. There were things about his children which often disturbed him, but as they were beguiling with him, and obeyed him implicitly, and honestly admired and loved him and never whined or wheedled him, he would only shrug and forget them. They never teased or vexed Ellen in his presence, for it was their intention that in this case their father must also be deluded, if only a little. Moreover, he was always very ready with drastic punishment and so they feared him, and being what they were, their fear only increased their affection and respect.

Ellen’s innate perceptiveness and sensitivity were particularly alert this summer, and there were times when her loneliness was intolerable. She knew that Jeremy was deeply engaged in politics, a mysterious entity to her, and that his absences were “unavoidable.” Now, her loneliness, on Long Island, though surrounded by apparently affectionate friends, took on a certain restlessness and uneasy premonition. She painted little vignettes of her beautiful surroundings. She walked on the beach at sunset and even at sunrise. She stared at the long reaches of the ocean and listened to its hissing and growling voice or its small lappings, and she would look at the horizon and feel a terrible sadness and nameless melancholy. Her only anticipations were letters from Jeremy, and if one did not appear she was desolate and her restiveness increased unbearably. Sometimes Kitty arrived for a weekend, a real sacrifice for her, and Ellen would weep weak tears of gratitude for this beneficence. “I don’t know,” she once confessed to Kitty that summer, “what is wrong with me. I’ve always loved it here, and the children are with me, and the staff, and”—she hesitated—“Miss Cummings. I told Miss Cummings that she had a month’s holiday due her, but she refused to take it, saying she had nowhere to go and she loved the sea, and this house And Christian and Gabrielle. It was most kind of her, and yet.”

“Yet, what?” asked Kitty avidly.

Ellen sighed. “I feel Miss Cummings thinks she has a duty to be here with us in the summer. It’s absurd. She says she must continue tutoring Christian all summer, for his entry into boarding school in the fall. I don’t want Christian to go, and neither does Gabrielle, but Jeremy insists on it. Oh, I’m rambling. I think I just miss Jeremy.”

“He has business, Ellen. You must realize that.”

“I know, I know. I don’t know what’s the matter with me! If I were superstitious I’d say I have a premonition about something wrong.”

Kitty knew all about Mrs. Bedford, whom she also hated. “Perhaps,” she said with forced levity, “Jeremy has a lady friend. That would be normal for any man with a family. Men do get bored, you know, with their wives and children.”