Point of No Return (49 page)

“All right,” Charles said. “What do you want me to read?”

“Why, anything,” she answered, “as long as it's reading.”

She might have asked so many questions but that was all she ever said and somehow it gave him a warm and pleasant feeling. She said again before he left:

“You might have told me without my asking … but I'm not excited at all.”

16

Shake Off the Shackles of This Tyrant Vice

—
GARRICK

What was it that he saw and thought in those last years of the twenties? He must have been oblivious then to nearly everything outside himself, and Clyde had become a background which he had no time to examine. There was no sense of leisure in his recollections, not a single memory of a careless day swimming with the Meaders, no helping Earl Wilkins take his automobile apart, no long dusky evenings talking with Jackie Mason. These and all the other diversions that once made up a Clyde summer were lost to him for good. Everything was still around him in certain fixed positions, but there was no time for content or discontent, because he was too busy living to think of much except immediacy. Everything was just around the corner when once everything had been ahead of him and he had no way of knowing that this would continue to be so. He was already beginning to say to himself that he would not always be so busy, that sooner or later there would be an opportunity to do a few things he wanted to do.

Obviously he must have tried too hard, but at least he was not a prig because he did not have time for priggishness. He was already becoming externally a type which he was to know too well, but at least he always knew it was a type. It was just as well that Jessica was abroad. If she had been in Clyde that summer, he could never have concentrated so fully on E. P. Rush & Company—and what he had learned there was still valuable. The way one earned one's living had little to do with love and all the things one hoped for that were just around the corner. It was better never to take the office home with you. The people one knew in a business way might mingle sometimes with that other life, like oil and vinegar, but they never really mixed. There could be mutual respect and liking and loyalty, but it was safer never to let these merge into friendship if you wanted to get on downtown.

On his way home in the train Charles often reread Jessica's letters. She was in London, darling, and she wished he were there in large, scrawling strokes. She was in Paris, darling, looking over the Place de la Concorde, and she had bought an old book for him and she wished that he were there. She was in the châteaux country, darling, and in Rome, darling. She could not wait to get home, but they were staying a little longer. They were coming back in September—no, in October. Truthfully, there was not much time to remember Jessica, but she was safe around the corner. There was so much else without Jessica that he sometimes wondered how things would have turned out if she had come home later than she did.

His Aunt Jane had died suddenly in her sleep that summer. The Crawford Mill, where his father had worked so long, had folded up, and John Gray was going into Boston every day when October came around. The house had been painted and equipped with electric lights and there were cigars in the parlor. Dorothea was definitely engaged to Elbridge Steme. In August Charles had been moved into a new department at E. P. Rush designed to give investment advice to clients and to compete with the investment counsel services which were becoming popular.

Mr. Blashfield had nearly settled the details of his aunt's estate. The furnishings at Gow Street had been sold or divided. He and his father were wearing mourning bands, although his Aunt Jane had especially asked them not to. The legacies had been paid, and John Gray was the residuary legatee. His aunt had died less than a week after hearing the news that the mill was closing, but no one could say that the news had upset her. She had spoken of it, Charles remembered, one of the last times he had seen her.

“It's just as well I sold my shares,” she said. “John always said it would happen.”

It was, of course, what his father had been saying for years. He would have sold out his mill stock long ago if it had not been held in trust, and he had asked Hugh Blashfield again and again to sell it—but John Gray had not lost his temper when the mill went into receivership.

“There isn't anything to say, Hugh,” was all he said. “Dorothea's getting married and Charles is working and I suppose Jane can give Esther and me a small allowance, but you might admit that I was right.”

It was not fair or just to pry into his father's thoughts when his sister died. There was always something indecent about thoughts at such a time, because they were too much like the cool, bland passages of a Victorian novel, but at least there was no hypocrisy in the way his father took the news. He said that Jane always did the right thing at the right time, but his voice broke when he said it.

“I'll look after the funeral,” he said. “I'm always good about funerals, Esther, and I don't mind undertakers,” but his voice broke again. “Do you remember what Jane was always saying? She doesn't want any artificial grass around the grave.”

She had wanted “Sunset and evening star” and she did not want gladiolas if she died in summer.

Charles wished that she had not discussed her will and arrangements so often for somehow all that discussion made him more conscious of her now that she was gone than he had been when she was living. She still seemed to have duties to perform before she could step back decorously into the past, and she still seemed to be watching to see whether everything was being done the way she had wanted it.

He was sure that she had been there at Gow Street when he had gone with Dorothea to the house to look over the furniture. Everything was still in its place, arranged by Mary Callahan exactly as Miss Jane had wanted it, and Mary herself was crying in the kitchen. He had the lists with him, but he hated to think of tagging things with other people's names, he hated to touch anything. He was sure that she was there, telling him not to be silly but to burn those letters as she had told him and to destroy those other things of hers that no one else would care about—the pincushion and the sachets in her bureau that her sister Mathilda had made for her one Christmas when they were little girls, and the boat that Johnny had once whittled for her, and her dolls in the attic. She had always said that she did not want parts of herself drifting around after she was gone.

“Don't just stand here,” Dorothea said, and she spoke more loudly when he did not answer. “Aren't you going to say something?”

“Let's not start arguing,” he said. “She never liked it when we argued.”

“We're not arguing,” Dorothea said. “What's the matter with you, Charley?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Can't I just stand here for a minute?”

“We'd better start with the dining room,” Dorothea said, “and leave the study till the end.”

The Judge's portrait was looking down at them in the study and Aunt Jane's pills were on a candlestand by her chair.

“Don't be so fussy, Charley,” he remembered Dorothea's saying. “You're beginning to act just like her.”

And so was Dorothea. She was handling the silver so as not to leave marks on it. She was putting everything she touched back exactly in its place.

The illusion of her presence was even stronger when the family had gathered in Mr. Blashfield's office. His aunt had worked very hard over that will. If the dead ever could return this would, of course, have been the time when she would have insisted on a visit.

Mr. Blashfield had stood on the formality of reading every word of the will instead of simply telling what was in it, as John Gray had suggested. John Gray had said that wills, especially the ones that Hugh Blashfield drew, were becoming constantly duller and correspondingly incomprehensible. He would have enjoyed hearing it if Jane had written it, but if Hugh was going to insist on reading his original composition, they would all come to the office. He could not stand one of those conventional tableaux with the family lawyer sitting in the parlor.

Although John Gray must have known everything that was in the will, he kept looking at his watch to see what time it was; and when Dorothea suggested that Elbridge Sterne go with the family, he said that Elbridge had been at the grave and that was about enough for Elbridge, considering they weren't married yet.

“Only the four of us are going,” he said, “and there's no reason to make a procession of it. Esther, it's five minutes before ten. You and I will go first, and, Charles, you take Dorothea along at ten o'clock.”

“What do you mean by Charles's
taking
, me?” Dorothea asked.

“I mean that Charles will accompany you,” John Gray said, “to 76 Dock Street and upstairs to the first floor. You will turn to the right and open the door marked Hugh Blashfield, Counselor at Law. You're not married to Elbridge Sterne yet.”

“There's no reason why you should be horrid about Elbridge,” Dorothea said. “You're always making fun of Elbridge.”

“Is it making fun of Elbridge,” John Gray asked, “to say you're not married to him yet? I'm not even thinking about Elbridge.” He pulled out his watch again.

Even if they did not go all four together, everyone who saw them must have known why they were going to the brick building at Number 76.

Number 76 Dock Street was a dingy Romanesque building which must have been constructed in the nineties. Its ground floor was occupied by Setchell's Toggery Shop and by Stevens's hardware store, divided by a flight of stairs that led to the upper floor. Charles nodded to the Toggery Shop, with its window display of ties and summer suiting.

“Do you think Frank Setchell still loves you?” he asked.

“Oh, shut up,” Dorothea said, and he could almost believe that Aunt Jane was telling him not to tease Dorothea. She was tired and nervous. Engagements always upset a girl.

The names of the tenants of 76 Dock Street were painted on the wall at the head of the stairs large enough to be easily red in the ill-lighted hall, and pointing fingers were painted after them so that the directory looked like a signboard at a crossroads. If you turned to the left you could visit Dr. J. I. Brush, Dentist, and the whole hall had that sinister odor characteristic of dental parlors; or if you went further to the left you could visit E. C. Meader, Real Estate and Insurance, or further still, the Minnie Persepolis School of Dancing. To the right was Estelle's Beauty Shop and then the office of Hugh Blashfield, Counselor at Law.

Lawyers in Clyde, like the local doctors and dentists, all had their individual public ratings. Hugh Blashfield did work for Johnson Street, such as searching titles and other odd jobs for which it was not necessary to retain someone from Boston. Even if you did not live on Johnson Street but wished to draw a will, Hugh Blashfield was the one to do it, and besides he was the one who handled trust accounts which were not large enough to go to Boston, and who assisted Boston counsel in routine work for Wright-Sherwin and the banks. He was a sensible, reliable family lawyer, to whom you could safely tell family troubles which were not too bizarre or extreme, but he was no good at all on his feet in front of a jury. If you wanted any fighting done or if you were really in a scrape, it was better to keep away from Lawyer Blashfield, as he was called when he was safely out of earshot. The man to see was Martin X. Garrity. Mart was the one who might fix it out of court or if it got into court you could depend on Mart to see you safely through. On the other hand, Counselor Cooker was the one to handle a dignified damage suit, and the senior of them all, Judge Morby, could represent you in arguments before the probate court. There was a lawyer for each contingency, and each of them knew his place.

Katie Rowell, who had been with Hugh Blashfield for twenty years, was alone in the outer office. Her faded yellowish hair and her freckled nose looked like her golden-oak desk and the yellow shades and the yellow painted woodwork. Both the doors of the tall safe in front of her were open and she kept staring fixedly at the black japanned boxes inside it as though she were afraid that one of them might disappear if she shifted her glance. Charles had seen her at rehearsals of the Clyde Players last winter but Katie, when she greeted them, appeared to have forgotten this and to have forgotten, too, that she and Dorothea were in the same study club, because business came first during business hours.

“Hello, Miss Rowell,” Charles said. “Have you been doing much acting lately?”

“No,” Katie answered. “Not enough were interested in a summer group. Mr. Blashfield is expecting you and you can step right inside.”

In Mr. Blashfield's office, his law books, his diploma and his engraving of the Clyde waterfront all had a confidential veneer which indicated that nothing that might be said would go farther than the room and that plenty had been said in it. Mr. Blashfield was seated in a golden-oak chair at the head of a long table with Charles's parents on either side of him. He was holding the will, a blue-bound document, informally but respectfully in his left hand. When he saw Dorothea and Charles he pushed back his chair noisily on the battleship linoleum and stood up and patted his double-breasted suit into place as though he were going to address a meeting.

“I don't believe I've had an opportunity to congratulate you on your happy news, Dorothea,” he said. “Elbridge Sterne is such a fine young man, and how is everything going in Boston, Charley?”

There was an odd moment of hesitation as they all gathered around the table. Though he obviously wanted to read the will and though they all wished to hear it, at the same time it did not seem correct to be too precipitate.

“That last paper of yours at the Confessional Club was first-rate, John,” Mr. Blashfield said. “I think it is one of your best.”