Point of No Return (60 page)

“And I don't want anyone to do anything about it,” he said. “I don't want anyone to tell anybody.”

“I can't quite fit this all together,” his father said, “but it seems to me that Laurence Lovell was mildly insulting, Charley.”

“I told you he didn't like it,” Charles answered.

“And that's one part of it that I don't like,” John Gray said. “I think I'd better go and see Laurence Lovell myself tomorrow.”

It was the last thing that Charles had expected or wanted and it was utterly uncalled-for but he was not able to dissuade him.

“Can't you leave him alone?” Charles asked. “What did he ever do to you, Father?”

John Gray smiled and stared straight at the wall in front of him.

“That's just it,” he said. “He never did do anything.”

“Now, Charley,” his mother said, “of course your father must have a talk with Mr. Lovell if you and Jessica are engaged and I think it would be very nice if we asked Mr. Lovell and Miss Georgianna here to dinner. Don't you, John?”

“No, Esther,” John Gray said. “I don't think it's necessary to ask Laurence Lovell to dinner.”

His father was playing poker at the Pine Trees when Charles got back from Boston the next evening. It was the Pine Tree get-together night, an annual occasion on which they all met at the firehouse and ate steamed clams and hamburgers, so Charles did not see his father until later. His mother and Dorothea both told him that his father had been to see Mr. Lovell that morning but when he came home he had been very busy telephoning Boston—something to do with some sort of auxiliary schooner—and that he had not mentioned Mr. Lovell and they had not wanted to ask him.

Mr. Lovell, however, had spoken of it himself when Charles had gone to see Jessica after supper.

“Your father dropped in this morning, Charles,” Mr. Lovell said.

“I told him I wished he wouldn't,” Charles said.

“There was no reason at all, under the circumstances, why he shouldn't have,” Mr. Lovell said. “We had a very pleasant talk—largely about financial matters.”

“I'm glad it was pleasant, sir,” Charles said, but he could not very well ask Mr. Lovell what financial matters had been discussed.

His father never told him either. He was in his room upstairs later, reading The Anatomy of Melancholy, and he called to Charles to say good night.

“Oh, there you are, Charley,” he said. “I had a little talk with Laurence Lovell this morning.”

“What did you talk about?” Charles asked.

“Oh, this and that—financial matters. Do you know what I think, Charley?”

“What?” Charles asked.

“I think I'll get out of this market. I haven't been sleeping well lately. I had to go to Gerald's last week to get some pills. The market's getting on my nerves.” He closed The Anatomy of Melancholy and placed it on the table. “I don't see why I shouldn't live on my money like the Lovells, for a while, and let someone else worry.”

“You're not serious, are you?” Charles said.

“I don't see why you never believe me, Charley,” John Gray answered. “I've never liked doing the same thing all the time. There's too much else going on. Dorothea's getting married in June and you're engaged. I've been using my mind too much. Now what I really need is a little sea air. Look at this, Charley.”

He picked up a photograph from the table. It was a picture of a schooner.

“It's the
Zaza
. It's a damned funny name, isn't it? People who own yachts and horses never have much imagination. The Zaza. Sixty-five feet overall. Three in the crew. You'll like the captain, Charley. He says garlic cures indigestion, but he bunks forward with the crew. She'll be in the river tomorrow.”

“You mean to say you've bought that thing?” Charles asked.

“I wish you wouldn't jump at conclusions,” his father said. “I know my place, Charley. That's what I told Laurence Lovell this morning. I've just chartered her for a month. I need some relaxation.”

“I wish you'd have some sense of proportion,” Charles said.

It must have been a part of Clyde folklore still—his father and that schooner-yacht called the Zaza—but at least he only had her for a month.

“Father,” he asked, “did you do this because you were going to talk with Mr. Lovell?”

His father did not answer him specifically.

“That's a very sensible question, Charley. I won't say yes and I won't say no. I admit it has its juvenile side.” His father was enjoying every minute of it. He was having a wonderful time. “I'm sorry if it embarrasses you, Charley,” he said, “but aren't you glad I'm getting out of the market?”

“If you're out, you won't stay out,” Charles said. “You can't.”

“I don't know why you're so sure of everything,” his father answered. “I might stay out.”

He was still holding the photograph of that schooner-yacht, a ridiculous plaything with its full white billowing sails. Everything had gone too far, Charles was thinking. Nothing could end in defiance of the laws of gravity.

“I wish I could believe it,” he said.

He was thinking of what Sam had said long ago, that it was all a lot of guff. His father had assumed his old look of composed displeasure.

“That's not very complimentary, Charley,” he said.

“Why don't you set up a trust fund for Mother?” Charles asked. “Then I'd be very complimentary, Father.”

He had asked the same question again and again lately and his father's reaction was always exactly the same. “How many times have I told you,” he asked, “that I agree with you? Of course, I'm going to do it, but Hugh Blashfield isn't going to handle it and there isn't any hurry. Don't be so worried, Charley.”

Charles never liked to think about that schooner in the river and he only went aboard her once or twice. He told Jessica that he was ashamed of it and that he wished his father would keep her at Marblehead and not in the river. He always had a feeling that he ought to apologize to everyone and explain, but he could not very well explain that the boat was symbolic and a gesture, and after all no one seemed to be as upset about this as he was. Jessica was only amused and said it was just like his father and that it was nice he had something to play with. Dorothea said that of course it was silly and ridiculously extravagant, but then he was only going to have it for a month and it probably did not cost much more than that winter cruise to the Caribbean. His mother was more definite, because she always accepted everything that John Gray did. If he had earned the money—that was the way she put it because she always thought of money as being earned—there was no reason why he should not use it. There were all sorts of other, bigger yachts everywhere and it was not as though he were not sharing it with everybody. He was taking everyone he knew for a sail and there was no reason why he should not have some pleasure himself for once. He had worked so hard for years at the mill and no one had appreciated him and now that he was a success, as she always knew he would be, it was not fair to be so critical. He deserved to have a good time and she wished that Charles could see what a very remarkable man he was. She wished that Charles understood him as well as Dorothea.

“Charley,” she said, “you're getting as fussy as Jackie Mason.”

21

A Formal Announcement Will Be Necessary

A haze of unreality surrounded that summer and this may have been the reason why Charles found himself seeking Jackie Mason's company again. Jackie was still what he had always been—a constant quantity. When Charles told Jackie Mason that he hated to think what everyone was saying about his father's spending and extravagance, Jackie was reassuring.

“Of course,” he said, “there's a certain amount of talk, but I wouldn't take it too seriously. You see, your father has a certain position, Charley, and if you have a position no one talks so much.” Jackie frowned and patted his yellow hair carefully. He was always worried for fear his hair would not stay in place. “Now if Mr. Sullivan or Mr. Levine put a hundred-dollar bill in the contribution box, it would be different. It would be different with my father, or me too, Charley, because, well, my grandfather was a druggist and your grandfather was a judge. That gives position, and if you have it you can be more eccentric, Charley. It's the same way with you. You have more position than I have. Let's admit it.”

Jackie Mason was looking at him wistfully, as though their positions were far apart already and as though he felt privileged that they were still friends. Charles wanted to tell Jackie to stop, that they were just the same as they ever were, that they had lived next door to each other and had known each other all their lives, but before he could speak Jackie was going on.

“You can really go anywhere now,” Jackie said. “It must be nice to be so secure.”

“But I'm not secure,” Charles told him. “Don't you see, with Father nothing is secure?” But Jackie shook his head.

“That isn't so, Charley,” he answered. “Really it isn't. I used to think you were hurting your position when you left Wright-Sherwin, but you knew what you were doing.”

“I wonder if anyone really knows why he does anything,” Charles said.

“Now, Charley,” Jackie said, “we know each other well enough to be frank. I know you don't tell me everything, you don't have to.” It was true. You never had to tell much in Clyde. “You can get anywhere you want.” Jackie Mason sighed. “You'll be a director of the bank someday, and there's no reason why you shouldn't be a trustee of the public library.” Jackie was always loyal. He was loyal to the end. “It doesn't even make any difference if Dorothea marries Elbridge Steme, and furthermore, don't you see, Charley—” and Jackie stopped as though he were going to say something indiscreet.

“Go ahead,” Charles told him. “What don't I see?”

“Don't you see that Mr. Lovell can't do anything about it, in spite of his position?”

Jackie had lowered his voice when he mentioned Mr. Lovell's name. They had been standing in the dusk talking in the Masons' yard as they had ever since they were children, and Jackie looked half-apprehensively toward Johnson Street. It was as close as he ever came to mentioning what everybody knew, that Mr. Lovell could do nothing but accept what lay between Charles and Jessica. Mr. Lovell could do nothing about the accomplished fact. Mr. Lovell himself was a part of Clyde.

If there were anything in the theory that the past remained intact, he and Jessica Lovell must still have been somewhere, with the other ghosts of Clyde. Perhaps all of that summer might have returned to him again and again if he had stayed in Clyde. If he had never seen Jessica Lovell again except in the distance, he would have seen the shadows of Jessica and himself around every corner and on every country road. If he had walked down Dock Street, he and Jessica might still have been standing in front of the window of Stowell's furniture store, talking of living room curtains. She had wanted green monk's cloth curtains. Down at the foot of Gow Street, they might still have been gazing at the F
OR
S
ALE
sign on the Pritchard house, for old Miss Pritchard had died that summer. It was in bad condition, but they could have fixed it up if they had bought it. If he had gone to the beach in the moonlight, he and Jessica would have been there with their picnic supper. Their two shadows would have been everywhere, because they had been everywhere in Clyde together. By God, it was a wonderful town.

They would have been talking still about the things they were going to do. There would have been the same surprise that they liked so many of the same things. They had been so very, very practical. Jessica was going to learn how to keep a budget and he was going to learn how to work in the garden. They were going to read together in the evening. They both loved to read aloud. At last it was possible to talk of all those practical things. She could buy him neckties now and she could go with him to Boston in the morning, if she wanted, and of course they were going to have a car, a Ford or a Dodge, perhaps—but they only looked at cars in Boston, because their engagement was not announced.

He could buy her a gold bracelet now and a moonstone pin, but not a ring because their engagement was not announced. They could not very well look at rings in Marston's Jewelry Shop but they could look at them in Boston and if anyone who knew them should happen to see them it would not matter much because they were engaged, although it was not announced. They could even go to Jessica's aunt's summer place at Cohasset for the night, because the family knew they were engaged. There were all sorts of things that they could do and say that summer. It was strange how few of them he could remember. It must have been because he had pushed them so relentlessly aside. That summer was now covered up by so much that was more actual—that summer and all of Clyde.

The summer and those shadows of himself and Jessica, and Clyde too, were like the Atlantis upon which his father had discoursed that night when Jessica came to supper. Elbridge Sterne had not known about Atlantis, but that was natural. Elbridge was an excellent metallurgical chemist, so excellent that a few months later a larger company from Kansas City had sent for him. He was too good for Wright-Sherwin and anyway it was a chance to get back home. Elbridge did not care about lands beneath the sea or sunken shoals that jutted above the water when the tide was very low.

Dorothea and Elbridge Sterne were married in the Unitarian Church that June. May Mason, who had married Jeffrey Meader and who already had two children, was matron of honor, though she said she was too old—still, she was not as old as Dorothea—and Elbridge had asked Charles to be best man, instead of his brother, who came on with Elbridge's mother from Kansas City. Dorothea had wanted Jessica to be a bridesmaid but they had not asked her in the end—because it had not been announced.