An April Afternoon

by Philip Wylie

  "'Your obedient servant,

  "'Elias Griggs."

  John folded the last page and put the letter back in its envelope. I had been sitting there with my eyes shut. There was nothing to say. I knew now why I'd always had strange feelings about the sea. I could not measure my emotions. I was free. I had a place on earth--a superb place. But what made my heart beat as if it would burst through my ribs was not that. It was a lurking reality, a fear I had never faced which had come to light only to be annihilated. Because I had not dealt with it, no one will understand the violence of my recognition of it, or the ecstasy of relief from it. For I knew now that if ever I had sons of my own they need not suffer my inadequateness of physique. I knew I had been miscast by circumstance, not misborn. My father was a giant. My sons might be. Then, indeed, my blood ran inside me proudly and I felt the stuff of immortality, courage, strength, joy.

  "You can see that old man writing," John murmured. "His gray head, his weathered face, his seafaded eyes, his logbook locutions--"

  But I didn't want to talk. I took the letter and went to my room. There would be time later to thank him. Meanwhile, I wanted to be alone to feel myself struck free from heavy fetters.

  CHAPTER XX

  The next morning I went to the Post Office to mail some verses. They were the best ones I'd ever written--and I'd done them between four and nine. I hadn't slept all night, but I was neither tired nor sluggish. A lost and astonishing part of myself had been born in those hours. My sadness had become a condition with which I could cope.

  Doubtless it would always be with me. But that no longer mattered. It was still difficult to think of what Virginia was going to do. Now, though, I could face that squarely--and bear it. My weak leg meant nothing any longer. It would never mean anything again. I'd found my father and my mother--and my soul had found its home. I could work. There would be contentment for me.

  Snow was falling that day. The air was dizzy with perpetual whiteness. Shovels rang. Tire chains banged mud guards. Voices were paradoxically hushed and cheerful.

  I hopped into the little depot whistling to myself. I'm neurotic about mailing copy to my syndicate or to editors. Unless I address and post it myself I worry vaguely about it until I hear that it has been received. So I wrote carefully on my manila envelope with the bad pen and I underscored "First Class." Mrs. Weaver peered through the wicket and said, "Miserable weather."

  I grinned and told her that it suited me.

  Then Nora came in. She looked a little surprised and a little embarrassed. She wore a big plaid coat lined with rabbit's fur and the teleology of her figure was destroyed by it. Her eyes were luminous enough, and melting snow jeweled her hair, but her nose was buttonish.

  I said, "Hi, Nora."

  "Hello, Frankie. Thought you were coming to see me?"

  "Maybe. Someday. If the mood recurs."

  "You never will." She laughed.

  "I guess. Too much moonlight."

  Mrs. Weaver was listening conspicuously. I turned toward her and nodded at Nora. "Pretty, isn't she?"

  "Oh, my!" said Mrs. Weaver.

  Nora tossed two letters into the slot. She started toward the door. "Better hurry, Frankie. Or say goodbye. We're going south next week."

  "Any rain checks?"

  "Nope."

  "Pity. Have fun, Nora."

  "Maybe you think I won't!"

  I laughed and the door slammed. But I really don't care much for girls who say,

  "Maybe you think I won't."

  I drove back to Fort Sheffield. Tomorrow, I thought, I'll go down to New York and hunt up a place. The idea brought no pain. There was a certain independence, an autonomy, about being Thomas Treat MacBurney instead of a Sheffield who was not really one. Berry was shovelling the drive. He waved his mitten as I went sluicing past, throwing snow and racing the motor. In my mind was a phantasy about my apartment. I'd have the model of a schooner on my mantel. I'd find out all I could about my father.

  Maybe write his biography. His life was the very stuff of which Conrad had woven stupendous yarns.

  Virginia was in the living room. She was wearing a suit. She had on a hat with a blue feather. Beside her, on the floor, were three suitcases and her mink coat lay across them. She was writing a note.

  It wasn't necessary for her to explain. She saw me and flushed. Then her eyes looked away and her voice was like a child's full of determination--to conceal doubt. "I'm going away today. Bill just called. He said he had to see me at once. So I decided on the spot that I wouldn't make him wait any more and I told him I was coming--and packed--"

  I answered, "Well--" Then I sat down. My new spirit was going to meet its hardest test before it had aged a day. "Well--" didn't seem to be adequate. I enlarged it.

  "Since you've decided--it's better to act."

  "You don't hate me, Frankie?" I shook my head. She stared bemusedly at the note, and crumpled it. "I was trying to sneak out--the way Connie did--wasn't I?"

  "Not quite. She went at night, remember."

  "Still--everyone was out. We--we won't cry--will we?"

  "No."

  "Want to drive me to the train?"

  My lips opened to tell her that Berry would drive. But I said, "Sure, Virginia.

  Anything you wish--"

  I went back to the garage for my sedan. She had carried her own suitcases onto the porch. We put them in and started. Neither of us could think of what to say for a while. I glanced at her several times. She was so distraught that I tried to cheer her up.

  "Anyway, child, you never looked more beautiful. "

  "That isn't true. But I like it. I hope Bill thinks so."

  "He will. He's an elegant guy."

  "Yes." We drove on. "Frankie--I somehow didn't expect you to behave like this.

  You're--strange. Has something happened?"

  I'd made up my mind not to tell her when I'd seen her writing that note. I don't know why. My conscious reasoning had been that I didn't want to interfere with her feeling at such a time. Actually, I suppose I was jealous of my victorious news and jealous of Bill and I didn't want them to be sitting in a Pullman drawing room together saying, "We certainly left Frankie in a wonderful state of mind," and "Good old Frankie!"

  and "Such a sweet guy," and things like that. The hell with it.

  But, now, I told her. She listened and forgot all about herself and nearly threw us off the road by hugging and kissing me. "That's the most wonderful thing I ever heard in my life!" she said.

  She meant exactly that.

  She kept on talking and laughing and choking. "Oh, Frankie! How elegant! What a man he was! And your mother! I'm crying all inside myself!"

  "So am I, rat."

  "And all your worries--they'll all go now!"

  "What worries?"

  Virginia looked out at the snow. Her lips curved up. "Oh--about when you get married would your kids be--not so husky and healthy--things like that--"

  "Whatever made you think I'd had such worries?" I tried to be nonchalant.

  "Your eyes, nut, are easier to read than headlines."

  I could grin, but I couldn't look at her. The station came in sight. We didn't have long to wait for the train, and we passed the time with the conventional fragments. If you want anything, write--and I'll ship it pronto. Do let me know as often as you can how everyone is. Keep us posted on yourself.

  The whistle. The thunder. The spitting brakes. The yellow stools and white-jacketed porters. Her kiss, snow-cold and fire-warm. "Goodbye, Frankie. Always love me, won't you?"

  Always love me. God!

  The train went.

  I ate lunch alone that day at Fort Sheffield.

  Alone.

  "Codfish balls," Anne said to me, "are brain food."

  That, as I remember, was the sum of conversation during my meal. Afterward I went upstairs and began the first random steps that precede true packing. Collecting and organizing. Making separate heaps. Speculating on who would like that d
iscarded suit and which village boy would be most deserving of my .22 and my surf rod. The snow outside fell harder. The wind blew. My thoughts veered in it, and I tried to keep them from Virginia and from Larry and Ivan, but grief, even though it was tolerable, whirled in my heart as thick as the flakes.

  By the time my room was a veritable bazaar of junk, I'd found disfavor with New York at that season. Why, I thought, should I not take a cruise? People did, when their feelings were like mine. Cannes would be chilly and so would Rome. Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt. They'd be fine. And it would be fun to be on a boat--to ride the sea and think about my father. Marvelous fun. What about Old Panama--Guatemala City--

  Guadalajara--Mazaltan? There was a name! . . . Mazatalan. Better still--

  Then the phone rang downstairs, and Anne called up to me, "It's some kind of a sanitarium in Massachusetts. They're trying to get in touch with Mr. Bush, and they thought we might know where he was."

  That frightened me, and I went down and picked up the receiver. I said unevenly,

  "This is Mr. Francis Sheffield, and I may be able to get in touch with Mr. Bush more quickly than anybody else. Is it urgent?"

  It was a Dr. Knowlton, head of the sanitarium. "It's not particularly urgent this time, in a sense," he answered. "And I'm doing it on my own responsibility--"

  I had thought the cup of misery for the Sheffields had been full. But now, if Bill was to be called back from his trip to Washington by his stricken wife--if Virginia were to spend the first days of her bitter-sweet romance alone--that cup indeed would overflow.

  I began to tremble. "I think I can get Mr. Bush before night," I said--although I was not sure that I could. "Quite so," Dr. Knowlton answered. "His place is really here--

  with Mrs. Bush recovered--"

  I said it automatically, "Recovered?"

  There was in his voice both personal and professional enthusiasm. "Why, yes, Mr.

  Sheffield. I assumed that you knew. For some time Mrs. Bush has been under treatment by a new member of our staff, Dr. Gale. It was his theory that a few special cases of traumatic insanity are essentially schizoid. He used the insulin-shock method which has recently been responsible for so many dramatic recoveries from dementia praecox. Late last night Mrs. Bush reacted favorably for the first time. This morning her condition was as near normal as one could expect under the circumstances. We reached Mr. Bush by phone, and he said that as soon as he attended to certain very important matters he would leave for here. When he didn't come, I took the liberty of calling you--inasmuch as your address and telephone number were given to us sometime ago by him. I thought maybe he had stopped on the way up."

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

  "Have you any idea where he might be reached?"

  "It's possible that I may be able to get hold of him." I was thinking--the way a man thinks when he is the victim of a sudden and terrifying accident. Thinking the way a man might if he were pinned under the wreck of his burning automobile. "That's a wonderful--a marvelous piece of news, isn't it?" I had a quick, blistering hope that those words had sounded genuine. "Do you believe her recovery will be permanent?"

  "From the results of other cases that have been observed in the last couple of years, and from the present clarity of Mrs. Bush's mind, I have every reason to hope that it will."

  "I see. It's possible that I can reach Bill--Mr. Bush--around dinner time. I'll have him get in touch with you if I succeed."

  "Thanks, Mr. Sheffield. Naturally, our patient's thoughts are all with her husband, and the sooner he gets to her side the better."

  I hung up then and lighted a cigarette, jittering. Exactly what had Virginia said that morning? "Bill just called. He said he had to see me at once. So I decided then and there I wouldn't make him wait any longer, and I told him I was coming."

  Bill had wanted Virginia to rush into town so that he could tell her about Joyce's recovery. But he had not said so over the phone, and Virginia had taken that moment to make her fateful decision. No doubt he said he was leaving town in a short time, and she had assumed he was leaving for Washington. I knew this had been about the time for his Washington trip. Now he would meet her train with the intention of breaking the news to her, only to find that she was packed and ready to go with him forever.

  What would he do? Tell Virginia and leave for Massachusetts? Take her with him? Would he, or any man, be strong enough to accept such an ironic blow at the instant when his new love had made so great a sacrifice for him? I didn't think so. It wasn't human. He would probably say nothing about Joyce. He would probably go to Washington. He would, persuade himself that 'Joyce's present condition was doubtless temporary and that to risk the rest of his life because of a surprising clinical incident would be foolish. Or else. . . .

  There it was.

  I went back up to my room. The staircase seemed a thousand miles long. This was the final blow. Maybe the Sheffields were not important people. Maybe they were, in truth, the chaff which the wind driveth. Certainly they would give no imperishable dreams to all mankind. Theirs would not be heroes' deaths on battlefields. The ledgers of fame might never contain the Sheffield name. And yet they hardly deserved to be so cruelly treated.

  I thought some more. It was the ancestors of people like the Sheffields who had made America. The Sheffields were proud of their country, proud of freedom, proud of their ideals and their tolerance. They and their sons and daughters would certainly maintain such standards for the future--maintain and heighten them. John had spent a lifetime doing nothing more important than making useful articles for his fellowman.

  Larry would probably continue that business. Ivan--I remembered Ivan and my notion that he would some day win the Nobel Prize. Ivan was a truly valuable man. Then, there was Virginia--who was meant to be the mother of other Ivans and Larrys and Johns.

  It didn't make sense. They lived gracefully--in a way, they were easy-going--but they did not deserve such cumulative disaster, such thick-sown suffering. They didn't deserve it!

  I could not stand that thought.

  I threw myself down on my bed.

  John had lost Connie. Connie had lost everything. Larry and Ivan had lost their mother. I had lost Virginia. And now Virginia was going to lose her love--the bitter consummation of those various bitternesses.

  What I did I should not describe, and I shall always hate myself a little for doing it. I bit the bed-clothing and raged out loud--laughed and cried and cursed with the most wounding phrases I could conceive.

  Finally I knew that I must stop.

  I had things to do. I could probably locate Bill in one of several hotels in Washington by late afternoon or early evening.

  Bill's predicament was the worst of them all. Perhaps--but I wouldn't let myself think much about that--about the possibility of his telling her the truth and sending her back to Fort Sheffield. Far more likely that he would forsake the resurrected Joyce and go to Washington with Virginia when she appeared, packed and ready for the sacrifice.

  But whatever happened--whatever he did, there was no possible result to Virginia's precipitate and uncomprehending departure but tragedy.

  The more my mind gyrated through this new situation, the more hopeless I became. I did, indeed, check my hysteria. I compelled myself to try to concentrate. But what could I tell Bill if I did reach him in Washington? Would he have told Virginia about Joyce? Certainly not--because Virginia would have sent him away to her. Would my calling do any good? And what would happen when Virginia did learn the truth? She would surely give up Bill and come back to Reedy Cove to join John and me in the empty vigils ahead.

  Then, out of this I might indeed have back Virginia. Virginia, knowing that I was Thomas MacBurney, might even someday think fondly of me as not her brother but a man. I could not bear that. I don't know why. To be second best or fifth best or tenth best in Virginia's eyes would have seemed a magical privilege in the past. It wasn't that. Some more profound element of human nature was asserting
itself. It would be too easy-when finally a broken-hearted Virginia came home--to take advantage of propinquity, of her affection for me, of the new difference between us.

  I went back finally to the place where I had been before I learned about the recovery of Bill's wife. That place had been the verge of a new thought. A thought about Connie. She was on Sea Island in Georgia, alone and sorrowful. I would go there and share a similar exile.

  Then, whether Virginia came home in a week or a month, she would have an uncomplicated refuge for her grief and a strong father to share it. That would be far better. We who had always prided ourselves on doing things cleanly and bravely could at least maintain that pride in the face of all calamity.

  What Bill did now or later was none of my business. What happened to Virginia was a fate with which I saw it would be unfair to tamper. Larry hated me. Ivan no longer loved me. John suffered in my company because he ceaselessly realized some part of the pain his long silence had caused me.

  So what had happened to Joyce Bush and what effect it would have on Virginia's life could make no difference in the plan I had decided on.

  I wouldn't call Bill after all. He knew about his wife. He was a man. It was up to him.

  I would go away.

  To Connie.

  It took a long time for the people in Sea Island to find Connie. While they searched, I went on packing--and thinking. But my thoughts did not change my mind; and my spirit was filled with the dismal tides that dredge through all articulate people. The wind blew us, I thought. Blew us together and now it was blowing us apart. We were sand and shells, pebbles, snowflakes, flotsam. Without plan or destiny we were carried by forces so strong and so impersonal that we could never change our courses but only out attitudes toward the way we went. The stone road could never be a path. It was only a point of view. An optimism today--a cynicism tomorrow--chimerical--nonexistent. It was no signpost, but only a place name. A road that gave courage to the wanderer, but no detour around sorrow. A hard road after all. And I, like a fool, had been giving people directions along it without knowing where it led.