Private Life

by Jane Smiley

  The first line of the book he had handed her was “Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.” She felt a palpable pleasure upon reading this, compounded of the promise inherent in the everyday scene and the comfort of the room she was in, the gaslights on, the curtains drawn, the chairs and the carpet so rich and clean. There would be supper, and an entire night of respite from the exterior cold. She looked at Captain Early again. He was quiet and relaxed, and then he felt her gaze, and looked up and smiled. She dipped her head.

  After a delicious supper, the captain and Margaret read a little longer while Lavinia knitted and Mrs. Early did embroidery. Mrs. Hitchens had coincidentally set off for Minnesota at just the wrong time, and was stranded in Chicago, but she was staying at the Palmer House Hotel.

  Captain Early remarked, “The floor of the barbershop there is tiled in silver dollars, you know.”

  “My land!” exclaimed Lavinia. “How much could that possibly cost?”

  “Thirty-six dollars per foot, or eighty-six hundred forty dollars, given the size of the room as I estimated it just by looking,” said Captain Early promptly.

  “Such an extravagance!” exclaimed Lavinia.

  “It’s a very elegant hotel,” said Mrs. Early, complacently. “I’m quite certain that Helen will be comfortable there until they clear the snowdrifts from the lines.”

  That night, as they prepared for rest (three steaming hot-water bottles carried up ahead of time to warm the feather comforters piled on the bed), Lavinia said, “He seems to have quite a stock of information. And he’s not bad-looking, all in all.”

  Margaret didn’t say anything.

  “He did smile at you, Margaret, dear.”

  “Was I glaring?”

  “Why, no. You never glare.”

  “Mercer told Elizabeth that I glare and make jokes and so fellows are afraid of me.”

  “She repeated that?”

  “I overheard it.”

  “We never overhear good of ourselves, and that’s a fact.”

  “But maybe sometimes we overhear what we need to know?”

  Lavinia didn’t answer that, but said, “Of course, you are a quiet girl. Everyone knows that. But Captain Early looked at you several times. Four times. Once for quite a spell.”

  “As if he were calculating my dimensions?”

  “Rather like that, yes. But that isn’t necessarily unfavorable.”

  They didn’t say anything after that, but each of them saw what the other was seeing also—that this third bedroom was furnished in the latest style, that the comforters were made of satin, and the sheets of linen, and the washstand of mahogany, and the draperies of velvet, and the carpet of thick wool, that the room was quiet and readily conducive to a peaceful rest. Heretofore, Lavinia had upheld the Bells’ house on Kingshighway as the most elegant house she knew, and John Gentry’s farmhouse as the most comfortable, but from this house, all questions of expense had been banished.

  They had a pleasant breakfast in the morning, but Captain Early was not present—he had stayed up studying the heavens until almost dawn, taking advantage of the clear weather, and was still abed. They went home that afternoon.

  They did see Captain Early one more time before he went away in the spring to take up a position at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Lavinia, a woman who did seasonal cleaning for them, Esther Malone, and Margaret were out in the side yard, washing all the sheets, towels, blankets, curtains, and petticoats from the winter. Margaret was stirring the clothes in the hot water, and Esther and Lavinia were feeding them through the wringer. They had already wrung out the less soiled items and hung them up to dry, when Captain Early, dressed informally in a floppy hat, light-colored loose trousers, and muddy boots, walked by, carrying a stick. He stopped and stood for a moment without speaking, then greeted them.

  “I’ve been down to the river,” he said.

  The Missouri River was three miles and more from where they stood, so that qualified as an active morning’s excursion, Margaret thought.

  “It’s somewhat higher than I expected it to be, but I understand that the snowpack upriver was greater than I had heard.”

  “Goodness,” said Lavinia.

  “Even so, there’s no danger here,” he went on. “That’s my guess. But it’s an educated guess. What will happen below St. Louis, though, I don’t like to think of.”

  “That’s always …,” began Lavinia.

  “It’s well known that the levee system is jerry-built below Cairo, but people in general, not just in Missouri, live with their heads in the sand. Not only officials. Officials aren’t entirely to blame if the citizenry is itself indifferent or uneducated. I don’t mind levees per se, but I’ve got my doubts about willow mats. And about dredging, too, I must say.”

  “They’re dredging the river?” exclaimed Lavinia. “Around here?”

  “No, ma’am. I was referring to the lower Mississippi.” He fell silent, and seemed to watch them, passing his stick from hand to hand. Finally, as Margaret pressed the clothes down with her paddle, he said, “Did you know that the Romans cleaned their clothes by having slaves walk about upon them in vats of human urine? Urine was a rich source of ammonium salts and was sold and taxed in Roman times. I often think we moderns could take that as an example of how we could make better use of our own products.”

  Lavinia said, “No doubt that is generally true.” She coughed, and maintained a personable smile. After a bit, Esther muttered, “Well, is he going to be helping us, now? What’s he standing about for?”

  Finally, he said, “Miss Mayfield. I hope you will feel at liberty to borrow more books from our family library. I can recommend two in particular. One is one I have been reading myself and have now finished, entitled Visits to High Tartary, Yârkand and Kâshgar, by Mr. Shaw. It has very nice drawings of Central Asia. I’ve set it out for you. And another is Dracula, by Mr. Bram Stoker, who is a friend of my brother in England. He runs a theater, and is a very able man. You enjoyed Mr. Holmes?”

  She stopped pushing her paddle. “Yes, I did.”

  “Mr. Stoker is rather more daring than Mr. Conan Doyle, both in his formulation of the story and in his sensational effects. Good day.” He tipped his hat and walked on.

  Esther looked after him, then said, “You may say what you like, that he’s a genius and all, but if I am asked, I will say that he’s a strange one.”

  “But harmless, I’m sure,” said Lavinia, with a glance at Margaret.

  Margaret herself said, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know things.”

  “Certainly not,” said Lavinia. “The Mayfields have always been interested in knowing things. A man with some ambition, like your father, is much more eligible than a man who is content with what he has already.”

  It was perfectly clear to Margaret that Lavinia had made up her mind that Captain Early was not only an excellent prospect, but also a promising one. That he was neither attentive nor comfortable she put down to his eccentric education and his universe-altering occupation. Every so often, she would make some unexpected remark that indicated to Margaret that she was saying much less than she was thinking—one of these was “When all is said and done, my dear, a busy man leaves his wife considerable leeway to follow her own impulses.” Another one was “I always thought a masculine presence in the house had a warming effect.” Another: “Look at Robert! Not the most promising specimen at first, but thriving now.”

  Margaret began to have a fated feeling, as if accumulating experiences were precipitating her toward an already decided future. Once, shortly before Christmas, there was both a heavy snowfall and a long freeze, and Margaret took Lawrence to ice-skate. That fall, she had the boys with her quite often, because Beatrice was again with child and not feeling well (“The sure sign of a girl,” said Lavinia). Everyone in town younger than sixty congregated on the ice, whic
h was in a low-lying lot south of the town square and not far from the hotel. She saw Captain Early as soon as he arrived, and well before he saw her guiding Lawrence with two hands along the edge of the ice. She watched as Captain Early strapped on his skates, which made him even taller, and affixed his top hat more firmly on his head (still taller), and sailed among the other skaters like a schooner among sloops (she had yet to see, except in pictures, either a schooner or a sloop, but they were naval, he was naval—it was a good comparison). And then she felt a sort of pleasing dread as he skated toward her. He took off his hat, and his smile was as big as she had ever seen it. In order not to glare, she kept her gaze on Lawrence until she had made her own face welcoming. He said, “All factions foregather upon the glazed surface.”

  “You’ve returned.”

  “Time has stopped, indeed, Miss Mayfield.”

  She said, “Pardon me?”

  “I was assaying a little joke. My responsibilities in Washington have to do with ascertaining the exact time, for naval purposes, by measuring the progress of the stars. While I am here, therefore—”

  They smiled together. She said, “This is my nephew Lawrence. He’s doing quite well today.”

  Captain Early clapped his hat back on his head and seemed to collapse, but in fact he was only squatting down to speak with Lawrence, who quailed, though he was normally a rowdy boy and not easily daunted. Captain Early’s voice seemed to surround them. “Two plus two!” he demanded.

  “Four,” said Lawrence. His own age, thought Margaret.

  “Three plus three!”

  “Six.” (A softer voice.)

  “Four plus four!”

  “Eight.” (Very quiet.) This one Margaret was surprised the boy knew.

  “Five plus five!”

  Something inaudible emerged from Lawrence. She bent down and said, “What do you reply to Captain Early?”

  Lawrence now yelled in the defiant manner she was more familiar with, “I said ‘Enough!’”

  Captain Early barked out a laugh and said, “Indeed, ten is often enough.” He laughed again, and Lawrence laughed with him, his sassiness fully restored.

  Then Captain Early shook her hand heartily, and skated away. She watched him in the crowd. Most people stared at him. He exchanged greetings with a few, but no lengthy conversations. One or two people looked from him to her and back again.

  Later that week, Lavinia and Margaret were invited to the Earlys’ for supper. The horse and the sleigh came for them. Once again the house was warm, and once again the supper was very good, and just a little more festive. Mrs. Hitchens nodded agreeably and said, “Yes. Oh, yes, indeed,” every time Captain Early spoke. But this time Captain Early didn’t speak much. He complimented his mother on the supper, told them that the exposition was still behindhand, and allowed as how some of the athletic performances scheduled to take place that summer, at the Olympic Games, which had been moved from Chicago to St. Louis, could well be “enlightening.” Mrs. Hitchens asked what the Olympic Games were, and they were told that these were a competition between amateur athletes from all parts of the world.

  “Don’t you remember?” said Mrs. Early. “They had them in Greece several years ago, and then in Paris.”

  Lavinia and Mrs. Early discussed Christmas greenery and scarlet fever, and Margaret told how Aurelius had finally died—“a blessing not to go through the winter,” said Lavinia, and possibly Beatrice would send them another horse, “but horses are such a bother,” and everyone nodded, including Captain Early, who said, “Everyone will have an automobile soon enough,” and Lavinia said, “Can you imagine?” Margaret could tell Lavinia was uncomfortable, because her tone of voice got suspiciously brighter each time she spoke, and then she said, suddenly, “You know, Margaret here once witnessed a hanging. A public hanging. But she doesn’t remember a thing about it.”

  “Indeed!” said Mrs. Early, but gracefully, as if Lavinia were still talking about Aurelius.

  “She was five, or almost. It was the day Elizabeth was born. Her brother Lawrence took her. I don’t know what he was thinking.”

  “I remember that,” said Mrs. Early. “It was quite an event. The last time in this town for such a thing, thank goodness.”

  Captain Early said nothing for a moment, then, “That was the week John and I went upstate to look for geodes. We took the train to Hannibal and then trekked up to Keokuk.”

  Mrs. Early said, “You should see the boxes of rocks in the cellar. I’m sure there are diamonds in there somewhere.”

  Captain Early said, “I sometimes feel as though I remember everything.” He said this in such a somber voice that Lavinia immediately added, “Margaret has such a good habit of looking on the bright side of things.”

  This was when Mrs. Early, who was sitting catty-corner to her, momentarily put her hand over Margaret’s and gave a squeeze. The older woman’s hand was warm, and she said, “That is a personal quality that I’ve always appreciated.”

  But it was not a lively supper. Captain Early went back to Washington soon after, and Margaret had the distinct feeling of staring into her own future, the same feeling she had had so long ago, at the Fourth of July parade where John Gentry had fallen off his chair and Robert Bell had seen his possibilities expand. The play had begun. The customary ending was promised. Her own role was to say her lines sincerely and with appropriate feeling. At her age, she thought, she should know what those feelings were, but she did not.

  As if to answer this question, Lavinia made sure Margaret was ever helpful that winter and spring. If people were down with any sort of fever or pleurisy or rheumatism and couldn’t do for themselves, Margaret was the one who carried the baked beans to the house or did the extra housework or went uptown to the store for provisions, especially if the ill person was a maiden aunt or a widow or an impoverished woman of any sort. She quilted at the church with ladies who had time on their hands, making rough comforters to be handed out to those who couldn’t afford their own. Lavinia’s constant topic of conversation was the misfortunes of these women, and the greatest of these was finding themselves alone and unprotected in a world everyone acknowledged to be unsympathetic and even dangerous. Every time Margaret settled into a chair and opened a book, Lavinia wondered aloud whether Beatrice needed a hand, and maybe Margaret should walk over there (“The fields are quite hard with this frost”) and stay for a few days, doing laundry. Margaret’s future, as a result, seemed to narrow to a point, and the point was this room, where they were knitting in air so cold that they could see their breath by the lamplight.

  Mrs. Early sent them things: dishes of brandied plums or a mincemeat pie. She sent them oranges once, and books, of course, and special tea from Ceylon or China. She came by and read them parts of the captain’s letters, which they could see were lengthy and neatly written. He had a good command of language, and liked to walk, so she often read them his descriptions of his perambulations in Washington and Virginia—“Beloved Mother, Here in Washington, the winter is well advanced, and spring at hand. I went with Wilson Sunday into Rock Creek Park. The grass was up, in the tenderest threadlike shoots, and the air was fragrant with moisture rising from the earth as we strode across it. Wilson showed me where he uncovered a hand-ax and some spear points, demonstrating to all and sundry (or those willing to accept the truth) that America has been peopled for many thousands of years, just as Greece and Egypt have. The evidence is, of course, fascinating, but I could not keep my eyes or my mind off the dogwood, which is in flower, and the violets and toadflax.” Margaret had to admit that there was something wonderfully elegant about such outings, something far, far away from the sighs and heavy fabrics of the quilting circle.

  The Louisiana Purchase Exposition opened later in the spring, and everything in the world was changed by it, but Lavinia and Margaret did not make their first visit until the beginning of June.

  Truly, it was not like anything Margaret ever saw before or afterward. It had been promised that they
would get the whole world into one end of Forest Park, and it seemed as though they succeeded. Dora spent the entire summer at the exposition, supposedly writing about it for various papers near and far, but really, she told Margaret, she could not bear to leave, even when the weather was hot and the crowds were pressing and the roads (miles and miles of them) dusty. Mrs. Bell had a proprietary pride in the fair, and would hear nothing but praise for the beautiful trains in the Palace of Transportation, the astounding electrical display in the Palace of Electricity and Machinery, the thrilling pipe organ in the Festival Hall, or, for that matter, the contortionist outside of Mysterious Asia. The world was jumbled together, with the Irish Village right beside the Tyrolean Alps, but they got used to that. After three days, they went, dazzled and bewildered, back to stay with Elizabeth in Kirkwood, and then returned home, only to go back to the exposition in July, when it was much hotter but there was even more to look at. It was then that they met Captain Early, who was staying in St. Louis with his mother and Mrs. Hitchens, and “doing the whole thing.”

  The first day, they ate ice cream in the Tyrolean Alps; the day after that, they looked at the sculptures in the Colonnade; the day after that, they watched an athletic contest. Captain Early was in his element, and seemed eager to squire her about and show her every mechanical miracle on display. The contortionist and the pipe organ were not nearly so much to his taste as the Moving Picture in Hardware, or the ladies making corsets by machine, or even the enormous teapot. He was mildly diverted by the display in which criminals were measured, part by part, in order to demonstrate their criminal tendencies, and, indeed, he did take her to the Human Zoo, where all the races of man were shown off (and Geronimo was there, too). He was more animated than Margaret had ever seen him. He took her arm and hurried her here and there, but also was attentive to all of her possible desires—would she care for more ice cream, or for a sausage wrapped in a bun, or for some cherries? He seemed as unaffected by the heat as he had been unaffected by the cold on that strange winter day of their first meeting. Margaret saw now that he was not exactly like other mortals—he knew more, saw more. His mind worked more quickly and surveyed a broader landscape. Others stared at the three-thousand-horsepower steam turbine and the two-hundred-kilowatt alternator nearby, even removed their hats in awe, but Captain Early laughed aloud with delight at the two machines. He seemed positively joyful as dusk fell. He took Margaret’s elbow, halting her on the path, and then he gestured with his arm, and electrical lights lit up all around the park, as if he himself were sparking them. Margaret gasped.