by Mary Astor
“How, how can you be so lacking in understanding! Tell me, why should I exhaust myself to be gracious, for heaven’s sake, to Charlie’s tutor and some unknown friend of his. Just who are they, anyway! Herbert Jenner! Who is he?” And she began to cry, without sobbing, just great tears streaking themselves in a river down her cheeks. Panting a little, she drew out some tissue from under her pillows and blew her nose, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
Walter patted her shoulder comfortingly, wordlessly. He never knew what to do when these floodgates opened. It seemed that no matter what he said he only provoked more, so he had learned to be silent. “Never mind, never mind, honey—we’ll manage.” He left the room quietly, and Virginia, with an armful of school clothes she was going to take downstairs to be sent to the cleaner’s, emerged from her room across the hall. He raised his hands in a hopeless gesture, shaking his head.
Virginia said, “Don’t worry about it, Dad, we’ve got a whole beautiful mess of quail that we can break out of the freezer—we’ll have a scrumptious dinner—and I’ll be just the best hostess in the world.”
Walter put an arm about her. “That’s my girl—I guess it is asking too much of Mum.”
Dinner was over, the meal had been really “scrumptious” as Virginia had promised. Doreen and the butler had cleared the plates and filled the coffee cups, and at the moment no one felt inclined to make a break in the comfortable conversation that ebbed and flowed around the table. Above their heads, the heat of the candles making a clear bright tunnel in the center, a nimbus of smoke swirled and eddied around them, a gentle bond, delicately uniting the elements of a chance gathering. Charlie was bored with it. On his right hand, Gregg was discussing with Virginia the Julius Meier-Graefe biography of Vincent Van Gogh. On his left Herb was absorbed in Elsie, as he had been ever since he arrived, leaving him, Charles, to make small smoke rings, into which he would point the end of his cigar. At the opposite end of the table, Walter and Jeff were deep in the international situation.
“I feel that the danger is that Europe may not let Germany wait,” Jeff was saying. “Hitler is sharp enough to know that the longer he waits, the better his Reichswehr and Storm Troops become, the more arms and munitions he can hoard up and the better chance he will have to strike for success. But there has certainly been a lot of talk about a ‘preventive war.’ Those fellows, the strategists in Paris and Warsaw and Brussels, know what Hitler is up to, I’m sure.”
“But, Jeff,” Walter said, “there isn’t a man who has been a soldier who would want to start another war—not after the last one. And I think that even Hitler realizes that both Czechoslovakia and Poland have heavily fortified frontier cities. Pilsudski’s troops could plow their way in three weeks to Berlin. No—no, Hitler’s motives are too obvious, as you say, for him to get away with anything.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Jeff, staring into the tawny swirl in his brandy glass.
The radio in the living room was making a station break and the Sunday evening symphony from Chicago was being announced.
“And yet, in a way, Vincent was the more productive of the two brothers. Isn’t it strange,” Virginia was saying to Gregg, “how one artist will use paint to pour out his soul, and another,” nodding toward the sounds of Beethoven coming from the radio, “will use music.”
Gregg laughed shortly. “It would seem that the more normal one is, the less need there is to express oneself.”
Virginia smiled. “Don’t you think it’s probably that a whole person expresses himself satisfactorily to himself in all the little things of the day—I mean——” She hesitated.
Gregg laughed again. “That perhaps if everybody was ‘normal’ we wouldn’t have any artists in the world?”
“Perhaps there are a lot of artists who would resent that. . . . What do you think, Charlie?”
She had caught a glimpse of Charlie’s face beyond Gregg’s shoulder. It carried an expression of complete boredom; he was drumming on the table, his gaze in an odd smile fastened on nothing.
“Charlie?” she repeated anxiously, trying to draw him into the conversation.
“Hah?” he said. “I wasn’t listening. Why don’t we get out of here, Virge, my legs are asleep.”
Virginia looked around the table. “Of course, if you like, Charlie—everybody seems so happy, though, I hate to break it up.”
“Well, I’m not ‘happy,’ ” he growled. “I can’t keep my eyes open. I want to go to bed.”
The conversation stopped as if it had been turned off by a switch. And instantly started up again, as Walter hastily pushed back his chair, saying, “Sorry, it’s my fault, let’s go into my study and have some more coffee, it’s more comfortable in there.”
He led the way across the hall, followed by Jeff, Elsie, and Herb. Charlie, the last out of the room, passed Gregg and Virginia and, without a word, began going up the stairs, two at a time. At the door of the living room, both Virginia and Gregg stopped and looked up at him.
“Charlie?” called Virginia anxiously. “You’ll be back?”
“Of course he will, don’t worry,” said Gregg, and yet he also had caught the surly look that had caused Virginia’s question.
“Go on in, will you, Gregg, please? I’ll be right down.”
The sound of Charlie’s door slamming reached her ears as she reached the top of the stairs. Firmly, angrily she went up to it, rapped and went in without an answer. Charlie was flinging off his coat, pulling out his shirt.
“And what,” Virginia asked, “is biting you?”
Charlie sat down on the bed to pull off his shoes. “Nobody’s listening to me,” he said petulantly.
“What are you talking about, Charlie? I wasn’t aware that you were even holding up your end of any conversation. You can’t just walk out on a dinner party—you can’t be so rude. Especially since you were the one who turned the house upside down at the last minute—without any notice.”
“Oh, it’s my fault now, is it—it’s my fault that everybody sits around and talks a lot of crap—and that Jenner guy, on the make for Elsie right under everybody’s nose. Well, just let him try to get away with something, that’s all, just let him try. Who the hell does he think he is anyway? Research laboratory,” he sneered, “I’ll bet you’ll find out he works in a drugstore—at a soda fountain!” He fired a shoe across the room.
“Charlie, you are behaving—well—just terribly! Please, you must come back down and join the guests.”
Charlie smiled pleasantly. “Look, Virgie love, let me be. Go on out now, so I can get my clothes off—I tell you I’m just sleepy.”
Virginia, completely bewildered, cried, “But what will I say, what will I tell them?”
Charlie took her firmly by the shoulder and eased her out of the room. “See you in the morning, old girl.”
As Virginia passed through the living room, Elsie and Herb were fiddling with the dials of the radio—tuning in some dance music. Charlie’s unpleasant phrase “on the make” flitted distastefully through her mind. Herb looked more as though he had been hit over the head, and knighted in the bargain. Elsie’s color was high and her eyes sparkled, and as the strains of the popular “Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?” came over the radio and they embraced lightly and swayed into the breezy rhythm, Virginia shook her head a little, and spoke the answer in the song. “Well, I did.” She went on to Walter’s study without their even having been aware of her presence.
As usual, she thought, she was making a fuss, putting too much importance on Charlie’s behavior. She should be used to it now. Wearily she thought, at least there was one consistency; in any given situation, Charlie could be counted on to do the wrong thing, the inappropriate thing. Nobody, but nobody, could be more charming when he wanted to be. He had, it seemed, a full command of the social graces, and in any gathering, especially of people who were strangers to him, could attract attention with no effort. People would gravitate toward him, toward the sound of his pleasant voi
ce, his contagious laugh; but always he seemed to want to destroy the effect he had created, or rather he couldn’t help doing something that would destroy it. Some silly thing. Some absurdity. Like at the cocktail party at the Millers’ in Boston last summer, when a waiter with a loaded tray of canapés passed them seated on a divan, and he deliberately stuck out his foot and tripped him. In the mess and embarrassment which followed, he had not even apologized or tried to turn a silly prank into an accident. He had simply doubled up with laughter and said, “Well, that’s one way to get some service around here!” and, not yet content with the effect, proceeded to pick up a handful of the bits of bread and anchovies and cheese and stuff them into his mouth. People laughed politely, those nearest him; someone said, “He’s a card!” and someone in the background said, “He’s crazy!” and Virginia in an anguish of embarrassment managed to get him out as quickly as possible.
Schools could expel him, friends were quickly made and quickly lost, his contact with any kind of social life was brief, and none of it seemed to matter to him. Nor did it matter that the cumulative effect was destroying a family. She and Elsie would be lucky of course—going on eventually to make their own homes, their own lives. Charlie could be dropped out of their minds and their hearts, he could do nothing to them, except be thought of as their eccentric brother, and they would have little to do with him. But what of Dad and Mum and their sense of failure? Mum half sick all the time, and Dad beginning to look drawn and tormented. Oh, damn him, damn him, she thought, tears constricting her throat, tears of nostalgia for the once wonderful closeness of the family, when Charlie was an enchanting playmate, when the days were filled with the excitement of growing and the house was full of warmth and love.
She slipped into the library as Doreen was coming out with a tray.
In a low voice she said, “Doreen, Mrs. Carewe’s asleep—I drew the curtains, so you needn’t go in to her.”
“Yes, Miss Virginia.”
“It was a fine dinner, Doreen, tell Agnes—and you needn’t wait up.”
“Thank you, Miss Virginia, and I’ll say good night then.”
She had prepared her demeanor to skip over Charlie’s defection and treat it in the acceptable social manner, to carry on with conversation and let it pass with an apology later. But the men had faced it head on.
“Honey, Gregg says he knows Lawrence Payne, Dr. Lawrence Payne,” Jeff said to her.
“I don’t think I know whom you mean——”
Walter said, “The man Bill Thorne’s been taking Roger to for treatment for the past six months. I ran into him a couple of weeks ago in the building——”
Virginia exchanged a quick wide-eyed look with Jeff, who imperceptibly shook his head. It had been years since they had mentioned the elusive secret which had brought them together.
“I can only say to you, Gregg”—Walter was continuing apparently from where Gregg had left off—“that in some amazing way I feel relieved at what you have said. It would explain so much—so very much. But of course, at the same time, I am revolted, naturally. There has never been a hint of such a thing in either mine or my wife’s family——”
“Excuse me, Mr. Carewe,” Gregg interrupted, “but there are many schools of thought, increasingly so, that claim that mental illness cannot be inherited.”
Virginia felt her body go rigid with horror. She gripped Jeff’s arm. “What—what are you talking about?” she whispered harshly, staring from her father to Gregg, for whom she felt a sudden unreasonable hatred. What had this—this outsider dared to say! Just because her brother had done something rude, unforgivably rude, of course, but insanity!
Gregg went on, “Larry Payne is one of the really brilliant newcomers in the field—he was a couple of years ahead of me in Columbia Med. He’s been doing his best in private medical practice, to keep the wolf from the door, but some of his theories have received a great deal of attention from people like the Washington-Sullivan group.”
“All that Freudian hocus-pocus has always sounded a little ridiculous to me,” Jeff put in.
“Well, as I understand it, Jeff—Freud is the pappy of them all, but there have been some very strong developments, as an outgrowth, you might say, of his discoveries. Of course, I know nothing at all, but I’ve spent some fascinating evenings with Larry, and his zeal for doing something, and recognizing our mental troubles before they get to the point of the need for institutionalizing, is worth listening to.”
In spite of herself, Virginia felt herself growing a little faint, because she was hanging onto one thought, which was bringing her nothing but terror. “Gregg—I’m sorry, but this is scaring the wits out of me. Remember, Jeff and I are going to be married this June, we expect to have children, and what you seem to be hinting is that there is something—well, wrong with Charlie. How can we be sure! How can we know if there is something wrong, and if so, how can we be sure that it isn’t something I might pass on to our children! How do we know for sure it isn’t inherited—maybe sometimes!”
“Virginia, please, I don’t want to upset you, or anyone. I know I’ve overstepped the bounds in even putting such an idea into your heads. I know very little of the subject, even though I’ve read a lot at Larry’s recommendation. I do feel”—he leaned forward, speaking more to Walter—“that since you have put me in a position where I can observe a situation unemotionally—I have no ax to grind—and since you asked me a little while ago what do I make of him, the best I can do is to offer a theory—no more. And you can kick me out—with my theories—if you like.”
“Naturally, naturally, Gregg.” Walter moved from the fireplace to his desk, where he selected one of his pipes from the rack and began to fill it from a humidor shaped like a rum cask. His color had returned and he seemed more relaxed. “Of course you appreciate the problems your ‘theories’ would get us into——”
“How would you ever get Charlie to consent to an examination of that kind!” suggested Jeff.
“And poor Mum—it would kill her. Dad, you won’t even mention——” Virginia had a tight hold on Jeff’s arm, because something within her knew that what Gregg had suggested, had brought out into the open, as it were, was the truth. It explained the fact her mind always slewed away from, the little phrases—“He’s crazy,” “He’s nuts,” “What a screwy thing to do”—whenever they were applied to Charlie. They could be applied to anybody at times, because everybody always did some crazy things, sometimes behavior that seemed to have no place in reality. But she felt that she had known it always, about Charlie, and simply had given it no room in her mind. Because of fear. Fear of embracing a fact that would be painful.
“That goes without saying, Virginia,” her father said a little reproachfully. “At the moment at least. I’m sure that your mother, if she were well, could face this even better than I, as you well know. I’m the ‘softy’ in this family.” He smiled at her reassuringly.
“You were talking about Bill Thorne a moment ago,” Jeff tried to deflect the subject a little. He could feel the tension in Virginia’s hand, knew that they both stood once more with their bare feet in the sand watching a nightmare.
“Thorne is a different person. He’s seen the first improvement in Roger, after having practically gone through a fortune with doctors, eye specialists from Boston to Munich and back again. They all felt that an injury Roger sustained when he was a child”—he carefully avoided Jeff’s and Virginia’s eyes—“had in some way affected the optic nerve, giving him these temporary spells of blindness. Now, after working with Dr. Payne, on the theory that it was an emotional and mental problem, rather than a purely physical one, Roger has become not only relieved of his blindness—oh, I believe it isn’t complete as yet—but his whole personality has taken an upswing. It’s remarkable.”
At this moment Herb and Elsie rejoined them. They were laughing and flushed.
“At last!” Elsie cried. “I’ve found me a rumba partner!” The tension in the library was relieved. Every
one gratefully broke into pleasant chatter. Virginia and Jeff moved to the portable bar and fixed whisky and soda for a nightcap, and the four young people, Gregg begging off, made a date to go ice skating on the river the next afternoon.
“I may find myself without a job tomorrow.” Gregg lay back on his pillow, his arms over his head. He and Herb had rehashed the entire evening after they got back to the Inn.
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” said Herb, tying the cord of his pajamas. “Be as nice as pie, saying, ‘How interesting,’ and ‘You may be right,’ and then gently toss you out on your behind. For having tried to enter their world. Their tight little world.” He spoke bitterly, but it was not on Gregg’s account. He was thinking of his own chances. “I think you made a big mistake, Gregg. You should have kept your mouth shut and your opinions to yourself. Can’t you see”—he sat on the edge of the other twin bed—“they’re more vulnerable than most people. They shock easily. If you haven’t the things they have, you are just out. If you haven’t got a list of family names and who they were and what they did, you’re a barbarian. Do you think for a minute that people like us would be asked into that home, for dinner, if it wasn’t for a martyr attitude?”
“What do you mean—what are you beating yourself about?” asked Gregg, lighting another cigarette.
“I mean they are ‘making the best of things,’ gallantly, they are keeping their own kind from their door because they are ashamed of Charlie. Because his behavior against that background isn’t acceptable. I’ll bet if somebody kicked that boy out of the nest, stopped smothering him with duties to an ill mother and a stuffy father—there’d be nothing wrong with him at all.”
“I don’t agree with you, Herb. Not entirely. I think you’re talking about yourself. Your own problems. Not Charlie’s. You’re making up attitudes.”
