That evening she composed a letter to Anne and Oxford Meservey, dear family friends since Dartmouth days. Wilson had always looked up to Oxford, who’d taken him under his wing at the College. She asked if they might somehow intervene—perhaps invite Wilson to visit so they could impress upon him his responsibility to his family and the foolishness of an affair with a woman half his age. At the very least, someone must tell him he was damaging his prospects for a respectable post by persisting with such indecorous conduct.
Two weeks later, she received a letter from them reporting on Wilson’s response to their invitation: If this was some disquisition they were mounting, he would not be a party to it. Besides, accepting an invitation that excluded Miss Whipple was out of the question. If they truly wished to be a part of his life, they should visit him in New York. And if they did so, they must respect his station as a man entirely devoted to the only woman he’d ever found who apprehended and appreciated him. Furthermore, their apparent presumptions about himself and Miss Whipple did not come within a cannon shot of what they meant to each other. In short, he was unalterably opposed to exposing Miss Whipple or himself to circumstances under which she would be treated as an interloper.
Helen wrote back immediately, thanking Anne and Oxford for not sparing her the truth. She explained Wilson must be inhabiting a world constructed to justify his conduct. That was the only way to make sense of his actions, not only to Anne and Oxford but to herself, since exposing his disgrace to their friends and everyone else deeply embarrassed her.
But she couldn’t dwell on his dereliction, not with a family and home to tend and support. She still had access to their Connecticut Savings Bank account. Of course, that wouldn’t last long. She could afford the annual $1,000 principal bill on the house, but what of the semi-annual interest payments after that? And the taxes?
Perhaps she could find work as a teacher, although that’d require doing something with the girls during the day. She could ask Dr. Lowry’s sister, Adele Tyler, to watch them. Dr. Lowry understood only too well the straits they were in, and Adele had always been kind to the girls. She explained to Barbara that she might need to study alone at the house in the mornings and spend the afternoons at Mrs. Tyler’s home with Sabra.
But Barbara balked at the prospect: “I can take care of myself. And Sabra, too. If I can survive on mountain hikes, I can cook on an electric stove.” But Barbara hadn’t learned much more about cooking than how to start a campfire and turn a stick of Knorr into pea soup. Helen blamed herself for not teaching her how to cook and told her, “Of course you can, but Sabra can’t, and it’s not your job to raise her.”
Barbara responded with the plea that was wearing tiresomely thin: “Going to sea is what we need now. Let’s take a good long journey.” “My God,” she’d responded, “where would we find the money for such an extravagance?” And when Barbara said, “My royalties,” Helen could only shake her head and walk away. Not that that deterred Barbara. In hopes of putting the matter to rest, Helen even begged Wilson to take her sailing for a month. But he refused: If this is some ploy to load me down with guilt and lure me away from Margaret, it won’t work.
In hopes of finding employment, she asked Dr. Lowry to arrange an interview with his friend Roger Nast, the principal of Hillhouse High School. She told Nast about her experience at Lexington High School and how much she’d enjoyed teaching English there. In fact, she’d continued her studies in English and published in the discipline. Were there any positions open for the coming school year?
No, he was sorry; not only had they filled all the posts, but the school system had an oversupply of applications. It wasn’t surprising, he said, that so many teachers were looking for work, what with the stock market bouncing around like a rubber ball. He, for one, didn’t go in for sinking hard-earned money in the stock market, and he supposed plenty of others would soon come around to his way of thinking. As for her application, the fact that she hadn’t taught for years meant he couldn’t very well put her ahead of others, even if a post opened.
Perhaps, she thought, she should get back to her writing. But, given her state of mind, she worried she lacked sufficient concentration to reel off sentence after sentence. Still, if it came to that, she’d have to force herself to do so, even if she had little understanding of the ins and outs of submission, which Wilson had always handled. She’d made some progress on the home education book, which she and Wilson were to co-author, though Wilson had hardly contributed. She wrote to him about it: Might those chapters on home education be turned into salable articles? Would he review and revise them? Would he approach some editors on her behalf?
He responded promptly. What else did the slacker have to do with his time? Certainly, he’d assist in any reasonable way, but first, she must settle down and revise the pieces and not get ahead of herself. And it was altogether premature and ill-advised for him to approach any editors without material in hand. It might not be prudent for him to promote her work since Alfred Knopf seemed disinclined to speak well of him in the publishing world. He could, however, supply her with the names of editors who might be interested. Ah, she thought, that was something. But whenever she sat down over a chapter, intending to shape it into a stand-alone essay, her thoughts drifted. She simply couldn’t apply herself.
✭
By the middle of August, three weeks after Wilson’s last cheque, she’d exhausted every avenue she could conjure for replacing Wilson’s income. Was there any way out of this predicament? She sent the girls outside, closed her bedroom blinds against the hot afternoon sun, and threw herself on the bed.
She could hardly believe the hardship he’d thrust upon them. Such callous disregard. He obstinately clung to that Whipple girl—to the point of endangering his family’s security. It was maddening.
How would she manage?
Perhaps there was someone else she could turn to. Maybe she’d overlooked some way to support herself and her girls. No, she could think of nothing, no one. Wilson claimed he’d sacrifice whatever he earned for her and the girls, but that had amounted to naught. What a miserable excuse for a husband. He was the weakest of men, given to the most base urges. How sickening it was to think of—Wilson in bed with that hussy. Every single night.
She pictured him in a cramped apartment in New York, with that girl by his side. He was only seventy miles away, living with that woman, embracing her each night, taking sordid delight in her young flesh. She couldn’t wash away the disgusting, torturing image of Wilson penetrating that girl.
She beat her hands on the bed frame. The flats of her arms throbbed with pain. She cried out: Don’t you see what you’ve become? Have you no shame? Look what you’re doing to me. To us.
This pain gripping her heart, this sickening desperation, was there no way to escape it? It assailed her day in, day out, unrelenting, sucking her into its swamp of hopelessness.
She rushed to the window, pulled up the blinds, and flung the window open. Looking down from the second story, she gripped the jamb. She could climb out, stand on the ledge, and throw herself down. Could she be sure of the result? No. It wasn’t far enough.
But she didn’t know where to find a gun. What other ways were there? Think, she must think.
She could swim out into the harbor, swim so far she couldn’t possibly return. She closed her eyes. It would be so easy—letting the liquid pull her down into its obliterating embrace. She’d only need to inhale its watery peace. Yes, yes, that’s what she’d do. Relief suffused her; the pain evaporated. The hot sun beat on her closed eyelids, and beads of sweat broke on her brow. She imagined the cool water closing around her. Ah, sweet nothingness. The end of worry. The obliteration of torment.
She could do it now. Just rush out the front door and take the trolley to the harbor.
“Mother,” Barbara called from the yard. “What are you doing?”
She jerked her hand from the window edge. Had Barbara divined her thoughts?
“Nothing
, dear,” she called, backing away from the window. She clutched her hollowed-out stomach.
My God, what had she come to? How had she allowed Wilson’s degeneracy to push her to this brink? He’d abandoned not just her but Barbara and Sabra. She couldn’t; she mustn’t do the same to them. Her heart ached for her dear, innocent girls. She must fight on, somehow, some way. If not for herself, then for Barbara and Sabra.
Oh, Lord. Drowning herself in the harbor? No, no, she wouldn’t have done anything so foolish. It was only a fantasy she’d contrived to escape the agony of this moment.
She leaned out the window and called, forcing normalcy into her manner, “I’ll fix lunch soon.”
She traipsed down the stairs, back to the drudgery of her life, thinking: I must find some way out of this hell.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BARBARA AT FOURTEEN
New Haven, August 1928
She hadn’t seen her father since December. He hadn’t even replied to her letters. All her mother did was mope around their barren house. And she hated August’s steamy heat. She’d go crazy if she didn’t get away from this miserable place.
And she had the means—her royalties—and a plan. She typed a note, signed it Helen Follett, and took it to the bank: “Please allow my daughter Barbara Follett to withdraw $30 from her savings account.”
The teller chatted with her about annoying nothings and then asked her to sign a slip of paper. “I imagine you’ve got big plans for this money. Somebody’s birthday coming up?”
“No, it’s for a personal matter.” Barbara wished he weren’t so friendly. She just wanted to get her money and leave.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll use it wisely.”
By gosh, she thought, I can’t imagine a wiser use of my money. A few days earlier, she’d read in The Shipping News that her trusty square-rigger would be putting in at Port Newark. She’d track down her old shipmate from the Norman D and ask him to plead her case with the captain: She’d love to sail again, perhaps for a month or two. She could earn her keep on board. Hadn’t she proved herself a worthy cabin boy?
Mother would surely have a fit when she discovered her missing. Once she simmered down, she’d inform her father, who’d be plenty upset to learn she’d stolen away. Fine, she thought, let him be the one to worry and agonize for a change.
Late the next morning, while her mother and Sabra grocery shopped, she wrote a note telling her mother not to worry; she just needed a holiday and would write soon. She packed her suitcase and walked to the train station.
“I’d like a ticket to Newark,” she told the ticket master.
He nudged his narrow-brimmed hat up a notch and squinted at her. “Are you traveling alone?”
“Yes, sir. I have a permission slip from my mother.” She’d already typed and signed that, too. She pulled it out of her pocket and handed it to him.
He pushed his glasses up his nose and studied the note. “Hmm. Yes, well, the next train for Newark departs at 2:15 this afternoon.”
“There’s nothing earlier?”
“No. Would you like me to keep your luggage until then? You can have lunch or something. I’ll hold a ticket for you.”
She hated the thought of waiting so long, but what choice did she have? She preferred not to lug her suitcase around all afternoon. It’d make her easy to spot if her mother came hunting. “All right. I’ll be back by then.”
She took herself off for a ramble of downtown New Haven, past Rebecca’s Fabric Shoppe and by Malley’s Department Store, pausing at a window display of children’s back-to-school wear—girls in flowing frocks and boys in smart suits and snug caps. She smiled at her reflection in the glass: She needn’t concern herself with such banal matters as clothes or school.
She strolled to the luncheonette, took a booth away from the window, and ordered a chocolate milkshake and toasted cheese sandwich. Opening her father’s copy of Nicholas Nickleby, she read as she munched her sandwich and sipped her shake. This was nice—being on her own, setting out on an adventure. She’d just sit and read for a while. She had plenty of time. She was at the part in the book where Nicholas leaves for Portsmouth to become a sailor. How providential!
“Barbara, what are you doing?” Her mother stood looking down on her. Barbara could tell she was mad, the kind of mad that made her nostrils flare and eyes bulge.
“I’m taking a holiday, that’s all.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” Her mother slid into the booth opposite her. “I have your luggage in the car. You’re coming straight home. And you’ve plenty of explaining to do.”
“I can’t stay at the house. It’s maddening. I hate it.”
“You don’t make such decisions on your own. You just don’t,” her mother whispered, but it came out like a hard hiss.
“I can’t stand it anymore. I’m leaving.”
Her mother thumped a hand on the table. “Oh no, you’re not. What makes you think you can sneak off like this?”
The eyes of the people at the counter turned on them. Barbara wanted to storm out and give them a reason to stare—or cheer. Instead, she glared at her mother.
Her mother stood and pointed at the door. “Now, let’s go.”
✭
The next morning Barbara lay in bed, staring at the ceiling’s gray starkness. It was exasperating, how long it took darkness to turn to dawn. If it weren’t overcast from the night-time thunderstorm, she’d go outside and look at the stars, just so she could pretend to be at sea.
She hated feeling stuck with her miserable mother. And Sabra simply didn’t understand the calamity of it all. How could her father turn his back on them like this? Didn’t he know how much they all depended on him?
And now he couldn’t even support them. Maybe they’d have to live with some other family. How humiliating—asking somebody to take them in because they couldn’t afford their own house or food. Her father had turned them into waifs from a Dickens’ novel, just like Nicholas Nickleby’s family.
She heard footsteps in the hall. Her mother must not be sleeping either.
The steps stopped outside her door. “Barbara?”
“Yes, I’m awake.”
Her mother swooped over to her bed, her nightgown trailing behind her, and eased down on the bed. “I think I know what to do.”
Barbara pushed herself up onto her elbows. “What?”
“Just as you’ve been suggesting. Take a sailing trip. I’ll rent the house to cover expenses. We’ll go to the West Indies, where we can live cheaply.”
Barbara sat up and pulled in her knees. “Do you really think so?”
“What if I visit some editors and see if I can get an advance on another book from you? A sort of sequel to The Voyage of the Norman D? To finance the trip.”
“We can use my royalties, too.”
“No, let’s not touch those. I can sell articles along the way. Articles about travel as a sort of education.”
“It’ll be wonderful, Mother, escaping all this misery.”
“And letting your father wallow in his wreckage.”
“Who needs him?”
Her mother turned from her and stared ahead. “Only I worry about Sabra. I can’t possibly subject her to such an improvised journey. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Tyler to take her in.”
Barbara bit the inside of her cheek. She didn’t know what to say.
Her mother slumped over and buried her face in her hands. “Damn him for forcing this terrible choice on me. Damn his selfishness.”
“It’ll be his punishment, Mother, for deserting us. We’ll show him we can have an adventure without him.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BARBARA AT FOURTEEN
West Indies Bound, August–September 1928
Oh, to sail again: to roll with a ship over surging seas; to lose all sense of time and place; to gaze out on the sea’s never-ending mystery. Yes, she’d sail again—and consign her troubles to the ocean’s depths.
She visited th
e New Haven wharf and inquired about square-riggers. She wrote letters to harbormasters from Massachusetts to New Jersey. She scoured newspaper listings of ship arrivals and departures.
But all the square-riggers had departed for southern climes in advance of roughening seas. Finally, she accepted the reality: If they were to sail this season, it wouldn’t be by schooner. After another flurry of inquiries, she learned she could acquire second-class tickets for The Islander, a steamer departing from Jersey City for Barbados.
“We can search for a square-rigger in the West Indies,” Barbara told her mother. “Somewhere on that multitude of islands, there’s bound to be a gallant ship awaiting us.”
Her mother, who had relegated travel arrangements to her, said, “Second class on a steamer isn’t the end of the world.”
The Islander departed Jersey City on September 15. What a lumbering contrivance the steamer was: its stack belching dingy smoke and its weight pushing through waves like a plow plodding through snow. Standing at the metal rail listening to the trite talk of passengers simply didn’t match feeling the spray of a schooner’s bow or watching its crew work the sails.
Still, the first few days, Barbara sought out the company of several mates and quizzed them about the ship, just as she had on the Norman D. On the afternoon of their third day at sea, as they steamed alongside shiny-backed porpoises and schools of flying fish, something of the delight she’d known on her square-rigger voyage fluttered through her.
After dinner that evening, she and her mother hauled out their typewriters. While rays of sunlight bounced off the swells and glanced through their porthole, they tucked paper under platens and clacked away. For nearly an hour, they sat mulling and typing, speaking not at all.
The Point of Vanishing Page 7
