Sins of the Fathers

by Susan Howatch

  “Cornelius …”

  “I have nothing to say to you. Let me be.”

  He walked away from me to the gates, and when I tried to cling to him again, he shoved me away so violently that I fell. The cobbles were like lumps of ice. Lights were going on inside the house as the servants responded to the noise, and in shame I crept back up the steps to the porch. I had just reached the sanctuary of the library when the security men streamed into the hall.

  I waited in case he returned for his bodyguard or one of his cars, but he did not, and at last when the house was quiet I tiptoed upstairs and sat down in his bedroom to wait.

  He came back at dawn.

  I was still waiting up for him, but I had taken three tranquilizers and was calm.

  When he entered the room, he did not look at the chair where I was sitting, but went to the window, drew back the drapes, and stood staring across Central Park. Finally he said, still not looking at me, “I just can’t think why we’ve struggled on so senselessly for so long.”

  “Cornelius … darling …”

  He spun round. “Please! No more of your scenes! I’ve had enough of them!”

  I groped for composure. Evidently I could only lessen his pain by pretending to be calm. I was not to be allowed any emotion. He could not cope with my grief as well as his own.

  “Did you go to anyone?” I said in my most colorless voice.

  “Yes.” My new manner seemed to reassure him. He still could not look at me, but he sat down on a chair nearby and started to pull off his shoes.

  “Did you …?”

  “Sure. It was just fine. As if I’d never been sick.” He chucked the sneakers across the room and stared after them.

  “A call girl?”

  “God, no! You may not think I’m much good, but I haven’t yet sunk so low I have to pay for it.”

  “Then who was she?”

  “No one you know. Her name’s Teresa something-or-other. She’s got some godawful Polish name I can’t remember. She’s Kevin’s latest caretaker.”

  “Kevin has a Polish girl? I thought she was Swedish.” The conversation was becoming almost sociable. As I listened to my casual remarks I watched him undo the top button of his shirt.

  “Ingrid went to Hollywood.”

  “Oh.”

  We were silent. He undressed no further but picked up his tie from the floor and sat fingering it. “Of course you’ll want a divorce,” he said politely at last.

  I groped for words again, and when I spoke, my voice sounded more distant. “Because of the adultery?”

  He stared at me. “We can use the adultery as the legal excuse, of course, but I was really thinking of … well, I fail to see why you should want to stay married to me in these circumstances. Now that I know exactly how you feel, I can’t think how you endured the marriage all these years—or why you should have wanted to endure it. I guess you pitied me and felt you had some kind of obligation to stay, but that needn’t detain you now. On the contrary, the obligation’s on me to let you go without delay.”

  I could not speak.

  “Unless …” The tie was taut in his hands.

  I nodded, but he was staring at the tie and did not see me. “Unless despite everything you still feel …” He looked up at last and saw the expression in my eyes.

  The chair fell sideways as he jumped to his feet and stumbled across the room into my arms.

  A long time passed while we held each other, but when we were calmer we sat hand in hand on the edge of the bed and conducted a conversation in that peculiar brand of verbal shorthand which many married couples develop over the years.

  “I still can’t believe …”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Cornelius. If you love someone, you love them, and that’s that.”

  “You’re not secretly longing for …”

  “No. Are you?”

  “Never. Divorce is for other people.”

  “I hate myself so much for making you think …”

  “No, it was good you spoke out.”

  “All those wicked hurtful things I said …”

  “They cleared the air. I see now we’ve let things drift too long. All my fault.”

  “No …”

  “I mean, the way I reacted. Christ, Alicia, can you ever forgive me for …?”

  “She doesn’t matter. In fact, it might even be best if—”

  “Yes, but only if you agree.”

  “Well, so long as she’s suitable—no fuss, no mess … Is she …?”

  “No. Not pretty or beautiful. Believe me, she’ll do. I’m just ashamed I didn’t have the guts to set up such an arrangement years ago and spare you from all the …”

  “No, I would have minded very much earlier. Now it seems right. I can’t explain.”

  “But we’ve got to discuss it, work it all out, and put an end to this needless suffering. We’ve both of us suffered long enough.”

  There was a pause while we arranged our thoughts and dredged up the strength to go on. I went on holding his hand tightly. Beyond the window, the sky was growing paler over the park.

  “Let’s start with the obvious,” said Cornelius at last. “One: no divorce. We love one another, and the thought of not being married is inconceivable. Two: no sex. It’s clear our sexual relationship’s shot, and if we can accept this, we’ll both he much happier. Three: no fidelity. It would hardly be facing reality if we were to expect celibacy from each other in the circumstances, particularly since I’m only forty-one and you’re only thirty-nine.”

  I was so busy thinking of him with another woman that I missed the wider implication of this remark. “Cornelius, I’d almost rather you had a string of casual women than one special mistress who might fall in love with you.”

  “There’s not the remotest chance this woman could fall in love with me. She’s one of these egocentric artists totally in love with her work, and if she ever did make difficulties for me, I could buy her off. That’s why she’s so suitable and that’s why I’d rather have one regular woman. It makes the situation easier to manage. Besides, to have a string of women would be shoddy, degrading to both of us. Now, as far as you’re concerned …” He took a deep breath but found he could not go on.

  “Oh, I shall be all right, Cornelius, if we can find happiness together again.”

  “That’s just wishful thinking. That’s not facing the facts. Of course I’d like to think that you were some kind of saint who could sit waiting for me at home in tranquil celibacy while I went out and slept with my mistress, but, Alicia, I didn’t get where I am in life by dealing with fantasies! Of course you must take a lover. It’s the only practical solution.”

  “But I can’t imagine ever wanting anyone else!”

  “And I shouldn’t enjoy thinking of you with anyone else, but that’s not the point. The point is that if we’re ever to make this new arrangement work, we’ve got to start with equal rights or else I’ll wind up feeling more guilty than ever and you’ll be even more angry and frustrated than you are now—yes, be honest, Alicia! Admit it! We’ve got to be honest with one another!”

  “Yes, we’ve suffered too much by pretending.”

  “Exactly.” He sighed with relief. “This is all going to work out for the best,” he said presently. “Marriage should be a dynamic relationship, growing and changing to reflect the growth and change of the partners. We’ll be okay—in fact, I feel much better already. Sitting down and discussing our problems frankly like this has to be the smartest thing we could have done.”

  “Yes, I feel we’re much closer now. Like the old days.”

  “We used to have such good talks, didn’t we?”

  “And such peaceful silences. Do you remember I said to you once how much I loved our silences?”

  “I remember, but I’d forgotten. Our silences have been so tense for so long.” He kissed me on the cheek. “But it’ll all be different now, won’t it?” he said, smiling at me. “We’ll be happy again. … Now
I think we should try and get some sleep before the sun rises any higher. You must be as tired as I am.” And kissing me again, he told me he loved me.

  “I love you too,” I whispered, clinging to him in a rush of happiness, and it was then, as I felt his body at last pressing against mine without constraint, that the long-forgotten desire blazed through me and I knew that our problems, though changed, remained unsolved.

  Chapter Two

  I

  OUR NEW INTIMACY SOON evaporated. A different tension sprang up to replace the tension we had neutralized, and I was forced to withdraw again behind my coolest facade in order to preserve the new arrangement we had so painfully evolved.

  It seemed a terrible irony that once the burden of our sexual relationship was lifted, the stress which had dulled my desire disappeared and my physical need for him revived. I was conscious of little except my intense longing, and in an attempt to deflect my thoughts from Cornelius, I became more enrapt than ever with my daytime serials and confession magazines. I even found myself dreaming of sex. At first I was disturbed, believing only men could have such vivid fantasies, but I came to long for the dreams because they provided a release from tension.

  Neither of us had anticipated that he would feel it necessary to distance himself from me, as if he dared not come too close for fear of reviving the specter of our old relationship, and soon I found myself missing not merely the sex but the casual loving gestures, the pressure of his fingers intertwined with mine, the comfort of his arms around me in a brief embrace, and the touch of his mouth on mine as he paused for a brief kiss. In theory we should have been so much more relaxed with each other that the casual gestures increased, but in practice we found that any physical exchange now created awkwardness. I was aware of losing him again, and in my distress I saw him with such clarity that I noticed details I had overlooked for years, the inflections of the Midwest still strong in his speech, his graceful gait, his radiant smile which was all the more dazzling because his face in repose was so set and still. I noticed too his sculptured profile, the straight nose, the firm chin, the masculine mouth, the elegant line of his forehead below his fair curling hair. And last I noticed how short he was, barely taller than I, but his height was unimportant because he was so beautifully built, his bones fine but strong, his skin unblemished, his muscles carefully exercised by regular swims in the pool.

  I saw him less and less. He worked increasingly late at the office, as if despite all that had been said, his guilt remained unexorcised, and I assumed that on some of those nights he stopped at Kevin’s house in Greenwich Village. I told myself over and over again how lucky it was that he had found someone suitable, but this statement, which in April had seemed arguable, now only underlined the intensity of my unhappiness whenever I knew he was with another woman.

  I did make a great effort to consider my situation rationally. I could not confide in Cornelius or he would try to make love to me and throw us back into the old abortive cycle of guilt and frustration. Besides, after the wicked way I had rejected him in April, I did not think I had the right to disrupt our new arrangement. I decided that the onus was on me to adjust to the situation, but adjustment seemed impossible, because despite all Cornelius had said on the subject, I could not imagine consoling myself with another man.

  It was true I had considered the idea in theory. During our worst times in the past I had occasionally wished I could turn to someone else, but I had always rejected the possibility at once. This was not only because Cornelius was my whole life and I could not imagine either leaving him permanently or abandoning him temporarily for a little hole-in-the-corner adultery. Nor was it only because other men, sensing my devotion to my husband, made no attempt to proposition me. Nor was it just because my pride told me it was humiliating for a woman to offer herself to some man she didn’t love in order to ease a physical need. It was because my sexual desire, though intense, was riveted implacably to Cornelius. No other man aroused any desire in me whatsoever, and in fact I could hardly see other men from a sexual point of view because my desire for him was so strong.

  The problem had now become so all-consuming that I could hardly concentrate on performing my daily household duties, and when I lay in bed on that June morning after Vicky’s wedding night I found it difficult to summon the will to face the day ahead.

  However, I finally got up when I realized that Cornelius’ asthma attack gave me the excuse to enter his bedroom and ask how he was feeling. But at the door I hesitated. Perhaps he would be too embarrassed to want to see me. With shame I remembered how weak I had been, encouraging him to make love to me the previous evening when I should have spared him the humiliation of his inevitable failure, and as soon as I acknowledged my shame I knew I had to try to repair the damage caused by my selfish behavior. I waited till I was calm and then nerved myself to open the communicating door. Perhaps the awkwardness would dissolve more easily if I pretended the disastrous scene had never taken place.

  I glanced into the room. Cornelius was still sleeping, but as I watched, not daring to go too close, he stirred, stretched, and opened his eyes.

  “I just wondered how you were feeling this morning,” I said in a voice a nurse might have used in some well-run hospital. “Are you well enough to go to the office?”

  He sat up as abruptly as if I had cracked a whip. I saw then that I had been wasting time worrying about his embarrassment. His only thought was for his daughter. “My God—Vicky and Sam! Oh, Christ …” He flung himself back on the pillows with a groan and put his hands over his face as if he could hide from the memory. Then he sat up again and ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. “Alicia, should I call her? I don’t know where they’re staying in Annapolis, but I could find out. If I called now, I could catch them before they left for their honeymoon.”

  “Cornelius”—on this subject at least I could be sensible—“I should leave them well alone.”

  “But supposing Vicky’s unhappy? Supposing she needs me?”

  “Well, dear, I hardly think she can have forgotten your phone number. If she needs you, she’ll call you, and meanwhile, I’m sure it would be a mistake for you to worry about her when she’s probably in the seventh heaven of marital bliss. Now, about your asthma …”

  “Forget the asthma. I’ve got to issue a press statement.” He was back to normal, racing into action with all his other troubles forgotten. After ringing for his valet, he picked up the receiver of the white telephone. “Taylor, get Hammond. I want to dictate a press statement about my daughter’s marriage—yes, marriage. M-a-r—That’s right.” Slamming down the receiver, he turned to the black phone but hung up before dialing. “Christ, I can’t face Emily. Alicia, could you …?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll tell her.”

  “And call Sylvia in San Francisco. Oh, God, poor little Vicky …”

  Fortunately at this point his valet arrived, and returning to my room, I rang for coffee before facing the telephone.

  I wanted to break the news first to Paul Van Zale’s widow, Sylvia, but since San Francisco was three hours behind New York, it was too early to call her. Cornelius was devoted to this great-aunt of his although they had seen little of each other since she had settled in California before the war. Sylvia, who was by no means as old as the title “great-aunt” implied, had remarried in 1939 after a lengthy visit to her San Francisco cousins, and her new husband was a lawyer with a wealthy practice in the Bay Area.

  My coffee arrived. I could postpone the moment no longer, and gritting my teeth, I summoned the energy to inform my sister-in-law that she had proved to be a hopeless chaperon.

  I did not like Emily and Emily did not like me but we always behaved with great affection toward each other so that Cornelius should not be upset. Priggish by nature, Emily had condemned me for leaving my first husband while I was still carrying his child, and since I suspected she was undersexed, I was hardly surprised when she appeared incapable of understanding the force of
a passion which had driven me to give up my children in order to remain with the man I loved. Emily talked a great deal about exercising Christian charity, but like so many regular churchgoers she did not practice what she preached. However, even if she had been an atheist, she would probably still have been incapable of sympathizing with me, because she had long since decided that her mission in life was to martyr herself for children—either her own or other people’s—and so she consistently put the interests of those children before her own welfare. I suspected that during her brief marriage her husband had been ruthlessly relegated to a subordinate role in the family, but unfortunately she had picked the wrong man to be an audience for her saintliness. Steve Sullivan had had little time for women whose sexual tastes were not as frank and florid as his own.

  “Darling,” I said as Emily picked up the phone in Velletria, Ohio, “it’s Alicia.”

  “Alicia darling, what a lovely surprise!” Emily, always up early in order to make a prompt start on the day’s good works, sounded tiresomely bright and cheerful. “How’s everything in New York?”

  “Disastrous. Vicky’s just eloped with Sam.”

  There was a shattered silence. If the news had not been as distasteful to me as it obviously was to her, I might have taken an unforgivable but human pleasure in her stupefaction.

  “That can’t be true,” said Emily at last in a hushed voice. “I don’t believe it. When did this happen?”

  “The wedding was yesterday. Sam called Cornelius last night from Annapolis.”

  “Annapolis?”

  “Annapolis, Maryland.”

  “I am well aware,” said Emily coldly, “that Annapolis is in Maryland. I just don’t understand how Vicky could have got there.”

  I briefly outlined the few details I knew of the elopement. “I can’t think why you didn’t realize what Vicky was up to, darling,” I added, unable to resist responding to her chilliness by pointing out a few home truths. “You were with Vicky when she saw Sam in Paris, and young girls can never hide an infatuation—they always have to talk about the man endlessly to anyone who’ll listen.”