The World as I Found It

by Bruce Duffy

  Yet what was he now, thought Russell, if not jealous — stupidly, spitefully, maliciously jealous? For years, he had been a teacher of men, urging civilization to reach for its highest. But here, in himself, he felt his hopes for civilization die. The child was an intruder: it was not his, and in his heart he knew that nothing would ever make it so. It shouldn’t have mattered, he thought. For a genuinely caring species that truly loved life and didn’t cling to vanity, it would not have mattered. Even with certain animals it did not matter. And yet for him and his kind it did matter. It did, indeed.

  As for Dora, Russell tended to attitudinize: great men require many loves, and ten years with any woman was about his limit. His love for her, while genuine, had never been especially passionate. Certainly he had never loved her with the intensity with which he had loved Ottoline or, later, Colette. He still regularly corresponded with Ottoline and Colette. At fifty-eight, Ottoline was now too old for him. Not quite as old as he, but well past her prime — certainly too old, by his book, for affairs. Colette was still ripe for him, though, still beautiful and available. Funny, he found himself thinking more and more of Colette lately, rooting through old letters and photographs, wondering how it might have been with her. They had come close to marrying in 1920. The problem was children. Realizing he was getting no younger, he had wanted to start a family immediately, but Colette had wanted to wait a year or two. Surely, he could wait a year or two, she said. He wasn’t that old yet.

  Dora, on the other hand, was eager to start a family. Dora was also ready to accompany him to China, whereas Colette had been again unsure, begging him for more time to think about it, if only a week. Thinking about Colette now, with his second marriage a shambles, Russell wondered why he had been in such an all-fired hurry. He couldn’t wait. The next thing he knew, he and Dora were on a steamer bound for China. Dora was a good, sturdy woman to travel with, fearless, resourceful and free. Russell was her hero. They were not mere lovers, she thought, they were socialist comrades, and she imagined them striding side by side into a revolutionary future, banners waving as they stoutly sang Ich hatt' einen Kameraden. The Chinese certainly liked the indefatigable Miss Black, who, if anything, was more defiant in her views than Russell was. The frozen looks, the snubs they got from the Europeans for sharing the same quarters and “subverting” the Chinese — these didn’t bother an inveterate bourgeois basher like Dora one bit. They can all bloody well stuff it, she liked to say, and that pretty much summed up the couple’s attitude. Skidding over the cheap glaze of social convention that gilds human society, they careened across the Orient with all the careless aplomb of geese landing on a frozen pond. And by the time they returned to England a year later, the die was cast: Dora was six months pregnant. She very much wanted the child but saw no reason to marry. However, the eventual lord was adamant that his child not enter life as a bastard, and six weeks before the boy was born, Russell had his way.

  Despite their present tensions, Russell still loved Dora, in a peculiar, somewhat possessive way. Nor did he entirely rule out the possibility that some rough modus vivendi might eventually be worked out, if only for the children’s sake. Russell told himself that he should adopt a wait-and-see attitude. And he must, in any event, try to be decent. It was an odd, rubbed life that he led, and he was long used to a heavy load of confusion and ambiguity. His home, after all, was a school, and his personal life and even his family sometimes seemed like an unwieldy public experiment. Russell was aware that by dissolving his marriage he would be making a public admission of failure, which was to say he would be turning his marriage into a public event, within the stream of public discourse. To be sure, this was a lonely, bile-producing and quite humbling prospect, but he nonetheless found it a comfort that he could make this admission of failure under the guise of his own public persona. This public persona was often a burden and a nuisance but it also offered escape, affording him a sort of second skin — a slick chameleon suit that he could wriggle out of when it became psychically necessary. The public and the critics assailed a mere empty suit, a distant, distinctly public self, not his real self. In this context, personal pain as such had become a somewhat abstract concept to Russell. He was not himself in pain; he was actively searching and discovering in the hope that from his private pain and discontents he might extrapolate some broader prescriptions for the public weal. Above all, he told himself that he must be honest and consistent and not hypocritical. After all, if he and his wife — the fundamental social unit — couldn’t broker a civil solution to their problems, could he expect any better of the world?

  Dora felt these same pressures and ambiguities — the family as part of a school, the school as family and social experiment. This tribal creature, the Family School, was easily as much her creation as his, but she, unlike him, was less burdened and blinkered by a public sense of herself. Like him, she wanted to be decent and reasonably discreet, but even with the tremendous pains they took to conceal their tensions from John and Kate and the rest of the school, they were abundantly evident and only begat further tensions, further politics. It got so bad that there were days when Russell and Dora would have to call a truce so they could emotionally regroup. This was what happened following their quarrel about hiring the young Belgian.

  Wait, Dora had said, taking his hand that afternoon. Just sit down here with me, dear. Just let’s rest here for a few minutes.

  That “dear” rattled him. They had not slept together, or even touched each other in weeks, and he was tense as Dora eased him back on the creaking bed. In its way, it was an act odder and more improbable than sex, and more eerily intimate, how they lay there together, talking and staring at the ceiling. For half an hour they lay there, trying to summon enough feeling that they might walk peacefully downstairs to dinner without upsetting the thirty-five children and thirteen adults who would all be watching them, the putative “parents” of this unwieldy extended family.

  A month ago this had happened. Two days later, Lily had come to the school, and Russell, in his unhappiness, found himself bitten, then stunned, then absolutely captivated by her.

  Dora, meanwhile, was looking forward to his annual summer departure for America, praying that he would be gone before the baby arrived. As a matter of patrician principle, he had offered (though clearly without much appetite) to remain with Dora until the baby came. Quite sincerely, she thanked him but said that this would not be necessary. Higgins would be there with her.

  Higgins, an American journalist and socialist in his mid-thirties, had been with Dora on and off during her pregnancy, but at nearly two weeks this was his longest visit, with no end in sight. Russell had tried to be decent, but he could not get past his jealous rage at this usurper twenty years his junior who was stealing his family. Russell was fond of belittling Higgins around Dora, with digs about his sponging, his parlor socialism and lackluster career as a stringer for the sleazy Hearst papers. Even more effective were Russell’s gibes about how Higgins was now licking the boots of Henry Luce for a berth on his new magazine, Fortune.

  Russell hardly missed a beat when Dora pointed out that he himself had written for Hearst until he had made the mistake of declining the magnate’s imperial invitation to be his guest at San Simeon. It didn’t matter that Higgins was a respected journalist and activist, or that he had offered Dora money, which she had declined. Russell didn’t care about his distortions. Lately all he cared about was that Higgins vacate for those three days that Wittgenstein and Moore would be there. In fact, once he left in two weeks for America, Russell said, Higgins could stay to his heart’s content. Three or four days! That was all he was asking! Dora refused.

  I want him with me! she insisted, the more to emphasize the fact that he, Russell, had deserted her. Tell your guests anything you want. He won’t compromise you.

  It was the morning his guests were to arrive, and Dora, who had been having a hard pregnancy, was ill in bed with a splitting headache. So Russell did what he thought was t
he sensible thing: he went straight to Higgins about the matter.

  Russell caught Higgins in the upstairs hall, on his way to Dora’s room with a glass of water. Russell was casual and businesslike. He even managed a feeble smile as he explained, I’m only asking for three days. I’ll be happy to pay for your hotel. And, by all means, if you feel the need, you can certainly come by. I really think it would be best for all — and Dora especially. I do think it would be rather less strained, don’t you?

  Tall and balding, pettishly fingering what Russell called his Public Enemy mustache, Higgins said at last:

  It’s Dora’s decision. If she says so, fine — I’ll leave.

  But as you well know, Dora won’t agree, said Russell, with an edge to his voice. That’s why I’m asking you. He hung back momentarily, then added, I am trying to be decent about this, you know. I think I’ve been uncommonly decent about everything. You might try putting yourself in my place for once.

  I’m very sorry, said Higgins coldly. Dora is my concern, and Dora needs some aspirin. Now, if you’ll excuse me …

  With his comparative youth and size, Higgins was more than Russell’s match. But as the American walked by him, Russell, in a flash of rage, fantasized throwing him over the stair rail — fantasized but then watched in astonishment as his young rival strode into his wife’s room and quietly shut the door.

  Are Parents Bad for Children?

  ONE MORE PROBLEM cropped up that afternoon before Wittgenstein and the Moores arrived.

  Dora was still in bed with a headache. The children were outside playing, and Russell was secluded in his tower study, struggling to complete his Parents' Magazine article, “Are Parents Bad for Children?”

  In the downstairs study, meanwhile, one of the teachers was reading when she felt a cold drop of water strike her on the leg. Looking up, she saw beads of water dribbling along the ceiling. Then there came a crash as the chandelier in the next room collapsed under a hundredweight of water. The teacher ran into the hallway, where she saw water lapping down the stairs like a lazy falls. Running up, she found the next floor completely flooded and water slopping out of the lavatory, where two sinks were stoppered and the faucets wrenched on full blast.

  In his study upstairs, Russell was just becoming aware of the commotion when he heard Dora below, banging on the bolted door. Hurrying down and opening the door, he met Dora’s distraught face as one of the teachers came splattering down the hall with a pile of soaked books. Dora was holding her throbbing temples with her thumb and index finger, and now he, too, felt sick.

  What happened? he asked. Did a pipe burst?

  Dora dropped her hand. He plugged the sink and left the water running.

  Russell slouched against the door jamb. Who had him? They were supposed to be watching him.

  Miss Gilmer had him. She said she was watching him. Dora closed her eyes, then said with a weary pass of the hand, It’s a wreck downstairs as well. A ceiling collapsed — the room where Wittgenstein was to sleep. Of course, he denies it … Dora trailed off, then said almost imploringly, Bertie, I can’t stand any more of this. We’ve got to get him out of here.

  I’m trying, he said. But what can I do? The detective —

  Forget the detective, she broke in. We can’t wait for your detective to find his mother. It might take another month, and God knows what he’ll do in the meantime. I’m frightened he’ll set the house on fire or injure one of the children. He’s beyond us. We’ve got to get some institution to take him — and I don’t mean next week, either. I’ve a very bad feeling.

  Russell was rubbing his face with his hand. I know, he said, looking up. You’re right, but, my God, the expense! If the detective doesn’t find his mother soon, he’ll ruin us.

  The boy in question was Rabe Peck, a fat, freckle-faced American boy of nine who had started at the school about six weeks ago — right about the time the new teacher did.

  Even Russell had wondered if his distraction with the new teacher wasn’t partly to blame for his poor judgment in admitting the boy to Beacon Hill. Dora wasn’t the only one to suspect that his brain had been in his trousers that day. Miss Marmer, Russell’s most senior teacher and current mistress, was also furious at him for the decision — doubly so that he had made it without consulting her.

  One thing was certain: hard as it was to find a good child, it was often that much harder to find a bad child’s parents or wheezy maiden aunt once one was desperate to give him back.

  Rabe Peck wasn’t the first such child they’d been stuck with. The teachers even had a name for these children — “hot potatoes.” Rabe Peck was some potato: to be exact, he was a six-stone hot potato with a club foot who liked to snuggle up to adults while making warm puppy noises — and then swipe their cigarettes. It was Rabe who had burned down the shed. In his short stay at the school, Rabe had so distinguished himself that the teachers had nicknamed him Rape. The children called the fat boy Puffo or Stiffer for the way he dragged his foot. Later, when his bed-wetting was discovered, they found an even crueler name: Wee-wee. Several of the boys had a way of saying the name so faintly under their breath, and at such a freak pitch, that it was almost inaudible to adult ears. It was pure torture for Rabe. A teacher would be calmly conducting a class when Rabe, for no apparent reason, would fly into a rage, screeching and bucking and throwing anything in reach. The boy couldn’t stand teasing.

  Rabe had shown little sign of his problems the day his mother brought him to Beacon Hill, arriving one morning in a hired car piled with baggage. Accompanying Mrs. Peck and her son was an older Negro woman wearing a worn blue suit and white gloves, with tightly rolled hair and skin so black it had a bluish gun-barrel cast to it. The woman hung back so as not to upstage her extravagant mistress, who fairly leapt from the car, exclaiming about the view, Look out there, Rabie. Id’nit lovely!

  Standing discreetly behind them, a little smudged, the Negro woman, Mrs. Price, looked out over the countryside but didn’t say a word. She politely declined Dora’s offer to show her the school while Russell spoke with Mrs. Peck, just as she politely declined her offer of a glass of iced tea. Her accent was deep and her phrasing was emphatically precise and grammatical. Mrs. Price thought she would sit up on the porch, if that was all right. Do you want to sit with me while Mr. Russell speaks to your mother? Mrs. Price asked the boy. Standing like a lump by the car, the boy sullenly shook his head, his fat arms dangling like dead fish. Very well, then, said Mrs. Price, who then went up on the porch and sat down. Mrs. Price was obviously used to waiting. Stoical and sovereign, she carefully teased off her gloves and folded them on her lap, ignoring the open-mouthed stares of the other children, who then were drifting out. Most of them had never seen a colored person before.

  Mrs. C. Randowne Peck of Columbia, South Carolina, was a plump whirlwind in white perched on two-tone patent pumps. Gay, petty, imperious, with a deep southern drawl, she was a remarkably unconscious woman who clearly was accustomed to doing exactly as she pleased. Hardly had she sat down in Russell’s office than she pulled off her shoes and without a thought began rubbing her swollen red toes, all the while talking. She said she was very sorry, she’d forgotten the boy’s report cards, then launched into a complicated explanation that Russell politely declined to hear, saying, That’s quite all right. Oh, thank you, she said, emphasizing that she would wire the States and have complete transcripts of the boy’s record promptly sent to the school. But then she remembered something else she’d brought and withdrew from her purse a letter from Miss March — Miss March of Miss March’s School in Savannah? she asked, her voice rising in inflection. Oh, it’s famous throughout the South. Rather progressive, too.

  Russell took the letter that Miss March had written on her own engraved stationery, solemnly extolling Rabe’s sterling qualities. Mrs. Peck, in turn, took Russell’s questionnaire and with a gold-nibbed pen thoughtfully ran down the standard medical list, checking No to problems such as Fainting Spells, Tantrums and Bed-wettin
g. The Beacon Hill questionnaire also contained a box concerning marital status in which Mrs. Peck mischievously crossed out Divorced and wrote in “Remarried,” saying coquettishly, That sounds so very much nicer, don’t you think, Mr. Russell? Russell laughed, then admitted that he was “remarried” himself. It never occurred to him to ask pert Mrs. Peck how many times she had remarried.

  As a rule, Russell disliked Southerners, but in a peculiar way Mrs. Peck grew on him as the interview progressed. Though on the surface she seemed flighty and somewhat scatterbrained, he could see that this was something of a ruse. Beneath the patter, the woman was clearly quite shrewd, in charge of a successful importing business that she said required frequent travel, which unfortunately took her too often away from her sensitive son. Not, she hastened to add, that he would ever have any trouble reaching her through her London office. I’m always available, she said, withdrawing from a silver case a handsome engraved card that showed a quite substantial address in Belgravia. Mrs. Peck added, Miss March, God rest her soul, never had any trouble reaching me.

  As for Rabe, he seemed quite bright and inquisitive, shy and eager to please — perhaps too eager, thought the schoolmaster, adding in his notes that he “might suffer from a lack of confidence.” The boy said he liked arithmetic and science. He also liked reading a whole lot, especially Dickens and books about animals. He really liked animals, he said. He wanted to be a veterinarian.