All He Ever Wanted: A Novel

by Anita Shreve

  “I myself appreciate punctuality,” I said. “And do forgive me for intruding upon your family. If I could have waited until tomorrow, I would have done so, but unfortunately I must be back at Thrupp for my classes.”

  “You teach at the college.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your business must be urgent,” she said, in another attempt to ascertain the reason for my call.

  I was silent.

  “I am sure the college is quite wonderful, but Thrupp is a dreary little town,” she said.

  “I think a town may be dreary or not depending upon its inhabitants, Mrs. Keep,” I said. Miriam Keep bristled, and I hastened to amend my reply. “But Thrupp is in no way equal to the charm of this village,” I added.

  “No,” she said, and smiled thinly. “I hope that my sister shall rediscover this charm for herself shortly,” she added.

  “And I have hope that she will not remain long enough in Exeter to test its charm,” I countered boldly.

  “Really, Professor Van Tassel,” she said, surprised but also intrigued, “you reveal yourself at last.”

  “It is a joyous revelation, I assure you.”

  “You have strong affection for my sister?” she asked.

  “The strongest.”

  “And does she know of this?”

  “She does.”

  “I am surprised, then, that she did not mention this to me. You are aware, are you not, that Etna did not put up any impediment to leaving her uncle’s household?”

  The slight had been meant to wound, and it did. “Perhaps she felt it her duty to return with you, however briefly,” I said. “Or perhaps she thought the change of venue might bring a swift and happy conclusion to her deliberations.” Then I hastily added, so as to defuse the mild tension between us, “And, of course, I am certain that she has missed her sister a great deal.”

  Miriam Keep did not yield at the compliment. “My sister is deliberating a proposal?” she asked. “A proposal of marriage?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “How extraordinary,” she said, examining me so thoroughly this time that she actually narrowed her eyes. Perhaps she was short-sighted. “I had no idea. And how doubly extraordinary that she has remained silent. Well, I cannot say whether or not I wish you to succeed, Professor Van Tassel, since I do not know you at all.”

  “No.”

  “But I can assure you that I have the greatest desire for my sister’s happiness,” she said.

  “And why should your sister not have happiness?” said a voice from the hall.

  Josip Keep’s sudden and massive presence in the doorway matched the rich baritone with which he spoke. The man was nearing forty, I surmised. He had a head of silky black hair that had been richly oiled and waved back from a slightly receding hairline. It was a handsome face, one used to entitlement.

  “Dearest,” Miriam said, rising at once, which seemed an odd reversal of manners. “This is Professor Van Tassel, who has come to see Etna.”

  “At this hour? On a Sunday?”

  “Forgive me,” I said.

  “We are off to worship,” he said (somewhat rudely, I thought; he had not even introduced himself ). He drew on his gloves. “Are you a man of faith?” he asked.

  “Of some faith,” I answered carefully.

  “And where do you worship?”

  In fact, I was not fond of worship at all and did not do so as often as I ought to have. Consequently, I had attached myself to a Presbyterian parish some five miles from the college on the theory that few men of the faculty would be drawn to such an inconvenient venue. (Though one day I was surprised to see Moxon in a pew opposite; but since he was as irregular as I in attendance and as loath to expose his laxity further, we did not greet each other after the service, nor speak of this coincidence, much in the way that men who have frequented the same brothel will fail to recognize each other at a place of business some days later.)

  “I am a Presbyterian, sir,” I said.

  “I see. We are Unitarians.” Somewhat dismissively, Keep turned away from me. Presbyterian had failed to impress him. “Miriam, where is your sister? We shall be late.”

  “She will be here shortly, dear.”

  “I hope this is not indicative of her habits,” he said.

  “I’m sure not,” Miriam, who seemed somewhat cowed by her husband, said.

  “And the children?”

  “Etna will bring them.”

  “It will be crowded in the pew,” Keep said. “Perhaps Etna might sit with the children?”

  “If you think it absolutely necessary,” Miriam said, with a quick glance in my direction.

  I could see then how Etna’s situation might be intolerable — an unwanted guest in her sister’s home (once her own home), at best a governess to her sister’s children. Thus was I doubly determined to press my suit.

  Etna entered the room, the lovely loops and coils of her hair now dutifully harnessed. Miriam invited me to dine with them upon their return from services, and I accepted, though Keep cast a sullen glance in my direction.

  But Etna surprised us all. “Miriam, forgive me,” she said, “but I will not be attending services with you today. Professor Van Tassel has come so far, and I must speak with him now.”

  Miriam looked rebuffed but had no reply. She could not reasonably insist that her sister accompany her to church. I was pleased for Etna’s sake that she had stood up to her sister, but I could also see that for Etna life in Exeter might have to be a constant series of negotiations.

  There was a flurry of leave-taking then, during which Etna and I waited awkwardly, not wishing to seem rude in our haste to speak with each other. I occupied myself during this time by composing sentences I might use in my petition. Impatient to begin, I started to speak before the Keeps’ carriage had even pulled away.

  “Hear me out,” I said, raising my hand to forestall any protest. “I offer you a life as mistress of your own household, as mother to your own children, as wife to a man who adores you. Though your situation may seem pleasant now, your life here will grow unbearable. Even I can see this in the short time I have been here. You say that you wish to make yourself a governess to your sister’s children, but who knows what position you will occupy when these children are grown? And would you not prefer to be a governess to your own children? I offer you everything a man has to give a woman, including his mind and heart and modest fortune. Would you turn away from such an offer?”

  The more I spoke, the more heated I grew. Did she not know her own worth? I asked. Was she so willing to settle for such a life? Surely this could not be her idea of happiness. Had she given up all hope of marriage, of her own home, of her own children at her feet? My anger was honest indignation, even if it did neatly dovetail with my own hoped-for future.

  I clenched my hands to my sides. The silence that followed seemed overly long and agonizing.

  Finally, Etna spoke. “I could not lightly turn aside so generous an offer, Professor Van Tassel. Nicholas. What woman could, when it is so sincerely meant? And I do have admiration for you, I do. And some fondness. And …” She smiled slightly. “You are often amusing in spite of your earnestness.”

  I did not quite know how to take this, but if the thought had produced even a slight smile on Etna’s lips, then the teasing surely was worth it.

  “But,” she said, and stopped. To her credit, she did not avert her eyes. “This must be said: I do not love you.”

  There was a great silence in the room. My heart paused in its workings. I could not move or speak. It was not that I couldn’t have anticipated such a response (indeed, I’d often feared it in my imaginings); it was that hearing it aloud and spoken in such a plain way had the effect of a blow taken to the center of my body. I had so wished for this not to be true. I had thought somehow that my own love for her might have been infectious. At the very least, I had hoped that if such a sentiment were true, she might not actually voice it, and in time would develop true f
ondness for me.

  “You understand my meaning in this,” she said somewhat tentatively.

  Perhaps I nodded. I do not know. I remember only that I couldn’t speak.

  “I don’t think that I could…love you…in the way a wife must love a husband,” she said with great difficulty.

  I stood immobile for some moments while she watched me. Then, to my utter shame and horror, tears came unbidden to my eyes. I blinked furiously to send them back.

  She reached out her hand and touched my arm.

  “Nicholas,” she said quietly, “you move me.”

  I had no voice. I shook my head.

  “Am I really so dear to you?” she asked.

  I removed my handkerchief from my pocket. I did not answer her, for no answer was necessary.

  “My poor man,” she said in a surprised but gentle voice.

  We stood in that attitude for some time. In the corner, the ticking of a clock could be heard. Beyond the gracious windows of the room, a carriage passed, the driver calling to a passer-by. In an upstairs room, there were footsteps. Any minute now, I thought, we would be interrupted by a servant asking us if we wanted tea.

  Etna turned away and gazed out the window. I can only imagine what was in her mind. After a few minutes, she turned back to me.

  “I shall accept your proposal,” she said in such a low voice that I was not at all certain I had heard her correctly. But I didn’t dare ask her to repeat her words. I held myself rigidly, terrified lest I had heard wrong and that I should soon discover that that was not what she had meant at all; I knew that I would not be able to bear a second disappointment.

  (Of course, an honorable man — an honorable man — would not have let a woman sacrifice herself in such a manner.)

  Etna leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “We shall speak no more of love,” she said, “either of its presence or its absence.”

  I found my voice then, though it was cracked with an emotion that was beyond all that I had ever known. “I promise to make you content, if not actually happy,” I said. “And my own happiness shall be so great as to be more than enough for both of us.” (Were ever more foolish words uttered than those by a man who assumes he has love enough for two people?) I fumbled in my vest pocket for the ring I had nearly bestowed upon her eleven days earlier. I slipped it on her finger. And once that ring was in place — signifying what? a deposit of my love? a token of possession? — I dared to breathe again and allowed myself to feel some of the joy to which I was now entitled. The ring sparkled on her finger, and I took her hand in mine. But as I was in danger of again embarrassing myself with tears, I dared not embrace her. Nor did I want to dispel with further words the lovely magic that now lay all about that room with its drop cloths and ladders and paint buckets.

  “I shall not ask my brother-in-law for permission,” Etna said, “for I am of sufficient age to make such a decision for myself.” She looked away. Did she already regret her momentous decision? Was she trembling inside from the audaciousness of her pronouncement?

  “You will not be sorry,” I said boldly. (But how could a man promise such a thing? He could not, he could not.) “I will always love you,” I said.

  She glanced down at our commingled hands and then up at me.

  “I know,” was all she answered.

  Keep was shocked, I could see, and he blathered on a bit, a harmless tirade to which I was blissfully (have I not earned the right to use the word here?) immune. Miriam pretended happiness but did not, I think, feel it, doubtless thinking, as did her husband, of the inconvenience of Etna’s departure. I hardly remember the rest of that afternoon now. I had come on a desperate mission and had been successful, a fact I could scarcely comprehend. I held Etna’s hand at intervals, and when she walked me to the vestibule later that afternoon to say good-bye, I kissed her on the mouth, my desire now knife-edged and whetted by good fortune. I must reveal here, however, that she did not respond passionately. Indeed, she hardly responded at all. But my imminent departure emboldened me, and it was some moments before I let her go. Then the door was opened, and I was standing on the front steps: battered, wrung out, and radiant with happiness.

  Did I have, either that day or the next, misgivings? Did I sense that my greed to possess had overwhelmed my judgment? Might not another man, in better control of his faculties than I, have been deterred at the declaration that his love could not be returned? No, I do not think I did. Not then. For such a thought is one that comes of experience and in retrospect, and not in the moments of greatest joy. I told myself I would teach Etna Bliss to love me, a tutorial I anticipated with the greatest pleasure.

  The porter has just come by to turn down my bed and refill my water pitcher, and so I think I shall retire now. Sometimes when I am writing, I feel as though I were not reliving the events I describe here, but rather living them. That there is no distance, either in time or in space, no distance at all, and that I do not know how my story will end. It is an extraordinary sensation, since, of course, I know only too well how it will all end.

  My compartment (have I written this already?) contains the most intriguing devices for the traveler. The table on which I scribble can, with a turn of a lever, drop down to the level of the upholstered seats. A cushion hidden behind a backrest fits like a puzzle piece between the two benches and makes up into a rather good-sized bed, one that can certainly accommodate a man as large as myself. Above the washstand is a mirror that snaps down to cover the sink, transforming it into a nightstand, complete with water pitcher, glass, and a small lamp by which to read. Behind the opposite backrest is a clothes locker in which one can hang a suit jacket and pack away one’s socks and underthings. It is all rather ingenious. Apart from the toilet, which is just down the corridor, I do not want for anything. I have brought with me a copy of Emerson’s American Scholar, which I am looking forward to reading before the rhythmic clacking of the train wheels along the rails sends me off to sleep.

  I cannot help but think of newlyweds and of how they would enjoy this self-contained universe.

  This is now the second day of my journey south (the better part of a day lost to the aforementioned derailing), and I am feeling dispirited by some of the sights that I have witnessed through the window of my compartment. One has heard, of course, of breadlines and of homeless tramps, but to see for oneself the extent of the degradation and poverty in our nation’s capital is alarming. Men dressed in rags are lined up for blocks, presumably hoping for a bowl of soup; women with small children sit on sidewalks and hold out tin cups; cardboard shanties line the tracks for miles, and vagabonds hover over fires. It is, at times, too much to take in. I should not like to boast about my own New Hampshire, but it can hardly escape notice that breadlines are few and far between in that state of self-reliance and industry. Of course, we do have our share of people fallen on hard times — the smaller enrollment at the college is but one example; the seizure of Gerard Moxon’s property is another; and, now that I think of it, one might have to attribute to the dismal economy the suicides of Arthur Hallock and of Horace Ward Archer — but we in New Hampshire like to think we help our own. I cannot count the number of times that my cook, Mrs. O’Hara, has fed itinerant beggars from the back door of our kitchen; indeed, I think she bakes more than she normally would simply to be able to do this. I cannot mind, since my own living is ample and reasonably comfortable, and there is only myself to feed in that cavernous and drafty house.

  But enough of dismal news! I shall turn my eyes away from the window and peer instead at my notebook, for I should not like to taint my tale with bulletins from the future. Indeed, at the time of my story, which was 1900, the mood of the country, perched as it was on the precipice of the twentieth century, was one of unbounded optimism. Never had we as a nation known such prosperity, nor had we experienced such a period of peace. The rupture of the civil conflict was long behind us, and the nearly constant appearance of new conveniences and inventions such as the automobil
e and the telephone promised a life of greater comfort and interest than any of us had ever known. It was a bright age, with myself positioned squarely in its center (or, rather, in its northeast corner), and it seemed a particularly propitious time to enter into a marriage.

  Etna and I were wed on the 28th of May in a small ceremony at Thrupp College Chapel. Etna wore a dress of beige silk and carried a bouquet of lilacs, which had just come into bloom in profusion all over the campus and lent the day, and even the wedding itself, such a lovely scent that even now when I happen upon a lilac bush and am gifted with its perfume, I am transported back to that May morning. There had been a rain shower the night before, and when we woke, the grass and buds and flowers were washed clean, as though they had been laundered for the occasion. New Hampshire produces precious few fine days in the spring (spring being the worst of the seasons in the northern New England states — unusually late to arrive and more sodden than anyone would like), but that day was a rare gift and seemed, I am bound to say, an omen. Or at least I wished it so.

  William Bliss, who appeared to be relieved to have the turmoil of the late winter put to rest, brought Etna from a side door of the chapel to the altar. One of the college’s many preachers married us with a minimum of ceremony, and owing to the considerable affection in which the Bliss family was held (and due perhaps to my own small portion of notoriety), we had quite a few guests in the chapel to wish us well and send us on our way. Etna’s mouth trembled at our first kiss as man and wife, a pale fluttering that might have seized the heart of any bridegroom and, indeed, seized my own, as if she had taken it in her fist.

  As it happened, I had hardly seen Etna since the day in Exeter when I had made a proposal of marriage to her. While I had returned to Thrupp, she had stayed on with her sister. Though I minded her absence, I was so busy during those weeks that the pain of separation was somewhat mitigated by occupation. Chief among my tasks was the securing of a house in which we might live following the wedding trip. I wanted it to be grand, suitable for my lovely bride, and one that would, of course, eventually contain a brood of children. There were not many estates to be had that spring in the center of Thrupp, and so I was forced to travel to the outskirts of the town more than a few times to view properties. In April, I found a candidate that excited me for its potential, though its owner had mismanaged the place and the house was in a state of some decay. The land was the finest I had encountered, with magnificent sloping lawns that ran down to a good-sized lake and with unparalled views of modest granite mountains in the distance. The house was stately, a Federal structure of warm redbrick with white trim, three stories high, with a shingled barn and a carriage house in the back. The public rooms had high ceilings, which I knew would be difficult to heat, but which lent the house a grandeur absent in so many of the colonials on Wheelock Street (Bliss’s house, for example). There was a formal dining room that ran the length of the house on one side, and I immediately began to imagine that room as the locus of festive suppers or even, upon occasion, gala balls. When I was shown the bedrooms on the second floor, I pictured Etna and myself asleep within the four posts of a massive bed, our five or six children not far from us, tucked beneath their own comforters. That vision alone was enough to seal the bargain.