Stoner

by John Williams

  Edith had disappeared; Stoner looked around for her almost frantically. But she did not come back down to the parlor for nearly two hours, until after Stoner and her parents had had their “talk.”

  The “talk” was indirect and allusive and slow, interrupted by long silences. Horace Bostwick talked about himself in brief speeches directed several inches over Stoner’s head. Stoner learned that Bostwick was a Bostonian whose father, late in his life, had ruined his banking career and his son’s future in New England by a series of unwise investments that had closed his bank. (“Betrayed,” Bostwick announced to the ceiling, “by false friends.”) Thus the son had come to Missouri shortly after the Civil War, intending to move west; but he had never got farther than Kansas City, where he went occasionally on business trips. Remembering his father’s failure, or betrayal, he stayed with his first job in a small St. Louis bank; and in his late thirties, secure in a minor vice-presidency, he married a local girl of good family. From the marriage had come only one child; he had wanted a son and had got a girl, and that was another disappointment he hardly bothered to conceal. Like many men who consider their success incomplete, he was extraordinarily vain and consumed with a sense of his own importance. Every ten or fifteen minutes he removed a large gold watch from his vest pocket, looked at it, and nodded to himself.

  Mrs. Bostwick spoke less frequently and less directly of herself, but Stoner quickly had an understanding of her. She was a Southern lady of a certain type. Of an old and discreetly impoverished family, she had grown up with the presumption that the circumstances of need under which the family existed were inappropriate to its quality. She had been taught to look forward to some betterment of that condition, but the betterment had never been very precisely specified. She had gone into her marriage to Horace Bostwick with that dissatisfaction so habitual within her that it was a part of her person; and as the years went on, the dissatisfaction and bitterness increased, so general and pervasive that no specific remedy might assuage them. Her voice was thin and high, and it held a note of hopelessness that gave a special value to every word she said.

  It was late in the afternoon before either of them mentioned the matter that had brought them together.

  They told him how dear Edith was to them, how concerned they were for her future happiness, of the advantages she had had. Stoner sat in an agony of embarrassment and tried to make responses he hoped were appropriate.

  “An extraordinary girl,” Mrs. Bostwick said. “So sensitive.” The lines in her face deepened, and she said with old bitterness, “No man—no one can fully understand the delicacy of—of—”

  “Yes,” Horace Bostwick said shortly. And he began to inquire into what he called Stoner’s “prospects.” Stoner answered as best he could; he had never thought of his “prospects” before, and he was surprised at how meager they sounded.

  Bostwick said, “And you have no—means—beyond your profession?”

  “No, sir,” Stoner said.

  Mr. Bostwick shook his head unhappily. “Edith has had—advantages—you know. A fine home, servants, the best schools. I’m wondering—I find myself afraid, with the reduced standard which would be inevitable with your—ah, condition—that ...” His voice trailed away.

  Stoner felt a sickness rise within him, and an anger. He waited a few moments before he replied, and he made his voice as flat and expressionless as he could.

  “I must tell you, sir, that I had not considered these material matters before. Edith’s happiness is, of course, my—If you believe that Edith would be unhappy, then I must ...” He paused, searching for words. He wanted to tell Edith’s father of his love for his daughter, of his certainty of their happiness together, of the kind of life they could have. But he did not go on. He caught on Horace Bostwick’s face such an expression of concern, dismay, and something like fear that he was surprised into silence.

  “No,” Horace Bostwick said hastily, and his expression cleared. “You misunderstand me. I was merely attempting to lay before you certain—difficulties—that might arise in the future. I’m sure you young people have talked these things over, and I’m sure you know your own minds. I respect your judgment and ...”

  And it was settled. A few more words were said, and Mrs. Bostwick wondered aloud where Edith could have been keeping herself all this time. She called out the name in her high, thin voice, and in a few moments Edith came into the room where they all waited. She did not look at Stoner.

  Horace Bostwick told her that he and her “young man” had had a nice talk and that they had his blessing. Edith nodded.

  “Well,” her mother said, “we must make plans. A spring wedding. June, perhaps.”

  “No,” Edith said.

  “What, my dear?” her mother asked pleasantly.

  “If it’s to be done,” Edith said, “I want it done quickly.”

  “The impatience of youth,” Mr. Bostwick said and cleared his throat. “But perhaps your mother is right, my dear. There are plans to be made; time is required.”

  “No,” Edith said again, and there was a firmness in her voice that made them all look at her. “It must be soon.”

  There was a silence. Then her father said in a surprisingly mild voice, “Very well, my dear. As you say. You young people make your plans.”

  Edith nodded, murmured something about a task she had to do, and slipped out of the room. Stoner did not see her again until dinner that night, which was presided over in regal silence by Horace Bostwick. After dinner Edith played the piano for them, but she played stiffly and badly, with many mistakes. She announced that she was feeling unwell and went to her room.

  In the guest room that night, William Stoner could not sleep. He stared up into the dark and wondered at the strangeness that had come over his life, and for the first time questioned the wisdom of what he was about to do. He thought of Edith and felt some reassurance. He supposed that all men were as uncertain as he suddenly had become, and had the same doubts.

  He had to catch an early train back to Columbia the next morning, so that he had little time after breakfast. He wanted to take a trolley to the station, but Mr. Bostwick insisted that one of the servants drive him in the landau. Edith was to write him in a few days about the wedding plans. He thanked the Bostwicks and bade them good-by; they walked with him and Edith to the front door. He had almost reached the front gate when he heard footsteps running behind him. He turned. It was Edith. She stood very stiff and tall, her face was pale, and she was looking straight at him.

  “I’ll try to be a good wife to you, William,” she said. “I’ll try.”

  He realized that it was the first time anyone had spoken his name since he had come there.

  IV

  For reasons she would not explain, Edith did not want to be married in St. Louis, so the wedding was held in Columbia, in the large drawing room of Emma Darley, where they had spent their first hours together. It was the first week in February, just after classes were dismissed for the semester break. The Bostwicks took the train from St. Louis, and William’s parents, who had not met Edith, drove down from the farm, arriving on Saturday afternoon, the day before the wedding.

  Stoner wanted to put them up at a hotel, but they preferred to stay with the Footes, even though the Footes had grown cold and distant since William had left their employ.

  “Wouldn’t know how to do in a hotel,” his father said seriously. “And the Footes can put up with us for one night.”

  That evening William rented a gig and drove his parents into town to Emma Darley’s house so that they could meet Edith.

  They were met at the door by Mrs. Darley, who gave William’s parents a brief, embarrassed glance and asked them into the parlor. His mother and father sat carefully, as if afraid to move in their stiff new clothes.

  “I don’t know what can be keeping Edith,” Mrs. Darley murmured after a while. “If you’ll excuse me.” She went out of the room to get her niece.

  After a long time Edith came d
own; she entered the parlor slowly, reluctantly, with a kind of frightened defiance.

  They rose to their feet, and for several moments the four of them stood awkwardly, not knowing what to say. Then Edith came forward stiffly and gave her hand first to William’s mother and then to his father.

  “How do,” his father said formally and released her hand, as if afraid it would break.

  Edith glanced at him, tried to smile, and backed away. “Sit down,” she said. “Please sit down.”

  They sat. William said something. His voice sounded strained to him.

  In a silence, quietly and wonderingly, as if she spoke her thoughts aloud, his mother said, “My, she’s a pretty thing, isn’t she?”

  William laughed a little and said gently, “Yes, ma’am, she is.”

  They were able to speak more easily then, though they darted glances at each other and then looked away into the distances of the room. Edith murmured that she was glad to meet them, that she was sorry they hadn’t met before.

  “And when we get settled—” She paused, and William wondered if she was going to continue. “When we get settled you must come to visit us.”

  “Thank you kindly,” his mother said.

  The talk went on, but it was interrupted by long silences. Edith’s nervousness increased, became more apparent, and once or twice she did not respond to a question someone asked her. William got to his feet, and his mother, with a nervous look around her, stood also. But his father did not move. He looked directly at Edith and kept his eyes on her for a long time.

  Finally he said, “William was always a good boy. I’m glad he’s getting himself a fine woman. A man needs himself a woman, to do for him and give him comfort. Now you be good to William. He ought to have someone who can be good to him.”

  Edith’s head came back in a kind of reflex of shock; her eyes were wide, and for a moment William thought she was angry. But she was not. His father and Edith looked at each other for a long time, and their eyes did not waver.

  “I’ll try, Mr. Stoner,” Edith said. “I’ll try.”

  Then his father got to his feet and bowed clumsily and said, “It’s getting late. We’d best be getting along.” And he walked with his wife, shapeless and dark and small beside him, to the door, leaving Edith and his son together.

  Edith did not speak to him. But when he turned to bid her good night William saw that tears were swimming in her eyes. He bent to kiss her, and he felt the frail strength of her slender fingers on his arms.

  The cold clear sunlight of the February afternoon slanted through the front windows of the Darley house and was broken by the figures that moved about in the large parlor. His parents stood curiously alone in a corner of the room; the Bostwicks, who had come in only an hour before on the morning train, stood near them, not looking at them; Gordon Finch walked heavily and anxiously around, as if he were in charge of something; there were a few people, friends of Edith or her parents, whom he did not know. He heard himself speaking to those about him, felt his lips smiling, and heard voices come to him as if muffled by layers of thick cloth.

  Gordon Finch was beside him; his face was sweaty, and it glowed above his dark suit. He grinned nervously. “You about ready, Bill?”

  Stoner felt his head nod.

  Finch said, “Does the doomed man have any last requests?”

  Stoner smiled and shook his head.

  Finch clapped him on the shoulder. “You just stick by me; do what I tell you; everything’s under control. Edith will be down in a few minutes.”

  He wondered if he would remember this after it was over; everything seemed a blur, as if he saw through a haze. He heard himself ask Finch, “The minister—I haven’t seen him. Is he here?”

  Finch laughed and shook his head and said something. Then a murmur came over the room. Edith was walking down the stairs.

  In her white dress she was like a cold light coming into the room. Stoner started involuntarily toward her and felt Finch’s hand on his arm, restraining him. Edith was pale, but she gave him a small smile. Then she was beside him, and they were walking together. A stranger with a round collar stood before them; he was short and fat and he had a vague face. He was mumbling words and looking at a white book in his hands. William heard himself responding to silences. He felt Edith trembling beside him.

  Then there was a long silence, and another murmur, and the sound of laughter. Someone said, “Kiss the bride!” He felt himself turned; Finch was grinning at him. He smiled down at Edith, whose face swam before him, and kissed her; her lips were as dry as his own.

  He felt his hand being pumped; people were clapping him on the back and laughing; the room was milling. New people came in the door. A large cut-glass bowl of punch seemed to have appeared on a long table at one end of the parlor. There was a cake. Someone held his and Edith’s hands together; there was a knife; he understood that he was supposed to guide her hand as she cut the cake.

  Then he was separated from Edith and couldn’t see her in the throng of people. He was talking and laughing, nodding, and looking around the room to see if he could find Edith. He saw his mother and father standing in the same corner of the room, from which they had not moved. His mother was smiling, and his father had his hand awkwardly on her shoulder. He started to go to them, but he could not break away from whoever was talking to him.

  Then he saw Edith. She was with her father and mother and her aunt; her father, with a slight frown on his face, was surveying the room as if impatient with it; and her mother was weeping, her eyes red and puffed above her heavy cheekbones and her mouth pursed downward like a child’s. Mrs. Darley and Edith had their arms about her; Mrs. Darley was talking to her, rapidly, as if trying to explain something. But even across the room William could see that Edith was silent; her face was like a mask, expressionless and white. After a moment they led Mrs. Bostwick from the room, and William did not see Edith again until the reception was over, until Gordon Finch whispered something in his ear, led him to a side door that opened onto a little garden, and pushed him outside. Edith was waiting there, bundled against the cold, her collar turned up about her face so that he could not see it. Gordon Finch, laughing and saying words that William could not understand, hustled them down a path to the street, where a covered buggy was waiting to carry them to the station. It was not until they were on the train, which would take them to St. Louis for their week’s honeymoon, that William Stoner realized that it was all over and that he had a wife.

  They went into marriage innocent, but innocent in profoundly different ways. They were both virginal, and they were conscious of their inexperience; but whereas William, having been raised on a farm, took as unremarkable the natural processes of life, they were to Edith profoundly mysterious and unexpected. She knew nothing of them, and there was something within her which did not wish to know of them.

  And so, like many others, their honeymoon was a failure; yet they would not admit this to themselves, and they did not realize the significance of the failure until long afterward.

  They arrived in St. Louis late Sunday night. On the train, surrounded by strangers who looked curiously and approvingly at them, Edith had been animated and almost gay. They laughed and held hands and spoke of the days to come. Once in the city, and by the time William had found a carriage to take them to their hotel, Edith’s gaiety had become faintly hysterical.

  He half carried her, laughing, through the entrance of the Ambassador Hotel, a massive structure of brown cut stone. The lobby was nearly deserted, dark and heavy like a cavern; when they got inside, Edith abruptly quieted and swayed uncertainly beside him as they walked across the immense floor to the desk. By the time they got to their room she was nearly physically ill; she trembled as if in a fever, and her lips were blue against her chalk-like skin. William wanted to find her a doctor, but she insisted that she was only tired, that she needed rest. They spoke gravely of the strain of the day, and Edith hinted at some delicacy that troubled her from time t
o time. She murmured, but without looking at him and without intonation in her voice, that she wanted their first hours together to be perfect.

  And William said, “They are—they will be. You must rest. Our marriage will begin tomorrow.”

  And like other new husbands of whom he had heard and at whose expense he had at one time or another made jokes, he spent his wedding night apart from his wife, his long body curled stiffly and sleeplessly on a small sofa, his eyes open to the passing night.

  He awoke early. Their suite, arranged and paid for by Edith’s parents, as a wedding gift, was on the tenth floor, and it commanded a view of the city. He called softly to Edith, and in a few minutes she came out of the bedroom, tying the sash of her dressing gown, yawning sleepily, smiling a little. William felt his love for her grip his throat; he took her by the hand, and they stood before the window in their sitting room, looking down. Automobiles, pedestrians, and carriages crept on the narrow streets below them; they seemed to themselves far removed from the run of humanity and its pursuits. In the distance, visible beyond the square buildings of red brick and stone, the Mississippi River wound its bluish-brown length in the morning sun; the riverboats and tugs that crawled up and down its stiff bends were like toys, though their stacks gave off great quantities of gray smoke to the winter air. A sense of calm came over him; he put his arm around his wife and held her lightly, and they both gazed down upon a world that seemed full of promise and quiet adventure.

  They breakfasted early. Edith seemed refreshed, fully recovered from her indisposition of the night before; she was almost gay again, and she looked at William with an intimacy and warmth that he thought were from gratitude and love. They did not speak of the night before; every now and then Edith looked at her new ring and adjusted it on her finger.

  They wrapped themselves against the cold and walked the St. Louis streets, which were just beginning to crowd with people; they looked at goods in windows, they spoke of the future and gravely thought of how they would fill it. William began to regain the ease and fluency he had discovered during his early courtship of this woman who had become his wife; Edith clung to his arm and seemed to attend to what he said as she had never done before. They had midmorning coffee in a small warm shop and watched the passers-by scurry through the cold. They found a carriage and drove to the Art Museum. Arm in arm they walked through the high rooms, through the rich glow of light reflected from the paintings. In the quietness, in the warmth, in the air that took on a timelessness from the old paintings and statuary, William Stoner felt an outrush of affection for the tall, delicate girl who walked beside him, and he felt a quiet passion rise within him, warm and formally sensuous, like the colors that came out from the walls around him.