“Do you know where Natica is?” he demanded hoarsely.
“Why? Has she gone?”
“Don’t you know where she is? She left me this note.” He waved a paper frantically. “She says she’s left me. Left me for good!”
“Oh, Tommy!” Stephen rose, hating himself, to adopt a sympathetic stance. “I’m so sorry. But why should I know anything about that?”
“Because you’re her friend! Because you’ve been reading poetry together and God knows what.”
“Reading poetry together doesn’t mean I know where she’s gone.”
“Do you mean to tell me, Hill, there’s nothing between you and her?”
Stephen, to prepare himself for the ordeal that was bound to come, had resolved to fix his mind on the image of his unborn child. Once the idea had been firmly established that he owed everything, down to his very existence, to the guaranty of a decent start in life for the foetus he had called into being, lies and deviations and disgrace itself would simply fix themselves into the ineluctable pattern of his destiny.
“I don’t mean to say I have never felt an attraction to your wife. But she is perfectly innocent of that. There has been nothing between us.”
Tommy stared at him blankly for a moment and then collapsed on one of the desk chairs and began to sob. His shoulders shook. He appeared no longer aware of Stephen’s presence.
Stephen forced himself to stand there silently and watch. In his mind there arose the image of a blond-haired boy, well made, a quizzical and faintly sultry look on his handsome features.
A sharp knock on the door was immediately followed by the appearance of a very different boy. He stared at Tommy in astonishment.
“Giles, get out of here!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hill, but the headmaster says you are to see him immediately.”
“But I have a class in five minutes!”
“He said that didn’t matter. That he would send Mr. Sykes to take it.”
Tommy, hearing this, seemed to recover himself. “I told Dr. Lockwood about Natica,” he explained to Stephen. “I’m afraid I may have got you into trouble. But you can tell him what you told me. I suppose she just hated my guts. Deep down I’ve known it all along.”
The young minister now hurried from the room, leaving Stephen and Giles to stare at each other.
“Is this it, sir?”
“This may be it.”
I’m very sorry.
Stephen reached out a hand which the boy took. “You’ve been a real pal, Giles. I’ll never forget it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Oh, you may as well call me Steve now.”
“It’s that bad?”
“I’m afraid it’s that bad.”
Downstairs in the headmaster’s study Stephen faced a Lockwood whose very benignity was ominous.
“Close the door, Mr. Hill. We shall need to be private. Are you aware that Mrs. Barnes has left her husband?”
“Tommy just told me, sir.”
“You did not hear it from herself?”
“I did not, sir.”
“Stephen, are you telling me the truth?”
“Why should I not, sir?”
“You have been intimate with Mrs. Barnes, have you not?”
“Intimate, sir?”
“You have met her at Mrs. Knight’s without her husband. You have read poetry with her.”
“That is true, sir.”
“Look into your heart, Stephen. I speak to you as your minister. As the man who confirmed you. Have you never entertained unlawful feelings about that woman?”
“I cannot deny that, sir. But Mrs. Barnes’s behavior in my regard has been at all times beyond reproach.”
“Really?” The bushy eyebrows soared. “How strange. I should never have believed Wilbur Knight to be a liar. Perhaps it was jealousy about your relations with his own fair spouse that drove him to malign you.”
Stephen closed his eyes to intensify the image of the blond-haired boy. Lockwood’s mocking laugh at his own ludicrous supposition was almost demonic.
“What did Mr. Knight accuse me of, sir?”
“What you know all too well!” came the answering roar. “He said he had promised not to expose you so long as you kept away from Mrs. Barnes. But when I informed him an hour ago that she had fled the campus, he concluded that you had not kept your part of the unholy bargain and he told me all. Now will you deny your criminal relations with Mrs. Barnes?” Stephen was silent. “That’s better. For let me tell you that you’re a very bad liar. Guilt sticks out of you. Perhaps that’s just as well. Perhaps it means that you’re still redeemable. Let me tell you what I’ve decided to do. For the sake of your family and in view of my affection for you and them, and considering that this wretched woman has gone for good, I offer you a renewal of Knight’s unholy bargain. If you will give me your word that all is now over between you and Mrs. Barnes, I shall not ask for your resignation. You understand that I am sticking my neck out for you, that I am risking considerable scandal. But Wilbur Knight, I feel assured, will go along with any course I recommend, and I believe I can handle the unfortunate Tommy. It will appear to the world that his wife has simply absconded. Some tattling tongues may mention you as a possible cause, but that will die down in time. And remember this, Stephen.” Lockwood’s face had now the sternness of granite. “If I do this for you, you must do as much for me. Not only will you pledge never to meet that woman again, but you will give me your solemn oath to have no carnal knowledge of any other woman.” Here the headmaster’s features were relaxed to something like humor. “At least until your marriage, which I hope, in view of your lusty nature, will not be too long delayed.”
“I must tell you at once, sir, that it may not be. Your offer is unspeakably generous. But if Mrs. Barnes should obtain her freedom, it is my firm resolution to offer her myself as a second husband.”
The eyes of a grand inquisitor in Toledo in the time of Philip II could not have shone with a more vivid animosity than those he now confronted. Even at such a moment Stephen could still reflect that there must have been an actual pleasure in sending infidels to the fire.
“Very well, Stephen Hill. Have it your way. You will pack your things and be off the campus by nightfall. I shall call your father and tell him of my decision. I have no doubt he will thoroughly approve. My only regret is that I deviated from my principles in even offering you an alternative.”
“No one need ever learn of that, sir. And I shall always be grateful.”
“I don’t want your gratitude! Nor do I care a fig whether or not my ill-advised offer becomes known.”
“I trust, anyway, sir, that my dismissal will not affect Tommy Barnes’s position in the school.”
“His position? What position?”
“I mean his future at Averhill.”
“Mr. Thomas Barnes has no future at Averhill. What sort of place is there in a church school for a divorced priest? I don’t say that he will have to go immediately, but to speak of his future here is a misnomer.”
Stephen could not for a moment seem to grasp this new horror. “But it wasn’t his fault, sir!”
“Fault?” exclaimed Lockwood haughtily. “You mean because no woman could resist you? Don’t add fatuity to your other sins. Barnes has disgraced his church by giving our Roman adversaries a new argument in favor of celibacy of the clergy.”
“Oh, sir. Have you no pity for him?”
“Had you? To my mind Barnes is lower than an adulterer, which is pretty low. For he has proved himself either a mari complaisant or an ass. Take your pick.”
Stephen could only gape. “An ass, sir?”
“Why yes. For either he knew of his wife’s infidelity and chose to look the other way, or he was the only member of the faculty who did not know, which turns him into a long-eared, braying animal, does it not? And now, sir, I suggest you have some packing to do.”
Stephen, walking dazedly across the circle to his dormitory, re
flected that the knowledge of the harm he had occasioned to Tommy was perhaps not the worst blow he had received in the past hour. For he had suddenly identified the face of the boy he had imagined as his son. It was that of Charlie LeBrun.
Ruth’s Memoir
IT WAS IN the late spring of 1939 that I took a week off from my school (the headmistress had allowed me to give my two classes a “reading period”) to be Natica’s guest in the luxurious but garish hotel just outside Reno where she was completing the sixth and last week of her required legal “residence.” If her husband should decide to file an appearance by a Nevada attorney and not contest her suit she would be able to obtain a valid divorce in twenty-four hours and marry Stephen the same day, but they had decided to marry in any event, and she wanted, as she frankly put it, at least one “respectable” family member to be present at the ceremony. As her mother had flatly refused to go out, both on her own behalf and her father’s, and as her brothers could not leave their jobs, there was no one available but the old maid aunt.
At any rate, I was glad to go. I had been much upset by Natica’s seemingly brutal abandonment of the affectionate and good-natured Tommy and suspicious of her motives in pursuing a man about whom I knew nothing but that he was wealthy, but my niece has always appealed almost as much to my curiosity as to my heart. She was indubitably an interesting person, and I didn’t want to miss any part of her development. And then, too, it was atheory of mine that Natica’s hardness was to some extent the needed armor of a brilliant woman in a man’s world. I did not then foresee how dramatically the doors of the professions were going to open to women, but I was under no illusion that the only ones so available in the 1930s which had room at the top were teaching and nursing, and the woman without interest in either of these had to put together her own career as best she could.
There was still another factor in my desire to be with Natica in her time of need. My sister’s shrill denunciation of her daughter’s conduct had been bound to create an almost indignant reaction in me.
“Really, Kitty, to hear you go on, one would think Natica had invented divorce. Do you know that almost a fifth of the girls in my classes—theoretically from the best families in town—come from split homes?”
“But their fathers aren’t ministers. How can any decent woman divorce a minister? Doesn’t Natica know she’s ruining his career?”
“I will admit that makes it worse. But I don’t see why the cloth should guarantee a man an unbroken marriage. Anyway, everyone will know it wasn’t Tommy’s fault. And if they don’t, I’m sure Natica will be a good enough sport to enlighten them.”
“How can you take it so lightly? I was telling Harry, Natica must have got her callousness from his side of the family. But now you make me wonder.”
I had to remind myself as usual there was no point in arguing with my older sister.
Natica was at her best when she met me at the airport. She looked very trim and smart in a brown tweed suit (always her favorite color) and a yellow silk blouse; it was apparent that everything on her was brand new. She drove me out to the vast white gleaming hotel in a rented Lincoln Zephyr, and when I protested at the size of my suite she explained with a shrug:
“Stephen has directed his bank to keep the balance in my checking account at ten thousand bucks. It’s like having a little magic well.”
“I hope you’re not thinking of the money too much,” I said sternly.
“But I think of it all the time!” she exclaimed cheerfully. “Who wouldn’t, I’d like to know, who’s been as poor as I have? Oh, Aunt Ruth, don’t look so shocked. I’ll be a careful spender, I promise. Only I expect to get my money’s worth. Very few of the rich do. They haven’t had my long hard training!”
She was in the best possible mood that night at dinner in the hideous Spanish-Moorish dining hall where I, enchanted to be safely on the ground (I was still a nervous flyer in those days), allowed myself to join her in two rounds of cocktails and a bottle of wine. I was soon inclined to be a good deal franker than usual, but she seemed to welcome even my criticisms for the chance to rebut them.
“What will Stephen do now he can’t teach at Averhill?”
“He might start a school of his own. If his father would back him to it. But Mr. and Mrs. Hill have been ominously silent on the whole subject of me. Stephen says his mother is bound to come around in the end, but I wonder. I am rather a dose to swallow.”
“The baby should do the trick.”
I caught at once her warning glance. She had told me of the baby but it was to be a secret as long as possible.
“Nobody can hear us,” I apprised her. “You are sure about the baby, aren’t you?”
“You mean about my condition? Of course I am. Did you think I might have made it up? To trap poor Stephen? Really, Aunt Ruth, what a fiend you must think me! I wonder if it isn’t a sort of compliment, really.”
“No, no, no, I only meant you could have been mistaken. Plenty of women have been.”
“Well, there’s no mistake about this. You’re welcome to ask Dr. Whittaker, my Reno gynecologist.”
I returned to my original inquiry. “Couldn’t Stephen fund his own school?”
“Hardly. He can’t touch his principal without the consent of his bank trustee, and the bank does what Daddy tells it. But in any event we shouldn’t even think of that for a couple of years, until the scandal has died down. Parents aren’t going to want to send their little darlings to an institution where the wicked Mrs. Barnes could corrupt them.”
I questioned her tone. “You seem to find those parents unreasonable. But I suppose they may expect schools to teach morals.”
“I don’t judge them. They have their opinions and standards; I mine.”
“Would you object if I probed that a bit?”
“Not in the least.”
“How do you really feel about what you’ve done to Tommy?”
“I’m sorry about it. Very sorry, really. But in no way ashamed of it. And in no way regretful. It was a mistake that had to be rectified. Why throw one’s life down the drain for a sacrament one doesn’t even believe in?”
“You haven’t thrown yours down any drain. I was thinking of Tommy’s.”
“I suppose you might put it that Tommy was a kind of war casualty.”
“In what war? That of the sexes?”
“Yes! I like that. He had to have a wife if he was ever to get his own school. Bachelor headmasters went out with Freud. Parents and school boards are afraid that every unmarried teacher over thirty is either an active or repressed homosexual. And they so often are! As for myself, I had to have a husband to escape from my family’s clutches. To get my head above the surface of my own little slough of despond. We both did what was expected of us. Everyone applauded. When I found I had plunged into a deeper slough, I had to struggle out, that was all. But don’t think Tommy’s case is hopeless. Stephen may one day be able to do something for him.”
“You mean when his father dies? There’s the money again.”
“As you see, I never forget it.”
“But would Tommy ever take money from Stephen? Hasn’t he his pride?”
“There might be ways of helping him without his knowing it. Oh, Aunt Ruth, there’s so much you can do with money and just a little imagination! And so few rich people have any.”
“You seem pretty sure Stephen will give you a free hand with what he’s got.”
“It’s an assumption, that’s true. Perhaps a presumption. I could be quite wrong. He may turn out the most terrible miser.”
“What would you do then? Leave him?”
“You really do think I’m horrid, don’t you? But it’s still wonderful to have you here. I’ve been so lonely.”
“Why hasn’t Stephen come?”
“Because he has this terror that if people think we were intimate before we were married, Tommy might get the idea that I became pregnant while I was still his wife and claim the child.”
&n
bsp; “That doesn’t seem very likely to me,” I commented in surprise.
“Hell hath no fury, you know. It goes for men as well as women.”
I had the disagreeable impression that Natica was not in any particular hurry to have her beloved arrive in Reno. “Don’t you want him to come?” I asked bluntly.
“Not really. He’d be so bored. Look, Aunt Ruth. You can’t start building up my obligations to Stephen because I’ve failed in what you consider I owed Tommy. Oh, I know how your mind works. You’re a great one for expiation. But please get one thing straight. Stephen is the one who does most of the owing in our situation. I was willing to have an abortion. I had actually arranged for it. All he had to do was pay a sum that meant nothing to him, and there he would have been, free as air, to go on with his life at Averhill as if nothing had happened. It was his decision that I should have the baby, even at the cost of my marriage to Tommy. He could hardly not offer me his hand after that, could he?”
I admit I was startled. I had no idea she had played so fair. I had thought of Stephen as even rather reluctantly trapped by the situation. But now it appeared that it had been he who had taken the ultimate responsibility. And mustn’t a man have been very much in love to do that? Could any man have been pushed quite so strongly by a sense of moral responsibility?
“You do love Stephen?” I permitted myself to ask.
“Of course, I love him.”
Her tone was hardly convincing. What was more, I didn’t feel she was even trying to convince me. Love was something that Natica seemed to feel could be taken for granted in a marriage, that went along, at least initially, with a “Mr. and Mrs.,” like a tin can attached to the rear bumper of the departing vehicle. I could only hope that if she had everything she wanted and if her young man was really as much in love as I supposed, the combination might suffice for a happy union. Natica, I suspected, might be that rara avis among egoists, the one who is capable of becoming permanently agreeable when she has attained her ambition.
Stephen arrived two days before the end of Natica’s six-week residence and took a room ostentatiously distant from her suite, but he had all his meals at our table. I was much impressed with his romantic good looks. An unworthy side of me played with the idea that no one could too harshly blame the woman who had left Tommy Barnes for so rich an Adonis. But I sternly repressed the notion. He was full of small, conscientious attentions for Natica and even for myself, but he seemed tense and nervous, and the chatter over the dishes was largely between his future bride and her aunt.
The Lady of Situations Page 17
