The Maze at Windermere

by Gregory Blake Smith

  And there it was, the question that had so vexed me, so hounded me, voiced not just in the cloister of my mind but aloud there in Father’s study! I stammered something, some question as to whether Miss Taylor maintained that I had conducted myself in the person of (I could barely get the words out) “a young man courting a young lady?”

  “My wife says your attentions to our Alice have been extensive and continuous. That you have taken it upon yourself to show them about the city. That in addition to excursions with my wife and son, you have gone walking alone together. Is my wife mistaken in any of this?”

  I stared at the thing so baldly put before me, then let my gaze sink into my lap.

  “Harry?” said Father.

  “I cannot,” I found myself saying.

  “But if she is a fine young lady . . .”

  “I cannot,” I said again, and at the words I felt flood through me a humiliating and yet liberating certainty. It was as if I, at last, knew.

  There ensued a most horrible silence. Though I did not look at him, I felt Mr. Taylor draw himself up as if some suspected flaw, some fault line in my character, had been revealed. But he lay this exultation aside, and when he spoke, it was to Father, and in a voice colored with a new tone.

  “I have not until recently been acquainted with your name, Mr. James. I attend to an altogether different sphere than do you. But I am led to believe you have some fame in literary circles?”

  Father seemed to hear a compliment in this. “I have been known to scribble a thought or two,” he said with what I imagined was a smile (for I could not look at him).

  “That, in addition to books, you express yourself in the newspapers? You take part in the issues of the day? Your name is not unknown to the reading public?”

  I heard more quickly than did Father the import of this, and before Mr. Taylor could unveil further his threat I quickly inserted myself.

  “If I have done wrong without realizing it,” I blurted out, or some hurried words to that effect, “I am willing to attempt to rectify things, if needs be by suffering a stain upon my own reputation.” My eyes darted quickly between the two men. “If you feel that I have compromised your daughter’s reputation, if my behavior has not been what I thought it was, what I intended it to be, I would be willing to subscribe to an action that would allow Miss Taylor to remain unreproached, with no tarnish attaching to her. Namely, I would be willing to allow the world to think I had asked for, and been turned down by, your daughter. That I had wished to have, but had not, her favor.”

  “Harry!”

  “It most gravely injures me to think I have caused her pain.”

  “But the way to heal pain is not through prevarication and duplicity! Dear Harry!”

  Mr. Taylor let this submission draw itself out, this victory, this enrichment. And then he stood and rather magnificently said: “Do you think my daughter would agree to such a notion? To such—” and he seemed to wait for a curtain to begin to fall—“to such perfidy?”

  “I cannot marry her,” I simply said.

  “Marriage!” he cried, as if the word, coming from me, shocked him. “That, sir, is quite out of the question.” And then, with the full richness of his exultation: “Now!”

  3rd Day

  Well, I have done it. Whether it be the thread that leads me out of the labyrinth I know not, but I have taken myself down from the Cupboard, chipped tho’ I may be, and have placed myself upon the Board of the world.

  Straight after morning chores (and before I could lose the will to Action I had worked up yesterday out on Doubling Point), I put on my cloak and walk’d down to the harbour’s edge and then out Pettibone’s Wharf to the small ship-lapp’d building that stands attach’d to the Warehouse of John Pettibone (the Father, I mean) and serves as his Counting-house. They were surpriz’d to see me there, entering as I did without knocking, and a girl. I ask’d if I might speak to him alone, at which he could not keep the surprize from his face, but he begg’d me to be seated, and I did so in a rude chair that faced the stool he sat on. The two men who were with him went out by the Warehouse door.

  I told him that I came to him in my Father’s place. That if my Father had not been lost, it would be he who was calling on him. Or it would be my Mother, if she had not too been lost. Did he understand me in this? I ask’d. He said he did, tho’ there was still about him a look of confusion. I said he must treat with me as he would my Father, and he said he would.

  I told him then that I wish’d to marry his son. That I said this in as even a voice as I did, as if I were a man of Business come to him to suggest a venture, amazes me now in a way that it did not at the time. I said the one simple sentence and did not weaken it by explanation or excusal but simply waited for a response.

  Marry his John? was all he could say. He look’d at me with his gray eyes and through his beard (as I may say), still in surprize. I told him yes, that that was what I had come to him to propose. It was then that his manner chang’d, not to one of Agitation or of Anger but, it seem’d to me, of Embarrassment. There came onto his face the Discomfort of considering how he was going to say no to me.

  He said that John was not of marrying age, and nor was I. And it was a very bold thing I was doing. It was a very bold thing for a young girl to say. A maiden does not act so, he said.

  I told him I did not have anyone to speak for me and so must speak for myself. I told him I was not acting as a maiden. I was acting as my Father would do were he here. I told him the times forc’d me into acting beyond what I was. To which he said that I needed to be careful in so acting, lest I become beyond what I am. I repeated that there was no one to act for me, that I had Dorcas and our household to look out for. That no one would look out for us if I did not.

  At these words he did soften some. He rubb’d his eyes, and tried to smile upon me in that way people have of smiling and not smiling at the same time. He said that he and his Wife had always admir’d Father. That he was a good Captain, and a reliable one, and a fair Trader. That it had Distress’d them greatly when Mother died. And that they admir’d me for conducting myself during this time of Trial as a young woman of Sense and Ability. He hoped I would take what he said to Heart. Yet, the fact remain’d, his John was not of marrying Age, no more was I, and if my Father were here—well, he would not be here, was the point, he said. For there would be no need for this Marriage if Father were alive. So tho’ I might contend that I acted as Father would, I did not.

  I answer’d him then that it was true we were young. Yet there were those of our age who enter’d into Marriage, were there not? He had perhaps heard that a Match with an older man of our Meeting had been propos’d to me. If I was old enough to marry under those Circumstances, why was I not under these I now propos’d?

  He allow’d that there were those who married at my age, but they did not marry one another, he said with a great emphasis. Such a union was foolhardy, he said. It would be like what we hear of the Crusade made of Children, he said. To which I answer’d that in six months I would be sixteen, and in eighteen months I would be seventeen. The Doubt attendant upon our ages, I said with my own smile, was readily cured by time.

  He seem’d on the point of gently laughing at this, as if we might for the moment forgive our Difference, but the door to the Counting-house open’d and in came John’s sister Miriam, who was at school with me. She had with her the basket lunch she brought her Father every Noontide. At the sight of me she stopp’d, and her face could not make up its mind whether to wonder at my presence or to smile at it. We had a brief friendly Exchange, but she seem’d to understand all the same that something was in the Air that was not for her, so with a kiss of her Father’s cheek she left her basket and went back out the door. At that, one of the men who had earlier left enter’d by the Warehouse door (he having heard the other door shut and supposing me gone), but at the sight of me, he turn’d and went ba
ck out. This was all as a kind of Comedy, and it left us in Silence for a good minute.

  In time John’s Father said he was surpriz’d it was not John who had come to speak to him of this Matter. Why had he not spar’d me this difficult Interview? he wonder’d.

  I told him John did not know of it, and when he seem’d to understand me to mean that he did not know of my coming that morning, I felt call’d upon to say that his son did not know I wish’d to marry him.

  This took him anew with Surprize. Had we not spoken of it between us? he wanted to know. Had we not confess’d love between us? I told him again to remember that I came as my Father, that these were but the Praeliminaries of a Marriage. That when the Families had agreed, then the Children might be consulted. He was amaz’d at this, amaz’d at me, he said. This was brazen indeed! Did I think my Father would countenance me acting in so brassy a Manner? I told him then, and for the first time my voice betray’d me, told him that I believ’d my Father would be proud of me. That the Winds of the world had turn’d against me and that I had taken steps to trim Sail and to come about. And more than that, that I was proud of myself. If it was not to be my hand upon the Tiller, I ask’d, whose was it going to be? Would he have me wait until I and mine were ruin’d? Or would he have me marry a man thrice my age?

  This did seem to take some of the wind from his sails and he luff’d where he sat, saying no more about brazen and brassy. But it could not be so, he said all the same. He was sorry for me but his John was still a boy. He had as yet no Trade. And he would not have him go out to work at the Ropewalk or in the Distillery merely because he had an untoward Wife to support. His John was fitted for higher things. In due time he would go out as a ship’s Mate, and he would learn to master Sailing, and in due time he would have his own Ship. In due time, he repeated, with a meaning look.

  I told him I had not this time he spoke of.

  I cannot give it you, he answer’d.

  July 6

  I have been down to view the maps. I went under a Ruse of preparations for my Spies, yet all aflame with the thought of making it through the Countryside to the Jewess. And hardly a Ruse it was, for we do make several plans for forays into Rebel territory. Under that guise I studied the southerly lay of Massachusetts, located the town of Taunton, looked for likely routes. I had gone with the idea that I might plan a Reconnaissance thither, but I quickly perceived the town was too far, too within the Rebel’s country, too far from any of our Agents, and withal not of a military Consequence for any plausible Expedition. Still I copied out a map, committed to memory some various Ways, calculated the time it would take, selected a town to which I might plausibly direct a Foray. And from thence? (What a Boldness it would be!)

  The others act differently toward me. I do not think it is my Conceit. Rumor is about. They have heard something and now are pulled back in their looks and their Intercourse. It half pleases me. That they might have the Suspicion that I caused Smithson’s death, that I engineered it, and did so because he had stepped into Affairs that were none of his. Let them know me for this. I have then the best of both worlds, done the Deed and so known as one not to cross, and yet still free, untaken.

  ’Tis now late at night. The lights winking upon the Harbour water put me in a Strange mind that I care not what happens to me. In such a mood if they came to me and asked the questions the Board asked, then I might answer them. I have, I know, strange Recesses in my being. I know not what to make of them at times.

  Smithson is missed. He at least had wit. These others go about as feelingly as clods of Turf.

  What strange gods led her to a town named Taunton that the very word might Mock me! And how this afternoon did the sight of that word, the Town formerly unknown to me but now Freighted with thought of her, how it beckoned to me! Like a besotted School-boy I caressed the paper where it was written, imagining the narrow Village streets, the paths that lead out to the fields, the stone walls, the leafy trees. Aye, somewhere within the Neighbourhood of that printed word she lies abed, dresses in the morning, thinks of me. ’Tis Summer there as well as it is here. The same Clouds pass overhead. At night is the Sky lit with the same Stars.

  Sandy had his ticket. One of five hundred. It had sat on the painted bureau in his room for a week with its crisp, elegant printing. Champagne at Windermere, 4–6 p.m., September 3rd. All proceeds to benefit the Redwood Library. He had tried to pretend that he didn’t know whether he would go or not, that at some point he must quit, stop, pull up stakes—why not now?—but all along he intuited that this was his best chance. If she was there—and she would be there, unless she was seriously, seriously ill—if he could just see her, could plant himself in her presence, the body, the face, the smile she had loved: would she not talk to him?

  There was the question of how to dress. The tourists might come in shorts and halter tops, Alice had said, but not the family. She had picked out a diaphanous white thing for herself—her Emily Dickinson winding-sheet she called it—did Sandifer own a jacket and tie?

  When the time came, he again parked the Indian several streets over and walked the couple of blocks to the house. He got there just as one of the Bellevue Avenue trolleys pulled up outside. At the gate one of the Salve Regina girls—the other one, the one with the terrible haircut—was taking tickets. He held back until the last of the tourists had gone through and then went up to her.

  “Hi,” he said, handing his ticket over and directing a smile down at her.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Mitten, right?” he said. That was her name. Mitten. “They’ve got you taking tickets, I see.” Again, the winsome smile.

  “Yeah.”

  He gazed inward across the lawn. Through the trees he could see the bright-striped tent, the people milling about. He hesitated a moment, wondered how he might manage this, what to say, what tone to take?

  “Everyone’s stationed somewhere,” he mused, still looking across the lawn. “Tom in his dinner jacket, eh? Margo under the tent.” This, even though he was too far away to see them. “Where’s Alice?” he asked after a moment in as nonchalant a voice as he could manage. The girl didn’t answer.

  “Seen Alice?” he said again, pointed this time.

  “We’re not supposed to talk to you,” the girl said.

  He turned back to her. It was as if his dark imaginings—what had seemed a kind of crazed paranoia when he was alone in his room, when he was out walking at night and thinking up all sorts of stuff—had stepped out into the sunlight.

  “You’re not supposed to talk to me?” he repeated.

  The girl looked down. “You probably shouldn’t be here.”

  “Who told you you shouldn’t talk to me?”

  She turned her homely face up to him and there was a kind of pleading there, like she was asking him to not make her do this.

  “Look,” he said, and he tried again to smile. Had he not always been friendly to her? “I just need to know what’s happened.”

  The girl shook her head no. He spread his palms in a gesture of innocence.

  “Why won’t anyone tell me what’s happened?”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” the girl said, still not looking at him. “You’ll make things worse.”

  “Tell me what’s happened and I’ll go away.”

  She screwed up her mouth, still wouldn’t look at him.

  “Mitten,” he said, and he reached out, touched her on the forearm. Another trolley was pulling up. “I love Alice,” he said in a warm, sane, honest voice. “I need to know how she is. I need to know what’s happened.”

  Part of the bad haircut was that she had these bangs that would fall like an apostrophe in one eye. It would have been sort of cute and wayward if the girl were otherwise cute, but she wasn’t. She brushed the bangs aside, pursed her lips as if on the verge of something, looked up at him. The trolley disgorged its passengers.


  “She knows,” she said finally.

  “What does she know?”

  “She knows about you and Aisha. Now you have to go.”

  “What does she know? How does she know?”

  “You said you would go.”

  “How does she know? Who told her?”

  But she had to turn to the line of tourists, deliver her rehearsed “Welcome to Champagne at Windermere!” She took their tickets, said thank you to each, but she found a moment to shoot a look back at Sandy, importunate, a little angry, like she meant to hold him to his word. But he merely said his own thank you and began walking in under the camouflage of the tourists.

  There were already several hundred about the lawn, under the tent, going in and out of the maze or strolling down toward the water. He saw Tom at the center of a group, Margo standing beside the servers at one of the champagne tables. He wanted to hold off being spotted for as long as he could, so he moved away, headed up the walk toward the house.

  Inside, he went methodically from room to room, from the breakfast room to the library, into the formal and the informal living rooms, to the billiard room, the dining room. He checked every possible nook, smile at the ready, but she was not there. There were only the tourists, champagne flutes in hand, and a security guard himself moving slowly from room to room. Coming back down the hall, he stopped at the wide staircase that led up to the second floor. It had a velvet cordon draped from banister to banister, a black-and-gold PRIVATE sign hanging from it. He looked upwards at the vacant second floor. Could he not simply step over the cordon and go up? Find her in her bedroom? Speak at last to her, explain himself, have her understand?

  He went again down the wide hall, blindly in and out of the rooms. She was there, on the floor above; he could feel her. He had only to get up the nerve. In the doorway of the library he stood and stared at the table where she had shown him her photograph albums that night—her mother and grandmother, the maze being laid out, the 1978 Mercedes under the porte cochere—and then he was back in the hall, affecting a purposeful stride, a proprietor’s stride. When he got to the staircase—he couldn’t believe how nervous he was! the hole in his stomach!—he looked once for the security guard, and then, with as relaxed an air as he could manage, unlatched the cordon, unhurriedly relatched it, and with the tourists pausing to look and wonder at him (good move with the coat and tie!) climbed resolutely up the staircase and onto the second floor.