A World Elsewhere

by Wayne Johnston

  Looking down from the walls were the mounted heads of moose, caribou, deer and elk. “You have a lot of trophies for someone who hunts nothing but firewood,” Landish said.

  “They’re in keeping with the frieze above the fireplaces,” Van said. “It’s a scene from Wagner. Above each of the mounted heads is hung the flag of one of America’s original thirteen colonies. That one—with the single star surrounded by the golden scroll—is North Carolina.”

  On the floor opposite each other, on either side of the Greater Banquet Hall, were two Grizzly bear skins, flattened to their maximum length and width as if by a steamroller, arms and legs outstretched, open-mouthed. Between the almost horizontally stretched hind legs of each bear was the tuft of a tail.

  The snapping of logs in all three of the massive fireplaces echoed in the hall.

  “The dining table seats eighty,” Van said. “The room is very different during formal occasions.”

  “Cozier, no doubt,” Landish said.

  “Deacon, when you see a room with deep reds and dark wood, you’ll know that it is one of my favourite rooms.”

  They went slowly round the great table, starting from the bank of fireplaces, proceeding clockwise towards the organ loft and another bank of fireplaces at the far end. Two rows of forty upholstered scarlet-red chairs faced each other across the table, as if assembled for a ceremonial inspection, each chair staring unswervingly at its fellow across the way. “Throne” chairs, one for Van, one for Gertrude, stood at the head and foot of the table. The table was not set nor covered with a cloth. Reflected in the gleaming expanse of wood were two golden candlesticks, which stood on either side of two golden water jugs, as well as two wheel-shaped chandeliers that hung high above, like those in the well shaft of the principal tower. Landish could just make out, far above the chandeliers, the curved beams of the ceiling, arching wooden buttresses that formed a perfect dome above the room.

  “What do you think, Deacon?” Van said.

  “It’s nice,” Deacon replied. “Really nice,” he said when he saw that Van looked disappointd.

  Deacon bore the same colossalized look as when he first set eyes on the Golden Queen guarding the access to New York.

  “Deacon is getting tired.” Landish watched the boy, who was trying to tilt his head back far enough to see the ceiling.

  “Nearly done,” Van said.

  He brought them to the library, which he said was the centrepiece of the house, even more so than the Greater Banquet Hall. He said that the library’s frescoed ceiling was brought over from Italy in one piece and laid atop the library as one might put the lid on a teapot. The library contained twenty-five thousand leather-bound books.

  “A lot of unburned words,” Van said, smiling at Landish, then at Deacon.

  A circular wrought-iron staircase led to a catwalk that ran all round the library, interrupted only by the chimney of an enormous fireplace. Behind the fireplace was a hidden elevator by which guests who forswore the staircase could rise up to the second floor, or go up further still to the observatory from which, through a telescope, Gertrude and her guests peered up at the stars.

  Van took them to the largest of the living halls. It looked to Deacon like the waiting room at the station in New York.

  There was a gaming table and chess set that, Van said, once belonged to Napoleon.

  “The motto of Vanderland is ‘There is a world elsewhere.’ It’s taken from Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.”

  “It seems an ironic motto,” Landish said, “given that it’s the complaint of everyone at Vanderland that the entire world is elsewhere.”

  “As much of the world as anyone needs lies within the walls of this estate,” Van said.

  He showed them the tapestry gallery where they had first met. “I go to Europe every summer to find treasures like these.”

  “Does Gertrude travel with you?” Landish asked.

  “No. She goes to New York when I go to Europe. Or else she stays at Vanderland.”

  “Too tired to go on, Deacon?” Landish asked. Deacon shook his head.

  They went from floor to floor by the stairs instead of the elevators, whose walls were ornately decorated and carved and might, Van said he feared, be scratched by the wheelchair. Servants carried the wheelchair up and down the stairs. Deacon walked between them, holding hands with both of them, and climbed back into the chair whenever they reached the next floor.

  Van said that many newspaper and magazine articles had lavished praise on Vanderland, but none of them had shown a true understanding of the place. So he wrote a piece himself under the byline of a famous columnist whose silence he bought by threatening to have him fired and make sure he never worked again.

  “It must have made for a nice change,” Landish said. “Fixing someone else’s name to something you wrote.”

  Van ignored him. “ ‘Vanderland is American in the sense that it belongs to all Americans.’ That’s part of what I wrote. What I wanted to say. I didn’t silence all of Vanderland’s critics. The simpleton barbarians. Come. I’ll show you.”

  In his study, the only room with a lived-in appearance that he’d shown them, he took a leather folder from a writing desk, opened it and read aloud: “Imagine coming upon a sixteenth-century French château while on safari through the jungles of the Amazon and you will get a sense of how laughable a sight is this Carolina Castle of the Vanderluydens. This—this thing was one of a series of pieces in the New York Herald called ‘Such Are the Rich.’ ” He continued reading, his voice rising in volume: “He thinks so little of the world in which the rest of us must live that he has built an alternative one, a counter-world called Vanderland. Vanderland should be called Wonderland. Just when one thinks one has witnessed the absolute height of extravagance, there is still more of it to come.’ ”

  He threw the folder up in the air, scattering above their heads pieces of newsprint that fluttered to the floor. “The fools!” He shouted so loudly that Landish put his hands on Deacon’s shoulders from behind. “Vanderland is not a country estate. It is where we live. Not in New York. We live at Vanderland. That is what is new. I neither follow fashion nor seek to create it. I do not hope for imitators, do not hope to set a trend or have it said of me that I began a fad.”

  “I think Vanderland is unlikely to start a fad,” Landish said.

  Van smoothed back his hair with both hands and loudly exhaled.

  “So that’s what I’ve done since Princeton,” he said. “I think it measures up quite well against the accomplishments of others.”

  “Hear, hear,” Landish said.

  “So ends your tour.” Van clasped his hands behind his back. “Perhaps I should have confined it to the swimming pool and bowling alley in the basement.”

  Van called for the butler, who escorted Landish and Deacon back to The Blokes.

  Deacon asked Landish to tell him a bedtime story about Vanderland.

  Deacon lived in the Fortress of the Forest. If he left, even for one hour, his punishment would be banishment. He could not come back and he had nowhere else to go.

  The Fortress wasn’t his. It belonged to Good King Padgett. Deacon lived in the chicken wing, for men who were afraid of women. It was better than his former lodgings, an attic with a ceiling two feet high where it peaked in the middle.

  Until he left the attic, Deacon had never stood up indoors. That was why he was so much shorter than Princess Godwin.

  His job was to guard Princess Godwin, who was also not allowed to leave. Her punishment was vanishment. She would simply disappear the moment she set foot on unroyal soil.

  Deacon longed to go back where he’d come from, the island of Atlastica, but he didn’t know the way. And he was paid in Vanderbills that you could only spend in the Fortress.

  Queen Gertrude could not leave the forest under pain of diminishment. She would become a commoner the second she set foot on unroyal soil. She would never again set eyes on the Princess.

  The King slept in
the Red Bed from which all others were forbidden.

  Each person at the Fortress was assigned some form of punishment that they would suffer if they left: banishment, vanquishment, vanishment, relinquishment, ravishment.

  They were the Prishoners of the King.

  “That one’s too scary,” Deacon said. “Tell me a better one.”

  “It’s not scary,” Landish said. “It’s just made up. I’ll tell you a different kind tomorrow night.”

  Landish, alone in the Smoker, held forth so loudly about the Vanderluydens that Gough, Sedgewick and Stavely came out of their rooms to try to coax him into his.

  “For God’s sake, Landish,” Gough said, “keep your voice down or we’ll all be sacked. And you’ll wake Deacon again.”

  “There’s not a drop of brandy left,” Sedgewick complained.

  “Thank God the house is so big,” Stavely whispered. “And thank God the Vanderluydens sleep on the other side of it.” He thrust his hands crossly into the pockets of his dressing gown.

  “Yes,” Landish said. “In God’s house, there are many rooms.

  ‘Padgy’s room is painted red

  And Trudy’s room is yellow

  Trudy’s has a nice big bed

  But Padgy’s not her fellow.’ ”

  “Christ, Landish, shut up,” Gough said. “It’s not as if that woman thinks highly of you as it is.”

  Deacon came out of his room and Landish fell silent.

  “Please, Landish,” Deacon said. “Please do what Gough says or we’ll all be sacked.”

  But Landish was not to be stopped. He moved about as if dancing with a woman while he sang.

  “Padgy’s has a big bed too

  Big enough for four of him

  But Trudy says they never screw

  ’Cause even Padgy’s dick is slim.

  One thing about him’s very fat—

  I’m speaking of the poor man’s chance

  Of ever doing more than chat

  And getting into Trudy’s pants.

  Each one wears a kind of mask

  They say she dallies with some churl

  Prompting everyone to ask

  Is Goddie really Daddy’s girl?”

  “STOP IT,” Gough shouted.

  “I have it on good authority that what I sing is true,” Landish said. “Hell hath no fury like a husband horned.”

  “So now you know what everyone at Vanderland has known for years. Please do as the rest of us have done and say no more about it.”

  “Pipe down, Landish,” Sedgewick hissed. “Mrs. Vanderluyden thinks quite highly of me.”

  “That’s because you give Goddie higher grades than you give Deacon. Show her a map based on Goddie’s knowledge of geography. She won’t think so highly of you then.”

  The next day, a sheepish Landish took Deacon aside. “Pay no attention to anything I say, to you or to anyone else, while I’ve been drinking.”

  “You said Mr. Vanderluyden is not Goddie’s father. Did he make a contribution?”

  “No. He didn’t. Not to Gertrude, anyway, it seems. We’re done for if you say a word of this to Goddie.”

  “Who laidith Lady Gertrude?” he said the next evening in the Smoker after Deacon had gone to bed.

  “One of the inner circle. At one time second only to Hunt. The engineer/architect named Thorpe,” Gough said. “He lives in New York. Mr. Vanderluyden banished him from Vanderland. Pretended it was because of insubordination. Gertrude sees him while she’s there.”

  “I don’t know what she’s thinking,” Stavely lisped. “She’ll be penniless if he divorces her.”

  “Perhaps she’s in love with Thorpe,” said Landish. “I expect Van doesn’t know what to do about her. The always flummoxed Van of Princeton wouldn’t have had a clue.”

  “You sound as if you’re reveling in the man’s misfortune,” Sedgewick said. “Just as you did last night when you were drunk. You’ve no excuse this time.”

  “I need none to speak my mind.”

  Gough said Gertrude travelled to New York on the Vanderluyden Express whenever her husband’s travels and art collection tours took him somewhere else. He would no sooner leave for St. Louis, Chicago, London or Paris than she would start preparing for New York. There were intervals of weeks—and sometimes even months, he was told—when neither of Goddie’s parents was at Vanderland, when she was overseen by her chief governess, Miss Esse.

  “I hate it when they’re gone,” she said to Deacon. “The longer they’re gone, the more I think they won’t come back. But I hate it almost as much when they come back, because they quarrel terribly and shout at me as if I’ve done something wrong.”

  “Gertrude was once more charming than she is today,” Van told Landish in the master living hall one night. He had asked Landish to leave Deacon with the Blokes.

  “You’re not much impressed with Vanderland, are you Landish?” Van said. “You’re no more impressed with me than you ever were. All those smart remarks and rhymes you made. In front of Deacon. You think me the same as I was when we were schoolmates. Friends. I hope you haven’t taken your promotions to be a signal that I wish to renew our friendship. They are mere courtesies for old time’s sake.”

  “I haven’t taken them to be a signal of anything,” Landish said. “But why do you care what I think of you?”

  Van said that, again, “just for old times’ sake,” he wished to tell Landish a story that might change his opinion of him.

  He said that Gertrude was very young when they married, and saw no reason that a good match should preclude romantic love. She did not, until their wedding night, speak of love. Nor did he.

  “But then she told me that she loved me and asked if I loved her. Perhaps I should have gone along with it, the whole pretence—but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was very fond of her, but I was not in love with her.”

  Gertrude said she wanted more than to be thought of fondly by her husband. She said she wanted to be loved. When Van said nothing, she became upset and began to cry. Not until he told her with what she called “unmistakable sincerity” that he loved her would she let him near her, she said.

  So he told her that he loved her, but she said she knew he didn’t mean it.

  This went on for sixteen months. She wouldn’t even let him hold her hand. “I don’t know why I let it go on for so long. Perhaps I should have sought an annulment. But it is always assumed, in cases of non-consummation, that the husband is to blame. That is, it would have been assumed that I didn’t because I couldn’t. Or didn’t want to. And there would have been much humiliating speculation.

  “Well, one must make choices. I did what I thought and still think was right. If I was wrong, I was wrong. I never did fall in love with her. I had never hoped to fall in love. I wasn’t looking for love. I have never hoped for love.”

  Gertrude told him she couldn’t stand a loveless life. As a prelude for asking him to end the marriage, he assumed. But then she told him of the matter in New York.

  “Yes, it was from her that I first heard of it. Don’t feign surprise. I know that you know about it, Landish, everyone does. I was enraged. Two years of playing coy with me, her husband—well, you can imagine how it was.”

  Over the course of months, he tried to convince her of the folly of what she was doing. But she said that she would not languish at Vanderland while he gadded about the world.

  “So I have brought matters to their just conclusion. We argued a few nights ago, worse than ever. But by that time I had already done what needed to be done. Unknown to her.”

  “What have you done?” Landish said.

  “Mr. Henley will show you to the library at eight this evening,” Van said, “but don’t come inside. Wait in the tapestry gallery. Don’t make a sound. Gertrude always comes and goes by the elevator. She won’t see you. She won’t know you’re there.”

  “You’re asking me to eavesdrop?”

  “I’m telling you to.”

  “Is
there a penalty for non-compliance?” Landish said, laughing. Van turned his back and walked away from him

  Landish wondered what Van would do if he defied him and simply stayed at The Blokes instead of going to the library. He pictured himself eavesdropping on the Vanderluydens, dutifully skulking in the shadows of the tapestry gallery. Until shortly before eight, he kept telling himself he wouldn’t do it. But then he left The Blokes and arrived at the gallery just in time. He stood to one side of the library doors. He heard the whirring of the elevator and the clanking of the doors as Gertrude opened them. For a long time the room was so silent Landish wondered if Van had yet arrived. But then he heard Van say: “No sooner am I out the door. What must the servants think?”

  “I never think about what servants think,” Gertrude said.

  The modulations of her voice suggested she was walking back and forth.

  “A little discretion—” Van said. “Everyone knows.”

  “Everyone always knows.”

  “You talk as if it’s something that all couples do. But I’ve never done it.”

  “No. You’ve never done it. You’ve never done it. With anyone. Were you thinking of having me as your virgin bride forever?”

  “I’ve stayed away from you because of you, not because of me.”

  “You stayed away from me because of him. It was bad enough when all you did was talk about him, but now that you’ve brought him here—”

  She means me, Landish thought, and was barely able to resist the urge to stride into the room. He felt certain it wasn’t the first time she had made the accusation. And Van had wanted him to hear them argue.

  “That’s absurd,” Van said. “You’re as likely to repeat a rumour as be the subject of one.”

  “I am in love. I have been for years.”

  “Gertrude, there is no need for you to end your affair. I have ended it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would you like to know what his price was? Or should I say what yours was? The man whose undying love you think you have is at this moment on his way to England. He has been well compensated for the inconvenience of such a sudden and permanent relocation. And he has, with unmistakable sincerity, assured me that you and he will never meet or correspond again. So, Gertrude, keep yourself involved in your betterment projects from now on, and while you’re at it, make such a project of yourself. I won’t be fitted for a new set of horns every few years.”