Theophilus North

by Thornton Wilder

  He must have been observing me for some time and connecting me with my advertisement in the newspaper, because one evening when I had been sitting overlong on the sidelines he suddenly approached me and said, “You there, professor! How about three sets at two bits each, eh? . . . What’s your name, cully? . . . Ted North? Mine’s Henry Simmons.”

  At this time of our first encounter Henry was a very unhappy man. His master was helping a team to photograph the birds of Tierra del Fuego and Henry hated idleness; his fiancée was away on another voyage and he missed her painfully. We played in relative silence. I had a run of luck or perhaps Henry disguised his greater proficiency. When the game came to an end the rooms were emptying. He invited me to a drink. The house reserved some cases of Bass’s Ale for his use; I ordered the usual near-beer.

  “Now who are you, Ted, and are you happy and well? I’ll tell you who I am. I’m from London—I never went to school after I was twelve. I was a bootblack and swept the barber’s shop. I raised my eyes a bit and learned the trade. Then I went into domestic service and became a ‘gentleman’s gentleman.’ ” He had accompanied his gentleman to this country and finally was engaged as Mr. Forrester’s valet. He told me about his Edweena, absent as lady’s maid to a group of ladies on a famous yacht. He showed me some bright postcards he had received from Jamaica and Trinidad and the Bahamas—meager consolations.

  In turn I told him the story of my life—Wisconsin, China, California, schools and jobs, Europe, the War, ending up with my reasons for being in Newport. When I concluded my story we struck our glasses together and it was understood that we were friends. This was the first of many pool games and conversations. At the second or third of these I asked him why the players were so slow to invite me to join the game. Was it because I was a newcomer?

  “Cully, there’s a lot of suspicion of newcomers in Newport. Distrust, do you see what I mean? There are a number of types we don’t want around here. Let’s pretend that I didn’t know that you’re all right. See? I’ll ask you some questions. Mr. North, were you planted in Newport?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Do you belong to any organization? Were you sent here on a job?”

  “I told you why I came here.”

  “I’m asking you these questions, like it was a game. Are you a flicker?”

  “A what?”

  “Are you a detective?”

  I take pleasure in the modifications that words undergo as they pass from country to country and descend from century to century. “Flicker” was a bird and in 1926 it was a motion-picture. But in France a “flic” is a police detective; the word must have crossed the Channel, entered the slang of the English underworld, and had probably been imported to Newport by Henry himself. I raised my hand as though I were taking an oath. “I swear to God, Henry, I’ve never had anything to do with such things.”

  “When I saw in the newspaper that you were ready to teach Latin—that did it. There’s no flicker ever been known that can handle Latin.—It’s this way: there’s nothing wrong with the job; there’s lots of ways of earning a living. Once the season’s begun there’ll be scores of them here. Some weeks there’s a big ball every night. For visiting celebrities and consumptive children, like that. Diamond necklaces. Insurance companies send up their men. Dress them up as waiters. Some hostesses even invite them as guests. Keep their eyes glued on the sparklers. Some families are so nervous, they have a flicker stay up all night sitting by the safe. Some jealous husbands have flickers watching their wives. A man like you comes to town—doesn’t know anybody—no serious reason for being here. Maybe he’s a flicker—or a thief. The first thing a regular flicker does is to call on the Chief of Police and get it straight with him. But many don’t; they like to be very secret. You can be certain that you weren’t three days in town before the Chief was fixing his eyes on you. It’s a good thing you went to the Casino and found that old record about yourself—”

  “It was about my brother, really.”

  “Probably Bill Wentworth called up the Chief and told him he had confidence in you.”

  “Thanks for telling me, Henry. But it’s your confidence in me that’s made all the difference here at Herman’s.”

  “There are some flickers in the crowd at Herman’s, but what we can’t have there is a flicker who pretends he isn’t. Time after time flickers have been known to steal the emeralds.”

  “What are some of the other types I was suspected of being?”

  “I’ll tell you about them, gradual. You talk for a while.”

  I told about what I had found out and “put together” about the glorious trees of Newport. I told him about my theory of “The Nine Cities of Newport” (and of Schliemann’s Troy).

  “Oh, Edweena should hear this! Edweena loves facts and pulling ideas out of facts. She’s always saying that the only thing people in Newport talk about is one another. Oh, she’d love that about the trees—and about the nine cities.”

  “I’ve only made out five so far.”

  “Well, maybe there are fifteen. You might talk it over with a friend of mine in town named Mrs. Cranston. I’ve told her about you. She’s said she wants to meet you. That’s a very special honor, professor, because she don’t make many exceptions: she only likes to see servants in the house.”

  “But I’m a servant, Henry!”

  “Let me ask you a question: all these houses where you’ve got students—do you go in the front door?”

  “Well, yes . . .”

  “Do they ever ask you to lunch or dinner?”

  “Twice, but I’ve never—”

  “You’re not a servant.” I was silent. “Mrs. Cranston knows a lot about you, but she says that she would be very happy, if I brought you to call.”

  “Mrs. Cranston’s” was a large establishment within the shadow of Trinity Church, consisting of three houses that had been so adjoined that it had required merely making openings in the walls to unite them into one. The summer colony at Newport was upborne by almost a thousand servants most of whom “lived in” at their places of employment; Mrs. Cranston’s was a temporary boardinghouse for many and a permanent residence for a few. At the time of my first visit most of the great houses ( always referred to as “cottages”) had not yet been opened, but servants had been sent on in advance to prepare for the season. In a number of cases female domestics refused to pass the night “alone” in the remoter houses along the Ocean Drive. In addition Mrs. Cranston harbored a considerable number of “extra help,” a sort of labor pool for special occasions, though she made it perfectly clear that she did not run an employment agency. The house was indeed a blessing to the Seventh City—to the superannuated, to the temporarily idle, to the suddenly dismissed—justly or more often unjustly dismissed—to the convalescent. The large parlor and adjacent sitting rooms by the entrance hall furnished a sort of meeting place and were naturally filled to overflowing on Thursday and Sunday evenings. There was a smoking room off the front parlor where legalized beer and fruit drinks were served and where trusted friends of the house—men servants, coachmen, and even chefs—gathered. The dining room was reserved for residents only; even Henry had never entered it.

  Mrs. Cranston ran her establishment with great decorum; no guest ever ventured to utter an inelegant word and even gossip about one’s employers was kept within bounds. I was surprised to discover that stories of the legendary Newport—the flamboyant days before the War—were not often recalled—the wars between social leaders, the rudeness of celebrated hostesses, the Babylonian extravagance of fancy-dress balls; everyone had heard them. More recent summers had not been without great occasions, eccentricity, drama and melodrama, but such events were alluded to in confidence. Mrs. Cranston conveyed that it was unprofessional to discuss the private lives of those who fed us. She herself was present every evening, but she did not choose to sit enthroned governing the conversation. She sat at one or other of the many small tables preferring that her friends join her sin
gly or by twos or threes. She had a handsome head, nobly coiffured, an impressive figure, perfect vision, and perfect hearing. She dressed in the manner of the ladies in whose service she had passed her younger days—corseted, jet-bugled, and rustling in half a dozen petticoats. Nothing gave her greater pleasure than to be consulted on some complicated problem requiring diplomacy and thoroughly disillusioned worldly wisdom. I can well believe that she had saved many a drowning soul. She had risen through the ranks from scullery maid and slop-carrier to upstairs maid and to downstairs maid. Rumor had it—I only venture to repeat it so many decades later—that there had never been a “Mr. Cranston” (Cranston is a town a mere crow’s flight from Newport) and that she had been set up in business by a very well-known investment-banker. Mrs. Cranston’s best friend was the incomparable Edweena who retained in perpetuity the first-floor “garden apartment.” Edweena was awaiting the long-overdue break-up and death of her alcoholic husband in distant London in order to celebrate her marriage to Henry Simmons. An advantage inherent in her possession of the “garden apartment” was apparent to a few observers; Henry could enter and depart as he chose without causing scandal.

  It was a rule of the house that all the ladies—with the exception of Mrs. Cranston and Edweena—withdrew for the night at a quarter before eleven, either to their rooms upstairs or to their domiciles in the city. Gentlemen retired at midnight. Henry was a great favorite of the lady of the house to whom he paid an old-world deference. It was this last hour and a quarter that Henry (and our hostess) most enjoyed. The majority of the men remained in the bar, but occasionally, Mrs. Cranston was joined by a very old and cadaverous Mr. Danforth, also an Englishman, who had served—no doubt majestically—as butler in great houses in Baltimore and Newport. His memory was failing but he was still called in from time to time to grace a sideboard or an entrance hall.

  It was during this closing hour that Henry presented me to Mrs. Cranston. “Mrs. Cranston, I should like you to make the acquaintance of my friend Teddie North. He works at the Casino and has some jobs reading aloud to some ladies and gentlemen whose eyesight is not what it used to be.”

  “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. North.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, I feel privileged.”

  “Teddie has only one fault, ma’am, as far as I know, he minds his own business.”

  “That recommends him to me, Mr. Simmons.”

  “Henry does me too much credit, Mrs. Cranston. That has been my aim, but even in the short time I’ve been in Newport I’ve discovered how difficult it is not to get involved in situations beyond one’s control.”

  “Like a certain elopement recently, perhaps.”

  I was thunderstruck. How could word of that brief adventure have leaked out? This was my first warning of how difficult it was to keep a secret in Newport, things that could easily escape notice in a big city. (After all servants are praised for “foreseeing every wish” of their employers; that requires close and constant attention. Aquidneck is not a large island, and the heart of its Sixth City is not of wide extent. )

  “Ma’am, I can be forgiven for trying to be of assistance to my friend and employer at the Casino.”

  She lowered her head with a slight but benevolent smile. “Mr. Simmons, you’ll excuse me if I ask you to go into the bar for two minutes while I tell Mr. North something he should know.”

  “Yes, indeed, gracious lady,” said Henry, very pleased, and left the room.

  “Mr. North, this town has an excellent police force and a very intelligent Chief of Police. It needs them not only to protect the valuables of some of the citizens but to protect some of the citizens from themselves; and to protect them from undesirable publicity. Whatever it was that you were called upon to do two and a half weeks ago, you did it very well. But you know yourself that it might have ended in disaster. If some such complication should present itself to you again, I hope you will get in touch with me. I have done some helpful things for the Chief of Police and he has been kind and helpful to me and to some of the guests in my house.” She put her hand briefly on mine and added, “Will you remember that?”

  “Yes, indeed, Mrs. Cranston. I thank you for letting me know that I can trouble you, if the occasion arises.”

  “Mr. Simmons! Mr. Simmons!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Please rejoin us and let us break the law a little bit.” She tapped a handbell and gave a coded order to the bar boy. As a sign of good fellowship we were served what I remember as gin-fizzes. “Mr. Simmons tells me that you have some ideas of your own about the trees of Newport and about the various parts of the town. I would like to hear them in your own words.”

  I did so—Schliemann and Troy and all. My partition of Newport was, of course, still incomplete.

  “Well! Well! Thank you. How Edweena will enjoy hearing that. Mr. North, I spent twenty years in the Bellevue Avenue City, as most of my guests upstairs have; but now I am a boarding-house keeper in the last of your cities and proud of it. . . . Henry Simmons tells me that the gentlemen in Herman’s Billiard Parlor thought that you might be some kind of detective.”

  “Yes, ma’am, and some other undesirable types that he was not ready to tell me.”

  “Ma’am, I didn’t want to put too heavy a burden on the chap in his first weeks. Do you think he’s strong enough now to be told that he was suspected of being a jiggala, maybe, or a smearer?”

  “Oh, Henry Simmons, you have your own language! The word is ‘gigolo.’ Yes, I think he should be told everything. It may help him in the long run.”

  “A smearer, Teddie, is a newspaperman after dirt—a scandal hound. During the season they’re thick as flies. They try to bribe the servants to tell what’s going on. If they can’t find any muck they invent some. It’s the same in England—millions and millions read about the wicked rich and love it. ‘Duke’s daughter found in Opium Den—Read all about it!’ And now it’s Hollywood and the fillum stars. Most of the smearers are women, but there’s plenty of men, too. We won’t have anything to do with them, will we, Mrs. Cranston?”

  She sighed. “They aren’t entirely to blame.”

  “Now that Teddie’s wheeling up and down the Avenue he’ll begin to get feelers. Have you been approached yet, old man?”

  “No,” I said sincerely. A minute later, I caught my breath; I had indeed been “approached” without realizing what lay behind it. Flora Deland! I shall give an account of that later. It occurred to me that I should keep my Journal locked up—it already contained material not elsewhere obtainable.

  “And the gigolo, Mr. Simmons?”

  “Just as you wish, ma’am. I know you’ll forgive me if I call our young friend by one nickname or another. It’s a way I’ve got.”

  “And what are you going to call Mr. North now?”

  “It’s those teeth, ma’am. They blind me. Every now and then I’ve got to call him ‘Choppers.’ ”

  There was nothing remarkable about my teeth. I explained that I had spent my first nine years in Wisconsin, a great dairy state, and that one of its gifts to its children was excellent teeth. Henry had good reason to envy them. Children reared in the center of London often missed this advantage; his caused him constant pain.

  “Choppers, old fellow, the men at Herman’s thought for a while that you might be one of these—?”

  “Gigolos.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. That’s French for dancing partners with ambitions. Next month they’ll be here like a plague of grasshoppers—fortune-hunters. You see, there are dozens of heiresses here with no young men of their own class. These days the young men from the big houses go off to Labrador with Dr. Grenfell to carry condensed milk to the Eskimos; or they go off, like my master, to photograph birds at the South Pole; or they go to ranches in Wyoming to break their legs. Some go off to Long Island where they hear there’s lots of fun to be had. No young man wants to enjoy himself under the eyes of his parents and his relatives. Except during Yacht Ra
ce Week and the Tennis Tournament no man under thirty would be seen here.”

  “No single man under forty, Henry.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. So when the hostesses want to give a dance for their beautiful daughters they call up their dear friend the Admiral at the Naval Station and ask him to send over forty young men that can waltz and one-step without stumbling. They’ve learned from experience, the old ladies, to put a lot of pure spring water in the punch. Another thing they do is to invite house-guests for a month at a time from the embassies in Washington—young counts and marquesses and barons that are climbing up the first steps in the diplomatic career. That’s the stuff! I came over to this country of yours, Choppers, as a ‘gentleman’ to an Honourable six removes from an earldom. He got engaged to a daughter of Dr. Bosworth at ‘Nine Gables’—nicest fellow you could hope to meet but he couldn’t get up before noon. Fell asleep at dinner parties; loved the meal but couldn’t stand the waits between courses. Even with my tactful persuasion he was an hour late for every appointment. His wife, who was as energetic as a beehive, divorced him with a cool million—that’s what they say. . . . All that an ambitious young man’s got to have is a pleasant way of talking, a pair of dancing pumps, and one little respectable letter of introduction and all the doors are open to him, including a card to the Casino. So at first we thought you were one of them.”

  “Thank you, Henry.”

  “Nevertheless, Mrs. Cranston, we wouldn’t think the worse of Mr. North here, if he found a sweet little thing in copper mines or railroads, would we?”