She was indeed accomplished. She was ready for Schloss Stams. The music blew away spite and condescending self-righteousness and the presumed shelter of worldly gratifications. . . . She set ringing the carillon of “In Dir ist Freude”; she found voice for the humility of “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein.” Frederick crept back into the room and sat down under the piano.
When she ceased playing she rose and said, “Frederick, I’m going into the garden to pick some flowers for Granddaddy. Don’t let Mr. North go away while I’m gone,” and she left the room.
I rose hesitantly from my chair. “Did your mother say she wanted me to go away, Frederick?”
“No!” he said loudly, coming out from under the piano. “No . . . you stay!”
“Then we must play the piano,” I answered in a conspiratorial manner. “You sit here on the bench and we’ll play church bells. You play this note softly, like this.” I put his finger on the C below middle C and showed him how to repeat it slowly, softly, and on count. I put my foot on the damper pedal and I released the overtones of the note, including the dissonances in the higher registers. Then I reached over and played the C in the bass. This is an old musical parlor-trick. The novice has the sensation of playing many notes and of filling the air with Sunday morning chimes. “Now a little louder, Frederick.” He looked up at me with awe and wonder. What did that Frenchman say? “The basis of the education of the very young is the expansion of the sense of wonder.” There is also an element of fright in awe. His eyes fell on his mother standing motionless at the door. He ran to her, crying, “Mama, I’m making piano!” He’d had enough of that disturbing Mr. North and fled upstairs to his nurse.
Persis advanced smiling. “The Pied Piper of Hamelin!” she said. “I just invented that visit to the garden. Frederick doesn’t have an opportunity to see many gentleman callers in this house.—What else did you want to discuss with me?”
“A notion.—I have become a close friend of Edweena Wills and Henry Simmons. Just now because of Edweena’s delayed return from that almost disastrous cruise in the Caribbean they are very busy with their plans for the Servants’ Ball. They’ve engaged the Cranston High School Band again. They’ve sold many cards already, but they’re searching for a novel idea that will make the thing take on new life. I suggested they invite some guests of honor, beginning with the Chief of Police and six gallant young members of his force and Chief Dallas and six gallant young firefighters. They certainly are public servants.”
“What a good idea!”
“Then I told them about Vienna’s famous ‘Fiaker Ball’ where all levels of society mingle happily together. Then it occurred to us to begin gradually with an idea like this: to invite a young gentleman and a young lady of the summer colony—the best-looking, the most charming, and particularly those who had shown themselves most appreciative of the servant community. They didn’t have much confidence about this, but they took a straw vote in their committee for such a gentleman and the votes were unanimous: Baron Stams. Have you noticed how his beautiful manners include everyone?”
“Indeed, I have.”
“Well, I sounded him out. Did he feel it was beneath his dignity to be such a guest, or did he think it would bore him? On the contrary! He said he’d long wanted to meet the staff at Mrs. Venable’s, socially, and the staff at “Nine Gables” and at Mrs. Amis-Jones’s and those other houses where he’s dined so often. But he didn’t see how he could get away. His Chief couldn’t spare him from the embassy. Edweena laughed at that. Edweena and Mrs. Venable are not only valued friends but are often fellow-workers on projects that make Newport a congenial place for those who both work and play here. She is sure that she has only to suggest that she call the Ambassador. ‘Dear Ambassador, could I ask a small favor of Your Excellency? We wish to institute a sort of Fiaker Ball here. Could you lend us Baron Stams who has been chosen as the most popular guest of the summer season? Vienna-in-Newport, that kind of thing?’ Don’t you think that could be done?”
“It’s a charming idea.”
“Then the committee cast votes for the young lady guest of honor. They chose you.”
“Me? . . . Me? But that’s impossible. I hardly go out to dinner at all! They don’t know I exist.”
“Persis, you know better than I do that the domestic servants in Newport seldom change from year to year. They are like a silent spellbound audience watching the brilliant world they serve. How often you ‘great folk’ are astonished at all they know. They have long memories and deep sympathies, as well as deep resentments. The misfortune that happened to you happened to them also. They remember you in your happiest years—so few years ago. They remember that you and Mr. Tennyson won the cup for the best dancers at the benefit ball for the Newport Hospital. But most of all they remember your graciousness—you may have seemed removed and impersonal to your fellow-guests, but you were never impersonal to them.”
She put her hands to her cheeks. “But I’d disappoint them so. I can understand their admiring Bodo, but as I told you, I’m just a dreary old widow-lady ‘under a shadow.’ ”
“Well,” I said sadly, “I told them it was doubtful that you would wish to accept their invitation; that your Aunt Sarah would feel that you were degrading yourself, and all—”
“No! No! Never!”
“May I present their ideas a little further? The grand march is set for midnight. Henry and Edweena would advance down the center of the hall to a march by John Philip Sousa, followed by the members of the committee, two by two. Then Chief Diefendorf and his six gallant men and Chief Dallas and his six gallant men in their dashing uniforms. Then you and Bodo in your finest clothes, smiling to right and left. When you reached the head of the line Henry would raise his staff (with all those ribbons) as a signal to the band which would start playing softly the ‘Blue Danube Waltz.’ You two would make a tour of the room dancing. Then the band would fall silent; Miss Watrous would take her place at the piano and you two would encircle the room first with the polonaise, then the polka, then the varsovienne, dancing like angels. Then the band would come in again with the ‘Blue Danube Waltz’ and you two would pick a succession of partners from right and left. Finally you would bow to the assembly, shake hands with Henry and Edweena—and then you could go home. . . . No one would ever forget it.”
There were tears in my eyes. I am never so happy as when I’m inventing. Bodo had not yet heard a word of this. The Ambassador had not yet received the request.
Just sheer soap-bubbles.
Just sheer kite-flying.
But that’s what finally happened.
Edweena and Henry and Frederick and I were invited to attend one morning a dress rehearsal of those dances at “The Larches.” Persis wore a many-layered dress of pale green tulle that billowed about her in the waltz (“as danced in Vienna”), although dresses of that sort were not in fashion in 1926. After the close of the rehearsal and after the Master and Mistress of Ceremonies had praised the dancers, Edweena and Henry sat on in silence for a moment.
Henry said, “Edweena, my love, that show could have gone on at the Queen’s Jubilee in the Crystal Palace, I swear it could.”
Frederick was practicing the polka all around the room. He fell down and hurt himself. Bodo returned, picked him up in his arms, and carried him upstairs to his nurse—as one accustomed.
As we rose to go, Henry said, “Now, Teddie, old Choppers, couldn’t you tell a little lie just once and say that you were a servant? We’ll give you a card and let you into the show tomorrow night.”
“Oh, no, Henry. You made the rule: There are those who go in the front door of the house and those who don’t. I can picture you all in my mind’s eye and shall do so many times.”
We were standing on the gravel path before the cottage.
Edweena said, “I think you’re trying to say something, Teddie.”
I raised my eyes to Edweena’s. (It was true; they were more blue than hazel in the morning.)
I said hesitantly, “I always find it hard to say goodbye.”
“So do I,” said Edweena and kissed me.
Henry and I shook hands in silence.
The Servants’ Ball
For some weeks I had felt intimations of autumn in the air. Some of the leaves of Newport’s glorious trees were changing color and falling. I found myself murmuring the words of Glaukos in the Iliad: “Even as are the generations of leaves so are those of men; the wind scatters the leaves on the earth and the forest buds put forth more when spring comes around; so of the generations of men one puts forth and another ceases.” The summer of 1926 was coming to an end. I had called at Mr. Dexter’s garage and had paid the two final installments on my bicycle, up to and including the last day of my stay. In addition I had bought from him a jalopy at a price somewhat higher than I had paid for “Hardhearted Hannah”—who in the meantime had been restored to further usefulness and was watching this transaction.
“I only use her myself,” said Mr. Dexter. “I know what to do. Did you want to say a few words to her?”
“No, Mr. Dexter. I’m not so light-headed as I was.”
“I heard you had some troubles. Everything gets around in Newport.”
“Yes. True or false, it gets around.”
“I heard you had a theory that Newport was like Troy—nine cities. When I was a boy our baseball team was called the Trojans.”
“Did you mostly win or lose, Mr. Dexter?”
“We won mostly. In boys’ schools Trojans were always the favorite team because in the story they didn’t win. Boys are like that.”
“What years were those?”
“Ninety-six, ninety-seven. All of us took Latin and some of us took Greek. . . . When would you like to pick up your car?”
“After supper next Thursday night. If you could give me the key now I could drive off without disturbing you.”
“Now, professor, this isn’t a new car and it isn’t an expensive car; but it’ll give you a lot of miles if you handle it right. I’d like to go on a short drive with you and give you some pointers.”
“That’s very good of you. I’ll be here at eight and turn in my bicycle. Then we can drive to Mrs. Keefe’s and pick up my baggage and go for that ride. Will you put in a big can of gasoline, because I’ll be driving to Connecticut all night.”
So on the night of the Servants’ Ball I took Mrs. Keefe and her daughter-in-law to the “Chicken Dinner Church Sociable” at the Unitarian Church. I saw many new faces and was introduced to their owners. Unitarian faces are pleasant reading. Mrs. Keefe and I had become good friends, New England-fashion, and no moving words were necessary at our leave-taking. I finished my packing, stowed my baggage by the front gate, and bicycled down to Mr. Dexter’s garage.
Lessons began at once. He showed me how to start and how to stop; how to back as smoothly as nodding to a neighbor; how to save gas, how to spare the brakes and the batteries. As in violin-playing there are secrets you can learn only from a master. When we had returned to his garage, I paid for the additional gasoline and put it in the car.
“You must be in a hurry to be off, professor.”
“No. I have nothing to do until a few minutes before midnight when I want to pass under the windows of Mrs. Venable’s house to hear the grand march at the Servants’ Ball.”
“Since my wife’s death I have a second home down here up in the loft. Could we sit there and have a little old Jamaica rum while you’re waiting?”
I’m not a drinking man but I can take it or leave it. So we climbed the stairs to the attic. It was filled with portions of dismantled automobiles, but he had partitioned off a neat clean little three-room apartment with a big desk, a stove, some comfortable chairs, and some well-filled bookshelves. My host brought some water to the boil, added the rum, some cinnamon sticks, and half an orange. He filled our mugs and I settled down for an hour of New England taciturnity. I resolved to hold my tongue. I wanted to hear more from him. I had to wait for it.
“Have there been any more cities at Troy since the nine that Schliemann found?”
“Seems not. He found a scrubby village called Hissarlik and that’s all there is still. You’d think it might have prospered being only four miles from the mouth of the Dardanelles, but it didn’t. Probably no underground water left.”
Silence. Wonderful rum.
“Started me thinking about what changes might take place here—give a hundred or a thousand years. . . . Likely the English language would be almost unrecognizable. . . . The horse is almost extinct already; they’re thinking about pulling up the train tracks to Providence. . . .” He flapped his arms. “People will come and go on wings like umbrellas.” He passed his hand over his brow. “A thousand years is a long time. Likely we’ll be a different color. . . . We can expect earthquakes, cold, wars, invasions . . . pestilences. . . . Do ideas like that trouble you?”
“Mr. Dexter, after I graduated from college I went to Rome for a year to study archaeology. Our professor took us out into the country for a few days to teach us how to dig. We dug and dug. After a while we struck what was once a much traveled road over two thousand years ago—ruts, milestones, shrines. A million people must have passed that way . . . laughing . . . worrying . . . planning . . . grieving. I’ve never been the same since. It freed me from the oppression of vast numbers and vast distances and big philosophical questions beyond my grasp. I’m content to cultivate half an acre at a time.”
He got up and walked the length of the room and back. Then he picked up the jug from the stove and refilled our mugs. He said, “I went to Brown University for two years before I came back here and got in the livery stable business.” He pointed to his bookshelves. “I’ve read Homer and Herodotus and Suetonius—and still do. Written between twenty-eight hundred and eighteen hundred years ago. Mr. North, one thing hasn’t changed much—people!” He picked up a book on his desk and put it down again. “Cervantes, 1605. They’re walking up and down Thames Street—as you say—laughing and worrying.’ There’ll be some more New-ports before we slump into a Hissarlik.—Could we change the subject, Mr. North? I’m not yet freed from the oppression of time. After forty we get kind of time-ridden around here.”
“Sir, I came to this island a little over four months ago. You were the first person I met. You may remember how light-headed I was, but underneath I was exhausted, cynical, and aimless. The summer of 1926 has done a lot for me. I’m going on to some other place that may be unrecognizable three hundred years from now. There’ll be people in it, though at this moment I don’t know a soul there. Thank you for reminding me that in all times and places we find much the same sort of people. Mr. Dexter, will you do a favor for me? Do you know the Materas? . . . and the Went-worths? Well, I’m a coward about saying goodbye. When you meet them will you tell them that among my last thoughts on leaving Newport was to send them my grateful affection?”
“I’ll do that.”
“Five persons that I love will be at the Servants’ Ball tonight. They got the message already. Tonight, sir, will be among my happy memories.” I rose and held out my hand.
“Mr. North, before I shake your hand I have a confession to make. I buy old cars, as you know. My young brother cleans them up. Some weeks we get four or five. He’s a careless soul; he dumps old things he finds under the seats, in the linings, under the rug—all kinds of things—in a barrel for me to sift out later. Sometimes I don’t get to look at it for weeks. About six weeks ago I found a sort of story. No name on it; no place mentioned except Trenton, New Jersey. The license on your car was New Hampshire. After talking to you tonight I think that story was by you.”
I had turned scarlet. He reached down to a lower drawer in his desk and pulled out a long entry from my Journal—the account of an adventure I’d had with a shoemaker’s daughter in Trenton. I nodded and he handed it over to me.
“Will you accept my apology, Mr. North?”
“Oh, it’s of no importance. Just some scribbli
ng to pass the time.”
We looked at one another in silence.
“You made what happened pretty vivid, Mr. North. I’d say you had a knack for that kind of thing. Have you ever thought of trying to be a writer?” I shook my head. “I’ll see you down to your car.”
“Good night, Josiah, and thank you.”
“Drive carefully, Theophilus.”
I didn’t wait under the trees outside Mrs. Venable’s cottage to hear the Sousa march and the “Blue Danube Waltz.”
Imagination draws on memory. Memory and imagination combined can stage a Servants’ Ball or even write a book, if that’s what they want to do.
Afterword
Overview
Wilder never was able to write in any sustained fashion at his home in Hamden, Connecticut, on the edge of New Haven and ninety miles from Manhattan. Early in his career, it became his self-imposed style to hide away for short or longer periods in order to get any serious writing done. The Eighth Day, for instance, the bestseller and National Book Award winner published in 1967, took Wilder five long, hard years to complete. It was written all over the map, including one twenty-month sojourn in Douglas, Arizona, where the novel was born. Throughout his literary career, by habit and necessity, Wilder sought the solitude he and his work needed, and found it more than once in places like Newport, Rhode Island.
No better defense of his practice may exist than the boilerplate language he fashioned to accompany his annual “Statement re Professional Expenses” as part of his 1968 IRS return. Responding to his lawyers’ request for the words they could use to justify professional deductions on his tax return, Wilder wrote these lines, which appeared thereafter in his tax returns:
1. I work every day (save for occasional overriding interruptions).
2. My work requires that I be free of such interruptions. I have published books and produced plays for 41 years. [This would be modified for the indicated year.] The result is that when living in a big city and near New York I am constantly harassed by interviewers, photographers, enthusiasts, student delegations, visitors from Europe and Asia. It is necessary that I remove myself.
Theophilus North Page 39
