Bright Flows the River

  “My dear father,” replied Hugh, “never really trusted me. He adored Lucy. She was his main heir. And Louise and her family are all part of the banks, and Guy is a director.” Hugh gave a bitter snort of laughter. “I mentioned divorcing Louise once, to Guy, and he came down on me like a wall of stones that had been exploded. I had a ‘duty’ to Louise, he said. I had a ‘responsibility,’ he said. That was five years or more ago. A grim bastard.”

  Something moved in James’s mind. He remembered his conversation with Beth Turner, and some of Guy’s incoherent exclamations.

  “I’m not exactly a poor man,” Hugh continued. “I have enough to live on, very comfortably, for the rest of my life, barring disastrous inflation. And there are other banks in Cranston, and I’ve had discreet offers from banks in Philadelphia. But Marian won’t marry me. I think she is afraid—More than anything else. She is afraid of losing me if she marries me.”

  “She has a point there,” James admitted. “Still, my parents literally adored each other. However, there was one thing: They were first to each other. I sometimes had the thought as a child that I was a non sequitur in their lives, a cherished incident, but only an incident. That didn’t make me love them the less; I thought it quite proper, and still do. Children are visitors, but only visitors. They must be treated as beloved visitors, and friends, with always the understanding that they were, from birth, poised for leaving.” He added, “Be content as things are. You and I—we have more than most men.”

  Marian came back with a large tray filled with silver dishes and a big silver pot of delectable coffee. When she left the room for a moment Hugh said, “But, I can’t stay with my wife. I hate her. Yes, I hate her. It isn’t healthy for me, or even for her. We detest each other. I may not divorce her, but as sure as God I am going to leave her, and soon.”

  When Marian returned Hugh reached out his hand to her, took hers, and kissed it, and she bent to kiss the top of his head. James thought, as he always thought, that love between a man and a woman was the one thing that made our appalling world endurable, and that without it it was a hell and a madhouse. Such love was blessed, with or without marriage, and was the only verity.

  The greatest insult to God was living a loveless life.

  16

  “I missed you last night,” said Emil Grassner to James.

  “Mr. Lippincott invited me to dinner, and I thought it would be a change,” said James. “But you did get my message?”

  “Yes.” Emil smiled at him curiously. “Did you enjoy meeting Mrs. Lippincott?”

  “It was an experience,” said James with wryness. “An experience I am getting accustomed to. In America. I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t stand the lady, either,” said Emil, and they laughed a little. “C’est formidable. But many women are, these days. My late wife was nothing like that. She was, above anything else, a woman.”

  “Rare, even in England now, Emil. I think the whole bloody world is going to hell. I wonder if our ancestors thought that, too.”

  “Probably. Every generation has its Armageddon, but this time it’s for real. I’m sorry I have children and grandchildren. By the way, late last night Dr. Parkinson called me. They telephoned him from Mountain Valleys. Guy, it seems, was very ‘agitated.’ Shouting, crying, cursing. ‘Out of control.’”

  “That’s good,” said James, but with some doubt. “What happened then?”

  “I told them to give him a strong sedative, stronger than usual. Later I called. Guy had settled down to sleep, but moaned all night. It’s very kind of you, James, to give him so much of your time.”

  James thoughtfully stirred his breakfast coffee. “In a way, he’s giving me a lot of his time, too, without his knowing it. I’m not the man who came here. I, too, am confused, as I told you before. In looking over my life I feel it was wasted. I’ve got to come to terms with the thing that is bothering me in my own mind—just as Jerry has to come to terms with his own problem. At least I’m not afraid. I think.”

  “But he is?”

  “Yes, of course. He’s almost berserk with fear. I don’t call that weakness. Better to have fear and confront and act with it than to lie to yourself that you aren’t afraid at all, even in the midst of the mess you’ve deliberately made of your life. Even worse is to reconcile yourself to the mess and tell yourself you couldn’t have done anything else.”

  They went to Mountain Valleys together, as usual. The report was that Mr. Jerald was still sleeping after an exhausting night. Emil nodded, and continued on with his other patients while James entered Guy’s suite. Guy was in bed, and James sat alone in the sitting room before the artificial fire, and read a new magazine. The nurse came and went to look at her patient, to sigh and to shake her head. James finally went to the bedroom door and looked himself. The gray skull-like face on the pillow alarmed him. The sick man had a deathly look, worse than before. As James gazed at him with pity, Guy awoke and saw his visitor. He said in that rough voice of his, “Are you still here, Jimmy? Why the hell don’t you go away and let me alone?” He swung his thin legs out of the bed, then sat there, his head in his hands. “I don’t know what you’re doing to me, Jimmy, but it isn’t good.”

  “It’s always hard to look at yourself, Jerry.”

  Guy uttered an obscenity. The nurse came to the door with a tray and said brightly, “Well, we had a nice sleep, didn’t we? Ready for breakfast, Mr. Jerald?”

  He gave her a suggestion as to what she could do with the breakfast, and it was filthy, indeed. The nurse merely smiled and put the tray on the table. “Juice, creamed eggs and ham and nice hot toast, and coffee.”

  James retreated to the sitting room and went to the window. The sun was shining with a dazzling luster on the snow. A few short icicles were hanging before the window, as pure as crystal, and dripping. The grounds spread away in immaculate undulations and the distant mountains leaned in a strong metallic blue against a paler sky. Scintillating though it all was, James felt a familiar depression, and a longing for home and Emma. He clasped his hands behind his back and shook his head. He went back to the magazine and the fire, and his loneliness made him feel slightly sick. He heard, behind the closed bedroom door, Guy’s incoherent shouts and protests and curses. At least, thought James, he’s out of his lethargy. He sounds enraged, and when a man is angry like this he is angry with himself. I hope so, anyway. But total anger against one’s own person can end in suicide. James highly disapproved of suicide, for it suggested not only self-pitying despair but cowardice.

  The nurse appeared with the tray; the breakfast had been hardly touched, except for the coffee. “Mr. Jerald is shaved and bathed, and he is dressing,” she informed James. “He’ll soon be with you. He’s not in a very good mood this morning.”

  “So I heard,” replied James. “I’d like to be alone with him when he comes out, if you please.”

  The nurse nodded and left, and James, out of his own malaise, paced up and down the room, rubbing the red-gray curls at the base of his head—a big paunchy man who looked, more than ever, like a Toby jug though without the amiable smile. He was weary. He had not slept well himself. He had had a troubled dream about his father. He could not remember the dream very well; he only recalled that his father had been sitting before him and had been gazing at him in a questioning silence, his fiery blue eyes waiting. James had the impression that they had just concluded a most disturbing conversation. The echoes were still in his mind, but what they had said was not only unclear to him but not remembered. He just knew, however, that his father had been reproaching him and that he had understood the reproaches. He sighed.

  The bedroom door opened and Guy came into the room, gaunt and ghastly, though neatly dressed as usual. He took no notice of James. He merely went to the window, stared out, muttered something, then threw himself into his chair and stared at his hands, unseeing, turning them over and over on his knee.

  James said, “I had dinner with your brother-in-law last night, and h
is wife.”

  No answer. “I also met his—friend. Mrs. Kleinhorst.”

  Guy turned his hands over and over, not pausing, not heeding.

  “A lovely lady,” said James. “He’s fortunante indeed to have such a friend. Every man is.”

  Then Guy spoke with loud contempt. “He hasn’t any sense of responsibility. If he had he’d have been content with a casual woman, not an—involvement.”

  James was suddenly heartened. “Responsibility? Hasn’t Mr. Lippincott also a duty to himself, a responsibility, if you will?”

  Guy said nothing, but he suddenly looked up at James, and James was appalled to see distracted hatred in his black eyes. “That’s easy to say, Jimmy. Hugh hasn’t children to think of. He draws a good salary from the banks, and is a director of my business. He can afford to—”

  “What?” asked James. But Guy did not answer. He moved restlessly in his chair. Finally he said, “Of course, his woman has money of her own, a lot of it. I’ve known about him and her for a long time.”

  “And, you don’t approve?”

  “Hell, Jimmy, it’s not my affair. Louise is a pig of a woman, and she deserves what she is getting. But, that’s not the point. Hugh has also a responsibility to the banks, and my business, and a scandal could do him no good, nor me, either. He hasn’t any discretion.”

  “A man can die of ‘discretion,’” said James. “And prudence is often just another name for fear, selfish fear.”

  Guy shouted, and half rose from his chair. “You don’t know the full implication, damn you, Jimmy! A whole lifetime of work and struggle—you don’t know! You don’t throw it all over for—”

  “For what?”

  “Yes, for what?”

  “A man has to live his own life, sometime,” said James, mildly. “He can’t, forever, be chained in manacles he forged for himself, and put on himself.”

  The hatred, and something else, brightened in Guy’s eyes. “Go away, Jimmy. You’re just making matters worse.” He dropped his head. “I made myself face it—once. And it damned near killed me. I wish they had let me die.”

  James sat down near his friend. “Life can be very beautiful, and peaceful, and fulfilling, if we let it, Jerry. It’s a lovely world in many of its aspects, though man is busy despoiling it as fast as he can. But a lovely world still. I remember a summer in Devon, when I was a young lad. Warm trees, quiet green hills on which lambs and sheep wandered, a sweet wind, fragrant. And bees, clouds of bees, going on their innocent way. I’ve seen many other summers, but not one lovelier than that. I met the first girl I ever loved, there. When I think of her I remember the bees and the wind and the hills.”

  July 1972

  The only sound was the thrumming of bees in the hot July sun, though there was a soft almost inaudible murmur in the air, as if some giant was gently sleeping in the midday heat. The long narrow path was bordered by wild-flowers, among them Queen Anne’s lace as delicate as if made of spider’s webs, and long white daisies with their yellow hearts turned up to the fervid sky. On Guy’s left swept a long drift of great oaks and maples, running down to the distant road, and on his right there lay the fields of corn, their green tassels just faintly coloring with gold as they glistened in the light. The land appeared to bask, to rest, to be at sunny peace. But the man who walked in this lovely dazzle was not at peace and the scene filled him with a peculiar sense of loneliness and frustration and a longing to which he could put no name and only emotion, as if he had lost something precious, never to be found again.

  He saw, ahead of him, a small compact white house of painted wood with a red roof and brick chimneys. It was very neat, and very quiet. Then from somewhere erupted a white-and-tan collie, all teeth and tongue, barking wildly, tail waving like a ruffled feather. The animal bounced on its hind legs, threatening, though the golden eyes were laughing. Guy made a fist and bent and presented it to the dog, who sniffed at it, then ran ahead, looking over his shoulder, obviously leading the way, still barking. “You’re not a watchdog; you’re a farce,” said Guy, and the dog laughed delightedly. As if in answer there was a petulant cackling of fowl, a grunt of a hog, the “pitty-quirk” of guinea hens, and a woman’s voice calling, “Joe, Joe?” The dog barked in reply and rushed up the path, prancing.

  The warm complacency of the earth was stirred by a sudden random breeze, hot and aromatic, and the trees turned glittering pale backs in the radiant air. Guy glanced at the sky with quick remembrance. Yes, in the south there were a few darkening clouds with brilliant silver tops, promising rain, and one of them was stabbed by a mercurial slash of lightning. For some reason this made him feel less wretched and languid. He came up to the house and saw its small polished windows, its looped white curtains, its red door with the copper lion’s head on it, as bright as fire. He stopped a moment as if with relief, and with definite pleasure. Then, at a little distance to the right of the house, he saw a woman kneeling in a huge flower bed all rose and pink and yellow and white. She was weeding. As Guy appeared, accompanied by the dog, who appeared to present him for inspection, she sat back on her heels and pushed aside a fine untidy welter of red hair with the back of a brown hand and regarded him without fear, and only with curiosity. “Yes?” she said. Her voice was calm, soft yet full. Then she said, “Oh. It’s Mr. Jerald, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve seen your photograph in the papers,” she said, and stood up. She was tall, perhaps too slender, but her breast was voluptuous under the blue shirt. She rubbed her hands on a pair of very soiled blue denim trousers. She looked very sweaty and very dirty and very composed. There was mud on her cheek and on her chin. She was not in the least pretty and certainly had no beauty except for that luxuriant breast, and she was not young, possibly my own age, or a little younger, thought Guy. Forty-eight or so. But she had an intrepid air, and she stood tall and straight like a young man, and pinned her hair, which was very damp along her temples and forehead. She smiled at Guy frankly, showing small white teeth; her mouth was rosy from exertion and beautifully formed, with a fearless but also vulnerable expression. He saw her very white skin, the wide translucent cheekbones on which there was a broad wash of ginger freckles, her pugnacious nose, and the eyes, open and candid, the color of tawny wine, and the ruddy lashes and brows.

  “I think I know why you came,” she said. “It’s about part of my land isn’t it, for the easement? No.” She smiled again as if amused. “It’s no use, Mr. Jerald.”

  “Well, let’s talk about it, Miss Turner.”

  “I’ve talked with your men. And it’s definitely no, no. So why talk about it?” She paused. “It’s Mrs. Turner, by the way, not Miss.”

  He was surprised. He had been led to believe she was an old maid, a former schoolteacher. So she had a husband, had she? “Is there a Mr. Turner?” he asked. He rested his foot on a small fallen log on which there was a package of cigarettes and some matches. She reached for them and lit a cigarette. Her face had changed. “No, there isn’t a Mr. Turner. Not anymore. He was killed in Korea.” She offered him a cigarette and he took one and she lit it, casually.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. He looked about him. “Any children?”

  “No, thank God,” she answered, with such a fervor that he reluctantly laughed. She laughed also, her arms folded across her breast, the cigarette smoke rising and fluttering in the gathering breeze. “Children are one reason teachers often didn’t marry,” she continued. They smoked together in a little silence. The dog lay down, panting, in the shade of an enormous maple and regarded the two with affection.

  Mrs. Turner, though quite at ease, was studying her visitor. She decided that he was darkly handsome, in spite of that lowering face, and very masculine, a trait one did not see often in these days among men. Yet there was no male relaxation about him, only a pent aggression and, she saw acutely, a weariness. His summer suit of light gray gabardine was obviously expensive. She glanced at his hands and felt a pleasure she had n
ot known for a long time, for they were implicit with strength and surety: and implied hard work. To her alarm and quick confusion, she wanted to touch those hands. She stood in the sun and there was suddenly a tension between them which astonished Guy, for he had forgotten the strange but powerful attraction which could come between a man and a woman. She was not at all the kind of woman who usually drew him and pleased him, yet he was drawn and pleased. He felt the intense current flow between him and Beth Turner, savoring it and wondering about it.

  He said, “You have about fifteen acres, don’t you? Not quite a farm.”

  “It’s farm enough for me,” she said, still standing. He sat down on the log. “Two cows, four sows and one boar, one hundred chickens and those silly guinea hens. They’re always so curious. They’re asking each other who you are.”

  The wide sunny peace lay all about them. Again they smoked in silence. “It’s all I want, all I need,” said Beth Turner. “I have a little money” of my own, too. I travel occasionally. I have my house. What else could a woman want?”

  “You talk as my father used to talk,” said Guy. “He had nine hundred acres of land, and a house of sorts, and never had a cent to his name.”

  There was something in his voice that alerted her and made her feel an odd compassion. She studied him closer. “He sounds like an interesting man,” she said.

  Guy looked at the burning tip of his cigarette and so did not see the gentle pity in her eyes. He said, “Oh, he was, all right. He was content with what he had. He had a little stock, his broken old house. And—his woman.”

  “A Pennsylvania Thoreau,” she commented.

  “An anachronism,” he said, and his voice hardened.

  “Too bad there aren’t more of him around,” she replied.

  “An old hippie,” Guy said. “What kind of a world would we have if most people were like him?”