All He Ever Wanted (12 page)

“You understand my meaning in this,” she said somewhat tentatively.

Perhaps I nodded. I do not know. I remember only that I couldn’t speak.

“I don’t think that I could…love you…in the way a wife must love a husband,” she said with great difficulty.

I stood immobile for some moments while she watched me. Then, to my utter shame and horror, tears came unbidden to my eyes.
I blinked furiously to send them back.

She reached out her hand and touched my arm.

“Nicholas,” she said quietly, “you move me.”

I had no voice. I shook my head.

“Am I really so dear to you?” she asked.

I removed my handkerchief from my pocket. I did not answer her, for no answer was necessary.

“My poor man,” she said in a surprised but gentle voice.

We stood in that attitude for some time. In the corner, the ticking of a clock could be heard. Beyond the gracious windows
of the room, a carriage passed, the driver calling to a passer-by. In an upstairs room, there were footsteps. Any minute now,
I thought, we would be interrupted by a servant asking us if we wanted tea.

Etna turned away and gazed out the window. I can only imagine what was in her mind. After a few minutes, she turned back to
me.

“I shall accept your proposal,” she said in such a low voice that I was not at all certain I had heard her correctly. But
I didn’t dare ask her to repeat her words. I held myself rigidly, terrified lest I had heard wrong and that I should soon
discover that that was not what she had meant at all; I knew that I would not be able to bear a second disappointment.

(Of course, an honorable man — an
honorable
man — would not have let a woman sacrifice herself in such a manner.)

Etna leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “We shall speak no more of love,” she said, “either of its presence or its
absence.”

I found my voice then, though it was cracked with an emotion that was beyond all that I had ever known. “I promise to make
you content, if not actually happy,” I said. “And my own happiness shall be so great as to be more than enough for both of
us.” (Were ever more foolish words uttered than those by a man who assumes he has love enough for two people?) I fumbled in
my vest pocket for the ring I had nearly bestowed upon her eleven days earlier. I slipped it on her finger. And once that
ring was in place — signifying what? a deposit of my love? a token of possession? — I dared to breathe again and allowed myself
to feel some of the joy to which I was now entitled. The ring sparkled on her finger, and I took her hand in mine. But as
I was in danger of again embarrassing myself with tears, I dared not embrace her. Nor did I want to dispel with further words
the lovely magic that now lay all about that room with its drop cloths and ladders and paint buckets.

“I shall not ask my brother-in-law for permission,” Etna said, “for I am of sufficient age to make such a decision for myself.”
She looked away. Did she already regret her momentous decision? Was she trembling inside from the audaciousness of her pronouncement?

“You will not be sorry,” I said boldly. (But how could a man promise such a thing? He could not, he could not.) “I will always
love you,” I said.

She glanced down at our commingled hands and then up at me.

“I know,” was all she answered.

Keep was shocked, I could see, and he blathered on a bit, a harmless tirade to which I was blissfully (have I not earned the
right to use the word here?) immune. Miriam pretended happiness but did not, I think, feel it, doubtless thinking, as did
her husband, of the inconvenience of Etna’s departure. I hardly remember the rest of that afternoon now. I had come on a desperate
mission and had been successful, a fact I could scarcely comprehend. I held Etna’s hand at intervals, and when she walked
me to the vestibule later that afternoon to say good-bye, I kissed her on the mouth, my desire now knife-edged and whetted
by good fortune. I must reveal here, however, that she did not respond passionately. Indeed, she hardly responded at all.
But my imminent departure emboldened me, and it was some moments before I let her go. Then the door was opened, and I was
standing on the front steps: battered, wrung out, and radiant with happiness.

Did I have, either that day or the next, misgivings? Did I sense that my greed to possess had overwhelmed my judgment? Might
not another man, in better control of his faculties than I, have been deterred at the declaration that his love could not
be returned? No, I do not think I did. Not then. For such a thought is one that comes of experience and in retrospect, and
not in the moments of greatest joy. I told myself I would teach Etna Bliss to love me, a tutorial I anticipated with the greatest
pleasure.

The porter has just come by to turn down my bed and refill my water pitcher, and so I think I shall retire now. Sometimes
when I am writing, I feel as though I were not reliving the events I describe here, but rather
living
them. That there is no distance, either in time or in space, no distance at all, and that I do not know how my story will
end. It is an extraordinary sensation, since, of course, I know only too well how it will all end.

My compartment (have I written this already?) contains the most intriguing devices for the traveler. The table on which I
scribble can, with a turn of a lever, drop down to the level of the upholstered seats. A cushion hidden behind a backrest
fits like a puzzle piece between the two benches and makes up into a rather good-sized bed, one that can certainly accommodate
a man as large as myself. Above the washstand is a mirror that snaps down to cover the sink, transforming it into a nightstand,
complete with water pitcher, glass, and a small lamp by which to read. Behind the opposite backrest is a clothes locker in
which one can hang a suit jacket and pack away one’s socks and underthings. It is all rather ingenious. Apart from the toilet,
which is just down the corridor, I do not want for anything. I have brought with me a copy of Emerson’s
American Scholar
, which I am looking forward to reading before the rhythmic clacking of the train wheels along the rails sends me off to sleep.

I cannot help but think of newlyweds and of how they would enjoy this self-contained universe.

T
his is now the second day of my journey south (the better part of a day lost to the aforementioned derailing), and I am feeling
dispirited by some of the sights that I have witnessed through the window of my compartment. One has heard, of course, of
breadlines and of homeless tramps, but to see for oneself the extent of the degradation and poverty in our nation’s capital
is alarming. Men dressed in rags are lined up for blocks, presumably hoping for a bowl of soup; women with small children
sit on sidewalks and hold out tin cups; cardboard shanties line the tracks for miles, and vagabonds hover over fires. It is,
at times, too much to take in. I should not like to boast about my own New Hampshire, but it can hardly escape notice that
breadlines are few and far between in that state of self-reliance and industry. Of course, we do have our share of people
fallen on hard times — the smaller enrollment at the college is but one example; the seizure of Gerard Moxon’s property is
another; and, now that I think of it, one might have to attribute to the dismal economy the suicides of Arthur Hallock and
of Horace Ward Archer — but we in New Hampshire like to think we help our own. I cannot count the number of times that my
cook, Mrs. O’Hara, has fed itinerant beggars from the back door of our kitchen; indeed, I think she bakes more than she normally
would simply to be able to do this. I cannot mind, since my own living is ample and reasonably comfortable, and there is only
myself to feed in that cavernous and drafty house.

But enough of dismal news! I shall turn my eyes away from the window and peer instead at my notebook, for I should not like
to taint my tale with bulletins from the future. Indeed, at the time of my story, which was 1900, the mood of the country,
perched as it was on the precipice of the twentieth century, was one of unbounded optimism. Never had we as a nation known
such prosperity, nor had we experienced such a period of peace. The rupture of the civil conflict was long behind us, and
the nearly constant appearance of new conveniences and inventions such as the automobile and the telephone promised a life
of greater comfort and interest than any of us had ever known. It was a bright age, with myself positioned squarely in its
center (or, rather, in its northeast corner), and it seemed a particularly propitious time to enter into a marriage.

Etna and I were wed on the 28th of May in a small ceremony at Thrupp College Chapel. Etna wore a dress of beige silk and carried
a bouquet of lilacs, which had just come into bloom in profusion all over the campus and lent the day, and even the wedding
itself, such a lovely scent that even now when I happen upon a lilac bush and am gifted with its perfume, I am transported
back to that May morning. There had been a rain shower the night before, and when we woke, the grass and buds and flowers
were washed clean, as though they had been laundered for the occasion. New Hampshire produces precious few fine days in the
spring (spring being the worst of the seasons in the northern New England states — unusually late to arrive and more sodden
than anyone would like), but that day was a rare gift and seemed, I am bound to say, an omen. Or at least I wished it so.

William Bliss, who appeared to be relieved to have the turmoil of the late winter put to rest, brought Etna from a side door
of the chapel to the altar. One of the college’s many preachers married us with a minimum of ceremony, and owing to the considerable
affection in which the Bliss family was held (and due perhaps to my own small portion of notoriety), we had quite a few guests
in the chapel to wish us well and send us on our way. Etna’s mouth trembled at our first kiss as man and wife, a pale fluttering
that might have seized the heart of any bridegroom and, indeed, seized my own, as if she had taken it in her fist.

As it happened, I had hardly seen Etna since the day in Exeter when I had made a proposal of marriage to her. While I had
returned to Thrupp, she had stayed on with her sister. Though I minded her absence, I was so busy during those weeks that
the pain of separation was somewhat mitigated by occupation. Chief among my tasks was the securing of a house in which we
might live following the wedding trip. I wanted it to be grand, suitable for my lovely bride, and one that would, of course,
eventually contain a brood of children. There were not many estates to be had that spring in the center of Thrupp, and so
I was forced to travel to the outskirts of the town more than a few times to view properties. In April, I found a candidate
that excited me for its potential, though its owner had mismanaged the place and the house was in a state of some decay. The
land was the finest I had encountered, with magnificent sloping lawns that ran down to a good-sized lake and with unparalled
views of modest granite mountains in the distance. The house was stately, a Federal structure of warm redbrick with white
trim, three stories high, with a shingled barn and a carriage house in the back. The public rooms had high ceilings, which
I knew would be difficult to heat, but which lent the house a grandeur absent in so many of the colonials on Wheelock Street
(Bliss’s house, for example). There was a formal dining room that ran the length of the house on one side, and I immediately
began to imagine that room as the locus of festive suppers or even, upon occasion, gala balls. When I was shown the bedrooms
on the second floor, I pictured Etna and myself asleep within the four posts of a massive bed, our five or six children not
far from us, tucked beneath their own comforters. That vision alone was enough to seal the bargain.

I paid cash on the spot on the condition that the owner and his family vacate the premises at once so that carpenters and
painters and so forth could enter the house to begin the work of restoring it to its former glory. (Hard not to think of Josip
Keep here, with his ladders and drop cloths). The fellow I hired to manage the restoration was charged with working overtime
to complete the task by the third week in June, when Etna and I would return from our wedding trip to take up residence. It
was a daunting assignment, but the man came through admirably, and though we were sometimes plagued with painters and even
plumbers (the indoor plumbing being unaccountably difficult to install), I could hardly complain at the transformation he
eventually wrought.

It was remarkable as well to note the transformation in myself — and though I do not think it would be quite true to say that
we grow or shrink in character and spirit so as to inhabit our surroundings, I did feel that I began to take on the role of
the property owner and to shed the somewhat dismal image of a schoolmaster consigned to college rooms. My humiliating collapse
on stage was behind me (indeed, I was able to congratulate Arthur Hallock heartily, if not sincerely, on the day of the physical
culture vote), and though I was never again to regain my former brief popularity (one could not erase altogether the image
of that unmanful collapse in the Anatomy amphitheater), my colleagues seemed, for the most part, genuinely pleased about my
forthcoming marriage.

But what can I say of Etna during this time? I hardly knew her true thoughts, and I felt somewhat disinclined to ferret them
out, since, I confess, I was fearful lest she change her mind about the wedding. I allowed our correspondence to remain on
a pleasant, even-tempered plane, and if it was a trial not to run on at length in my letters about my love for her, I comforted
myself with the thought that I would soon be able to say whatever I wanted. I longed to possess Etna, a desire I sincerely
hoped would be reciprocated. Whether I was hopelessly naive or simply ignorant of a young woman’s fears regarding her forthcoming
physical responsibilities, I cannot say. Of course we had never spoken of such matters (although we did once discuss in great
detail the notion of passion within a framework of restraint in Hawthorne’s novel
The Scarlet Letter;
a thrilling conversation, if I may say so, not only for its intellectual rigor, but also for its thinly veiled erotic content),
but I guessed she had some knowledge of them. At the very least, I assumed she would query her sister about certain necessary
aspects of the wedding night.