All He Ever Wanted (17 page)

Asher put out his hand. “Very happy to have met you, Professor.”

“And I you,” I said in kind.

I must stop now, for my eyes are aching from the strain of trying to write in a moving vehicle. It has grown quite warm in
my compartment, but there is always mechanically cooled drinking water available in bubblers, not to mention a pitcher of
iced tea upon request, and so I am keeping as comfortable as possible in this North Carolina heat. (I had no idea September
could be so
humid
.) To find some relief this morning, I went through to the observation / library car, which is the car farthest to the rear,
where I sat on the back deck with several fellow travelers and took in the countryside. The land whooshed away from me as
we traveled along at sixty miles an hour, and I couldn’t help but think this sensation not unlike the writing of a memoir:
one attempts to write forward in time, keeping to a reasonable chronology, all the while trying to seize the past as it speeds
by and recedes into the distance — finally disappearing at the vanishing point.

I
met Etna at the foot of the staircase and was again reminded of how handsome she had grown over the years. She no longer looked
as tall as she had when I met her. (Can that really have been possible? No, of course not. It was simply that she did not
seem as formidable as she once had). She wore that night a high-necked satin gown of a burnished copper color that had a daringly
raised hemline (only three inches above her evening slippers, however, so not as audaciously raised as hemlines are today;
shamelessly, I often think, though I have never been immune to female charms). She had matched the hue of her silk stockings
to her dress, and I had no doubt that every man at the party would admire those strong copper-colored ankles. She was also
wearing her outrageous driving hat, a black-and-brown concoction with a wide brim and veil and two sashes with which to tie
it underneath the chin. I adored the hat and had often said so; it was, by now, a familiar feature in our household.

I helped her with her coat. “Shall I drive?” I asked.

“Heavens, no,” she said. “You’re far too nervous a driver, Nicholas. So I will, if you don’t mind.”

She was entirely right. I was a dreadful driver, hunching over the steering wheel, gripping its rim with such force that my
fingers were stiff for some minutes after I had arrived at my destination. I couldn’t get the hang of it and was never relaxed.
“I don’t mind at all,” I said.

I followed Etna out the side entrance and along a garden path that led to the carriage house. There had been, a half hour
earlier, a ferocious thunderstorm, but now the sun was setting within a clear ribbon beneath a blanket of cloud. Most of the
light was gone, but one could still see the garden, or rather the autumnal remains of same. There were some phlox in bloom
(how I loved their scent; I have thought from time to time of reviving the garden simply to have it again, but as it would
be only myself who would enjoy it, and as I would be certain to feel a sort of melancholy there, I do not think it wise).
The garden was of Etna’s design, and it was her pleasure to work in it of a morning. She would don a gardener’s apron and
straw hat and a pair of boots, and would look both comical and endearing. She had a deft touch with the roses, which still
lingered and would do so until a killing frost. Indeed, we normally had masses of the things on the hall table right up until
the middle of October.

“Should I become Dean,” I said to Etna’s splendid back, “I shall have two parties a year: one in the fall for the faculty
only — a men’s-club sort of thing with cigars and brandy and so forth — and then in the spring a family party in the garden.
In May, I think. I should like to see the garden full of children.”

“That sounds lovely,” Etna said.

As it will sometimes do with its dying gasp, the sun just then lit up the rose canes and the stalks of phlox and the picket
fence Etna had insisted upon and the lawns and the fruit trees and even my beloved wife in her mad hat with such a glow that
I was struck with awe (and am even now, remembering it). The world became, for that instant, salmon colored and shimmering.
Above it, against the retreating dark cloud, a sunset rainbow, a rare enough sight, rose straight up from the field adjacent
to ours.

“Look, Etna,” I blurted.

My wife stopped, and we watched the phenomenon together, and I could not help but think that my life and my possessions were
receiving a pagan blessing. I was a fortunate man, was I not? Apart from my nightly disquietude, which in that rosy light
I was more than willing to ignore, Etna and I had a good marriage, rather better than most. We never quarreled, nor were we
ever dismissive of each other, a quality I have witnessed far too often in other couples.
How lucky I am!
I thought as I stood transfixed on the garden path. Happiness, which had eluded me all my life, seemed so much within my
grasp that I labeled it as such. “I am so happy,” I said.

“My dear,” Etna said.

“I shall very much enjoy tonight,” I added.

“Of course you will,” Etna said.

Ferald’s house was ostentatiously grand and quite out of keeping with the general modesty of the Yankee countryside. It was
built in the Georgian manner of English limestone that had been imported for the purpose. (I cannot conceive of the cost —
and with New Hampshire granite all about!) It had a massive portico with columns that rose two stories high. The unadorned
windows were large as well, and I suppose, if one forgave the excess, the house might have been regarded as stately, a comment
that was, in fact, often put forth that evening by men eager to curry Ferald’s favor. (Said house, I am pleased to report,
is now a school for the blind.)

“My goodness,” Etna said when we had driven up the circular drive.

“Mutton out of lamb, if you ask me.”

“Still, though, it’s quite extraordinary.”

“There are no limits to which some men are willing to go to demonstrate their wealth, better left undemonstrated, in my view.”

“You don’t like him much, do you?” she said.

“I’m required to be civil to the man,” I said.

“Do you think it wise to be merely civil? Under the circumstances?”

“His is but one vote out of seven. No more, no less. And I am certain of at least three of the others. Fortunately for me,
the board is a democratic one.”

As we entered Ferald’s house, he greeted us with a faint smile. “Professor Van Tassel, may I present my wife, Millicent.”

As I had never before been invited to dine with the Feralds, I had not met his wife of less than a year, a luxurious froth
of a woman in her lace jacket and bejeweled tiara. She was slender and delicate of feature, her hair nearly as pale as her
skin. She had, however, a somewhat bewildered look about her, as one who is continually startled. It suggested that Ferald’s
wife might be no match for her wily husband, and, instantly, one felt a sort of pity for her.

“How do you do?” I said, taking her hand. “This is my wife, Etna.”

(How we men enjoy our possessive adjectives.)

Etna smiled at the younger woman. Quite young, actually; Millicent Ferald cannot have been more than twenty. “Your house is
lovely,” Etna said.

“Oh, do you think so?”

“Yes, it’s quite grand.”

“You don’t think it too big?”

“No, not at all. You must do a lot of entertaining.”

“That’s what makes me so nervous,” Millicent Ferald said. “All this entertaining!”

Ferald, barely able to conceal his impatience with this revealing exchange, leaned pointedly around Etna to shake the hand
of the man standing behind her. It was an insult I sought to hide from my wife by moving her away from the entry. Fortunately,
we were almost immediately accosted by Moxon, who seemed all arms and legs in his ill-fitting suit, the trousers too short
for his considerable height. I wondered how he could ever have been put forth for the post of Dean, despite his success with
his popular biography. He rambled and could not command an audience and dressed, despite a decent income, like a tradesman.
That night he sported a redstriped vest that on anyone else would have been vulgar, but on Moxon was merely curious.

“Hello, hello,” he said in his too-loud voice, his pleasure at seeing a friend (insofar as either Moxon or I had friends)
apparent in his tone and in the wide smile on his face. “And Etna. You look magnificent.”

Moxon, ever hapless, had been engaged to the daughter of a local Methodist minister and had all but been left at the altar
when the girl had come to her senses and gone off to Simmons College in Boston. Having read Moxon’s biography of Lord Byron
and convinced herself that Moxon and Byron were one and the same, the woman had been, for a time, romantically persuaded.
I knew for a fact that Moxon had been crushed by the rejection, though he put on a brave face. The evening would be trying
for him, as nearly all of the senior faculty were married — all except for the monkish Erling Morse, a prematurely wizened
man who taught several dry courses in Ancient History.

“Thank you,” Etna said, accepting his kiss. “What an interesting vest.”

“Horrid,” Moxon said with genial self-deprecation. “I must get a tailor. I keep saying that. Nicholas here has a very good
tailor. Don’t you, Nicholas? Quite a spread, isn’t it?”

Etna gazed up at the coffered ceiling, bordered by an ornate gilt molding.

“Who dreams up such flourishes?” I wondered aloud, glancing at the silk walls.

“The house has a swimming pool,” Moxon said.

“I can’t imagine Ferald taking exercise,” I said.

“A swimming pool,” Etna said. “What fun.”

I was so distracted by the image of Etna in bathing costume slipping into the water of an indoor pool (a toga and grapes somehow
came to mind) that it was some moments before I realized we had moved into the sitting room in which most of the guests were
sipping champagne (an unnecessary extravagance, I thought, typical of Ferald; we were, after all, in the business of providing
educations, not entertainment). Nevertheless, I noted, the drink was producing a giddiness in the gathering, the effervescence
of the beverage transferring itself to musical voices. There was a great deal of laughter, which was not altogether unwelcome.
Indeed, some would later recall Ferald’s party as having been one of the more spirited evenings in recent college history.

Canapés were produced. More champagne was drunk. Moxon was lost in the crowd. I put my hand to Etna’s back, but, as a rowboat
will sometimes drift away from its mooring, she became separated from me by various jostlings and greetings. I had a short
talk with Arthur Hallock about the state of William Bliss’s health (not good) and, while doing so, I noticed that Eliphalet
Stone, a corporator, was standing not far from me. Viewing his presence as a welcome opportunity to further promote my candidacy,
if only by engaging the man in conversation, I moved in his direction.

“We’re to have lobster,” I said when I had reached him.

Stone, eighty if a day, was scarcely five feet tall, and I had to bend to him to make myself heard above the animated din.

“What was that?” he asked, cupping his ear.

“Lobster!” I said, nearly shouting.

“Lobster,” he said with evident distaste. “Don’t eat bottom-feeders.”

“Oh,” I said. “Really. Well, perhaps not.”

“Had a chat with the fellow from Bates,” Stone said, getting right to the point. “The one looking for your job.”

“You mean Fisher Talcott Ames.”

“Bit on the dull side,” Stone said, which I thought an interesting comment coming from a man not known for either his conversation
or his wit. “You’re my man, you know,” Stone added, as if delivering an unhappy pronouncement. “Hate change.”

“Yes,” I said agreeably. “One does.”

“Where’s your handsome wife?” Stone asked.

I turned to introduce my handsome wife and realized then that I had lost her.

“Excuse me,” I said to Stone, thinking that Etna was always an asset and that I should not miss an opportunity to have her
speak with Stone. “I’ll just see if I can find her.”

But where
was
my wife? I wondered. Not in the parlor and not in the dining room. I grew distinctly worried. Had she taken ill?

I slipped away from the party and moved along a hallway that held some rather good art (a few of the Dutch masters, I was
pleased to see). The general noise of the gathering receded as I walked. The floor was tiled and led, I shortly discovered,
to the natatorium. I entered the blue-tiled and humid room. The pool was not as impressive as one had been led to believe;
there seemed to be barely room for one exuberant swimmer.

“What do you suppose it’s for?” Etna asked, startling me. She’d been standing just to the right of the door when I had entered,
and I hadn’t, for the moment, seen her.

“Etna,” I said with some surprise. “I was worried about you.”

“I wanted to see the pool.”

“You should have said something to me.”

“You were talking with Mr. Stone. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“We’re trespassing,” I said.

She smiled — a delightfully mischievous smile. “And shall we be punished, do you think? Sent home without our supper?”

Had the house been anyone else’s but Ferald’s, I should have insisted that we return to the party at once. But as I had already
had two glasses of champagne, I found the idea of violating Ferald’s privacy somewhat appealing.

“I imagine Ferald and his wife swim here,” I said.

I had then a brief and unpleasant vision of Ferald sitting in one of the chaise longues by the pool’s edge, watching his wife,
Millicent, cavort in the nude for his own especial pleasure — an image I sought at once to banish, not only for its lewdness,
but also because it had replaced the more felicitous image of Etna with the toga and the grapes. Ferald did have a look of
the venal about him — louche and morally corrupt, one might have said — and I find, as I try to recall that evening and put
my memories down on paper, that the image of that face keeps intruding upon my narrative.