All He Ever Wanted (28 page)

In the matter to which we have been referring in our previous correspondence, let me just say that the sight of your face
on that morning so many years ago has remained for me a standard by which I judge my own affection for any woman with whom
I am close, and the affection of any woman for me. I count you among the most fortunate of persons to have felt so strongly
for another human being, however unhappy the outcome. Is this not the point of our existence?

Your devoted,
Phillip Asher

The Hotel Thrupp

November 25, 1914

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

I scarcely know what to write to you this morning. Though your husband was in no way inhospitable, it was clear to me last
evening that he very much minds my presence in Thrupp. Indeed, he delivered what can only be taken as an ultimatum. It has
made me realize how inappropriate it is for me to continue to write to you. It causes me great sadness to have to say this,
but I do not think we can continue this correspondence, innocent though it has been.

It was a pleasure to see you — however briefly — last night at your home. Permit me to say that you have grown only more lovely
with the years.

Yours in affection,
Phillip Asher

Holyoke Street

November 27, 1914

Dear Mr. Asher,

I am very sorry if there was any unpleasantness between you and my husband, Nicholas. I cannot enter into that debate, nor
do I wish to know any more about it. While you might be right about my husband’s distress were he to discover this correspondence,
I trust I am capable of determining on my own whether or not it should continue.

Sincerely,Etna Van Tassel

The Hotel Thrupp

November 29, 1914

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

I did not mean to insult your independence or judgment. Forgive me if I have. But it cannot have escaped your notice that
we are in possession of facts about which your husband has no knowledge. While this correspondence has been, as I say, innocent
enough, the fact of it, in light of his feelings toward me, so recently revealed, cannot be entirely blameless. Nevertheless,
I shall follow your lead in this matter, since I cannot presume to know your husband or your marriage as you do. Indeed, I
do not know either him or it at all.

I spent most of the Thanksgiving holiday reading and taking walks. Mr. Ferald and his wife were kind enough to invite me to
dine with them at their house for the Thanksgiving meal itself. Though it was only Edward and Millicent and myself, we sat
at an elaborate table and partook of a feast such as I have scarcely ever seen. I should not want to sound ungrateful for
their hospitality, but I did miss, at times, the noisy bustle of a meal in Exeter at our overcrowded table, and I wished I
had taken the trouble to travel there and back for the duration of the holiday.

No matter. The term resumes tomorrow, and I am to deliver the fifth and final of the Kitchner Lectures on Wednesday. I shall
attend now to my notes.

With perfect consideration,
Phillip Asher

The Hotel Thrupp

December 6, 1914

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

I do not know if this will reach you. I had occasion to speak with Gerard Moxon this morning, and he said that you had returned
to Exeter. My dear Mrs. Van Tassel, what has happened? Your husband has said publicly that your sister is gravely ill and
that you and the children have gone there to tend to her. If this is so, then I cannot say how sorry I am. But I must tell
you that Mr. Moxon, in confidence, suggested otherwise. (It is a confidence I promise you I shall share with no one, though
I cannot vouch for Mr. Moxon; he is quite innocently incapable of keeping a secret, I think.) Mrs. Van Tassel, I am unhappy
for you if what Mr. Moxon says is true. Please write to me to tell me if he and I have got it wrong. I do not wish to pry
in any way, and I am sure you have excellent reasons for leaving Thrupp, but if there has been a marital breach, I urge you
to repair it by any means. It cannot be good for either you or the children to have been forced to leave your family home.

My distress on your account is exacerbated by the fact that your husband withdrew his candidacy for the position of Dean of
Thrupp College, and I was two days ago elected to the post. I have until the eleventh of December to tender my decision. I
feel I must have some word from you before I do. I pray that I have not been, in any way, responsible for either a rift between
you and Professor Van Tassel or the cause of his change of heart. Please reassure me on this point, and, further, please say
if you do not wish me to accept the post, tarnished as it is with the unhappy fact of your husband’s withdrawal. I should
not like to take advantage of another man’s difficult situation.

Professor Van Tassel has sent round a note to all concerned saying that he relinquished any thought of the post of Dean in
order to better attend to his duties as department chair. I find this difficult to credit, not only because that was a position
your husband seemed to handle with ease, but also because I know how keenly he wanted the post of Dean.

Your devoted and concerned friend,
Phillip Asher

The Hotel Thrupp

December 11, 1914

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

I write to tell you that in the absence of any word from you, I have accepted the post of Dean of the Faculty of Thrupp College.
I officially take up my duties at the start of the new term. I will shortly move out of the hotel into a rented house at 14
Gill Street, but if you should write to me between now and January 10, you may send it to the hotel, and they will forward
any mail to me. I hope that you and your children are well.

Very respectfully yours,
Phillip Asher

14 Gill Street

January 6, 1915

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

I write to tell you that I have shifted residences from the Hotel Thrupp to 14 Gill Street, and should you wish to answer
this or any of my previous letters, you may do so there. I am renting a small house in anticipation of beginning my new job
at Thrupp.

I hope you and your children were able to pass a happy Christmas with your sister and her family.

Yours,
Phillip Asher

Exeter

January 15, 1915

Dear Mr. Asher,

Forgive my silence.

Etna Van Tassel

14 Gill Street

January 18, 1915

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

You do not need my forgiveness for your silence. It is perfectly understandable. I wish you a swift and happy conclusion to
your difficult circumstances.

Phillip Asher

Exeter

January 22, 1915

Dear Mr. Asher,

I put these questions to you as an ethicist. Is a woman, married and with children, entitled to reserve a portion of her life
for her own and exclusive use? May such a woman, if she decides that by doing so, no harm will come to either her children
or her husband, be permitted to retire to an inviolable place, a place to which only she has access, in which only she resides,
for the benign and innocent purposes of gentle education and recreation, which might encompass activities such as reading
and sewing and possibly the writing of letters or of poetry? Is not a man, of a certain education, accorded, without difficulty
from any party, an inviolable retreat of his own, one in which neither wife nor child is welcome, one in which he may read
or smoke or write or engage in contemplation, or even entertain certain friends and colleagues, a room that is commonly called
a study or an office or a library? And if so, why then is a woman — married and with children — not entitled to a similar
retreat? And if this woman should discover that no retreat may be had within her own home, owing to the traffic of children
and servants and even her own husband, who sees no violation in entering such a retreat, and because of the lack of respect
for such a place of solitude, is she not then allowed to seek retreat elsewhere, such as at a resident hotel or boarding house
or at a cottage in a rural area, outside of town, some miles away from the family abode, the whereabouts of which is unknown
to any family relative?

I await your reply to these questions, as they are ones I am struggling with moment to moment and which are at the very heart
of what you have accurately heard is considerable marital discord.

With respect for your judgment,
Etna Bliss Van Tassel

14 Gill Street

January 27, 1915

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

You do me a great honor by confiding in me the details of your marital discord and by assuming that I might be able to help
you answer these difficult questions. But I must tell you that I am an academic only and not a superior judge of either human
or marital behavior. I am not married, nor have I ever been. Marriage is a special province, the residents of which have access
to a knowledge and a language all their own, one that cannot be had by any other means than to be married. (It is for this
reason that I have always thought unmarried clergy and magistrates particularly poor counselors for those who seek redress
for marital grievances.) But as I am a scholar, I will, if you will permit me, put to you questions that in answering may
give you increased insight into your own difficulties.

Is not the personal retreat of this putative husband you speak of — the inviolable retreat within the house that we commonly
call the study or the library — agreed upon, in essence, by both parties of a marriage when they take up residence at that
specific abode and a room is so designated for that purpose? Or, put another way, can a retreat not agreed upon by both parties
of a marriage, or not even known about by one party of a marriage, be accorded the same respect? Might not a wife have reason
to distrust a husband were she to discover that he had rented a room in secret, even if the husband planned only to read and
write and think in such a place? Might not the discovery of such a room put too great a burden on the fragile thread of marital
trust between a man and his wife?

Mrs. Van Tassel, I can only guess at your circumstances, having no knowledge of them. More important, I have no knowledge
of your health or well-being. These are serious questions that you ask me, disturbing in their nature, more disturbing since
I am in a position to see your husband daily; and I must tell you, as a reporter only, that he is hardly in a fit state to
teach a class of young men. I have given him leave so that he may travel back and forth to Exeter, and have suggested a sabbatical,
as he is certainly deserving of it. Your husband would seem to be a proud man, however, as he has refused this offer. By all
accounts, he is in a seriously overstressed state, one that concerns many of his colleagues and friends.

I do not know how your unhappy story shall end, but I implore you to consider returning to Thrupp with your children and repairing,
with time and sacrifice, the marriage to which you have committed yourself.

Your humble friend,
Phillip Asher

Exeter

February 3, 1915

Dear Mr. Asher,

You write to me as a man and not as a friend. I do not need to be told to return to Thrupp to repair a broken marriage. That
judgment I am more than capable of placing on myself. I was hoping that you might, as a friend only, give me guidance as to
the ethical issues involved.

Sincerely, Etna Bliss Van Tassel

14 Gill Street

February 7, 1915

Dear Mrs. Van Tassel,

I think there is a strong argument to be made that all marriages might be improved if both husband and wife had a private
place to which to retreat for the contemplation — in solitude — of issues that the daily noise of life does not permit. But
questions of right or wrong can exist only within a framework of convention, the circumstances agreed to by any society. In
our society, at this moment, neither a man nor a woman who is married may rent or own a private and separate abode about which
the spouse knows nothing. I do not speak about the legal ramifications of such an action (I suspect it is not illegal to own
or rent such a room), but rather of the moral. Without trust, there can be no marriage, and a secret as large as a rented
house or room puts too great a burden on that trust.

Mrs. Van Tassel, I am in a difficult position. I wish to be your friend and to give you what guidance I have in my power to
bestow. But I know so little of your particular situation beyond the observable effects upon your husband. It is my understanding
that your son has returned to Thrupp, but that your daughter and you have not. The presence of your son seems to have had
a beneficial and salutary effect on Professor Van Tassel. He appears, at least for the moment, to have largely recovered his
equanimity.

Yours,
Phillip Asher

Exeter

February 11, 1915

Dear Mr. Asher,

I am grateful to you for conveying to me the improved condition of my husband. It has been achieved, however, at great cost
to me. I find myself now embroiled in a battle for the protection and custody of my son, Nicodemus, who is hardly of an age
to understand why he has been separated from his mother. Theoretical issues of privacy and solitude within a marriage have
vanished in the face of the very real issue of child custody, to which I am now employing all of my wits and about which I
pray constantly.

Forgive me for not having apprised you of the details of our marital discord, and forgive me further for not having the necessary
strength to do so now. I am grateful for your understanding, and am sorry you are in the difficult position of being privy
to the thoughts of the wife even as you are the supervisor of the husband. It is an awkward position I have placed you in,
and one from which I now release you. I have realized that it is inappropriate in the extreme to be writing to you in the
manner in which I have, and so I shall, with immense gratitude for your patience and solicitude, stop.