All He Ever Wanted (6 page)

“How many students are at the college?” she asked.

“Nearly four hundred,” I said.

“And do you like it there?”

“Well enough. I hope one day…Well, I shouldn’t say. And I shouldn’t like this repeated, of course.”

“Of course not.”

“Only that I should like one day to improve my position within the college. Noah Fitch, the Hitchcock Professor of English
Literature and Rhetoric, may be moving up to an administrative position in a few years, and I have reason to hope for his
post. I have many ideas I should like to implement.”

“I suppose a few years is not a very long time to wait for something one is not certain of receiving?” she said.

“Don’t most things worth waiting for require patience?” I asked. “You seem to have remarkable patience yourself.”

“Do I?” As she pondered my comment, there was, beside us, an awkward flutter of limbs. I looked up to see Moxon putting on
his coat.

“Van Tassel, have you parsed your Newman?”

“Miss Bliss, let me introduce my colleague Gerard Moxon. Gerard, this is Miss Etna Bliss, niece of William Bliss, the Physics
Professor.”

Moxon raised his eyebrows. “I’m happy to make your acquaintance,” Moxon said.

“And I yours,” Etna said.

Moxon had meant, with his question, had I read the volume by John Henry Newman entitled
Essays and Discourses
that had been sitting on the table in my sitting room only the day before?

“I trust I know the Newman well enough to require it of twentyfive students next term,” I said.

“You think ‘On Saints and Saintliness’ worth their time?”

“‘The Illiative Sense,’ surely,” I answered with some impatience, wishing only that the man would leave us.

“Miss Bliss, are you from Thrupp, or are you visiting?”

“I am visiting, Professor Moxon.”

“Well, I hope you are enjoying yourself and that Nicholas here is not too thoroughly a bore.”

Though the comment had been meant to be a joke, Moxon had failed to deliver the line with any humor; thus the moment was merely
pained. Etna looked down at her hands, and I beseeched Moxon with my eyes to leave us. Undoubtedly, he read this wish on my
face, for he began to put on his gloves.

“I hope we’ll meet again,” Moxon said warmly to Etna, and I do believe he meant it. As I watched him walk away, I reflected
that Moxon was not a bad man, really; indeed, I do not think he had ever had a malicious thought. Still, I knew that he would
not be able to refrain from mentioning our encounter to any number of our colleagues. I was seldom seen in the company of
striking women.

“Might not ‘The Illiative Sense’ be too difficult for your students?” Etna asked when Moxon had gone.

I flinched in surprise, a reflexive insult I sought to hide in the next instant by fussing with my cocoa, which had just arrived.

“So you’ve read Newman?” I asked, attempting a casual tone.

“Yes, I have.”

“Do you…? Are you fond of Newman?”

“You’re shocked, I can see that. It’s perfectly understandable. How, indeed, should I come by such a book, and why should
a woman of my position, which is to say no position at all, bother her head with such masculine discourse?”

“No, no,” I said, somewhat flustered. “Not at all.”

She seemed amused.

“I’m promiscuous in my reading, Professor Van Tassel,” she said (and how quickly she seemed to have forgotten her promise
to call me by my Christian name). “I read whatever I can obtain, by any means available to me — lending libraries, secondhand-book
shops, books borrowed from relatives…”

“Then you are self-schooled.”

She laughed. “If I am, it is an education riddled with holes, though I hope one that will continue for a lifetime. My father,
before he passed away, was a teacher of Mathematics at Phillips Exeter Academy.”

“An academic family.”

“But I myself know nothing of mathematics or of the sciences. I’m sure that my uncle William thinks me hopelessly dull.”

“Oh, I seriously doubt that,” I said, somewhat recovering my composure and adjusting my portrait of Etna Bliss to include
this new information. Such qualities were slightly unnerving in a woman but might prove valuable, I could see, in a wife.

We reached forward together for the silver sugar bowl, and our hands touched. She withdrew hers at once, and there was between
us an uncomfortable silence. And that, I was soon to discover, was to be the pattern of our small outings. If we spoke of
books or of ideas, Etna was animated, as though she had not had benefit of conversation in some time. But if I tried to speak
to her of personal matters, or if I inadvertently touched her, she withdrew so quickly it was as though a cloud had covered
the sun, the light going out of her face that swiftly, that absolutely. I had to learn, therefore, to speak so as to draw
her out and not allow her to retreat into silence. I was, for the remainder of that first outing, moderately successful in
this endeavor, successful enough to put a foot forward when she said, rather abruptly, that it was time for her to return
to her uncle’s house.

She stood, and I stood with her. “I hope you will allow me to call upon you again,” I said.

Surely she hesitated too long for good manners, under the pretext of searching for her gloves. She turned to me.

“Yes, thank you,” she said simply. But did Etna Bliss understand that the freedom, both physical and spiritual, that she longed
for might come only with a price?

My suit began in earnest. If the way to Etna Bliss’s heart was through books, then I should become, I determined, an extensive
lending library of one. And I believe I saw, even on the first day I went calling with Rider Haggard’s
King Solomon’s Mines,
that Etna understood the currency of my petition. Though she gave little away, it was difficult not to take her acquiescence
as something more than acquiescence. In other words, I had hope.

I established a pattern of calling twice a week, and there cannot have been any doubt in that household as to my intentions.
Indeed, I should have been regarded as entirely dishonorable had I occupied so much of Etna’s time with no future in mind
at all. I could see that Bliss himself was baffled, though less baffled, I am bound to say when I began to reveal, in odd
bits of conversation, the extent of my modest fortune. Perhaps, in the end, he regarded me as a solution to a mildly thorny
problem.

As often as was feasible that winter, Etna and I left the Bliss house and went walking, returning at the end of these excursions
to take tea with Bliss or with his wife. I would arrive punctually at three o’clock, nearly desperate to see Etna after an
absence of three or four days. Following some brief pleasantries, Etna would don her cloak and hat and then take my arm, and
I would feel a profound excitement. I craved the sensation as a man will his laudanum, and it seemed proof that Etna Bliss
was someone with whom I had been destined to mate, someone whom I was fated to have loved. (I cannot help but wonder, however,
if we do not invent our own destiny, design our own fate, to suit our circumstances. How much of love is a trick of the mind,
a mere feat of verbal acrobatics, to accommodate persons who just happen to cross our path and who suit our needs at one particular
moment in time? I have never known the answer to this conundrum, and indeed I do not think it possible to determine such an
answer, since the physical effects of either are equally profound, so much so as to blur any distinction between merely convenient
and truly decreed.)

(A train of thought is an out-of-control vehicle, is it not, careering wildly from place to place, more dangerous than my
own derailed one?)

Etna would take my arm, and together we would stroll out into the elements; and was there ever a man who wished more for spring
to come early, not only so that there might be more fine days for our outings, but also so that there might be fewer layers
of clothing between Etna’s hand and my arm? Our discourse tended toward the books I had brought the previous visit. She read
voraciously and, I must say, rather attentively. Truth to tell, I had read nearly all of the volumes at an earlier point in
my life, either for my classes or for my own studies, and some of them, such as the Haggard, bored me utterly. But I feigned
interest when necessary, which was not hard to do, since Etna’s own enthusiasm was so infectious. I did think at times how
marvelous a teacher she might herself have become (quite possibly a better teacher than I, I am compelled to write here),
and what a waste it was that this woman had no one upon whom to bestow her considerable gifts. I began to see that she would
be an excellent mother, for she had great tenderness, which I had occasion to observe in her relations with her young cousin
Aurelia, as well as a true love of learning, which can be no bad thing in a mother, particularly if she is able to impart
such a desire to her sons.

(I daresay I sound opportunistic here, but these are thoughts formed more in retrospect than at the time, when I was in a
state of such helpless physical thrall that I could not have made sound or even calculated decisions. And though much came
later — and though I have found some ease in a life devoid of passion — I cannot say other than that I miss it.

Oh, how I miss it!)

(But was I
fond
of Etna Bliss? Did I actually
like
her? Certainly, she had many charming qualities, such as a talent for patience and a helpless laugh, and she had a lovely
way of swooping down to a child’s level to speak with him or her that was enchanting to witness; but, truth to tell, I was
always a little afraid of her, in awe of Etna, in the way of a supplicant before a benefactor. Though I do not think she ever
used that power against me, I believe she was always aware of it and understood this great imbalance between us.)

The weeks passed in this manner. I cannot say
pleasantly,
for the word is, I think, too tame. Rather, I remember those days as fraught with a certain kind of peril lest I do or say
something that might cause Etna to regard me with alarm. They were as well days of great turbulence of the heart, of unparalled
joy of the spirit, and of a thrill within the blood such as I had never known before. And, if I may say so, there was, upon
occasion, a glimmer of joy upon Etna’s face as well. I remember vividly, for example, one afternoon in January — the sky so
clear it seemed artificial, its blue and the snow’s white nearly garish in their audacity and adamantine sparkle — when I
had arranged for a long sleigh ride through the nearby countryside that so delighted Etna that she lost her reserve altogether.
It had been some time since I had traveled by sleigh myself, and so I had forgotten the speed, the sheer rush of air, that
such a conveyance can produce. Etna and I had soapstones in our laps that had been set near to a fire and still retained considerable
heat. The rugs that were wrapped over us thus made a kind of cocoon. Only our faces stung with the bitter cold, but we could
not mind, as the air was exhilarating. As we rode, the sleigh bells keeping time with the rhythmic movement of the horses,
the sun began to set, turning the plains of snow and the branches of the trees — even the firs — a deep but vivid rose, so
that all the world appeared to be glowing from within as if with a benevolent infusion. As this stirring color reached its
zenith, the horses, perhaps sensing this moment of perfection (or, more likely, wishing to return to a warm barn), sped around
a corner so fast that the sleigh tipped onto one runner. Etna squealed and grabbed my hand. She and I continued to hold on
to each other in a seeming transport of delight that closely mimicked, if not actually was, a kind of passion. Then, to my
surprise and bliss (there it is again, that word), she did not release my hand when the sleigh righted itself. Rather, she
laced her gloved fingers into my own, a gift so unexpected, I went rigid with happiness. The driver, a local farmer down on
his luck, muttered an apology on behalf of the reckless horses, when I, of course, wanted only to thank the man. Thus it was
that Etna and I reached that marvelous physical milestone — that of holding hands in affection — allowing me to make this
a habit on subsequent occasions.

Occasionally, our outings diverted from this familiar pattern. I remember one time in particular when Etna came to me — that
is, I went to fetch her, but she came to the college. On Sundays at Thrupp, faculty were permitted to invite guests to dine
with them after church. Sometimes these guests would be relatives from out of town, or colleagues one had business with the
next day, or a professor’s wife and children who for one reason or another had decided not to eat at home. Toward the end
of February, I invited Etna to join me for one of those Sunday dinners. I did this partly to repay her hospitality (I had
had several meals at her uncle’s house), and partly to announce her to my colleagues. Etna always provoked a little flurry
of attention in public, about which I sometimes felt ridiculously proprietary, as if I had fashioned her.

It was snowing the day I called for her, an icy snow that stung the skin, and, as I walked, the sleet blew horizontally, straight
into my nose and mouth. I had to hold on to my hat and fold my cloak around me. It was, in truth, a filthy day, and had my
desire to be with Etna not been so keen, I surely would have canceled our engagement.

When I arrived, she opened the door to me at once, as if she had been watching out for me, and I could not help but be pleased.

“Etna,” I said, shaking the weather from my coat and hat. Wisely, I did not say more at that time, for I did not want to overemphasize
the wretchedness of the day. I still had hope that the afternoon would develop as I had planned.

Etna had to turn and back into the door to shut it against the wind. “I wondered if you would be lost,” she said, and in her
voice there was an unmistakable note of relief. Her face was flushed, as if she had the fever. She brought her fingers to
her temple in the manner of someone who has a severe headache.