Four Souls (4 page)

Polly Elizabeth

A
S SOON AS
Fleur appeared in the doorway, ready for my inspection, I regretted my impulse to copy for her that uniform from a certain exclusive hotel in the South of France. The black was never meant to set off so tight a waist, nor the peplum to emphasize those narrow-swiveling sly hips. The bodice with its inset of jet ruche and wide, starched white collar—a terrible mistake. Who could have expected it to frame such an elegant throat? And her eagle’s grace of collar-bone—perfectly! The three-quarters sleeves and tight cuffs gave distinction to her arms. I turned away without a word. I won’t mention my choice of the tinted stockings and the shoes—how I regretted the clever, shiny heels! Her feet were too long for fashion, I told myself, walking from the room, and her hands were rough with work. I tried to find comfort in these shortcomings. But what man rejects a woman on the basis of small defects in her hands and feet?

The rains were heavy and the snows worse. Mold grew in the corners of my brain. Grayish days do that to me, when I’m shut in and contemplate my small surround. I’ve the wit to do more than run this house for my sister, but my face is bleak and martial. I’ve never married. And here’s the worst. I’ve a soft heart for children, as well as all things small and helpless, and I sometimes weep into my clenched fists for fury that my sister has provided me no nephew or niece. One day I decided, in spite of opposition from all quarters, to obtain a small lady’s lapdog—a Pomeranian. A black clever-eyed bit of fluff with sharp teeth and a bitter yap. I imagined myself in some way defined by my relation to another creature. The dog would look elegant when I rode in motorcars, and fit my wardrobe perfectly as I tended to favor contrasting checks and black-and-white plaids. I would be known for my black Pomeranian and there would be a dog, at least, to sleep with me in my bed.

The breeder brought round the complete litter and I chose one at last—it took me just an hour—I picked him for his pleading eyes. Who else, after all, needed me enough to beg?

T
HOUGH
I
AM
fond of my sister and do not begrudge her the lopsided distribution of comely attributes, I am nevertheless aware of her limitations. Placide was considered scatterbrained, and our tutor had often chastised her, but I’ve had occasion to wonder whether indeed she was created with a brain at all. In the aftermath of brother-in-law’s episode, life resumed a routine serenity, outwardly at least. But I had seen what I had seen. I tried to tell Placide.

“Sister,” I addressed her straight out, one morning as I posed for her in pale north light, “your husband has eyes for the laundress.”

“She’s dark as a Nubian. More to the left. Turn your head. There. Your beard is rippling up on one side and your collar shows.”

I smoothed the piece of lamb’s wool we’d taped to my chin, and persisted.

“I’ve a mind to let her go.”

“Oh, don’t!” This captured my sister’s attention. She even set her camel’s hair brush down, though she loves to flourish it. “She irons my ribbons!” Placide picked up her brush again and dabbed a minuscule bit of color on her canvas. “And the bedclothes, my underlinen, all the tablecloths and napkins. She gets them so very white, my dear, quite in contrast to her complexion!”

Placide dimpled at me, waiting for me to laugh at her attempted witticism. I did not indulge her.

“Watch out, sister, have a care. He’s quite”—I chose the word without thinking how absurd it might sound uttered from beneath a false lamb’s wool beard—“
besotted
.” The wool got in my mouth and I spluttered to get rid of it.

Placide laughed out loud and shook her thin, dry curls. She wrinkled her nose, a gesture that was charming when she was a girl but which now made her look like a moth-eaten rabbit. She fluffed the silk bow on her painter’s smock as much as if to say, What would you know of men and their besottedness?

I do know
, I thought,
I can see it
. I know a love crush far better than you do, sister. You vain bit of fluff! Though I would die for you, I suppose, were it to come to that, I do see you clearly. And I know more about the direction of men’s desires because I’ve watched from the outside. I saw how they once looked at you, before everything about you dulled to an aged girl and your hair fell out. Their eyes followed your gestures and their bodies were always half poised, half turned, ready to sidle or leap, crawl or elegantly saunter in your direction whenever you changed your position in a room. You were the sun to their yearning faces, however eagerly they tried to conceal their interest. But it was a blank power. You were thinly wrought, a skim of cream, a pleasing sugar dip. Which is why I worry so intensely now, and fear this servant whose craft took me unaware.

Yet the new woman did such an excellent job that I had absolutely no cause for complaint. Fleur filled and drained the electric tumbler washer, operated the short mangle, and at any time of day, while directing Mrs. Testor, I was apt to hear the thump and dance of her irons from below. The bedding appeared, stacks of it precisely folded and sun-bleached to a marvelous whiteness. In addition, she was discreet. I saw little of her. Fleur never appeared in the kitchen except at mealtimes, and as for the rest of the house, she made her rounds silent as a wraith. I never saw her on any of the other floors although the linens were delivered and changed, precisely as I had instructed, even to the paint smocks for Placide and the hand towels at my dressing table. Brother-in-law seemed both satisfied with the condition of his room and yet completely unaware that Fantan and Mrs. Testor no longer struggled and bickered over what was to be done with the mounds of soiled sheets and wrinkled pajamas that he discarded by the sixes and sevens. I was even lulled, as anyone would be I suppose, into the resumption of a modest social life.

Nothing like life had been, of course, when Mother held sway. She had an unsurpassable gift for organizing formal picnics, sleigh rides, outings of various types. On those rare occasions when she pressed brother-in-law into joining the fun I never shall forget the picture that he and Placide, the two of them, made in spanking white, she on his arm, walking the grounds by the lake as the light turned golden and their shadows dragged beneath their heels like long and languid blue capes. They were really quite magnificent. She was the beauty of the avenue when she married—tall and slim, with a mass of dark golden hair that curled and crackled with lights. He was young too, wealthy, unpredictable, purported to be the son of minor British royalty and a German industrialist, an entrepreneur and scholar whose interests ranged from the classification and study of serpents to the quiet manipulation of investments. I was to find out that his heritage was more than exaggerated, it was a disgraceful lie, although his wealth was not. He was financially unharmed by all market tremors and even benefited from every crisis. He’d acquired a stiff reputation for his handling of the family lumber business and the railroad line, which stretched west from its terminus, went on forever, its print bold and black as doctor’s stitches on the maps he had me trace with my fingers.

“Our son could run this, why not?” he used to say, wistfully, to Placide. Of course she had no interest in bearing a son or daughter. When he tried to interest me in his doings, I would politely dip my head. I could no more make out and take fascination in the schemes, the maps, the enthusiasms in his office, the ins and outs, than my sister could allow her body to conceive.

It was a shame, I thought, that Placide and I had not been fused into a single person. I would have done things with her looks, and there’s no question that she sorely needed brains. But we were woefully separate and single in our beings. Perhaps if we’d worked together, we could have managed John James Mauser. But too late. Once the laundry woman had begun to exert some sort of influence, my brother-in-law started acting on his own. He actually summoned a doctor who specialized in male diseases. The man made a house call all the way here from Chicago. The famous doctor arrived on a drizzly afternoon and after we took his raincoat, umbrella, rubber galoshes, and a hat away to dry and brush, he was shown upstairs, where he secluded himself with brother-in-law for most of a day.

S
EEKING TO
enlighten myself on the particulars of brother-inlaw’s condition, for his own good of course, I was forced to eavesdrop. After the esteemed Dr. Fulmer had finally finished examining his patient, he stepped into the hall where I was sitting, waiting, knitting. I had practically completed two pairs of socks.

“Put down those needles,” he glared at me from underneath his little band of black hair. “Are you the wife?”

“No,” I answered, though a bolt of conceit pierced me.

“Then fetch the wife!” he ordered.

I went upstairs and, with difficulty, persuaded Placide to leave off detailing the hem of some figure’s majestic robe. She followed me downstairs, and I ushered them both into a small sitting room, knowing full well that there was a thin panel in the wall between the two rooms. Through that panel, by means of an ordinary water glass pressed to my ear, I was able to hear the entire conversation so clearly that on several occasions I had to bite my lip so as not to offer correct information. Placide, of course, distracted and immersed in her artistic pursuits, knew less than I of brother-inlaw’s diet, sleep, taking of the air, and general treatment.

Placide had already hinted to me of her husband’s troublesome spermatorrhea, which he claimed was brought on by the practice of Karezza in the marital relation. So it did not surprise me to hear the doctor question my sister on the specifics of the practice laid out in Dr. Alice B. Stockham’s useful book. Placide had confided to me her terror of pregnancy, and I had laid aside my own longings for a nephew or niece in order to preserve Placide’s health. I had, of course, meant no harm when I placed the book in Placide’s hands, and in fact I still insist that Dr. Stockham’s adaptations of Zugassent’s practical methods of loving could, if sincerely practiced, improve the relations between the sexes and even save marriages.

“Now I want you to be perfectly open with me, Mrs. Mauser,” said Dr. Fulmer. “Can you describe this practice of Karezza to me in exact physical terms?”

Placide, of course, could not. Her modesty was a barrier. She tried her best to convey the spirit of the practice without resorting to crude word-pictures.

“We exercise the mutual power of our wills,” said Placide. “And the power of the heart.”

“For what purpose?”

“To collect and act on loving thoughts.”

There was a pause.

“That is all very well,” said the doctor. “But insofar as marital congress is concerned…”

“We have always practiced a conscious conservation of creative energy.” Placide was earnest. “It has had the most exciting effect on my artistic output!”

“I see.” The doctor seemed to be taking notes. “Is procreation possible through the marital relationship?”

“It is not wished,” said Placide with quiet assurance.

“Well then,” the doctor tried again, “is the congress satisfactory?”

“We have attained a marvelous level of mutual reciprocity,” said Placide. “And now, if I may excuse myself.”

“Not just yet.”

I could tell the doctor was not only losing patience but running out of circumlocutions.

“I must inquire, Mrs. Mauser, does the practice of Karezza require the partakees to suppress emission?”

“Yes,” said Placide, rather strongly, “there is no crisis!”

“No propagative crisis,” said the doctor, making certain.

Placide must have nodded or made some sign, for she gave no verbal answer.

“Then my diagnosis is confirmed.” The doctor’s tone was rather grim. “The frustration of your husband’s natural discharge has resulted, I must say, in the most bitter penalty. Sit down, Mrs. Mauser. You will hear me!”

I heard the chair creak.

“In the beginning,” said the doctor, “your husband’s dulled eye, his sallow countenance, drawn features, and pained air of melancholy, as well as his insistence on social isolation, caused me to suspect that he suffered from one of the secret diseases.”

I gasped, rather loudly, and Placide said nervously, “What was that?”

“A secret disease,” repeated Dr. Fulmer, mistaking her suspicion for ignorance. “If I must be completely direct, so be it. I suspected the masked pestilence!”

But Placide must have still affected that blank sweetness one finds so frustrating.

“Gonorrhea!” he practically yelled. My glass shook and I believe I flushed to the roots of my hair. The doctor forged on. “His previous doctor must have suspected the same. For that reason, the patient was prescribed a diet absent of ales or malt liquors, coffee, salt meats, intense seasoning, and asparagus.”

“He was given no asparagus,” said Placide, meek now.

“For Chordee, which he suffered at night, he was of course advised to place his posterior against a cold wall.”

“He did that,” said Placide, “as far as I know.”

“His manservant also assisted in his nightly treatments.”

Placide must again have looked stupefied.

“Prolonged immersion of the”—here Dr. Fulmer struggled, but used the words—“male sexual member in hot water. I believe it was of some benefit. But when your husband did not respond to my colleague’s satisfaction, he was prescribed urethral injections of sulfate of zinc. Mrs. Mauser, those treatments had little or no effect. For that reason, I conducted today’s frank interview, which enlightened me to the extent that I have changed the diagnosis. Mrs. Mauser…” The doctor paused dramatically. “Your husband suffers from a locomotor ataxia and melancholic neuralgia complicated by a rare male chlorosis, all brought on by a damming of the sperm!”

“Oh!” Placide sounded quite shocked.

“Where do you think it goes?” asked Dr. Fulmer, rather savagely. I pictured him leaning forward, into Placide’s face, and tapping his head, “To the brain! To the brain!”