Lady (2 page)

But then, see her -- altered. For, with no apparent reason, the gaiety would disappear, her behavior would become odd, she seemed scarcely to know if she saw you, and she seldom saw you, for invariably at these times she would shut herself away upstairs in the big house. Our neighbor Mrs. Sparrow called these periods "retirements" and said that Mrs. Harleigh "wasn't feeling herself." Whatever they represented, these manifestations of her malaise seemed to me unreasoning; but then it was not I, but Lady herself, who was living with a ghost.

What was Adelaide Harleigh really like? people sometimes ask. Who can say what anybody is really like? People are like what we see in them or remember of them. For me, she was like no other. The private and personal facts of her unhappy situation were frequently made public (and thus gained local currency) by Mrs. Sparrow. The Sparrows were gray little creatures like the birds themselves, he so innocuous that we seldom took notice of him, while she, on the other hand, was forever ensconced in her bay window observing proceedings around the Green and subsequently broadcasting them at random.

Wielding a pair of Seiss-Altag binoculars which Mr. Sparrow, an infantry sergeant in the First World War, had brought back from France, Mrs. Sparrow kept a weather eye out for any doings, scandalous or otherwise. In those days the Paramount Newsreel featured itself as "The Eyes and Ears of the World." Because she went Paramount one better, we called Ruthie Sparrow "The Eyes and Ears and Mouth of the World."

On the far side of the Green, open to her vigilant surveillance, was the Harleigh house, and the pertinent details of Edward Harleigh's wooing of Adelaide Strasser, their marriage, and its tragic conclusion were, during the period I write of, continually bandied about by Ruth Sparrow, and in consequence were commonly accepted knowledge throughout the town. I was privy to them because in addition to the sins of lying and stealing, I practice those of the habitual Peeping Tom and eavesdropper; and, being innately curious about my fellow-man, I relished it all. I would sit on our vine-screened porch entranced to overhear Mrs. Sparrow entertaining callers on her
piazza
, offering for their edification (and mine) the variously sad or comic histories of the neighborhood.

Hear Ruthie Sparrow:

"Oh, yes, Edward was a regular rake in those days. Folks said that money had spoiled him rotten. Vv hen he came back from Yale on holiday, was he ever to home? No, he was with his cronies in the taproom at the River House being sociable with that Elsie Thatcher, who was only too willing to serve those fellows whatever it was they wanted. Edward was a rip! But I
like
a rip, don't you? It just killed me, how that boy could cut up! But Lord, wasn't he handsome! And fascinating!" Even at my age it was plain that Mrs. Sparrow had been enamored of Edward Harleigh, and believed he could do no wrong.

"But, meeting Adelaide Strasser, didn't he change his tune? Oh, Lady . . ." (Here a tender sigh for the maiden Lady Harleigh, who had been Adelaide Strasser, the town's fairest beauty. Which, like many another of Ruthie Sparrow's notions, was not strictly accurate. Lady Harleigh could never have been considered a conventional beauty. Her nose had a bump in it just below the bridge, and several small moles marred the perfection of her features. Still, beauty being in the eye of the beholder, she was to me most beautiful, and I will concede to Mrs. Sparrow the fitness of the term.)

It is true that Edward's was one of the oldest and most esteemed families in Pequot Landing. The Harleigh bastion was over near the Center, where the awful Spragues now lived, and for generations there had always been a male member of the family on the Board of Selectmen or in the local governing hierarchy or among the Congregational deaconry. Not only powerful (old Mr. Harleigh had the whole town in the closed palm of his red and horny hand), these people were rich, their fortune having flowed in a steady stream from the Pequot Plow Company, manufacturers of plowshares and for years the only "smoking" industry around. When this firm was sold, the Harleighs, already speculating in onions during the Spanish-American War, wisely invested their capital in land along the Connecticut River. Through stock manipulations just preceding the Panic of 1907, greater awards accrued. To this long-accumulated wealth Edward was the sole heir, and since his father was already well advanced in years, every matron in Pequot Landing with a marriageable daughter had an eye cocked on the son.

Ruthie on her piazza again:

"Well, once Edward Harleigh saw Adelaide Strasser, there was never no question of his choice. Now, the Strassers had immigrated to this country from Germany back in the nineties. They lived over on Knobb Street, at the
wrong
end, just where the railroad tracks cross. Mrs. Strasser -- her who got so high 'n' mighty later, living up there on the Valley Hill Road -- back then she was nothing but a seamstress. Used to do her sewing for better-class ladies, and Edward's mother, being the sort of person
she
was, you know -- awfully,
awfully
-- she just had to have Mrs. Strasser down to cut some dresses. Seen 'em myself, pinning up brocades and bombazine by the yard in the front room; you could look in just by walkin' by the house. Anyways, Anna Strasser was plenty handy with a needle and she put in a good turn, sewing for Mrs. Harleigh.

"But don't think Anna Strasser didn't know what sort of daughter she had over there on Knobb Street, scrubbing the linoleum. So she arranges for Lady to come by the Harleigh house to bring her a pattern she 'forgot,' and it happened Edward was to home, this being over a holiday. He takes her for a sleigh ride, let me tell you,
lots
of sleigh rides. I seen 'em myself, whizzing around the Green here in that little one-horse sleigh Lady's got over there in her carriage house right now. Poor dear, she's sentimental about such things, like she can't bear to part with them. Can't bear to part with Edward's chifforobe, nor won't let anyone sit in Edward's armchair, nor won't get her hair cut, because Edward liked it long.

"Quick as a wink, there was an engagement at Christmastime and Edward and Lady were married that spring. Mr. Strasser -- he taught Greek up to the college -- he never lived to see his daughter wed, and a sad thing that was.

"So off they went to Mexico on their honeymoon, right across the country in a Pullman drawing room. And don't think Lady was the only soul whose life changed by marrying the town prince -- in no time Anna Strasser was moved out of that tacky house on Knobb Street and living in a new place down't' the end of Valley Hill Road near the golf club, and
she's
got someone doin'
her
sewin'.

"And there she was when Lady and Edward come home that summer, as beautiful a couple as you'd care to see. More tea, dear? 'Scuse me."

Here I would settle down on the porch, painting the wheels of my roller skates with Aggie's nail polish until Mrs. Sparrow returned with tea to continue the story. It had been late August when the bridal couple moved onto the Green, in the Josiah Webster House, Built 1702. A large brick house, with gleaming white-painted trim and rows of sunny windows between long shutters, the squares of glass twinkling in the light. Two splendid elms canopied the broad front lawn, and a flagstoned paving led from the street to its friendly sagging doorway where the stoop was laid charmingly askew, with two small panes of bull's-eye glass set in over the lintel. The slates angled steeply from the rooftree, where graceful wrought-iron rods served to ward off bolts of lightning that threatened the slender chimneys rising like sentinels over the gabled dormers.

Inside, generous furnishings, including a Sheraton dining table and eight chairs -- one with arms, where Edward always sat when they entertained -- to say nothing of Lady's expensive dressing table, and the walnut chifforobe with numerous drawers in which Edward kept his personal belongings.

And so the years went by, until, hostilities having broken out in Europe, and America about to go into the war, Lady discovered she was pregnant. The prospect of motherhood seemed to delight her and she spent hours selecting a layette. Lady's pleasure was matched by Edward's and, bon vivant that he was, he announced the coming event in church, then went home and had one or two too many at a celebration luncheon. He never was known among the country-club crowd as being able to hold his liquor well, and if he wasn't at the club, he'd be celebrating with Yonny Turpin and Al Yager, two unsavory local characters who hung out at the Noble Patriot, a café across from the Academy Hall, or at the nearby River House.

"There's your cup, dear. Did I mention Elsie Thatcher that used to wait table over there at River House, a saucy piece if ever there was, and all the boys in town chasing her? But when Edward was sober you'd see him and Lady making their rounds about the Green, for her health, dear. Oh, wasn't they the handsomest couple! I sat right there in my bay window and watched 'em, how Edward would encircle her waist and sort of lead her around; she was awfully weak then. Miss Berry from two doors down, she was a nurse -- and a good one, let me say -- and she was hired to look after Lady and the baby,

"Wasn't any baby, of course. About five months along, Lady slipped and fell, and was badly hurt. The baby miscarried; she never had another. Affected her brain somehow -- couldn't talk at all, not a word, Lord." Here Mrs. Sparrow would roll her eyes to heaven as if seeking corroboration of the facts from her Maker.

"Next thing, Edward gets his commission and is off to France. We'd gone into the war that summer of '17, and even the fact that he had an invalid wife couldn't keep Edward Harleigh from his duty. He sailed in October -- October, and he'd only live to see one more. Who was to know then they'd be happy for such a short time, and it'd all come to naught, with poor Lady living the rest of her life with a
ghost
!"

Mrs. Sparrow felt she had all the facts at hand concerning both halves of the separated couple on either side of the Atlantic. Lady's malady, hitherto undefined, was diagnosed by Ruthie as a
crise de nerfs
, a French term she had discovered in a
Liberty
magazine article called "Is American Womanhood in a State of Nerves?" (reading time: 2, minutes, 58 seconds). The implication being that Lady Harleigh had suffered a nervous breakdown following her miscarriage.

Between Miss Berry and the senior Harleighs, however, arrangements were made for the patient to be sent to a sanitarium outside of Washington, and by degrees, it was learned, Lady's responses showed a marked improvement.

But while Lady's affliction abated, so did Edward's fortunes. He was gassed in the Meuse-Argonne offensive late in September, and was hospitalized. The Armistice came in November, and when he recovered sufficiently, he was awarded a medal for distinguished service during the battle. The following spring, news reached the Green that he had been released from the hospital and was returning on the
Giuseppe Verdi
, an Italian ship out of Genoa.

Lady came back only weeks before Edward -- a little anxiously, Mrs. Sparrow thought, watching her alight at the station. When Edward arrived, he was given a hero's welcome, a parade, the First Selectman making a speech, and in newspaper photographs a pale but proud Lady was seen pinning a medal on the breast of her husband's tunic.

No sooner home than the couple left for Sea Island, Georgia, in an attempt to restore Edward's health. They were gone several months. Making their return, at Lady's whim they stopped in Washington, even though the city was locked in a torturous heat wave; there were Turners on exhibition at the National Gallery. And they resumed their married life on the Green and were, according to Mrs. Sparrow, the picture of domestic bliss, which is to say that, enjoying their fine house, they kept to it. It was during this period of their return to Pequot that both Edward's parents died, first Mrs. Harleigh, then, within three months, old Daddy Harleigh. Most of the family heirlooms found their way to the Green, and became part and parcel of that house. The heavy furniture Mother Harleigh had selected was sent to auction. "Lady still wasn't feeling too well, so Miss Berry continued looking after her. Nice as pie, Miss Berry, she gave Lady one of her little dogs to keep her comp'ny -- one of them dear little whatyamacallits with the little beards? Then tragedy struck again. . . ."

The autumn had seen a cruel epidemic of Spanish influenza, and when Lady came down with it Edward moved from their bedchamber to another room to avoid infection. Attended by Miss Berry, Lady battled a dangerously high temperature, crying out in torment of her fever, and for a time it was thought she might not survive. But she recovered, now arising to help Miss Berry tend Edward, who meantime had fallen ill.

His lungs already impaired by the siege of gas, he lay wasted upon the pillow while Lady remained at his side, unwilling to leave for a moment, helping Miss Berry hold Edward over the inhaler, an apparatus used to produce vapors of friar's balsam to clear his congested lungs.

"Then," Mrs. Sparrow would continue dramatically, "just when it appeared certain he was getting well, he suffered a relapse. He contracted lobar pneumonia and went into a crisis no human soul could've recovered from. I remember that night so well, late October, it was -- Halloween, as a matter of fact -- and storming fit to beat the band. But storm or not, there wasn't nothing anybody could do, not Lady nor Miss Berry nor the doctor. I seen him come and I went over and held that poor shivering girl in my arms, and she frantic as could be, crying for the priest, and Edward a good Protestant -- well, not so
good
, but we all have our faith, I expect.

"And who could keep Lady from blaming herself? All them weeks she practically took on her own shoulders the nursing of that man, not that Miss Berry wasn't a good nurse. But blame herself Lady did, and bitterly. After the funeral, she went home and locked herself up. She closed them shutters and all that long winter wouldn't see a soul. Not even Anna, her mother; wouldn't have her in the house. She let the servants go, and only the priest come -- Lady was still Cath'lic then -- almost every day for a time, and then he went away and didn't come back no more. What a burden of woe he must've been bearing -- I seen his face through m'binoculars and that poor man just looked tireder and more troubled every time he left.