The Cider House Rules (24 page)

Wilbur Larch had the war in Europe very much in his mind; he had been in the last war, and he foresaw that if there was another war, it might coincide with Homer Wells’s being the right age to go. Since that would be the wrong age to be, the good doctor had already taken some pains to see that Homer Wells wouldn’t have to go to a war, if there was one.

Larch was, after all, the historian of St. Cloud’s; he wrote the only records that were kept there; he usually wrote the not-so-simple history of the place but he had tried his hand at fiction, too. In the case of Fuzzy Stone, for example—and in the other, very few cases of orphans who had died in his care—Wilbur Larch hadn’t liked the actual endings, hadn’t wanted to record the actual outcomes to those small, foreshortened lives. Wasn’t it fair if Larch took liberties—if he occasionally indulged himself with happy endings?

In the case of the few who had died, Wilbur Larch made up a longer life for them. For example, the history of F. Stone read like a case study of what Wilbur Larch
wished
for Homer Wells. Following Fuzzy’s most successful adoption (every member of the adoptive family was scrupulously described) and the most successful treatment and cure imaginable of Fuzzy’s respiratory difficulties, the young man would pursue an education at none other than Bowdoin College (Wilbur Larch’s own alma mater) and study medicine at Harvard Medical School—he would even follow Larch’s footsteps to internships at Mass General and at the Boston Lying-In. Larch intended to make a devoted and skilled obstetrician out of Fuzzy Stone; the orphan’s fictional history was as carefully done as everything Wilbur Larch did—allowing a possible exception for his use of ether, and Larch was especially pleased to note that some of his fictional history was more convincing than what had actually happened to some of the others.

Snowy Meadows, for example, would be adopted by a family in Bangor by the name of Marsh. Who would believe that a Meadows became a Marsh? Wilbur Larch was pleased with himself for making up better stories than that. The Marshes were in the furniture business, and Snowy (who had been unimaginatively named Robert) would attend the University of Maine only briefly before marrying some local flower and going into the Marsh family furniture business as a salesman.

“It’s for keeps,” Snowy would write Dr. Larch, about the girl who caused him to drop out of school. “And I really love the furniture business!”

Whenever he wrote to Dr. Larch, Snowy Meadows, alias Robert Marsh, would always ask, “Say, what’s happened to Homer Wells?” The next thing you know, Larch thought, Snowy Meadows will suggest a reunion! Larch grumbled to himself for days, trying to think of what to say to Snowy Meadows about Homer; he would have liked to brag about Homer’s perfect procedure with the eclampsia patient, but Larch was aware that his training of Homer Wells—and the business of the Lord’s work and the Devil’s work in St. Cloud’s—would not meet with everyone’s approval.

“Homer is still with us,” Larch would write to Snowy, ambiguously. Snowy is a sneaky one, Larch concluded—Snowy Meadows also never failed to ask, in each of his letters, about Fuzzy Stone.

“What’s happening with Fuzzy, these days?” Snowy always asked, and Wilbur Larch would carefully check the history he had written for Fuzzy—just to keep Snowy up to date.

Larch ignored Snowy’s requests for Fuzzy Stone’s address. Dr. Larch was convinced that the young furniture salesman, Robert Marsh, was a dogged sort of fool, who—if he had any of the other orphans’ addresses—would bother everyone about starting an Orphan Club or an Orphan Society. Larch even complained to Nurse Edna and to Nurse Angela about Snowy Meadows, saying, “I wish someone out of Maine had adopted
that
one, someone far away. That Snowy Meadows is so stupid, he writes to me as if I ran a boarding school! The next thing you know, he’ll expect me to publish an alumni magazine!”

This was a somewhat unfeeling remark to make to Nurse Edna and to Nurse Angela, Larch realized later. These two dear but sentimental ladies would have jumped at the idea of an alumni magazine; they missed every orphan they ever gave away. If things were up to them, there would be reunions planned every year. Every
month
! Larch thought, and groaned.

He lay down in the dispensary. He thought about a slight modification he had been shrewd enough to make in the history of Homer Wells; he would tell Homer about it one day, if the situation demanded it. He was very pleased with himself for this slight fiction that he had so skillfully blended with the actual history of Homer Wells. Of course, he’d included nothing of the medical training; he had incriminated himself by what he’d written about the abortions, many times, but Larch knew well enough that Homer Wells should be left out of
that
written history. What Wilbur Larch had written about Homer Wells was that the boy had a heart defect, a heart that was damaged and weakened from birth. Larch had even taken the trouble to make this the first entry about Homer, which necessitated his locating some older-looking paper and painstakingly revising, and retyping, all the earlier—and actual—history. But he managed to work in the heart defect in the correctly casual places. The reference was always vague and uncharacteristically lacking in medical precision; the words “defect” and “damaged” and “weakened” would not have convinced a good detective, or even a good doctor, whom Wilbur Larch imagined he might one day need to convince. In fact, he worried a little if he could convince Homer of it—given what the boy had learned. But Larch would face that if and when the situation arose.

The situation Larch was thinking of was war, the so-called war in Europe; Larch, and many others, feared that the war wouldn’t stay there. (“I’m sorry, Homer,” Larch imagined having to tell the boy. “I don’t want you to worry, but you have a bad heart; it just wouldn’t stand up to a war.”) What Larch meant was that his own heart would never stand up to Homer Wells’s going to war.

The love of Wilbur Larch for Homer Wells extended even to his tampering with history, a field wherein he was an admitted amateur, but it was nonetheless a field that he respected and also loved. (In an earlier entry in the file on Homer Wells—an entry that Dr. Larch removed, for it lent an incorrect tone of voice, or at least a tone of voice unusual for history—Dr. Larch had written: “I love nothing or no one as much as I love Homer Wells. Period.”)

Thus Wilbur Larch was more prepared for how a war could change important plans than Olive Worthington was prepared for it. The other and more probable cause for a change in the wedding plans of her son and Candy Kendall—another way in which the young lovers’ plans could be changed
—had
been foreseen by Olive. It was an unwanted pregnancy. A pity that it was not foreseen by either Candy or Wally.

Thus, when Candy got pregnant (she’d been a virgin, naturally), she and Wally were much distressed, but they were also surprised. Olive would have been distressed (had she known), but she wouldn’t have been surprised. Getting pregnant would never have surprised Wilbur Larch, who knew that it happened, and happened by accident, all the time. But Candy Kendall and Wally Worthington, so full of beauty and of the moment and of their own rightness for each other, simply couldn’t believe it. They were not the sort of people who would have been ashamed or unable to tell their parents; they were simply stunned at the prospect of having to derail their perfect plans—of
having
to get married ahead of schedule.

Did Wally Worthington
need
a college degree to inherit his parents’ apple orchard? Of course not. Did Candy Kendall
need
to go to college at all? She didn’t. Wouldn’t she refine herself, and educate herself, if left to her own means? Of course she would! And Wally wasn’t much of a student, anyway, was he? Of course he wasn’t. He was a botany major, but only at the insistence of his mother—Olive thought that the study of plants might stimulate her son to become more excited and more knowledgeable about apple-growing.

“It’s just that we’re not
ready,
” Candy said to Wally. “I mean, we aren’t, are we? Do
you
feel ready?”

“I love you,” Wally said. He was a brave boy, and true, and Candy—who had not cried a single tear at the surprising discovery that she was with child—loved him, too.

“But it’s just not the right time for us, is it, Wally?” Candy asked him.

“I want to marry you, anytime,” he said truthfully, but he added something that she hadn’t thought of.
He
had thought of the war in Europe, even if his mother had missed it. He said, “What if there’s a war—I mean, what if we get involved in it?”

“What if
what
?” said Candy, truly shocked.

“I mean, if we were at war, I’d go—I’d have to, I’d
want
to,” Wally said. “Only, if there was a child, it wouldn’t feel right—going to a war.”

“When would it feel right to go to a war, Wally?” Candy asked him.

“Well, I mean, I’d just have to, that’s all—if we had one,” he said. “I mean, it’s our country, and besides, for the experience—I couldn’t miss it.”

She slapped his face, she started to cry—in a rage. “For the
experience
! You’d want to go to war for the
experience
!”

“Well, not if we had a child—that’s when it wouldn’t feel right,” Wally said. “Would it?” He was about as innocent as rain, and about as thoughtless.

“What about
me
?” Candy asked, still shocked—and shocked, further, that she had slapped him. She put her hand very softly where his cheek was so red. “With or without a child, what would it be like for me if you went to a war?”

“Well, it’s all ‘What if,’ isn’t it?” Wally asked. “It’s just something to think about,” he added. “About the business of the child, especially—I think. If you see what I mean,” he said.

“I think we should try
not
to have the baby,” Candy told him.

“I won’t have you going to one of those places where there’s no real doctor,” Wally said.

“Of course not,” she agreed. “But aren’t there any real doctors who do it?”

“It’s not what I’ve heard,” Wally admitted. He was too much of a gentleman to tell her what he’d heard: that there was a butcher in Cape Kenneth who did you for five hundred dollars. You went to a parking lot and put a blindfold around yourself and waited; you went alone. Someone picked you up and took you to the butcher; you were brought back when the butcher was through—you were blindfolded throughout. And what was worse, you had to appear absolutely hysterical in front of some fairly dignified and local doctor before the doctor would even tell you where the parking lot was and how you got in contact with the butcher. If you didn’t act upset enough, if you weren’t completely crazy, the doctor wouldn’t put you in touch with the butcher.

That was the story Wally had heard, and he wanted no part of any of it for Candy. He doubted if Candy could act upset enough, anyway. Wally would have the baby instead of any of that; he’d marry Candy and be happy about it, too; it was what he wanted, one day, anyway.

The story Wally had heard was partially true. You did have to go to the fairly dignified and local doctor, and you did have to work yourself up into a frenzy, and if the doctor thought you were ready to drown yourself, only then would he tell you the location of the parking lot and how to approach the butcher. What Wally didn’t know was the more human part of the story. If you were calm and collected and well-spoken and obviously sane, the doctor would skip the whole story about the parking lot and the butcher; if you looked like a reasonable woman—someone who wouldn’t turn him in, later—the doctor would simply give you an abortion, right there in his office, for five hundred dollars. And if you acted like a nut, he also gave you an abortion—right there in his office—for five hundred dollars. The only difference was that you had to stand around blindfolded in a parking lot and
think
that you were being operated on by a butcher; that’s what acting crazy got you. What was decidedly unjust, in either case, was that the doctor charged five hundred dollars.

But Wally Worthington was not seeking the correct information about that doctor, or that so-called butcher. He hoped to get advice about another abortionist, somewhere, and he had a vague plan concerning the people he’d ask. There was little point in seeking the advice of the members of the Haven Club; he’d been told that one member had actually taken a cruise to Sweden for an abortion, but that was out of the question for Candy.

Wally knew the orchardmen at Ocean View were the sort of men who might have need of a less extravagant remedy; he also knew that they liked him and that, with few exceptions, they could be trusted to keep what Wally thought was a reliable, manly confidence about the matter. He went first to the only bachelor on the orchard crew, supposing that bachelors (and this one was also a notorious ladies’ man) might have more use for abortionists than married men. Wally approached a member of the apple crew named Herb Fowler, a man only a few years older than Wally—he was good-looking in a too-thin, too-cruel kind of way, with a too-thin moustache on his dark lip.

Herb Fowler’s present girlfriend worked in the packinghouse during harvest; during the times of the year when the apple mart was open, she worked with the other mart women. She was younger than Herb, just a local girl, about Candy’s age—her name was Louise Tobey, and the men called her Squeeze Louise, which was apparently okay with Herb. He was rumored to have other girlfriends, and he had the appalling habit of carrying lots of prophylactics on him—at all times of the day and night—and when anyone said anything at all about sex, Herb Fowler would reach into his pocket for a rubber and flip it at the speaker (all rolled up in its wrapper, of course). He’d just flip a prophylactic and say, “See these? They keep a fella free.”

Wally had already had several rubbers flipped at him, and he was tired of the joke, and he was not in the best humor to have the joke played on him again in his present situation—but he imagined that Herb Fowler was the right sort of man to ask, that, despite the rubbers, Herb Fowler was always getting girls in trouble. One way or another, Herb looked like trouble for every girl alive.