The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel (35 page)

Well, of all the mysteries, this alone seemed to admit of a solution. For if Lea's illness was what I guessed, then her parents might well have come to view her as damaged goods, to be awarded to the first claimant who presented himself. And was this not, in its own way, happy news for Poe? For what stronger claimant could there be? No one better disposed than he to see Lea Marquis through sickness and health.

My thoughts, then, had already gathered round him by the time he came to my hotel room. Came, I should say, like someone who knew he was being weighed. Most nights, you see, he wore only a shirt and vest under his cloak; tonight it was best dress--sword and cross belt, even--and instead of creeping in as he usually did, he took two long strides into the center of the room and whipped off his shako and bowed his head.

"Landor, I wish to apologize to you."

Smiling a little, I cleared my throat and said, "Well, that's awfully decent of you, Poe. May I ask... ?"

"Yes?"

"What are you apologizing for?"

"I am guilty," he said, "of imputing unworthy motives to you."

I sat on the bed. I gave my eyes a rub.

"Oh," I said. "Lea, yes." "I cannot defend myself, Landor, except to say that there was something discomfiting about the manner in which Mrs. Marquis drew you into her confidences. I'm afraid I assumed-- wrongly, it goes without saying--that you had welcomed and... perhaps even abetted her stratagems."

"How could I, when--"

"No, please." He put up his hand. "I will not impose upon you the indignity of defending yourself. And besides, there is no need. Anyone with a speck of mental faculty would recognize that the idea of your courting or--or marrying Lea is, frankly, too absurd even to be entertained."

Ah. Too absurd, was it? Well, as I had a peculiar male vanity of my own, I came close to resenting his remark. But hadn't I just been ridiculing the idea myself ?

"So I'm very sorry, old turtle," said Poe. "I hope you'll..."

"Of course."

"You're sure?"

"Positively."

"Well, that's a relief." Laughing, he threw his hat on the bed and ran a hand across his brow. "Having made my clean breast, I hope we may now move on to matters of far greater moment."

"Indeed we may. Why don't you begin by showing me Lea's note?"

His eyelids fluttered like moth wings. "Note," he said dully.

"The one she slipped into your pocket while you were putting on your cloak. You probably didn't even notice it until you got back to barracks."

His cheek grew perceptibly pinker as he stroked it with his hand.

"It's not a... I'm not sure note is the best name for--"

"Oh, let's not worry about what to call it. Just show it to me. If you're not too embarrassed."

For his cheeks were giving off an actual heat now...

"Far from--far from embarrassing me," he stammered, "this missive is a source of everlasting pride. To be the recipient of this--this..."

Well, he really was embarrassed, for after pulling the scented paper from his breast pocket, he set it down on the bed and turned away as I read:

Ever with thee shall my glad heart roam-- Dreading to blanch or repine. Gather our hearts in a green pleasure-dome, All wreathed in a rich cypress vine-- Richer still for that you are mine.
"Very sweet," I said. "And very clever, too, the way she--"

But he had no need for testaments. He was already talking over me.

"Landor, I scarcely know what to do with a gift such as this. It is too--it is..." He smiled, a bit sadly, as he ran his fingers around the rim of the paper. "Do you know, this is the first poem anyone has ever written for me."

"Well, then, you're one poem ahead of me."

All those tiny white teeth came blazing forth at my expense. "Poor Landor! Never had a poem of your own, eh?" He cocked an eyebrow. "Nor written one, that we may be sure of."

I stood on the verge of correcting him. Because, you see, I had written poems. For my daughter, when she was very little. Silly rhyming things I'd leave on her pillow: Sandman here/Wishing you cheer. Here's a kiss/There's more of this. Not exactly shining examples of the form. In any case, she outgrew them.

"That's all right," Poe was saying. "I shall write a poem for you someday, Landor. Something that will send your name down through the ages."

"I'd be awfully grateful," I said. "But first, I suppose, you should finish the one you've started."

"You mean..."

"That business about the girl with the pale blue eye."

"Yes," he said, watching me closely.

I watched him back. Then, groaning, I said:

"Very well. Out with it."

"What?"

"The latest verse. You must have it somewhere about you. Right behind Lea's, probably."

He grinned, shook his head.

"How well you read me, Landor! I doubt there is a secret in the entire universe that you could not, with your extraordinary perceptions, divine in the space of--"

"Yes, yes. Bring it on."

I remember how carefully he spread it across the bed, as if he were unfurling Jesus' shroud. Smoothed all the creases out of it, then stood back and regarded it like a nun, in a hush of faith. And then beckoned me to read.

Down--down--down--came the hot thrashing flurry Of wings too obscure to descry. Ill at heart, I beseeched her to hurry... "Leonore!"--she forbore to reply. Endless Night caught her then in its slurry--

Shrouding all but her pale blue eye. Darkest Night, black with hell-charneled fury,

Leaving only that deathly blue eye.

He was glossing it for me before I'd even finished reading.

"We've already had occasion, Landor, to note how close the names are: Lea ... Leonore. We've noted, in addition, the common feature of blue eyes. We've noted the suggestion of unspeakable distress--fully in keeping with Lea's deportment in the cemetery. We glimpse now--" He stopped. His hand trembled as it pressed the paper. "We see a conclusion, Landor. An imminent demise. What greater urgency can there be? The poem is speaking to us, you must see that? It is all but announcing that an end is come."

"What must we do, then? Send the girl to a cloister?"

"That's the hell of it!" he cried, flinging his hands toward the ceiling. "I don't know. I can only be the conduit for the poem, I cannot fathom its deeper meanings."

"Oh, "conduit'," I growled. "Would you like to know something, Poe?

You are the author of this poem. Not your mother, God rest her soul. Not some supernatural scribbler. You."

He folded his arms across his chest, sank into the rocker.

"Use some of that analytical rigor of yours," I said. "You have Lea on your brain day and night. You have reason, given your brief history with her, to fear for her safety. This fear, naturally enough, has found its way into your most favored form of expression: a poem. Why look any further than that?"

"Then why can't I summon it whenever I wish? Why should I not be able to pen a fourth stanza here and now?"

I shrugged. "You fellows have muses, I believe. Muses are reckoned to be fickle."

"Oh, Landor," he said, twitching his head away. "You should know me well enough to know I don't believe in muses."

"Then what do you believe?"

"That I am not the author of this poem."

It made for an impasse, Reader. There he sat, hard as shale, while I circuited the room, doing nothing more, I thought, than feeling the play of light and shadow on my face, wondering why the light was no warmer than the shadow. In fact, I was coming to a decision.

"All right," I said at last. "If you insist on taking it all that seriously, then let's look at the whole thing. Do you think you might recall the first two stanzas?"

"Of course. They're ingrained in my memory."

"Would you mind writing them down? Just above this one?"

He complied at once, scratching away without a single falter until the top half of the paper lay submerged in ink. Then he sat himself back down.

I studied the paper for a time. I studied him for an even longer time.

"What is it?" he asked, his eyes getting larger.

"Just as I expected," I said. "The whole thing is an allegory of your mind. A bad dream, that's all, dressed up in meter."

I let the paper slip from my hand. It rocked back and forth in the air, I remember, like a toy boat riding a trough of water, and even after it landed on the bed, it seemed to pulse for a second more.

"Of course," I said, "speaking strictly as a reader now, I do think a few editorial changes might improve the thing. Provided your mother doesn't object."

"Editorial changes?" he answered, half laughing.

"Well, this "ill at heart' business, for instance. What does that mean? Heartburn? Indigestion?"

" To a--to a literalist, perhaps."

"And this other phrase of yours, "harrowed hard." Strikes me as bit of piling on, if you know what I mean."

"Piling on?"

"Oh, and please defend, if you can, this name. This Leonore. Honestly, what sort of name is that?"

"It is... mellifluous. It is anapestic."

"No, I'll tell you what it is, it's the kind of name that exists only in poems. If you'd like to know why a fellow like me reads so damned little verse, it's because of names like Leonore."

Jaw awry, he snatched the paper from the bed, and jammed it into his coat pocket. There was a steam rising from him now--like a mangle touching wet trousers.

"You continue to surprise me, Landor. I had never supposed you to be such an authority on language."

"Come, now."

"I had thought you had no time for such trifles. Now I see that your intellect encompasses everything. There is no end of improvement to be found in your company, it seems." "I was only throwing off a few--"

"You have--you have thrown quite enough, thank you," he said, patting the paper where it lay against his bosom. "I shan't trouble you any further. In the future, you may be sure, I shall take care to keep my verses to myself."

He didn't stalk out. Not right away. Stayed another hour, if I recall aright, but it was almost as if he had left. And I now think that's why I never told him of my encounter in Artemus' closet. Because why bother pouring such news into a deaf ear?

(Or else there was something else at work in me. Something that wanted him to stay just a little bit in the dark.)

Very quickly, we fell into a thick deep silence, and I was thinking, with a spark of irritation, that I needn't have come all the way to West Point to be alone, I might have just stayed in Buttermilk Falls... when, out of nowhere, he rose and, without a word, strode from the room.

Didn't slam the door, I'll say that for him, but left it half open. It was still open when he came back, an hour or so later. His chest was shivering, his nose was clicking from congestion, his bare head was pearled with sleet. He stepped softly, almost on tiptoe, as if he were afraid of waking me. And then gave me that pickled smile and, with a lordly twirl of fingers, said:

"It galls me, Landor, but it appears I must apologize twice in one evening."

I told him there was no need. I told him it was all my fault, I had no business intruding on what was a perfectly delightful little poem--well, not delightful, that was the wrong word, but... highly poetical... oh, he took my meaning, didn't he?

Well, he let me go on a bit, it was probably not unpleasing to him, but it wasn't (to my surprise) what he was after. Nor was he after another tumbler of Monongahela--that he turned down with the barest flick of his wrist. Sat himself on the floor, didn't he, with his hands wrapped round his knees. Stared into the cotton rug, with its swirling gold and green fleur-de-lis, and said, soft as could be:

"Confound it, Landor, if I lose you, I might as well lose everything."

"Oh," I said, smiling, "you'd still have plenty of reasons to live, Poe. Plenty of admirers."

"But not one who has been as good to me as you have," he said. "No, it's true! Here you are, a distinguished man, a man of substance, yes! And you've--you've let me drone on for hours on end on all conceivable subjects. I've spilled out every last content of my heart and mind and soul, and you've"--he cupped his hands--"kept it all in your safekeeping. You've been kinder than any father, and you've treated me like a man. I shall never forget that."

He gave his knees one last embrace, then sprang to his feet and made for the window.

"I will spare you more mawkishness," he said. "I know you don't care for it. I will only make a vow: never again will I suffer jealousy or--or pride to imperil our friendship. It is too precious a gift. Next to Lea's love, it is the most precious gift I have received since coming to this accursed place."
The wages of decency, I thought. I knew then that if I were ever to shake him off me, I would have to do much worse than criticize his mother's poetry. I would have to find something unpardonable.

Before he left that night, I said:

"One more thing, Poe."

"Yes?"

"While I was upstairs with Dr. Marquis, did Artemus ever leave the parlor?"

"Yes," he said slowly. " To check on his mother."

"And how long was he gone for?"

"No more than a few minutes. I'm surprised you didn't see him."

"Did he look any different when he got back?"

"A bit flustered, yes. He said his mother had been beastly and he'd had to step outside to clear his head. Yes, that's right, he was still wiping the snow from his brow when he got back."

"You saw snow on him?"

"Well, he was wiping something. Although... yes, that was curious..."

"What?"

"There was no snow on his boots. Come to think of it, Landor, he looked much the same as you did when you came down."

Narrative of Gus Landor

28

December 7th

Having spent far too many hours confined in one hotel room, Poe and I agreed one night to something rash. We would meet under cover of darkness at Benny Havens'. Weeks had gone by since I'd last been to Benny's, but such is the way of the place that nobody shows much surprise when you stop in, no matter how long it's been. Benny's jaw muscles may betray a faint tremor, Jasper Magoon may especially want you to read to him from the New York Gazette & General Advertiser, Jack de Windt may, in the midst of planning his assault on the Northwest Passage, raise his chin in your direction, but otherwise, there's no fuss made, no questions asked, come in, Landor, let's forget you were ever gone.