by John Cheever
Melissa didn’t swim that day. She sat at the edge of the marble curb, spreading the cloth for lunch and pouring the drinks. There was nothing she did or said that did not charm and delight poor Coverly and incline him to foolishness. He dived. He swam the length of the pool four times. He tried to do a back dive and failed, splashing water all over Melissa. They drank martinis and talked about the farm, and Coverly, who was not used to liquor, got tipsy. Starting to talk about the Fourth of July parade he was side-tracked by a memory of Cousin Adelaide and ended up with describing the rocket launchings on Saturday afternoons. He didn’t mention Betsey’s departure and when Moses asked for her he spoke as if they were still living happily together. When lunch was finished he swam the length of the pool once more and then lay down in the shade of a boxwood tree and fell asleep.
He was tired and didn’t know, for a moment, when he woke where he was, seeing the water gush out of the green lions’ heads and the towers and battlements of Clear Haven at the head of the lawn. He splashed some water on his face. The picnic cloth was still spread on the curb. No one had removed the cocktail glasses or the plates and chicken bones. Moses and Melissa were gone and the shadow of a hemlock tree fell across the pool. Then he saw them coming down the garden path from the greenhouse where they had spent some pleasant time and there was such grace and gentleness between them that he thought his heart would break in two; for her beauty could arouse in him only sadness, only feelings of parting and forsakenness, and thinking of Pancras it seemed that Pancras had offered him much more than friendship—that he had offered him the subtle means by which we deface and diminish the loveliness of a woman. Oh, she was lovely, and he had betrayed her! He had sent spies into her kingdom on rainy nights and encouraged the usurper.
“I’m sorry we left you alone, Coverly,” she said, “but you were sleeping, you were snoring. …” It was late, it was time for Coverly to dress and catch his train.
Any railroad station on Sunday afternoon seems to lie close to the heart of time. Even in midsummer the shadows seem autumnal and the people who are gathered there—the soldier, the sailor, the old lady with flowers wrapped in a paper—seemed picked so arbitrarily from the community, seem so like those visited by illness or death, that we are reminded of those solemn plays in which it appears, toward the end of the first act, that all the characters are dead. “Do your soft shoe, Coverly,” Moses asked. “Do your buck and wing.” “I’m rusty, brother,” Coverly said. “I can’t do it any more.” “Oh, try, Coverly,” Moses said. “Oh, try …” Cloppety, cloppety, cloppety went Coverly up and down the platform, ending with a clumsy shuffle-off, a bow and a blush. “We’re a very talented family,” he told Melissa. Then the train came down the track and their feelings, like the scraps of paper on the platform, were thrown up pellmell in a hopeless turbulence. Coverly embraced them both—he seemed to be crying—and boarded the train.
When he got back to the empty house in Remsen Park there was a reply from Leander to the letter he had written his father from New York. “Cheer up,” Leander wrote. “Writer not innocent, and never claimed to be so. Played the man to many a schoolboy bride. Woodshed lusts. Rainy Sundays. Theophilus Gates tried to light farts with candle ends. Later President of Pocamasset Bank and Trust Co. Had unfortunate experience in early manhood. Unpleasant to recall. Occurred after disappearance of father. Befriended stranger in gymnasium. Name of Parminter. Appeared to be good companion. Witty. Comely physique. Writer at loneliest time of life. Father gone. Hamlet away. Brought Parminter home for supper on several occasions. Old mother much taken by elegant manners. Fine clothes. I’m glad you have a gentleman for a friend, says she. Parminter brought her posies. Also sang. Good tenor voice. Gave me a pair of gold cuff links on birthday. Sentimental inscription. Tickled pink. Me.
“Vanity was my undoing. Very vain of my physique. Often admired self in mirror, scantily clad. Posed as dying gladiator. Discobolus. Mercury in flight. Guilty of self-love, perhaps. Retribution might be what followed. Parminter claimed to be spare-time artist. Offered to pay writer hard cash for posing. Seemed like agreeable prospect. Happy at thought of having shapely limbs appreciated. Went on designated night to so-called studio. Climbed narrow staircase to bad-smelling room. Not large. Parminter there with several friends. Was asked to undress. Cheerfully complied. Was much admired. Parminter and friends commenced to undress. Appeared to be pederasts.
“Writer grabbed britches and made escape. Rainy night. Anger. Perturbation. Poor cod appeared to be seat of mixed feelings. Up and down. Felt as if same had been put through clothes wringer. Such feelings gave rise to question: Was writer pederast? Sex problems hard nut to crack in 19th-century gloom. Asked self: Was pederast? In shower after ball games. Swimming in buff with chums at Stone Hills. In locker room asked self: Was pederast?
“Had no wish to see Parminter after exposé. Not so easy to shake. Appeared at home on following evening. Unregenerate. Unashamed. Posies for old mother. Sloe-eyed looks for me. Unable to explain situation. Might as well tell mother moon was made of green cheese. Far from ignorant in regards to such things since St. Botolphs produced several such specimens but never seemed to cross mind that gentleman friend belonged in such category. Writer unwilling to meet situation with meanness. Agreed to eat supper with Parminter at Young’s Hotel. Hoped to preserve climate of speckless reason. Gentle parting at crossroads. You go that way. I’ll go this.
“Parminter in high-low spirits. Eyes like hound dog. Itchy tea-kettle. Drank much whisky. Ate little food. Writer made parting speech. Hoped to continue friendship, etc. Net result was like poking adder with sharp stick. Recriminations. Threats. Cajolery. Etc. Was asked to return gold cuff links. Accused of flirtatiousness. Also of being well-known pederast. Paid share of check and left dining room. Went to bed. Later heard name being called. Gravel on window. Parminter in back yard calling me. Thought then of slop pail. Sin of pride, perhaps. Hellfire in offing. Everything in due course. Opened door of commode. Removed lid of chamberpot. Ample supply of ammunition. Carried same to window and let figure in yard have both barrels. Finis.
“Man is not simple. Hobgoblin company of love always with us. Those who hang their barebums out of street-front windows. Masturbate in YMCA showers. Knights, poets, wits in this love’s flotsam. Drapers. Small tradesmen. Docile. Cleanly. Soft-voiced. Mild of wit. Flavorless. Yearn for the high-school boy who cuts the grass. Die for the embraces of the tree surgeon. Life has worse trouble. Sinking ships. Houses struck by lightning. Death of innocent children. War. Famine. Runaway horses. Cheer up my son. You think you have trouble. Crack your skull before you weep. All in love is not larky and fractious. Remember.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It would be, Moses thought, a sentimental summer, for they could hear fountains in their room and she made his bed a kind of Venice and who cared about the watery soups and custards that they mostly seemed to get for dinner? Melissa was loving and contented and how could Justina make any of this her province? A few days after the wedding Mrs. Enderby called Moses into her office and said that he would be billed three hundred dollars a month for room and board. He apprehended then that loving a woman who could not move from a particular place might create some problems, but this was only an apprehension and he agreed politely to pay the toll. A few nights later he returned from Bond School and found his wife, for the first time since he had known her, in tears. Justina’s wedding present had arrived. Giacomo had removed their capacious and lumpy marriage bed and replaced it with twin beds—narrow and hard as slate. Melissa stood at the door to her balcony, weeping over this, and it appeared to Moses then that he might have overlooked the depth of the relationship between his golden-skinned wife and that truculent and well-preserved crone, her guardian. He dried her tears and thanked Justina for the beds at dinner. After dinner he and Giacomo put the twin beds back into the storeroom where they had been and returned the old bed. Watching Melissa undress that night (he could see past her shoulder in the moonlig
ht the lawns and the gardens and the plunge) and resisting the thought that these ramparts were real for her, that she should think that the thorns on the roses that surrounded the walls were piercing, he asked if they could leave before autumn and she reminded him that he had promised not to ask this.
A few mornings later, going to his closet, Moses discovered that all his suits were gone but the soiled seersucker suit he had worn the day before. “Oh, I know what’s happened, darling,” Melissa said. “Justina’s taken your clothes and given them to the church for a rummage sale.” She got out of bed, wearing nothing, and went anxiously to her own closet. “That’s what she’s done. She’s taken my yellow dress and my gray and my blue. I’ll go down to the church and get them back.”
“You mean she’s taken my clothes for a rummage sale without asking?”
“Yes, darling. She’s never understood that everything in Clear Haven isn’t hers.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“For years.”
As it happened Melissa was able to buy their clothes back from the church for a few dollars and with this forgotten he was able to take up his sentimental life. Moses had long since forgotten the dislike of Clear Haven that had formed in his mind when he stumbled on the roof and it began to seem to him an excellent place for the first months of his marriage, for even the benches in the garden were supported by women with enormous marble breasts and in the hall his eye fell repeatedly on naked and comely men and women in the pursuit or the glow of love. They were on the needlepoint chairs, they reached for one another from the tops of the massive andirons, they supported the candles for the dinner table and the bowl of the glass from which Justina drank the water for her pills. He seemed to work even the lilies in the garden into his picture of love and when Melissa picked them and carried them in her arms like lumber, their truly mournful perfume falling this way and that, he kicked up his heels with joy. Night after night they drank some whisky in their room, some sherry in the hall, sat through the wretched dinner and then went together down to the plunge, and they were excusing themselves one evening after dinner when Justina said:
“We’re going to play bridge.”
“We’re going swimming.” Moses said.
“The pool lights are broken,” Justina said. “You can’t swim in the dark. I’ll have Giacomo fix the lights tomorrow. Tonight we’ll play bridge.”
They played bridge until after eleven and, in the company of the old general, the count and Mrs. Enderby, it was a stifling evening. When Moses and Melissa excused themselves on the next night Justina was ready. “The pool lights aren’t fixed yet,” she said, “and I feel like some more bridge.” Playing bridge that night and the night after, Moses felt restless, and it appeared to him to be significant that he was the only one who left Clear Haven; that since his wedding he had not seen a strange or a new face in the house and that, so far as he knew, not even Giacomo ever left the grounds. He complained to Melissa and she said that she would ask some people for drinks on Saturday and she asked Justina’s permission on the next night at dinner. “Of course, of course,” Justina said, “of course you want to have some young people in, but I can’t let you entertain guests until I’ve had the rugs cleaned. I’m having estimates made and they ought to be cleaned in a week or two and you can have your little party.” On Saturday morning Justina announced through Mrs. Enderby that she was tired and would spend the week end in her room, and Melissa, encouraged by Moses, telephoned three couples who lived in the neighborhood and asked them for drinks on Sunday. Late Sunday afternoon Moses laid a fire in the hall and brought the bottles out of their hiding place. Melissa made something to eat and they sat on the only comfortable sofa in the room and waited for their guests.
It was a rainy afternoon and the rain played on the complicated roofs of the old monument a pleasant air. Melissa turned on a lamp when she heard a car come up the drive and she went down the hall and through the rotunda. Moses heard her voice in the distance, greeting the Trenholmes, and he gave the fire a poke and stood as a couple, who were made by their youthfulness and their pleasant manners to seem innocuous, came into the room. Melissa passed the crackers and when the Howes and the Van Bibbers joined them the vapid music of their voices mingled pleasantly with the sounds of the rain. Then Moses heard from the doorway the horse, strong notes of Justina’s voice.
“What is the meaning of this, Melissa?”
“Oh, Justina,” Melissa said gallantly. “I think you know all these people.”
“I may know them,” Justina said, “but what are they doing here?”
“I’ve asked them for cocktails,” Melissa said.
“Well, that’s very inconvenient,” Justina said. “This day of all days. I told Giacomo he could take up the rugs and clean them.”
“We can go into the winter garden,” Melissa said timidly.
“How many times have I told you, Melissa, that I don’t want you to take guests into the winter garden?”
“I’ll call Giacomo,” Moses said to Justina. “Here, let me get you some whisky.”
Moses gave Justina her whisky and she sat on the sofa and regarded the dumb-struck company with a charming smile. “If you insist on inviting people here, Melissa,” she said, “I wish you ask my advice. If we’re not careful the house will be full of pickpockets and hoboes.” The guests retreated toward the door and Melissa walked them out to the rotunda. When she returned to the hall she sat down in a chair, not beside Moses, but opposite her guardian. Moses had never seen her face so dark.
The rain had let up. Close to the horizon the heavy clouds had split as if they had been lanced and a liquid brilliance gorged through the cut, spread up the lawn and came through the glass doors, lighting the hall and the old woman’s face. The hundred windows of the house would glitter for miles. Ursuline nuns, bird watchers, motorists and fishermen would admire the illusion of a house bathed in flame. Feeling the light on her face and feeling that it became her, Justina smiled her most narcissistic smile—that patrician gaze that made it seem as if all the world were hung with minors. “I only do this because I love you so, Melissa,” she said, and she worked her fingers loaded with diamonds, emeralds and glass in the light that was fading.
Then the stillness of a trout pool seemed to settle over the room. Justina seemed to make a lure of false promises and Melissa to watch her shadow as it fell through the water to the sand, trying to find in her guardian’s larcenous words some truth. Justina’s face gleamed with rouge and her eyebrows shone with black dye and it seemed to Moses that somewhere in the maquillage must be the image of an old woman. Her face would be seamed, her clothes would be black, her voice would be cracked and she would knit blankets and sweaters for her grandchildren, take in her roses before the frost and speak mostly of friends and relations who had departed this life.
“This house is a great burden,” Justina said, “and I have no one to help me bear it. I would love to give it all to you, Melissa, but I know that if you should predecease Moses he would sell it to the first bidder.”
“I promise not to,” Moses said cheerfully.
“Oh, I wish I could be sure,” she sighed. Then she rose, still beaming, and went to her ward. “But don’t let there be any hard feeling between us, sweet love, even if I have broken up your little party. I warned you about the rugs, but you’ve never had much sense. I’ve always been able to wrap you around my fingers.”
“I won’t have this, Justina,” Moses said.
“Keep out of this, Moses.”
“Melissa is my wife.”
“You’re not her first husband and you won’t be her last and she’s had a hundred lovers.”
“You’re wicked, Justina.”
“I’m wicked, as you say, and I’m rude and I’m boorish and I discovered, after marrying Mr. Scaddon, that I could be all these things and worse and that there would still be plenty of people to lick my boots.” Then she turned to him again her best smile and he saw for once
how truly powerful this old dancing mistress had been in her heyday and how she was like an old Rhine princess, an exile from the abandoned duchies of upper Fifth Avenue and the dusty kingdoms of Riverside Drive. Then she bent and kissed Melissa and removed herself gracefully from the room.
Melissa’s lips were drawn as if to check her tears. Moses went to her eagerly, thinking that he could take her out of the atmosphere of breakage that the old woman had left in the room, but when he put his hands on her shoulders she twisted out of his reach.
“Would you like another drink?”
“Yes.”
He put some whisky and ice in her glass.
“Shall we go up?”
“All right.”
She walked ahead of him; she didn’t want him at her side. The encounter had damaged her grace and she sighed as she walked. She held her whisky glass in both hands before her like a grail. She seemed to emanate weariness and pain. It was her charming custom to undress where she could be seen but this evening she went instead to the bathroom and slammed the door. When she returned she was wearing a drab gray dress that Moses had never seen before. It was shapeless and very old; he could tell because there were moth holes in it. A row of steel buttons, pressed to look like ships in full sail, ran from the tight neck to the sagging hem, and the shape of her waist and her breasts was lost in the folds of gray cloth. She sat at the dressing table and removed her earrings, her bracelets and pearls, and began to brush the curl out of her hair.