The Accursed

by Joyce Carol Oates

  The barkeep at the Sign of the Hudibras on Fort Street, Trenton, recalled a “friendly Southern gentleman” while the hotel manager at the Nassau Inn exploded in an angry tirade against the uncouth guest who’d left evidence of his “bestiality and animalism” in his suite, for which he had neglected to pay; the hackney driver who’d taken Mr. Mayte’s luggage from the shuttle train claimed that he had never in his life carried such heavy suitcases—“Filled with rocks, like the graveyard, they were.” This same gentleman complained to Josiah that after having driven Mr. Mayte to the Nassau Inn, and helped him settle into his suite, the several dollars Mayte had given him had somehow “vanished” out of his pocket within the hour.

  At the Coachman’s Inn in Brunswick, Mayte had been “brooding and secretive”; at the Nassau Inn, he had been “wonderfully animated,” and had shown respectful curiosity about the Inn and its history; he’d spoken with a “cultivated” Southern accent, or with a “clipped, British accent”; or in the flatter tones of Maryland, or South Jersey. He was above average in height, slender, and handsome; then again squat, and lumpish, and ill-featured, with slack sneering lips and “pink, pig-eyes.” Public house waitresses spoke guardedly of him to Josiah; other women, having learned of Mayte’s “abduction” of the Slade daughter, were anxious for Josiah and his family to know that they had been deceived in believing that Mayte was a gentleman, a “close, personal” friend of the former Reverend Winslow Slade.

  As Josiah made inquiries after Mayte, his own initial impression was in danger of fading; eventually, Axson Mayte would lose all distinctive features, only the demonic remaining, like dark-tinctured skin and topaz eyes.

  In desperation Josiah went to the Mercer County sheriff’s headquarters on Route 206 to inquire whether “Axson Mayte” had been questioned in the matter of the Spags murder and was informed that since the attack upon the child was clearly the work of a deranged beast, the sheriff’s deputies would hardly have questioned a gentleman about it.

  Josiah asked how was Axson Mayte a gentleman; and the reply was, when Mayte’s name was first mentioned to sheriff’s deputies, Mayte had been a houseguest at Prospect, on the Princeton University campus—“A personal friend of the president of the university there, that could have nothing to do with the Spags family on the Princeton Pike.”

  Hotly Josiah said, “Then you are fools. You are collaborators with the Devil. I will make my own way.”

  AND NOW AT LAST. The hour of reckoning has come.

  The setting: the Raven Rock Inn of Raven Rock, Pennsylvania, on the Delaware River north of New Hope; the time, a midsummer night near one o’clock in the morning, six weeks and two days following Annabel Slade’s disappearance.

  Or, as poor Annabel was likely to be identified in the press, Mrs. Annabel Bayard.

  The other day was Josiah’s twenty-fifth birthday. By his own firm wish, the Slades did not insist upon celebrating it, at this somber time.

  Nor would a birthday of Josiah’s be truly celebrated, without the presence of his sister Annabel.

  And so Josiah, in the bloom of indignant and heedless youth, has driven in his brass-trimmed Winton motorcar into the Delaware Valley, through the sleepy villages of Hopewell and Lambertville, and so to New Hope; then north along the curving River Road, to the scenic crossroads Raven Rock, eleven miles away. Josiah has come to Raven Rock alone, on his mission of vengeance: to bring his (dishonored) sister back to her family, and to fight to the death, if necessary, with her seducer.

  To this end he has brought with him in a kidskin case, lined in crimson velvet, two fine-wrought dueling pistols with carved mahogany grips, prize specimens from the workshop of Trinity Morris, Jr., the revered gunsmith of Philadelphia of the mid-1800s.

  Josiah recalls his grandfather’s plea: That you will not succumb to barbarism.

  Being a young man confirmed in the Presbyterian faith, in the very bedrock of Protestant Christian faith, Josiah understands that his behavior is reckless, and dangerous; it is surely not Christian. Yet, his Slade and Strachan ancestors would cheer for him, if they knew. For nothing is more precious than the honor of a family, even Christian redemption.

  “If I am doomed to Hell for my behavior, then I must accept it. And if there is no Hell, except what men have fashioned for one another, then I will be spared. I will be redeemed.”

  His dishonored sister, poor Annabel, he would forgive—of course. Vaguely Josiah thought that she might simply return to Crosswicks Manse, to live in seclusion for a while; at some point, perhaps she would travel with Josiah to Italy, and live in Rome, or Florence or Venice, for a while; eventually, with the passage of time, Josiah and Annabel might share a household together, as Josiah set about his life’s-work of—well, he wasn’t yet sure: Philosophy? Journalism? Medical school? Law? Exploration of the West, or the Arctic, in the mode of the great Lewis and Clark? Political reform? Socialism?

  Josiah is well aware that dueling is illegal—it is a class-A felony—in the State of New Jersey. Already in the time of the infamous duel of Aaron Burr, Jr., and Alexander Hamilton, in 1804, dueling was a class-A felony in the State of New York, though somewhat less stringently outlawed in New Jersey, where the duel was set, in Weehawken. In Southern states, where laws are legislated with an eye toward preserving “tradition”—(statutory laws banning miscegenation, for instance, and “sodomy”)—law enforcement officers are less likely to seize and arrest dueling gentlemen, as they are less likely to seize and arrest individuals who have participated in “lynchings” of Negroes, still less are juries likely to vote such individuals guilty.

  Josiah knows that if he wounds or kills Axson Mayte, he will be arrested; and there is the possibility, for Josiah is not a fantasist about such matters, but a fatalist, that he himself may be wounded, or killed. Yet, the risk must be taken. For Annabel’s sake, as for the sake of the Slade family.

  Weeks of thwarted effort have led to this journey along the River Road, beside the broad, beautiful Delaware River; weeks of “tracking down” the illicit couple, through every sort of inquiry, and bribes, and some coercion; at last, by chance, Josiah had encountered a former “valet” of Axson Mayte, living in Camden, in a rooming house. Against all his Slade principles Josiah found himself begging, threatening, and cajoling the man, at last pressing fifty dollars into his (unwashed) hand, in return for being presented, to his surprise, a half-dozen “aliases” of Mayte’s, commonly used in New Jersey/Pennsylvania.

  For it seems, “Axson Mayte” is not the seducer’s name; and what the name is, Josiah has no idea.

  “The Devil has no name, and no face.”

  At the Raven Rock Inn, Josiah learns that “D’Apthorp, Mr. & Mrs. François” are registered there, as the ex-“valet” had speculated. For “François D’Apthorp” is one of Mayte’s aliases. (“If you look hard enough you will find him—you will always find him.” So the ex-valet said with a wink at Josiah, that quite chilled Josiah.) But having learned this fact, from having pressed a ten-dollar bill into the palm of the desk clerk, Josiah feels demoralized suddenly, and exhausted; where a fierce coursing of blood had fueled him on the drive from Princeton to Raven Rock, now he feels uncertain; he wanders into the public room of the old inn, and sits at a solitary table, resting his head for some minutes on his crossed arms; then, chides himself—for what would “crafty Odysseus” do at such a juncture? What would a hero of Jack London do, in close proximity to an individual who had dishonored the hero’s name? To restore his strength Josiah orders a tankard of dark bitter ale, which he drinks quickly, scarcely tasting; and so within a half hour he will make his way upstairs to knock on the door of the “honeymoon suite” overlooking the river, taken by “François D’Apthorp” and his alleged wife; and only God knows what will happen then.

  He can’t refuse a duel, Josiah thinks, but if he does—what shall I do? Attack him, beat him? Kill him outright? And what of Annabel? Must she be a witness? He did not want to consider whose “side” Annabel might be on, i
n such a struggle.

  For Josiah had clearly seen, Annabel had gone of her own free will to join Axson Mayte in the doorway of the church. She had been deathly pale, blinking and staring as if under a hypnotist’s spell; but no one had forced her to leave the side of her new husband Dabney Bayard, and to move beyond the protection of her aggrieved family.

  Still, Josiah would not judge Annabel. There was no need even to consider “forgiving” her—Josiah did not judge his beloved sister at all.

  “It’s as if she is ill. She must be saved from her illness!”

  In the shadowy quiet of the Inn’s public house, at a plank-board table, Josiah surreptitiously opens the kidskin case on his knees, to examine yet again the large, ungainly-looking dueling pistols. He finds the sight of them, and their chill oily scent, and their weight in his hand, not consoling as he had anticipated, but alarming. Josiah has been a hunter of pheasants, geese, deer, bears; he has handled rifles and shotguns, and knows to respect firearms. But he has had virtually no experience with a hand-gun. Though fantasies of duels had drifted through his boyish dreams for years, he had not ever exactly anticipated a duel in its particulars. The heavy steel pistols, the finely carved wood, the silver trim so exquisitely wrought—in one, a fleur-de-lis pattern, and in the other an equally delicate serpentine pattern. Another time he hears the hissing summons—Annabel! Annabel!—hears again his grandfather’s warning words, and feels again his grandfather’s fingers groping against his, weaker fingers than his own, easily eluded.

  “Grandfather, thank you. I know you mean well—I know that you are right. But I have no choice. I must avenge our family honor, for no one else will.”

  Yet, if Josiah should actually kill a man! How Grandfather Slade would grieve for him, and his beloved parents!

  Fleetingly, Josiah thinks of Wilhelmina Burr. She, too, would grieve for him . . . But there is nothing to be done, Josiah is the descendant of heroic men and must avenge the family’s honor.

  “HELLO? PLEASE OPEN this door.”

  Boldly Josiah has knocked at the door of room 22, the “honeymoon suite” at the Raven Rock Inn. Leaning his ear to the door, to hear inside an exchange of muffled voices.

  His voice is more forceful than he would expect: “I am Josiah Slade. Please open this door.”

  There is another exchange of voices inside the room and then with startling swiftness the door is flung open.

  “Yes? Hello? Who are you?”

  In the doorway stands a man of youthful and vigorous middle age, whom Josiah is certain he has never seen before; a curious combination of gentleman and ruffian, with ruddy face and rude staring eyes. The man’s white linen shirt is partway unbuttoned, exposing a brawny chest covered in metallic hairs. Of a height near-identical with Josiah’s, the gentleman-ruffian shows no apprehension at seeing him, only rather a kind of bemusement.

  “Excuse me, monsieur—I am asking who are you?”

  Behind the staring man, at the rear of a fussily furnished room, is a woman with loosed pale-blond hair, a face both beautiful and hardened; the woman is wearing a peacock-blue kimono, carelessly tied at her waist so that it falls partway open at the throat, like her companion’s linen shirt. In her fingers is a small gold cigarette case, from out of which she draws a long white cigarette with mannered slowness.

  “I—I am Josiah Slade—I’m looking for—my sister Annabel . . .”

  Josiah hears his awkward stammering voice. Josiah feels a blush rise into his face. In both hands he is gripping the kidskin case containing the dueling pistols, that feels to him conspicuous and foolish; by the way the gentleman-ruffian eyes the case, and contemplates Josiah’s abashed expression, it seems to Josiah that he must understand what is contained in the kidskin case, and why Josiah has knocked so brashly on the door.

  “ ‘Josiah Slade’—‘Annabel’—what have they to do with us? You must have the wrong room, Mr. Slade. We are François and Camille D’Apthorp, and we are no one you know.”

  Josiah sees the pale-blond woman in the kimono cast a sidelong glance at him, of contempt, as she lights a cigarette and exhales a small venomous-seeming cloud of smoke. The woman is not young, perhaps as old as forty, and seems to Josiah both utterly strange, and yet familiar. She knows me. But she will not acknowledge me.

  Confused, Josiah draws back from the doorway, that the woman might not see him so clearly, and deduce from the kidskin case in his shaky hands what his reason is for knocking at their door. In a stammering voice he apologizes, explaining that he is looking for another couple; the gentleman-ruffian smiles at him, with a sly, insinuating smile, and surprises Josiah by not shutting the door in his face but opening it wider.

  “Monsieur, will you join us for a glass of Champagne? We are returned to this charming inn to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary, and would be so pleased if you would help us celebrate.”

  Almost, the gentleman-ruffian is winking at Josiah.

  “Thank you but I—I think—I hadn’t better . . .”

  “But why not, monsieur? Whoever you are seeking, will surely be there a little later this evening, eh? In the meantime—a glass of Champagne?”

  At the rear of the room the pale-blond woman, her untidy hair spilling down her back, lifts her hands as if to warn Josiah away, even as the gentleman-ruffian glances back at her, with a severe frown.

  “Camille begs me, to insist that you join us. Since you have knocked at our door, which can be no accident, yes? You will?”

  “N-No. No thank you. Good night!”

  Blindly Josiah turns away, his heart beating hard. Gripping the kidskin case he walks swiftly along the corridor with its soft worn carpet, its just slightly tarnished-looking wallpapered walls, electric lights in the shapes of candles every six feet or so, to light his way back to the staircase.

  In the doorway of the honeymoon suite the gentleman-ruffian calls after Josiah, with a mocking laugh: “Bonsoir, monsieur! Chaque chose en son temps, peut-être.”

  POSTSCRIPT: THE HISTORIAN’S DILEMMA

  Numerous times I have reread the previous scene, bringing Josiah Slade to the door of room 22 of the Raven Rock Inn; numerous times I have brooded upon the meaning of the enigmatic exchange between Josiah Slade and “François D’Apthorp”—and the significance of the “warning” gesture of the blond woman in the kimono—but to no avail. Whatever meaning the scene might have, it does not yield its meaning to me.

  The reader will smile to learn, I have been so baffled by the scene, I’ve visited the Raven Rock Inn and investigated that very same honeymoon suite, that has not been altered much in the intervening decades, but with no illumination.

  Perhaps it is the historian’s dilemma: we can record, we can assemble facts meticulously and faithfully, but only to a degree can we interpret. And we cannot create.

  THE UNSPEAKABLE II

  In Nassau Hall behind closed doors they met.

  No secretary would take notes.

  “Matilde, you may leave us.”

  “Sir? ‘Leave you—’?”

  President Wilson reiterated his command, in a voice that threatened to quaver. His face was very pale, his skin taut and drawn. At the corners of his thin lips, a faint chalky substance had dried. Those who passed close to the agitated man, which is to say within three feet, would note that his breath smelled of camphor and ashes.

  “Matilde, I have instructed you. Shut the door as you depart.”

  For the meeting was hastily called. And in secrecy.

  For the meeting was without a stated agenda.

  In the president’s outer office, around a spare wooden table that looked as if it had survived from Colonial times, indeed from the very firestorm of the Battle of Princeton of 1777, the men gathered, perplexed and apprehensive. Several deans, several departmental chairs, the university attorney, the master of the residence in question and the master’s young assistant Thomas Tremain (Princeton ’95) who was also a preceptor in Romance Studies and who had never before this fr
aught hour stepped foot in historic Nassau Hall.

  Gravely President Wilson chaired the meeting. Beside him, just slightly behind him, the chair in which the president’s secretary Matilde usually sat, to record the minutes of the meeting, was stunningly empty.

  Awkwardly the men sat. Awkwardly glancing at one another, and at the somber drawn face of the president, who seemed to be waiting for another individual to enter the room; or, it may have been, was simply sitting in his usual stiff public posture, lost in thought, frowning, polishing his eyeglasses vigorously with a fresh-laundered handkerchief as he summoned from the depths of his soul the appropriate words with which to open this exceptional, because unrecordable, meeting.

  After some minutes, when the silence grew oppressive, as if oxygen were slowly being sucked from the room, President Wilson cleared his throat, positioned his pince-nez at the bridge of his nose, and began, with the air of a man teetering at the edge of an abyss.

  “You are wondering why you have been summoned so quickly. And why you have been cautioned to tell no one—I repeat: no one—of the meeting. And why there is no stated agenda for the meeting.”

  Here, Wilson paused. A sudden ghastly smile stretched his thin lips.

  “You are wondering, gentlemen—yes, you have reason to wonder. As, in your place, I would have reason to wonder. But—I am pained to inform you—the situation is so grave, and so—lewd—it is literally unspeakable.”