The Accursed

by Joyce Carol Oates

  And Johanna was enormously happy to see their young friend—once she overcame her surprise at his arrival.

  “You will stay the night, Josiah, I hope? Or two nights, if you can spare the time. We would be so grateful for your company, Pearce, wouldn’t we?”

  In his jocular mood, Pearce did seem relieved for distraction from his all-consuming work, and for the opportunity to share it with his young friend, to whom it would mean a great deal.

  (Pearce took Josiah aside to warn him against bringing up the subject of the many troubles back in Princeton in Johanna’s company: “I’m afraid for her well-being, she’s become distracted and melancholy lately; since the birth of—as you know, our son—she eats poorly, and has lost more weight than is normal. I’d hoped to have Dr. Boudinot’s son come with me, to examine Johanna, but that didn’t quite work out. She complains of the very quiet of Quatre Face, though she’s upset by the recent news of Maidstone . . . But you know how women are, Josiah, I hope!”)

  Though Pearce had declared to Johanna how very relieved he was to be freed of university politicking and backbiting, and the ceaseless stratagems of Woodrow Wilson in his feud with Dean West, yet, now that Josiah was here, he seemed acutely interested in all the news; at the dinner table plying his visitor with every sort of question. The most delicious news, unless it was a rumor, involved the extraordinary Proctor bequest, said to be beyond one million dollars—but earmarked for the office of Dean West and not for the office of the president. So surprised was Pearce by this oddity, he asked Josiah to repeat it. “To Woodrow, it must really seem like witchcraft, that a prominent alumnus would insult the president of the university by singling out the president’s enemy for such a prize!”

  Josiah murmured that it was a shame, such a renowned scholar and educator as Woodrow Wilson should find himself embroiled in such provincial matters, when there was so much else in life to contend with . . . Pearce said, laughing, as if unhearing, “William Cooper Procter, the soapsuds benefactor—Procter & Gamble—such wealth! And so urgently needed for the Graduate College. Is it witchcraft? Is Andrew West of the devil’s party? The rascal! Woodrow will be quite helpless, for he can’t refuse such a sum—he would be vilified from every side in Princeton for his vanity and ‘sour grapes’; yet, how can he accept it? Will he accept it, do you think, Josiah?”

  Josiah shrugged, for how could he know?

  “I’m not involved in such matters, sir. Even my grandfather Winslow has detached himself.”

  “And what a shock, and what a tragedy—the events at Maidstone. Of that, Johanna would like us not to speak, but I feel that we must.”

  Josiah sat silent, with no response; though not liking where this might be headed.

  “It is being said that your friend—Wilhelmina Burr—is in some way ‘involved.’ With Horace, that is. Poor, mad Horace! Perhaps she is quite guiltless—guileless—you know how headstrong young ladies can be nowadays, even from good families . . . She has become an artiste, it’s said. Have you seen any of her work, Josiah?”

  “No. I have not.”

  “Do you see Miss Burr, often?”

  “Almost never.”

  “And you know, certain materials were found in Adelaide Burr’s bedroom.”

  “ ‘Certain materials’—?”

  “Reading materials.”

  Pearce spoke grimly, yet with satisfaction. These materials were, he reported, a mixed lot, which Adelaide must have purchased on her own, without Horace’s knowledge or complicity: mystical writings by the notorious Madame Blavatsky, verse by wild-eyed poetesses and by the notorious “invert” Walt Whitman, Socialist and Anarchist pamphlets, women’s “sensation” novels, even, it was said, a copy of the Kabbalah . . .

  “The Kabbalah? The medieval Jewish work? Commentary on the Hebrew Bible?”

  Josiah spoke dubiously; for it seemed to him nothing less than preposterous, that one of the West End ladies, and an invalid at that, would have such a book in her possession, along with such other books.

  Pearce said, “Yes, it does seem unlikely. Yet, it seems to be so. And Adelaide left behind also a journal, or diary, written in code . . . Perhaps, when it is it decoded, the mystery of why Horace turned upon her as he did will be revealed.” Pearce spoke with an air of wistfulness, at the prospect of this decoding. He had already applied to the Princeton Borough Police, as to the relatives of the Burrs, offering his services as a practiced decoder, but no one had responded.

  Josiah, who had transcribed his sister’s distraught tale of the Bog Kingdom, which might have been in a kind of code, or demented poetry, fell silent, grateful that no one outside the Slade family knew of Annabel’s account.

  But Pearce continued to shake his head slowly, with a look of wistful yearning. In the flickering candlelight his skin looked less sickly than it had looked in Princeton, when Josiah had last seen his friend; and the shadowy background of the dining room was such, the seeming “misshapenness” of his skull was not so noticeable, nor so distracting. Indeed, for some minutes he looked to Josiah like Professor van Dyck of old, kindly, avuncular, though youthful, an authoritative presence of considerable charm, who had introduced Josiah to the life of the mind in his freshman year of college. Near the end of the meal he said, in a confidential tone, “It is not for general consumption, Josiah—Johanna has heard it before, of course—but only a few weeks ago, before his hasty ‘vacation’ in Bermuda, Woodrow had become so desperate that he consulted a Ouija board—or is it a Ouija wheel?—one of those ridiculous occult rituals in which the spirits ‘speak’—the future is ‘revealed.’ Of course, Woodrow made light of it, claiming it to be Ellen’s idea; yet he was halfway serious. His revelation was a single message—Dean West shall fry in Hell & the fat drip from his bones—sent, by all people, from our dear departed James McCosh. When my informant asked Woodrow if this could be so, and not rather a joke, Woodrow allegedly drew himself up to his full height and said, ‘Sir, I do not joke about Hell, or about Andrew West.’ ”

  At which Pearce began to laugh silently, with such mirth that his eyeglasses slipped from his nose, and he soon lapsed into wheezing and coughing, as badly as he had when Josiah had last seen him.

  Johanna exchanged worried glances with her young houseguest.

  (It should be revealed here, the reason for Josiah’s sudden arrival at Quatre Face wasn’t accidental, but rather in response to a letter sent to him by Mrs. van Dyck, the previous week; for the troubled wife and mother professed to being “gravely concerned” with her husband’s mental well-being, as well as his physical condition, and wondered if it would be possible for Josiah, of whom Pearce was so very fond, to drop by Quatre Face soon—as if by accident. Josiah had not hesitated for a moment, but had made plans at once to drive to Raven Rock to see his old professor.)

  Though the hour was late by now, and Pearce was looking clearly tired, yet he insisted upon bringing Josiah into his study, to speak to him in earnest, and at length, about his latest discoveries regarding the Scheme of Clues. He thrust into Josiah’s face a sheet of paper upon which was written, in the professor’s crabbed hand:

  The existence of Evil—Absolute & untempered by human frailty—

  even Pride.

  Evil so extreme so powerful mortal Reason cannot comprehend.

  Evil—the Devil—(d)evil—the Fiend—God’s Wrath—Jehovah with cloven hoof—Sin & Death in eternal copulation to yield—human kind.

  The season predating Christ—when the Cross was but Death & mockery.

  The season predating Earth—when God was but Chaos & Eternal Night.

  Is the terrible secret of the Curse—that it surrounds us & nourishes us? It is the oxygen we breathe, all unknowing?

  How to escape the Fiend—

  How to exorcise the Curse—

  For at least another hour, Pearce van Dyck lectured his young friend, who listened to him with genuine admiration and interest; from time to time, always deferentially, Josiah offered suggestions and (m
inor) corrections to the Scheme of Clues, for which Pearce expressed gratitude.

  “I think that we will work together as an excellent team, Josiah—like Holmes and Watson—if Watson were younger, and sharper-witted than Conan Doyle has described him. We might, you know, even become—‘known’ . . .”

  “Perhaps, Professor van Dyck. It’s something to think about, at least.”

  “Not ‘something to think about’—” Pearce glared at his young friend, now pushing away the Scheme of Clues, and shutting up his notebooks for the night. “Indeed, it is all there is to think about.”

  “DO YOU THINK he’s ill, Josiah? Or just exhausted from overwork?”

  So Johanna van Dyck asked her visitor, clasping her hands together in a classic gesture of anxiety, as they stood on the staircase landing, above the darkened first floor of Quatre Face that resembled a vast pool of water beneath their feet.

  “I think he’s just exhausted, Johanna. If only he could rest . . .”

  “If only he could rest his mind! His thoughts! He is so obsessed with what he calls the ‘Curse’ . . . the ‘Horror’ . . . Sometimes it seems, he has taken it into himself, like a poison; it has breathed itself into him. And what looks out of his eyes, at such times—” Johanna broke off, shuddering.

  Josiah said, to change the subject, “Well. In the morning, I hope I will see your little son?”

  “Oh yes! Certainly. As early as you like, for he wakes very early.”

  Johanna smiled happily. The subject of the obsessed husband fell away, as the subject of the beloved baby supplanted it.

  “And what is his name, Johanna? I must have been told, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.”

  “His name! Ah—his name! Well—we call him ‘baby’—‘little one’—Nanny and me. Pearce has put off ‘naming’ him, for the time being.”

  “He has put off ‘naming him’—? But why?”

  “I think perhaps—no name is quite good enough for Pearce’s son.”

  Johanna spoke brightly, but not very convincingly.

  “He will choose a name soon, he has promised. Now that he has joined us at Quatre Face. He has promised!”

  “Have you considered calling your son ‘Pearce, Jr.’?—that would seem a good compromise, if it’s difficult to choose another name.”

  “Yes. I have considered this. But Pearce—well, Pearce is not so sure! ‘Maybe “Oedipus” is the name for it!’—so Pearce jokes, in his obscure way. (He has a habit of calling our baby it.) But you can ask Pearce yourself, tomorrow, Josiah. Will you?”

  “Yes. If you’d like me to . . .”

  When Josiah had mentioned to his mother that he was going to visit the van Dycks, at their country place, Henrietta asked him to tell Johanna, for her—The early months are the trial. You must keep yourself alive for the baby’s sake.

  This strange message, Josiah had no intention of imparting to his hostess.

  At the door of the sparely furnished guest room the housekeeper had prepared for him, Josiah said good night to Mrs. van Dyck. Their exchange had left Josiah troubled but he smiled at his hostess as if nothing were amiss; in this phase of his young life, in his mid-twenties, surrounded in his own family with so much sorrow and distress, Josiah had learned that a ready smile is the best gift to offer another, in such circumstances, in which words can sound flat and platitudinous, and are of little help.

  “Well—good night, Johanna! Thank you for a lovely dinner.”

  “And thank you for coming, Josiah. I’m almost thinking—you have saved our lives.” Johanna’s strained face relaxed for just a moment.

  Inside the chill room, with its singed-looking wallpaper and high, hard canopied bed, Josiah was to discover a large, lavish bouquet of freshly picked lilacs which Johanna had brought surreptitiously to the room, it seemed. Its rich scent would fill his nostrils, and his turbulent dreams, through the night.

  2.

  While the others slept—Johanna in her own bedroom, that opened into the nursery; the baby in its crib; and Josiah in one or another guest room—Pearce van Dyck remained in his study, frowning over the Scheme of Clues. He had not liked—though, as a cordial person, he had pretended to be grateful for—the brash young Josiah Slade making suggestions to him!—to him. He’d wanted to say, with the practiced irony of the professor-lecturer, Thank you so much for your unsolicited and uninformed opinion, my boy. How very generous of you.

  Yet, several ideas had come to him, during his conversation with Josiah. And in truth, he was grateful for Josiah’s presence in their somber household in which the only—sensory—distraction was the baby’s loud crying, that affected Pearce’s sensitive nerves at a distance of several rooms.

  He did not think it curious that Josiah had shown up, uninvited and unexpected at Quatre Face. He did feel, under the strain of the criminal investigation, that all things that happened to him, or surrounding him, were in specific reference to his campaign to overcome the Curse; and that Josiah Slade, of the accursed Slades, would naturally be drawn to Pearce van Dyck as a kind of protector, mentor—savior.

  And it seemed to him too, that Josiah Slade’s young life was “on hold”—the young man had not gone to law school, or medical school, or continued with graduate studies as he’d planned; the Slades were not encouraging him, probably. The old Slade vitality had been leached from them, a kind of paralysis had come upon them, since the advent of the Curse.

  “I will help them. I am the only one, I must persevere.”

  Yet often it happened, when Pearce locked himself away in his study late at night—(indeed, “locked” is accurate: for, initially, his concerned wife might dare to open the door at 3 a.m., seeking him out with a plaintive Pearce? Why are you up so late?)—that he lost track of time; discovered himself elsewhere in the house, wandering in the dark with a lighted candle; more strangely, Pearce had several times discovered himself outside, in the quite chilly night air, shivering in a wind that lifted from the river like a cruel caress. By moonlight, teeth chattering, in the ruin of an old rose garden, with no idea how, or why, he’d come here.

  “To clear the cobwebs from my brain. That must be it.”

  So we invent reasons for the unreasonable. We are rationalists of the irrational. It is very hard for me to write this chapter for, to be frank, as historians are so rarely frank, I am writing about my own dear departed father and in so doing, though I am totally sympathetic with him, as with my dear mother, it seems very wrong: a violation of something primary, not unlike Oedipus’s terrible sins.

  This night, after the intellectually stimulating dinner with his young, former student, Pearce had intended to work until at least 4 a.m., then to sleep on the divan in his study, covered by an old, moth-eaten but warm comforter; for he needed to be near, physically near, the Scheme of Clues, in recent days; it was his great fear, that something would happen to the chart, as to his hundreds of pages of accumulated notes—a fire, for instance. Electricity was erratic in this part of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and so kerosene lamps, candles, and wood fires were necessary; with her air of girlish optimism, that countered but did not quite eradicate her underlying anxiety, Johanna liked to say that Quatre Face was romantic—“We are like people in a gothic novel!” (Yet Pearce knew very well, the West End ladies of Princeton would far rather inhabit a novel by Jane Austen.)

  And so this night, nerves strained by excitement no less than by anxiety, Pearce found himself, suddenly, not at his desk, not in his study, but, he knew not how, outside. The air was very chill, for May; on the wide, dark Delaware River, less than one hundred feet from where Pearce stood in the ruined garden, moonlight rippled and shivered; he was in shirtsleeves, and had opened his collar, while working and perspiring; now, his teeth chattered with cold.

  Fortunately, Johanna would not know! And Josiah would not know.

  Precisely how late it was, Pearce had no idea. Perhaps 3 a.m.—nowhere near dawn. Behind him, rising above him, the solid, foursquare house of weatherworn lime
stone, with darkened windows. Wind rustled vines attached to the house, that had not revived with spring but were dead, and very dry; the sound was like voices, whispering. Yet, Pearce could not decode what the voices were saying. A short distance away were several statues that, dimly white by moonlight, seemed both lifelike and paralyzed: slender, tall Diana with her noble hounds close beside her, whose tongues protruded from their fanged mouths; the chastely entwined couple Cupid and Psyche; and, farthest away, the comely youth Adonis poised on tiptoe. Johanna had laughed at the statues, and had wiped tears from her eyes, saying that the inheritance of Quatre Face, from a great-grandfather of Pearce’s, was a mixed blessing, indeed; for, to revive the house, and to make it halfway livable, they would have to spend thousands, many thousands of dollars; and they would have to get rid of such singularly ugly statuary, executed by one or another sculptor-friend of Pearce’s ancestor; almost, they would have to devote themselves to it, and abandon their Princeton lives—“It would eat us alive, Quatre Face.”

  Pearce had been annoyed, in fact rather insulted, by his wife’s careless remark. Quatre Face was his property, and not hers.

  A woman could not inherit such property, that was the law. A woman might go to court, these days; the suffragettes were clamoring for law reform, for women’s rights; but that day had not yet arrived, and women had few legal rights, as they had no voting rights—none. As a university liberal, as reform-minded as any Princeton professor, Pearce van Dyck was in favor of such changes in society; yet, privately, it pleased him that so little happened, and so slowly.

  And perhaps it would never happen, in fact—women’s rights.

  “There are more urgent matters. The ‘problem of evil,’ for one.”

  Softly Pearce spoke aloud. In the nocturnal silence there was no sound except of the wind, and an underlying sound of the river, that was sometimes audible from inside the house, on still nights. Pearce was resolved not to stare at the statues, that seemed to be staring at him; for even Diana’s hounds seemed to be staring, with a sort of secret canine derision, at him. “Next, I will be talking to them—these stone creatures. And they addressing me.”