When I finally turned away from the picture of the green lawn and made my way back up through the cool waters, I thought that this house, so like Mr. Thiel’s, must be the home of the Callenders, so that the man must be Enoch Callender, the woman his wife, and the three young people his children. I did not, beyond that, think any more of them because I just then realized I was in danger of being late for luncheon.
Chapter 3
I was not late but I had no time to tidy myself before sitting down to table other than to slip into the kitchen to wash my hands. Aunt Constance would have sent me upstairs, but Mr. Thiel did not seem to notice my disarranged hair and heated face.
I was seated where I had eaten breakfast, and Mr. Thiel sat where Mrs. Bywall had, across from me, but only the width across. This became our habitual way of eating together. The food was simple and good. I was, I discovered, quite hungry. For a while we ate silently, then he started a conversation.
“Mrs. Bywall spoke with you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you wish to leave?”
“No,” I said.
He returned to his food. When he had cleaned his plate, he sat looking at me, waiting for me to finish. I found his stare most uncomfortable. Mr. Thiel was a straight man, he carried himself straight, his short, graying hair was straight, his glance was cold and straight. He had a hard face, filled with character, I supposed, but not attractive and not welcoming. There are, I think, two sorts of faces that people have. The first is welcoming and responds visibly to what it sees. The other is secretive, or private. It is closed off and seems to protect itself from whatever it is facing. Mr. Thiel had this second kind of face. The difference is, I think, in the eyes themselves. Eyes hold the essential expression of a face. A man can smile with his mouth, but his eyes will give away his real thoughts. Aunt Constance had a stern expression, but her eyes were always welcoming. Mr. Thiel had a way of looking through his eyes as if through a microscope at some strange, and possibly distasteful, creature.
When I had finished my meal—which I obstinately ate at my own pace—I put down my own knife and fork carefully, as I had been taught, at twenty past two. “Aunt Constance had already spoken to me of Mrs. Bywall,” I informed him.
“I thought she might.”
Even though I could see that he was not interested in my reaction, I told him what I felt.
“It is a sad story.”
He shrugged.
“Mrs. Bywall seems very loyal to you.”
“She has reason to be, although it’s no credit to me. People are such fools,” he said.
“Not all,” I protested.
“Those who aren’t are so few they make no difference.”
I couldn’t agree with him but couldn’t argue. So I sat silent as Mrs. Bywall brought in a hot cherry pie.
“Are you ready to begin your work now?” Mr. Thiel asked me, as if it had been days, not merely a morning, since I had arrived, as if I had been shirking.
“Of course,” I said. “But just what is it you want me to do?” The question seemed to annoy him.
“My late father-in-law, Josiah Callender, left several boxes of papers. Letters, essays, I don’t know what, stored up in the attic. You are to sort through them, separate the wheat from the chaff, and determine what should be done with the papers.”
I looked up in surprise. “How can I decide that?”
“That’s up to you. I suppose you can, or you wouldn’t be here. I don’t expect to be bothered with the task, in any way.” He ate his pie methodically.
“But how can I know what is important?” I insisted.
He sighed, and answered me. “Given a choice between a formal and meaningless note from President Lincoln, say, and a letter to Josiah Callender from his father, instructing him in the duties of married life, which would you keep?”
I thought carefully about this. “I would keep both,” I decided. “The one might be of monetary value, or value to the family for the pride of it, if it were signed by Mr. Lincoln himself. The other would certainly be of historical value.”
He said nothing, He just nodded his head.
“Do you know anything about the Callenders?” he asked after a time.
“Almost nothing.”
“I suppose you should know something. Josiah’s father made a fortune in munitions during the War Between the States. Not a great fortune, but a substantial one. Josiah, however, was a man of conscience. He couldn’t rest easy with money made from blood, as he understood it. However, he was not a man of courage. It wasn’t until his father died, in the seventies, that Josiah made his stand against the old man. At that time, Josiah sold the factories and moved here, bringing his family with him. His wife had died, many years earlier, giving birth to the second child, a boy. The boy was raised by his sister, who was some six years older than he. I say nothing about Enoch. The sister, Irene, was my wife for a short time.”
“She was Aunt Constance’s friend.”
I thought he might say more about his wife’s character, but he didn’t.
“Irene had promised her father that she would see that the family papers were properly attended to, but she died unexpectedly, shortly after Josiah. I consider myself bound by my wife’s promise. I do not expect that you will find much of value or much to be preserved. Josiah Callender was rare enough, an honest man with the intent to do good: but such men are not important.”
“Perhaps not,” I said in such a way that he had to hear in my voice how little I agreed with him. For some reason I was offended at his dismissal of his father-in-law. “Certainly they are at least admirable.”
Mr. Thiel said nothing, but his mouth curved in a smile. It was not a smile that reached to his eyes, not a comfortable, pleasant smile, and I felt that I had been silly. I was not going to enjoy his company. Neither would he enjoy mine, he had made that clear already. But I was there to do a job, and I supposed we would manage to see very little of one another, which seemed the best possible state of affairs.
I followed Mr. Thiel into the library. There, lined up on the floor, were a dozen wooden crates, each painted with a large Roman numeral, each with the top partially lifted. Except for the twelfth, which I noticed was only half full. It had no top. It looked as if papers had been just dumped into it, higglety-pigglety. The twelve boxes took up a great deal of floor space.
“Are all the boxes like that?” I asked, indiciating the half-full one.
“Nobody said it would be easy. My wife and her father accumulated papers in their desks. Two or three times a year, they would empty the desk drawers into these boxes. When a box was full, a top would be nailed on it.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t realized there would be so much. I was dismayed by the size of the task.
“You’re supposed to know what to do,” Mr. Thiel reminded me.
“I think I had better read through some of the first box and then I will know better.” I didn’t want him to see how overwhelmed I felt. Aunt Constance couldn’t have guessed at the size of the task, or she wouldn’t have advised me to accept the job. But I wouldn’t have him think I was discomfited.
“I’m not going to worry about it at all, Jean. That is your job. You may use this room as your own. The table is clear. I have no idea what may be in the desk. My own sitting room is across the hall.”
“I thought so,” I said, thinking of the closed door.
He looked at me coldly.
“I was told to look about this morning,” I reminded him. “I didn’t look in there, but I did look in the others.”
“Ordinarily I work at the studio during the morning and am out during the afternoons. I expect you should have some time for whatever childish amusements are necessary for good health, so you might follow the same schedule.”
I agreed.
“We do not attend church, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t.”
“Thank you. I will think of it.”
He waited. I waited for him to leave
. Finally I said, “I will begin this afternoon, just to get started. If that is agreeable to you.”
He turned to go without a word.
“How did the boxes get in here?” I asked his back. “They weren’t here this morning.”
“I brought them down. We waited luncheon for you.” He left. Mr. Thiel seemed to like having the last word. While I was still forming an apology, I was left alone with these dozen boxes, each as large as a trunk. For a time, I looked about the room, then out the windows, while my mind worked at the problem. Of course, I needed to read whatever was in there, and apparently from the bottom of the box up, which seemed a needless complication. I went to the desk and started pulling out the drawers. Some kind of sorting of the papers would be necessary. The desk drawers were empty, but not large enough to be useful in that task. The center drawer, unlike the six side drawers, was locked. I wondered why, naturally, but thought no more about it.
Instead, I began box I. I pulled off the top completely, took an armload of papers and envelopes and carried them to the table. Working methodically, from left to right, I covered the table. When the bottom layer was clear I took that in a pile to the desk, where I sat to read. Before I concentrated on the task before me, a question formed itself in my mind: Why had Aunt Constance said that she and Mr. Thiel were two of a kind? As far as I could tell, they were two different kinds; the one kind, humorous, warm; the other selfish and perhaps coldhearted.
I began the Callender Papers. The library was a good room for such work—cool, even in the heat of the day, and quiet. A proper room for slow, careful work.
During the next days I became accustomed to the task and the house and, to an extent, to my companions, both the living and the dead. I found that I could sort the early papers out into groups, personal and family papers, public papers, business-of-life papers (Josiah married young, at twenty, just after leaving Harvard; his wife was extravagant, or so I concluded from dressmaker, milliner and jeweler bills). The papers included his letters to the girl he married, which she had saved, and hers to him. She had kept his letters tied together into a neat bundle, which she then wrapped in a piece of yellow silk. Those he had received from her were scattered through the bottom of the box. More interesting were some letters to the young Josiah from his father, which indicated the character of his father: an energetic man, who had made his fortune by a combination of shrewdness, luck and—if Josiah’s description of the purchase of the munitions factory in 1851 was accurate—a certain disregard of the fine points of the laws of both God and men. The father seemed to scorn his sons character and opinions, condemning him as impractical, idealistic and ungrateful. They lived apart and corresponded infrequently. Josiah wrote dutifully once every month, and his father almost never. I found myself unexpectedly interested in these people, filled with curiosity about what they were like, what would happen to them. I found myself taking pleasure in those quiet hours in the library.
While I learned more of the family history during the mornings, I used the afternoons to learn more about the countryside. I did not walk down along the river again, toward the other house. Instead, I walked upriver, uphill. I grew more at ease in the forests, more adept at crossing the uneven landscapes. I began to recognize the different creatures and the sounds they made. Moreover, the cool of the silent trees, the running of the water, the occasional open glade, all gave me pleasure. I was glad to be alone there, to think my own thoughts. Once away from Mr. Thiel’s house, I saw no human creature, and I quickly recognized the particular pleasures of rural solitude, so different from everything I had known before. Nobody disturbed my afternoons in the woods.
On one of the first of those afternoons I discovered a small waterfall a half-mile north of the house and it became a place I often returned to. (When I first saw it, it seemed to welcome me.) At that point in its course, the river ran down through a sharp ravine. The ravine was no more than twelve feet deep, but its sides were steep and rocky. The water cascaded over a small falls, perhaps six feet high, into a dark pool. It hesitated there a minute before rushing on over the shallower, wider bed below. On the bluff above this pool, two old beech trees gave shade and offered roots to sit upon. Across the way, dense forest grew up around the great gray boulders. The place was filled with the sound of the water. It filled me with peace, a sense of familiarity and security.
I often needed that sense of peace and security. I found Mr. Thiel an uncomfortable man to live with. He was silent most of the time and made me feel an intruder. I told myself that he would have treated whoever came to do this job as little more than an inconvenience. He was acceding to his late wife’s wishes, not seeking company. Company was the last thing he wanted, that he made clear; he made no effort to win my friendship. Rather, he seemed bent upon appearing at his worst, or so it seemed—truculent and unwelcoming. When he spoke at all, he spoke brusquely. Not from anger, although he often made me angry, but from impatience. Mrs. Bywall, on the other hand, would suddenly burst into speech on some trivial subject and then just as suddenly clamp her lips shut to relapse into uneasy silence. Both of them seemed to find life unpleasant. With neither of these personalities could I be at ease. To make it worse, both thought little of their fellow creatures. Both expected the worst. We never know what will happen to us, of course, and I know I cannot now say that I will never come to share such an opinion of the world, but I did not share the opinion then and I could not agree with them. I was not, however, encouraged to speak my own mind on the subject. I was expected, apparently, merely to listen. This was difficult because Aunt Constance had not raised me to be seen but not heard, like so many children. I chafed under the treatment.
Several days after I had arrived at his house, Mr. Thiel announced at luncheon that he and I would walk down to the village. “It is nearly three miles,” he added. “You will need good walking shoes and a shawl.”
His assumption that I could not think that out for myself irritated me. “I know,” I said. I had already noted that, despite the warmth of the days, the evenings came early and cool to the mountains. Mr. Thiel heard the irritation in my voice and raised his eyebrows. The gesture might have meant anything, even disapproval: I could not tell. I did not much care.
So we walked together, following the dirt road that followed the brook. Mr. Thiel knew a great deal about the trees, birds and undergrowth. For some reason, he instructed me about them as we walked. Although his superior tone was irritating to me, I was eager to learn how to differentiate these and discover what their properties were. As we walked, I listened carefully and tried to remember. I wanted him to see, too, that I could learn rapidly. I hoped, I think, that he might learn to respect my intelligence at least.
We passed the other house, barely visible at the back of its broad lawn. “Is that where Mr. Enoch Callender lives?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What does he look like?” I asked.
“Look like? Like a Greek statue come to life,” Mr. Thiel said. Then it was the man I saw.
“You don’t maintain ties with him?” I asked. It was an impertinent question.
“No,” Mr. Thiel said, briefly. “Have you met him in your wanderings?”
“No. Do you forbid it?”
“Forbid you to meet him? Them? He has a family. Why should you want to meet them?”
I answered as directly as he questioned: “I don’t want to meet them. But if I should, in my wanderings as you say, meet him, I wonder what you ask of me.”
“I ask nothing,” he said. “There’s little danger of meeting, unless you trespass. They seldom go off the lawns.”
My curiosity was aroused. What had happened here? The two houses did not communicate, that was obvious. Mr. Thiel did not like the Callenders; that too was obvious. Why should he refer to the danger of such a meeting, except to put me on my guard, or prejudice me against the inhabitants of the house? Did he fear them? Then why did he remain on the Callender property? What held him in Marlborough?
The village of Marlborough lies in a small, oval valley. Hills rise all around it. The river, widened and deepened, runs the length of the valley.
The road from Mr. Thiel’s home joined the one village street just before a stone bridge arched over the river. There, we stopped.
“I am going to the bank and to the store,” he said, indicating two solitary brick buildings off to the left. A row of white clapboard houses faced these buildings, each house set in its own generous lawn. “Is there any purchase you would like to make?”
“No,” I said.
“No letter to mail?”
“No.”
“I have written your aunt to report your safe arrival,” he said.
“I have been waiting to write until I feel settled,” I told him. “That was what Aunt Constance requested me to do.” Who was he to remind me to write to my aunt?
He bowed his head to me, formally. “Do you feel settled?”
For some reason, I could not lie to him, not even for the sake of politeness. Neither, for the sake of politeness, could I tell him the precise truth. “More so than at first. I feel settled enough to write, of course.”
“I am flattered to hear it.” He did not sound flattered. “Perhaps then you might like to visit our church, which lies over the bridge.”
I agreed to that and we parted. We made no plans for meeting again. His discourtesy neither surprised nor dismayed me. I could certainly make my way back to the house on my own, and I assumed it was his intention that I do so. His displeasure in my company didn’t concern me, except to raise the question of why he had bothered to summon me there at all. The papers had rested ignored for years, there was no urgency to sort and catalogue them. I wondered if he had some other purpose for me—what it might be I could not guess. He was a man who kept his own counsel. I crossed the bridge, heading toward the steeple visible nearby through treetops. A boy was fishing off the bank on the far side of the bridge. I ignored him, as he did me.
The Callender Papers Page 3