Almost Paradise

by Susan Isaacs

  “What’s your name, son?” Mr. Howell was a decent man, one of the rocks upon which the First Baptist Church of Providence rested so securely. He always took time out for the little fellow.

  “Henry Cobleigh, sir.”

  “Cobleigh. Cobleigh. Any relation to that—that Democrat in Pawtucket, Johnny Cobleigh?”

  “No, sir.” Mr. Howell nodded and picked up his pen to sign the contracts spread before him. “I’ve no family, Mr. Howell. I grew up in an orphanage.” Mr. Howell, his eyes glistening with sympathy, put down his pen.

  In November of 1902, a month after meeting Spencer Howell, Henry Cobleigh left Broadhurst & Fenn and became house counsel to T. L. Howell & Sons for three times the salary he had earned at the law firm. By the following year, he had so won the heart and mind of childless Mr. Howell that he was told that someday he would own a share of the company. Someday he would be truly rich.

  It was not enough. The fabric alone for Louise’s gowns, flawless copies of Worths and Paquins, cost hundreds of dollars. And there were the house, servants, a stock of good port, trips to Newport, Boston, Saratoga, the coast of Maine. Not only that: within half a year of his marriage, Henry realized he would occasionally need more sophisticated companionship than Louise could offer. But this sort of discreet, knowledgeable companion was too expensive for even a well-off young attorney to enjoy more than once every few weeks—unless he could augment his income.

  Henry found a way. He was a superb lawyer, but certain matters were beyond his competence: patents on machinery developed for the Howell mills; lawsuits in other states in which T. L. Howell & Sons was a litigant; negotiating esoteric international contracts. But he had the responsibility of finding the right man to do the job. Thus, within weeks of joining the company, Henry had to refer a problem arising from the strictures of the Sherman Act to a law firm. He chose Hamden & Hamden because they were acknowledged as experts in the field, but also because Hamden & Hamden had offered to say thank-you for its two-thousand-dollar fee: Elias Hamden, Jr., the littlest Hamden, slipped Henry two crinkly hundred-dollar bills in an envelope over the table at the League Club.

  That became Henry’s standard; ten percent of the action was his. Other law firms were not as forthcoming as Hamden & Hamden. Broadhurst & Fenn needed prodding; Henry reminded old Mr. Pratt, a senior partner, that he had just been married, that keeping a wife was a costly business, that he often worried about keeping Louise happy. The next day, he received a wedding gift that came to slightly more than ten percent of Broadhurst & Fenn’s fee. After a while, he grew more direct. “I’m not interested in negotiating, Willard. Ten percent. Take it or leave it. There are other lawyers in Providence, you know.” Willard took it.

  For nine years Henry Cobleigh flourished, fed by the avarice of the leaders of the bar of Providence. He was tapped for membership in the city’s best club. He was too finicky now for prostitutes; his mistresses—the young widow of his father-in-law’s assistant pastor and the alto soloist of the Rhode Island Negro Spiritual Chorus—were as beautiful and cultured as his wife. They too received trinkets. And Spencer Howell, increasingly dependent on Henry’s canny judgment, sent him, first class, to New York and Charleston and finally to London as his personal representative; he returned with five Savile Row-tailored morning suits and a silver Queen Anne tea service, gifts from a grateful tool and dye maker who had received a Howell contract.

  But it was not enough. As Louise pointed out with increasing frequency, she was the only Kendall girl whose husband did not own a summer house in Newport. “Truly, Henry,” Louise said, “I’m not even thinking of one of those dreadful gaudy places. Just a sweet, modest cottage so we can summer near Abby and Irene. And Margaret. And Violet and Catherine. I know, I understand you don’t own a business like their husbands do, and I don’t want anything nearly so elaborate as they have. But something small and nice so I could be with my sisters. You would be so happy there too. Oh, you are my darling, darling man.”

  So Henry said to Reggie Blount, “I’m thinking about some real estate, Reggie.”

  “Oh?” Blount said. He was a partner in a firm that specialized in patent law, and he feared Henry was considering demanding more than his customary ten percent. “Any place in mind?”

  “My wife likes Newport.”

  “That’s rather dear, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Now, Reggie, I’ve been thinking about our arrangement. My taking ten percent doesn’t seem fair. Why don’t you simply add an extra, say, three—no, four thousand to your regular bill—I approve all the bills—and turn the difference over to me after you get the company check.”

  “Really, Henry, we have already gone further than we care to.”

  “There are other patent attorneys in Providence, you know. Take it or leave it, Reggie.”

  That evening, Reggie Blount paid a call on Spencer Howell. Mr. Howell refused to believe what he heard, but Blount stood firm and stayed for more than an hour. As he left, Spencer Howell lowered his head into his hands and wept.

  “But Mama, I don’t know what happened.” Louise Cobleigh’s eyes were swollen and pink, but her final tear had trickled away the week before. Still, she rarely put aside her handkerchief. She twisted it until its fine lace edging hung in threads. “He came home that morning and slammed the door—I had just that moment come from the dressmaker’s.” She paused and patted her dry eyes. “I was having that pale yellow dimity shortened a little more. You know the one, Mother, with the flowered ribbon edging and those tiny—”

  “Louise.” The Reverend Kendall’s voice rose from deep in his convex chest. It was a brilliant instrument, mellifluous and authoritative. “My dear child, we are in, alas, a most unfortunate position. Few of our connections are willing to, shall we say, disturb us with—well, evil tidings. Especially if the news concerns a member of the family. Therefore—”

  “Would you like some tea, Louise?” her mother asked. “Or perhaps—”

  “Mary, I was speaking.”

  “Oh, Roderick, forgive me. It was simply that she looks so terribly peaked.” Mary Kendall pressed her handkerchief hard against her eyes; she still had tears to shed for her daughter.

  “Father, please. All I know is that he came home that morning and told me he was finished working for Mr. Howell. And he just stays at home, in the morning room with the door locked. He’s gone out only a few times. And when I asked him what had happened, he told me it wasn’t my concern. Then—” Louise lowered her golden head in shame. “Father, he went to my jewelry box. He took nearly everything he’s ever given me, except for that pair of opal earrings I never really liked.”

  “Perhaps he has to sell them, Louise.”

  “Of course he has to sell them,” she snapped.

  “Louise!”

  “I’m sorry. But he gave the cook her notice. And the tea service is gone and so are the candelabra. And when I mentioned—truly, it was barely more than a little whisper—that they were missing he told me—he said, ‘Shut up, Louise.’”

  “Dear Lord!”

  “Mary!” The Reverend Kendall turned to his daughter. “Child, something serious is afoot. We must get to the bottom of it. From the little I’ve been allowed to know, it seems a most serious situation. Fraught with peril. But we will endure. We’re Kendalls, aren’t we?” The women nodded. “Don’t you worry, my dear. Let me take charge.” Roderick Kendall had a great Christian voice, strong and soft.

  Louise loosened her grip on her handkerchief and leaned back in the divan. “Oh, thank you, Father. I feel better already.”

  “I must think.” The Reverend Kendall pressed his index finger against his forehead, as if to accelerate the process. His voice, combined with pale, aristocratic features and eloquent gestures, made him a compelling figure. Few of his congregants recognized how profoundly superficial Roderick Kendall was. “It might be well, Louise, if you suggested to Henry that you—well, that you come home for a time. Stay with us until he—until his affairs—
”

  “Oh, Father, really? Could I?”

  “Roderick. How would that look?”

  “Hmmm.”

  Louise wiped her damp palms on the tissuey muslin of her dress. “Father, Mother. It’s been so very difficult. I’ve tried to speak with him, to be a proper helpmate to him, but he just reviles me.” Her mother reached across the divan and patted her arm. “I can’t tell you how hard I’ve tried to comfort him. But he pushes me aside. He says it’s all my fault. That all I ever think of is dresses and jewels, and you know that’s not true. I’m not selfish. I never once asked for anything. Never once. He just loved to shower me with gifts. And now he says I’m greedy.”

  “My dear,” Mary Kendall murmured.

  “And Father. I was cut by Mrs. Welles.”

  “I know, dear. Your mother told me. I’m certain it won’t happen again. Perhaps you’d be more comfortable here with us. But of course—”

  “Oh, no, Father. I feel I’m only a burden right now. And the house is so big, and the maids are complaining they haven’t been paid. It would be more economical. A help to Henry.” Her mother gave her another pat. “Just one small thing.”

  “What is that?” Roderick Kendall asked. Even in the dusky light of the parlor, he could see his daughter’s face redden. “Well, Louise?”

  “It seems I am in the family way.” She forced a small laugh which did not hide her mother’s gasp.

  “Oh, my!” Mary Kendall breathed. “Are you quite certain?”

  “Yes. I was planning on telling Henry the news three weeks ago. I mean, we’ve waited all these years and never…But then he came home that morning and—well, you know the rest.”

  “When is the day?” her father asked delicately. Louise muttered an answer. “Speak up, Louise!”

  “In about four months.”

  “You can’t mean you’re five—” Mary Kendall began.

  “Mother, please. I just wanted it to be a big surprise to Henry, and I didn’t want to tell you until Violet and Catherine had their babies because I knew you were worrying about them, and—and I didn’t want to wear those ugly clothes and since I didn’t get very—well, very large, I just thought wouldn’t it be a grand surprise for everybody and remember I had asked you and father to dinner for that Saturday and—”

  “‘For better or worse,’” the Reverend Kendall began to intone.

  “Father, no!”

  “‘For richer or poorer.’ How often I’ve spoken those words and yet how tragically simple it is to put them aside when they do not suit our whims. On reflection, Louise dear, perhaps your mother and I were overzealous in our desire to spare you some of the harsh—well, harsh may be too strong a word—some of the unpleasant realities a wife must endure and transcend in the course of married life. Yes, it would be wrong for you to leave Henry at a time like this.”

  “But Father, he’s so mean to me. He hates me. He blames me.”

  “Perhaps this—um, wonderful news will improve his spirits. Give him the faith and confidence he needs to—”

  “No! Please, Father, he hit me. He did. I swear it’s true. He slapped my face and called me a—”

  “Louise, Louise. Hush. It must have been a moment of great anguish. I know Henry. I’m certain it will not happen again. All will be well.”

  James Kendall Cobleigh was born on a cold, clear April night in 1912 to parents who did not want him. It was a pity. He was a beautiful baby.

  His mother looked upon him as the glue that stuck her forever in a repellent marriage. So she could not marvel at his eyes, more sparkling a blue than her own, or exclaim over the perfection of his tiny toenails, or wonder at the delightful chicken music of the peeps he emitted. She merely found his bowel movements unspeakably loathsome and the inch-square brown birthmark under his left ear a deformity. Most of the time she left him behind a closed door in the cradle her sister Abby had charitably handed down to her and only picked him up when his shrieks from hunger or pain from the festering rash from unchanged diapers were so loud as to break through her fog of silent fury.

  Now and then she tried to be a good mother. Several times she began to crochet a little hat, but she could never get the brim right and finally laid aside the wool when it became matted from the perspiration on her hands. Twice she pulled a chair up to the cradle and began a lullaby, but it ended the same way both times: James, frightened by the noise in his dark, silent bedroom, let out whoops of fright, and Louise, terrified by the monster she’d created, fled.

  His father seemed unable to love, and what little interest he had vanished when he realized the child was useless as a pawn in regaining money and status; Kendall hearts softened but did not melt at the sight of James. But however venal Henry was, he was not vicious. Now and then, hearing his boy’s cries, Henry would lift the baby from the cradle, sponge him clean, and carry him outside into the blinding sunshine and cool, rosy spring air. He’d sit in a splintery wooden lawn chair with James on his lap, humming an unrecognizable melody, his finger mindlessly tracing the child’s upturned nose and pink, pouty lips. (The melody was actually “Donny O,” and Irish lullaby Sister Concordia had sung to him when he was an infant.) But these backyard outings were the exception. As a rule, baby James was left pretty much alone.

  His parents had a lot to think about. On the day he fired Henry, Spencer Howell paid a call on the District Attorney, where he was told that commercial bribery was not a criminal offense in Rhode Island. He then visited Isaiah Bingham, president of the Bar Association, who, as luck would have it, was Mary Kendall’s first cousin. Bingham soothed Mr. Howell. “Dastardly! But Spencer, if you file a complaint, if this is bruited about, you’ll be—”

  “Be what? Be what, dammit?”

  “Laughed at, Spencer.”

  So Henry Cobleigh got off easy, although he left T. L. Howell & Sons at a bad time: he owed over ten thousand dollars to various jewelers, furriers, and antique dealers in Providence, and another twenty thousand to a stockbroker in Boston. He sold his wife’s jewelry and the family silver to pay some of his debts.

  At nine on a Saturday morning, a month before she was due to give birth, he locked Louise in a closet to muffle her hysterics and showed the house to prospective buyers. By noon he let her out because the house had been sold—for twenty percent less than he’d anticipated he would get.

  But he needed the money. After two days of seeking employment, Henry Cobleigh recognized that he was a pariah. Not one lawyer he called on would receive him. At the League Club, the butler cold-shouldered him, and Winthrop Craig, a trustee of Brown University with whom he had gone whoring, sneezed directly into his face, about-faced, and marched off.

  After he repaid the mortgage on the big brick house on Benefit Street, Henry had enough capital left to make two investments: a frame house with a termite-riddled front porch and a modest law office. Both were in Cranston, Rhode Island, a working-class town not far from Providence. Not that proximity was an issue; Louise’s agonizing embarrassment over her slide down the social ladder made everyone feel uncomfortable; instead of keeping her head high and her upper lip stiff, she would visit her sisters and weep, or stroke the velvet skirts of their new dresses and say, “I will never have anything as pretty as this ever again.” A year after she gave birth to James, she visited her father’s church for Easter service and wept in humiliation that she hadn’t even known about the change in hemlines. In the middle of her father’s sermon, when Roderick’s great, silky voice demanded, “If the son of God walked among us here in Providence, tell me, how would we greet him?” Louise’s huge sob was his only response.

  Nothing gave her pleasure. After James’s birth, seeking solace or thrills or maybe revenge, she gave herself to any tradesman who happened into the house, but their wet kisses and the red blotches they left on her throat and breasts neither excited nor disgusted her, so she stopped after fifteen men in three months. But by that time word had buzzed through the neighborhood, and she had to put up not only
with the snubs of the Cranston wives she herself had planned to snub but with the redundant propositions of the iceman and the palm tickles of the pharmacist returning her change as well.

  Although the Kendalls had always been teetotalers, Louise began to drink a cordial or two before bedtime, to ease into sleep. She was an alcoholic. Within six months, she was rarely sober and usually sloppy; her once-glorious golden hair hung in greasy strings. She forgot about time and, indeed, her own presence. Often she did not remember to bathe for weeks, and her stench remained in a room after she left it. She hardly ever saw her family in Providence.

  And Henry, booted out of the League Club for nonpayment of dues, too bloated from his own drinking and eating binges to fit into his Savile Row suits, broke and nearly broken, had long since left city life behind. Each morning, he would shuffle to his office; the soles of his handmade shoes quickly wore thin from his dragging feet. There, he’d smoke penny cigars and eat candy and occasionally handle the legal affairs of Cranston millhands and madams. Fat, pasty, and dispirited, he tried nevertheless to remain a lady’s man, but only the loneliest ladies accepted his mechanical advances and the only one who behaved tenderly toward him was a severely retarded sixteen-year-old who had been manhandled and mistreated by many of the local merchants into whose shops she’d wander. He had no men friends, for he trusted no one. The only thing that drew him was a Catholic church he passed each day, a boxy brick building pitted by the acid air. Occasionally the doors would be open and Henry would gaze at a statue of the Blessed Mother shining ivory in candlelight. But the church itself was dark except for the small red light signaling the presence of the Eucharist, and Henry could never make himself walk inside.

  So his son, James Kendall Cobleigh, grew up among the Italian-Americans of Cranston, a pale Protestant in a sea of Mediterranean Catholics. A good thing, too. They treated him with more love than his own parents did.