Point of No Return

by John P. Marquand

  “Well, this is a real occasion for you, Miss Gray,” Mr. Crewe said to Aunt Jane. “Alice Ruskin Lyte. What a tempting subject for Mrs. Gray, and one I am sure she will handle beautifully.”

  “Well, we won’t know till it’s over,” Aunt Jane said. “Charley, aren’t you going to shake hands with Mr. Crewe?”

  For some reason, some member of the family was always worrying for fear he would not shake hands with Mr. Crewe. He did not know why, because he always found himself trying to do it before he was told.

  “How Charley’s growing,” someone said. “He has his mother’s hair.”

  “And Charley won the fifty-yard dash at the picnic, didn’t you, Charley?” Mr. Crewe said. “What did you do with the prize?”

  “I ate it,” Charles said. He was stricken, because his answer made everyone laugh, and he edged furtively away from the little group, while Aunt Jane began talking to Mr. Crewe about a candlelight service on the Isles of Shoals. Then, while no one was looking, he walked alone into the Historical Society.

  The rooms were so crowded that he was allowed to wander unmolested from room to room and to encounter their confusion undisturbed. He did not realize until much later that it was a typical New England historical society, housing an odd assortment of things from garrets that combined to make an unscientific hodge-podge of the past. Yet its very disorder made so deep an impression on him that the unrelated, partially recognized objects in the hall and in the square rooms on either side occasionally appeared later in his dreams.

  In the hall were two antique settles, three flintlock muskets, some powder horns and fire buckets, a blunderbuss, and a canvas done by a journeyman painter of an old gentleman in a wig. To the left was the room dedicated to the Captains’ Club and the Poseidon Society and their collections from forgotten voyages. When he read Java Head some time later, he was strongly reminded of that room. Its walls were covered with paintings of ships, all bowling along under full sail, past lighthouses and Chinese pagodas, and between these pictures hung strange, rusted, rippling swords, and spears and clubs, a harpoon, and a few half models of the hulls of ships. He had seen most of those things before, in Mr. Burch’s antique shop at the foot of Dock Street on Dock Square, but he had never seen so many of them at once. On a table in the center of the room, enclosed by a glass case, was an exquisite model of a ship, all carved in bone, with her standing rigging all intact. In another corner, on a black and gold lacquer table, was a miniature pagoda, with wind bells hanging from its eaves, and on still another table was a row of sextants.

  Strangely enough, though the other rooms were becoming crowded, he was not conscious of people or of voices. The things there seemed to Charles to be wanting to return into the past, where they belonged. A soldier should have been wearing the moth-eaten Continental uniform that hung upon a clothing dummy. In another case, a bride should have worn the eighteenth-century wedding dress, and the Indian hatchet heads and gouges should have been back in a plowed field. They were all mixed together in those rooms—aboriginal arrowheads, muskets, candle molds, foot warmers, pine dressers, Chippendale sideboards, Lowestoft, pewter, and whales’ teeth and four-poster beds. The elderly ladies of the Historical Society were drifting past them.

  “That is a tooth extractor,” one of them was saying.

  “We have a better Chinese sewing box at home.”

  “We have some of that pink luster.” It seemed that they all had something better or the same, and this made a visit to the Historical Society an occasion for personal triumph.

  His Aunt Jane found him on the second floor, looking intently at a suit of Japanese samurai armor.

  “Charley, where have you been?” she whispered, just as though they were in church. “We’ll lose our place if we don’t hurry.” They moved downstairs, past more ship pictures, into the auditorium in the new brick wing. There was a buzz of voices in the auditorium and the slapping sound of folding wooden chairs, and the warm air smelt of cologne and talcum powder.

  “We’re sitting in front,” Aunt Jane whispered. “There’s your father. Move in beside your father.”

  John Gray was dressed in a gray flannel suit, and he raised his eyebrows slightly and patted the chair beside him.

  “How would you like an ice cream soda—if you could get it, Charles?” he asked. He spoke in a needlessly loud tone and Charles was embarrassed. “Look at your mother.” Then Charles saw that his mother was seated on a platform between Dr. Pond and Mr. Lovell. To Charles’s way of thinking, Mr. Lovell was peculiarly dressed, in a blue coat and white flannel trousers and a soft shirt, and he especially noticed the mourning band on Mr. Lovell’s sleeve—a sign, Charles knew, that Mrs. Lovell was dead. White flannels were still a novelty in Clyde, but they must have been correct if they were worn by Mr. Lovell. They made him look cool and aloof. His clean-shaven face was bronzed from the sun. He was smiling in a faint, embarrassed way and looking at his watch. Finally he put away his watch, rose, and walked over to a podium at the edge of the platform and glanced indecisively at a pitcher of ice water and two glasses on an antique candlestand. As Mr. Lovell stood up, the voices in the room died down, and he looked at the company in a tentative, agreeable way.

  “If we are all here,” he said, in a somewhat high but agreeable voice, “will the meeting come to order—not that this is one of our regular meetings but, rather, a delightful afternoon, or better still, an occasion.” Mr. Lovell fumbled in the side pocket of his coat, drew out a small card, and stared at it. “We will begin, as is eminently fitting in this place, with a prayer from Dr. Pond.”

  As the clergyman rose, Mr. Lovell backed hastily from the podium as though he were afraid that he might be caught out of his chair before the prayer began, and Charles put his hand over his eyes.

  “Oh, Heavenly Father,” Dr. Pond began, “as we gather here among the relics of our forefathers and as our thoughts go back to the past of our town, we pray that our present may be as glorious as its past. We supplicate Thee to give us the courage of our fathers, who sailed the seven seas, and may our bread, too, return to us when it is cast upon Thy waters.”

  Charles heard his father cough gently. The prayer was long and Charles had lost the thread of it. There was a creaking of chairs and Mr. Lovell stepped forward again, groping in his pocket for the card.

  “This, I think,” Mr. Lovell said—“no, I don’t think, I know—this is the twenty-seventh of our historical afternoons, and judging by the number present they are becoming increasingly successful. The other day”—he glanced at his card again—“I heard it said that New Englanders live too much in the past. It may be a bad habit, but whenever I come here, and I’m sure I wish we might all come here more often, I find it a rewarding habit. I think we are all better for realizing, as one must in a town like Clyde, that the present is a projection of the past, and I hope we will all grow increasingly to understand that this society is very much a part of Clyde, a piece of property to be shared equally by everyone who lives here. That is why I, and the other officers of this society, hope that you will all stay after our lecture for our tea party, supplied by our fellow member”—a frown creased his narrow, high forehead, and he glanced hastily at his card—“our fellow member Mrs. Jacob Plumm, so that we may all talk informally about Clyde as we have known it—and our future plans.”

  Charles heard his father cough again and he looked at his mother, who sat motionless in her armchair.

  “Our speaker this afternoon”—Mr. Lovell paused and smiled—“is not an imported speaker. She is what we might call local talent”—he paused and smiled again—“not that I do not mean local talent is not very good talent. This building springs from local talent, from its fine cornices, carved by our shipwrights, down to the stone arrowheads, made by our first inhabitants. Now”—he cleared his throat gently—“I imagine that all of us here know the Grays. For generations a Gray has always appeared when he or she was needed. On the little monument by the First Landing Place, you will see t
he name of a Gray. A Gray was in the Civil War, and most of us here remember our late friend, Judge Vernon Gray. Now we have another Gray with us, Mrs. John Gray, whose aunt was a friend of Miss Alice Ruskin Lyte. She, too, answers our call in our time of need, and she will speak to us on”—he glanced again at his card—“‘The Clyde of Alice Ruskin Lyte.’ Mrs.… Gray.”

  His mother stood up, and Charles felt his heart beat faster.

  “Every one of us here,” she began, “I am sure, has seen a certain gray stone house with a mansard roof …”

  Charles saw his father draw a handkerchief from his breast pocket and mop his forehead. She was reading it more quickly than she had at home and her words seemed breathless and frightened by the discreet silence they encountered. They seemed to flutter one after the other about the room, lighting in corners, hiding behind pictures. The pictures, like the motionless rows of people, seemed very used to words. The portraits, by journeyman painters, of men who looked uncomfortable in stiff coats and of women sitting in startled erectness, seemed to be following the discourse as carefully as the living people on the chairs, but the pictures of the square-rigged ships, with their owners’ flags flying in long streamers, kept on sailing, involved in their own navigational problems, bending before their artistic breezes, their bows cutting furrows through even regiments of waves.

  She was getting near the end of it now. She was coming to the part that had a poem in it … “As Longfellow, Miss Lyte’s old friend, expressed it so beautifully once—‘the beauty and mystery of the ships, and the magic of the sea.’” The ships in the Clyde Historical Society looked desiccated, devoid of mystery. There was nothing but a dry-as-dust accuracy in their realistic rigging and there was no magic in their painted seas—but now his mother’s voice had stopped.

  “Thank you,” she said, and her voice sounded more natural. “Thank you very much for listening.”

  Then he heard the applause around him.

  “Clap, Charley,” his father said. “It’s over.”

  “And I’m sure we are all most grateful to Mrs. Gray for a charming paper and a delightful afternoon.” Mr. Lovell was calling above the rattling of the folding chairs, “And now shall we all adjourn to the Council Room for tea?”

  Charles and his father walked to the edge of the platform.

  “That was magnificent, Esther,” John Gray said, “perfectly magnificent.”

  “It was,” Mr. Lovell said. “It was a most interesting paper. Any time I want a good paper, I know where to go, John.”

  “And the introduction was even better,” John Gray said. “It was superb. I ate up every word of it, Laurence. I don’t believe you know my son Charles, do you?”

  “Well, well,” Mr. Lovell said, “I don’t believe I do. And now we’d better get some tea.”

  “Let’s go out on the lawn,” his father said to Charles and his mother, “instead of getting in the crowd. Someone will bring us tea.”

  When they were standing on the lawn, just before the ladies came to tell his mother what a lovely paper it was, Charles heard her say to his father:

  “You shouldn’t have been so sarcastic, John.”

  “To you or to Laurence?” his father asked.

  “John,” his mother said, “you know what I mean, but perhaps he didn’t notice. Here he comes. He’s bringing us some tea.”

  “Oh, there you are,” Mr. Lovell called. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  “Why, thanks, Laurence,” John Gray said. “You keep that cup and stay with Esther. I’ll get some.”

  “Why don’t think of it, John,” Mr. Lovell said. “It’s a pleasure. Here.”

  “Well, thanks, Laurence,” John Gray said. “It just goes to show I’m always right. I was just telling Esther if we came out here we’d get some tea.”

  The locusts in the elm trees were scraping out sad high notes which rose and fell in the still air, making a sound which Charles always associated with a hot summer afternoon in Clyde. More ladies, all holding teacups, were appearing on the lawn.

  “Here they come,” John Gray said. “Here’s your public, Esther.”

  Then Charles saw Miss Lovell, and Jessica in her patent leather slippers and white socks, and Mr. Lovell saw them too.

  “Why, Jessie darling,” Mr. Lovell said, and he knelt on the grass and threw his arms around her. “How’s my little girl?”

  It did not seem right that Mr. Lovell should make such an abandoned gesture of affection right on the lawn of the Historical Society, and it made Charles feel sorry for Jessica because of what people might say. No one, however, seemed to feel it was in bad taste. Instead of being embarrassed, everyone stood watching the little scene with understanding sympathy.

  “Isn’t it sweet?” Charles heard someone say. “It’s as pretty as a picture.”

  “Pa,” Jessica said, “can’t we go home now, please?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Lovell answered, “in just a few minutes, Jessie.”

  2

  A Place for Everything

  The way to learn about Clyde was to be brought up there. One learned who the Lovells were imperceptibly by a word here and there, and one grew up knowing that the Lovells could say what they wanted and do what they wanted and that they would always be right no matter what they said or did. One learned that there was a living plan in Clyde, without ever learning exactly what the plan was, for it kept growing as one grew, starting with Spruce Street and one’s own back yard and spreading up to Johnson Street and down to Dock Street.

  Everyone had a place in that plan and everyone instinctively seemed to know where he belonged. Its completeness reminded Charles of what his Aunt Jane said once when she was arranging the flat silver in the sideboard of her dining room—everything in its place and a place for everything. The Irish, for instance, had their place, and so had the French-Canadians and the new immigrants, like the Italians and the Poles, who naturally belonged close to the Wright-Sherwin factory and the shoeshops. There was a place for the North Enders, too. They lived in the North End and went to the North End Congregational Church and even if they lived in other parts of Clyde they were still North Enders.

  The same sorts of people, he learned, usually lived in the same sections of Clyde; but you began to learn quite early, without ever knowing how, that certain people who lived on Johnson Street were not Johnson Street people, and hence, because you knew, their living on Johnson Street did not disturb the plan. For example, the Stanleys lived on Johnson Street. They had bought the old Holt house, and it was still called the Holt house though the Stanleys lived in it. Mr. Stanley, everyone knew, was richer than the Lovells or the Thomases or old Miss Sarah Hewitt. You could tell this from his new greenhouse and from the number of men who worked on the garden and the lawns; and Mr. Stanley had a Cadillac automobile, driven by old Arthur Stevens, who had worked for the Holts and whose brother was a clam digger. Yet the Stanleys’ prosperity was without the same face value as that of others. They lived on Johnson Street but they did not belong there.

  You came to understand that the Holts, who had sold their house to the Stanleys and had moved to the North End, still belonged on Johnson Street. Miss Sarah Hewitt’s house needed painting and Mr. Fogarty, who worked for her and for the Lovells too, only gave her one day a week, but Miss Sarah Hewitt belonged on Johnson Street. The same was true with the Lovells. They had always been on Johnson Street. You understood that Mr. Lovell was not very rich but his money somehow had the dignity of age. You heard it spoken of as the Lovell money. He was a director of the Dock Street Savings Bank and a trustee of the West India Insurance Company, which were both partially founded on Lovell money. He was a trustee of the public library, also partially founded on Lovell money. You came to understand that Mr. Stanley could do more generous things because he was richer, and anyone who was richer could do these things of course, but his contribution did not have the same value as a Lovell or a Hewitt contribution. You seemed to know these things implicitly.

/>   The same was true with Spruce Street. The Grays belonged on Spruce Street and so, too, did the Masons, who lived next door; but when Vincent Sullivan, who was in the contracting business and who had the contract for the addition to the Wright-Sherwin plant, bought the house on the corner of Spruce and Chestnut, he still did not belong on Spruce Street. Everyone knew that Mr. Sullivan’s father had been the Lovells’ gardener and that Mr. Sullivan had driven a truck for the Bronson Shoeshop until he had invested his father’s savings in the old livery stable on South Street. You could not get away from your past in Clyde and few wanted to get away from it, perhaps because it was not worth trying.

  There were no secrets in a town like Clyde and so, of course, everyone knew all about the Grays. Everyone knew that John Gray was harder to place than some people because he was different from other people, and Charles must have always been aware of that unspoken difference. No matter what his father did or said, he had a right to be different because he was the Judge’s son. He had always been a wild boy and had given the Judge a hard time, but everyone knew Johnny Gray. They could remember the time when Johnny Gray had a fight with Martin Donovan and when he stole a trolley car out of the carbarn and drove it down to the beach with a lot of boys from high school. It had been hard for the Judge to clear that one up, but everyone knew Johnny Gray. He was not lazy, but he never stuck to anything. He and Laurence Lovell had started out in Harvard together and they might have been friends but he didn’t even bother to go with the right people. Still, Miss Hewitt always had a kind word for him and so had the Thomases.