Point of No Return

by John P. Marquand

  “It’s an interesting thought,” he said, “but it might be that you’re oversimplifying.”

  Tony Burton looked at him in a fixed, cool way that made Charles think that perhaps he had said too much. It was necessary not to forget just who he was and what he was. It was necessary to assume a convivial attitude and yet not too convivial, to be familiar and yet not overfamiliar.

  “Sometimes you have a cryptic quality, Charley,” Tony Burton said. “I never seem to know lately whether you’re laughing at me or not. Sometimes you’re an enigma.”

  “Well,” Charles answered, “sometimes you’re an enigma to me.”

  When he heard Tony Burton laugh he knew that he had been familiar but not too familiar.

  “Oh, Jeffreys,” Tony Burton said. “How about another one, Charley?”

  “No, thanks,” Charles said.

  “Definitely not?”

  “Definitely,” Charles said. “You might start talking about books and authors again and I want to understand everything you say tonight.”

  It might have been too familiar but at least he had made a point. He waited smiling, watching Tony Burton, and he put his glass back on Tony Burton’s butler’s tray. He was thinking of what he had said to young Mrs. Whitaker in the apartment on Park Avenue when she had offered him a drink. He had told her that he did not think she would take one if she were in his place and she had said they were both very good for what they were. He watched Tony Burton and smiled an innocent friendly smile. He and Tony Burton were both very good for what they were. They had both been trained in the Stuyvesant Bank and they had the same veneer and discipline. He had come a long way from Clyde.

  “Tony,” Mrs. Burton called, “if you can stop talking business with poor Mr. Gray we might all go in to dinner.”

  “Now, Althea,” Tony Burton said, “Charley and I have a lot of other things to talk about. I wish you would get it out of your head that I always talk business with the boys.”

  The dining room with its heavy oak chairs, and an English leather screen placed before the pantry door, and its ornate Tiffany silver upon the massive sideboard, was also a long way from Clyde. The table, set for four, beneath another Waterford chandelier, looked too small for the room but imposingly beautiful with its Venetian tablecloth, its water and wine glasses and its bowl of tulips. He was glad there were only four of them because the conversation would be general and he would not have to talk to Mrs. Burton. He saw Nancy glance at him quickly as he sat down and he smiled at her. It was better to let the Burtons start the conversation. It was better not to say what a beautiful tablecloth it was or to speak about the tulips. It was better to make no remark about the surroundings that would show how little one was used to them, but there was no reason to worry, because Mrs. Burton was already speaking.

  It was so nice, she was saying, to have them drop in like this instead of coming to a large dinner. Eight was the limit for general conversation and four was better than eight, and she was thinking, just the other day, about the first time she had ever heard about Mr. Gray—from poor Arthur Slade. She did not think she had seen Mr. Gray since that accident. It was tragic and so unnecessary. They had both been so fond of poor Arthur, but then she knew that Mr. Gray knew all about flying. The conversation was moving very pleasantly. It was not necessary to think carefully of what he was saying, now that they all were talking. Tony Burton was asking Nancy about the children, as though he knew them very well, and while they talked the plates were changing. There were soup and guinea hen and then a salad and then dessert. He was glad that it was not a long or complicated dinner. There was no obvious sense of strain but all the while he felt that Tony Burton was watching him.

  “I wish,” Tony Burton said, “there weren’t so many words, or it may be because I’m getting old that they confuse me more than they used to. Somehow they keep having more shades of meaning. Now even with Charles and me it’s difficult. I say a word and he says a word and we can look it up in the dictionary, but it doesn’t mean the same thing to either of us and it would mean something a little different to Nancy and it would be a little different even to Althea. I don’t suppose this is a very new thought of mine, but it’s a thought.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about, Tony,” Mrs. Burton said.

  “But Charley knows,” Tony Burton said, “don’t you, Charley? We all may be worrying about the same thing but we worry about it in different ways.”

  It was startling to find that Tony Burton was thinking during dinner exactly what he had been thinking earlier.

  “Yes,” he said, “I know just what you mean.”

  He saw that Nancy looked startled too and he saw Tony Burton glance at her and then look back at him triumphantly.

  “I wish we could all get together,” Tony Burton said, “and we might do something with the world, but of course we never can get together. That’s the exasperating thing about it.”

  “Really,” Mrs. Burton said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tony.”

  Charles himself could not gather what this was leading up to, but as he watched Tony Burton he could see that Tony’s face was set in the expression he always wore when he was about to say a few graceful words before a group of people.

  “Perhaps I’m being cryptic now,” he said, “but all I’m saying is that I wish we might all be friends. I really hope we can be, in spite of anything that may happen in the future, and the future isn’t as clear as it used to be. That’s all I’m trying to say. And now if you girls will excuse us, I’m going to take Charley into the library. Charley and I want to have a little talk tonight but we’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  Mrs. Burton stood up and as Charles rose he felt a slight wave of nausea. He could only put one interpretation on that hope for friendship. He guessed the final answer to their little talk already. He felt the back of his chair biting into the palm of his hand but he still had to say the right thing.

  “Why, of course,” he said, “we’ll always be friends, Tony.” He said it automatically but he knew that they never had been and they never would be friends. They might wish it but it would never work for either of them, no matter what might happen.

  “Don’t stay too long and get too interested,” Mrs. Burton said. “I don’t see why Tony can’t ever get through his business in New York.”

  Charles was no longer thinking clearly as he walked with Tony Burton from the dining room. What he desired most was to behave in such a way that no one would have the satisfaction of seeing how deeply he was hurt. That desire was partly discipline and partly human instinct for concealment. His own reaction was what shocked him most because he had believed that he was prepared for bad news and that he would not consider bad news as complete a disaster as was indicated by the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Yet after that first moment the shock was giving way to relief. He suddenly felt free and a weight was lifted from him. There was no reason for him to try any longer, not the slightest reason. He did not know what he would say or do in that final interview but there was nothing more that he could expect from Tony Burton. He would never have to be obsequious and careful again. He would never have to go through anything like that dinner. If Tony wished that they could still be friends, this meant at least that Tony liked him personally, but that was inconsequential. There was no room for personal likes in a corporation.

  It was not far from the dining room to the smaller room where men customarily gathered. They both walked across that gloomy hall without speaking and space had lost its significance. He was actually walking also over the road of his career, a feeble little human track like the progress of a sea creature in sand. It stretched all the way from the day on the stage at the City Hall to the accounting department in Wright-Sherwin, to Johnson Street, to Rush & Company, to the day his father died, to New York, to the day he met Nancy downtown, and now the track was ending in that walk across the hall. There would never be the same hay in the bundle again. The ass
would never have to walk after it so assiduously. He might still be useful, but in a business way his career was as good as over. He had gone as far as he would go.

  It was amazing that his thoughts could move so far afield in such a short space of time. He was like a defeated general withdrawing to a prepared position. He could sell the house at Sycamore Park. Suburban real estate was still high. They could move to a smaller place. There would be funds enough to educate Bill, and there was that trust fund of his mother’s which would revert to him eventually. He would never have his present reputation but he would have the commercial value of an educated wheel horse, if he knew his place. He would never have to try so hard again.

  “It’s over,” he said to himself as he walked across the hall. “Thank God, it’s over.” It was the first time he had felt really free since the moment he had met Jessica at the firemen’s muster.

  Tony Burton’s room had always reminded him of the corner of a men’s club. It was filled with the mementos of the travels of Tony Burton, gathered on that trip to Bagdad and on two world cruises. There was a gilded Chinese Buddha on the mantel above the arched fireplace, and a Chinese ancestral portrait and other things, but Charles was no longer obliged to be interested in them. He seated himself in a comfortable armchair without waiting to see if it was Mr. Burton’s chair or not. He no longer had to bother.

  “Sugar and cream, sir?” Mr. Burton’s butler asked.

  “Just coffee, thank you,” Charles said.

  “And brandy, sir?”

  “No, thanks,” Charles said. “No brandy.”

  “Try it, Charley,” Tony Burton said. “It’s some of my father’s brandy. There isn’t much like it left.”

  Tony Burton was still standing up. He should have waited until Tony sat down but he no longer had to try so hard.

  “Nancy always says I shouldn’t drink after dinner,” he said, “but all right if you’re going to have some, Tony.”

  “Why not break down all the way and have a cigar?” Tony Burton said.

  “Why, thanks,” he answered. “I’d like one.”

  “Now that I think of it, I’ve never seen you smoke a cigar, Charley.”

  “I don’t often,” Charles said, “but I’d rather like one tonight.”

  Tony Burton was still standing and again he wore the look he customarily assumed when he prepared to say a few graceful yet pointed words.

  “Close the door, please, Jeffreys, when you go out,” Tony Burton said.

  It was like a meeting in the bank directors’ room when someone who came in with papers was told to close the door when he left. Charles leaned back comfortably in his chair. It was up to Tony Burton and he did not have to try. He was thinking of other talks in other libraries, the Judge’s library at Gow Street and that hypocritical library of Mr. Lovell’s and his own library at Sycamore Park. Thank God, it was all over, but he still had a detached, academic sort of curiosity. He was waiting to see how Tony would handle the situation. Tony was sometimes slow and fumbling with decisions but when he made up his mind he carried them through cleanly.

  “This friendship in business—” Tony Burton said. “It’s always bothered me. They shouldn’t be mixed together.” He must still have been thinking of that speech in the dining room.

  “They don’t mix together,” Charles said. “Don’t try to make them, Tony.” It was the first time he had ever spoken to Tony Burton exactly as an equal and it was a great relief. He flicked off the ash of his cigar and picked up his brandy glass and waited.

  “And yet they must mix,” Tony Burton said. “None of us can help it, Charley. If you see somebody every day, if you have any human instincts at all, you get interested in him. You’re bound to like him, or things about him. I like everybody at the bank. They’re like members of my family. Now take Blakesley. What do you think of Blakesley, Charley?”

  It was not a fair question and there was no reason to give a fair answer and besides it did not matter what he thought of Roger Blakesley.

  “What do you want me to think?” he asked, and he was glad to see that Tony did not like the answer.

  “It isn’t what I want.” Tony Burton gave his head an exasperated shake. “You and I are alone here, and you don’t have to be so damned careful. There’s no necessity for it any more. I want your opinion of him. Do you like him or don’t you?”

  “All right,” Charles said, “as long as it doesn’t matter any more, Tony. He’s conscientious, energetic, and well-trained, but I don’t like him much. Why should I?”

  “I rather like him,” Tony Burton said. “He’s been on my conscience lately. He’s been so damned anxious, so damned much on his toes. He’s always in there trying.”

  “I don’t know what else you could expect,” Charles said, and he was almost amused, now that there was nothing to gain or lose. “I’ve been trying pretty hard myself.”

  He had never realized that it could be such a delightful moment, to sit sipping Tony Burton’s brandy, entirely free, entirely without thought control.

  “Not in the same way, Charley.” Tony Burton shook his head again. “You’re subtler. You’ve developed, you’ve matured. You don’t fidget mentally—not in the same way, Charley.”

  “Thanks,” Charles said, “but I wouldn’t say that I’ve been very subtle, Tony.”

  Tony Burton shook his head impatiently as though he were being diverted from his train of thought.

  “Of course I’m out of touch with things, being where I am,” he said, “but I’ve been getting an idea lately … and maybe I’m entirely wrong. I wish you’d tell me, Charley. You’re more in touch with the office than I am and you’re in a position to know Blakesley.… It seems to me that he has some idea that we’re considering him for Arthur Slade’s place. Do you know anything about this, Charley?”

  “My God,” Charles said. “My God”; and he had a hysterical desire to laugh and then he found that he was laughing. “What did you think that Roger was considering?”

  “I didn’t give it much thought until about ten days ago,” Tony Burton said. “I’m glad if it amuses you. It doesn’t amuse me. When anyone gets ideas like that it’s a problem what to do with him later. You never thought that any of us were considering Blakesley seriously, did you? He was useful while you were away but he is not the right material. Of course, there had to be a decent interval after Arthur died but it never occurred to me that you’d have any doubts about it. Your name’s coming up before the directors on Monday. Now what do you think we’d better do about Blakesley?”

  Suddenly Charles felt dull and very tired.

  “You’d better tell him something, Tony,” he said, “instead of teasing him to death.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to on Monday. I don’t suppose I can put it off on anyone else,” Tony Burton said. “I should have discouraged him long ago. I’m sorry about the whole thing but perhaps he had better resign.”

  It was like the time at Dartmouth when he had won the half mile at freshman track. He felt dull and very tired.

  “That was all I meant in the dining room.” Tony Burton shook his head again. “Now that we’ll be working together more closely, Charley, I hope that we’ll always be friends.”

  Tony’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. There was a weight on Charles again, the same old weight, and it was heavier after that brief moment of freedom. In spite of all those years, in spite of all his striving, it was remarkable how little pleasure he took in final fulfillment. He was a vice-president of the Stuyvesant Bank. It was what he had dreamed of long ago and yet it was not the true texture of early dreams. The whole thing was contrived, as he had said to Nancy, an inevitable result, a strangely hollow climax. It had obviously been written in the stars, bound to happen, and he could not have changed a line of it, being what he was, and Nancy would be pleased, but it was not what he had dreamed.

  “Well, Tony,” he said, “I guess that means I can send Junior to Exeter,” and Tony Burton was asking why
Exeter? He would not send any boy of his to Exeter.

  They were on a different basis already, now that he was a vice-president. Automatically, his thoughts were running along new lines, well-trained, mechanically perfect thoughts, estimating a new situation. There would be no trouble with the directors. There were only five vice-presidents at the Stuyvesant, all of the others older than he, most of them close to the retirement age, like Tony Burton himself. For a moment he thought of Mr. Laurence Lovell on Johnson Street but Mr. Lovell would not have understood, or Jessica either, how far he had gone or what it meant to be a vice-president of the Stuyvesant Bank. Nancy would understand. Nancy had more ambition for him than he had for himself. Nancy would be very proud. They would sell the house at Sycamore Park and get a larger place. They would resign from the Oak Knoll Club. And then there was the sailboat. It had its compensations but it was not what he had dreamed.

  “A week from Saturday there’ll be a little dinner. It’s customary,” Tony Burton said. “You’d better be ready to make a few remarks.”

  “All right,” Charles said, “if it’s customary.”

  “And now we’d better go back and see what the girls are doing, unless you have something else on your mind.”

  “Oh, no, Tony,” he answered, “I don’t think there’s anything else.”

  They would have to turn in the old Buick as soon as he could get a new one. There were a great many things to think about but they could wait till morning.

  Nancy and Mrs. Burton were sitting together on a sofa in the living room and he thought they both looked relieved to see the men come back.

  “Well,” Mrs. Burton said, “I hope you two have settled the affairs of the world. You look as though you have, and poor Mr. Gray looks tired.”

  He saw Nancy look at him and Nancy looked tired too. He wanted very much to tell her the news but it would have sounded blatant. Then Tony Burton must have noticed that there was a sense of strain.

  “I don’t see why you keep on calling Charley Mr. Gray,” he said, “when Charley’s in the family—or at least he will be on Monday,” and then he must have felt that he should explain the situation further because he turned to Nancy. “I don’t suppose this comes as any great surprise. Why should it? It’s hardly talking out of school. Charley’s name is going before the directors on Monday, but I’ve spoken to them already. There won’t be any trouble.”