Time Out of Mind

by John R. Maxim

  The elevated had done all this. All that was up here before the elevated were tiny farms and squatters' shacks and pigs and sheep roaming freely. And rocks. Rocks and boulders everywhere. These had to be cleared. And broad avenues laid out. And trees planted. At first fast-growing evergreens, which would shoot up fifteen feet in a mere three seasons and then pause to wait for the the slower elms and pin oaks. Cyrus Field had done this. His Ninth Avenue Elevated curling up beyond Morningside Heights meant that all those office workers who'd been forced to live in New Jersey or Brooklyn and rely on uncertain ferries could now live an hour or more closer to their jobs. A horsecar from Central Park to City Hall could take an hour and a half, but Field's elevated line could cover that distance in just twenty-eight minutes. Even from Morningside Heights and the country lanes of Harlem, the ride lasted no more than three quarters of an hour. And for only five cents. For ten cents, of course, one could choose to ride in one of the elevated's apple-green parlor cars with mahogany paneling on the walls, real Axminster carpets on the floor, and seats of red leather. For pleasant viewing, each car had seven high-arched windows a side. Instead of the slat blinds of ordinary cars, the windows had tapestry curtains trimmed in red leather to match the seat coverings and mounted on spring rollers whose mechanisms were concealed by cornices. All Field's doing. Other men may claim credit but it was Field. That such a man should be ensnared and broken ...

  Corbin folded his arms across the top of the empty front seat and rested his chin upon them. More fine old homes drifted past. Some of them, more than a few, he felt as if he knew. Ahead lay a wide stretch of Riverside Drive, where he—where Tilden and Margaret had cycled. And an inn, the Claremont Inn, where they'd dined. More than dined. They'd stayed there, had they not? Yes, Margaret had taken a room there until the house was ready. And right across there, at the foot of that hill, was the stable where he'd rented the rig in which he took her to see her first baseball game over at the Polo Grounds. They'd tethered their horse to a cast-iron weight right in the outfield of the New York Mets—he must learn to stop calling them that, the public fancy these days being to call them the Giants although he was at a loss to explain why when Margaret asked. The biggest player on the team was Roger Connor, at three inches over six feet, followed by Del Gillespie, who was the same height as Tilden. None of the other players, to his knowledge, was over six feet. Not Buck Ewing or Monte Ward or the outfielder Silent Mike Tiernan, whose back was to them all afternoon as they lunched from the picnic hamper assembled by the Claremont Inn. But who can explain the public fancy where nicknames are concerned. The Boston team is called the Beaneaters and that makes sense enough. And the Brooklyn players are the Trolley Dodgers, although of late they are being called the Bridegrooms, four members having been wed in as many weeks this past spring.

  “Would anyone like some grapes?” Gwen Leamas opened the cake box Cora Starling had handed her.

  “Not just now, dearest,” Corbin murmured.

  Gwen quietly put the box aside and touched Harry Sturdevant's shoulder. Sturdevant nodded, indicating that he'd heard.

  “Nice day,” he said to Corbin.

  “It certainly is.” Corbin did not move his chin from its resting place on his arms. The roadway, the river, the buildings of the West Side, had faded. Before him, Corbin saw only a broad green field dotted with men dressed in white except for their caps and he wished he'd brought a pair of opera glasses because Buck Ewing was at bat as the potential winning run and Hank O'Day was on second with two out. Brooklyn's Adonis Terry had the full count on Ewing who seemed baffled by Terry's underhand curve ball which Terry would change to an overhand fastball every time Buck thought he had figured Terry's number. Corbin didn't know how he could since even from his distant vantage point he could see that a considerable flap had been torn in the ball's hide and a new ball wouldn't be allowed unless there was another inning. Every time Adonis Terry got his hands on the ball he would tear the flap a little more and in a different direction so that with each pitch the ball would do ever-crazier things.

  “You're Tilden Beckwith, aren't you?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I say, you are Tilden Beckwith, are you not?”

  Corbin made a please-wait motion with his fingertips. That was Harry Sturdevant. He knew that. And he knew what Gwen's uncle was trying to do, but the fact is he was not Tilden Beckwith at the moment. But he was trying to watch a game. And even if he were Tilden Beckwith it should have been clear to Harry that if he wished for social intercourse during the game he would have sat in the grandstand and not out here at the outfield's perimeter. Besides, he was in the company of a lady and it was just possible that he might not care to be put in the position of having to introduce her. In any case, there's the pitch and—oh no, Bucky, not a fly ball—oh, oh, look out. A sigh rose from the grandstand because Ewing, having choked up on his bat for a hard ground ball through the infield, had caught the pitch low and fat and the result was a looping fly to right field. But the crowd's dismay turned to astonishment, then glee as the mischief Adonis Terry had worked upon the ball being pitched had a similar effect on the ball in flight. There was the right fielder waiting for an easy catch but the ball played him false and died like a bird shot on the wing and the right fielder made his desperate lunge too late. The crowd was screaming as Hank O'Day headed home and Buck Ewing had rounded second and against their advice was dashing toward third. Slide, Ewing, slide, they screamed and this he heeded but he threw his body high in the air in a broad jumper's attitude, hurtling toward the aghast third baseman and diverting his eye from the ball which now whizzed past him and into a crowd of onlookers, one of whom promptly pocketed it. Giants, Giants, the fans chanted as Buck Ewing crossed home plate and as the Brooklyn players threw their hats and gloves to the ground in frustration.

  “Giants.”

  “What?” Gwen asked.

  Corbin sat upright, embarrassed. “I'm sorry, sweetheart. What did you say?”

  ”I didn't say anything. You said ‘Giants.’ ”

  “Just daydreaming.” He wiped his eyes. ”I was thinking about a baseball game.” But the details of it were receding as fast as the passing landscape.

  “As yourself or as Tilden Beckwith?” Sturdevant turned his head but kept his attention on the road ahead of him.

  ”I don't know.” He stretched. “It was nothing. Just a daydream.”

  Gwen did not press the question of where he'd been nor, more surprisingly, did Harry Sturdevant. Corbin pretended not to notice the eye contact between them in the rearview mirror nor did he react, other than to smile inwardly, when Sturdevant announced that some music would be nice and made a production out of selecting an appropriate tape cassette. He was fairly sure that Sturdevant would not be so obvious as to pop in a Gilbert and Sullivan tape of Iolanthe, but he might play something by Corelli, the composer Corbin said he'd never heard of before he told that story about asking the Palm Court's violinist to play a more lively piece. But no, the label he chose said Gustav Mahler. Corbin was not really familiar with Mahler's work, but he would have bet anything that the piece he was about to hear was a hot ticket back around 1888.

  Choral music. Against an orchestral background. German words and voices. That, he guessed, was as close as Sturdevant dared come to playing an operetta. This was fine, but Corbin would have preferred Bach. He sat back to enjoy the ride.

  Out the window, on both sides, he could see straight up and down the Harlem River as the car left Manhattan and crossed into the Bronx. Just ahead of him and to his right he saw Yankee Stadium, and that made him turn in his seat to see if he could spot the Polo Grounds. There was nothing. Just a housing project. It didn't matter. The more or less modern stadium that had been there wasn't the way it used to be anyway. It used to be wonderful. The first Polo Grounds, the one where he'd taken Margaret, was much farther downtown, right at the upper corner of Central Park but not part of the park. He hated to see it move but the city needed the land and for the
last five years the owners had let it go to seed. Peeling paint. Rotted benches. More dirt than grass on the field. But the new field was magnificent. Big new grandstands, with two tiers, and then bleacher seats along the third-base line. You could take the elevated right to the gate and, in fact, some special trains would park there and you could remain inside and watch the game if you wanted. The best way to watch the game was still from the upper deck of the grandstands, where everybody had hampers and pails of beer, but the most comfortable way, especially if you wanted a little privacy, was, as before, from a surrey in the outfield, where they staked off a carriage area maybe three hundred feet from home plate which meant that during any given game you'd still see an outfielder scrambling under a horse to retrieve a ball and sometimes even playing one he'd hidden in the outfield grass against an emergency.

  Margaret.

  He had not exactly lied in not telling Gwen that Margaret was there. It was just that it wasn't any of her business. There. It sounds harsh, doesn't it, when you put it into words. But there were some things about Margaret that Gwen just didn't have any right to know, and some feelings neither he nor Margaret had any obligation to share, and, come to that, some of it seemed even too personal for him, Corbin, to know about.

  Is it possible, he wondered, that Tilden's ghost, if that's what it is, or Jonathan Corbin's ancestral memory, if that's what it is, is capable of picking and choosing what Jonathan Corbin is permitted to know. And know is the right word, isn't it? It's not the same as remembering. It's not the same as revelation or discovery either. It makes you wonder if everybody has a Tilden Beckwith. Sturdevant sure thinks they do. Maybe dozens. Hundreds. Hearing from them is just a matter of the right stimulus coming along and the right switches being thrown.

  Talk to me, Tilden. Am I your great-grandson? Talk to me. I mean, you let me stand there watching while old Ella gets frozen stiff, you take me to bars, you take me to ball games that happened a hundred years ago. I think you took me to a whorehouse in New York, but it's as though you made me stand facing the corner in that one. Okay, how about just answering yes or no. That whorehouse was— Tilden, why did I just get the feeling you don't like it when I call it a whorehouse? How about seraglio? Bagnio? You can't be crazy about bawdy-house either. Establishment? You want establishment. Okay. You met Margaret for the first time in that establishment, right? She was one of the— Let's not go through that again. Whatever she was doing there, that's where you met her. I think she played music for you and I think there was something about how she could be exclusively yours if you—if you what? If you bought a season ticket? What?

  Suddenly Corbin winced. Something, somehow, had made him feel deeply ashamed of himself. He felt as if his face had just been slapped.

  I'm sorry.

  I really am.

  She was special to you. I understand that because I've felt it and because she's special to me, too. One way or the other you got her out of there. You didn't plan to. You didn't intend to go back there even though you were very attracted to her. Something about the whole thing was making you sick. But you did go back and you—what? You paid some woman, and you took her out of that life. Right? Tilden?

  That's wrong, isn't it. It didn't happen quite that way. I know that because I'm beginning to feel ashamed again except it isn't really me who's feeling ashamed.

  It's okay.

  It's enough that you got her out of there.

  Tilden had. But not right away. The twin beds had done it. The cold wall of frigid air that persisted between himself and Ella had done it. And a sleepless night spent staring into the blackness at the slender form of Margaret Barrie and into the lost and frightened sadness of her eyes. And feeling his manhood rise against his sheet and becoming disgusted with himself because of the animal lust it signaled and because he was finding that he had little will after all to resist the cold logic of Georgiana's proposal. He needed time to think. But there was only until tomorrow evening. Then, if Georgiana is to be believed, Margaret goes on the block to the highest acceptable bidder. Impossible. That cannot be allowed. And Georgiana, that witch, knows full well that Tilden Beckwith will not permit it.

  “Margaret”—Georgiana Hastings's manner had a special gladness to it—“you remember Mr. Beckwith, do you not?”

  “Of course.” She offered her hand.

  “In the room upstairs just past the Greek urn,” Georgiana said to Tilden, ’”you will find a bottle of champagne on ice. A light supper will be brought up shortly. I suggest that the two of you go there now and take all the time you like to become better acquainted.”

  Tilden rubbed a nervous hand across his chin, freshly shaven at his office for the occasion. He wished he'd bathed a second time as well; he had not counted on perspiring so.

  “Now, Tilden. You may go now if you wish.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” He offered a solemn arm to Margaret, who was waging an equally losing battle to appear at ease.

  ”I want to know about you.” Tilden refilled her glass, his hand somewhat steadier than when first he poured. “Will you tell me about yourself?”

  “It isn't really done, I'm told.” Her honest eyes did not avoid his. “To speak of personal things, I mean.”

  “On the contrary,” he answered. “Not that I am greatly experienced here, but several of the girls have told me their entire histories.”

  “They made them up, I think,” she replied uncertainly. “They will answer such questions if it pleases a patron to want to know more about them. But these histories are rehearsed, sometimes invented upon the moment. Do you know the girl called Little Annie?”

  “The one who dresses like a child, yes.”

  “She helped me make one up for myself. I will tell it to you if you wish.”

  “But, dear Margaret,” he asked, “what would be the point if it isn't true?”

  ”I think it is to satisfy your curiosity without troubling you unduly.”

  “And possibly to let your patron feel he's more a friend than a cash customer?”

  ”I expect so. Yes.”

  “Is it your intention to so delude me, Margaret?”

  “Oh no, Mr. Beckwith.” She seemed genuinely upset that she had given that impression. “My intention is only to please you. I would have told you my story straightaway, but I am not yet artful enough at it.”

  “At what? Lying?”

  “Entertaining.” Tears were forming in her eyes. She knew, Tilden could see, that she was making a bad job of this. .

  “Margaret”—Tilden paused, searching for words— “how artful are you at pleasing a man?”

  “The girls have told me some things. And they've shown me drawings in books.” .

  “But you are not, as you say, artful at it.”

  A single tear cut a shiny ribbon on her cheek. ”I will try to please you, Mr. Beckwith.”

  There was a rap at the door. Margaret rose to open it, taking that opportunity to blot her eyes as a tray was pushed into the room by a maid in uniform. Margaret waited until she retired, then, putting a mask of cheer upon her face, began preparing a plate for Tilden.

  “Margaret—”

  “These oysters are excellent. The sauce is coriander and honey.”

  “Margaret.” Tilden stepped to her and took the plate from her hands. “Margaret, why in God's name are you doing this?”

  The young woman swallowed hard. “Mrs. Hastings assured me that she explained my situation to you.”

  “Only in the vaguest terms. She told me that you were considering, only considering, a life of—this sort of life.”

  ”I have made my decision.” She dropped her eyes. ”I would like to try to please you now.”

  “Margaret”—he touched her cheek—“can we not just visit a while?”

  Her lower lip trembled. She bit it. Then, having steeled herself, she reached for the lapels of his coat.

  “Margaret.” He threw up his hands and backed away. “This entire affair is absolutely ridiculo
us. You have no business whatever in a place like this.”

  ”I can do it.” The tears came again. ”I can please you. Oh sir, must we talk so much?”

  “No,” he told her. Tilden reached for her shoulders and drew her against his chest, very lightly, as he might comfort a daughter or niece. He could feel a heaving at her bosom and a quivering along the muscles of her back. She wore no corset. She was all softness. ”I would very much like to try the oysters,” he said.

  Tilden barely tasted them, or the slices of cold woodcock on toast points, or the small dish of lemon sorbet. Margaret quickly regained her composure and was making amiable conversation, no doubt rehearsed, on subjects in which he was known to have a special interest. Tilden’s mind, however, was in turmoil. On the one hand, there he was in the presence of one of the most charming and lovely young ladies he had ever seen, who was perfectly prepared to offer her body to him in any way he chose to use it. It was all he could do to keep his eyes from lingering upon her breasts and her waist and on her gentle hands, whose marvelous dexterity he had already witnessed. On the other hand, though he wanted her beyond his powers of forbearance, his head swam with reasons why an act of such lasting consequences should be avoided or at least postponed. It simply could not be that no other alternatives existed for her. Women everywhere were becoming teachers, bookkeepers, journalists, even doctors and lawyers. Margaret already knew how to be a typewriter and how to keep ledgers. These were enviable skills for a woman, and Tilden was certain that he could help her find a situation in which she could earn at least a thousand a year and possibly half again that much until a suitable husband came along. As for making a good marriage, it was true that she had dim prospects in any stratum of society which would insist upon a blameless reputation and a well-defined lineage, but there were any number of good and honest fellows who were making their own way in life and who lived in worlds where few such questions would be asked. Such a charming young lady would find no shortage of proposals of the decent sort.