The Fan-Shaped Destiny of William Seabrook

by Paul Pipkin

  Lee’s lover, Man Ray, being easily as egotistical, less voyeuristic, and more hung-up than Willie, it was as likely Lee’s independent potential as much as her promiscuity that led to their parting. It was neither so much a matter of her showing off in abbreviated outfits at the parties of Noailles and other patrons nor of running off with other lovers. Jean Cocteau’s choice of Lee for a film role led directly to the estrangement.

  Lee was destined to have a wonderful life, become an icon of sunlit sensuality for the Western world through very dark decades. For Man Ray, in her absence she became the inspiration that Justine had served for Willie. I had played with the notion that she was somehow another part of a composite erotic synthesis, though it seemed evident that, for Willie as well, Lee had been “the one who got away.”

  “So, did Lee play?” Justine asked, her interest seemingly drawn back just a bit.

  “Well, not with Willie. Lee liked to watch the bondage photography, but she turned down his entreaties for her to pose.70 Man Ray had a story about Willie telephoning them to come by his studio in Montparnasse one evening. It seemed he was going out for the evening with Mink …”

  “Who?” Justine snapped, peevishly.

  “Willie’s pet name for Marjorie. Anyway, it developed into a request that Man Ray and Lee baby-sit a girl whom Willie had chained to the newel of the staircase …”71

  Uncomfortably similar to the night in Mississippi, I was interrupted as Justine grew distinctly agitated. This time, however, I was able to ascertain the ominous cause. We were at Hyde Park, and the road ran close again to the River. She was looking nervously about for the legendary River mansions. My enthusiasm for the story plunged, and she lapsed once more into that uncharacteristically moody reverie.

  When, in the late afternoon, we gained the bridge across the mile-wide expanse of the Hudson, I felt we were being propelled, as by an elemental force, into the dark heart of the mystery. The law office was tucked away on North Front Street, overlooking the old Stockade historical district. That was the collection of stone structures that had survived the Revolution, when the Redcoats had burned Kingston to the ground.

  ————————

  THE QUALITY OF THE SUNLIGHT had slightly but perceptibly shifted with the change in latitude. I was glad I had a jacket and was reminded that, not much farther up the road, beyond the time-haunted houses of Saugerties, lay the back door into New England—Stephen King country, H.P. Lovecraft country. As when “crossing the Styx” in the Mississippi night, I felt we had come to yet another edge of the known world.

  That mind-set, perhaps coupled with the old houses we’d seen while driving up, was working on me when we did not find Roder in the office and were obliged to wait for a bit. From the window I surveyed the Stockade and reflected on possibly the only good lines of poetry Lovecraft ever wrote—of slanting sunlight on ancient stone structures, painting with life the shapes of the past. He’d imagined an aether in some old things that whispered of hidden dimensions.

  “Even in his time, we still felt our connection to the Enlightenment. Americans regarded the ‘Lords of Great Britain’ as the enemy, or very dubious allies at the least,” I felt called upon to pontificate on the Stockade’s history. “That was before American dignitaries felt moved to bend the knee to their royalty, an act that in earlier time would have properly brought a charge of treason.”

  Justine was quite justifiably ignoring me, still lost in a world all her own. I looked back at the lowering sky and was struck by the effects of an unfamiliar place on one’s psyche. The eccentricity of the views expressed was audible even as they came from my mouth. I’d never been an Anglophobe or particularly given to political symbology. I was debating whether the odd burst might not be mere avoidance of Lovecraft’s final line: “In that strange light, I feel I am not far, from the fix’t mass whose sides the ages are.”

  Roder, a large man, somewhat older than myself, arrived with profuse apologies for having made us wait. He kept glancing nervously at Justine as he ushered us to a conference table in the library. He then reminisced on the days when he’d been a young intern with the firm, and Seabrook had been still recalled as a colorful fixture of local history. The founding partners had regarded their continuing custodianship of his purported final work as a source of some small pride, a lingering connection with the past and to history, as it were.

  Introduced as a vaguely defined friend of the family, I expressed the reverence in which Justine held the effects, extending appreciation for the firm’s good stewardship over the decades. I inquired whether he had known the elder Justine.

  “The old partners handled the important clients personally,” he responded. “They did business with the Astors, the Dows, Van Dorens, Chapmans—all the old families.” His eyes repeatedly appraised Justine as he talked. “I would only briefly glimpse her come and go, in the instances that she visited the office, back in the fifties and sixties.”

  He explained that he had to meet with Justine personally to conclude a final bit of business. “I’m sorry that we could not forward the effects on to you. Mais naturellement, the ancillary device we have on file is unequivocal. The bequest is conditional upon receipt in person.”

  I began to assure him that the conditions were understood, but he cut me off and continued to Justine, “My dear, I am as you see, Québécois. I hope you will take my heritage into account and not be offended by a compliment. The way you carry yourself, so dignified while at the same time so sensuous—you remind me of her so much that the years roll away. You bring back, into this very room, the ambiance of the one circumstance when she met with me personally.”

  Roder seemed chagrined by his forwardness and, while Justine smiled gracefully, he possibly took the chill I was feeling as disapproval. He hastened to a huge old wall safe, returning with a large wrapped package, which he deposited before her.

  “On her final visit, she asked to speak with me, as the youngest member of the firm. It was an exceptional conversation, à la langue française, by the way—at her pleasure. She instructed me to ensure a verbal message be delivered, designating the beneficiary of her estate, by whomever would eventually finalize this business.”

  Still exquisitely poised, Justine lifted an eyebrow, and Roder looked flustered, “It was a single phrase, all that I can remember her speaking en bon anglais, to be directed to you. But of course, you were not even born when—I can see her yet with the tears in her eyes—she bequeathed her legacy …

  “‘TO THE ONE WHO PERHAPS CARED THE MOST.’”

  ————————

  In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Roder busied himself with the wrappings, and I looked at Justine. She would only shrug, but the profound pain betrayed around her own eyes troubled me. He placed in her hands a large leather portfolio, beginning to crack with all the years. Her fingers trembled as she struggled with the old zipper.

  Then she just stared at the stacks of notepads of every description, clipped bundles of loose scraps, and some typewritten sheets that lay exposed before her. Her vibrating fingertips moved over the array and stopped upon a small bundle of envelopes. They were tied in the old fashion with faded ribbons, not unlike those in her cedar chest at home. Seated close to her, I could feel the tension in her body as I read the front of the top one, addressed to Madeleine Leiris from William Seabrook.

  As Justine struggled for control, I could see Roder’s wonder at the degree to which the young heiress was moved by the touch of those long-ago people. Almost inaudibly, she asked about the manuscript itself. Taken aback, the attorney reddened and apologized for being derelict. He confessed that, knowing she would be coming for it soon, he’d been trying to read it. As he hurried to retrieve it from his office, Justine looked at me, brushing at the tears that had welled up.

  “It hurts so much,” she whispered, “and I don’t even know why! It’s as if the simple reality of these little pieces of their lives is too much to bear.”

 
Roder returned to surrender the volume. Though it allegedly consisted of a narrative extracted from the notes, the elder Justine appeared to have treated it as a completed work by Willie. The typed sheets had been professionally bound inside a lavish, oversize set of covers.

  Justine opened it to the front sheet, which could well have been typed on the old Underwood upright from her desk. It read simply, The Fan-Shaped Destiny. Visibly emotional, Justine excused herself and went unsteadily to find their facilities. Roder expressed nothing short of awe at such a young person being overcome by the matters of relatives she had never known.

  “She’s an exceptional young woman,” I replied to him, with resignation more than pride.

  “Without a doubt!” he exclaimed, eyes widening, his sense of the dramatic fully engaged. “Écoutez, she is like an image of the old lady. While I never knew that one so young, it is as though she is here again; I don’t know how to express it.”

  After verifying that I already knew something of the nature of the old woman’s business, Roder told me that she’d become a fable in select circles. While few had known her name, her power had become substantial throughout the South, and she’d not been one to be trifled with in New York either. I was inferring mob, something about which I’d wondered.

  “We heard that her ‘other’ contacts were with families that went all the way back to the Black Hand. She’d known Huey Long. During that one conversation, she claimed to have been in the Arlington Hotel, in Hot Springs, when a meeting decided whether or not he would recover from his bullet wound. She was doing business in New Orleans during the time of Earl Long and Blaze Starr …”

  Roder’s vicarious enjoyment darkened, “There was also a rumor that she had psychic powers, and dabbled in voodoo … but listen.” He spoke quickly before Justine could return, telling me that he doubted the publication value of the manuscript or its attendant notes. “I’m no critic, but I think that he must have been quite mad by the time he was writing this. At least, I could make no sense at all of what I read.”

  Assuring him that the value of the effects to Justine was not determined by their literary merit or lack of it, I would have learned more about the old woman’s supposed later history. But Justine returned, more composed and ready to leave. Roder accompanied us to the car, supremely solicitous of her and inviting us to call again before we left. As he gallantly held the Lumina’s door for her, she paused and drew herself erect.

  No doubt an illusion of the lengthening shadows, as if they wrapped themselves about her—that she seemed to gain an inch or so of stature. Had the tresses that veiled her features likewise gone to darkened auburn, as she addressed him huskily?

  “Believe me when I say that you have discharged your commission admirably,” she spoke over her shoulder, barely turning. “I hope our association continues. It’s a comfort to find you’re here, m’vieux, should I be needful.” When I gave him a final nod, the gregarious Roder looked curiously speechless.

  As we cruised through Kingston, Justine held like a baby the portfolio into which she’d replaced the bound manuscript. Her cheek against the old leather, she seemed truly at ease for the first time during the trip. We were booked on a return flight to Atlanta on Saturday. Our plan had been to prowl Rhinebeck Friday morning, then drive down and play in the City that evening. It had seemed only logical to view some of the old haunts of the Seabrook saga while we were on location.

  I did still feel a degree of uneasiness as we drove the several miles to the bridge and crossed the Hudson to Rhinecliff and Rhinebeck. I had presumed that we would settle into the quaint little Rhinebeck bedand-breakfast Roder had recommended, and Justine would begin to read the manuscript. But by the time we had finished checking in, she decided that she felt up for finding Seabrook’s place right then. I was of divided mind.

  I felt I was against the wall on this. Of course, after all the research I’d done, I was interested in seeing the actual locations of much of the story. Especially the barn where Willie had conducted his “experiments” with such as Aldous Huxley and Walter Duranty, as well as the Greenwich Village sites. Who knew when I might be back?

  Still, the black thoughts from the trip up had not abated, so I tried to persuade her to wait until morning. She was insistent, pointing out that the weather was holding so far, and there was yet time before dark. She held that it was best to locate the old home then, in case the storm reached us before morning. I agreed, with the provision that we went immediately, before it got any later.

  The River was just visible from the road. With the help of an address from the old envelopes, and some tourist brochures, we searched along a street that ran close to its bank. Some of the numbers along Morton Road were obscure, and we drove up and down, wandering some side streets. We glimpsed a number of large houses, the great round columns of the several mansions surprisingly resembling Southern plantation houses.

  Willie had been released from the sanitarium in July of 1934, into the care of his psychoanalyst, Helen Montague. She was the wife of Columbia philosopher William Pepperell Montague, who was heavily into the influence of other dimensions on our experience. Seabrook had finished White Monk while in Blooming-dale, and wrote Asylum while staying with the Montagues after his release. Guests who had frequented the Montague farm at nearby Krumvallen were mostly Columbia colleagues and their spouses. Some of them had been around Willie’s psychic experimentation in New York ten years earlier. A divorce from Katie was finalized.

  In the fall, Marjorie obtained for them the place on the Hudson. Asylum was quickly serialized and began to bring in money. The Depression was not so bad for people who had cash cows, and Willie was never without a book contract. The house had been a cottage on ten acres, with a huge barn. Willie had, indeed, subsequently converted it to house his studio and guest quarters, and to display the memorabilia of his travels, including the impressive collection of voodoo dolls.

  It was next door to an estate where President Roosevelt frequently visited a favorite cousin, which I took to be the present-day Wilderstein Preservation. Nearby, Thomas Wolfe had written Of Time and the River just a few years earlier. Willie mixed in well with the locals of all classes, from Olin Dows to the local cab driver.

  He and Marjorie were persuaded to marry by the local matriarch, Mrs. John Jay Chapman. I had wondered if that act of submission was related to Willie’s masochistic shift. He had been impressed with some local lore about John Jay Chapman incinerating his hand to atone for a sin against a friend.

  Willie and Marjorie were married in February of 1935, but kept it secret for some eight months, until after Asylum was published as a book and became a raging success. When they went public, it was also revealed that Katie had married Lyman Worthington, Marjorie’s ex, at about the same time. As Lyman and Katie declined to give the date and place of their marriage, one might also wonder if a double ceremony might have been involved.

  Even as I had studied the microfilm, making that notation, I’d seen the contradictions continuing. The alleged history of that Greenwich Village foursome, acknowledged even by Marjorie to some degree, constituted a further problem. There was scarcely any time in probable chronology for it to have existed. Seabrook followed up the success of Asylum by going undercover in a state institution for the criminally insane, writing an exposé on that end of mental health. His literary success with those endeavors would set off scores of imitators for decades, another unacknowledged impact. He was then forty-nine and Marjorie was thirty-six. The next three years were bucolic—garden shows and social life on the River.

  He’d traveled some around the U.S. writing real mainstream fare for American Magazine and Reader’s Digest. She was writing short stories for Harper’s,Mademoiselle, and, herself also a Mencken creation, American Mercury. Marjorie had been happiest when they were both at their typewriters working. But then had come the infamous years of the barn, of Witchcraft.

  I’d hoped to find the location by working from the old Dows estate an
d sometime girls’ academy described in No Hiding Place and in Marjorie’s book, but I was soon ready to give up until the morning. This was taking too long, and frankly, I’d not wanted to risk being out near the mansions after sunset. I felt slightly foolish for so yielding to superstition. Still, the descriptions in the old woman’s Testament had been very vivid, and Justine’s state of mind was too dicey for me to want to chance it.

  We’d stopped in front of a seemingly vacant tract of land where I made one last effort to get our bearings. I was pointing out landmarks across the River, in the directions of Port Ewen and Hurley, which were denoted on our Chamber of Commerce map.

  Justine had been expressing curiosity that I had little or no interest in that icon of my generation, Woodstock, and giggling about our being “total tourists.”

  “… way up in the mountains over there is the gorge where Rip Van Winkle was supposed to have slept after meeting Henry Hudson’s ghost crew.” I laughed, enjoying, for my part, a certain feeling of normalcy.

  She had followed my finger and begun playfully to debate whether that was “really” the location, or in the Blue Mountains closer to Woodstock, as some locals claimed. When she abruptly broke off, I looked back to see her scanning about and behind us. Without warning, she bolted around the car and disappeared into the high weeds and shrubbery. Startled, I had begun to follow, when the sound of her wounded cry quickened my pace.

  I found her standing as you see the bereaved beside a fresh grave, one hand tight over her diaphragm and the other clutched to her lips, her shoulders tensed and shaking. As I reached her, she gave up a strangled sob. “Marjorie’s little house is gone!” Some rubble at her feet suggested that a building had indeed once stood there, and debating whether this was the actual location of the cottage didn’t seem appropriate. I started to put my arm around her.