The Maze at Windermere

by Gregory Blake Smith

  Fort Wagner, Battery Bee, Folly and Morris Islands: why is it that these names (mere words!) call up for me the smell and sound of war? Siege guns, rifle pits, the glacis, and the ditch! Canister, grape, and musketry: they hold a most awful poetry, redolent with battle, with courage and horror, in ways the battle itself does not. The list of killed, wounded, and missing, one of the papers says, foots up at fifteen hundred and thirty. Yet it is not the fifteen hundred and thirty that I mark, but the phrase “foots up.”

  I have set aside my letter to Miss Taylor.

  Franklin had spent the early part of the evening—his first night back in New York!—simply walking the city. It was a way both of draping himself in freedom and of tormenting himself, for he had passed all his haunts, all the places where he had his friends, and took his pleasures, and kept his real self, passed them without going in as if to deny himself so that later the giving in would be all the more delicious. He had gone from his flat on West Fourth through the Washington Square Mews, and then up to Fourteenth Street, where he had promenaded with his cane and his red tie, always ready with a sisterly smile for the streetwalkers. He had paid his respects to the Sharon, to Manilla Hall and the Orchid, then as the sun began to set circled around to the Bowery with its theaters and saloons open to the street, its dance halls and dime museums and its host of what the Herald in one of its exposés was pleased to call “fairy resorts”—the Artistic Club and the Paresis and Little Bucks. From time to time he would pass someone he recognized—not someone from uptown, for whom he always had a story at the ready, but someone he knew from the Slide or the Black Rabbit. Once from down a side street a voice called his name—well, not his name, but the name he used down here—but he merely waved his cane, smiled, gestured he had somewhere to be. The whole time he felt the layers of deception that had accrued in Newport, the rind of his other self, the dried-on lineaments of his many smiles melting away. All that charming and gadding about and encouraging a chorus line of bons mots. It tired one so! In another block or two—he was well down in the Bowery now with its rumbling Elevated, the fire escapes dotted with immigrant families having their supper in the fresh air, and on the upper stories of the buildings advertisements for hats and cigars and Equitable Life Assurance—yes, in another block or two, he would have regained himself. And then he could begin.

  He had been summoned by Mrs. Belmont just before he had left, and, sitting with her in the breakfast loggia of Marble House with its soft air and clouds of gilding, had delivered himself of a report. And as she nodded her approval, pressed him on this or that point, he had for the first time a glimpse of how she would withdraw from him when the time came. In a month or two, after the engagement was announced, after the wedding, after the world had gotten used to the idea of a Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Drexel of East Sixty-Second Street, Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Drexel of Windermere, Alva Belmont would cease to bother with him. It was not that her house would no longer be open to him—no, he and Ellen would simply be united on her secretary’s list—but he would no longer be one of her projects, and so would cease to be of interest to her.

  Which, he supposed, turning onto Chrystie Street, would be yet another benefit of marriage.

  For the hundredth time he ran through how he would manage it, the Clubs he would join, the this-or-that League, the Artists Association. He would have his charities and duties outside the home, so there would always be a reason to go out. Not every night, of course—he would continue with his attention to the children, with his smiles and his public affection, with dinners and cigars and his evening clothes—but once or twice a week, surely that would be possible! And if so, if he had always the safety valve of the Bowery and the Village and the Sharon Hotel (and afterwards a swift hack ride back uptown), then would not his life be the best he could hope for? The best he could hope for in this, the world as it was?

  He had circled back to Bleecker Street. The sun had fully fallen now and the air had darkened but for the faint yellow of the gaslights touching the brick house fronts. He passed a few couples out for the night, a newsboy hawking the last of his evening papers, a trio of sailors traipsing arm through arm. He looked in at the dancing at the Black Rabbit, stopped and gazed up at the soft-lit windows on the upper floors of the Lavender Inn, and finally ceased his walking outside the door to the Slide. There was the familiar sound of Black Andy’s Orchestra, the cries and laughter, the hooting. He closed his eyes, felt fall away the last scales of his second skin. He had only the week—he was certainly not going to Baltimore!—only the one week so he must be sure to have his luxurious fill.

  3rd Day

  Oh! I believe I might murder Ashes! For yesterday as I was about my Room so low-spirited as I have written above, I heard a knock upon the downstairs door and then Ashes saying I was not at home. I rushed to the window and who was below but John Pettibone! It was but a few hours since we had seen one another outside Samuel Judah’s. I was at first mortally shocked, but I recover’d myself and hurried downstairs, and with a furious look at Ashes threw about myself a Cloak and went out of doors.

  He was but a little gone from the door and turned at the sound of my coming out. It seemed to me that he was in a state, as if he had girded himself to some Task. And so he had, for he stood there in the muddy Dooryard and deliver’d himself of a Speech as tho’ he had conn’d it word for word. He said he had come to Apologize for his behavior earlier that afternoon. He said that for six months now he had held himself in Despisal. He said that when Mother died he had wanted to come to me as a friend ought, to say how sorry he was. And that as the weeks went by and the Town people began to talk of Father having been lost, he did want to come then as well, but that he did not. He was not good at Speaking, he said, he was clumsy with words, he said, but that was not an Excuse for not coming. He scorn’d himself, he said, and accounted himself a Coward, and that the sight of me was like a Reproach to him. The World had been terrible to me, he said, my Losses were many and so very hard. And that I had not deserv’d such Treatment. It was almost beyond Reckoning, what had happen’d to me, he said, and he felt it most sorely, and sorely too that he had nothing he could offer that might help me, and had felt the unmanly lack, and yet none of that should have stopp’d him from coming to me, if just to say he was sorry for me. For which Behavior he could not forgive himself, he said.

  It was deliver’d, as I say, all of a piece, and when he was finish’d he made to leave, as if he meant to remove himself from my sight. But I reach’d out to stay him, and thank’d him for his Kindness. I said that it had indeed bother’d me that he seem’d no longer to take a Notice of me, that I had accounted our friendship a Brightness in my life, but that sometimes the Heart is too full to act upon its Fullness, and that his coming today was surely a Proof that he was no coward, and other suchlike with which I hoped to quell his Embarrassment. I said I hoped we could continue as friends, tho’ we were no longer children, and things had chang’d, yet we might find one another from time to time. He thank’d me then for treating him so charitably, and wonder’d whether he might not help me from time to time, which phrase I had just used, and his using it so hard upon seem’d to embarrass him anew that he was clumsy of Speech, but he brav’d on and said if there were a thing about the house a man could do, would I not call him? I need only ask, he said with something like to his old smile.

  Back inside Ashes was speaking Island speak as if she meant to flood the whole of the downstairs with Demons.

  ~A colored hall boy came this morning with a note from Mrs. Taylor. Alice waylaid him and asked what he thought of this great action of the 54th. Was he not proud of his race? So many shadows sent to Hades! she says.

  Mrs. Taylor writes that her family has heard the dreadful news and that their thoughts and prayers are with us. She adds that they miss my company and says if it would help take my mind off the waiting for further news, she is sure Alice would welcome another visit at Hunt’s studio some morning
, for her daughter finds sitting tedious. (She cannot possibly know!) She says her husband will be joining them any day now, and would, she is sure, enjoy making my acquaintance. She prays for Wilky, she says, and hopes we will soon be reunited with him.

  I have written her briefly, but cordially, I hope, thanking her for her kindness. I ask her to give my regards to Alice and to little Harry. I will walk the note over to the Ocean in due time. But I cannot, of course, call on her.

  Miss Taylor’s pheasant hat sits like a reproach on my writing table.

  June 27

  This morning we commended the body of Lieut Smithson to this Alien ground. The Fusiliers turned out in their Scarlet and were a sight to behold, arrayed about the open grave (for we had helped ourselves to a Plot at one of the local Cemeteries, and what Damned rocky soil it was, I heard a Soldier say). It was a beautiful day, sunny and blue and with a gentle Sea breeze, as if the world had no Care toward our Sufferings, or to the Loss of a young man. The Chaplain read the Burial-service, and then several of us stepped forward to praise the Deceased. There was much employment of the word Honorable. Bradshaw became so caught up in his Portrait of the man that he broke down and had to give over. I spoke of Smithson’s good Humor, and told a story of our time in Cambridge which made all smile and remember. We then each of us let fall a handful of Earth on the canvas bag, after which, in twos & threes, we drifted away.

  But the work of War must go on, and so I spent the afternoon in Consultation with some others of the General’s Staff. We have reports of the Rebels having erected a Beacon upon the high ground overlooking Howland’s Ferry and having hung a pitch Kettle out at the top in order to give a speedy Alarm to the Country. Expected daily is the appearance of a Squadron of French Ships of War off the coast of New England (’tis said they consist of 12 Sail of the Line and 4 Frigates, under the command of Count D’Estaing), and we may presume they will find their way to Newport Harbour. All this has served to heighten expectation of Engagement and the Staff was at some pains to work up an answering Strategy. I was looked to for recommendations in my especial Sphere, and did so, suggesting that we be more Numerous & Assiduous in our spying parties, and that we better and more frequently reach our Informants & Agents in the countryside. I would accompany a party myself, I said, as I have done in the past, that I might get a direct Intelligence.

  I have in some Measure regained myself, felt that Puissance which formerly thrilled my limbs to again inhabit me. I perform my Duties with a brisk Vigor. I show a precise Demeanor and a calculating Spirit befitting a counseling Adjutant. Yet the whole while I am watching myself, noting myself, appraising, approving, goading, as if I am become dédoublement, as if I have my own Sebastiao, only one not for the Public world, but to face me in Private. What was once a dark Decoration of mood or the shadow-side of Volition has taken up a facing Residence, planted itself on the other side of me, and will not decamp. Even in writing these Entries I hear a voice suggesting words and means, and a taunting that I do not do.

  Through it all, like a first Motion, is the thought of her. How she flows in my Blood and arches over my thoughts as the sky completes the World! I can hardly call to mind that time in the Winter when she was but a girl I was toying with, so changed am I toward her, and so changed is the Presence of her now she is gone. In bed at night I summon the Image of her, draw her down to me, torture myself with the slow removal of her Garments, the slow exposure of her Flesh, let her fingers run in my hair, let her Lips brush my skin. And for a moment or two, eyes closed, world banished, I am reunited with myself.

  Am I become a man who dreams & moons & satisfies himself with nocturnal Fancy?

  There is only some forty miles of Village & Country between us. What stops me?

  ~We have had at last a telegram from Mr. Russell. He has found Wilky and is making preparations for bringing him north by boat. Ankle grievous, he says. Almost as an afterthought he adds that his own son, Cabot, is lost.

  We wait as in a nightmare. I have been trying to distract myself by reading Mérimée and de Musset and Chateaubriand. Their stories enthralled me in Geneva, but now they seem silly stuff.

  And I have been unkind to Alice, for in a foul mood I told her that if she wants to put the world on trial for the abuse of the frail, then she might do so on Wilky’s behalf, and on his Negro brothers’, not her own. That it was a world of slave-mongers and butchers. Even here in Newport the shot tower is run day and night.

  I have got at least this out of Chateaubriand: One inhabits, with a full heart, an empty world.

  He texted Alice asking flat out what was wrong, what had happened? Told her he missed her. Would she not see him? And each time, with each text, with each e-mail, there was no answer. The silence was so pronounced, so outside ordinary behavior as to seem cruel, sadistic even.

  He found himself alternating between two possibilities. One, that she had fallen into a depression so deep that to text him some response out of the paralyzing gloom—Aisha had once described to him how her eyes went dead—was simply beyond her. And the other: that it was some game of hers. The woman—hadn’t he told himself a hundred times?—was beyond him, subject to subterranean currents (the Rose Island bell!) that he could not hear, could not see. Perhaps all along the whole thing had been some scripted game, utterly beyond him, twisted, vengeful, self-destructive.

  Or was that crazy? Had he not seen love in her eyes, felt love in her touch? Had he not himself said “I love you,” felt that love rich and improbable in his heart? Seen it in her too? Surely that had not been a game!

  He wrote a long e-mail to Aisha. Said he was worried. Whatever had happened, would she not help him see Alice? For the sake of their old friendship? But there was no answer.

  He called Newport Hospital, asked for a patient named Alice du Pont. Then Butler Hospital in Providence, Eleanor Slater, McLean just outside of Boston.

  At the Redwood Library he pretended to happen upon the director, asked nonchalantly after Alice, but the director said he hadn’t talked to Ms. du Pont in days and, strange to say, now that he thought of it, she hadn’t returned his call. But he expected to see her on Saturday for Champagne at Windermere. Would Sandy be there?

  In the end he e-mailed her one last time. He was coming out to the house that afternoon, he said. He loved her, he said. Whatever had happened, would she not let him try to help? Wouldn’t she please come out and see him, please talk to him, if only to explain. Five o’clock, he said. He would wait for her in the maze. Casual dress, no gifts, he tried to write with a wan smile. It would break his heart, but he would leave her alone afterwards if that was what she wanted. He just needed to know, he said. He needed to know that she was all right.

  So at four forty—with the same feeling in his stomach he used to have just before walking out on court—he rode the Indian up Bellevue, left the motorcycle a side street away so its roar wouldn’t announce him, and walked down to Windermere. He used the key code to open the gate, headed up the drive, passed the house (again with that feeling of eyes on him!), and went into the maze. When he got to the center, she was not there, nor was there any evidence of her having been there. But he was five minutes early. There was still a chance. He sat down on the chaise longue to wait, sat there with his palms on his thighs like a patient in a waiting room. In time he thought he heard someone coming and then again that he hadn’t. More than five minutes passed. And then there was a sound on the other side of the hedge, a rustle, a footfall. He stood up, held his breath, listened.

  But it was the Salve Regina girl, the one with the attitude. She came around the corner of the hedge with this look on her face—amused, mocking, he didn’t know what, but he was aware he had just the moment before called out “Alice!” She was wearing a bare-midriff thing. It took him a moment to realize she had something, a piece of paper, in her hand.

  “You,” he said; then: “Where’s Alice?”

  She li
fted the piece of paper, a servant executing a commission, and read from it aloud.

  “‘She with her necromantic glances and strange intuitions is retired to a Sisterhood where she is deeply immured and quite lost to the world.’”

  “What?” he said.

  She read it again, in the same flat, ungiving, dutiful voice. He reached out for the piece of paper and, when she pulled back, took her by the wrist, twisted it until with a cry she let the paper go.

  She with her necromantic glances and strange intuitions is retired to a Sisterhood where she is deeply immured and quite lost to the world.

  He turned the paper over, turned it back. There was nothing else. But it was the same grammar-school cursive of the Daisy Miller notes.

  “What’s this supposed to mean?” he said.

  “Just what it says.”

  “Which would be what?” he nearly shouted at her.

  She blanched, took a step back, then regained herself. “‘She with her necromantic glances—’” she began.

  He felt like hitting her. “What’s it mean?” he said and stepped toward her. “Where’d you get it?”

  The girl stopped, blinked at him.

  “Did Alice give it to you? Is it from Henry James?”

  “What?” she asked, and then, as if she knew she’d broken character, composed herself and started her recitation again.