Now, Voyager

by Higgins Prouty, Olive

  “What might be for her immediate welfare might be anything but desirable for her ultimate good. I don’t know anything about your relationship to Durrance.” His voice was still stern “I don’t know how emotionally involved you are with him. I can’t work in the dark when there’s a child in the picture.”

  “You won’t have to. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Our time is up. I’ll have to think it over. Come back tomorrow.”

  “But you’ll cancel the nurse for tonight, won’t you? Christine is waiting for me this minute outside, closed up in my car back of the bank, hoping with all the intensity of her age and nature and sickness that I’ll bring her good news. If I succeed in my mission, we’re going off in my car together to some little nearby town for lunch. If I fail, she’ll have hysterics again—and eat no lunch and no supper either. You told me to speak out my opinion. Well, my opinion is, it would be cruelty not to cancel the nurse, and if you’re thinking of Christine’s welfare—” She stopped abruptly. Her voice was not only earnest, but fervent, and trembled a little.

  The stern expression on Doctor Jaquith’s face softened as he stood before Charlotte, seeing and hearing. He smiled. “Can this be the woman who only one week ago said to me in my New York office, ‘Nothing interests me, all effort seems futile’? I’ll cancel the nurse. You’re accepted instead. But on probation.”

  28

  THE DAUGHTER

  When Charlotte left Cascade two weeks later, she did not return directly to Boston, but turned her car north. She was not alone this time. Tina was beside her, flush cheeked, bright eyed, sitting up very straight and feeling important. A group of a dozen or more stood on the porch and bade them goodbye.

  At first the other guests at Cascade attributed Charlotte’s attentions to Christine to pity, but when it became known that she had invited the child to take a trip with her in her car to the mountains and Canada, then they remarked upon it to Christine. “Did you know Miss Vale before?”

  “Aren’t you a lucky girl?” For the first time in her life, Christine became an object of envy. She was going to do something somebody else would like to do!

  The plan had been worked out under Doctor Jaquith’s supervision. The edicts of good form had been strictly observed. Doctor Jaquith had written to Christine’s father approving the plan; Charlotte had written to Christine’s mother saying that it would give her great pleasure if her daughter, etc., etc.; Christine’s father had replied that any plan for Christine approved by Doctor Jaquith he fully endorsed. He appreciated deeply Miss Vale’s kindness, and enclosed was a check to cover Christine’s expenses for the proposed tour.

  Christine’s mother replied to Charlotte, saying that it was very hard to be separated for so long from her little daughter, and especially difficult to entrust the child, who was “her baby,” to a stranger, but self-sacrifice for one’s children was a woman’s first duty, and if Christine wanted to go she hadn’t it in her heart to deny her little girl the pleasure.

  There were no letters exchanged between Charlotte and J.D., although the identity of “the tall dark lady” had no longer continued to be a mystery to him. There were no words exchanged either, although Christine talked with her father almost daily, at first, and with the doctor’s consent. Charlotte was usually standing at her elbow, or waiting just outside the booth. J.D. knew she was nearby. Tina told him so. But never once did he ask to speak with her. He seemed to sense the fact that the resumption of their relationship on another basis depended on ignoring the first one.

  The privilege of just standing by and catching occasional words and phrases as J.D. talked to Tina appeased Charlotte’s gnawing craving to speak to him herself, and every time the wish to see him—to look deep into his eyes—started to rise up in her like a pain, she had only to look into Tina’s eyes to get relief. If only she could keep Tina with her long enough, her longings for Jerry, flowing out like blood from a wound, might be absorbed by his child, and the flow stemmed finally.

  At Charlotte’s last conference with Doctor Jaquith, he had reminded her that she was still on probation. “And you’ll continue to be, too, as long as I entrust you to a responsibility that is mine. I’m giving you the child, so long as I think it’s good for her, but if for any reason I don’t think it’s the right environment for her—” He stopped. “Remember what it says in the Bible: ‘The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away,’” he warned, fastening her with his sharp drilling eyes.

  “I’ll remember. How does it feel to be the Lord?” Charlotte had asked him, with a smile.

  “Not so very wonderful since the freewill bill was passed.” Quick as a flash he replied. “Too little power.”

  THE TOUR WAS A great success. Tina’s improvement was marked and steady. She took to the mountain trails like the gangling moose calf which she and Charlotte saw one day in the wild region north of Katahdin, running up the steep path in front of them, following close after its mother. Charlotte took to the trails too, following their blazed curves with something of the same delight as the steep paths winding over the hills around Ravello.

  One day, seated in a sheltered spot on a bed of deer-moss just beneath the top of Mansfield (the first mountain they climbed), eagerly eating their midday lunch of thick sandwiches and common rat cheese, Tina said, “You aren’t old enough to be my mother, are you?”

  “Good Heavens, Tina, of course I am! Why?”

  “You don’t act like it. You don’t tell me what to do and what not to do, all the time. Yet a lady at the hotel last night thought you were my mother. I told her you weren’t, but it’s kind of hard to explain. I wish I didn’t have to call you Miss Vale. It sounds funny—as if we didn’t know each other very well.”

  She took a large bite of her ham sandwich. While she was still in the process of chewing it, Charlotte asked, “How would you like to call me some nickname, or special name of our own, as if we were sort of chums?”

  “I’d love it! What special name?”

  “My first name, Charlotte, has all sorts of abbreviations. You might call me Carlotta or Charlie or—a name I was called once in fun—Camille. Or, if you’d rather, Auntie or Tante, or even Aunt Charlotte. Think it over.”

  When Charlotte and Tina left Cascade, vague hopes and plans for the future were drifting through Charlotte’s mind constantly, as unformed and shifting and shapeless as masses of mist at first. They didn’t form into anything definite until after she had told Tina about the preposterous possibility which had occurred to her. It hadn’t struck Tina as preposterous. It had started one of those rare displays of joy upon her face, like the northern lights Charlotte had thought, as she watched her cheeks flush pink and the happiness shoot upward to her eyes.

  Not until their car had passed the line into Canada did Charlotte commit her project to paper. One evening, about two weeks after her embarkation on this second voyage of hers upon strange waters, seated in the writing-room of the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec, while Tina lay sound asleep in their bedroom above, she wrote to Doctor Jaquith and submitted her proposition.

  It was a businesslike letter, formal, and free from sentiment. She had already suggested that Christine visit her in Boston for a few days upon their return. But now she proposed that she remain indefinitely or as long as her improvement continued.

  In as much as the child will be benefitting me, she continued, by relieving the solitude of my life at present, I shall renumerate her very real services as my companion by paying her expenses, including the completion of her interrupted education, when she is physically fit to continue it. In fact, on no other basis am I willing to accept her services. All matters affecting her welfare were to be under the supervision of Doctor Jaquith. Christine was to visit her parents whenever she felt inclined and to return home permanently at any time she desired. Doctor Jaquith was to submit the proposition to the parents, and act as arbiter if occasion arose. She herself was to continue to be “on probation.”

  The letter was as official
as she knew how to make it, except for the very last word. She signed herself, Sincerely, Charlotte Vale, Voyager. Only Doctor Jaquith would get the full meaning of that last word and surmise her “untold want.” Would he grant it? She awaited his reply with tremulous anxiety.

  WHEN CHARLOTTE RETURNED to Boston in late September with a tall, lanky thirteen-year-old girl in tow, it created much discussion. She announced to the family that the child was to remain with her indefinitely. She had run across her last summer. She was a protégée of Doctor Jaquith’s. Her name was Christine Durrance.

  Durrance? An odd name. Not even to be found in the Boston telephone directory! An odd proceeding too. Very odd, indeed! The child was not attractive. No one would take on so unpromising a specimen unless there was some good reason for it, according, at least, to the opinion of a certain lady who lived opposite the Vale house on Marlborough Street.

  This lady had had a chat with Christine one day on the sidewalk. She had asked her her name, where her home was, and casually her age. That night she had unearthed an old Line-a-Day diary of hers, and had found it was thirteen years ago that the Vale house was closed for six months, while Charlotte and her mother were absent, taking a world cruise, presumably. This lady confided her discovery to a small luncheon group of eight friends of hers. Of course they all flouted this scandalous implication. “Well, such things do happen in Boston sometimes.”

  This rumor reached Charlotte’s ears finally. Rosa was the bearer of it. It didn’t seem to disturb Charlotte in the least, Rosa reported. “So they say Tina is my own child, whom I’ve been hiding all these years!” Charlotte had remarked, and added with an exaggerated sigh, “Oh, if it were only true!” That kind of humor of Charlotte’s, Rosa found extremely offensive.

  Charlotte nipped the rumor in the bud by producing Christine’s mother and sister. They appeared in November in response to Charlotte’s invitation to Mrs. Durrance to come to Boston and inspect “her little daughter’s” new quarters. She didn’t include Mr. Durrance in the invitation because, she explained, it didn’t seem wise yet to run the risk of retarding Christine’s excellent progress in independence of her father. Charlotte asked a few people in to tea to meet Christine’s mother and sister. Mrs. Grundy lost interest and looked to other fields.

  The For Sale sign was removed from the Marlborough Street house soon after Charlotte’s return from Canada. She coolly informed Lloyd that she had decided not to sell it at present. Much to her surprise, Tina had taken a fancy to it. Its pretentious grandeur—high ceilings, carved woodwork, stained-glass window on the landing, dark oak dining room with the built-in sideboard, even its heavy velvets and brocades, and oil paintings in wide gold frames, all appealed to Tina. “Oh my! What a simply wonderful house to live in!” she had sighed in admiration after her first tour of inspection.

  “Would you rather live here than in a sweet little house in the country?”

  “Oh, yes! I’ve always lived in the country, or sort of in the backyard of the country. I’d simply love to live in a great big elegant city house like this! I’d feel like a heroine in a book! And I’ve found a darling little room on the fifth floor in the back with a north window and a skylight that’s perfect for a studio. It’s full of trunks and boxes now, but I wouldn’t mind those.”

  Doctor Jaquith said it was more desirable to feed Tina’s starved sense of importance than her starved body, at present. If the Marlborough Street house made Tina feel like a heroine, then it must be retained. Her mother’s former bedroom became Tina’s. Charlotte stripped it and had it done over according to Tina’s ideas. Light sky-blue walls, pale salmon-pink curtains made of stuff taffeta, very full and beruffled. There was a dressing table with a full, beruffled skirt to match the curtains, and on the dressing table a blue enamel toilet-set, each piece embossed with Tina’s monogram.

  Charlotte moved down to the room across the hall, willingly enough now, which also she rehabilitated. Charlotte’s old room above became June’s. The friendship between Charlotte and June was resumed with fresh vigor in the fall. June had long wanted to have a room in town so as to be near her work. Incidentally, near her play too. June had a paying job in a Newbury Street gown shop; and frequent dates in the evening with young men from across the Charles River.

  The Marlborough Street house underwent almost as great a change as Charlotte. Not only in appearance, but in nature and habits too. From a silent, gloomy introvert, preferring its own company, it became amiable, people-loving and extremely popular among all the younger members of the family; generous with its latchkeys, tolerant to tardy guests, hospitable to all who entered its doors, even the alley-cats and various friends of Tina’s dogs who occasionally dropped in. It developed new habits, gave forth new sounds—jazz, giggling, laughing, barking of dogs, the rattling of a cocktail shaker. It emitted new smells—boiling fudge, burning logs, cigarette smoke, and something far less pleasant soon after one of Tina’s white mice couldn’t be found.

  On a certain Saturday morning in early January, Charlotte was seated at her desk in her room between 9:00 and 9:30 in the morning, disposing of various routine tasks before starting out on the program of the day. She was sitting in a favorite position of hers, never allowed by her mother because unladylike—crossed legs, exposed ankles, also exposed knees in the narrow tailored skirt she was wearing this morning.

  But Charlotte’s ankles and knees could stand the test. Charlotte hadn’t taken on an extra ounce more of the discarded layers of either cloth or flesh. Nor an extra ounce more of hair. She still wore it extremely close-cut, in spite of the tendency toward curls and covered ears. Her black sleek head, black, far-separated brows, ivory-colored complexion with changing shadows in the hollows beneath her high cheekbones, and brilliant red lips, made her stand out in any group. She dressed extremely well. She had always been a severe critic of other women’s clothes, and now that she could buy what she chose and pay what she chose, she applied the same severity to herself, patronizing only experts whose advice she could rely upon.

  She reached for her Phillips Brooks engagement calendar now, and studied its crowded squares. Several unanswered invitations lay on the desk beside her. She’d have to regret the tea on the sixteenth, as it conflicted with a lecture given by the Parents’ League which she’d just joined; she couldn’t accept bridge on the seventeenth, for Tina had a private dancing lesson in the early afternoon; and she’d have to decline even the regular meeting of the lunch club next time. It was Tina’s birthday. She had invited two little girls for luncheon and the matinée.

  She turned the calendar to the week following. On the eighteenth she was giving a dinner and theater party to June and a list of her friends. On the twentieth another dinner for Elliot and Lucy Prentice, Elliot’s fiancée, a nice girl from Baltimore, around thirty, good-looking, good family, fond of golf, and never guilty of saying anything shocking or original. In the space following the dinner for Elliot, Doctor Jaquith’s name appeared, followed by the words: Dinner and Night.

  This would be Doctor Jaquith’s third Dinner-and-Night with Charlotte since she had made her contribution to Cascade for a separate building for children. The building was to be located beyond the big red barn around a curve in the road. In appearance it was to be an exact replica of Oldways and Newways. It was to be called Fairways.

  On his previous visit Doctor Jaquith had brought large rolls of blueprints to discuss with Charlotte. The value of her gift was greatly increased by her interest and personal suggestions, he said. He had already asked her to be a trustee of the New Foundation. He also solicited Tina’s suggestions. There should be animals in the big red barn, Tina said—horses, rabbits, sheep, cats, lots and lots of dogs, and accommodations for one’s own dog if one had one. The plans were nearly completed now. Ground was to be broken as soon as the frost was out.

  Charlotte laid down the engagement calendar and reached for the telephone. She must make an appointment for Tina with the dentist. Just as she lifted the receiver f
rom its hook, the bell rang.

  “Hello,” she replied. “Yes, this is Kenmore 6611.” Then almost instantly she heard J.D.’s voice, clear-cut, and vibrant, speaking straight into her ear.

  “Hello, Miss Vale. Durrance speaking, J.D.—Christine’s father. How is Tina?” It was the third time in the last few weeks he had called at this hour and gotten her personally. It was the one half hour in the day when she always answered the telephone herself.

  “Tina is very well. Upstairs at present in her studio. But I can call her.”

  “No necessity. Just tell her I called, as she hasn’t called me for so long. And oh, by the way, I’ve just been talking to Jaquith. He thinks it’s all right for me to drop in and see Tina any time now if I don’t stay too long. So I thought I might fly up on a late afternoon plane some day, have dinner, and come back on the midnight train.” Charlotte said nothing. “That is if you approve.” Still she was silent. “Do you approve?”

  “When did you think you’d come?”

  “Well, down here in New York it looks like glorious flying weather today. How does it look up there?”

  “It looks glorious up here, too!”

  “That’s great! What time do you have dinner?”

  “Do you really mean you’ll be here for dinner tonight?”

  “Well, that was in my mind. Jaquith says it’s all right,” he repeated. “But if you’d rather I didn’t—”

  “Dinner will be at seven,” she cut him off. “We’ll expect you here at the house as soon as you can get here after landing. I’ll tell Tina. Goodbye.”

  Charlotte’s impulse was to rush upstairs to Tina immediately, announce her news, and squeeze her tight. It was Saturday and there was no tutor to witness her exuberance. Tina would be alone in her studio, busily occupied with her brushes, palette, and paints. But Charlotte controlled her impulse, and searched her mind for some casual excuse for interrupting the burning of genius. Tina had decided that the kind of heroine living in a grand city house she would most like to be was a budding young Rosa Bonheur. She was at present at work on a life-sized portrait of Hans, posed in a reclining position on one of the brocade-covered chairs moved up from the reception-room. Hans was Tina’s amber-colored dachshund.