A World Elsewhere

by Wayne Johnston

  Landish lay down on the sofa in the Smoker and hoped for sleep to come until, certain that it never would, he got up and tried first to write and then to read, but could manage neither. He sat all night in a chair beside the window, staring out into the darkness until the blue of morning began to show above the Ridge. He went out and walked downslope to the shoreline of Lake Loom. He loved the volatility of the sky in North Carolina. Clouds were always racing in some direction, even on sunny days, as if they were in a panic, all clearing out to somewhere else while they still could.

  He looked up at the house. The premises of my nemesis.

  When the sun was fully up, he went back to the house.

  Mr. Vanderluyden told Deacon about bitterness and failure and strong young men who died of broken hearts when they were older because they never had a chance to live out their dreams. He said that Landish had agreed to leave, even though he would miss Deacon and Deacon would miss him, so Deacon could live out his dreams.

  Deacon pictured Landish watching as the footman put his carpet bag and typewriter and Captain Druken’s hat into the boot of his new motor car—a present from Mr. Vanderluyden. He pictured Landish sitting with Esse in the front seat of the motor car as they drove away from Vanderland. They would go down the winding hill beneath the branches of the trees, between the bare stalks of flowers that grew higher than a man, past the gatepost, through the archway of the main gate lodge, then down the last hill to the bumpy road that led to Ashton.

  Landish read, yet again, the letter that Deacon had left on his pillow.

  Dear Landish:

  You picked me. I didnt pick you. A baby cant decide who picks it. You picked me because my mother made you pick me. But now Im old enough so Im picking Mr. Vanderluyden. He picked me too. He says Ill never want anything. Id rather be the ear of Vanderland than perish of neglect. Youre funnier than him but youre not too funny when your decks awash. Thats why Gough gets mad with you. You dont care if someone gets the sack because of you. Peple are afraid of you because youre big your voice is loud and you get mad a lot. Youre ten times as big as Goddie and you made her cry. So I think you should go away and write your book and take care of Esse and Gen of Eve and your fathers hat. Be on your merry way. Im glad you told me about the murk and the Womb of Time.

  Thats all

  Yours truly

  Deacon

  Alone in the Smoker, Landish stood in front of the portrait of Gen of Eve. Gen of Eve and Landish. He looked at his mother’s hint of a smile, her dark eyes.

  His mother had left him when he was about the same age as Deacon. Except that Gen of Eve was not to blame, whereas he would not now be leaving Deacon if he hadn’t stolen Captain Druken’s hat, if he had found some alternative to writing to Van, asking him to help them.

  Landish had been left with a man who might well have been deranged. Now he had no choice but to do the same with Deacon. Even if he, Deacon and Esse somehow managed to escape from the estate, they would be indigent fugitives trying to outrun a Vanderluyden. What a futile, harrowing interval of freedom they would have. One from which Deacon might never recover and that might end with Esse standing trial as the accomplice of a thief.

  He wondered what Gen of Eve would do, what advice she would give him.

  He remembered when there had been just him and his mother in his father’s house. Gough had said that she looked tired or something in the portrait. She was pregnant so that might be it. She might have been feeling apprehensive about the sort of life her child would have with Captain Druken as its father—boy or girl, it would have been born a Druken and a Druken forever be. Gen of Eve, she had called herself, a child of Eve, as, in a sense, all men and women were, a child of the first woman who had had no last name, just as her husband, Adam, had none. But she had signed the portrait “Gen of Eve Marcot”—not her married name. “Landish” she had called him. It was an unusual name. More of a last name than a first name. She said she didn’t want him to have to share his name with anyone. She could have made up any name but yet she made up that one. Perhaps the woman who coined “Gen of Eve” had had a reason?

  He sat at one of the end tables, took a pen and a piece of paper from his pocket and wrote “Landish” on the paper. He tried its anagrams. His land. Island if not for the “H.” Maybe she thought “Landish” would incline him to do Landish things and stay away from the sea. He made up anagrams of “Landish Druken” and came up with nothing that made sense. He tried “Landish” with his mother’s maiden name, “Marcot.” His mother had signed “Gen of Eve Marcot.” He had never been certain for what reason. In defiance of the infamous Captain Druken who left her alone so many days and nights, spurned their house and their bed in favour of the Gilbert?

  Landish Marcot. Then he remembered that she had given him a middle initial. ‘B.’ Landish B. Marcot.

  In no time he unscrambled the letters. He didn’t even need to write them down.

  “Not Abram’s Child,” he said out loud, looking at the sketch of Gen of Eve. “It’s been in my name all along, waiting to be found.”

  His father had known. Captain Druken, the man who “brought back” a million seals, had known that he could not bring forward from his wife a single child. He had known that another man had fathered Landish, the boy whom others had taken to be his son and whom he raised as if he was his son. Though the last part might not be true. He might not have sent to Princeton a young man he knew to be a Druken, might not have allowed him to renounce the Gilbert and refuse to follow in his father’s footsteps. He might have forced him to captain the Gilbert, or tried to. But knowing that Landish was not his son, he knew what no one else still living knew, that the Druken line had ended, that the apparent line of succession was a sham. And so he had renounced Landish in spirit, perhaps, long before he had done so in practice … And had given to Landish a token whose ironic meaning he assumed he would never know, never decipher, the bitterly jestful last vestige of the Drukens, the cuckold’s hat, emblem of a dynasty defunct and of the marriage of two who remained “unmarried” and alone until the end.

  He walked around the room, went back to the portrait. His very name was a refutation of the Drukens, of the man in whose footsteps it was assumed by all that he would follow, the man whose nature, whose family’s nature, he feared he had inherited. He wondered if his mother would have told him when he was old enough to understand.

  Gen of Eve. The meaning of the sketch and of her signing it Gen of Eve was that Landish was not Captain Druken’s or the other man’s son but hers and hers alone. Wholly hers. As if he had no father. Gen of Eve’s. Mother, I have lost him. I have been a vain and vengeful fool. Abram’s blood may as well be mine, though yours runs in my veins. The blood of a woman who would have been a fitting wife for Carson of the Gilbert. You are in me, as I was in you when you drew this likeness of yourself. In my circumstances, what would you do? Not even the half of me that is composed of you can find an answer. I have lost him, the little boy whose life has so changed mine, a life I accepted into my care just as you brought me into yours.

  “I have a present for you,” Goddie said, grunting as she dragged out from beneath the dinner table a large box wrapped in blue paper and tied with white ribbon. Deacon wondered if it was Captain Druken’s hat, but it seemed much too large for a hat.

  “A present?”

  “It’s for your birthday. Don’t you know when your birthday is?”

  “Not really. No one knows for sure.”

  “Well, Mother told me it’s your birthday on Sunday when we don’t have dinner together, so I’m giving you your present now. You’re not to open it until you get back to The Blokes. Do you think they’ll have a party for you at The Blokes?”

  “They might.”

  “So here’s my present for you. Mother’s not as mean as you think she is, is she?”

  “No. What’s in the box?”

  Goddie shook her head. “Mother says she knows I can’t keep surprises. But I hope you like it.�
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  “I’m sure I will. Thank you, Goddie.” He pulled the box to his side of the table.

  “I was going to wait until you’d finished dinner, but I don’t think you’re ever going to finish it. Henley will carry the box back to The Blokes for you.”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  “Deacon Carson Druken isn’t hungry? You’re not sick, are you?”

  Deacon shook his head.

  He looked at the ribbon-wrapped box. There was a card attached that said “To Deacon from Godwin.” Mrs. Vanderluyden’s handwriting. It scared him that Mrs. Vanderluyden had given it to Goddie to give to him.

  “Maybe we can have a party for you, Deacon. I’ll ask Mother.”

  Deacon nodded.

  “You’ll be lonely on your birthday unless we have a party.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry I’m mean to you sometimes.”

  He wasn’t sure if he was soon to be her brother, but knew he wasn’t supposed to say that. He got up, walked around the table, put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. She threw her arms around his waist and pressed her head against his stomach.

  The butler carried the box. He went the wrong way again. He didn’t make a beeline for The Blokes. He didn’t make one for the Rume.

  They went down long hallways until they came to a closed door. “This is the convalescent suite,” the butler said, putting the box down. “Stay put until someone comes out for you.” He quickly went away.

  The first words Deacon ever heard him say. It was like hearing Palmer suddenly piping up.

  The door opened and a man came out. They were indoors, but his hat was on. His coat was buttoned even though the house was warm. He looked like a constable but he didn’t have a badge or a billy club. He had a big moustache like an upside-down horseshoe.

  “You go ahead of me,” he said, and picked up the box. He nudged the door open with his shoulder just wide enough that Deacon could slide through.

  The butler had that morning brought word to Landish that Van was not feeling well and wished to meet him and Miss Esse in the convalescent suite later.

  “I will return for both of you at seven,” he said formally.

  With Landish and Esse behind him, the butler tapped on the door. Gertrude opened it and motioned them inside. Landish noticed Deacon first—sitting, upright, looking white, forsaken, confused—beside a large blue box, and then a man he had never seen before. Then Van sitting wide-eyed on the side of a bed, his arms bound behind his back, his mouth gagged, his feet tied with rope. The stranger was standing with a pistol in one hand, the other hand behind his back.

  “Oh my God,” Esse exclaimed behind him.

  Deacon came across the room to Landish in a rush. Hugging his leg began to cry.

  “Captain Druken’s hat box,” Gertrude said. “As well as what you call Gen of Eve. Packed so that the glass won’t break. And also the ring box that Van’s father gave to him that contains the missing button from Van’s shirt. Presents for all of you. From Van.”

  “Don’t leave me, Landish,” Deacon wailed into his trouser leg. “I won’t be a constant runt. I’ll be nice to Esse. I’m sorry I’m a curse. I liked it more than you did when we lived on Dark Marsh Road. If you have to leave me, it’s all right. You can live here when I’m big enough to be in charge. I won’t be a nuisance then. Mr. Vanderluyden said I’d have lots of money and I can send you money in between—”

  “Could someone please keep the child quiet?” the man said.

  Esse knelt and took him in her arms. “Shhhh,” she said.

  Gertrude began to remove the gag tied around Van’s mouth.

  “Aren’t you afraid that he’ll shout and be overheard?” Landish asked.

  “The convalescent suite is all but soundproofed. I told the servants that I would myself attend to my husband during his illness, which I assured them wasn’t serious. Consequently, there is no one within two hundred feet of the suite. This section of the house has been sealed off, all of its doors closed and locked.”

  “What about Trull?”

  “He’s at the main gate lodge. As always. Keeping an eye out for you. My husband told him, Mr. Druken, that you and Esse would be leaving in a couple of days, alone. But it seems that Mr. Trull trusts you less than Van does.”

  “How stupid,” Van said, shaking his head free of the gag. “All four of you will hang for this. And then I will have Godwin and Deacon and be rid of you, Gertrude, and you, Landish, just as I’d planned.”

  “I had nothing to do with whatever this is,” Landish said.

  “We won’t be caught,” Gertrude said. “I’ve told Godwin that we’re leaving Vanderland. She’s delighted. You don’t want her. You want merely to deprive me of her. Just as you want to deprive Mr. Druken of the boy.”

  “In my own house,” Van shouted. “Landish, you’re involved in this!”

  “I came to the convalescent suite because I was told you asked me to. I have no idea what’s happening. I only know that that gentleman’s gun would work as well on me as it would on you.”

  “I have no plans to harm my husband,” Gertrude said. “I mean only to prevent him from taking Godwin from me and the boy from you. He will soon be the sole permanent resident of Vanderland. He will be miserably alone. That is how it should be.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Landish,” Van said. “The police do the bidding of the Vanderluydens.”

  “LANDISH,” Deacon wailed again. He tasted the tears in his mouth and began to cough. He clung to Landish’s leg as Landish dragged him farther away from Van.

  “You have to be quiet, Deacon,” Landish said. “We’ll be leaving Vanderland soon.”

  “Don’t worry, Deacon,” Miss Esse said. “This man and Mrs. Vanderluyden are helping us.”

  “Are they taking you against your will, Deacon?” Sweat ran down Van’s forehead. “He’s too young to understand, Landish. Imagine what he’ll think of you ten years from now when he realizes what he might have been, what he might have had, if not for you. And Vanderland is ruined, ruined. I should have shored it up completely, plugged up every crack and crevice. Everything that I despise and have all my life opposed has seeped into Vanderland. It slithered in with Gertrude. You and the boy tracked it in on your boots. It was smuggled in and left here by this traitor who holds me at pistol point. Thorpe. Yes, Landish, this is Thorpe, Godwin’s father. Landish, help me!”

  Thorpe. Landish wondered if the moustache was a disguise. Richard Hunt’s second-in-command was back at Vanderland, back from wherever he’d been banished by Van. “Van, I am, like you, being held at gunpoint.”

  “I have all my life been betrayed by those who were closest to me. My every act of generosity has been answered with contempt. And you, Thorpe, you don’t have the nerve to look me in the eye. He once worked for me, Landish. He betrayed me with my wife. In this very house. Gertrude, you’re going to run off with a scoundrel who has only come back to you because he has spent the bribe—”

  “Sir, we have been in constant correspondence—” Thorpe began, but stopped when Gertrude raised her hand.

  “Why bother to argue with him?” Gertrude said. “It’s not as if we need his blessing or approval.” Thorpe was red-faced but he held the gun firmly. Landish couldn’t account for Gertrude’s demeanour, her complacent certainty that she and Thorpe and Goddie would somehow evade the Vanderluydens for the balance of their lives. Landish couldn’t imagine either of the threesomes living inconspicuously enough to do so no matter where on earth they went.

  “With a pair of fools for parents,” Van said, “what else but a fool could Goddie be?”

  Gertrude smacked Van across the face so hard that he fell back onto the bed.

  “Don’t,” Deacon said and began to cry again.

  “Thank you, Deacon,” Van said, his voice barely audible as he struggled upright again despite his bound hands and feet.

  “Are you and Goddie going to New York?” Deacon said to Mrs. Vanderluyden.<
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  “We’re going somewhere. Mr. Druken, the Packard is waiting for you three on the road beside the servants’ school. We have to be going. We’ll take the service elevator to the basement. You’ll leave the way the darkies come and go. That’s as far as I’ll take you.”

  “Deacon, stay here,” Van said. “You’re like your father, Carson of the Gilbert, who stayed with his men even though he thought they were done for. So that he could do what? Hold their hands? They had each other’s hands to hold.”

  “Stop it,” Landish said.

  “What a waste. All you had to do at Princeton was accept my invitation. How different things would have been for both of us.”

  “That’s Just Mist,” Deacon said.

  “Yes,” Van said. “Just Mist. Soon your very lives will be Just Mist. Except yours, Deacon. Where are the dead, Deacon? You told me once.”

  “The Tomb of Time.”

  “That’s right. Gertrude and Thorpe and Landish and Esse will soon be in the Tomb of Time. And you will be brought back to live with Goddie and me at Vanderland. Not everything is lost. Something can be salvaged from the wretched Mist. Gertrude—”

  “I mean to leave you with nothing but what you had the day we met.”

  “It won’t be hard for me to find you, Gertrude. You must know that. How fast can you travel? What ship or train will you take? The Vanderluydens own them all. How far can you go? You’ve destroyed yourself. In no time Goddie will be back at Vanderland. You’ll never set eyes on her again.”

  “Goodbye, Van,” Landish said.

  Van averted his face. “That day I sat beside you on the bench, I thought I would forever remember it as one of the great days of my life.”

  “You still can if you choose to,” Landish said.