H. M. Pulham, Esquire

by John P. Marquand

  “Mary,” he would call, “Mary.” He was not calling to my sister but to Mother—in those days we used to call my sister “May” and sometimes “Pussy.”

  “Mary,” he would call, and my mother would come out of the morning room, beautiful with the sunlight on her soft brown hair.

  “Yes, John,” my mother would say, “what is it?”

  My father would be looking through his pockets, slapping himself.

  “That woman has taken my key ring again,” he would call. He would be referring to Katreen, the parlormaid.

  Then Katreen and Hugh, our butler, and Nancy, the upstairs maid, would all move about the hall, looking under things.

  “Katreen hasn’t taken it, dear,” my mother would say. “What would Katreen want with your keys? Where did you put them last?”

  “Everything gets moved around,” my father would say. I could not understand him then, but I can now. My own keys always seem to be in some other trouser pocket in the morning, or in the suit which has just been sent out to be pressed.

  “Nothing has been moved, John,” my mother would say.

  “Then, damn it all, Mary,” my father would ask her, “what’s happened to my key ring?”

  “Perhaps the children have taken it, sir,” Hugh would suggest. “Master Harry has been playing in the den.”

  “Hugh,” my mother would say, “Master Harry never touches Mr. Pulham’s things. Have you looked through your pockets, dear?”

  “Through my pockets?” my father would ask. “Where do I usually look except through my pockets? Wait a minute. Oh, my God, here they are!”

  I don’t know why that scene should come back to me so vividly, except that such moments in childhood always seem important. Childhood, as I recalled it, was a time when you always were trying to adjust yourself to something new. There were certain shadowy individuals who fell into a relationship that became increasingly clear as time went on, and there were a few brilliant moments—the memory of a butterfly, of flowers in the garden and of the singing of crickets, the first fall of snow, the stars in a black sky—but most of it lay behind a sort of haze. I have read a good many books of childhood, such as The Golden Glow, The Believing Years; but none of them convinces me, for they are an adult’s effort to picture a child’s mind. I can still remember my feeling of aloof horror at the sight of my father in the playroom when he tried to be one of us and tried to pretend, as he did nearly once a week, that he was a bear. Of course we were polite and we laughed at him; but, although we knew he was making an effort, we also knew that he was making a spectacle of himself. And when he tried to be a bear once, when the Dodd children came to supper, Mary and I were humiliated.

  Once a long while later I spoke to him about it. It was one of the last conversations we ever had, but there was still a sort of constraint between us when I mentioned it.

  “Do you remember when you used to play bear?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he said. “That was a lot of fun.”

  “Well, you were an awfully bad bear,” I said, and the curious thing was that he was sensitive about it.

  “I made a very genuine effort,” he said. “I gave it a lot of thought and study, and I don’t agree with you. I was a damned good bear.”

  He paused and looked almost wistful.

  “You never knew,” he went on, “the effort your mother and I used to make to take part in your lives. All those damned games, all those paper caps and snappers, and that woman in the nursery—that was your mother’s idea. I never did like Germans.”

  I really never thought of Father as a human being until I was nine years old. Mary and I had been dressed in clean clothes and had been turned out on the terrace behind the house just before Sunday dinner. In the distance by the stable I could see Patrick sitting by the open door and the sun made the wheels of the carriages shine and there was a smell of roast beef from the kitchen.

  “Harry,” Mary said, “what does son of a bitch mean?”

  “Who said it?” I asked. I did not know what it meant, but I liked the way it sounded.

  “Patrick said it,” Mary answered, and then Fräulein called in German, telling us to come to dinner.

  There was a new white cloth on the table and an arrangement of roses in the silver bowl in the center. My mother was at one end, straight and beautiful.

  “Come,” she called. “Hurry, children.” Hugh pulled out Mary’s chair and helped her with the napkin. I sat down and tucked my own napkin inside my Eton collar.

  “Well, well,” my father said, “and what have you two been doing? Did you go to Sunday School?”

  He knew very well that we had gone to Sunday School, just as we knew that he and Mother had gone to church, for he had on his long-tailed coat and his pearl cravat.

  “John,” my mother said, “haven’t we forgotten something?”

  “Now, what the deuce?” my father asked.

  “John,” my mother said, “you’ve forgotten grace.”

  “Oh, yes,” my father said. “Oh, Lord, bless these Thy gifts for our use, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

  “I wonder if you children saw the dew on the lawn this morning,” Mother said. “It shone on the grass like diamonds, but it is prettier than any diamond. Do either of you know what makes the dew?”

  My father took no part in the conversation about the dew.

  “I’ll have a glass of sherry, Hugh,” Father said. “Hugh, is the carving knife sharp?”

  “Yes, sir,” Hugh said softly. “It was sent out yesterday.”

  “That’s good,” Father said. “It was very dull last week.”

  “I’ll cut Miss Mary’s meat, Hugh,” Mother said, “and I think you’ve forgotten her pusher.”

  “Yes, madam,” Hugh said.

  “Harry can cut his own meat,” Mother went on. “Harry, you’re a big boy now, dear, but try to keep your elbows down and don’t lean too far over the plate.”

  I held my knife and fork very carefully and began to cut the slab of roast beef. There was a piece of Yorkshire pudding beside it and a browned potato.

  “Mummie,” Mary said, “may I mash my own potato, please?”

  My knife slipped and my meat slipped from under it and my potato rolled upon the white tablecloth.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said.

  I glanced around the table inquiringly. The tall clock in the hall outside was striking the half hour and I could hear a squirrel chattering in the oak tree on the lawn. Hugh stood behind Father’s chair. Father stood with his knife poised above the roast. My mother had lifted her napkin to her lips, and I could see her eyes staring at me over the napkin, wide and incredulous.

  “Harry,” she said, “oh, Harry!” and then she sobbed.

  My father set down the carving knife and I still remember the smell of golden beef-fat and Yorkshire pudding.

  “Go upstairs to your room,” he said.

  “What?” I said.

  “Go upstairs to your room,” Father said, “and stay there until I send for you.”

  “Oh, Harry,” Mother sobbed, “Harry!” And then I began to cry. I began to cry because I was frightened.

  “John,” Mother said, “I’ve told you—I’ve told you.”

  “Be quiet, please, Mary,” Father said. “I hope I’m gentleman enough never to have used such an expression, and I’m sure I don’t know where he heard it. Harry, did you hear me? Go upstairs.”

  I ran up the stairs as fast as I could and down the hall to my room and slammed the door. There was still that smell of cooking. It was a pretty room with a little four-post bed and with white curtains and a little shelf of books and a small golden-oak writing desk. There was a picture over it of a young knight, kneeling in front of an altar and looking at the hilt of his sword, praying, my mother had explained, that he might be a good knight. She had hung the picture so that I might see it the first thing when I awoke in the morning, and the last thing when I fell asleep. I walked over to the door and kicked it.
/>   When I hear certain persons speaking of the happiness of childhood I wonder if they have not forgotten a good deal about it. Childhood has seemed to me like a great many other periods in life. When you are in them you don’t have much of a time. It is only when you are out of them and probably in something worse that you remember the more genial aspects. I could think of them sitting downstairs finishing their dinner. I have never cared much for Sunday dinner since, and I have never cared much for Sunday. It has always seemed to me that there is something unnatural about the day which makes for family quarrels.

  There was a knock on the door a long while later and it was Hugh in his green-striped vest with brass buttons. Although he moved silently and quickly, Hugh was a heavy man, with white hands and a pale, rather handsome face. Hugh was smiling the way he smiled when the pantry door was closed and no one could see him but the maids.

  “You nip off downstairs,” said Hugh. “Your papa wants to see you. He’s waiting in his den. Oh, my, my, such language! Come now, your papa is waiting.”

  Hugh walked with me down the front stairs and across the lonely hall to the door of my father’s room.

  “Here’s Master Harry, sir,” he said. The room was not beautiful, but it was interesting. At one end in a case were my father’s shotguns which I must never touch. Hanging on the mahogany paneling above the mantelpiece were some birds and fish mounted in bas-relief and covered with glass. Then there were a good many books which my father very seldom read. His name in white letters was on a black strip of cloth above the door and on the wall were some hunting prints and some framed notices and letters, known as “shingles,” which had been given him in college, and near them was a shelf of pewter and silver cups. Jack, his Gordon setter, was sprawled on the rug near the fireplace. My father was sitting in a morris chair, smoking a cigar. He had taken off his morning coat and was wearing a velvet smoking jacket and before he spoke he cleared his throat.

  “Sit down, Harry,” he said, “over there, where I can see you,” and he pointed to a heavy leather chair opposite him. I sat down and he flicked the ash of his cigar into the empty fireplace and blew a cloud of smoke into the air above him and looked at it.

  “Well,” he said, “don’t look so frightened, Harry,” and he cleared his throat. “We’re just going to have a talk about those words you used. Did you know what they meant?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well,” Father said, “I didn’t think you did. Now, I’m going to tell you exactly what they mean. Now, Jack there, what do you call him, Harry?”

  “A dog,” I said.

  “And Tessie, out in the stable, what do you call her, Harry?”

  “A dog,” I said.

  My father rubbed his hand over his heavy black mustache. I suppose he must have given a good deal of thought to what he had to say.

  “You’re right,” he said, “but only partly, because Tessie is a lady dog. She’s a very good lady dog, as a matter of fact. She has a pedigree as long as her tail. Now, a lady dog has another name. It’s a name that is not used in the house, but one which you may hear men using sometimes when they are talking about dogs. A lady dog sometimes,” my father cleared his throat again, “is called a bitch. Now, remember, that is not a nice word, and you must not use it in mixed company.”

  “What is mixed company?” I asked.

  “When boys and girls and ladies and gentlemen are together, that is mixed company; and people do not use such words in mixed company. Little boys who use them get sent upstairs. Now do you understand me, Harry?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Well,” Father went on, “sometimes Tessie and Jack have puppies.”

  “I thought only Tessie had puppies,” I said. “Does Jack have puppies too?”

  My father looked at me and pulled at his mustache.

  “Jack is the father,” he said. “There has to be a father, just the way you have to have a father and have to have a mother, but let’s not mind about that, Harry. You’ll find out about that later, and if I were you I wouldn’t ask your mother about it either. I was simply saying that Tessie is a bitch.” Father paused and sighed and threw his cigar into the fireplace. “Now, when Tessie has puppies, some of them are girl puppies and some of them are boy puppies. The men at the kennel call the little boy puppies dogs and the girl puppies bitches. Now, that’s where the expression comes from, Harry.”

  “What’s an expression?” I asked.

  Father sighed again.

  “The words you used in the dining room; somehow those are wrong words.”

  “Why are they wrong words?” I asked.

  Father got up and opened his mahogany humidor.

  “Get me the cigar cutter,” he said, “over on the table. Those words are never to be used in front of ladies.”

  “Why,” I asked, “if a lady dog is a bitch?”

  Father lighted his cigar.

  “Because I say so,” he answered. “Now, have we got that clear?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but I don’t see why.”

  “Never mind why,” my father said. “As you grow older, Harry, you will find there will be a great many things you have to do without asking why. There was a great poem written about it once by the greatest poet who ever lived—Alfred Lord Tennyson. It was about the Charge of the Light Brigade. Well, the British were fighting the Russians. Now, don’t ask me why they were fighting the Russians, because I don’t remember. Well, someone ordered six hundred men in the British cavalry known as the Light Brigade to charge right into thousands of Russian soldiers and into hundreds of Russian guns. Now, those men in the Light Brigade knew they weren’t enough to beat the whole Russian Army. They knew they were nearly all going to be killed, but when the order was given they charged.”

  “Why did they have to?” I asked.

  “That’s just what I’m trying to explain,” Father said. “It doesn’t do any good to ask why.

  “Theirs not to reason why,

  Theirs but to do and die …

  Bravely they rode and well …

  Into the jaws of death,

  Into the mouth of hell.”

  Jack got up quickly from his rug, wagging his tail.

  “Down, Jack,” my father said. “Charge. Now, that’s curious when you come to think of it. You tell the Light Brigade to charge, but when you tell a dog to charge he lies down. And you needn’t ask me why. That’s the way things are.”

  “Were they all killed?” I asked.

  “Charge, Jack,” my father said. “Now, don’t bother about that. I only mentioned it to show that people must do what they are told, whether they have a reason for it or not. Now where was I? Oh, yes … It’s the same way about words. Now, hell is a bad word and so is damn. Sometimes I use them, but it is even bad for me to use them. You’ll get to recognize those words by the way they sound.”

  “What are some of them?” I asked.

  “Never mind them now,” Father said. “Perhaps we’ve talked long enough. Someday you’ll be grown up, and I want you to be a gentleman.”

  My father stood up and squared his shoulders.

  “Well, that’s about all. It’s puzzling to know what to do sometimes, but you will know if you’re a gentleman.”

  There was a tap on the door. It was Katreen, the downstairs maid.

  “Mrs. Pulham sent me, sir,” Katreen said. “She’s upstairs with a headache. She would like to see Master Harry.”

  The shades were drawn in Mother’s room so that it was cool and dusky. There was a smell of cologne and Mother was reclining on her chaise longue with a thin blue blanket drawn over her.

  “Come in, dear,” she said. “I have a little headache.”

  I sat down on a low chair beside her and she held my hand.

  “You’re getting to be such a big strong boy,” she said, “and you’ve been seeing Father—the men of the family talking in the den.”

  “I didn’t know it was a bad word,” I said.

  �
�Of course you didn’t, dear,” she answered, “but Father told you, didn’t he? You must see bad things, but never do them, darling.”

  “All right,” I said. “I won’t, Mother.”

  “Because I want you to be my knight,” she went on, “my strong little knight, like the picture in your room. It reminds me of a poem by the greatest poet in the world—Alfred Lord Tennyson.”

  “About the Light Brigade?” I asked.

  “No, dear,” my mother said. “I have always thought that was a horrid poem. About Sir Galahad, the knight who found the Holy Grail. It was a cup and no one could touch it who wasn’t pure. Sir Lancelot couldn’t touch it.”

  “Why couldn’t he?” I asked.

  “Because he was in love with Queen Guinevere,” Mother answered.

  “But why couldn’t he touch it, Mother?” I asked her.

  “Because Queen Guinevere was King Arthur’s wife, darling,” Mother said, “and men mustn’t be in love with other men’s wives, least of all a knight.”

  “Is a knight a gentleman, Mother?” I asked.

  “Yes, dear,” my mother said, “a knight is always a gentleman, but Sir Galahad was more than that—he could touch the Holy Grail. Do you know what he said in the poem? ‘My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.’ And you must be my little knight.”

  “Mother,” I asked.

  “Yes, dear,” she said.

  “Could Father touch the Holy Grail?”

  “Darling,” my mother said, “your father is kind and gentle and brave, but there is only one knight who could ever touch the Holy Grail. I am going to take a little nap now. Good-by, my little knight.”

  It took me quite a while to get over the idea that my father was the ablest man in the world and that my mother was the most beautiful woman, and I only learned a good deal later that we weren’t distinguished people. The first inkling of it came when my mother was getting over another of her headaches and we were alone in her room again. I was struggling, as I have a good deal since, to get my relationship straight with the world around me.