Theophilus North

by Thornton Wilder

  Dr. Addison held up his hand to stop me. He was deep in thought.

  “I’ve got it!” he cried.

  “I knew you’d think of something, Doc.”

  “Last month Bill Hinkle was doing his laundry down in the basement. He got his hand caught in the mangle—get the picture? His hand came out as flat as a playing card. Well, I pushed the knuckles back in place and separated the fingers. He’ll be playing poker by Christmas. I’ll give Elbert a plaster cast as big as a wasps’ nest.”

  “You’re a wonder, Doc. Now you’ve got to say ‘No Visitors Admitted’ because those gangsters will want to call on him. They’re so furious they’ll tear off the plaster cast and wreck his hand. He’s fouled up their game. They’d follow him to China. Doc, could you write a letter to ‘Holy Joe’ to make sure that no visitors could be admitted to his room?”

  “When do you want me to put the cast on?”

  “Today’s Tuesday. I want him to go to work a few days as usual. Say Saturday morning.—Doc, does your daughter like poetry?”

  “She writes it—hymns mostly.”

  “I’ll see she gets a copy of ‘A Psalm of Life,’ framed in glass, practically signed by the author.”

  “She’d appreciate that. ‘Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal.’ Eyewash, but talented.” Here he fell into deep thought again. “Wait a minute! ‘Holy Joe’s’ not got spunk enough to prevent gangsters moving about his house. Elbert’s not safe there.”

  “Oh, Doc, if you could hide him in your house. Elbert’s saved up a lot of money. He could pay for a husky male nurse to watch him when you were out.”

  “Out or in, I’m too old to rassle with thugs. I might kill one of them, unintentional. Hide him in New Hampshire or Vermont.”

  “You don’t know Elbert yet. He can’t cope with anything except the alphabet. He’d get in touch with his mother and his fiancée and these fellows know their addresses. Somebody’s got to do his thinking for him. He’s not all there. He’s a genius; he’s a little bit crazy. He thinks he’s Edgar Allan Poe.”

  “Great Jehoshaphat! I’ve got it. We’ll give out that he’s crazy. A friend of mine has a mental hospital twenty miles away that’s as hard to get into as a Turkish harem.”

  “Wouldn’t that be complicated? Couldn’t you think of a simpler idea?”

  “Hell! You’re only young once. Let’s make it as complicated as possible. Saturday morning we kidnap him. We’ll call it brain fever.”

  “That’s great, Doc. I knew I’d come to the right place. Now we’ve got Elbert out of the way of mayhem. But we have another problem and I want your ideas. Take a swig; you’ll need inspiration—real inspiration. We want them out of town quick. We don’t want to call in the police. We want to scare them out.”

  “I’ve got it,” said Doc. “The only way these men can be charged and indicted is by the Post Office Department. They’re shipping fraudulent goods through the mail. No wonder they don’t get letters or telephone calls at Mrs. Keefe’s. They had to give a local address to rent that post office box. So they probably gave the Union Hotel on Washington Square, where they’re staying. This Forsythe isn’t there at any time during the working day, is he? Well, tomorrow morning I’m going to drop in there and ask in a heavy manner for Mr. Forsythe. ‘Not in.’ ‘Tell him a representative of the United States Post Office Department called on him and will call again.’ ”

  “Wouldn’t the hotel know you, Doc?”

  “I haven’t answered a call from that hotel for twenty years. Then you find time in the afternoon before five to do the same thing. Then I’ll ask a patient of mine to do the same thing—a retired gardener, solemn as a judge. That’ll get them rattled. I’ll tell Mrs. Keefe to tell him that a representative of the P.O. Department called on him in the evening. That’ll put a bur under his tail.”

  “Good!—Now I’ve been cooking up another idea to add to yours. Let me read you a letter from the Governor of Massachusetts that I’ve got ready for Elbert to forge on the Governor’s own stationery. Take a swig. ‘Mr. John Forsythe, Dealer in Historical Documents and Autographs, Newport, Rhode Island. Dear Mr. Forsythe, As you may know, my office in The State House is hung with portraits of worthies in our history. Those belong to the Commonwealth. I have a smaller reception room, however, on whose walls I have hung autographed letters from my own collection. A mimeographed sheet of your very interesting offers for the autumn of 1926 has just been brought to my attention by a friend who found it in a hotel room in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There are some lacunae in my collection that I would like to fill, particularly letters from Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Louisa May Alcott. In addition I would like to replace a number that I own—those of Emerson, Lowell, and Bowditch—with letters of more significant content. Would you kindly send me the address of your office or showroom in Newport, so that I may send an expert to report to me about the properties you have in stock. This is an unofficial letter and I request that you regard it as confidential. Faithfully yours,” et cetera, et cetera.

  “That’ll smoke ’em out.”

  “I’ll wake Elbert at six o’clock tomorrow morning so that he can copy it out before he goes to work. How’ll I get it mailed in Boston?”

  “My daughter’il mail it. Leave it at my door as soon as it’s finished. Tomorrow’s Wednesday; they’ll get it Friday morning. Elbert must be out of the way before they read it.”

  “Anything else occur to you, Doc?”

  “Yes. Do you think Elbert can afford to pay about thirty dollars for his rescue?”

  “Sure of it.”

  “I’ll have a friend of mine walk up and down in front of Mrs. Keefe’s house. He needs the money and he’ll love the work. He’s a former actor. When that messenger of theirs goes to the P.O. carrying all those boxes Nick will follow him and stick his nose into everything this fella does. Then he goes back to Mrs. Keefe’s house and when the forgers quit work, he’ll give them the Hawk-shaw eye and they’ll see him writing all their comings and goings in a notebook—see what I mean?”

  “Beautiful!”

  “You telephone Mrs. Keefe that he’s out there protecting her. They’ll order a van and get out of there Saturday morning or I’m a Chinaman. Tell Mrs. Keefe to telephone me the minute they announce they’re leaving and I’ll go down and sit in the hall to see that they don’t do any damage. Nick and I could take turns sitting up all night, if need be.”

  And that’s the way it happened. I moved in the next week. The stink didn’t last long.

  The Fenwicks

  My favorite among the pupils in the early morning tennis classes at the Casino was Eloise Fenwick. She was fourteen—that is, as the spirit moved her—of any age between ten and sixteen. Some days when I approached the courts she seized my left elbow with both hands and required me to drag her to the back line; some days she preceded me, the only female world’s champion who was also a lady, Countess of Aquidneck and the Adjacent Isles. In addition, she was intelligent with breathtaking surprises; she was deep and kept her counsel; she was as beautiful as the morning and showed no sign that she was aware of it. At first we had few opportunities for desultory conversation, but we were acknowledged friends without that. Friendship between one of Shakespeare’s heroines at the age of fourteen and a man of thirty is one of life’s fairest gifts, only occasionally available to parents.

  Eloise bore a burden on her shoulders.

  One day she said, “I wish my brother Charles would take lessons with you, Mr. North.” She surreptitiously indicated a young man who was practicing his tennis shots against a wall reserved for such exercise at the farthest end of the courts. I had observed him for some time. He was, I assumed, about sixteen; he was always alone. There was something defensively arrogant about him. His face was covered with the pimples and discolorations usually associated with late puberty.

  “Tennis lessons, Eloise? Mr. Dobbs teaches students of that age.”

  “He doesn’t like Mr. Dobbs. And he
wouldn’t take lessons from you because you teach children. He doesn’t like anybody. No—I just wish you would teach him something.”

  “Well, I can’t until I’m asked, can I?”

  “Mama’s going to ask you.”

  I glanced down at her. The tone of her voice and the carriage of her head said as plain as words that she, Eloise, had arranged it as she probably arranged many things that came to her notice.

  At the conclusion of the next lesson two days later, Eloise said, “Mama wants to talk to you about Charles.” Her eyes indicated a lady sitting in the spectators’ gallery. I had already remarked Charles back at the practice board. I followed Eloise who introduced me to her mother and withdrew.

  She was indeed Eloise’s mother. She had come to take her children home after their strenuous exercise and was heavily veiled for motoring. She put out her hand.

  “Mr. North, may I speak with you for a few moments? Please sit down. Your name is well known in our house and in the houses of a number of my friends with whom you read. Eloise admires you very much.”

  I smiled and said, “I had not dared to hope so.”

  She laughed softly and our reciprocal confidence was sealed.

  “I wanted to talk to you about my son Charles. Eloise tells me that you know him by sight. I was hoping that you could find time to coach him in French. He has been accepted for school in the fall.” She mentioned a highly esteemed school for Roman Catholic students in the vicinity of Newport. “He has lived in France and speaks the language, after a fashion, but he needs to apply himself to the grammatical constructions. He has a bloc against learning the genders of nouns and the tenses of verbs. He admires everything that is French and I have the impression that he really wishes to bring it up to a higher standard.” She lowered her voice slightly. “It embarrasses him that Eloise speaks much more correctly than he does.”

  I paused a moment. “Mrs. Fenwick, for four years and three summers I have taught French to students most of whom would prefer to do anything else. It is like dragging loads of stones uphill. During this summer I resolved not to work so hard. I have already rejected a number of students who are required to improve their French, German, and Latin. I must have the student’s own expression of readiness to study French and to work on it with me. I would like to have a short talk with your son and hear him make such a commitment.”

  She lowered her eyes a moment, then rested them on her son in the distance. She finally said, sadly but directly: “That is a good deal to ask of Charles Fenwick. . . . I find it difficult to say what I must. I’m not a bashful woman, I’m not a bashful-minded woman at all, but I find it very hard to describe certain tendencies —or traits—in Charles.”

  “Perhaps I can help you, Mrs. Fenwick. In the school where I’ve been teaching the Headmaster has got into the way of calling my attention to any boys who don’t fit into the pattern of the ‘All-American Boy’ he wants in the school—boys who seem to have what he calls ‘problems.’ My telephone will ring: ‘North, I want you to have some talk with Frederick Powell; his housemaster says that he’s been walking and groaning in his sleep. He’s in your parish.’ My parish comprises sleepwalkers, bed-wetters, boys who are so homesick that they cry all night and can’t hold down their food; a boy who seemed to be preparing to hang himself because he failed in two subjects and foresaw that his father would not address a word to him throughout the whole Easter vacation—and so on.”

  “Thank you, Mr. North . . . I wish you had room in your parish for Charles. He has none of those problems. Perhaps he has a worse one: he has a disdain, almost a contempt, for everyone he has come into contact with, except perhaps Eloise, and several priests whom he has come to know in his religious duties. . . . He is far closer to Eloise than to his parents.”

  “What are the grounds for Charles’s low opinion of the rest of us?”

  “Some posture of superiority . . . I have found the courage to give it a name: he is a snob, an unbounded snob. He has never said ‘Thank you’ to a servant, or even raised his eyes to one. If he has thanked his father or myself when we have taken some pains to please him, the thanks are barely audible. At mealtimes when the family is alone (for he refuses to come downstairs when there are guests) he sits in silence. He takes no interest in any subject but one: our social standing. Neither his father nor I care one iota about that. We have our friends and enjoy them—here and in Baltimore. Charles is intensely anxious as to whether we are invited to what he regards as important occasions; whether the clubs his father belongs to are the best clubs; whether I am what the papers call a ‘social leader.’ He is driving his father mad with questions about whether we have more means than the So-and-sos. Charles has a low opinion of us because we don’t stretch every nerve to—oh, I can’t go on with this—”

  She was blushing intensely under her veils. She put her hands to her cheeks.

  I said quickly, “Please go on a moment more about this, Mrs. Fenwick.”

  “As I said we are Roman Catholics. Charles is serious about his religious life. Father Walsh, who is in our home quite often, is fond of Charles and pleased with him. I have talked over with him this . . . this preposterous worldliness. He does not see it as of much importance; he thinks Charles will outgrow it soon.”

  “Will you tell me something of Charles’s education?”

  “Oh!—At the age of nine Charles developed a form of heart trouble. Baltimore and Johns Hopkins Medical School is a center for many distinguished doctors. They treated him and cured him; they tell me he is completely well. But at that time we took him out of school and ever since his education has been entirely in the hands of private tutors.”

  “Does that explain why he has so few friends, why he seems to be always alone?”

  “Somewhat—but there is always his disdainful manner too. The boys don’t like him and he thinks the boys are coarse and vulgar.”

  “Do the blemishes in his complexion have a part in this self-isolation?”

  “That condition has only developed in the last ten months. He has been under treatment by the best dermatologists. His attitude to us is of long standing.”

  I smiled at her. “Do you think he can be persuaded to come over here and talk to me?”

  “Eloise can persuade him to do anything. You can imagine our gratitude to God that that little girl of fourteen is so helpful and so wise.”

  “Then I will go inside and cancel my next appointment. Please ask Eloise to persuade him to come to this table and talk with me. Could you and Eloise leave us alone together for half an hour on some pretext?”

  “Yes, we have shopping to do.” She beckoned to Eloise and told her of this plan. Eloise and I exchanged a glance fraught with meaning and I went off to telephone. When I returned Charles was seated in the chair his mother had left; he had turned it about so that only his profile was presented to me. In the school I had attended and the school where I had taught students rose when a master entered the room. Charles, without a glance at me, merely lowered his head in acknowledgment of my presence. He had good features, but the cheek he presented to me was marred by a number of cones and craters.

  I sat down. There was no possibility of his shaking hands with the lowest menial at the Newport Casino.

  “Mr. Fenwick—I shall call you that at the beginning of our conversation, then I shall call you Charles—Eloise tells me that you have spent much time in France and have had several years of tutoring. Probably all you need is a few weeks putting some polish on the irregular verbs. Eloise certainly surprised me. She could get an invitation tomorrow to one of those châteaux for a weekend and pass the test with flying colors. As you probably know, French people of real distinction refuse to have anything to do with Americans who speak their language incorrectly. They think we’re savages. In a few moments I am going to ask you if you would like to work with me on this matter, but first I think we should know each other a little better. Eloise and your mother have told me a number of things about you: ar
en’t there some questions you’d like to put to me about myself?”

  Silence. I held the silence so long that presently he spoke. His manner was offhand and freighted with condescension. “Did you go to Yale . . . is it true that you went to Yale?”

  “Yes.”

  Same prolonged pause.

  “If you went to Yale, why are you working at the Casino?”

  “To make some money.”

  “You don’t look . . . poor.”

  I laughed. “Oh, yes, I’m very poor, Charles—but cheerful.”

  “Did you belong to any of those fraternities . . . and clubs they have there?”

  “I was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and of the Elizabethan Club. I was not a member of any one of the Senior Societies.”

  For the first time he glanced at me. “Did you try to get into one?”

  “Trying has nothing to do with it. They did not invite me.”

  Another glance. “Did you feel very badly about it?”

  “Maybe they were wise not to take me in. Maybe I wouldn’t have suited them at all. Clubs are meant for men who have a lot in common. What kind of clubs would you like to be a member of, Charles?” Silence. “The best clubs are built around hobbies. For instance there’s a club in your own town Baltimore—a hundred years old—that I think must be the most delightful in the world and the hardest to get into.”

  “What club is that?”

  “It’s called the ‘Catgut Club.’ ” He couldn’t believe his ears. “It’s always been known that there’s a close affinity between medicine and music. In Berlin there’s a symphony orchestra made up of physicians alone. Around your Johns Hopkins Medical School there are more great doctors than in any place of its size in the world. Only the most eminent professors belong to the ‘Catgut,’ but they’re also pianists, violinists, violists, cellists, and possibly a clarinetist. Every Tuesday night they sit down and play chamber music.”