Wakefield hall, p.32
Wakefield Hall, page 32
Outside: his car, engine purring. The wind blowing my hair as I button my coat—the fur coat Jack gave me.
I’ve missed you so much, he says.
He looked so appealing, the neediness in his eyes that always makes me remember the first day we had lunch. I love him; I’m lonely; and it’s Christmastime—
I need to think, I said, trying to be strong.
I’ll give you a ride—
I need to be alone—
I love you, he said as he shut the car door.
I hailed a taxi home.
34
Sleepless nights followed—no drink could subdue me, no pill lull me to sleep; nothing seemed capable of sealing the Pandora’s box that Jack’s words had unleashed.
I had come to the sudden, and to me shocking, realization that all the men I had loved I had also feared, and that in my heart the two feelings were fatally equated. Why? I wondered. What was this primal sense of abandonment that held me tight, and breathless? I had loved different men—had loved them passionately, had wooed them and reveled in their caresses—but I had never done this, I knew now, without a grain of apprehension.
Few would ever guess this: It was my own secret, well guarded and impure.
In my mind’s eye I incessantly reenacted two conversations—with Cassel in his library, with Jack at the Four Seasons.
Cassel’s words, initially so troubling, had left me merely angry.
Indeed, the fact that he was so infuriated only seemed to confirm my instincts: There remained something at Thistleton to uncover—Joanna’s last letter, most likely.
Jack’s warnings, veiled as protective counsel, were more insidious, however, for they had sparked a vortex of self-doubt and guilt that seemed to strangle indignation. The monster-creature of rage——that part of me which would not be silenced—warred with another part which not only doubted its validity, but its right to be angry.
For hadn’t my father, too, begged me to abandon the book? And so the chill feeling in my heart persisted as I continued to dwell on that afternoon at the Four Seasons, with its bitter wind and disturbing pauses, wondering all the time what Jack was really trying to tell me. I had become an archaeologist of sorts, a scavenger of desire, examining and reexamining the shards of a love affair three years old.
A week had passed. A moat of hurt, deepened by Jack’s disapproval of the book, stretched between us. When, two days afterward, Jack had called, his voice was gentle, conciliatory, even tremulous. Still, it was not completely possible for him to mask what he really thought. At one point he told me, with a sense of wonder and chagrin (and yet not without tenderness), that I was “obsessed” with the book on Joanna. He said this in such a way that I knew it not to be a compliment—as if obsessiveness, in a woman, had about it a frigid aura of unpleasantness.
Occasionally—at a restaurant or on the street—I would see Larry Brandt. He would listen to me unwaveringly, his hands in his pockets, his hooded dark eyes fixed on me. In the past, I had avoided meeting him; now I caught myself seeking him out. His presence was welcome in a way I could only vaguely understand (indeed, a strange self-consciousness comes over me as I try). It was partly gratitude, I suppose—for his encouragement, his subtle way of directing my mind from the secular world of New York with which I was all too embroiled and which I increasingly felt had almost, but not quite, succeeded in corrupting my sensibility. He would mention a book I should read, an exhibit at the Metropolitan I should see, a film I might like—and all would be exactly right, all would nourish some chord of my inner self which, until that moment, had lain dormant.
If I spoke with him on the telephone, I would put down the receiver feeling content, satiated—not, as I did so often after speaking with others, still ravenous for real communication. With him I had come to feel, as I did with no one else, almost bewilderingly uncensored—I could tell him anything, and wondered at the feeling. The timbre of his voice, the rhythm and inflection of his sentences, the questions he would ask—all of this I drank in.
Yet even at such moments I would feel myself drawing back. I knew Larry was ambitious, and I also knew he would be well served by being shown in a flattering light in the book. And I could not entirely dismiss the derogatory remarks Christina and Rosalind had made about him—a feeling corroborated when I mentioned his name to Russell Heywood one day, only to hear how difficult Larry had been throughout his separation: how unyielding, even “cruel” with his ex-wife (whom Russell knew quite well, it turned out). “He was devastated when she left him,” Russell added. “He’s still very much in love with her, I hear.” At this I was seized with a strange terror, all the while trying to reconcile my own impressions with the judgments of others.
I continued to work on the book, fighting hard against discouragement. And yet discouragement was a companionable enough demon compared to others that began to assail me—self-loathing, guilt, self-doubt. A depression, blacker than any I had ever known, threatened to engulf me. Mazes and tongueless statues stalked my dreams; sleep would seize me at odd moments; and often I would sit at my desk, struggling to concentrate on something which had once excited me, but which now only sparked listlessness.
Every loss haunted me. Everything about my physical self—my body, my hair—seemed hateful.
I lost pleasure in things I had previously enjoyed. The migraines increased; I began to smoke.
In the third week of December, Christina von Shouse invited me to tea. Like conscientious actors, we both played our parts: Christina seemed to listen sympathetically, while I seemed to appreciate her sympathy. All the while she studied me, assessing my reactions and how far I would go in challenging David Cassel. By this time I knew Madame von Shouse to be what the French call a micmaceuse—a mischief-maker—but on a grand scale. Her enjoyment of intrigue was both dangerous and pathetic, the paltry substitute for the satisfaction her able mind had never found. I had simply become a new amusement for her.
We sat, as we customarily did, in the drawing room, I on the sofa before the sphinx table, she in her favorite tufted armchair. My head had begun to ache that afternoon, my forehead to throb with fearful intensity. She seemed concerned and asked whether I would like a painkiller or a glass of red wine. To my astonishment, she added—by way of commiseration, I suppose—that she, too, suffered from migraine headaches, and proceeded to produce from her handbag (the lizard handbag which she was never without) a vial of red pills. Would I like to try one? she asked me. No, I said, though I was sorely tempted. A glass of red wine, then? I refused this as well, explaining that a mere sip of wine would augment the pain to a point almost past endurance. “Yes of course,” she said, ringing for the maid to bring some tea.
She listened intently as I described the meeting with Cassel at his apartment. I told her that only she seemed to know about the copy of the final letter, adding that Cassel’s fury when I had mentioned it, coupled with the stipulations of the will and Rosalind’s hostile attitude, had led me to believe that she, Christina, was right: The crucial letter, or letters, lay at Thistleton. As of yet, I also told her, no response had come from Desmond Kerrith.
“You must let me help you, then,” she said at once, setting down her cup of tea. “I shall call him for you. Tomorrow, if you like.”
This time I did not discourage her from doing so; I had come to a point where even her intervention was welcome (whereas in the past I had been loath even to consider asking her a favor). I simply thanked her.
“But this is no guarantee, you must understand, that Desmond will see you,” she replied with a gracious smile. “But we can always try. Esperons,” A flash of her red nails as she smoothed a black curl about her ear. “Even if you find nothing there, you must at least see Thistleton, if only to fully understand Joanna’s life! What she was about.” She described Thistleton’s maze and the fascination it held for her dead friend, all the while speaking in a rapid, staccato voice that I had never heard before, occasionally intersplicing her speech with a half-murmured “yes.”
“And you must see the tower-library, as well—yes,” she said, standing up and pacing before the fireplace, her eyes having taken on an unnerving animation. “It is part of the maze, to the east—yes—but perhaps you know that already. It seems like yesterday we were there together, Joanna and I. That beautiful creature in the tower, kneeling by the trunk of props and costumes—crowns, doublets, embroidered gowns, silk, velvet, ropes of gold—yes—” Her restive hands touched her throat, the mantel, the lapel of her suit as she continued: “I played so many parts with her there—Celia to her Rosalind, Gertrude to her Ophelia, Emilia to her Desdemona. All those words, his splendid words, we would recite them for hours together … ” Her voice trailed off; her hands dropped to her sides; the feverish look in her eyes vanished, replaced by a strange, introspective stare.
I asked her to describe the difference between the two mazes—Thistleton’s and Wakefield’s—as I continued to observe her abrupt shifts of demeanor.
“The maze at Thistleton is infinitely more difficult, more complex. A romantic swirling design, created, they say, by Capability Brown. It is treacherous—now that it is overgrown, even more so!” Then, with somber intensity: “It’s a tragedy, really, that Desmond has not kept it up.”
I told her half jokingly that if Thistleton’s were more difficult than Wakefield’s, it must be terrifying indeed. I went on to confess that I had found being in the maze frightening, and even tried to articulate the menacing terror I had experienced while first standing by its gate—the shortening of breath, the feeling of the hedges closing in on me.
“I wonder what Freud would have made of fear of mazes.” Christina said with a distracted smile. “That’s a phobia I’ve never heard of. There must be a term for it in German.” She sipped her tea. “They have such a gift for labeling different species of anxiety, the Germans.”
But her thoughts never seemed to venture far from Thistleton; again I fleetingly glimpsed that dazed look. She murmured almost sotto voce, “You must find a way to go there.” She leaned forward, her left hand touching her black pearls as she took a final sip of her tea, leaving a broad stain of red lipstick around the rim of the cup. “Unless, of course, you decide not to finish the book—something I would understand, by the way. Totally. David can be ruthless, you know!”
I responded in the way she knew I would: I said I had no intention of abandoning the book and that I would be more than grateful for her help.
We parted, as we had in August, at six o’clock. “Until soon,” she said once more, poised by the elevator. She waved; I caught the glimmer of her carnelian ring. It was impossible, from her expression, to know what she was thinking.
35
That week, I received a response to the author’s query I had placed in the Tribune.
The letter, addressed in a formal, old-fashioned handwriting, was postmarked from France; engraved at the top of the nearly translucent ecru paper was an address on the rue de Varenne, followed by a symbol of a telephone with a number.
4 December 1986
Dear Miss Rowan:
I came upon your “author’s query” in the Herald Tribune last month. As I am ill-acquainted with the process of contributing to the research of a biography, I hesitated at first to write. It is only after much thought and deliberation that I do so.
I met Joanna Eakins, the actress, many years ago through a mutual friend, Desmond Kerrith, and became a good friend when she was on tour in Paris. As the years passed, we saw one another much too rarely, yet I like to think she held the same esteem for me as I did her. I visited her the summer of her death, at her house in the countryside. It would, perhaps, interest you to hear what I remember of Joanna at that time.
I have no idea whether your plans, and your research, include a sojourn in Paris. If this is the case, do let me know, in the event it is convenient for us to meet.
Respectfully yours,
Liliane de Morbier
I immediately replied, saying I would to come to Paris after Christmas, in the new year; I would call her to set a date. After sealing the envelope, I put on my coat, intending to go downstairs and mail the letter at once. As I waited for the elevator, something—a strange presentiment—made me pause.
I immediately returned to my apartment and, still in my coat, picked up the telephone: I would ask Christina von Shouse whether she knew of Liliane de Morbier. “No,” she answered, when I reached her. “Never. It couldn’t have been someone important in Joanna’s life—otherwise, I should have known about her.”
I mailed the letter the next morning.
In those weeks before Christmas, I also heard from David Cassel’s lawyers—partners of the old-line Wall Street law firm that had long represented him. The first emissary was tall, thin, and bloodless; I remember thinking of a tough quattrocento monk or of repressed Angelo in Measure for Measure. Mr. Tarlton tried to be gentle, but when he saw that gentleness would not make me yield, his expression changed and I was treated to the kind of tactics he was, no doubt, more accustomed to using.
He told me that Mr. Cassel, as executor of his late wife’s estate, had the power to withhold from me not only the privilege of quoting from Joanna’s letters but also the use of any memorabilia that had been entrusted to him (i.e., the folder to the biographer). I told him I was aware of those constraints, but that I hoped to find other documents that were, according to the provisions of the will, beyond Mr. Cassel’s jurisdiction. (The letter from Liliane de Morbier had only strengthened my conviction about Desmond Kerrith and Thistleton.) I added that the interviews I had already taped were, of course, still available for me to use.
Mr. Tarlton made it clear that Mr. Cassel was no stranger to lawsuits and that he would not hesitate to use what legal power he could to protect his privacy; did I realize the implications to my life, and to my career? Yes, I said; even so, I had no intention of dropping the book.
The second lawyer, Mr. Norfolk—slight, balding, intense—was far more polished and personable; his message, however, was the same. Relinquish the book, he told me, and Mr. Cassel would make sure that I would “not suffer from having had the courage to make that difficult decision.” (This, a feeble attempt to bolster my self-respect.) I asked him why he had used the word courage. He smiled indulgently, as if confronted with a recalcitrant child; I remember that his shiny pate seemed to compete with the gleam of the conference room’s mahogany table. He had used the word courage because “it takes courage to admit one has made a mistake.” I told him that was hardly the case; in fact, it was just the opposite. The more anxious Mr. Cassel seemed, the more convinced I was that my instincts were correct: I must see the story to its end.
At this, I felt a shift in Mr. Norfolk’s tactics. He went on to say that Mr. Cassel had no wish for me to “endure financial losses,” if that was the issue. I would be “reimbursed” for my advance; Mr. Cassel would make certain that I would be “more than well taken care of” for my time and effort. I told him I had no interest in such an offer and that I would finish the book, with or without Mr. Cassel’s authorization.
Only to Larry Brandt did I confide my deepest fears, my anxieties, my bewilderment at the mosaic I had only partly succeeded in uncovering and whose cryptic picture, lacking the central motif, I was not yet able to decipher.
We met at the Westbury Hotel for a drink late on the afternoon of December 21—a snowy day with a violent, sluicing wind. I noticed at once that Larry looked rather drawn: It seemed that his divorce was in progress and that it had been a “hard, trying” month. I remember barely being able to confront his eyes as I listened, almost unable to acknowledge how much the end of his marriage to Isabelle had affected him. Instead, I inquired after Frederick, and Philip Brandt, and Larry’s work (a housing project near Paris that was nearing completion and that had taken him to France several times that fall).
All the while I remember looking at Larry in the ebbing light, quietly astonished how differently I perceived him since that first day in East Hampton. Even my perception of his looks had changed. Watching him—my impressions partly tempered by my enthrallment with his voice—I thought his massive head, with its wide brows and hooded eyes, handsome.
He asked what progress I had made on the book. I told him that no one acquainted with Cassel would speak with me and that the work was almost at a standstill. My only hope was to go beyond Cassel’s sphere—to reach Desmond Kerrith at Thistleton. I brought up the sonnet again, and the Shakespearean maze, and told him how these—together with the letters he had shown me—continued to obsess me.
Only obliquely did I refer to Jack and his discouraging attitude; in retrospect, I wonder why I never did. I suppose Larry and I seemed to have evolved an unspoken pact: He would never discuss his failed marriage, and I would never discuss my affair. It was as if these two subjects existed on another, inferior, plane, beneath the bounds of our friendship.
What I did tell Larry, as I continued to muse aloud, was that Joanna’s life seemed to resist all attempts at coherence. I mentioned the letter I had received from the mysterious Liliane de Morbier and asked whether he recalled meeting a woman by that name.
He did remember an elderly French countess who had visited Wakefield that last summer, he said, a guest he’d met at lunch. He recalled little else about her, and this only because he remembered the name Morbier, an aristocratic name that had, in different guises, played a part in French history.
I said I planned to interview her in Paris; and I distinctly remember the moment (as well as my immediate dismissive reaction) when Larry surprised me and said, “Come in mid-January, when I’ll be there.” In reply I said something lighthearted, and returned to the book.
