Point of No Return (20 page)

“Nance,” Charles said, “we didn't use to be afraid.”

She was sitting opposite him on one of those small upholstered chairs, very straight, just the way she had been sitting the day he had first seen her.

“Oh, are you afraid too?” she asked, and though his instinct was already preparing him to answer that of course he was not, he found himself nodding slowly.

“Well, you might have told me,” Nancy said.

“It's all relative, you know, Nance,” he said.

“What's relative?” She spoke impatiently.

“The more you get, the more afraid you get. That's all I mean,” Charles said. “Maybe fear's what makes the world go round.”

“Not love?” Nancy said, and she tilted her head sideways. “I used to hear that it was love.”

It reminded him of the first night he had taken Nancy anywhere, when they were both obviously trying to impress each other. There was the same atmosphere of suspense, the same effort to be at one's best, and the same intense consciousness of each other. It was almost like falling in love, an unfamiliar sensation now—but they were talking about fear.

“Of course,” Charles said. “Everyone's afraid of something—afraid of living, afraid of dying. Maybe it's better than being afraid of losing money. That's what the boys are afraid of downtown. Do you know what I wish?”

“What?” Nancy asked.

He was filled with a childish desire to show off before Nancy. It was almost like falling in love.

“I wish we weren't always being pushed around. I'd like for once in my life to be able to tell someone to go to hell.”

She was smiling at him as he had seen her smile at Bill when he asked for an impossible Christmas present.

“Darling,” she said, “basically you have the most expensive tastes. You'd better just tell me to go to hell, if you want to, and let it go at that.”

“All right,” Charles said, “but it isn't the same thing, is it?”

“Maybe it isn't,” Nancy said, “but I'm awfully glad we're afraid of the same thing. It's healthy to have things in common. I'm awfully glad we're in the same boat, darling.”

“That's what Roger said tonight,” he told her.

“What else did he say,” Nancy asked, “and what did Molly say?”

“She said you looked lovely in the plainest frock,” Charles said, “and Roger thinks so too, and he wants the children to call him Uncle Roger and she wants us all to do something together on Sunday, and Roger does too. Wait a minute, there's something else I've got to tell you. I'm taking the plane to Boston first thing in the morning. I'm going up to Clyde for a day or two on business for the bank.”

He saw Nancy's lips tighten. Then he saw her grind the end of her cigarette carefully into an ash tray.

“How did Clyde get into it?” she asked.

“It's funny the way things happen,” he began. “When I got up this morning it was raining, do you remember? I looked out of the window at the trees. They reminded me of Clyde. Spring's always late at Clyde. No one ever admits it. Every year they only say that it's a late spring. Have you ever found yourself thinking about a thing and then finding later that something was happening about it?”

He saw Nancy glance uneasily about the room, as though she were afraid that someone might be listening.

“When something bad happens,” she said, “you keep going back and wondering how it started.”

“I don't see why you always get edgy whenever I mention Clyde,” he said.

“You know very well why,” Nancy answered. “Clyde makes you difficult. It's a queer place full of ingrown people, and you say so yourself.”

It always made him sensitive when she began criticizing Clyde, even when her points were well taken. He had never expected her to fit into Clyde. He had never asked her to, and he knew what she thought about it without her telling him.

“I can't help it if I was brought up there,” he said, and it occurred to him that he might say something to Nancy about upstate New York and about Nancy's town with its gingerbread trimmings and its pseudo-Greek columns.

“Never mind,” Nancy said. “You're always peculiar when you think about Clyde.”

“Well, when I was at the bank,” Charles began, “a man came in to see me and who do you think it was? I didn't recognize him at first. It was Malcolm Bryant.”

“Oh,” Nancy said. “You used to talk about him quite a lot once.”

“That's the one,” Charles said. “He wanted to marry Jessica Lovell once.”

“Oh,” Nancy said. “I always thought you were the one who wanted to marry Jessica Lovell.” She said it in a very slow, disinterested way, as though Jessica Lovell bored her.

Charles spoke more loudly so that Nancy could not interrupt. “Then I went to the morning meeting, in the depositors' room downstairs by the vault …”

At last he was back where he wanted to be, telling her the details of that meeting and about the collateral on the loan and the stock in that company in Clyde. Then he told about Tony Burton's having called him later, and it was a relief to go into it fully. He never should have mentioned Jessica Lovell. Nancy was sitting up straight again, following every word.

“So you've got to go away for a day or two right now?” she asked. “At just this time?”

“Yes, it looks that way,” Charles said.

“Why didn't you do anything about it? Why didn't you ask them to send someone else?” When it came to the bank, Nancy was always right there with him.

“I thought of it,” he said, “but I think that anything I might have said would have made it worse. You'd have thought so too.”

“If I'd been there, I'd have done something,” Nancy said. “Something. Anything.”

“No,” Charles told her, “you just think so because you're here. If you'd been there, you'd have let it go. Besides”—he stopped and stared at the design on the Islamic rug—no animals, nothing but symbols—“I don't think it makes much difference. I think Tony Burton's about made up his mind which of us he wants.”

Suddenly Nancy stood up.

“Then for God's sake why doesn't he tell you instead of letting us—letting us—” Her voice choked on the last words and she swallowed.

“Because perhaps he doesn't like to do it,” Charles said. “Tony's quite a nice guy, as far as anyone like him can be nice. I think we'll get the news when we go there to dinner. He almost said so.”

Nancy stood looking straight ahead of her. She did not answer, and Charles went on.

“Besides, maybe it's just as well for me to be away. Tony knows Roger worked it, at least I think he knows. Maybe Roger will try a little too much. Tony's rather bright sometimes.”

Nancy still stood there and he noticed that her hands were clenched.

“If he picks out that damn fool he isn't bright.”

“I only said,” Charles told her, “that he's pretty bright sometimes.”

Nancy was no longer staring in front of her at nothing. She was looking at him in a level, appraising way, putting herself in Tony Burton's place, balancing his faults against his assets, wondering whether he had the personality and the broad-gauge ability to occupy one of the front desks.

“Listen,” Charles said, “it doesn't do any good trying to look like a statue on a courthouse.”

“If you'd only get mad,” Nancy said.

“You were just saying it's a luxury,” Charles said. “There's no use getting mad at a system. We're part of a system where there's always someone waiting to kick you in the teeth in a nice way.”

“It's a rotten system,” Nancy said.

“Maybe it is,” Charles answered. “A lot of people have been saying so lately.” He looked up at her and smiled, but she did not answer.

“Of course if I hadn't been away at the war there wouldn't be anything to it.”

“You never should have gone,” Nancy said. “I told you so.”

“Yes,” Charles said. “Yes. I remember.”

Nancy sighed and sat down again.

“Haven't you any idea at all,” she asked, “which one of you he's going to take?”

Then Charles felt a slight twinge of anger. It had been a long time since he had seen himself so clearly—tied down by little things. They were a steady accumulation of little things, innocuous in themselves, like the ropes the Lilliputians used to pin down Gulliver—the ship picture, the Islamic rug, the wax on the floor, the mortgage, the insurance policy, tiny half-forgotten decisions, words suddenly spoken.

“Charley,” Nancy asked, “what's the matter?”

“Nothing,” Charles said.

“Charley, what'll you do if he takes Roger?”

“Nance,” he said, “let's not think about it now,” but of course both of them were thinking about it now. The irony of it was that after years of work one became specialized, used to the ways of just one organization, too old to start again in a new one. He had seen plenty of men his age looking for a job.

“Charley,” Nancy said, “if you'd ever done something about investing for yourself instead of for other people—”

“Nance, you know very well,” he answered, “you don't do much of that when you're working for a bank.”

Nancy sighed and stood up again.

“Well,” she said, “I guess we'd better go to bed.”

Charles stood up too.

“You go ahead,” he told her. “I'll be up in a few minutes. Good night, Nance.”

After he had kissed her, she buried her head on his shoulder. She made no sound but he knew she was crying, and it always gave him a completely helpless feeling when she cried.

“Don't, Nance,” he said. “The show isn't over.”

“I'm sorry, Charley,” Nancy said. “I'm all right now. You always hate having me cry, don't you?”

“Yes,” Charles said. “Go on up to bed, Nance. I'll be up in just a minute.”

“Are you sorry you married me?”

“No,” Charles said, “of course not, Nancy.”

“I suppose I sort of made you marry me.”

“Why, Nance,” Charles said, “I never noticed that you did.”

“Are you sorry we had the children?”

“No, of course I'm not,” Charles said.

“They were my idea more than yours. Are you sorry we bought the house?”

“Listen, Nance,” Charles said, “it happened, like the children. Now go on up and go to sleep. I'll be up in just a minute.”

“What are you going to do?” Nance asked. “Are you going to sit here and worry?”

“No, I'm not,” he told her. “I'm not sleepy. I'm going to read for a little while.”

“Because if you're going to worry, we might as well do it together.”

“I'm going to read,” Charles said. “I'm pretty well worried out tonight. Good night, Nance”—and he kissed her again, and walked with her to the foot of the stairs. “I'll be sitting in the library.”

“Don't be long,” Nancy said. “I won't be able to get to sleep till you come up.”

Yankee Persepolis—A Social Study
was lying just where he had left it earlier in the evening on top of his brief case on the table in the hall. As Nancy went upstairs, he picked it up because it occurred to him that, considering his mood, something absolutely new was better to read than something he had read before.

All he could do was to recognize his present state of mind as a definite malady like a cold or a fever and tell himself that it would pass. He knew the symptoms well enough. First there was a period of general uneasiness about nothing in particular, and then a growing illusion of being hemmed in, followed by a desire to escape, and finally an indescribable sense of loneliness mingled with a sort of deep self-pity which he particularly hated. He wished he had not mentioned Jessica Lovell, as she was always a part of the shadows which surrounded him suddenly and swiftly when he was in that mood. The only thing to do was to tell himself to behave, that he would be better in a little while. It was also time to consider the dangers of inheritance, and to remember his father.

“Charley,” he could hear his mother saying, “don't bother him. He's in one of his spells again.”

Charles himself had never particularly noticed his father's “spells” until the summer of 1916 but they must have been chronic because his brother Sam had often spoken of them as though they had been going on a long time.

There was always a brittle atmosphere in the house on those occasions. His father was usually in his room with his books, on the second floor, and the door would be locked. His mother and Dorothea would be talking in whispers in the kitchen. There used to be a tradition that everyone should ignore those periods of dejection, and all the family did, except Sam when he was alive. Sam never had any patience with them.

“We all know what the Old Man was doing up in Boston,” Sam had told him once, “and now he wants us to be sorry for him. He ought to have a good shoot in the tail.”

Sam was the only one who said such things and Charles believed him and he still could not escape that old impression that Sam had been a great man, although Sam could have only been about seventeen at the time.

“You can always tell when it's coming,” Sam used to say. “It goes in a circle. It starts as soon as he gets a check.”

Their Aunt Mathilda Gray's estate was being settled in 1916 and whenever a parcel of her real estate was sold, John Gray would get a check in the mail from Mr. Blashfield, the executor. First he would open the letter and look at the check, and then he would go down to the bank and deposit it in his special account, and then for a while a pleasant wave of prosperity descended on the household. He would come home each evening with a copy of the
Boston Evening Transcript
and everyone would watch him as he sat in the parlor after supper reading the
Transcript
's financial page. First he would only glance at it. Then in a few evenings he would read it when he thought no one was looking. Then he would read it openly. Everyone knew what John Gray was going to do, even if he did not know himself, and he probably did not know, because he had promised on his word of honor never to touch those things again. He would be highly indignant if his wife or his sister Jane attempted to bring up the subject. It was better not to stir him up. Perhaps a week later he would say that he was going to take a day off and go up to Boston. He hadn't seen Boston for a long while.