Henry Roth - Mercy of a Rude Stream - The Complete Novels

“Lewlyn becomes quite poetic where his father is concerned. About their rides together in winter to pay a call on a patient. His father is evidently a very unusual person, knows the name of every tree in that part of the country, can recognize animal tracks in the snow. Lewlyn says he himself had a beautiful childhood, and I can well believe him.” She sighed suddenly, arresting Ira’s attention. “He feels, unlike myself, that life has borne out the promise of his upbringing. I could very much wish I had that kind of stability too, that kind of satisfactory sense that what I had been inculcated with was realized when I grew up.”

“Life has borne out his upbringing,” Ira repeated, to hear the words again. Well, you can’t be a sore loser. She had been so nice to him, kind to him. “Gee, I hope it goes well,” he said.

“You’re very sweet to say that.”

“No,” he deprecated. “What will you tell Larry — I mean, what will you say to him if you and Lewlyn want to — well, make a permanent relation together? You get married?”

“That’s another reason I wanted to speak to you. What do you think I should say — if it came to that? Or how should I say it that would hurt him the least? You know Larry, perhaps better than I do. What would hurt him the least?”

“Tell him.” Ira shrugged. And at her laugh, he spread both hands before him. “Explain. The way you just did to me. You know, if it was like what it was when you came back from Europe, maybe it would be different. I don’t know. But it’s hard to say now the way things have changed. I don’t know myself. It’s just a feeling.”

“Then you think I could tell him, safely tell him about the new relationship with Lewlyn? You think he’d see the necessity of it?”

“Listen, I don’t know what you’d do before you’re sure, you know what I mean? But if you are sure, why not? It’s your life. What else can you do? Now that I know, if you tell him, he’ll tell me. I can — well.” He shrugged again. “I can tell him, ‘Listen, if you love her, you want her to be happy, Lewlyn is her best chance.’ You know what I mean?”

In an instant she was up from the couch, with mirthful countenance, advanced on him in three quick steps, bent over and kissed him. “I’ll treasure that always.” She lingered a moment, body in brown dress near, returned to the couch and sat down — and shook her head: “You’re like no one I’ve ever known. Ever will know probably.”

Ira sat mutely. The high pitch of his visit had been reached. His thoughts were too flurried between gratitude for the sign of her favor and certainly at the end of his usefulness. He debated, eyes on his gray fedora occupying the other wicker armchair, just under the tail of Paisley shawl that followed the curve of the small grand piano she had recently bought.

“I know you have a great deal of studying to do,” she said.

“Yeah. My ed courses.” He smirked in disparagement. So he had guessed right. It was time to leave.

“Oh, no, no, please, Ira. Can you stay another minute?”

“Oh.” Now it was time to hunt a place on his person to scratch. “You really want me to stay?”

“Yes. I won’t keep you long. Do you mind?” She smiled her wonderfully winning smile.

“No, it’s interesting. Honest.”

“I wanted to tell you about one other thing — Cecilia.” She tilted her head as if in expectation of his puzzled gaze. “That’s the name of the woman Lewlyn met in England. She’s a secretary of some social service society there. He saw a great deal of her.”

Her voice had become so matter-of-fact he couldn’t help sense the overtone of significance in her restraint. What? As always, implication lagged behind: but it was somebody, no? Another woman. A worry. “Yeah?”

“They correspond a great deal. He’s obviously formed quite an attachment to her.”

“She’s in England?” Redundance helped him orient himself.

“Yes. And she’s a spinster. I imagine she’s one of those many British spinsters left behind by the war. Probably a Victorian in her outlook. I don’t know. I’m judging by what Lewlyn has told me, when they were together, on walking trips through the English countryside. I’m sure that was just as delightful as he says. And by a letter or two.”

“He showed you?”

“Yes. He gets one every ten days. Perhaps oftener. She writes well. He finds her wistfulness very attractive.”

“Oh.” Wistfulness. Something made his mouth water — the word, or the edge of bleakness it had when Edith pronounced it? Wistfulness. A whisper of trouble. Maybe more. Look at the way things were, in two directions — like Janus: one for you, one for me. Dope, he’s taking her to Pennsylvania. Ira licked his lips.

“Her father is dying, which of course makes her more appealing. She is devoted,” Edith was saying. “There’s no question about that. But I should think he’d take very much into consideration the large difference in their ages. There’s no getting away from that: a woman ten years older than he is. I’m sure it must be all of that. I wonder if she’s passed child-bearing age.”

“How much older you say?”

“At least ten years.”

“Ten years. Oh.” As if there were no question Edith had nothing to fear.

“You never know about men, and their need for mothering,” Edith countered his unspoken reassurance. And with tiny hand in tiny hand, her head upraised, she added, “And that, sad to say, is very important to some men.”

“Yeah?” He could sense his own uneasy identity.

“Lewlyn is especially vulnerable at the moment: he’s lost his faith, he’s lost his wife — or been rejected by her. He’ll probably soon lose his priestly office. I don’t see how he can do anything else.”

“Than what?”

“Resign from the priesthood.”

“Yeah, but — what’s — what do you mean, vulnerable?”

“Cecilia. Cecilia means protection to him. Comfort. Men are such babies sometimes.”

All he could catch was a little, little hint of meaning. If he could only think it out. All of a sudden she was talking about him, his motives, his traits, instead of just herself, Lewlyn, Marcia, and holding up a picture in front of him of what he surely was — and wanted. She thought being that way was unworthy, and yet he couldn’t break free of what he wanted. What the hell. “He’s taking you to — where? Pennsylvania?” Ira asked.

“And I hope his parents think well of me. He’s so undecided himself.”

“Yeah. And Marcia knows all about this too?”

“About Lewlyn’s affair with me? Oh, yes, of course. He’s under her influence more than he realizes, and I don’t trust her.” Edith became quite animated, seemed to dismiss the image she spied in the mirror. “I simply don’t trust her. I know she favors Cecilia more than she does me. I can tell by the things Lewlyn repeats from their conversation — oh, I know. She took a dislike to me the minute she heard Lewlyn was seeing me. It’s quite obvious why, but it doesn’t put me in a very happy frame of mind to know she’s doing all she can to change his opinion of me. And she may very well make all the difference. To have someone like Marcia opposed to you — well, you’ve met her. You know how overpowering she is. It would take an unusual person to stand up against her.” Edith stopped speaking, looked at Ira, and laughed, commiserating in the midst of her own worry. “Am I wearing you out? You look so much older.”

“No, I was just thinking.” He found a subterfuge. “It’s all so symmetric.”

“What is?”

“He was in England, she was in Polynesia, and each found a different one.”

“And now they advise each other. Is that what you mean?”