Theophilus North Read online

  “That’s the ridiculous part about it. Perhaps it’s all in the mind—as Bishop Berkeley is constantly insisting! As long as I’m in my own house—keeping quiet, so to speak—I am not inconvenienced. I am assured that it is not the usual old man’s affliction; it is not prostate trouble. It’s something far graver.”

  (Oh, hell! Oh, crimson tarnation! Resign right now!—Besides, every two weeks I’d sent my bill to Mrs. Bosworth, my ostensible employer, and she’d made no reply. This was my fifth week. She owed me over sixty dollars!)

  The old man went on: “For many years I served my country in the diplomatic life. Public functions tend to be long drawn out. State funerals, weddings, christenings, openings of parliament, national holidays. Unforeseen delays! Snowstorms in Finland, hurricanes in Burma! . . . Waits at railway stations, waits on grandstands. I was the head of my delegation. . . . I have always been a healthy man, Mr. North, but I began to get a dread of that—that little necessity. Now I know that it’s all in the mind. Bishop Berkeley! Doctors laugh at me, I know, behind my back. One doctor fitted me out with a sort of goat’s udder.” Here he covered his face with his hands, murmuring, “I shall die in this house or in their wretched hospital.”

  There was a silence. He lowered his hands and whispered, “The worst of it is that the idea is getting around that I’m crazy. Do you think I’m crazy?”

  I raised my hand for silence and got it. I was as authoritative as a judge and solemn as an owl. “Dr. Bosworth, none of this is new to me—this kidney trouble. I know all about it.”

  “What’s that you say?” He clutched my sleeve. “What’s that you say, boy?”

  “One summer I left Yale and went to Florida and got work as a swimming and sports director at a resort. One of the hurricanes came along. The tourists canceled their bookings. I was out of a job. So I became a truck driver. Long drives—Miami to Winston-Salem, Saint Petersburg to Dallas, Texas. Now the three things that truck drivers think about are: the bonus for speed of delivery, falling asleep at the wheel, and kidney trouble. There’s something about sitting all day in that shaking truck that upsets a man’s waterworks—irritates it. Driving is hell on the kidneys. Some men get the fear of retention—afraid that they’ll never piss again. Others have what you have—the constant itch. Of course, they can get down when they want to, but nothing comes. Now I have an idea.”

  “An idea? What . . . what idea?”

  “I have very few pupils tomorrow. I’ll cancel them. I’ll go to Providence to the truck drivers’ stop. They sell stay-awake pills and a certain gadget. It’s got a very vulgar name that I won’t repeat to you. I’ll bring it back to you and one of these days we’ll drive to ‘Whitehall’ and try it out.”

  Tears were rolling down the old man’s face. “If you do that, Mr. North, if you do that, I’ll believe there’s a God. I will. I will.”

  I had never been to Florida since the age of eight. I had never driven a truck farther than twenty miles—it was the summer school’s carry-all. But in the Army barracks a man picks up a lot of desultory information, a great deal of it scatological.

  “I have three pupils in the morning. I shall have to charge you for the canceled lessons, as well as for the cost of the trip to Providence and for the gadget I hope to find. I live on a strict budget, Dr. Bosworth. I think I can do the whole thing for twenty dollars. Maybe the gadget costs more. I shall submit an itemized account. Shall I send it to you or to Mrs. Bosworth?”

  “What?”

  I continued firmly. “I have sent Mrs. Bosworth a bill for our readings every two weeks, but so far I have received no payment whatever. She has the bills.”

  “What? I don’t understand it!”

  “I shall need some money to go to Providence.”

  “Come in the house. Come in the house at once. I am shocked. I am grieved, Mr. North.”

  He started for the house like a runaway horse. He met Willis at the door. “Willis, tell Mrs. Bosworth to bring my checkbook to my study and Mr. North’s bills also!”

  Long wait. He smote his handbell. Enter Persis.

  “What is it, Grandfather?”

  “I wish to speak to your Aunt Sarah.”

  “I think she may be at church.”

  “Hunt for her. If she’s out of the house, go to her desk and bring me my checkbook or her checkbook. She has failed to pay Mr. North’s bills.”

  “Grandfather, she has given strict orders that no one may open her desk. May I write a check for you?”

  “It’s my checkbook. I shall open her desk.”

  “I’ll see if I can find her, Grandfather.”

  While we waited I filled in the time with further graphic accounts of the discomfitures of truck drivers. Presently there was a knock at the door and Willis entered, nobly bearing a bronze tray on which lay a checkbook and my two envelopes, opened. Dr. Bosworth asked me to state the total sum for my past and future services. He recalled my full name and wrote the check. I receipted the bills.

  Mrs. Bosworth entered the room. “Father, you directed me to keep the accounts of this house.”

  “Then keep them! Pay them!”

  “I assumed that a monthly payment for Mr. North would be sufficient.”

  “Here is your checkbook for the household accounts. I have paid Mr. North for our readings and for some errands he is doing for me. Kindly return to me my own checkbook for my own private use.—Mr. North, is it agreeable to you, if we return to our former evening schedule?”

  “Yes, Dr. Bosworth.”

  “Father, Dr. McPherson is convinced that the late hours are harmful to you.”

  “My compliments to Dr. McPherson . . . Let me see you to the door, Mr. North. I am too agitated to continue our work this morning. May I expect you Tuesday evening?”

  In the hall we passed Mrs. Bosworth. She said nothing, but our eyes met. I bowed slightly. In the Orient, they believe that hatred, in itself, kills; and I was brought up in China.

  At the door her father whispered feverishly: “Perhaps I shall live again.”

  The next morning at the “Y” I fitted myself out, with the help of some acquaintances in the corridor, with a dirty sweater, some dirty pants, and a battered hat. I was a truck driver. At the truck drivers’ stop in Providence I bought—as a pretext—some stay-awake pills and asked where was the nearest drugstore frequented by us road men. It was across the street, “O’Halloran’s.” I bought some more stay-awake pills and had an intimate conversation with Joe O’Halloran about some inconveniences I suffered on the road.

  “Let me show you something, Jack. First they invented this for babies. Then they made ’m bigger for hospitals and insane asylums, see what I mean? Lots of incontinence in insane asylums.”

  I bought the medium size. “Mr. O’Halloran, I get a kind of ache in my wrists and forearms. Have you some mild—real mild—painkiller? Nothing potent, you know. I’ve gotta drive over four hundred miles a day.”

  He put a bottle of scarlet pills on the counter. “How many should I take?”

  “Driving like you do, not more than one an hour.”

  Was I taking a great risk? I weighed the matter thoroughly. Medicine had never been among my youthful ambitions, but it had always been high among my curiosities. I had no doubt that Dr. Bosworth had been for years the victim of a carefully staged conspiracy that had taken advantage of an insecurity frequently found among diplomats, policemen on all-night guard duty, performing artists. Among my fellow-soldiers in the barracks I had heard ex-chauffeurs telling hilarious stories of the “perfect hell” of driving ladies out shopping in midtown where there was no place to park. When Dr. Bosworth and I were immersed in the eighteenth century it was apparent that he was as filled with well-being as with intellectual delight and as with self-esteem. It was only when the obsession descended upon him that he became a pitiable man. The risk I was taking was a risk for me, not for him. I was in a condition to assume a risk and to relish it.

  I was back in Newport at four i
n the afternoon. I’d swallowed two of the red pills, very bitter with little effect—perhaps a slight numbness in the neck. I telephoned my employer.

  “Yes, Mr. North? Yes, Mr. North?”

  “I have a message for you. Can I give it to you on this line?”

  “Wait a minute. I must think. . . . Tell me your number. I will call you back from the gardener’s house.”

  He did. “Yes, Mr. North?”

  “Dr. Bosworth, in a quarter of an hour a telegraph boy is going to call at your house with a parcel for your hands only and for your signature. Don’t let anyone intercept it. I think you’ll want to use what’s inside. You take a walk around the garden at five, you told me. When you start out take one of those red pills. Thousands of men take them on the road every day. After about ten minutes you may feel a little itching, but it’ll go away. Ignore it. The other thing is just a safeguard. You’ll be able to throw it away after a week or two.”

  His voice was trembling. “I don’t know what to say. . . . I’ll be at the front door. . . . I’ll report to you Tuesday night.”

  When I entered his study Tuesday night, he clutched at me excitedly, then closed both the doors. “First afternoon, half an hour! This morning, half an hour! This afternoon, forty-five minutes!”

  “That’s fine,” I said calmly.

  “Fine? FINE?” He wiped his eyes. “Mr. North, can you drive with me to ‘Whitehall’ next Sunday morning or afternoon?”

  “I am sorry I am engaged with Colonel Van winkle on Sunday mornings. I would feel it to be a great privilege to go with you on Sunday afternoon.”

  “Yes, I shall take my granddaughter with me this Sunday.”

  There was a knock at the door. “Come in!”

  Mrs. Bosworth entered. “Forgive me interrupting you, Father. I must discuss our dinner Tuesday week. The Thayers have been called to New York. Whom would you like in their place?” Her father muttered something agitatedly. “I’m sorry, Father, but I must know whether you prefer the Ewings or the Thorpes.”

  “Sarah, how many times must I tell you not to disturb me when I am at work?”

  She stared at him. “Father, you have been behaving very strangely lately. I think these readings and those walks have overexcited you. Shouldn’t you say good night to Mr. North and—?”

  “Sarah, you have your car and driver. I do not wish to interfere with your life. Tomorrow I want you to arrange for the rental of a car and a driver for my use. I wish to go for a drive tomorrow after my nap—at four-thirty.”

  “You are not going to—?!”

  “What you take for my strange behavior is an improvement in my health.”

  “A drive! Without Dr. McPherson’s permission! Your doctor for thirty years!”

  “Dr. McPherson is your doctor. I do not now feel the need of one. If I do, I shall call in that young Dr. What’s-his-name that Forebaugh was telling me about. . . . I wish now to return to my studies.”

  “But the children . . . !”

  “Edward? Mary? What have they to do with it?”

  “We are all deeply concerned. We love you!”

  “Then you’ll be glad to hear that I feel much better. I would like to speak to Persis.”

  Persis appeared almost at once. This was “the house of listening ears.”

  “Persis, can you arrange to take a short drive with me in my car every afternoon after my nap?”

  “I’d love to, Grandfather.”

  “The Sunday after next we will take Mr. North with us and show him ‘Whitehall.’ ”

  The roof had fallen down about Mrs. Bosworth’s ears. She did not even glance at me. Her manner suggested that the time had come for stronger measures.

  Our readings in the works of Bishop Berkeley continued, though with a relaxed concentration. Dr. Bosworth was filled with an irrepressible elation. They now were enjoying the famous “ten-mile drive” daily. He hoped soon to revisit Providence; they would put up for the night at the hotel “without Mrs. Turner.” He was dreaming of going to New York in the fall—plans for the Academy . . .

  A storm was gathering about my head.

  I enjoyed the flashes of lightning.

  Increasingly the Leffingwells were present at every dinner party at “Nine Gables” and on each occasion joined the late parade into Dr. Bosworth’s study. Mrs. Leffingwell extended her hand to me in greeting; her husband stared into my face and seemed about to address me, but the war within him between rage and decorum silenced him. (I always thought of Cassius Marcellus as “Vercingetorix or The Dying Gaul”—the only mustached head known to me in ancient sculpture—probably straw-blond.) One evening there was—as in all parades—a halt in the line. The Leffingwells were marking time directly in front of me. Mrs. Leffingwell and I discussed the weather, the beauty of Newport, and her father’s improved health until even her conversational resources were exhausted. She fanned herself with her handkerchief, smiling sweetly. Her husband growled, “Get on with it, Mary. Get on with it!”

  “I can’t, Cassius. Mrs. Venable is holding up the line.”

  At last Cassius found his tongue. He stretched his head toward me and said between his teeth (right out of “The Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight”): “One of these days, North, I shall horsewhip you.”

  His wife overheard him. “Cassius! Cassius, we shall not wait to see my father any longer. We shall go upstairs.”

  But he balked; he wanted to drive his point home more forcefully. “Remember my words: horsewhip!”

  I looked at him gravely. “Are they still horsewhipping in the South, Mr. Leffingwell? I thought that went out fifty years ago.”

  “Cassius, follow me!”

  It was an order and he obeyed. The trouble with him was that he hadn’t had enough to drink.

  A few nights later I found a note waiting for me at the Y.M.C.A. “Dear Mr. North, I have heard that a member of a family—where you read—has been talking wildly all over town—about doing you harm. A freind of mine—you met him—has arranged to have a car call for you at midnight Friday. Do not leave the house until you are told that a car and driver are waiting for you at the door.” It was signed “A Freind on Spring Street.” Freinds indeed: Amelia Cranston—more for Newport’s sake than for mine—had arranged with the Chief of Police to prevent the summer residents from getting into trouble.

  There was no dinner party on Friday. Dr. Bosworth and I read Benedetto Croce on the subject of Giambattista Vico. My employer’s knowledge of Italian was superior to mine and it gave him pleasure to help me over the difficult passages. It gave him pleasure, too, to believe that the author would soon be his guest and neighbor in the Academy of Philosophers. It gave me pleasure because author and subject were new, astonishing, and big. I forgot that I was to be called for.

  At a quarter before twelve Persis Tennyson knocked at the door and was asked to enter. “Grandfather, I wish to drive Mr. North home in my car tonight. Please let him leave a little early because it’s late.”

  “Yes, my dear. Do you mean now?”

  “Yes, Grandfather, please.”

  As I was preparing to take my departure Mrs. Bosworth appeared at the door. She had overheard her niece’s proposal. (At “Nine Gables” no one went to bed until that abominable Mr. North was out of the house.) “That will not be necessary, Persis. It is unsuitable that you drive about town at this hour. I’ve arranged for Dorsey to drive Mr. North home in my car.”

  “Well, my friend,” said Dr. Bosworth in Italian, “everybody wants to see that you get home safely tonight.”

  Willis appeared at the door and announced that Mr. North’s car was waiting. . . .

  “What car is that, Willis—mine?”

  “No, madam, a car called for by Mr. North.”

  “Well,” said Persis, “let’s all go and see Mr. North to the door . . . !”

  We made quite a procession advancing down the hall. From the foot of the staircase Mrs. Leffingwell approached us agitatedly. “Sally, I can’t find Cassius
anywhere. I think he’s out of the house. Please help me find him. If we can’t find him I shall drive Mr. North home in my own car.—Willis, have you seen Mr. Leffingwell anywhere?”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Madam, he is in the bushes.”

  “Yes, Aunt Mary,” said Persis. “I saw him lying in the bushes. That’s why I asked to drive Mr. North home. He had something in his hand.”

  “Persis, that will do,” said Mrs. Bosworth. “Hold your tongue. Go to your room.”

  Willis said to Mrs. Bosworth, “Madam, may I speak to you at one side for a moment?”

  “Talk up, Willis,” said Dr. Bosworth. “What are you trying to say. What is it that Mr. Leffingwell has in his hand?”

  “A gun, sir.”

  Mrs. Leffingwell was too well brought up to shriek. She squeaked. “Cassius is playing with guns again. He will kill himself!”

  The driver who had called for me stepped forward. “Not at present, madam. We have taken the gun from him.” And he held it under our noses.

  “And who are you?” asked Mrs. Bosworth grandly. The driver flipped his lapel and showed his badge.

  “God bless my soul!” exclaimed Dr. Bosworth.

  “And,” asked Mrs. Bosworth. who enjoyed beginning a question with “and,” “what authority have you for trespassing on this property?”

  “Mr. Loft . . . Mr. Left . . . the gentleman in the bushes . . . has been overheard in three places threatening to kill Mr. North. We can’t have that, madam. Is Mr. Leveringwall a resident of Newport?”

  “Mr. Leffingwell lives in Jamestown.”

  “The Chief told us not to press charges, if the gentleman lives outside Aquidneck County. But he must agree not to appear in this township for six months. Felix, call him in.”

  Mrs. Leffingwell said, “Officer, please do not call him in now. I am his wife and I will stand guarantee that he will not return here. We have a farm in Virginia, also, where a man may carry a gun in self-defense wherever he goes.”

  That’s what’s called the last word. She delivered the line grandly and couldn’t have looked handsomer.