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  7

  Charlotte and Theo

  Mr. Stewart was going to Boston, or so he informed the family at breakfast.

  His treasured Aunt Beth, perhaps the one person left alive he truly cared for, or at least so it seemed more often than not, to Charlotte, had been taken suddenly ill. Nothing “of consequence” was the way he put it, meaning not terminal. But it might be “a friendly gesture of support,’’ again the way he put it, to say a brief hello.

  “I’ll pack,” Charlotte said.

  “No need,” he returned. “You stay with the children.”

  “Of course,” Charlotte answered.

  “Will you bring presents?” W. Nelson Jr. asked.

  “Who is deserving?” his father asked back.

  “I am, I am,” Burgess chanted.

  “Prove that last.”

  “Theo says my grammar is almost perfect now. And I got one hundred in arithmetic yesterday.”

  “Top in the class?” Mr. Stewart asked.

  “Better,” Burgess replied, sticking out his tongue at his one-year-older brother. “Top in the family.”

  The rimless glasses came slightly down, eyed the oldest son. There was silence.

  Mumbled from Nelson Jr: “I got a ninety. But my test was hinder.”

  “Says who, says who?” Burgess chanted.

  “Top in the class?” Mr. Stewart asked.

  “Here were three better,” W. Nelson Jr. replied.

  “And in the class how many?”

  “Twelve.”

  Mr. Stewart took off his rimless glasses, carefully cleaned them. “Fourth out of twelve and you ask reward?” He shook his head. “You know where fourth out of twelve places you in the outside world? Do you?”

  “Nossir.”

  ‘With the second-raters.” And now his voice began to rise in agitation. “I gave you my name; boy! And no Stewart runs with the pack. That is forbidden behavior.’’

  “Yessir.’’

  “So, do you want me to bring you presents?’’

  Pause. It was hard. “Nossir.’’

  “And why not?”

  “I’m not deserving.”

  “Quite right.”

  “But I was perfect,’’ Burgess said.

  “No, you were not, you were monstrous, you were nasty and petty and spiteful. And with all that, you want me to bring you presents?’’

  Pause. Blinked-back tears. “I got a hundred though.”

  His father stared from behind the clean rimless glasses.

  “But I behaved badly. I’m not deserving either.”

  W. Nelson Stewart, Sr. stood. The others followed. “I’ll return midafternoon to pack. The children will be back from school, I’ll say good-bye to you all then. But let me say one thing to you all now.” They watched. “Theo is doing most excellent work on your studies. But he has let your manners slip. I will have no more of this bickering. I hate this bickering. I was never allowed to bicker when I was your age.”

  “But you were an only child,” Charlotte said.

  He glared at her, but only briefly. “Perhaps that did have something to do with it,” he allowed, and then he led them all three out of the room.

  After she had gotten her husband off to work and the boys to school, Charlotte proceeded to the basement, into the gymnasium and beyond it, to the tutor’s study. Theo was, as always, hard at work. He assigned the boys’ papers over the weekends and then spent many hours commenting on their efforts. His comments were invariably longer than their themes. He stood when she entered.

  “Mr. Stewart is going to Boston,” she said.

  “Family matters?”

  She nodded.

  “Nothing wrong, I hope.”

  “No, and I can prove it: Mrs. Stewart is remaining here.”

  He nodded.

  “Meaning,” Charlotte said, before she paused and did a genuinely audacious thing: she grazed her fingertips across the tight front of his trousers. “Meaning your friend down there and I are going to have some rather long and hard and glorious hours together.”

  He tried not to, but he flushed whatever the color is just beyond crimson.

  How could she not love him?

  That bold move of hers, the reaching out and touching his trousers, was, in point of fact, their first moment of physical contact since the seduction. And his “headache” that followed. He had called it that the next morning when they talked quick and quiet in his office.

  “ ‘Guilt-ache’ you mean,” Charlotte said, and she could tell from the brief flicker in his blue poet’s eyes he liked her made-up word.

  “Whatever. The point is, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Theo,” she answered. And truthfully, she felt, there wasn’t. He had struggled wildly and she had proved stronger. Certainly that could have been an embarrassment No man wants the woman of his dreams to be a better wrestler than he is. But was she still that, the woman of his dreams? She had been, she knew, the night before.

  So they had fought and she had won and as his resistance crumpled, it crumpled quickly, and then his eyelids had fluttered wildly as they had when his “guilt-ache” began, and then he was asleep, exhausted, leaden. She waited until she was sure he was safe, until his breathing was very deep and even, before she quietly left.

  Not to sleep that night.

  “There is a great deal to talk about, Charlotte, and we must do it now and then never again is that clear?” Theo began. They sat in the living room, the first chance the next morning they had to be alone.

  “I don’t like that ‘never.’”

  “Here it comes, get ready: We must never meet again.”

  “For a genius, you are such a silly, Theo. How can we ‘never meet again’”—she was purposely melodramatic on those words —“when we live in the same house?”

  “When I said ‘meet’ I didn’t mean ‘meet.’”

  “Ah. Well, you’re a poet and you have a way with words. I’m just a poor housewife and I don’t. So you must explain. If you didn’t mean ‘meet’ when you said ‘meet’ what did you intend?”

  Pause. “You know.”

  “Ah, but I don’t.”

  He was getting embarrassed now. He pointed upward in the direction of his room.

  “Ceiling?” Charlotte said. “Roof? I’m a dull girl and I hate word games. I lose at them.”

  Now the blue eyes blazed in frustration. “You know damn well what we’re talking about.”

  “Yes my baby, I do—you mean, poor sweet thing, that you must never ‘defile’ me again, although how in the world you can ‘defile’ the mother of Nelson and Burgess I’m not quite sure. Perhaps ‘enter’ is the choicest word. You must never ‘enter’ me again. Have I got it now?”

  “You have it.” He nodded curtly, started out of the enormous room.

  “How wrong I can be,” Charlotte said to his back. “All night long I thought you’d enjoyed it.”

  “Shit” he said, and for a moment she was frightened. He whirled on her. “When I woke up this morning I lay there not thinking about the bad part—”

  “—the guilt-ache—”

  “—yes, that, but what had gone before and I realized that nothing, no mother crooning and rocking me, no present as a child, no praise, no friend, no poem, nothing had ever made me quite that glad about myself.” He reached into a trouser pocket “I must read you something.”

  “A poem? I love your poems.”

  “You don’t know a goddam thing about them.”

  “Not about poetry, no, I’m ignorant of poetry, but not yours. I can tell my Theo’s verse from a million other poets. Test me sometime, if you dare.”

  He sat across from her in an overstuffed chair. “This is a copy of the letter I wrote your husband, my job application if you will. Remember this: I was a college graduate in Ohio who dreamed of coming to New York. I had no money, no skills, no chance. And desperate I wrote this.” He began to read.

&
nbsp; Dear Mr. Stewart:

  My name is Theodore Duncan and no. you don’t know me and yes, this is an application for a job. The only reason I dare write you is this: my middle name is Stewart and my late mother, on more than one occasion, pointed out your name in the Cleveland paper and said we were somehow related. Frankly. I’m not sure it’s true.

  I want to be a poet and I want to be a poet in New York. Cleveland is not noted for an overactive literary life. I could claim all sorts of skills but I won’t. I was good at school. I graduated top in my class at Oberlin. I’ve always been top in my class academically. I feel like a fool having written this much. I swear that if you can help me. I will never give you cause for regret. And please do not feel obliged to answer this letter.

  Your conceivable cousin.

  Ted Duncan

  He stopped reading. “I don’t think there’s much need for us to continue this,” he said.

  “Wrong.”

  “I’m sorry then, but if that letter doesn’t make clear why our behavior is just a little bit shabby, then I’ve no business thinking I can write. Charlotte, understand now—I’ve met other poets. I’ve been to readings. There are bookshops I can browse in. Vm not alone anymore. All because he gave me this chance.”

  “If I were just a frustrated housewife-, and you were just a frustrated young man with a penis and no place to put it, we would be done as of now.”

  “That’s all we are, my dear.”

  “Wrong. Special is what we are.”

  “I don’t see it, sorry.”

  “Fll be brief—Fve never met anyone as bright as you, or nearly as insecure. Fm the only chance you have to be the poet you dream of being. Fm the only one with confidence enough for both. And you know Fm right.”

  “As I said before, you don’t know a goddam thing about my poetry.”

  “And as I said before, test me sometime.”

  Charlotte never expected there to be a test at all, much less one that began the following morning. She was set to go to Tiffany’s when he met her by the front door and handed her some folded pages. “A few short poems,” he said.

  She unfolded the papers, looked at his elegant, almost feminine handwriting. Confused, she smiled. “Did you write all four last night?”

  “The /ram/writing is clearly mine. The creation is for you to say, but of course, since you know all about my work, that will prove no problem.”

  “I don’t understand.” She began to read one, stopped, looked at him.

  “I might have created all. Or none. Or one. Or two or three. Tell me this evening, why don’t you, which, if any, are mine. Have a pleasant shop.” He turned and left her there.

  Charlotte decided Tiffany’s would always have diamonds, so she hurried to the Society Library, settled herself off in a private comer, and looked carefully at the first of the four poems.

  I met a traveler from an antique land

  Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

  Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

  Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

  And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

  Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

  Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

  The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;

  And on the pedestal these words appear:

  “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

  Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

  Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

  The lone and level sands stretch far away.

  Now what in the world can that be about? Charlotte wondered. She knew absolutely nothing about poetry from her schooling. It was always beyond her and confusing her and more than any of that, it was just so dull All poetry was dull.

  Except her Theo’s.

  But could he have written this, this weird thing, this totally unromantic story of Ozy-whoo-zias alone in the desert?

  Perhaps. If he was trying to trick her.

  And this was, after all, a test. And not an unimportant one, because she knew that if she passed, she had him. And if she failed, she—

  —pointless to pursue those thoughts, old girl; you’re not going to fail. She studied the second poem.

  Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,

  And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

  Round many western islands have I been

  Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

  Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

  That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;

  Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

  Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

  Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

  When a new planet swims into his ken;

  Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

  He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men

  Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—

  Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

  Dear God, Charlotte thought, spirit sagging; bring back Ozy-whoo-zias. Why the old-fashioned parts, the “ofts” and spelling “stared” with an apostrophe?

  Of course Theo worshipped the old-fashioned poets; his heroes were never the current new rages. But still. Wait though!—it ended with Darien and he knew that Mr. Stewart was contemplating buying an estate in Darien, Connecticut. So maybe the “peak in Darien” was about, the hill on the estate, and maybe “stout Cortez” referred to her husband, he was obviously stout. So maybe this was his, and it was about her moving to the country and leaving poor Theo behind.

  Possible. Possible. But where was the romance? Charlotte rubbed her eyes, began the third poem.

  So, we’ll go no more a-roving

  So late into the night,

  Though the heart be still as loving

  And the moon be still as bright

  For the sword outwears its sheath,

  And the soul wears out the breast,

  And the heart must pause to breathe,

  And love itself have rest

  Though the night was made for loving

  And the day returns too soon,

  Yet we’ll go no more a-roving

  By the light of the moon.

  Here was the romance and Charlotte felt despair. This was a poem she at least understood, much as she might wish not to. This was Theo saying good-bye. Good-bye big, and pretty, and in ten years you’ll still be big but you won’t be pretty.

  Still dumb, though.

  Still big and dumb.

  Not the kind of creature a poet keeps around for inspiration. Probably he had written them all, all four. He had certainly handed them to her in this order. The first to fool her, the second the hints got broader, this third said good-bye. What could the last be after? Insults perhaps? Jokes at her expense? I don’t much want to read this last one, Charlotte thought. But I must. But I must.

  Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

  Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

  Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:

  The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.…

  Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

  And slips into the bosom of the lake:

  So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip

  Into my bosom and be lost in me...

  Brilliant original ideas were not an everyday occurrence in Charlotte’s life, but as she sat transfixed by this final poem, this masterpiece of Theo’s, this glorious framing of their feeling for each other, she remembered that he had three ultimate heroes, the three great romantic poets: Shelley, Byron, and Keats.

  And she held four poems in her hands.

  What courage it must have taken to put his talents in amongst theirs and pray that she would somehow know.

  How could anyone not know? They were undeniably great, but her Theo was a genius. Charlotte rea
d the final poem, the lily poem she immediately called it, one more time, then went to the desk of the New York Society Library and asked for the works of Mr. Keats, Mr. Shelley, Mr. Lord Byron. (Did you call him that, she wondered? Was “Lord’’ like a first name or did you just say “Byron”? Never mind. It mattered not at all.)

  When the books came she took them back to her private corner and found in each the index of first lines.

  She was only one hundred percent correct. The one about not going roving was called just that, “So, We’ll Go No More A-Roving” and it was Byron’s, Lord or otherwise. And the dopey one about the statue was Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” In the library now Charlotte had to giggle. The one she thought concerned real estate in Darien, Connecticut, was called “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” and Mr. Keats claimed credit for that one. Still laughing, she returned the volumes, thanked the librarian, and decided that few mortals were more deserving of a little gift from Tiffany’s. So folding the poems, her lily one on top, into her purse, she floated there.

  The rest of that day and well into the evening, she totally ignored Theo whenever they passed in the halls and she knew he was looking for some reaction from her. She kept her face frozen enjoying every moment. Then, shortly before bed she sought him out briefly, looked at him as coldly as she could, which considering her feelings for him wasn’t all that long. “The lily poem, obviously,” she told him then, shoving the three other handwritten pages back to him. “And I’ll keep it.” Pause. “That is if you don’t mind.”

  From the look of things, he didn’t mind at all.

  Alone in her bedroom, ready for sleep, Charlotte read the poem again and again, slowly committing it to memory, a skill at which she never much excelled.