A World Elsewhere (24 page)

His job was to guard Princess Godwin, who was also not allowed to leave. Her punishment was vanishment. She would simply disappear the moment she set foot on unroyal soil.

Deacon longed to go back where he’d come from, the island of Atlastica, but he didn’t know the way. And he was paid in Vanderbills that you could only spend in the Fortress.

Queen Gertrude could not leave the forest under pain of diminishment. She would become a commoner the second she set foot on unroyal soil. She would never again set eyes on the Princess.

The King slept in the Red Bed from which all others were forbidden.

Each person at the Fortress was assigned some form of punishment that they would suffer if they left: banishment, vanquishment, vanishment, relinquishment, ravishment.

They were the Prishoners of the King.

“That one’s too scary,” Deacon said. “Tell me a better one.”

“It’s not scary,” Landish said. “It’s just made up. I’ll tell you a different kind tomorrow night.”

Landish, alone in the Smoker, held forth so loudly about the Vanderluydens that Gough, Sedgewick and Stavely came out of their rooms to try to coax him into his.

“For God’s sake, Landish,” Gough said, “keep your voice down or we’ll all be sacked. And you’ll wake Deacon again.”

“There’s not a drop of brandy left,” Sedgewick complained.

“Thank God the house is so big,” Stavely whispered. “And thank God the Vanderluydens sleep on the other side of it.” He thrust his hands crossly into the pockets of his dressing gown.

“Yes,” Landish said. “In God’s house, there are many rooms.

‘Padgy’s room is painted red

And Trudy’s room is yellow

Trudy’s has a nice big bed

But Padgy’s not her fellow.’ ”

“Christ, Landish, shut up,” Gough said. “It’s not as if that woman thinks highly of you as it is.”

Deacon came out of his room and Landish fell silent.

“Please, Landish,” Deacon said. “Please do what Gough says or we’ll all be sacked.”

But Landish was not to be stopped. He moved about as if dancing with a woman while he sang.

“Padgy’s has a big bed too
Big enough for four of him
But Trudy says they never screw
’Cause even Padgy’s dick is slim.
One thing about him’s very fat—
I’m speaking of the poor man’s chance
Of ever doing more than chat
And getting into Trudy’s pants.
Each one wears a kind of mask
They say she dallies with some churl
Prompting everyone to ask
Is Goddie really Daddy’s girl?”

“STOP IT,” Gough shouted.

“I have it on good authority that what I sing is true,” Landish said. “Hell hath no fury like a husband horned.”

“So now you know what everyone at Vanderland has known for years. Please do as the rest of us have done and say no more about it.”

“Pipe down, Landish,” Sedgewick hissed. “Mrs. Vanderluyden thinks quite highly of
me.”

“That’s because you give Goddie higher grades than you give Deacon. Show her a map based on Goddie’s knowledge of geography. She won’t think so highly of you then.”

The next day, a sheepish Landish took Deacon aside. “Pay no attention to anything I say, to you or to anyone else, while I’ve been drinking.”

“You said Mr. Vanderluyden is not Goddie’s father. Did he make a contribution?”

“No. He didn’t. Not to Gertrude, anyway, it seems. We’re done for if you say a word of this to Goddie.”

“Who laidith Lady Gertrude?” he said the next evening in the Smoker after Deacon had gone to bed.

“One of the inner circle. At one time second only to Hunt. The engineer/architect named Thorpe,” Gough said. “He lives in New York. Mr. Vanderluyden banished him from Vanderland. Pretended it was because of insubordination. Gertrude sees him while she’s there.”

“I don’t know what she’s thinking,” Stavely lisped. “She’ll be penniless if he divorces her.”

“Perhaps she’s in love with Thorpe,” said Landish. “I expect Van doesn’t know what to do about her. The always flummoxed Van of Princeton wouldn’t have had a clue.”

“You sound as if you’re reveling in the man’s misfortune,” Sedgewick said. “Just as you did last night when you were drunk. You’ve no excuse this time.”

“I need none to speak my mind.”

Gough said Gertrude travelled to New York on the Vanderluyden Express whenever her husband’s travels and art collection tours took him somewhere else. He would no sooner leave for St. Louis, Chicago, London or Paris than she would start preparing for New York. There were intervals of weeks—and sometimes even months, he was told—when neither of Goddie’s parents was at Vanderland, when she was overseen by her chief governess, Miss Esse.

“I hate it when they’re gone,” she said to Deacon. “The longer they’re gone, the more I think they won’t come back. But I hate it almost as much when they come back, because they quarrel terribly and shout at me as if I’ve done something wrong.”

“Gertrude was once more charming than she is today,” Van told Landish in the master living hall one night. He had asked Landish to leave Deacon with the Blokes.

“You’re not much impressed with Vanderland, are you Landish?”
Van said. “You’re no more impressed with me than you ever were. All those smart remarks and rhymes you made. In front of Deacon. You think me the same as I was when we were schoolmates. Friends. I hope you haven’t taken your promotions to be a signal that I wish to renew our friendship. They are mere courtesies for old time’s sake.”

“I haven’t taken them to be a signal of anything,” Landish said. “But why do you care what I think of you?”

Van said that, again, “just for old times’ sake,” he wished to tell Landish a story that might change his opinion of him.

He said that Gertrude was very young when they married, and saw no reason that a good match should preclude romantic love. She did not, until their wedding night, speak of love. Nor did he.

“But then she told me that she loved me and asked if I loved her. Perhaps I should have gone along with it, the whole pretence—but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was very fond of her, but I was not in love with her.”

Gertrude said she wanted more than to be thought of fondly by her husband. She said she wanted to be loved. When Van said nothing, she became upset and began to cry. Not until he told her with what she called “unmistakable sincerity” that he loved her would she let him near her, she said.

So he told her that he loved her, but she said she knew he didn’t mean it.

This went on for sixteen months. She wouldn’t even let him hold her hand. “I don’t know why I let it go on for so long. Perhaps I should have sought an annulment. But it is always assumed, in cases of non-consummation, that the husband is to blame. That is, it would have been assumed that I didn’t because I couldn’t. Or didn’t want to. And there would have been much humiliating speculation.

“Well, one must make choices. I did what I thought and still think was right. If I was wrong, I was wrong. I never did fall in love with her. I had never hoped to fall in love. I wasn’t looking for love. I have never hoped for love.”

Gertrude told him she couldn’t stand a loveless life. As a prelude for asking him to end the marriage, he assumed. But then she told him of the matter in New York.

“Yes, it was from her that I first heard of it. Don’t feign surprise. I know that you know about it, Landish, everyone does. I was enraged. Two years of playing coy with me, her husband—well, you can imagine how it was.”

Over the course of months, he tried to convince her of the folly of what she was doing. But she said that she would not languish at Vanderland while he gadded about the world.

“So I have brought matters to their just conclusion. We argued a few nights ago, worse than ever. But by that time I had already done what needed to be done. Unknown to her.”

“What have you done?” Landish said.

“Mr. Henley will show you to the library at eight this evening,” Van said, “but don’t come inside. Wait in the tapestry gallery. Don’t make a sound. Gertrude always comes and goes by the elevator. She won’t see you. She won’t know you’re there.”

“You’re asking me to eavesdrop?”

“I’m telling you to.”

“Is there a penalty for non-compliance?” Landish said, laughing. Van turned his back and walked away from him

Landish wondered what Van would do if he defied him and simply stayed at The Blokes instead of going to the library. He pictured himself eavesdropping on the Vanderluydens, dutifully skulking in the shadows of the tapestry gallery. Until shortly before eight, he kept telling himself he wouldn’t do it. But then he left The Blokes and arrived at the gallery just in time. He stood to one side of the library doors. He heard the whirring of the elevator and the clanking of the doors as Gertrude opened them. For a long time the room was so silent Landish wondered if Van had yet arrived. But then he heard Van say: “No sooner am I out the door. What must the servants think?”

“I never think about what servants think,” Gertrude said.

The modulations of her voice suggested she was walking back and forth.

“A little discretion—” Van said. “Everyone
knows.”

“Everyone
always
knows.”

“You talk as if it’s something that all couples do. But I’ve never done it.”

“No. You’ve never done it. You’ve never done it. With anyone. Were you thinking of having me as your virgin bride forever?”

“I’ve stayed away from you because of you, not because of me.”

“You stayed away from me because of
him
. It was bad enough when all you did was talk about him, but now that you’ve
brought
him here—”

She means me, Landish thought, and was barely able to resist the urge to stride into the room. He felt certain it wasn’t the first time she had made the accusation. And Van had wanted him to hear them argue.

“That’s absurd,” Van said. “You’re as likely to repeat a rumour as be the subject of one.”

“I am in love. I have been for years.”

“Gertrude, there is no need for you to end your affair.
I
have ended it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Would you like to know what his price was? Or should I say what yours was? The man whose undying love you think you have is at this moment on his way to England. He has been well compensated for the inconvenience of such a sudden and permanent relocation. And he has, with unmistakable sincerity, assured me that you and he will never meet or correspond again. So, Gertrude, keep yourself involved in your betterment projects from now on, and while you’re at it, make such a project of yourself. I won’t be fitted for a new set of horns every few years.”

“What if I tell the truth, make it known that Godwin is not your child but his? Would you like to be thought of as the Vanderluyden who finds men more—inspiring?”

“I would simply deny that our marriage was unconsummated. Who would take your word for anything at this point? I would divorce you and keep Godwin. You’d be lucky if you set eyes on her again.”

Landish raised his hand, intending to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and struck the underside of a lamp that was fastened to the wall. Van and Gertrude stopped talking. Landish turned to hurry away but realized that Gertrude would reach the doorway of the library in time to see him, to recognize him as, his back to her, he made an inglorious, ridiculous bid to escape. He was unable to think of any facial expression he could assume that was appropriate to the occasion of being caught by Gertrude Vanderluyden in the act of eavesdropping on her and her husband.

“Is there someone out there?” Gertrude said. “What are you up to, Van? What would you stoop to?”

“That’s what people will soon be saying of me instead of what they’re saying now. Padgett Godfrey Vanderluyden will stop at nothing.”

There was the sound of Gertrude’s hurrying footsteps. One of the library doors opened inward and Gertrude stood half hidden by it, looking out, surveying the gallery. Landish thought the door might be blocking her view of him but she let go of the door and slowly walked towards him. She shook her head and covered her mouth with her hand to suppress what he took to be a laugh until he saw that her eyes had welled up with tears that would have spilled out had she blinked.

“I wouldn’t have thought that even you would be capable of this,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Landish said. “I—”

“It will be something worse next time, Mr. Druken. And something still worse after that. He can’t have you here and not know the limits of your affection for him. Your fear of him.”

She struck him hard on the chest with the heel of her fist and pointed back into the library behind her.

“Four years I’ve spent in this place. Shackled to him for my daughter’s
sake. You have been here just over a year and already you’re creeping about in the dark eavesdropping on me because he told you to.”

Landish made to step away but she put herself in front of him.

“The mere fact of your being here under his roof emboldens him. He brought you and the boy here for a reason. He may not even know yet what it is. I don’t. Do you?”

Landish shook his head.

“Yet here you are, you and the boy, brought here by a man who does nothing but think of ways to
improve
this house. He loved you. Perhaps he still does, or will again.”

“We were merely friends.”

“No. Something more. To
his
mind at least. Look, Mr. Druken. I have not always been as I am. Of the woman I was, however, there is only enough left for Godwin. Until just now there was enough for her and her real father. His abandonment of me was inevitable, don’t you think?”

“I’m sorry to have made it that much worse.”

“You know, I would not speak of you and the boy as I do if I did not sense that your being here will somehow destroy us all. I see that you think I’m being melodramatic. Perhaps I am. I hardly sleep, can’t bring myself to eat. From now on, I will be under what amounts to house arrest. My undoing has begun. One thing will never change. I spoke of your limits. I have none where the good of my daughter is concerned. None. So if my husband sets you a task that in any way concerns her, tell him no.”