All He Ever Wanted (19 page)

“You will be here for dinner?” I asked.

“Yes, surely,” she said, making a notation on the pad of paper beside her cutlery.

I studied my wife in profile as she bent to her task. (She was, in my estimation, nearsighted, though she would not admit
to it — a gentle vanity I could well understand and tolerate in a woman; odd circumstance, though, since I had long cultivated
spectacles, though I did not, even at forty-five, need them.) The light from a transom window defined the planes of her face
— those prominent cheekbones, her dark brown eyelashes framing her almond-shaped eyes, the sloping hairline at the temple,
the long throat, only faintly lined. She wrote with a formidable and upright hand, and I strained to see her list, but apart
from the words
lamb
and
carbolic,
I could make out nothing.

My attention was drawn away at that moment by the happy arrival of our children. Clara, her examination in plane geometry
having been successfully negotiated, was in considerably better spirits than she’d been the day before, and, as a result,
she tucked straight into her porridge (I so appreciated her good appetite), while Nicodemus, ever a finicky eater, looked
at his bowl with suspicion.

“It is only porridge, Nicky,” Etna said.

“I must have brown sugar and raisins,” he said, and Etna, who often indulged him, nodded to Mary, who was standing by the
door. We had only the three servants — Mary; our housemaid, Abigail; and Warren, the gardener. Not so many for that era, I
think. Nothing, for example, as compared to Ferald’s thirteen or to Moxon’s seven. (What did they do all day? I often wondered.
Moxon was not even married. Have I mentioned that Moxon had had an unexpected success with his life of Byron, a popular volume
that had made him a small fortune? Yes, perhaps I have. Did I envy Moxon his success? Well, perhaps I did.)

“You look well today,” I said to Clara. I had been noticing for the past few months that the previously scrawny Clara was
filling out admirably, growing taller and developing something of a womanly body. I was glad to see that she was discarding
some of her more tomboyish mannerisms (her knees askew when she sat, a propensity to run when she ought to have walked, an
entirely unnecessary fidgeting when she was required to be still, such as in church) and was demonstrably more graceful and
fluid of limb. Nonetheless, she was still a child, and never more so than in the presence of her brother, who brought out
the worst in her.

“Nicky wrote his name on the back of his bedroom door,” Clara announced with unconcealed satisfaction, much to the horror
of Nicodemus.

“I did not!” he said, though incipient tears told us otherwise. At six, Nicky was incapable of a successful untruth (and still
is today, I am happy to report).

“You did so,” Clara insisted. “N-I-C-O-D-E-M-A-S. He didn’t even spell it right.”

“Is this so?” Etna asked Nicky.

The tears that had threatened to spill fell in earnest down Nicky’s cheeks, making him all the more upset with himself.

“With what did you write your name?” Etna asked gently.

“He wrote it with charcoal from my drawing set,” Clara said at once. “And he ruined the crayon!”

By now one had sympathy for the young Nicodemus, who, after all, had committed no crime greater than the claiming of his door
(I had no doubt the charcoal would easily wash off ), whereas Clara had committed the graver sin of
informing.
Thus are the joys of parenthood presented daily: sorting out the innocent from the not entirely innocent of misdemeanors.

“Nicky,” Etna said quietly, “after you have eaten your breakfast, you will wash your name off the back of your door, and you
must pay Clara for the charcoal pencil.”

“But how shall I pay her?” Nicodemus asked.

“With money from your glass jar,” his mother said.

“But what is a charcoal crayon worth?”

“Ten cents,” Clara said at once.

I could see that this debate, if left to Clara and Nicky, would have no satisfactory conclusion, and so I said, quite arbitrarily,
that Nicodemus would pay Clara one penny, an outcome that vexed Clara, who thought the charcoal crayon more dear than that,
but one that pleased Nicky simply because it ended the discussion.

The children returned their attention to their meals, and, in the brief silence that followed, my preoccupation with Asher
reasserted itself. I neither heard the rest of the breakfast conversation, if there was any, nor absorbed a word of my newspaper.
I could see only the cool and confident visage of the man from Yale. Would not Asher’s excellent credentials as well as Ferald’s
scheming ways sway the board in Asher’s favor? For a moment I began to contemplate the notion that I might not, after all,
be elected to the post. I must do something, I thought, but what?

“My dear,” I said, standing and bending to kiss the top of Etna’s head, “I must leave you. I am late.”

“Are you?” she asked, looking up.

“A meeting,” I said. “I’d nearly forgotten.”

“Shall I give you a ride?”

“No, no, it’s not necessary. I’ll walk. I must have the exercise.”

I did not want Etna to drive me to the college, because I was not, in fact, going to the college, but rather to the Hotel
Thrupp. I didn’t know precisely what I should do when I arrived; I simply felt that I could not be elsewhere.

The hotel had been rebuilt following the fire of 1899 and had been furnished in the manner of a New England colonial inn,
which pleased me; as I may have mentioned, I did not care much for nineteenth-century decoration. Wood floors with good Persian
rugs, pale wallpaper with white wainscoting, and simple mahogany and cherry pieces made up the lobby of the hotel, where I
hovered, hoping that Asher would pass through. I could then pretend to have run into him and start up a conversation. For
I was now intensely interested in speaking with the man away from the prying eyes of Ferald and his cronies. More to the point,
I did not want to be seen visiting Asher at the college. An encounter in town, however, a word or two: nothing amiss in that.

I sat in a chair in the corner and read the
Thrupp Gazette
and for the second time that day failed to absorb the news therein. I waited for as long as it might take a man to peruse
a local journal and was about to leave the hotel and go to my college office (the office of Noah Fitch was now mine; I had,
the reader will be happy to learn, installed electric lights) when I had the idea that Asher might be breakfasting in the
hotel. I made my way to the dining room, and there, in the corner, was my prey.

A waiter inquired as to whether I should be dining in the hotel that morning, and I, seizing an opportunity I had not anticipated,
answered in the affirmative. As I was led toward a table, I passed by that of Phillip Asher.

“Professor Asher,” I said, sounding (I hoped) suitably surprised. “Good morning.”

“Van Tassel,” Asher said, holding a white linen napkin to his lap as he stood. He seemed momentarily flustered to be caught
so off guard.

“I trust you are enjoying your stay in Thrupp,” I said.

“Very much so.”

“That was quite a pleasant gathering last night.”

“Yes, it was,” he said, using the napkin to wipe a stray bit of egg from his mustache.

“Please, don’t let me disturb you,” I said, gesturing to his plate.

Asher was silent a moment, as if considering various replies, and I was happy to see that the man was perhaps not as quick
on his feet as I had at first imagined.

“Are you breakfasting here as well?” he asked finally.

“I often do — one or two times a week,” I said, inventing a schedule for myself as I spoke. I leaned in conspiratorially.
“Our cook, upon occasion, makes an appalling porridge, which I only pretend to eat.” I glanced at the second chair at the
table, a glance that cannot have been misinterpreted.

“Will you join me?” Asher asked.

And before Phillip Asher could inform me that he had nearly finished his own meal, I accepted his not entirely sincere offer
(how could it be? I had forced myself upon him).

“Excellent,” I said, dismissing the man who had been waiting to lead me to my table. “I should welcome an opportunity to discuss
your lecture series, which I am looking forward to. They begin on Thursday?”

I settled myself at the table. As I seldom ate at the hotel, I did not know the breakfast menu well. I ordered eggs, meat,
toast, and orange marmalade when the waiter reappeared.

“They do,” Asher said. He seemed to have lost his appetite, or perhaps he was simply sated, for he sat forward in his chair,
wrists poised upon the table, and looked from me to the window and then back at me before he spoke. His face, already pale
by nature, seemed excessively fair that morning. “I hope they will not be too much of a bore.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “Though you must miss New Haven.”

“I am content to see the New England autumn in New Hampshire. The colors are so much richer the farther north one goes.”

“To a point,” I said. “They are weak in Canada, I am told.”

“Well, yes,” Asher said. “I meant New England.”

“But Thrupp can have little appeal to one used to the scholarship of Yale,” I said. “I envy you.”

“Do you?”

“I envy anyone who has an opportunity to converse in a spirited manner with like-minded men on the work of Bertrand Russell
or Hilaire Belloc or Ben Jonson, for that matter.”

“I’m afraid I’m at a loss when it comes to Jonson,” Asher said. “Quite out of my field.” He paused for a moment, as if he
could not remember his field, and I noted that he was studying my face intently — a face surely not worth such a perusal.

“A minor poet,” I said, engaging in a little scrutiny of my own. Asher’s was a strong visage, the cheekbones prominent, the
eyes truly gray. The man was undeniably handsome, which was a disconcerting realization, since I knew only too well that beauty
in a man could well dispose others to favor him. I also knew the reverse of this truism: lack of beauty in myself had occasionally
been a hindrance to advancement. (Though, in a slight disturbance of chronology, I will just say here that Asher and I met
quite by chance more than a decade later on Newbury Street in Boston, and I was shocked by how unkind the years had been to
him. He had quite simply
faded
in the interim. His hair was white, and his eyebrows were so pale as to be nearly invisible. “It wasn’t true,” I said to
him as we stood on that charming Boston street. Asher nodded, speechless in the moment.)

“I am afraid you will find Thrupp a very dull place,” I said in the dining room.

“I have not so far.”

“But one that you will soon tire of, I can assure you. I will admit there are some fine minds in the various disciplines,
but there is simply so little to
do
in Thrupp,” I said. “No theater or music of any consequence.”

“Really not?” he asked. “I was led to believe that the Cushing concerts were worth attending.”

“But they are in the spring,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“And you will be back in New Haven by then,” I said.

“I am on sabbatical for the year,” he said.

“So you are, so you are,” I said. “Do you have family?” I asked.

“I am not married, if that’s what you mean.”

“You studied at Harvard.”

“I did.”

“And did you not like Cambridge?” I asked.

“It was not that I disliked Cambridge,” Asher said carefully. “It was simply that New Haven seemed the best place for me at
the time.”

“You have gone from London to Cambridge to New Haven to Thrupp, Professor Asher. You are a nomad. Wandering in the wrong direction,
I might add.”

“Or the right direction, depending upon one’s point of view,” he said quietly.

“Quite,” I said, and busied myself with my breakfast. “Forgive my asking, but how old are you?”

“Thirty-four.”

“So young!”

Asher said nothing.

“But time to think of a family, nevertheless,” I said.

“Perhaps.”

“Though one would not want to limit oneself to the eligible young women of Thrupp.”

“No?” he asked.

“There simply aren’t any!” I exclaimed.

“I find that hard to believe,” Asher said.

“Well, there is Sarah Griggs, who has an unfortunately high-pitched voice that one cannot abide for more than a few minutes
at a time. She is the daughter of the Provost. And there is Julia Phipps, daughter of the Sanskrit Professor. She must be
nearing thirty, I should think. She seems to have been eligible for years. And then, of course, one might try the stately
Frederica Hesse, whose German blood is as evident in her posture as it is in her chilly mien, not to mention her overbite.”

Asher glanced out the window. (I wince now to recall this patently transparent conversation.)

“I trust they have given you an office in which to prepare your lectures,” I said. “Or have they consigned you to the library?”

“The corporators have been generous. I do have an office.”

“Very good,” I said. “Once again, forgive me for intruding into your private life, but if I am not mistaken, you are being
considered for the post of Dean of Faculty?”

Asher leaned back in his chair. “As are you, I am told,” he said.

And so, at last, our cards were on the breakfast table.

“You applied to the post?” I asked.

“I was invited to apply.”

How had that been accomplished? I wondered. Had Edward Ferald himself written to Asher? Yet how would Ferald have learned
of such an intellect? Or were others responsible for the arrival of the Yale professor at Thrupp?

“We are such a backwater institution,” I said. “The train journey to Boston alone takes most of a day.”

Asher made a show of looking at his watch. “I’m afraid I must go,” he said, rising. “An appointment.”

I rose as well, as good manners required. “Well, I cannot say that I wish you luck,” I said.

“No,” he said, extending his hand. “But I hope we shall remain amiable colleagues.”

“The most amiable,” I said. Asher had a strong, entirely masculine grip, which took me by surprise, as there was something
distinctly refined about his features.