The Callender Papers by Cynthia Voigt
“It’s what the girls around here wear,” she said. “Of course, it wouldn’t do for the city. The girls here often go without stockings and shoes too, for comfort.”
“I’ll be a wild Indian, like Oliver McWilliams.” I essayed a smile, to which she did not respond. I had the ungrateful thought that Mr. Thiel had required her to make the dress, for reasons of his own.
“You might do worse,” Mrs. Bywall said finally, dismissing me.
With the letter and a few pennies in my pinafore pocket, with a new dress and bare feet, I walked along the dirt roadway beside the stream. There was nobody on the lawn of the Callender house. The dirt under my feet felt soft and fine, the stones cut into my tender soles until I learned to avoid them. The short skirt was light around my legs. I did feel half-wild. Sometimes, for no reason, I ran through the dappled sunlight, just for the pleasure of moving my arms and legs so freely. When I arrived at the village, I looked around for Mac but did not see him. I turned toward the brick buildings.
The general store, where mail was collected, was easy to find as Marlborough had only the one street. The store had a sign, which announced itself, and added that E. Willy was the proprietor. I hesitated, wondering about my bare feet, then decided that if it were improper, Mrs. Bywall would not have advised me to go without shoes. I stepped into the building.
It was cool, dim. Shelves filled with dry goods and hardware filled the walls toward the front. The groceries were toward the back, canned goods and bags of rice, flour, coffee. The Franklin stove was not lit at this time of year, but it occupied a central place. Bottles of whiskey stood in a line directly behind a stocky man who was himself behind a counter. The usual jars of bright-colored penny candy were on one end of the counter.
I walked up to the man and said that I would like to mail a letter.
He answered not a word, but reached down a small scale from behind him. I gave him my letter.
“To Boston,” he said. “To Miss Constance Wainwright,” he said.
“How much is it please?”
He told me the price and I paid him. “You’ll be staying up at Mr. Thiel’s,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll not see you often,” he said.
I said nothing, and he stared at me with bright, curious eyes. His hair was almost perfectly white, his face almost perfectly square. His skin was covered with small wrinkles. I did not like him. “You don’t look like you come from the Callender property,” he remarked at last. “But looks can be deceiving.” He waited for me to say something, but I didn’t. “Will there be anything else?”
“No, thank you,” I said. “Good day.”
He did not answer, and I went back outside. I stood on the porch for a time, letting my eyes readjust to the sunlight, studying the white houses on the other side of the dirt road. Then I stepped down onto the dusty street and saw Mac approaching the other side of the bridge. I walked toward him, waving to catch his attention, when someone hurrying out of the other building ran into me from the side.
A pair of hands took me by the shoulders to keep me from falling into the dusty road. Before I could properly appreciate what had happened, a voice began apologizing: “How could I have been so clumsy? I’m so sorry—are you all right? Yes, I think so, perhaps a little bemused, but you don’t look as if you’re hurt. Are you hurt? Is that a pained or a puzzled expression? I do apologize. Please say you’ll forgive me. It was clumsy of me, I wasn’t watching, and the sunlight after the dark interior light is blinding, don’t you think? I’ve always thought so. I wish you’d talk to me, just anything, so I can hear if I’ve hurt you. But I’m not giving you much of a chance, am I?”
It was Enoch Callender who stood beside me, concern in eyes, which were of blue as bright as the sky. The sun shone off of his golden hair. His face looked contrite and amused and curious, all at once; the exact expressions changing so fast I couldn’t see when they flowed into one another. He wore a white suit, spotless. “I’m perfectly fine,” I assured him. “Really.” I felt myself flushing under his scrutiny. “It’s unmannerly to stare,” I told him, as if he had been one of the little girls in my charge. Then I regretted my own ill-mannered tongue. But he smiled mischievously at me.
“I’m not usually clumsy. And I’m not in the habit of trampling down young ladies on public thoroughfares. Say you will forgive me.” He smiled as if he were sure I would.
“There is nothing to forgive,” I said. “Truly.”
“I’m relieved to hear you say that.” He took off his straw hat and bowed elaborately to me. “Let me introduce myself less precipitously. Enoch Callender, at your service.”
“I know.”
He smiled again. He seemed to know immediately that I did not mean my words to sound as curt as they did. “Know what? Know I am at your service?” I answered with a smile. “Or why need we two lie to one another, is that what you mean? You’re an unusually direct sort of young lady and I tell you straight out I like that. Of course, I do know who you are. We all heard, as soon as you’d arrived. You’re staying at Dan’s house, Dan Thiel. They say you are cataloging the family papers. My family, of course. Are they dreadfully dull? I’m afraid they must be. I shall have to apologize for that too. My father was a dreadfully dull old man, if I do say so myself. All those fusty hours turning over the yellowed pages—no, I don’t envy you the job. A double apology then, Miss—no wait, you mustn’t tell me, and I see in your face that you are not hastening to do so—are you also discreet? Truly, a rare character, truly good luck that I—so to speak”—he smiled broadly, doffing his hat again—“ran into you. Ah, good, you have a sense of humor. I wonder if you’ll allow me to play a little game I like. It’s so important to have diversions for the mind.”
I didn’t know what to say, so stood looking up into his face.
“Are you returning to the big house? Shall we walk together? I’m incredibly trustworthy, you will be safe with me.”
“Don’t we go up on opposite sides of the river?” I asked.
“There is a way across. It’s something of a secret, but I’ll share it with you. It’s not a large secret—I can see you would disapprove of my telling you large secrets on such a short acquaintance. It’s a modest little private arrangement, really. You’ll be disappointed by it, but I’ll tell you anyway now that I’ve piqued your curiosity.” I had no time to open my mouth to say that I wasn’t at all curious; he talked on without waiting. “We can cross over at the falls. You didn’t know that, did you? I’ll like surprising you, I can see that. You will have to walk a little further, but I would enjoy the time in your company. I would enjoy it very much.”
He too would have to walk farther, which I did not say. Instead, I agreed that we might walk together. I didn’t see how I could refuse, and I preferred walking side by side to standing facing him in the middle of the street. Somehow, looking directly at him distracted me—his face held such liveliness and he spoke so fluently. This liveliness, the quick energy of him, was something I had never met with before in an adult. Already, I had a sense of unpredictability, as if all of life was a game, which he very much enjoyed playing. We moved up the road and over the little bridge. Mac had begun to fish and did not meet my eye. Mr. Callender talked on. “I was speaking of my little game. I’m really rather good at it. You may think I’m blowing my own horn, but I always say if you don’t think well of yourself, then who will? And we see so few strangers—strangers are a rare commodity in Marlborough—that I always ask the privilege of those I meet. So I ask the privilege of you, my nameless young lady.”
“Yes, but what is it?”
“You have humor as well; really, I can’t tell you how glad I am we met. However inopportunely it came about—I am not forgetting my part in all of this. But to the point. I have a theory that it is possible to tell a person’s name from his appearance. The person must be of mature age, that goes without saying. But I believe that in that circumstance the astute observer can guess th
I shook my head, greatly amused. I could think of no reason to object to his foolishness, and I was curious about what he would guess.
“This name must be pretty, but not fancified. Something solid. Something with a streak of the practical, but a hint of vision as well. Simple and feminine, but with the possibility of—if I’m right—sternness.”
Nobody had ever said all those things about me. I had not forgotten Mr. Thiel calling me an “odd little niece.” It was pleasant now to be so approved of. I waited for the game to continue. We were on a wagon track on the opposite side of the river, and the trees grew so thickly that I would not have guessed, if I hadn’t known, that there was a drive on the opposite side. Thickly leaved branches made it shady and pleasant as we walked along. “I think,” he said after some silent thought, “if I were to name you, I’d call you Diana, after the goddess of the moon.”
I lifted my eyes to his, to tell him how wrong he was, but he raised his hand to silence me. “No, that’s not my guess, now that I see it would be wrong. Something more sensible, Charlotte, or Jane. No, Jean. Yes, I like that. Here is my formal guess—Jean. Now you can tell me, what is your name? Is it Jean? Or any variation of that? You’ve got to give me a little leeway.”
It was astounding. I could only nod my head.
He lifted his face to the trees and crowed with delight. “I told you I was good at it, didn’t I? Now you believe me. You thought I was being foolish, but I wasn’t, was I? Of course, I wouldn’t know your last name.”
“Wainwright.”
“How do you do Miss Wainwright? But I may call you Jean, mayn’t I? After all, I just named you myself.”
“But how do you do it?” I asked.
“Ah—that is a secret. What would you have guessed for me? Not Enoch, of course, that’s much too sharp and hard, much too stern and Biblical. I’m named after my grandfather—something of a rogue, whom the name Enoch suited as little as it does for me. If you were guessing, what would you name me?”
“I need to think carefully about that,” I answered. This was not true. I knew immediately I would have named him something strong and handsome, like Lancelot, or perhaps mischievous, like Robin, after Robin Goodfellow.
“You’re right,” he agreed, as we passed on through the silent woods. “It does take careful thought. I do wish my father had been a man given to careful thought. I like that phrase. Careful thought. Most things do become clearer with its aid. More clear than people think,” he said. “However, I’m wandering off the subject. I do wander, I must warn you. Shall I tell you all about myself? Or would you rather be the first to tell? Since we’re going to be friends.”
“You,” I said. He could not possibly be interested in me.
“I am old Dan’s brother-in-law. Mr. Thiel, that is. One must speak respectfully of one’s relatives. More precisely, I was his brother-in-law. My sister Irene was his wife. She has been dead these ten years.” When he spoke of his sister, his voice had no laughter, and his eyes grew serious. “Irene raised me because my mother died bringing me into the world. I often wonder what it would have been like to have had a mother; a mother is a terrible thing to miss. A child who has no mother I think deserves all the sympathy people have to give. Irene spoiled me, everyone said so, and I have to agree with them. It was wonderful. Here I am thirty-eight years old. I don’t look it, do I? A gilded youth, that’s what I look like. I have no occupation and am what in better days, in more elegant times, would have been called a gentleman. I have three children. Joseph is seventeen, and is perhaps too much like me. Victoria is fifteen and growing into quite a beauty. She should do well for herself, if we could just get her out of this village and into a respectable society. Then there is Benjamin, who at fourteen may be anything. I haven’t insulted your age, have I? How old are you?”
“Twelve,” I said. “Thirteen in the fall.”
“I’d have guessed that,” he said. “Now you know all about me, you must tell me about yourself.”
“I live with my Aunt Constance, who was, I believe, a friend of your sister’s.”
He thought about that. “I’ve never heard of her. Of course, Irene had any number of friends about whom I knew nothing. For several years, we lived very separate lives, when I was away at school, and then after I married. Irene did have secret leanings toward the suffragettes. Could your aunt be one of those?”
“Of course,” I said. “Aunt Constance says it is utterly unreasonable to deny women the vote; if you think carefully about it, you must see that women are as able as men. The major difference is—of course—education. She thinks women should be as educated as men. She has her own school in Cambridge. That is how I come to be here. Mr. Thiel is on the Board of Governors of the Academy.”
“Is he now?” Mr. Callender said, as if that surprised him. “What about your parents?”
“I know nothing about them.”
“But surely your aunt must have told you something.”
“No, nothing.”
“Don’t you find that strange? If you are the child of her sister or brother, she should want to talk to you of your family. Unless of course—” he glanced quickly at me and stopped speaking. His meaning was clear.
“She will tell me when it is right for me to know,” I said. But he had inserted a tiny grain of doubt. Why hadn’t she told me? Was she keeping me in ignorance of some shameful secret?
“Ah, well, that may make a difference, of course. There are so many curious things that happen in the world, aren’t there? At least you seem to trust your Aunt Constance, which speaks well of her.”
“Yes of course.”
“And where do you live?”
“In Cambridge, near Boston,” I repeated.
“You’re a city child then? I was myself and it’s a rare privilege, don’t you agree? My city was New York. Do you know New York?”
I did not.
“I was born there and lived all my life there until my father moved us up here. Have you read about that yet in those papers you are trudging through?”
“I have noticed that he didn’t approve of the munitions factory.”
“He didn’t approve of much, my father. He didn’t approve of the munitions factory, he didn’t approve of the war, he didn’t approve of the way his own father kept him out of the army. The old man paid one of his employees three hundred dollars to enlist in place of my father. It was perfectly legal, and generous compared to what other men were getting for the same job. But my father didn’t approve. My father also didn’t approve of gambling, drinking, swearing, of eating too well or sleeping too much. He didn’t approve of pleasure. I have always suspected that he didn’t approve of life.”
I giggled.
“But then my father didn’t know much about life. At the first honest blow old lady life handed him, he died. His heart just refused to beat under the circumstances. Almost as if he said to himself, ‘If this is what it is, I will have nothing to do with it.’ ”
“What happened?” I asked, bold again.
“My sister died, under curious circumstances. Actually, she died after he did, but it was clear she would go. It’s a pity she didn’t die first, it made a terrible muddle. However, die she did, and although it was unpleasant, we have all come through it, because Callenders, true Callenders, survive. You’ll notice that in those papers. And Dan Thiel has made quite a good thing out of it.”
We walked a ways in silence. The river ran beside us, going in the opposite direction. As we went uphill, great boulders began to appear, as if they had forced their way up through concealing earth, like the earths secrets forcing their way into daylight.
“How do you and Dan Thiel get on then?” Mr. Callender asked after a while.
“Satisfactorily.”
Mr. Callender threw back his head and laughed. “And I know what that means. It means he goes out to his shed and paints, while you rustle through dusty papers.”
There was enough truth in that not to be contradicted.
“You are a diplomat, Miss Jean Wainwright,” Mr. Callender said. “Will you wait for my son Joseph and marry him and make a good man of him? He needs a cautious head beside his own. Will you propose yourself to save him?”
“I would not be a good match,” I said.
“There is that,” Mr. Callender agreed, “because an heiress would solve many of our problems. But the native habitat of heiresses is not such places as Marlborough, is it? No, it’s the cities.” He spread his arms out as if to encompass an invisible world. “I do miss the city. The variety most of all, it’s like—there’s nothing like it, is there?”
He told me of the New York he remembered from his childhood, as we walked on up the hill toward the house. He could describe the seaport of New York so vividly that I almost saw it: the tall-masted ships, the sailors of different origins and colors. The sense of the whole world, gathered together in one place, the variety of it, the movement, the color. He spoke of New York as one familiar with all of its aspects.
“I was lucky to live so many years there. I’ll try to look on the bright side. No reason not to is there? I had many happy years there. Father didn’t dare sell the factory until Grandfather was safely dead. Father was a good businessman, surprisingly enough; at least he made money. But as soon as the old man died he closed the factory down. It seems that Father had the ability to be a successful businessman but not the courage. Don’t you think?”
I wouldn’t have known, and said so.
“I won’t complain. It’s a sizable fortune he left, although it’s a Gordian knot at this point. Someday—” he said. He did not finish the sentence. “And what will you do with your life, Jean?”
I told him of my plans to further my education and then become, myself, an educator. He admired them, he said.
These conversations took us to his own house, where nobody stirred behind the white curtains on the windows to see us as we walked by at the foot of the lawn. “It’s the second best, of course,” he said, “but comfortable enough for us.” We went on up to the waterfall. I was sorry we had come to the end of our walk.