Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder
“I suggest tonight or tomorrow night at the bar of the Muenchinger-King at six-fifteen.”
“Good!—Tonight at the ‘M-K’ at six-fifteen.”
Mr. Granberry was about thirty-five, young for Newport. He belonged to the category that journalists like Flora Deland call “sportsmen and men-about-town.” Like many others of his kind he had a face that was handsome but wrinkled, even strangely ridged. I first thought this condition was the result of exposure to wind and wave in early youth—yacht races, Bermuda Cup trials, and so on; but later decided it was acquired on dry land and indoors. He had been designed to be a likable fellow, but idleness and aimlessness are erosive too. I received the impression that this interview with a “professor” was discomfiting, perhaps intimidating, and that he had been drinking. He offered me a drink. I accepted Bevo and we withdrew to the window-seat overlooking Bellevue Avenue and the Reading Rooms.
“Mr. North, my wife Myra is the brightest girl in the world. Quick as a whip. She can talk rings about anybody, see what I mean? But when she was a young girl she had an accident. Fell off a horse. She missed some years of schooling. Schoolteachers came to the house and taught her—terrible bores; you know what schoolteachers are like.—Where was I? Oh, yes: as a result of all this she hates reading a book. The way she puts it, she can’t stand nonsense—The Three Musketeers and Shakespeare and all that. She’s a very realistic girl. But she likes being read to, for a while. I’ve tried to read aloud to her, and her nurse, Mrs. Cummings, reads aloud to her, but after ten minutes she says she’d rather talk instead. Well—where was I? One of the results of this interruption in her education is that sometimes in general conversation she doesn’t do credit to herself. You know that ‘I-hate-Shakespeare’ stuff and ‘Poetry is for sheep.’ . . . Newport’s full of us Granberrys who think all that’s just bad education and middle-western yap. It’s a little embarrassing for me and my mother and all those cousins I have around. . . . As I told you, just now she’s something of an invalid. She’s pretty well got over that fall from the horse, but she’s had two miscarriages. We’re expecting a child again in about six months. The doctors have ordered her to get a little exercise in the morning and she’s allowed to go out to dinner several evenings in the week, but all the afternoon she’s got to spend resting on a sofa. Naturally she gets pretty bored. She has a bridge teacher twice a week, but she doesn’t enjoy that . . . and a French teacher.”
There was a pause. I asked, “Friends come to call?”
“In New York they do; not here. She’s a great talker, but she says that in Newport people just talk at her. She told the doctor to give orders that she’s not to receive callers—except me. I love Myra, but I can’t spend all my afternoons just listening to her. It’s those afternoons she finds hard. . . . Besides, I’m a sort of inventor. I have a laboratory in Portsmouth. That takes up a good deal of my time.”
“An inventor, Mr. Granberry!”
“Oh, I tinker at some ideas I have. I hope to come on something important some day. . . . Until then I keep it pretty secret. So . . . uh . . . would you be willing to read aloud to her, say three afternoons a week from four to six?”
I took my time. “Mr. Granberry, may I ask you a question?”
“Oh, sure. Go ahead.”
“I never take a student unless there is some assurance that the student wants to work with me. I can’t get anywhere with an indifferent or an antagonistic student. Do you think she’ll resent me as she does the bridge teacher?”
“I tell you frankly, it’s a risk. But my wife’s older now. She’s twenty-seven. She knows that she’s missed something . . . and that some of those ladies think she’s a little . . . unfinished. Myra’s not stupid—oh, no!—but she’s strong-minded and very sincere. If you put her before a firing-squad and asked her to name five plays by Shakespeare, she’d say, ‘Go ahead and shoot!’ She’s got a skunner against Shakespeare. She thinks he’s piffle. So do I, rather, but I know enough to keep my mouth shut about it. She was born in Wisconsin and up there they don’t allow anybody to tell them anything.”
“I was born in Wisconsin.”
“You were born in Wisconsin?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a Badger!”
“Yes.”
All the states have their totems, but the middle-western states are particularly conscious of the animals with which they identify themselves.
“Oh, that’ll be a big recommendation. Myra’s very proud of being a Badger. . . . Oh, that’s fine! Well, do you think you could try it, Mr. North?”
“Yes, but under one condition: the minute that Mrs. Granberry loses interest or becomes impatient, I must resign.”
“I’d be awfully grateful if you’d give it a try. You may have to be a little patient with her at the beginning.”
“I will.”
We arranged a schedule. I thought the interview was over, but he had something further on his mind.
“Have another Bevo, Mr. North. Have something stronger. Have anything you want. I’m part owner of this hotel.”
“Thank you, I’ll have another Bevo.”
We were served.
“I think I ought to tell you that one reason I’ve asked you to help me about Myra’s reading is the way you behaved in that Diana Bell matter.” I showed no sign of having heard him. “I mean that you made an agreement to say nothing about it and wild horses haven’t been able to drag a word out of you about it. In Newport all they do is talk and talk—gossip, damned gossip. Can I make the same agreement with you?”
“Certainly. I never talk about my employers.”
“I mean: you may be meeting me here and at the house. You met a friend of mine out at dinner, a very charming girl. She enjoyed talking French with you.”
“Sir, I haven’t been out to dinner once in Newport—except at Bill Wentworth’s home.”
“It wasn’t here. It was at Narragansett Pier, at Flora Deland’s.”
“Oh, yes. Miss Desmoulins, a very charming young lady.”
“You may be meeting her again over there. I just happen to have missed you twice at Flora Deland’s. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it . . . in certain quarters—you see what I mean?”
“I’d like to return to the subject of Wisconsin again. Did you meet Mrs. Granberry there?”
“Lord, no! She lived way up in the north near Wausau. Only been there once in my life, the days before the wedding. Met her at parties in Chicago—she has cousins there and so have I.”
The conversation floundered about like a rudderless ship. As I rose to go, he took one more look out of the window and said, “Ah! There she is!” A car had drawn up to the curb; the chauffeur had alighted and opened the door to a lady. Except for her white straw hat she was all in rose from the veils that covered her head to the tips of her shoes.
He muttered to me, “You go first!” and I opened the front door. French women are taught from the cradle to express delighted surprise at meeting any man—from twelve to ninety—whom they have met before.
“Ah, Monsieur Nort’, quel plaisir de vous revoir! Je suis Denise Desmoulins . . .” et cetera. I expressed my moved admiration of what I saw before me, et cetera, and we parted with expansive hopes of meeting again soon at Narragansett Pier.
At the appointed afternoon I wheeled up to the door of “Sea Ledges,” was received and led into Mrs. Granberry’s “afternoon room.” That lady, as beautiful as the morning but not as shy as the dawn, was lying on a chaise-longue. A stout pleasant-looking nurse sat near her knitting.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Granberry. I am Mr. North. Mr. Granberry has engaged me to read aloud to you.”
The lady glared at me in astonishment and silence, probably rage. I was carrying two volumes which I put down on the table beside me. “Will you kindly introduce me to your companion?”
This was another surprise. She murmured, “Mrs. Cummings, Mr. North.”
I crossed and shook hands with Mrs. Cummings. “Ar
“Oh, no, sir. I’m from Boston.”
“Are you also fond of reading?”
“Oh, I love reading, but I don’t get much time for it, you know.”
“Surely some of your patients—as soon as they begin to feel better—like a bit of reading? Something light and amusing?”
“We have to be careful, sir. When I was in training the Mother Directress told us about a Sister who had read aloud Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch to a surgical case. Had to restitch him, they did. She tells that story to every graduating class.”
“It’s a lovely book. I know it well.”
Perhaps it was time that I gave my attention to the lady of the house. “Mrs. Granberry, I don’t want to read anything that’s boring and certainly you don’t want to hear anything that’s boring, so I suggest that we draw up some rules—”
She interrupted me curtly. “What exactly did Mr. Granberry say when he asked you to come and read to me?”
“He said that you were a very intelligent young woman who had lost a year or two of education because of an accident in your childhood; that you had routine teachers during your convalescence who had given you a prejudice against poetry and some of the standard classics.”
“What else did he say?”
“I don’t remember anything else, except his distress that you had to pass these afternoon hours without any interest or occupation.”
The expression on her face was strong. “What are these rules that you propose?”
“I suggest that I start reading a book and that you let me read it for a quarter of an hour without interruption. Then I look at you and you give me a sign that I may go on for another quarter of an hour, or a sign that I start some other book. Does that rule seem unreasonable to you, ma’am?”
“Don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ Let me make it clear to you, Mr. West, that there’s something behind all this that I don’t like. I don’t like being treated as an idiot child.”
“Oh, then,” I said, rising quickly, “there’s been some misunderstanding. I’ll say good afternoon. Mr. Granberry gave me the impression that you might take some pleasure in being read aloud to.” I went over to Mrs. Cummings and shook her hand. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Cummings. I hope I may meet you at another time. Please recall me as Mr. North, not Mr. West.”
The lady of the house said sharply, “Mr. North, it’s not your fault that I don’t like the whole idea. Mr. Granberry asked you to come here and read to me, so please sit down and begin. I agree to your rules.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Granberry.”
I sat down and began reading: “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”
“Excuse me, Mr. North. Will you read that again, please.”
I did.
“Who wrote that?”
“Jane Austen.”
“Jane Austen. She doesn’t know anything about life.”
“You find it hard to believe, Mrs. Granberry?”
“Twenty-one!—I wasn’t ugly; I wasn’t stupid; my father was the richest man in Wisconsin. I had a comfortable home and the disposition of an angel. I lived to the age of twenty-three and most of the time was sheer hell. Excuse my language, Mrs. Cummings. The only time when I felt happy was when I was out riding my horse and the four days when I ran away to join the circus. Ask any woman who’s honest and she’ll tell you the same thing. . . . But I agreed to let you read for a quarter of an hour. I keep my bargains. What comes next?”
I was a little uncomfortable. I remembered that Jane Austen lets us know that any girl with a grain of sense has a rough time in life. I read on. My listener was certainly attentive. When we made the acquaintance of Miss Bates and her mother, she murmured, “Why do people write about old fools? It’s a waste of time!” At four thirty-five I looked up and received permission to continue. At six I closed the book and rose.
“Thank you,” she said. “Next time start some other book. It’s starting a book that kills me. Once it’s started I can go on by myself. Is it a long book?”
“In this edition, it’s in two volumes.”
“Leave them here and bring another book next time.”
“I’ll say good evening, Mrs. Granberry.”
I took leave of Mrs. Cummings also, who said in a low voice, “You read lovely. I had to laugh. Was that wrong?”
At the next session Mrs. Granberry was more amiable. For the first time she gave me her hand. “Are all those Austen books about the feeble-minded?”
“It has often been said that she had a fairly low opinion of men and women.”
“She should know some people I know.—What’s this new one called?”
“Daisy Miller. It was written by a man who lived in Newport when he was young.”
“In Newport? In Newport?”
“Not far from this very house.”
“Then why did he write books?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“If he was so rich why did he take the trouble to write books?”
I didn’t answer at once. I looked her straight in the eye. She blushed slightly. “Well,” I said slowly, “I think he got tired of buying and selling railroads, and building hotels and naming them after his family, and gambling at Saratoga Springs and betting on horses, and sailing his yacht into the same old ports, and going out to dinner and balls, meeting the same people every night. So he said to himself ‘Before I die I want some real enjoyment. . . . Damn it!’ He said—excuse my language, Mrs. Cummings—‘I’m going to write it all down—how people behave in the world. The fat and the thin, the happy and the unhappy.’ He wrote and wrote—over forty solid volumes about men, women, and children. When he died the last book—still unfinished on his desk—was a novel laid in Newport, called The Ivory Tower, about the emptiness and waste of the life here.”
She looked at me, caught between anger and puzzlement. “Mr. North, are you trying to make me look ridiculous?”
“No, ma’am. Mr. Granberry told me that you don’t always do justice to yourself—that sometimes out of sheer boredom you say the first thing that comes into your head. As we used to say in Wisconsin, I was just waving a feather under your nose.”
She struggled with herself a moment, then directed me to begin. After listening for an hour she said, “Excuse me, but I’m tired today. I’ll finish that by myself. I’ve finished Emma so you can take that back. Does it cost much when you take a book from the library?”
“No. They’re free.”
“Anybody can go in and take books home? Don’t people steal a lot of them?”
“In winter almost three thousand books go in and out every week. Maybe they miss a few from time to time.”
“In winter! But there’s nobody here in winter.”
“Mrs. Granberry, you do not always do yourself justice.”
By the end of the second week we had read the openings of Ethan Frome (written by a lady who had lived three summers in a cottage nearby), Jane Eyre, The House of the Seven Gables, and David Copperfield. She made few comments, but the sufferings of young David dismayed her. She was thinking of the son she was expecting. “Of course, they were very poor,” she added, as though dismissing the matter. I looked at her fixedly a moment. Again she blushed, recalling that the early years of the daughter of the richest man in Wisconsin had been described as “sheer hell.” She stared me down, refusing to concede a fractured logic. I was somewhat in doubt as to whether she had read all those books to the end. I found a moment alone to ask Mrs. Cummings.
“Oh, Mr. North, she reads all the time. She’ll ruin her eyes.”
“But you never learn how the stories turn out.”
“She tells me, sir; it’s as good as a moving-picture! Jane Eyre! What happened to her! Tell me, sir, was that a true story?”
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She shook her head sadly. “Oh, Mr. North, I’ve known worse things.”
One day as we were entering upon the long reaches of Tom Jones, there was a knock at the door. For the first time we received a call from Mr. Granberry.
“Can I come in?” He kissed his wife, shook hands with me, and greeted Mrs. Cummings. “Well, Myra, how are things going?”
“Very well, darling.”
“What are you reading, dear?”
“It’s called Tom Jones.”
Vague memories of his college education returned to him. He turned to Mrs. Cummings. “Er . . . er . . . is that always suitable for—I mean—a lady’s reading?”
“Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Cummings from an unshakable professional authority, “if anything unsuitable happened in a book, I’d ask Mr. North to return it to the library at once. The important thing is that Mrs. Granberry is really interested, isn’t it? When she’s read aloud to she never gets fretful. I don’t like it when she gets fretful.”
“Well, I’ll just sit here for ten minutes. Don’t pay any attention to me. Forgive my interrupting you, Mr. North.” So Mr. Granberry took a chair in a corner of the room, crossed his long legs, and laid his cheek on his hand, as though he were listening to a burdensome lecture on philosophy back at Dartmouth College. He stayed for a quarter of an hour. Finally he rose with his fingers on his lips and took his leave. Thereafter he returned about once a week, not always able to keep his eyes open. Myra read the whole of Tom Jones over a long weekend, but could not be drawn into any comment on it.
On another day, I arrived with Walden under my arm.
“Good afternoon, Mr. North. . . . Thank you, I’m very well. . . . Mr. North, you made a rule—the fifteen-minute rule. I want to make a rule too. My rule is that after the first forty-five minutes we take half an hour off for talk.”
“As you wish, Mrs. Granberry.”
There was an ormolu clock on the table beside her. At a quarter of five she interrupted me. “It is now talking time. What did you mean two weeks ago when you said something about ‘the emptiness and waste’ of life at Newport?”