He took some satisfaction from thinking it might be. At any rate, the old routines of her life were breaking up, and, as he planned it, the new ones under his guidance would presently take possession.
The next day he had a long interview with his lawyers, as a result of which Carey visited another lawyer recommended by them. Austen was anxious that she should have as little as possible to do with the actual machinery of the suit, that she should not even know the state of its progress, beyond what was necessary; and for this reason he rarely referred to it during the weeks that followed, though he himself was kept informed of every detail. His lawyers had served him for years and he trusted them enough to be perfectly frank about his own interest in the case; he told them also of the somewhat peculiar attitude to be expected from the husband. Doubtless they passed this on to Carey’s lawyer, whom Austen was careful not to meet or have any direct dealings with. He was all for employing that discretion which was the better part, not only of valour, but of getting his own way. Nor had he been completely candid with Carey in saying he would be indifferent to any accusations made against him, nor was it true that Paul had no power to harm by smearing. The power to do this, as he well knew, is conferred by the person whose position is high enough to be smearable, and though ordinary scandal could not affect him professionally he was personally sensitive to it and had an almost pathological distaste for publicity. All these things were much on his mind, while he never spoke of them.
Christmas and New Year passed with nothing accomplished. Letters to Paul from Carey’s lawyer were not only unanswered but presently came back as undeliverable, which seemed to indicate that Paul had changed his address and might well succeed in hiding himself if he were so determined. In the meantime he had apparently dropped the suit about the film—perhaps to facilitate his evasion of the larger issue. As week after week went by with no sign of escape from the impasse, Austen caught himself yielding to the beginnings of obsession; he resented Paul not only on account of Carey, but because he felt they were at hostile poles in their entire techniques of thought and action. Although he was relieved that Paul had refused to bring counter-charges, he would have disliked him for them no more than for this nonsensical and exasperating obstructionism—so baffling because it was in essence so childish. Perhaps he disliked him most of all because he could not understand him—he could not understand why, if Paul wanted Carey, he did not return and seek to reclaim her; or why, if he did not want her, he would not gladly unload his responsibility on a successor. There seemed no logic in the man, not even the logic of unregeneracy.
And all this while, during the interval of wasted time, Austen’s relations with Carey were in some danger of languishing. Knowing more of the complications than she did, his were doubtless the greater restraints, yet she too had her own, and it was an extra anxiety that he could not always discern them. That she was happy with him he was confident, but he wished he could see into her mind and heart about Paul, yet he knew better than to ask, or even to mention Paul’s name. He had the feeling once or twice that the pending case had disappeared from her thoughts, which was almost too much what he had wished for; and when papers had to be signed she did so with such little apparent interest that he remembered a remark of hers about the play fiasco—that she had sleep-walked into it. He hoped she was not sleep-walking into marriage with him, though even if she were, he would still want her.
The only thing she asked about fairly often was the Everyman picture, and there was nothing more to tell for the reason that though Paul was no longer claiming ownership, the actual physical film had so far been impossible to locate. Here, too, was bafflement that made Austen feel not so much defeated by an adversary as scorned by a child who thumbs his nose from a safe distance. He wanted a print of that film as part of the establishment of adult discipline, though if it should arrive he had decided to conceal the fact from Carey. Whether it was good or bad (or perhaps especially if it were good), he did not wish her to see it yet; as a product of Paul’s mind he was afraid of it.
Towards spring the print still had not come, but he was no longer baffled, merely determined. For he had sized up Paul’s outlandish weapons, and had devised counter-weapons of his own; one of them was guile. In this new mood (not really so new, for guile was part of his professional equipment), he made a fresh approach to the major problem. Hitherto Nevada had been thought of as the place to bring suit, but now, in face of Paul’s continued inaccessibility, Mexico came under consideration. A divorce there would be more dubious legally, but there were procedures in certain of the Mexican states by which Paul’s tactics could be circumvented if it could be shown, evidentially, that he had expressed an intention not to contest the case. And he had—though only in that letter to his mother which Carey had seen.
Thus, at the extreme of the dilemma, Austen found himself acting in a way so contrary to what he would have said were all his normal principles that he could only conclude that his affection for Carey amounted to sheer self-abandonment. He was startled to discover this, for he had not suspected himself capable of it; and perhaps he was secretly gratified, for to a man of his age a grand passion is a renewal of youth. He had loved Fran very deeply, but never to such a point, unless it was merely that he had won her against fewer obstacles and had thus escaped the test. Like all men who govern themselves austerely he was shocked to think he was in the throes of any desire that he could not control, and ashamed to employ the ruthlessness which a weaker man would have enjoyed. Yet here again he was secretly excited; it was a new thing in his life at a time when most things were already getting to be old. Actually his self-knowledge did not go far enough to see the whole thing in perspective—to realize that the average routine of his daily business was just as ruthless as his behaviour now in a different field, and that most of his desires were uncontrollable in the sense that if he wanted something enough there were few plans he would not put into operation to get it. His shock and shame, therefore, were in the nature of sentimental luxuries—or at most, the fastidiousness of a man who normally does unpleasant things at such long range that he escapes all personal contact with the event.
There came a day when he called at his lawyers’ office and was told that certain information he had asked for could now be furnished.
“But you understand, Mr. Bond, that’s as far as we can go. We’ve no idea what kind of organization these people have—we certainly do NOT guarantee or recommend them in any way. The whole thing is really far outside our province.”
“I know all that. And if they do what I want it won’t be a testimonial to their respectability—I know that too. I hate this sort of thing, but I can’t see an alternative.”
“Then be sure you take precautions. There’s always a chance of blackmail, especially if they find out who’s paying them.”
“They won’t. Dunne will arrange everything, and for cash. He’s discreet.”
“So long as you realize there’s a risk.”
“I don’t think there’s much, but what there is I’ll have to take.”
A week or so afterwards, Dunne returned to the house late in the evening after a day filled with Oppenheimerish detail, for he had used a variety of subways uptown and downtown, and had taken several taxis in confusing directions. Entering the library with a tray, he approached Austen in a manner so carefully customary that he was obviously relishing the drama of the occasion. Austen had been dozing in a chair and woke to stare sharply, then exclaimed: “You’re back, then?… What happened?”
“It’s here, sir. In this envelope.”
“WHAT?… You’ve got it? ALREADY?”
“Sure. And I paid them. They didn’t try to welsh on a bargain either.”
Austen stared at the envelope, controlling his excitement. “Did they tell you how they managed it?”
“I didn’t ask for details. After all, you couldn’t expect them to reveal their methods.”
“I suppose not. I was just curious.”
“I got the impression, though, that they used the daily maid, and they did say it was stuffed away in a drawer with a lot of other letters. So it may not be missed, and if it is the old lady may think she lost it.”
“Fine… So there was no hitch of any kind?”
“Apparently not. They’re reliable people, I should guess, in their way.”
“But WHAT a way!”
Now that he knew the thing was in his possession he had no eagerness to inspect it. He did not open the envelope till some time after Dunne had gone; then he read the letter once before mailing it special delivery to his lawyers. Photostatted, it might do the trick, but he could not forgive Paul for having made all this necessary. Again, it was his blind spot; he did not realize that the daily tricks of his trade were so similar in degree that their difference in kind was not fundamental.
Two months later Carey obtained a decree of divorce, and the next day, in the same Mexican state, she married Austen. She did not know the devious means by which Paul had been held to be a consenting party or the high cost of deviousness in fees to all the deviators, and as the documents were in Spanish, there was not much likelihood of her finding out. Publicity, too, was at a minimum, for the story did not leak till it was already stale, and the news item as reported lacked sensation. The pair stayed in Mexico for several weeks, then took an extended motor trip in New Mexico and Arizona. They were in Santa Fe when Austen received news from his German lawyers that Paul was showing Everyman in Berlin, and what should they do about it? He cabled them to take no action, but to send him news of what the film was like, how it had been received, and so on. And in the meantime he still said nothing about it to Carey.
Not till they were back at the farm in July did he decide to mention it, partly because for some time she had not asked, and he thought her silence might have been deliberately aimed to please him at a cost to herself. He said one morning when the mail arrived: “Oh, by the way, here are some clippings from Berlin papers about the Everyman film. You know German? Quite good notices on the whole.”
She must have translated them somehow or other, because at lunch the same day she said: “The critics call it wonderful, Austen—I’m so happy for Paul’s sake. When can we see it over here?”
“I don’t know exactly. I must find out what the situation is.”
The situation was clear enough, had he made it so, but he was content to let it acquire and remain in obscurity, with the result that Everyman never reached America and was hardly seen at all outside Germany. It was not a commercial success even there. For some reason, also, fewer prints than usual had been made, and several were destroyed in a fire. Soon the film entered the category of those that are far more talked about by connoisseurs than seen by the public, and in due course it became somewhat legendary, like the reputation of its maker.
* * *
PART FOUR
In 1936 Norris was fourteen, a shy sensitive boy, hard to make friends with. He was so far advanced in some of his studies (English and history, for instance) and so backward in others (mathematics and French) that teachers held widely different opinions of him, especially as he did not care for organized games and would not even pretend to. He was physically delicate, yet fond of long walks and uncompetitive outdoor exercise; in a quiet way his personality was effective, and at school he was never bullied though quite often bored. He adored Carey, whom he treated as he might have an elder sister, certainly not as he would have his mother, had she lived. Carey had been promising for years to take him on a vacation trip to Ireland, and at last, during this summer, the chance came, made easier because it could be fitted in with business visits that Austen had to make to various European capitals. Dublin was not one of them, so it was arranged that Carey and Norris should join him in London before returning to America.
Carey was thirty-one and something seemed to have happened to make her beautiful. She had never quite deserved this adjective during childhood or girlhood, but now there was a special ripeness about her that was conspicuous even in the company of other beautiful women; it was this that attracted artists, and several had done portraits of her that had been widely exhibited. Her marriage with Austen had been a happy one; they got along well, enjoying the domestic tranquillity that both valued so much and that made each of them precious to the other because they knew how shared and contributory it was. Austen was in his fifties, not much older in looks than when Carey had seen him first, but increasingly busy in a field which, amidst depression and the collapse of currencies, had become increasingly mysterious if not sinister. He remained unknown to the man in the street, though his marriage to Carey had made him slightly more newsworthy to gossip columnists had there been anything in his life to gossip about. There never was.
Carey and Norris left the ship at Cobh, while Austen went on to Southampton. She was looking forward to her first revisiting of Ireland since she had left it fourteen years before, but most of all she wanted to show Norris the country as if it were a gift to him from herself. They stayed in Cork for a night, rented a car the next day, and set out on the westward road through Bandon. Norris drove. Probably he was not supposed to at his age, but he was an excellent driver and tall enough not to be questioned. She relaxed in the small two-seater and watched the boy’s eager profile against the green background of Irish hills. Though he was not her real son, the experience came near to a fulfilment so profound that her eyes were proud, yet she did not know whether it was her pride in the country as seen by the boy, or in the boy as seen by the country. Because people did stare at Norris, or so it seemed to her, for she was never fully aware of how often they were staring at herself, or at the remarkably handsome pair of them. Norris, as he drove along the winding lanes, looked radiant. It was the first time they had ever faced a long spell together without Austen, and she knew he was happier now than if Austen had been with them.
They reached Glengarriff by evening and stayed at a hotel perched somewhat inland on a hill, with a view of the harbour over waterside woods. It was an old-fashioned place where the food was excellent, and where, in the absence of gas or electricity, oil lamps swung yellow beams into the shadows and guests carried lighted candles upstairs to their high-ceilinged bedrooms. All of this was the exact opposite, Norris said, of those places on the Boston Post Road where things are done by candlelight because the proprietor considers it part of the atmosphere he charges extra for. Norris had the wit to express a thought of this kind, and Carey was delighted because it seemed to her a sign that he would accept Ireland without too much regard for plumbing on the one hand or shamrock on the other. She knew how hard it was for Americans abroad to be neither condemnatory nor sentimental.
The next day they drove through Kenmare to Killarney, where the hotel was less primitive—indeed, in a forlorn and stupefying way, rather grand. Norris diagnosed Killarney as the kind of show place that every country needs, since it concentrates in one spot all the naďve elements in tourism, thus preserving other places equally and sometimes more beautiful. This verdict, Carey thought, was too cynical; but after all, he was at an age when cleverness runs to that and when the deliberately unromantic view-point almost achieves a romanticism of its own. In an earlier generation (hers, by a slight stretch of arithmetic) he would have been influenced by Shaw and Mencken; as it was, he gyrated amidst a vague flotsam of assorted disillusionments about war, peace, government, capitalism, religion, and sex —all of which created in him a personal attitude not more than skin deep. One of the troubles that Austen gave himself needlessly (and which made it harder for him to get to know the boy) was that he took at its face value so much that Norris said when he was merely flexing his mental muscles to satisfy an exhibitionist whim of the moment. Carey, as an actress, understood this intuitively.
“It isn’t what he says,” Austen had complained once, “it’s his whole outlook. He seems to have no faith in anything. Even if certain beliefs are questionable, one shouldn’t lose them till later on in life.”
; “Austen, I think that’s far more cynical than anything Norris has ever said.”
Austen had tried to understand what she meant by that. But he remained (to his distress) incapable of coming to intimate terms with Norris, and the greater his effort the more intractable yet polite grew the barrier between them.
Norris had once asked her glibly: “What does father do all day to make him so serious in the evenings?”
Carey had answered: “What do YOU do all day to make you bait him so much when he comes home tired after his work? You seem to store up sharp things to say, and if he takes them all seriously maybe that’s because he doesn’t think they’re funny.”
But now, in Ireland, clouds such as this had lifted and it was clear that, without Austen, Norris was a less combative though still disputatious personality. They drove on through Limerick and Nenagh to Dublin, detouring on the way through the place in Kildare where she had lived until she was ten years old. The house was unchanged, but the farmland looked better cultivated, and in the neighbouring town there were modern stores and neon signs. Approaching Dublin she noted much development—streets of new houses that might have been on Long Island or outside London—“the sprawling anonymity of the suburbs”, Norris called it, pleased with his phrase, and Carey thought it good too, though not quite valid, for the brownstone houses that made up so much of metropolitan New York, or the Regency streets of Limerick, were in their own ways just as anonymous. And come to think of it, anonymity was honest, and if there could be anything more depressing than a row of identical suburban villas, surely it was one of those streets in which the builder makes each unit deliberately different from its neighbour. She chattered on these lines to Norris, and they were still arguing about it when they arrived at the Shelbourne. Then followed a week of sightseeing—art galleries, churches, the Zoo in Phoenix Park, and a long excursion to Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains. But here again Glendalough, a show place, did not appeal so strongly to Norris as Glenmalure, the lonely dead-end from which the mountains rise steeply to the peak of Lugnaquilla. By a coincidence they went that same evening to the Abbey Theatre where Synge’s The Shadow of the Glen was in the bill. Norris was much taken with it. He had been to the theatre often in New York and had even seen the Abbey Players there during one of their tours, but the Dublin performance made him conscious of something in a different dimension. He tried to explain this to Carey, who was herself warmed by memories that came to her not only of the play but of the physical stage, the red seats, the black-and-gold striped curtain, and the tricky Dublin audience. She had told him, of course, that this was where she had made her first professional appearance, and he naturally put questions, all of which she answered as truthfully as she could till he asked: “What made you leave Ireland and come to America?”