Part 30 (2/2)

”There was no divorce,” William said.

”What you mean is there was only one divorce and not two-one, I suppose, is in better taste than two? In that case my father has improved on things. Unless the first divorce was a sham as well?”

”I won't countenance this-”

But I would not stop for his remonstrance. ”If only you'll make it clear that you were never married to my mother either,” I offered, ”it would do away altogether with the taint of divorce, wouldn't it? Think how clean the family escutcheon would be.”

”I do not like this talk,” William said.

”No. It's dirty, like the escutcheon.”

”Look here,” he said abruptly, ”you don't grasp in what capacity I've been willing to receive you. You will have to understand that I have been your mother's lawyer for a very long time-”

”And something else.”

”Her lawyer. I speak to you in that capacity and in no other,” he finished.

”And in another,” I nevertheless pursued.

”What are you after?”

”You've omitted something. You've been something else, and it makes a difference. It's an influence.”

”The trustee. Yes. Very well I've been the trustee,” he stated without comfort.

”And the husband.”

”Your mother's husband,” he observed, ”is a Jew named Vand. -You needn't draw on any family relation where none exists.” All unwittingly his elevated arm had stretched to the level of the mouth in the portrait behind and above him-the confident, even arrogant, rather flat Huntingdon mouth which my mother, but not I, had inherited. This mouth was the only living feature in that fearsome yet curiously pallid representation of my grandfather; not Sargent, but an imitator, perhaps a pupil, had given posterity those unconcerned angelic nostrils, too spiritual to breathe. But the mouth showed what the man had been: it looked ready to spit.

In the presence of this icon-like carpet-mustached ancestor I inquired of his son-in-law, ”And where a family relation does exist?”

But William had noted my upward gaze and intercepted it with a force which made all irony of appearances ineffectual. ”Is is not was. None exists,” he repeated, and became conscious suddenly of his hand in the air; he brought it down and laid it on the desk and solemnly viewed it.

”Your son? I'm speaking of your son. You admit to a family relation there?”

”My son,” he granted, ”is a stranger to this business.”

”A stranger?”

”He knows nothing.”

”He knows plenty. He knows more than I know.”

”I don't see what you're implying. He knows nothing about the circ.u.mstances of your-”

”-of my worth,” I joined him mockingly. ”But he's completely aware of yours.”

”You had better be explicit,” William said.

”Your son has already been that. I've heard how the trustee failed to live up to the terms of the trust.”

”Ah,” William said meditating. ”He talked to you?”

”He told me about the death on the estate. My mother's estate. -The place they're sending me to, in fact. We went out to one of the cubicles and he told me,” I said.

”That's quite outside the proper area of your” interest in this matter. -He talked to you about it?” William said again. He continued to stare at his hand as though it had turned to bronze. ”He has no discretion.”

”He picked Miss Pettigrew,” I slyly acknowledged.

”My son will have to answer for his own recklessness. In every respect.”

”And you picked my mother.”

”And answered for it.”

”By losing her. But you know,” I took up, inflamed inexplicably into vehemence, ”I always believed you had divorced her on account of, well, on account of Marianna Harlow! The terrible Chapter Twelve!” I threw out at him all the infamous jeering incongruity of it: ”I thought it was on account of politics! Because she was mixed up with Communists-”

”Communists,” he echoed carefully.

Then very gradually and astonis.h.i.+ngly I felt between my shoulders the beginning of a kind of jarring, a reverberation: without realizing it I had grown tremulous.

”Your mother divorced me,” William corrected, essaying it with impeccable exact.i.tude, as though caution might be relied on to keep his fist as stiff as cast metal. But he began to rock it thoughtfully, like a small bronze pony.

Though nervous, I had to scoff. ”That's a gentlemanly technicality.”

”However it's a fact.”

”So,” I said, ”was her adultery.”

The word struck like a stone against his eyes.

”Don't continue in that language, please.”

”I didn't choose the language.”

”You are remarkably sullen. I warn you,” William said.

”It's Biblical language, isn't it? It says 'adultery' in the Decalogue-in that case I'm perfectly sure I can't be blamed for the language, can I? Though maybe you might blame Enoch.”

He looked up wearily.

”You just said he's a Jew. They invented the Bible, you know. Blame them.”

<script>