Letters

She didn’t call. By 4:45, with the deck and cabin Bristol-fashion, hors d’oeuvres out and bar set up, waiter and barkeep standing by, great wind pennant looping in the warm light air, even a gangway rigged between pier and gunwale, and faithful Polly nursing a drink while we waited for the guests, I was the one with regrets only: for having planned the stupid party (which I saw clearly now to be no more than a pretext for seeing Jane again, who was probably up in Canada with her large-tooled lover); for having lived out a life so stupid — no, so stupidly: it hasn’t been a worthless life, just a meagerly lived one — instead of ending it in 1937. At five nobody had arrived yet, of course; I felt like sending home the help and taking Polly for a sail. The movie people, we agreed, would probably show up even later than Regular People. Why had I breathed in and out, eaten and shat, earned and spent, dressed and undressed, put one foot in front of the other, for 69 years? Did you ever — but who knows what you ever.

At 1704 by the bulkhead clock (which I wouldn’t vouch for over Jane Mack’s watch) I saw her car come ’round the Long Wharf fountain: the only other big black Lincolns in Dorchester County aren’t automobiles. Up rose my spiritual barometer; sank when I saw two people in the back; rose again, part way, when the chauffeur handed Jane and Lady Amherst out. It occurred to me that Germaine Pitt had not been Lady Anything until her marriage — I know little of her background beyond a dim memory of the vita presented by Joe Morgan to the foundation trustees prior to her appointment — but she looked more to the manor born than Jane, if only because she’s so unassuming tweedy English, and My Love so American to the bone. It occurred to me further, as I handed them over the gangway, that Jane hadn’t indicated how confidential was the news of her betrothal and the name of her intended: as she hadn’t told me more than his given name and nom de guerre, as it were, I supposed it still a sensitive matter, and made no mention of it in our hellos. Nor did she in any way acknowledge my note on her invitation. A mad fancy struck me: not only had our interview been some sort of test, but her “Lord Baltimore” did not exist! She was not engaged; it was not Too Late…

I checked myself. That photo couldn’t have been faked. And for me it had been too late since 1937.

I introduced the ladies to Polly Lake and showed Germaine about the Osborn Jones, explaining what a skipjack was and how it came to pass that oysters were still dredged under sail in Maryland. She was politely interested: her late husband had enjoyed sailing out of Cowes, she said, in the Solent, but she herself was prone to motion sickness. However, she was mad about oysters: what a pity the season was ended. I thought to pick up on Lord Jeff, try whether I could sound her present feelings about his old affair with Jane; she forestalled me by inquiring about the Osborn Jones, whether I’d named it after the salty old voyeur in the Floating Opera novel or whether the fictional character and the boat were both named after an historical original. Ought she to ask Jane instead? she wondered mischievously.

I was impressed: a delicate maneuver, as if she’d read my thoughts and was gently reminding me (what in fact I’d forgotten for the moment) that during our trying days together in Harrison’s decline we’d had occasion to compare cordial notes on the apparent obliviousness of our friend Jane, both to the fictionalization of our old affair (which Germaine had heard about but not then read) and to Jane’s later fling with Lord Amherst, which Harrison sometimes alluded to.

Lucky fellow, Ambrose Mensch: I do like and trust Germaine Pitt. As if on cue, Jane saluted our return from the foredeck to the bar by explaining brightly to her friend that Captain Osborn Jones had been an old dredge-boat skipper whom I’d befriended back in the 30’s and introduced her to. He used to live alone in the Dorset Hotel, she declared, and preside over a collection of similarly aged guests called the Dorchester Explorers’ Club.

Ah, said Germaine. Even Polly rolled her eyes.