Stories of John Cheever (1979 Pulitzer Prize), The - John Cheever [115]
Meanwhile, Victor had met Theresa and was thinking of getting married. Her full name was Theresa Mercereau; her parents were French but she had been born in the United States. Her parents had died when she was young, and her guardian had put her into fourth-string boarding schools. One knows what these places are like. The headmaster resigns over the Christmas holidays. He is replaced by the gymnastics instructor. The heating plant breaks down in February and the water pipes freeze. By this time, most of the parents who are concerned about their children have transferred them to other schools, and by spring there are only twelve or thirteen boarders left. They wander singly or in pairs around the campus, killing time before supper. It has been apparent to them for months that Old Palfrey Academy is dying, but in the first long, bleakly lighted days of spring this fact assumes new poignancy and force. The noise of a quarrel comes from the headmaster's quarters, where the Latin instructor is threatening to sue for back wages. The smell from the kitchen windows indicates that there will be cabbage again. A few jonquils are in bloom, and the lingering light and the new ferns enjoin the stranded children to look ahead, ahead, but at the back of their minds there is a suspicion that the jonquils and the robins and the evening star imperfectly conceal the fact that this hour is horror, naked horror. Then a car roars up the driveway. "I am Mrs. Hubert Jones," a woman exclaims, "and I have come to get my daughter..."
Theresa was always one of the last to be rescued, and these hours seemed to have left some impression on her. It was the quality of an especial sadness, a delicacy that was never forlorn, a charming air of having been wronged, that one remembered about her.
That winter, Victor went to Florida with Mr. Hatherly to hoist his beach umbrella and play rummy with him, and while they were there he said that he wanted to get married. The old man yelled his objections. Victor stood his ground. When they returned to New York, the old man invited Victor to bring Theresa to his apartment one evening. He greeted the young woman with great cordiality and then introduced her to Mrs. Hatherly—a wasted and nervous woman who kept her hands at her mouth. The old man began to prowl around the edges of the room. Then he disappeared. "It's all right," Mrs. Hatherly whispered. "He's going to give you a present." He returned in a few minutes and hung a string of amethysts around Theresa's beautiful neck. Once the old man had accepted her, he seemed happy about the marriage. He made all the arrangements for the wedding, of course, told them where to go for a honeymoon, and rented and furnished an apartment for them one day between a business lunch and a plane to California. Theresa seemed, like her husband, to be able to accommodate his interference. When her first child was born, she named it Violet—this was her own idea—after Mr. Hatherly's sainted mother.
When the Mackenzies gave a party, in those years, it was usually because Mr. Hatherly had told them to give a party. He would call Victor into his office at the end of the day, tell him to entertain, and set a date. He would order the liquor and the food, and overhaul the guest list with the Mackenzies' business and social welfare in mind. He would rudely refuse an invitation to come to the party himself, but he would appear before any of the guests, carrying a bunch of flowers that was nearly as tall as he was. He would make sure that Theresa put the flowers in the right vase. Then he would go into the nursery and let Violet listen to his watch. He would go through the apartment, moving a lamp here or an