Stories of John Cheever (1979 Pulitzer Prize), The - John Cheever [121]
Theresa clung to Victor's arm as they went downstairs. The office, a cluttered and dirty room beside the elevator, was brightly lighted. Mrs. Brownlee, in grande tenue, sat at her husband's desk. "You're the straw that broke the camel's back—both of you," she said harshly when they came in. "Shut the door. I don't want everybody to hear me. Little Hester has come home for the first time in fifteen years, and the first thing she gets off the train, you have to insult her. For nine years, you've had the privilege of living in this beautiful house—a wonder of the world—and how do you repay me? Oh, it's the straw that breaks the camel's back! Prescott's told me often enough that you weren't any good, either of you, and Hester feels the same way, and gradually I'm beginning to see it myself."
The harried and garishly painted old lady wielded over the Mackenzies the power of angels. Her silver dress glittered like St. Michael's raiment, and thunder and lightning, death and destruction, were in her right hand. "Everybody's been warning me about you for years," she said. "And you may not mean to do wrong—you may just be unlucky—but one of the first things Hester noticed is that half the needlepoint is missing. You're always repairing the chair that I want to sit down in. And you, Victor—you told me that you fixed the tennis court, and, of course, I don't know about that because I can't play tennis, but when I asked the Beardons over to play tennis last week, they told me that the court wasn't fit to play on, and you can imagine how embarrassed I was, and those people you drove out of the garden last night turned out to be the children of a very dear friend of the late Mr. Brownlee's. And you're two weeks behind with your rent."
"I'll send you the rent," Victor said. "We will go."
Theresa had not taken her arm out of his during the interview, and they left the office together. It was raining, and Ernest was putting out pails in the Venetian Salon, where the domed ceiling had sprung a leak. "Could you help me with some suitcases?" Victor asked. The old butler must have overheard the interview, because he didn't answer.
There was in the Mackenzies' rooms an accumulation of sentimental possessions—photographs, pieces of silver, and so forth. Theresa hastily began to gather these up. Victor went down to the basement and got their bags. They packed hurriedly—they did not even stop to smoke a cigarette—but it took them most of the evening. When they had finished, Theresa stripped the bed and put the soiled towels into a hamper, and Victor carried the bags down. He wrote a postcard to Violet's school, saying that his address was no longer Salisbury Hall. He waited for Theresa by the front door. "Oh, my darling, where will we go?" she murmured when she met him there. She waited in the rain for him to bring their car around, and they drove away, and God knows where they did go after that.
GOD KNOWS where they went after that, but for our purposes they next appeared, years later, at a resort on the coast of Maine called Horsetail Beach. Victor had some kind of job in New York, and they had driven to Maine for his vacation. Violet was not with them. She had married and was living in San Francisco. She had a baby. She did not write to her parents, and Victor knew that she thought of him with bitter resentment, although he did not know why. The waywardness of their only child troubled Victor and Theresa, but they could seldom bring themselves to discuss it. Helen Jackson, their hostess at Horsetail Beach, was a spirited young woman with four children. She was divorced. Her house was tracked with sand, and most of the furniture was broken. The Mackenzies arrived there on a stormy evening when the north wind blew straight through the walls of the house. Their hostess was out to dinner, and as soon as they arrived, the cook put on her hat and coat and went off to the movies, leaving them in charge of the children. They carried their bags upstairs, stepping over several wet bathing suits, put the four children to bed,