The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [123]
A few mornings later, going to his closet, Moses discovered that all his suits were gone but the soiled seersucker suit he had worn the day before. “Oh, I know what’s happened, darling,” Melissa said. “Justina’s taken your clothes and given them to the church for a rummage sale.” She got out of bed, wearing nothing, and went anxiously to her own closet. “That’s what she’s done. She’s taken my yellow dress and my gray and my blue. I’ll go down to the church and get them back.”
“You mean she’s taken my clothes for a rummage sale without asking?”
“Yes, darling. She’s never understood that everything in Clear Haven isn’t hers.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“For years.”
As it happened Melissa was able to buy their clothes back from the church for a few dollars and with this forgotten he was able to take up his sentimental life. Moses had long since forgotten the dislike of Clear Haven that had formed in his mind when he stumbled on the roof and it began to seem to him an excellent place for the first months of his marriage, for even the benches in the garden were supported by women with enormous marble breasts and in the hall his eye fell repeatedly on naked and comely men and women in the pursuit or the glow of love. They were on the needlepoint chairs, they reached for one another from the tops of the massive andirons, they supported the candles for the dinner table and the bowl of the glass from which Justina drank the water for her pills. He seemed to work even the lilies in the garden into his picture of love and when Melissa picked them and carried them in her arms like lumber, their truly mournful perfume falling this way and that, he kicked up his heels with joy. Night after night they drank some whisky in their room, some sherry in the hall, sat through the wretched dinner and then went together down to the plunge, and they were excusing themselves one evening after dinner when Justina said:
“We’re going to play bridge.”
“We’re going swimming.” Moses said.
“The pool lights are broken,” Justina said. “You can’t swim in the dark. I’ll have Giacomo fix the lights tomorrow. Tonight we’ll play bridge.”
They played bridge until after eleven and, in the company of the old general, the count and Mrs. Enderby, it was a stifling evening. When Moses and Melissa excused themselves on the next night Justina was ready. “The pool lights aren’t fixed yet,” she said, “and I feel like some more bridge.” Playing bridge that night and the night after, Moses felt restless, and it appeared to him to be significant that he was the only one who left Clear Haven; that since his wedding he had not seen a strange or a new face in the house and that, so far as he knew, not even Giacomo ever left the grounds. He complained to Melissa and she said that she would ask some people for drinks on Saturday and she asked Justina’s permission on the next night at dinner. “Of course, of course,” Justina said, “of course you want to have some young people in, but I can’t let you entertain guests until I’ve had the rugs cleaned. I’m having estimates made and they ought to be cleaned in a week or two and you can have your little party.” On Saturday morning Justina announced through Mrs. Enderby that she was tired and would spend the week end in her room, and Melissa, encouraged by Moses, telephoned three couples who lived in the neighborhood and asked them for drinks on Sunday. Late Sunday afternoon Moses laid a fire in the hall and brought the bottles out of their hiding place. Melissa made something to eat and they sat on the only comfortable sofa in the room and waited for their guests.
It was a rainy afternoon and the rain played on the complicated roofs of the old monument a pleasant air. Melissa turned on a lamp when she heard a car come up the drive and she went down the hall and through the rotunda. Moses heard her voice in the distance, greeting the Trenholmes, and he