A New England Affair Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  A Flaw in the Crystal

  PART TWO

  An Extinct Order of Feeling

  PART THREE

  Lay Down Your Weary Tune

  Epilogue

  Notes for a Novel

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise

  Also by Steven Carroll

  Copyright

  Prologue

  The rock rears up from the water like the remains of a giant whale. Surging around it in a continuous roar as they dash and withdraw, the waves make a sound all their own. Local sailors call it the rote: a moan, a roar, a primeval groan; it is the very voice of the rock itself, heard for miles around. In calm waters, sea birds nestle here, the granite whale enduring a white mantle of bird droppings, while seaweed, brown and green, clings to its edges. The smaller, surrounding rocks bare their teeth in the moonlight. They are a sailor’s last seamark before setting out, and the first coming back in. The Dry Salvages. Les Trois Sauvages. Savages.

  Hunching in darkness, they wait. That sound, their only give-away. When the cloud parts, the moon shines down on the whale hump and jagged teeth. Another cloud and they disappear into the haze of night. Waves come and go, light and dark do battle. On the shore, holiday houses, boats and chowder bars glow in the night; the thump of a dance band floats out over the water. The rocks are indifferent to it all.

  Ships have shattered on these rocks. Crews, crates, bits of boats, rigging and torn sails floating out to sea or washing up on the beach. Ships’ bells have sunk to the depths; their clocks, stopped at the moment of their sinking. But the rocks remain. Before you, and after you. Unmoved and unmoving, for all manner of fated things will come to them. Indifferent to time — the neat divisions of past, present and future are meaningless. They are a watery world unto themselves.

  And as much as fishermen and sailors might use them to chart a course, the rocks don’t care. People use; rocks abide. People come and go, leaving almost no trace; only the rocks remain, before you and after you, a primeval hump in the moonlight surrounded by jagged teeth, exhaling a continuous roar, a deep groan heard for miles around proclaiming I am. Now visible, now hidden, they are the beginning of a journey or the end of one.

  PART ONE

  A Flaw in the Crystal

  1.

  Unobserved by the gathering in the parlour, the long, lingering high note, swelling as it hovers, finds the weakness in a crystal glass. A tiny hole appears, a stigmata through which the red wine, drop by drop, falls onto the white tablecloth in an ever-expanding stain.

  But no one sees it. Everybody is too captivated by the young woman and her voice. So too is the young woman herself. The gathering in the parlour is perfectly still. She has them. Notes have never poured from her so effortlessly, and even as she sings her song, she is curiously detached, as if watching from out there in the audience. She brings that long, lingering note back down to earth, a high-flying bird returning to its keeper, and begins the second verse, slowly building once again to the chorus. And all the time, she has them. She knows it. All eyes are on her. Especially one pair, the darkest eyes she has ever looked into. ‘The wave dreams on the beach,’ she sings, ‘my delight is alone,’ aware, more keenly as the song progresses, that the young man, her friend’s cousin, is watching — the corners of his lips (and she notes the primness of his mouth) turned ever so slightly upwards in the hint of a smile. A Gioconda smile, she thinks, momentarily distracted from her song of waves dreaming on the beach and lone delight.

  Deep into the song again, she tells herself, don’t look, don’t look at him. But of course, she looks. It is both exciting and disquieting. Disquieting because all her life she’s been told the value of measured living, of restraint. So it is both thrilling and troubling. Like indulging in some delight she knows is forbidden. All of which nearly distracts her from her song and all those dreaming waves that have suddenly become associated with that Gioconda smile. He, in front of her in the parlour, but for all the world a lone figure on the beach, listening to the siren song of the sea.

  And it is as she is once again building to the chorus, the effortless notes thrilling, and made more thrilling by the close intimacy of the parlour, that she sees some of the audience turn to the table behind them. When they turn back to her their lips are moving, they are murmuring to each other, but she can’t hear what they are saying.

  Behind them, out of sight, the red wine, drop by drop, falls onto the white tablecloth in an ever-expanding stain. The stigmata, created by the combination of one long, high note and a weakness in the crystal from which the wine falls, drop by drop.

  The last of her soaring notes comes to earth. Everything is silent and still. Then the applause breaks the spell, and those who turned from the singer to the table behind them turn once again to the object of their astonishment, informing those around them, pointing at the glass, until a small crowd gathers.

  But before Emily can discover the cause of the distraction, her friend, Eleanor, whose house she is performing in, moves to the front of the parlour, claps her hands, and announces that a small reading will now take place. And that is when the young man steps forward and stands beside her.

  ‘Miss Emily Hale,’ Eleanor is announcing to the audience, ‘and Mr Tom Eliot will now perform “An Afternoon with Mr Woodhouse”, short scenes from Miss Austen’s Emma.’ With that she leaves them to it and Emily watches with amusement as her friend’s cousin, Tom Eliot, immediately assumes the manner of Mr Woodhouse, and after briefly setting the scene and the characters coming to dine with Mr Woodhouse and his family, and after remarking on the weather and how they shouldn’t be out in the cold for it is bad, very bad for one’s health, that he is sure it will snow tonight and they’ll all be marooned here, he begins extolling the virtues of thin gruel.

  ‘I recommend a little gruel to you,’ he announces to his guests in the manner of a middle-aged Englishman, which, Emily notes, seems to come to him quite naturally. He eyes a young woman in the audience (in a way, she suspects, that he would never dare in ‘life’), and speaks directly to her. ‘Before you go, if the weather lets any of us go … it will snow tonight, I know it will snow … you and I will have a nice basin of gruel,’ he says, with a crisp, ironic touch, the young woman, the audience, as well as Emily, bursting into laughter. Who’d have thought, Emily thinks: so shy, so intense, but really very funny. Bit of a comedian, actually. ‘My dear Emma,’ he continues, turning to Emily, the comedian in him becoming more pronounced with every line, ‘suppose we all have a little gruel. Basins of gruel for everyone. Let’s not be selfish!’ The delivery is pure vaudeville and there are loud groans and further laughter from the audience, and Emily, watching as he goes on to extol the wholesomeness of boiled eggs and boiled food in general, is puzzled again by the way someone who seems so shy (for she and he met briefly before the show) can be so at ease, even confident, on a stage with a script in his hand.

  When he is finished his lessons on the weather, the certainty of snow, the virtues of thin gruel and the wholesomeness of boiled eggs, the audience is lit with smiling faces. He turns to his cousin, Eleanor, sitting in front of him, and cautions her on the hazards of walking out into either snow or rain. ‘My dear Miss Fairfax, young ladies are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their complexions. My dear, did you change your stockings? Young ladies are delicate plants …’

  As Eleanor nods emphatically, Tom steps back and Emily steps forward, staring at Eleanor and assuming the crass haughtiness of Mrs Elton.

  ‘What is this I hear? Miss Fairfax going out in the rain! Going to the post office in the rain! This must not be
, I assure you — you sad girl, how could you do such a thing? It is a sign I was not there to take care of you.’ Emily pauses, scanning the smiling faces, satisfied with her delivery. But there is also a trace of sadness in her satisfaction, for she is more than familiar with the Mrs Eltons of this world. She lives with one. She continues. ‘To the post office indeed!’ and here she focuses on the same young woman to whom Tom recommended thin gruel. ‘Mrs Weston,’ she says, ‘did you ever hear the like? You and I must positively exert our authority.’

  The young woman nods firmly in agreement while the gathering applauds. And the applause no sooner dies down than a violin is heard, a short phrase that is Emily’s cue. ‘Music,’ she says rapturously. ‘Ah, music! Oh, I dote on it, dote.’ She is looking at both the audience and Tom beside her. ‘As I said to Mr E,’ and here she gives Tom a big theatrical wink, the audience joining in on the joke, ‘don’t give me two carriages, don’t give me enormous houses, but I could not live without music. No, life would be a blank to me.’ With the word blank, Emily raises her eyebrows, as though fed up with the impossible silliness of her own character, the audience responding with smiles and laughter.

  And so they continue, the two of them, side by side, playing out their privately rehearsed roles: nervelessly, warmed as much by the applause of gathered friends and family as by the fire. And all the time, the crystal glass measuring, drop by drop, the passing time. There they were; there they are.

  Why do some nights feel as though they were always waiting to happen? Or have already happened, and will again? And why don’t we know it then? Why is it only afterwards that we say, yes, that was when my life turned?

  Emily Hale was twenty-two, with theatrical aspirations; Tom Eliot, a twenty-five-year-old philosophy student with poetic ambitions. Still children really, for all their sharp minds and clever talk. And over the next forty years, in many ways, they stayed like that. Children, sailing towards or eternally returning to this night. The house where they met, substantial but modest, with its tall, V-shaped New England roof and crisply defined white windows, has changed little over the years. If at all. There they were: the players, the place and the time. The February snow still high along the sidewalk and over the lawn, the front hedge still thick with the brown metallic leaves left over from autumn.

  The front parlour itself, where their little plays were played and their songs were sung, is visible from the street where Emily is now parked. Not such a large parlour, but large enough for their games. They were close that night, all of them, the players and those who had come to be entertained. A gathering that you might call an audience, but which was, more accurately, a collection of family and friends, warmed as much by the assembled humanity as the parlour fire.

  Miss Emily Hale — and she thinks of herself as a miss; even, in less charitable moments, as a spinster — is sitting at the wheel of her Ford roadster (which she has scrupulously maintained over the years), staring at the house in bright summer sunshine. The year is 1965, and much has both happened and not happened since that night in 1913.

  He was just Tom Eliot then. A young philosophy student with a secret destiny. For he had, she gradually came to learn, more than just poetic ambitions — he was preparing himself for the life of poetry. By himself. In private. Alone. All of which he confided to Emily Hale not long after their night of amateur theatre. And she knew, even then, that what he was telling her he had never told anyone. It was his offering. His gift. His declaration, even if the word love was never spoken.

  His confessions also told her that these ambitions he cultivated were more, much more, than just a young man’s flights of fancy. For there was iron in his will. In his confidence. A confidence that was puzzling, considering his shyness — his almost unbearable shyness when in society, especially the society of young women. But not with her. For she was to learn very early on that there were at least two Toms: the public one, whose impeccable manners combined with mischievous wit to conceal his shyness; and the private one who was sure of himself well beyond his years. That was the thing, she muses, her hand resting on the satchel beside her on the front seat of the car: he was oh so sure of himself. Someone who knew exactly what he wanted to do, knew exactly the kind of writing he wanted to create and — he was happy to tell her — knew that nobody else was doing because he hadn’t invented it yet. Oh yes, amid all the social shyness there was a core of confidence the likes of which she’d never observed in anyone before. Not one of those who look famous before they are, but one of those whose success and fame surprise and perplex nearly everybody because they never saw it coming. But she did.

  He had told her, and with great excitement (such that she sometimes feels as though she too were there), about walking into the Harvard Union Library one morning and discovering a book — The Symbolist Movement in Literature, by Arthur Symons – that transformed his poetic ambition into a secret destiny. A morning that seemed to deliver his whole future to him on a paper-and-ink platter printed far away … Archibald Constable & Co Ltd, London, 1899. What it must have been! The book had never been touched. Tom, the first reader. Like, she imagines, opening a long-lost document that had been waiting just for him and stumbling onto the answer to a secret code he’d been trying to crack for years. What was the day like, she wonders, and would he have noticed? Or noted the comings and goings in the library reading room? Had he been troubled by the occasional coughing or whispered conversations that come with every library? Barely. If at all. For he’d been doing more than reading, he’d been communing with the spirit of a dead poet whose life and work featured in the book: Jules Laforgue, born in Montevideo of Breton parents on August 20, 1860; who died the year before Tom was born; and who now, in his own words, resided in the well-furnished rooms of infinity. But who also, from that day, lived on in Tom, as the soul inhabits the body. He’d never heard of Jules Laforgue before that morning, but not a day would go by afterwards, she liked to think, when the magic and the secret thrill of that morning would not come back to him. There are some books that have a far greater impact than they really ought to simply by being the right book at the right time — meant for one reader only.

  And when he rose, stepped out of the library and onto the street (the world suddenly lit with irony, like the verse he’d just read), did the retreating omnibus wink back; did the young woman crossing the road for the short cut into Harvard Yard volunteer her smile as no young woman had before? Or the roses incline towards him as he passed, welcoming him into the ranks of the secret society of the elect whose doors had just opened for him? Have you not observed us before, did they all say, for we have always been here? And we will always be here now: through the blooming of the lilacs, under the April sunsets and where the yellow fog prowls the night. You belong to us, and we to you. We have been here all the time. Just waiting …

  She has since read this book and read the poet whose voice and manner he put on, like a tailor-made suit. It didn’t matter that she thought little of the book itself. Tom Eliot walked into that library, and the young man that she and the world would come to know as T.S. Eliot walked out. She has no doubt about that. She was there. She saw it. It was everything to him. Like being handed the keys to the kingdom. For with the voice of a dead poet came the right words, and with the right words, over the succeeding few years, came the poems that seemed to be there almost before he wrote them. He never said as much when he told her, but that, looking back, is how she sees it now. There are moments, when we first hear our note as if struck on a crystal glass, that hum. That give us our key-note. The note to which all the other notes yearn, and in which they resolve themselves. This was his moment, and she envied him for it. What it must have been to see the heavens part and hear the music of the spheres play for you and you alone.

  And so she sits at the wheel of her Ford roadster, staring at the house where waves continue to dream and delight waits alone. She is smoking one of the five cigarettes that she allows herself each day, and when she finishes she casu
ally throws the butt out the window. Ha! No, she doesn’t. Not Miss Hale. Instead she impatiently stubs it out in the ashtray, slowly grinding the glow out of it, then slams the ashtray shut, still edgy from a night of restless, broken sleep. Beside her, on the front seat, is the satchel she brought with her, containing a bundle of papers which she secured with a ribbon not long before she left her home in Concord, a pre-Revolutionary cottage, and drove here to this quiet Cambridge street, as she does from time to time, when the mood takes her. And her first impression is the same every time — that nothing has changed and that some nights come to us complete as if having already happened, and will again. For it is a quiet cul-de-sac. There are rarely any cars parked in the street or people about, rarely any hint of the modern world. Nothing is changed. Except that the hedge is lush now, the snow of a faraway winter has long melted, and the trees are green.

  She envied him even then, and the envy is still there. He had found his note. Found the very thing that, above all, he wanted to do. But it wasn’t just him. She had found it too. The stage. But whereas he would pursue that something, she would never be permitted to. And as much as she envied the confidence he radiated, she envied also the freedom that made his pursuit possible. Her step-parents (her mother’s mind went at an early age, and, when she was a girl, Emily was delivered over to her mother’s sister) recoiled at the thought of their charge on the stage. It was not only beneath her, it was beneath them. Everybody would be diminished. Tarnished. It was impossible. You silly girl, her aunt with the voice of Mrs Elton tells her; you silly girl, the aunt who is long dead. For Emily is now seventy-four. She shakes her head. Seventy-four, when did that happen? She argued with them, she pleaded, but Uncle John and Aunt Edith prevailed. And so she made do with amateur theatricals, and teaching drama and speech and song. At first with regret, and gradually, as the years passed and whatever moment she may have had passed with them, resignation. To find your something, pursue and live it, seemed the most exquisite way to live.