The Marriage Plot (59 page)

He despised himself. He decided that his believing that Madeleine would marry him stemmed from the same credulity that had led him to think he could live a saintly life, tending the sick and dying in Calcutta. It was the same credulity that had made him recite the Jesus Prayer, and wear a cross, and think that he could stop Madeleine from marrying Bankhead by sending her a letter. His dreaminess, his swooning—his intelligent stupidity—were responsible for everything that was idiotic about him, for his fantasy of marrying Madeleine and for the self-renunciations that hedged against the fantasy’s not coming true.

Two nights later, Schneider threw a party, and everything changed. Mitchell, who hadn’t been feeling very festive, had gone out as the party was getting under way. After walking around the block about five or six times, he’d gone back to Schneider’s to find the place even more crowded. Ducking into the bedroom, intending to mope, he’d come face to face with his nemesis, Bankhead, who was sitting on the bed, smoking. To Mitchell’s further surprise, Bankhead and he had gotten into a serious discussion. Mitchell had been aware, of course, that Bankhead’s being at the party meant that Madeleine must be there too. One reason he’d kept talking to Bankhead was that he was too scared to leave the bedroom and run into her. But then Madeleine had appeared on her own. At first, Mitchell pretended not to notice, but finally he’d turned—and it was like it always was. Madeleine’s sheer physical presence hit Mitchell with full concussive force. He felt like the guy in the Maxell cassette commercial with his hair blown straight back, even though he didn’t have any hair. Things happened quickly after that. Bankhead chased Madeleine away, for some reason. A little while later, he left the party. Mitchell managed to talk to Madeleine before she left too. But twenty-five minutes later, she came back, clearly upset, looking for Kelly. Seeing Mitchell instead, she’d come straight up to him, pressed her face into his chest, and begun to shake.

He and Kelly took Madeleine into the bedroom and closed the door. While the party swirled outside, Madeleine told them what had happened. Later on, after Madeleine had calmed down a little, she called her parents. Together they decided that the best thing to do, for the moment, was for Madeleine to take a car service back to Prettybrook. Since she didn’t want to be alone, Mitchell had volunteered to ride with her.

He’d been staying at the Hannas’ ever since, for almost a month. They’d put him in the attic bedroom where he’d stayed during Thanksgiving break sophomore year. The room was air-conditioned, but Mitchell had gone Third World and preferred to leave the windows open at night. He liked to smell the pine trees outside and to be awoken by the birds in the morning. He’d been getting up early, prior to anyone else in the house, and often took long walks before coming back to have breakfast with Madeleine around nine.

It was on one of these walks that Mitchell discovered the Friends Meeting House. He’d stopped on the battlefield to read the historical marker beside its only remaining tree. Halfway through the text, Mitchell realized that the “Liberty Oak” the marker commemorated had died of blight years ago, and that the tree growing there now was a mere replacement, a variety more resistant to insect infestation but less beautiful or big. Which was a history lesson in itself. It applied to so many American things. He started walking again, finally following the gravel road into the wooded parking lot of the Quaker compound.

Various fuel-sipping vehicles—two Honda Civics, two VW Rabbits, and a Ford Fiesta—were nosed up against the wall of the cemetery. Aside from the pristine Meeting House, which was set next to the woods, the grounds contained a scruffy playground and a long, many-winged, aluminum-sided building with an asphalt roof that housed the preschool, office, and reception rooms. The bumper stickers on the cars pictured Planet Earth next to the slogan save your mother, or simply, peace. The Prettybrook Friends had their share of crunchy, sandal-wearing members, but as Mitchell got to know them better that summer, he saw that the stereotype only went so far. There were older Quakers, like the Pettengills, who were formal in bearing and given to plain dress. There was a gray-bearded, suspenders-wearing man who resembled Burl Ives. Joe Yamamoto, a chemical engineering professor from Rutgers, and his wife, June, were faithful attendees of the eleven o’clock Meeting. Claire Ruth, a bank manager in town, had gone to Quaker schools; her daughter, Nell, worked with disabled children in Philadelphia. Bob and Eustacia Tavern were retired, Bob an amateur astronomer, Eustacia a former elementary school teacher who now penned fiery letters to the
Prettybrook Packet
and
The Trentonian
about pesticide runoff in the Delaware region water system. There were usually a few visitors, too, American-born Buddhists in town for a conference, or a student from the theological seminary.

Even Voltaire had approved of the Quakers. Goethe counted himself as an admirer. Emerson said, “I am more of a Quaker than anything else. I believe in the still, small voice.” Sitting on the back bench, Mitchell tried to do the same. But it was difficult. His mind was too preoccupied with daydreams. The reason he hadn’t left Prettybrook yet was because Madeleine didn’t want him to. She told him she felt better when he was around. She looked up at him, furrowing her brow adorably, and said, “Don’t go. You have to save me from my parents.” They spent nearly every minute of every day together. They sat on the deck, reading, or walked into town for coffee or ice cream. With Bankhead gone and Mitchell at least physically taking his place, his chronic credulity began flaring up. In the silence of Quaker Meeting, Mitchell wondered, for instance, if Madeleine’s having gotten married to Bankhead might be all part of the plan, a plan that was more complex than he’d originally anticipated. Maybe he had arrived in New York at just the right time.

Every week, when the elders shook hands, signaling that Meeting was over, Mitchell opened his eyes to realize that he hadn’t stilled his mind or been moved to speak. He went outside to the picnic table where Claire Ruth was setting out juice and fruit and, after chatting awhile, made his way back to the ongoing drama at the Hannas’.

For the first few days after Leonard had taken off, they’d concentrated on trying to find him. Alton contacted the New York City police and the New York State police, only to be told both times that a husband’s abandoning his wife was considered a personal matter and didn’t meet the requirements for a missing-person investigation. Next, Alton had called Dr. Wilkins, at Penn. When he asked the psychiatrist if he’d seen Leonard, Wilkins had cited patient confidentiality and declined to answer. This infuriated Alton, who not only had referred Leonard to Wilkins in the first place but also had been paying for his treatment. Nevertheless, Wilkins’s silence on the matter indicated that Leonard was in touch with him and possibly still in the area. It also suggested that Leonard was taking his medicine.

Mitchell then began calling everyone he knew in New York to see if anyone had seen or talked to Bankhead. Within two days, he reached three different people—Jesse Kornblum, Mary Stiles, and Beth Tolliver—who claimed they had. Mary Stiles said that Bankhead was staying in DUMBO, in an unspecified person’s loft. Bankhead had phoned Jesse Kornblum at work so often that Kornblum finally had to stop taking his calls. Beth Tolliver had met Bankhead at a diner in Brooklyn Heights, and said that he seemed sad about the demise of his marriage. “I got the feeling that Maddy had dumped
him
,” she said. That was how things were left for over a week, until Phyllida thought to call Bankhead’s mother, in Portland, and learned from Rita that Leonard had been in Oregon for the past two days.

Phyllida described the phone call as one of the strangest of her life. Rita acted as though the matter was of minor consequence, like a breakup between high schoolers. Her opinion was that Leonard and Madeleine had made a foolish mistake and that Rita and Phyllida, as mothers, should have seen it coming all along. Phyllida would have taken issue with this view if it weren’t so obvious that Rita had been drinking. Phyllida stayed on the line long enough to establish that, after staying with his mother for the two nights, Leonard had gone to a cabin in the woods with an old high school friend of his, Godfrey, where they planned to live for the summer.

At that point Phyllida lost her composure. “Mrs. Bankhead,” she said, “well, I’m I’m—I just don’t know what to say! Madeleine and Leonard are still married. Leonard is my daughter’s husband,
my
son-in-law, and now you tell me he’s going off to live in the woods!”

“You asked where he was. I told you.”

“Did it occur to you that Madeleine might want to know that information? Did it occur to you that we might be worried about Leonard?”

“He only left yesterday.”

“And just when were you going to let us know that?”

“I’m not sure I like your tone.”

“My tone is beside the point. The point is that Leonard has told Madeleine that he wants a divorce, after two months of being married. Now, what Madeleine’s father and I are trying to ascertain is whether Leonard is serious about this, and in his right mind, or if this is another aspect of his illness.”

“What illness?”

“His manic depression!”

Rita laughed slowly, with rich gurgling in the throat. “Leonard’s always been theatrical. He should have been an actor.”

“Do you have a telephone number for Leonard?”

“I don’t think they have a telephone at that cabin. It’s pretty rustic.”

“Do you think you’ll be hearing from Leonard in the near future?”

“It’s hard to say with him. I didn’t hear much from him since the wedding until all of a sudden he showed up at my front door.”

“Well, if you do, could you please ask him to call Madeleine, who is still his legal wife? This situation has to be clarified one way or another.”

“I agree with you there,” Rita said.

Once they knew that Bankhead wasn’t in immediate danger, and especially that he’d put a continent between himself and his bride and in-laws, Alton and Phyllida began to take a different line. Mitchell saw them talking together in the teahouse, as though they didn’t want Madeleine to hear. Once, returning from a morning walk, he surprised them both sitting in the car in the garage. He didn’t hear what they were saying, but he had an idea. Then one night, when they had all gone out to the deck for an after-dinner drink, Alton broached the subject that was on their minds.

It was just after nine, twilight turning into darkness. The pump of the swimming pool was laboring behind its fencing, adding a whooshing sound to the omnidirectional buzz of crickets. Alton had opened a bottle of Eiswein. As soon as he’d filled everybody’s glass, he sat next to Phyllida on the wicker love seat and said, “I’d like to call a family board meeting.”

The neighbors’ old Great Dane, hearing activity, barked dutifully three times, then commenced nosing along the bottom of the fence. The air was heavy with garden smells, floral and herbal.

“The subject I’d like to bring before the board is the situation with Leonard. In light of Phyl’s conversation with Mrs. Bankhead—”

“The kook,” Phyllida said.

“—I think it’s time to reassess where we go from here.”

“You mean where I go,” Madeleine said.

At the end of the yard the swimming pool hiccuped. A bird swooped from a branch, just a little blacker than the sky.

“Your mother and I are wondering what you’re planning to do.”

Madeleine took a sip of wine. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Fine. Good. That’s why I’ve called this meeting. Now, first, I propose that we define the alternatives. Secondly, I propose that we try to determine the possible outcomes of each alternative. After we’ve done that, we can compare these outcomes and make a judgment as to the best course of action. Agreed?”

When Madeleine didn’t reply, Phyllida said, “Agreed.”

“As I see it, Maddy, there are two alternatives,” Alton said. “One: you and Leonard reconcile. Two: you don’t.”

“I don’t really feel like talking about this now,” Madeleine said.

“Just—Maddy—just bear with me. Let’s take reconciliation. Do you think that’s a possibility?”

“I guess so,” Madeleine said.

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. Anything’s possible.”

“Do you think Leonard will come back on his own?”

“I said I don’t
know
.”

“Are you willing to go out to Portland and find him? Because, if you don’t know if Leonard’s coming back, and you’re not willing to go look for him, I’d say the chances of a reconciliation are pretty slim.”

“Maybe I
will
go out there!” Madeleine said, raising her voice.

“O.K. All right,” Alton said. “Let’s propose that you do. We send you out to Portland tomorrow morning. What then? How do you intend to find Leonard? We don’t even know where Leonard is. And suppose you
do
find him. What will you do if he doesn’t want to come back?”

“Maddy shouldn’t be the one to do anything,” Phyllida said, grim-faced. “Leonard should be coming here begging on his hands and knees to have her back.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Madeleine repeated.

“Sweetheart, we have to,” Phyllida said.

“No, we don’t.”

“I’m sorry, but we do!” Phyllida insisted.

All this time, Mitchell had sat quietly in his Adirondack chair, drinking wine. The Hannas seemed to have forgotten that he was there, or else they now considered him part of the family and didn’t care if he saw them at their most fractious.

But Alton tried to ease the tension. “Let’s put reconciliation aside for the moment,” he said in a milder tone. “Let’s agree to disagree about that. There’s another alternative that’s a little more clear-cut. Now, suppose you and Leonard don’t reconcile. Just suppose. I took the liberty of talking to Roger Pyle—”

“You told
him
?” Madeleine cried.

“In confidence,” Alton said. “And Roger’s professional opinion is that, in a situation like this, where one party is refusing contact, the best course of action is to get an annulment.”