Bright Flows the River Read online

  Lucy leaned forward from her slender waist to pour fresh tea into James’s cup, and to offer him the silver tray of fine pastries.

  “Dr. Meyer, when did you last hear from Guy?”

  “Five years ago, I believe it was. I wrote him several letters after that, but he never replied. And then when I heard from an American colleague—concerning Jerry—I was alarmed, shall we say? We had been closer than brothers, to coin a cliché, for many years. I knew I was going to New York and came a day or two earlier to inquire about Jerry in person.”

  She hesitated. “Did you know that he attempted suicide four months ago?”

  “Yes. So I was informed.”

  No expression on that composed face, no distress in those empty eyes, but only a slight pursing of lips and a small shake of the head.

  “We—let it be thought it was an accident. But, you see, Doctor, Guy had been very strange for at least three years. Not himself, actually. At my insistence he consulted our family physician, who said Guy was only depressed. I believe he gave my husband amphetamines, and tranquilizers. I thought at first it was business, but it was not. Things could not have been better for Guy, in every way. But he became stranger and stranger all the time. He brooded. He began to refuse invitations. He was never a very good conversationalist; he was always too impatient with our nice friends. But he began to subside into long silences that went on for days. For days. It was as if he were deaf, and did not hear anyone speaking.”

  She hesitated again, and dropped the white lids of her eyes. “Three years ago he moved into one of the guest rooms. I would hear him walking the floor at night, for hours—”

  And you never went into his room and tried to understand his despair, thought James. You never gave him the consolation or the hope he needed. But then, you never knew the terrors in the human soul. You never impulsively embraced him and let him see your anguished tears, for you were never anguished. You never comforted him because you never understood that most of us need comforting in this appalling world. To you the world was never appalling. It was just a measured dancing in the best refined manner. What do you call shit, woman? What do you know of agony? I bet you never sweated once in your life! While Jerry was walking in his private Gethsemane you sought your beauty sleep, and wondered why he did not go to sleep himself. That he was in torment you never knew.

  She was speaking again in her automaton’s voice. “The male climacteric, our doctor said. It would pass. So, I did not worry too much. Then, one night—It was raining very hard—He was out somewhere and was coming home—And then, on a very sharp bend, he went off the road and crashed into trees. He must have been driving very fast. It was a miracle he was not killed, only badly concussed and with a broken wrist. He was in the hospital for several weeks, and never spoke. Our doctor called in a psychiatrist. A very nice man, and understanding. When Guy was discharged from the hospital, he was taken to Mountain Valleys, a beautiful sanitarium, a mental hospital. He has been there ever since. I visit him once a week. They advised that. He never seems to know me or hear me. Billy, our son, and Marcy, our daughter, have visited him. Marcy lives in Philadelphia, I believe I told you. Her husband is a lawyer, a very lovely boy. But Guy ignores them, or something. He doesn’t even speak to his private nurses. It is as if—Billy says—he was dead though his body was still alive.”

  Ah, then we have some perceptiveness on the scene, thought James. I’d like to meet that young man.

  “And, your daughter?”

  “She was so hurt at her father not speaking to her or acknowledging her visits that she cried for hours. She had been Guy’s favorite, you know. She looks exactly like him. She was a great comfort to me in this trial. She sympathizes with me, the dear girl. This is all very hard, you know, Doctor.”

  “But you thought it was suicide, or an attempt at it, Mrs. Jerald?”

  That curious hesitation of hers, lifeless, without emphasis. “I—thought so. So did our doctor, and the psychiatrist. Marcy consulted them over and over, and persuaded them to—not to believe it, really, and to hush it up. After all, it would have been very bad for Guy’s business, you see. There would have been all sorts of inquiries—so embarrassing, you know, for the family.”

  “Who is taking care of his banks and his business?”

  “Oh, we have excellent and trustworthy managers.” For the first time there was a hint of enthusiasm in her voice. “One of them is my brother, Hugh Lippincott. Guy always liked him. Hugh’s wife, Louise, is one of the Crosleys, you know, a very prominent family in Philadelphia. They live only two miles from this suburb. In a town house in the city. And Billy, in June, will be with Hugh, after he is graduated. At least, he will be in charge of the land development business which Guy established.”

  How lovely all this is, thought James. How creamy and mannered and serene and rich and secure. But I feel there is something else.

  “What is the present prognosis, Mrs. Jerald?”

  She lifted her pale eyebrows at him. “I’m not sure I know what you mean, Dr. Meyer.”

  “Is Jerry getting any better? What do his doctors say?”

  “They have every hope. It’s true that Guy has lost a lot of weight, which he could not afford. He was always very lean. But intrinsically he is physically well, they say, even if they have to force food on him. He gets a little—violent—when they insist on him eating his very good meals. But one experience with the nasty pipe they pushed down his throat, and he began to eat a little himself again. The doctors are much encouraged.”

  She looked at him, waiting for soothing words. But James sat in stolid silence and stared at his cup. He was a man of fifty-five himself, but as he was large and deplorably fat he appeared older, and he was massive and somewhat crumpled. His brown tweeds were authentically shabby, but his boots were polished. His thick neck seemed to be fighting his school tie. His fine white shirt was wrinkled. He had a big round head, bald on top with a fringe of reddish-gray curls all about it, which gave him a deceptively jovial appearance. His stout and florid face added to this look of geniality, and inspired confidence in his patients, who often referred to him affectionately as Father Christmas. His red cheeks were dimpled, his nose not aristocratic, but solid and broad. Some said he resembled Winston Churchill, and called him Old Cherub. But there was nothing genial about his vivid small blue eyes, all-seeing, disillusioned, and radiant with intellect and awareness. He kept his fat and dimpled hands very still, and indeed there was a great stillness about him, like a contemplative beast. He was, thankfully, a bachelor, though he had a very brisk and beguiling mistress, who had been his loving and lighthearted companion for twenty years. Neither wanted matrimony. Emma was a rich widow, plump and merry and amusing, and, though charming, she was often considered to be ugly. They adored each other in a teasing way, and understood each other with remarkable and comforting precision. Emma had had a very tragic life, and therefore seldom seemed sad.

  Lucy was speaking again. “We have every hope that Guy will be home, permanently, for Christmas. We always had such gay Christmases, all the family here. Such fun.”

  “Did Jerry’s psychiatrist give you any hint as to what is troubling him?”

  Lucy stared at him, her blue eyes slightly bulging. “Why, he thought, perhaps, that Guy has something on his mind—Something that obsesses him. That is what the doctor said. But Guy isn’t—communicating, though he has daily sessions with the doctor. He doesn’t—respond. He doesn’t speak at all. The doctor says, though, that he hears well enough, and apparently understands. But he won’t answer questions. He ignores them. He just sits and looks at his hands, and turns them over and over—As if he didn’t understand what they were. They are talking about electric-shock treatments. What do you think of them, Dr. Meyer?”

  “I heartily disapprove of them in the majority of cases! Did Jerry’s psychiatrist say he is psychotic?”

  “No, indeed. The only time he became—violent—was when they first insisted he eat his meals. He
is no trouble at all, his nurses say. Of course, they shave him themselves—precautions, you know. He even walks around those beautiful grounds lately, and seems to be thinking. They find that most encouraging. They are sure he knows where he is, though he doesn’t talk to any of the other patients or go into the lounges where there is television. Guy was always an omnivorous reader. We take him books and magazines and there is a well-stocked library. But he doesn’t read any longer. He walks in his room at night, as he did at home, in spite of sedatives. He doesn’t sleep very much. One of the nurses said he appears to be—making some sort of decision for himself. They say he is really in a state of—abeyance, whatever that means.”

  A mauve twilight was filling the library, and the fire had become very red and glowing. James looked briefly at his watch. Lucy said, “Will you stay for dinner, Dr. Meyer? I would be very pleased.”

  “Thank you, no, Mrs. Jerald. I am expecting some calls.” He studied her acutely. “I am due in New York in three days. Medical conferences, you know. You have an excellent hotel here, the Cranston.” He paused. “I should like to meet Jerry’s psychiatrist, and the family doctor. After all, I have known Jerry many years. So, I will return to Cranston three days from now, and will consult those doctors and see Jerry for myself, with their permission.”

  “My brother, Hugh Lippincott, and Louise, will so like to meet you, Dr. Meyer. I don’t know what I’d do without my family. Such a distressing time. Would you like to stay in this house when you return?”

  “Very kind of you, I am sure. We’ll see. I’m a bachelor, you know, with a bachelor’s ways, and so am a difficult guest.” He smiled rosily at her and stood up. She stood also and gave him her hand. He touched it quickly, then withdrew it. He could not abide the woman. A harmless poor fool, but he could not abide her.

  “Guy will be so happy to see you,” she said. “I’m sure he will talk to you, if he talks to anyone.”

  A maid in a very neat black-and-white uniform entered the room at some unknown signal Lucy had given, and brought his shabby coat and hat and British scarf. He looks like a butcher, Lucy thought, with mild distaste. A very poor butcher, at that. He probably has no money at all. How Guy could ever have been fond of him is quite beyond me. Two such personalities could have had very little in common, except during the war.

  One of the Jerald cars was waiting for James to take him to his hotel. He looked back at the huge and solid Georgian house, and saw the muted light in almost every window. A fine house. Pity that its mistress was such a dolt. James sighed. He began to think of Guy Jerald and the war days, when both were young and excited and certain that the world was a wondrous place, in spite of all the slaughter and ruin they saw about them. To the young men even the war was an adventure, part of turbulent life. Guy had been the more naïve of the two.

  What had happened to the handsome youth with his intense dark eyes, quick and eager expectations, joy in living and wild free laughing hope?

  2

  Dr. Henry Parkinson looked at James Meyer more completely, as the latter talked with Guy Jerald’s psychiatrist, Dr. Emil Grassner. Meyer? Meyer? Is he a Jew? Dr. Parkinson asked himself with considerable distaste. Of course, there was a foreign and too emphatic way about him, a too sharp and swift a manner of speaking; he was too acute and probing, too impatient with hesitant speech and cautious wording. His eyes flashed with impatience also, and though he did not use his hands he gave the impression of speaking a different language, and with too insistent an underscoring. But Dr. Grassner, a “sound” German, of old stock, did not seem revolted.

  The three physicians were sitting in the large comfortable visitors’ lounge of the Cranston Memorial Hospital, and it was raining outside, a cold dark rain persistent and unrelenting. Though it was only three o’clock in the afternoon there was a duskiness in the air, a chill in spite of the warm fire and the hot radiators. Wind prowled about the long windows and rattled them, and the nearly bare trees outside responded with creakings and lashings. Lamps had been lighted here and there on the broad and polished tables, and there was a scent of fern about and a muted quiet. Drinks had been served by a very competent young lady attached to the hospital, and there were no others present during this consultation.

  “Again,” said James, in his strong and very certain voice, “you understand, both of you, that I am not intruding. I am not Jerry’s physician. I am only his friend and am deeply concerned about him.” (Dr. Parkinson resented the British accent. Affected?)

  “Of course I understand,” said Dr. Grassner. “Guy is fortunate to have you as his friend. Lucy Jerald has told me all about you both.” He smiled. “Balliol College, at Oxford?”

  “No. Magdalen.”

  “I lectured there once,” said Dr. Grassner. “Then I was thrown out during the war. Suspected German spy.” They both laughed. “I come of Amish stock, you know, and we are the least warlike of people, and never concern ourselves with ‘worldly’ matters. I’m a renegade.”

  They sipped their drinks comfortably. I might just as well not be here, thought Dr. Parkinson with sullenness. Psychiatrists! What do they know of anything? I’m now convinced Guy has had a small stroke, which would account for his aphasia, and his sudden change in personality. And there is his hypertension, a causative agent. I’ve known him for years. His attempt at suicide; not unusual in a man in his middle years when he decides he needs a change of scene. Yet Lucy is a delightful woman, very devoted and solicitous. Good family, too, which is more than you can say of Guy, who came from the lowest working class. A real entrepreneur. What else does he want? Good children, wealth, a lovely wife, position, established reputation, health, fine prospects, no worries, no pressures that I know of. What else does a man want or need? Perhaps Guy had too much, thought Dr. Parkinson with growing resentment. He couldn’t take it in his stride. One must remember his background—too much too soon.

  Dr. Parkinson was a thin man in his late fifties, and excessively neat and contained, and an internist. His small white mustache was precise in his long narrow face, and his brown eyes blinked constantly behind thick glasses. He had a nervous way of wringing his hands, which he did not know was the result of his unsatisfactory marriage, though he never admitted to himself that his marriage was unsatisfactory. He greatly esteemed his wife, a rigorous and upright woman of many small prejudices, and anti-sexual. She had convinced her husband that he owed much to her. He had, after all, been only an intern when she had married him, a poor intern, and it had been her family’s money which had rescued his career and had made comfort possible even before he had set up offices for himself, thirty years ago. He had no children. He took a sip of his very weak gin and tonic water, while the other two men drank lavishly of scotch. Maria did not believe in “strong drink.” Dr. Parkinson was again resentful though he did not question why.

  “I’ve read all your textbooks,” said Dr. Grassner, who looked like a hearty farmer, all sun-browned face, hard large flesh and unusual height and muscles, and big square hands. He had a merry look about him, gray eyes, and coarse white hair, though he was barely fifty-nine. His red nose was evidence that he did not disdain the bottle. In fact, he had a joyful fondness for it. “You’re not mad about Freud.”

  “I never was. A sex-obsessed man with an Oedipus complex. I think he blinded himself. I prefer Jung, and some others. But we are all searching, and none of us knows bloody much about the psyche, including our own. The human mind is the dark continent, unexplored, and I doubt it will ever be explored. But we psychiatrists are cataloguing animals. We like to put everybody in trim categories. If they don’t fit, we call them psychotics or say they are noncooperative or stubborn, or evasive. We do like to keep our files tidy, don’t we? Yet all the time we have a justified suspicion that psychiatry is an imprecise science, if a science at all. Candidly, an intelligent clergyman could do as well as we, and with less harm.” He chuckled.

  “Clergymen are too busy these days with raising funds or involving themselves in
what they call social justice, and carrying on crusades for some eclectic cause or another, and being ‘concerned.’ They have no time for the agonies which devour the human spirit and alienate one man from another.” Dr. Grassner smiled, and added, “In short, they have no time for God.”

  “Sad,” said James. “I remember my mother’s pet priest, a rough old boy with a rougher tongue. But he understood humanity to a great extent, and had a gloomy outlook, which also was justified.”

  “Your mother was Lady Mary Drummond, wasn’t she?” asked Dr. Grassner.

  “Yes. Related to the Norfolks. A very gentle woman and very pious. All she asked of life was to be let alone—an impossible request. Antisocial, too.” He grimaced comically.

  Dr. Parkinson came to attention. Lady Mary Drummond? Then he wasn’t a Jew!

  “My father,” said James, “found her endearing. He owned three shops, finally, on Savile Row. It was a good thing for the Drummonds. He rescued his father-in-law from bankruptcy. A profligate fella, Lord Humphrey. He wasn’t grateful to Papa, because my father came from Austria and could never learn English to any extent. But he kept diaries in pungent Yiddish, and I found them very enlightening. He had a healthy appetite for the ladies, which I consider admirable.”

  Dr. Parkinson winced. He wondered what Maria would think of this conversation. So Meyer was a Jew after all, in spite of his mother. That accounted for his coarseness, and his apparent approval of immorality. Jews were very carnal people. For some reason Dr. Parkinson thought of that pretty young nurse he had known before his prudent marriage. She, too, had been “healthy.” For an instant there was a misty softening of his eyes, then he shook the memory away. He sometimes prayed for her soul. That she was now happily married was something he tried to forget.