Asher was told that if he wished, a written accusation would be required of Clara. He could, in fact, take the matter to court. But I had gambled on Asher’s being an honorable man who would not put a child on the witness stand nor cause a woman for whom he had tremendous respect — and perhaps even love — to suffer such a second humiliation at the hands of his family. Within the week, after having repeatedly failed to communicate with Etna by telephone and post and even in person (I had Abigail frostily send him away), Asher resigned his position at the college and left the house on Gill Street. Without a trial, there could be no future for the man from Yale in Thrupp, for he would never be able to refute the charge against him.
By the end of June, much to my astonishment and delight, Asher’s presence had been so miraculously expunged from the college town — his name never mentioned in public discourse — that it was as though he had never existed. Any hint of scandal is always disastrous for a college badly in need of contributions from alumni.
The matter of a divorce was, of course, dropped. (“I wish to have an amicable and quiet conclusion to the legal deliberations,” I wrote.) I had the cottage in Drury put up for sale. I set a high price on it, thinking to get a little something in return for the near ruination of my family. A week after Asher left for destinations unknown, I was summoned to the college, not by Ferald, whose horse had been disqualified, but by Frank Goodspeed, the very president who had delivered the dismal bulletin to a white-faced Asher. Would I accept the post of Dean of Thrupp? he asked. Left unsaid was the obvious truth that I was second choice, an also-ran, a dean appointed by default. Understood as well was the fact that no one had the heart to initiate another search.
Yes, I said with as much dignity as I thought the scene required. Yes, I would be only too happy to help the college out in this matter.
“Thank you,” Goodspeed said with evident relief. “I shall make a quiet announcement.”
No fanfare for Nicholas Van Tassel.
“How is your wife?” Goodspeed inquired, almost as an after-thought.
“She’s as well as can be expected,” I said.
“We have tried to suppress the incident,” Goodspeed added, “but I am sure this has been a trial for you.”
“It has,” I said.
“And the young girl? Your daughter?”
“She is trying to put the matter behind her,” I said.
“The young are so resilient,” Goodspeed said.
But, in fact, Clara was not as resilient as I had hoped. In the days that followed Etna’s return, my daughter was alternately falsely cheerful and sullen, as if, having been on the brink of finding out who she was, she had discovered, to her dismay, that she was not that person at all. We never spoke, she and I, of the drama we had written and enacted; she seemed as eager to forget the incident as was her father. But I noticed that Clara fretted more than usual and resisted any attempts to jolly her. Whereas before she had lobbied constantly to be allowed to visit one or two close friends, now she never left the house except to finish her classes. She ended the year with a bad report, her grades having plummeted in the last month of the term. I knew this to be a casualty of all the Sturm und Drang of May and hoped for a return to better study habits in the fall.
Throughout the early weeks of that unnaturally hot summer, Etna remained at home, a ghostly presence who performed her duties as if from a great distance. Some days she would not come out of her room at all, and trays of food, largely uneaten, would be sent back to the kitchen. When she did come down, she sewed maniacally, as if having been given a deadline by an overseer at a mill. She would sit in the parlor, in her old chair, her fingers flying, her teeth angrily biting off thread, her hands snapping out the silk or linen on her lap. She sewed bureau scarves and pillow slips and children’s dresses and corset covers. She made luncheon sets and then draperies for a nonexistent room. She embroidered monogrammed initials and wreaths with tiny yellow knots. She made a cape coat for Clara and a long-waisted tunic dress, presumably for herself, though she never wore it. I know this inventory by heart, because it has remained in a cedar chest at the foot of Etna’s bed all these years, the master of the house not having the heart or the will to send it on to charity, which is where the odd trousseau should go.
No doubt the reader’s interest will have been piqued by the phrase Etna’s bed. In silence and with no fuss, Etna took up residence in the guest room, quickly removing anything of a personal nature from our bedroom. She slept on a high, white, narrow bed, monastic in its spareness, immediately exchanging its colorful quilt for a white chenille bedspread. Sometimes, on the hot nights of that sultry summer, she would leave her door open a crack to catch a breeze. I would pass by on my way to the bathroom and see her sleeping, her hair tangled upon the pillow, her arms thrown up above her head in an uncharacteristically unfeminine manner. I would stare, mesmerized by this sight, for it was understood that I was as barred from this room as I was from my wife’s bed. This was the closest I would get to seeing Etna Bliss Van Tassel at peace. As in the days when I had watched my wife through a glass pane, I would observe the rising and falling of her chest under the thin sheet, the curve of her faintly lined neck as it arched over the pillow, the fluttering of her eyelids as she dreamt. (Of what? Of whom? Of Phillip Asher? Of Samuel?) A knot of desire would sometimes tug at me, and it was all I could do not to step through that cracked door and lower myself onto the bed beside my sleeping wife. But I did not. Such an action was unthinkable under the present circumstances. Even husbandly lust was a subject that could not be admitted into that household. I prayed, insofar as I was capable of praying (our sins are screens between ourselves and God, are they not?), that with time this disgust would pass and we would once again be husband and wife.