~ ~  ALAN SEES JUDITH FOR THE FIRST TIME  ~ ~

In March 1867, Mr. Varden died.  The only reaction Alan could discern in himself was satisfaction that now he and his grandmother had the house all to themselves with no unwelcome third party present.

His grandmother’s reaction to the death was much stronger.  Because of Mr. Varden’s long cruelty to her grandson, she strongly resented the deceased man.  But, even more, she deplored her own lack of charity toward the dead.  Propelled by guilt, she felt compelled to attend church every day, to pray for her son-in-law’s salvation.  Alan accompanied her.

It had been his grandmother’s custom to go to the late Eucharist on Sunday mornings, because this was the service attended by most of her friends.  But now she went to the earliest Sunday Eucharist.  She wanted to do penance by forgoing the customary social pleasures of the late service.

At early Sunday Eucharist, Alan had his first direct exposure to the rich and eminent Esmond family.  Newspapers reported Robert “The Pike” Esmond’s return to New York after four years in Europe.  Despite 73-year-old Esmond’s age and war wounds that left him in a wheelchair, he apparently had not lost his manhood.  He brought a new wife and small son back with him.

When Alan and his grandmother attended early Sunday service for the first time, they arrived before the rest of the congregation, because Alan’s grandmother was eager to begin her devotions.  She preferred to sit at the front of the church, close to the priest, the sacrament, and her favorite stained-glass window, which depict­ed God the Father seated on His throne in Heaven, His long white hair and white beard wafted by celestial wind.

Alan and his grandmother sat in the center of the second pew on the right side of the nave, midway between the stained-glass window and the spot where the Host would be consecrated.  The first pew was reserved, with a velvet cord drawn across each end.  Large red-leather prayer books, embossed with “Esmond” in gold leaf, had been placed in the racks of this pew.

As Alan sat, and his grandmother knelt with her head bent in prayer, other congregants arrived, trying to get as close as possible to the Esmond pew.  Congregants who could not find a place close to the Esmond pew took seats along the center aisle, or near the back of the church with a good view of the main entrance to the nave.  Soon, all pews were filled, except the Esmond pew.  It was still well before time for the service to begin.

Looking back toward the entrance, Alan saw that the vestibule was crowded with people and that more people continued to arrive.  Whenev­er the porch door opened, it revealed a crowd of people standing outside.  Alan gathered from conversation around him that, before his departure for Europe, it had been Robert “The Pike”  Esmond’s practice to attend early Sunday service, and today would be his first resumption of that practice since his return.  The buzz of excited whispers seemed to rise toward Heaven and fill the arch of the nave, like invocations for appearance of the hero.  Alan’s grandmother prayed through it all without raising her head.

The whispered announcement was passed from the vestibule all along the length of the nave: “He’s here!”  The crowd in the vestibule parted to let the Esmond party pass.  Those in the pews craned their necks to see—but, with the exception of a few children, these people remained seated.  This surprised Alan, given their obvious eagerness to see the old hero.

The first members of the Esmond party to enter the nave were a man and woman walking at a lagging pace.  The man was tall and thin, the narrowness of his shoul­ders evident despite the expertly tailored contours of his elegant black coat.  Even his head was noticeably thin, as though Nature had been punctilious in coordinating all his bodily parts as an impeccably matched set.  Everything about him bespoke prosperity and sobriety.  The neat trim of his graying side whiskers framed an otherwise clean-shaven face, with the severity of mouth and chin clearly visible.

Alan believed that this distinguished middle-aged man was Lloyd Flecker, his father’s lawyer.  Years ago, through marriage to Robert Esmond’s only daughter, Flecker catapulted himself into New York’s social and financial aristocracy.  Upon Mr. Varden’s death, Flecker became trustee of the Varden family trust.  Flecker communi­cated with Alan and his grandmother exclusively in writing, sending them modest disbursements with clocklike regularity.  Mr. Varden’s substantial estate would always remain in trust, out of Alan’s reach, with the trustee directed to provide only limited income to benefici­aries.  Alan understood how his father, even in death, deliberately continued to control his son’s life.

Alan transferred his gaze to the woman who held the distinguished gentleman’s arm.  Her display of fashion suggested that notice of herself was the lady’s prime purpose in life.  This conspicuous lady wore vivid purple, with embellishments of red, orange and white.  To Alan’s eye, it seemed impossible that her hair could contain more curls and jeweled pins, her earrings and necklaces more spangles and pendants, her bonnet more ribbons, feathers and lace, her parasol more pompons, or the rest of her costume more puffs, pleats and flounces.  She was tall for a woman and thickset, with an abundant bosom.  Her wide bodice and bustle gave the impression that her tight corset was pushing displaced parts of her body upward and down­ward, toward her breast and hips.  Her face was plain and, to Alan’s mind, overly animated.  The too-frequent movements of the eyes, the over-readiness to smile—these attributes, combined with the fashion­able frenzy of her dress, made Alan think she would be even more irritating than most society females.

Murmurs around him in the church told Alan that women present wholeheartedly approved of this lady’s attire.  Murmurs also told her identity, although Alan had already guessed it: Cornelia Esmond Flecker, on the arm of her husband.  She was one of the most important hostesses in New York, vying to become social leader of the city—even of the state, given her husband’s political ambitions.

When the next member of the Esmond party entered the church, all onlookers quickly directed their attention toward him.  Alan knew immediately that this was Robert Esmond—his face and figure were familiar from the famous Antietam illustration.  Lloyd Flecker disengaged himself from his wife and turned to touch Esmond, who was slowly pushed forward in a wheelchair by a liveried servant.  Flecker’s action seemed to have no point except informing all onlookers that he had intimate connection with Esmond.  Flecker paused with his hand on Esmond’s armless shoulder, just above the empty sleeve, creating a picture of himself linked with the hero and his sacrifice.  Then Flecker returned to his wife’s side.  As the party progressed toward the chancel, Flecker led the way, looking back frequently toward Esmond to demonstrate continuation of the link between the elderly hero and himself.

When the old man in the wheelchair entered the church, Alan understood why members of the congregation had previously restrained themselves by keeping their seats.  They had wanted to show Major Esmond the honor of rising upon his entrance.  Now all the people in pews stood—even Alan’s grandmother rose from her prayers, because she thought the service must be beginning.  Not a word broke the silence as Robert Esmond was wheeled forward.

Men and boys saluted the hero.  He did not salute in return.  He was not dressed in uniform; no medals were in evidence.  Although he was old, Esmond’s hair was luxuriant and tumbled over his forehead, mingling with his bushy eyebrows.  His long beard spread over his breast.  His thick hair and beard were of perfect, uniform whiteness, making his head a symbol of purity.  Esmond remarkably resembled God the Father in the stained-glass window.  But, unlike the flawless, almost juvenile skin of the ancient God, the skin of Esmond’s face held scores of tiny overlaps and furrows, depicting profound experi­ence, as though the old hero knew more of life than God Himself.  The many smile-wrinkles around Esmond’s eyes suggested he was the embodi­ment of cheerful wisdom.  He looks exactly the way a hero should look in old age, Alan said to himself.  Esmond smiled at the congregation and raised the one hand left to him in a gracious, self-deprecating gesture indicating he wished them to take their seats.  But they continued standing respectfully.

A second, much smaller wheelchair followed Esmond’s own.  The occupant of this small wheelchair and the girl who pushed it went largely unnoticed by the crowd while Esmond himself was in the center aisle of the church.  The girl walked very slowly, at a good distance from Esmond, as if she did not want to interfere with his triumphant progress down the aisle.  But when Esmond’s wheelchair turned in front of the chancel and was lost to the view of most people, the crowd found its voice again.  From overheard comments, Alan knew that this girl and the child she pushed in the wheel­chair were being scrutinized closely.

Whisperers declared the child was Esmond’s unfortunate little son.  Some of them disputed about the identity of the girl.  Because of her plainness of dress, many people were convinced she was the child’s nursemaid.  Others insisted she was the new Mrs. Esmond.

Alan’s medically experienced eye told him Esmond’s son was the victim of a severe cerebral palsy.  The child’s age was two years according to newspaper reports; yet his body was much smaller than that of a normal two-year-old.  Alan knew it was typical for severe cerebral afflictions to stunt growth, often even more significantly than evident in this example.  The boy had no control or strength in his body and would have fallen out of the chair but for the strap across his lap.  His little wrists were grotesquely bent, his little hands twisted and atrophied.  His head lolled helplessly.  The child’s features were hard to see because of his hanging head; but Alan discerned twitching centered around the eyes; he saw how the child’s lower jaw was so weak his mouth fell slackly open.  The little boy’s bib displayed a dark blotch of wetness where it was soaked by his continual drool.  At intervals, his whole small body jerked, subjected to repeated brief seizures coming just seconds apart.

Such severe cases of brain pathology were always diagnosed as “hopeless” by Alan’s instructors, with these patients invariably recommended for institutionalization (and consequent “Christian com­passion” that allowed them to die).  But here was this child, out in a public place frequented by the upper classes, where afflicted individuals like him were never seen—and where many people here clearly felt his presence was unseemly.  The whispers turned harsh.  “This is no place for that poor little creature!”  But the congregation did not have to taint its hero with any censure.  “It’s that new wife’s fault.  They say she insists on taking the wretched little thing everywhere with her.”

The refrain “Poor, dear Major Esmond” was murmured from pew to pew.  Many wept to see that Robert “The Pike” Esmond had such a sorrow for a son.

The girl said to be the major’s wife was for Alan the most in­triguing member of the party passing down the church aisle that early Sunday morning.  She was so… unexpected.

Her youth was obvious.  She appeared to be about seventeen, perhaps eighteen; but Alan assumed she was one of those people who look younger than their years, for it seemed impossible that Esmond would have married her when she had been fourteen or fifteen years of age.  Alan heard the whispering of women in the pew behind him.  “They say she’s twenty, that she was a bride at seventeen.”  “She has a poor figure for twenty, I must say.  My Matilda is eighteen, and she presents a better silhouette than that.”

The girl pushing the child’s wheelchair was of average height, but the erectness of her bearing and her slimness made her seem taller.  The austerity of her dress was striking, truly anomalous in Alan’s opinion.  It appeared she used no corset, for her waist was not artificially more slender than natural to female proportions.  Instead of wearing an elaborate fitted over-dress on this cool spring day, as Cornelia Flecker had done, the girl had only a short mantle over her shoulders.  Her skirt had no bustle and no train, also unlike the fashionable Mrs. Flecker.  The girl’s dress and mantle were of a single matching fabric of deep, somber blue.  These garments were without ornamentation, except for plain buttons and cording, both abstemiously black, required to fasten them.  This was far from the simplicity of penury, however.  The garments were excellently cut and made of highest-quality, subtly glowing worsted that hung in graceful, loose folds.  There are artful feminine wiles behind this seeming naturalness!  Thus Alan warned himself upon noticing his own great admiration for the girl’s appear­ance.

She wore no bonnet, just a triangle of fine lace pinned over her head.  Her hair, utterly simple and magnificent, was combed smoothly back and arranged above the nape of her neck in a glistening coil.  Alan saw this beauteous coil as she advanced toward him, because several times she bent to adjust the child in his chair or press his wet mouth with a towel that was pinned to the shoulder of his little coat.  At first Alan thought her hair was a true black, but then he saw that, wherever light gleamed from it, a sudden streak of deep redness appeared.  Her hair was the darkest red he had ever seen, darker than he would have believed possible.  Her skin was very pale and her head superbly shaped—both formed wonderful complements to her lustrous mound of dramatically dark hair.  Alan was disconcerted to realize he was drawn to her physical person in a way completely out­side his former experience.

As she came down the long aisle, he was afraid to look at her face when she got close to him—and yet he could not look away.  Her eyes were cast down in the direction of the child, with thick lashes black against her pale cheeks.  Her brows were thick and dark, with a slight droop at their tapered ends, near her temples, as though twin teardrops of hair were about to fall down the sides of her face.  Her skin was flawlessly clear.  Her lips were full and well-defined, but drawn slightly downward.  Twice, she looked up—apparently to verify that nothing was in the path of the wheelchair—and Alan saw her eyes, seemingly black as her hair had seemed black, and brilliant as though with tears.  He thought it was the saddest face he had ever seen.  He felt a strong urge to go to her and take her in his arms, to make this immense sadness go away.  She was an utter stranger; yet he strug­gled inwardly to keep from pushing past the others in his pew and taking her unto himself.  He hated her for making him feel this way.

All through the service, as she sat in front of him—only an arm’s length away if he were to lean in her direction—Alan was consumed with the sense of her nearness.  He tried not to look at her, but found his gaze on her again and again.  She sat slightly to his right, at the end of the pew with the two wheelchairs next to her in the side aisle.  The child, in his small wheelchair, was positioned closest beside her; Esmond, in his big chair, was positioned slightly behind.  Alan saw the young woman sometimes reach and stroke her old husband’s arm.  Occasionally, Alan heard the child make a gurgling sound: a mass of saliva and mucus was moving in his throat.  At these times, his mother covered his mouth with the towel, muffling a subsequent, different sound produced by the little boy; this sound might have been quite loud without the towel as muffler.  Mrs. Esmond apparently was trying to keep noises made by her child from intruding upon the voice of the priest.  Alan found this interesting: she was willing to dis­turb the congregation with sight of the misshapen boy—but she did not want to disturb the worship itself.

Alan was not listening to the priest; the sounds he cared about were those that might come from the young mother’s lips.  He longed to hear her voice—part of him hoped it would be repulsive, to break the spell he seemed to be under.  But she did not speak except during common prayers and hymns, when her voice was so quiet he could not hear it.

When the service ended, the girl pushed the small wheelchair somewhat forward, thereby unblocking the end of the pew, and stepped into the side aisle.  She stood beside her husband and, in a quick gesture, tidied his thick white hair with a light touch of her fin­gers.  Alan heard the old man say “Judith”—and in that single word was a world of communication.  Esmond could not more clearly have said “I adore you, you are my life, I would do anything in the world for you” or any of the other things a man deeply in love might have been inspired to say.  His wife smiled at the old man and, seeing this full, yet fleeting, smile, Alan felt something inside him move, as though his soul had shifted.  There were secret dimples in those sorrowful cheeks; the girl’s solemnity was suddenly punctured by tiny twin wells of transient delight—unknown to him, she had harbored these dimples, this capacity for brief stabs of joy, all through the service.  The change between the little sag of her mouth in repose and her smiling mouth made this a different, surprising face—yet both faces were equally bewitching in his eyes, and equally sad.  How could a person smile as beautifully as that, and yet continue to look so sad?  Alan’s sudden craving to have the answer to this question was a literal ache inside him.  He placed his hand just below his breast, to ease this ache—and hated himself when he noticed what he was doing.  That a mere female could bring him to this!  He wanted never to see her again!

Yet he did see her again, every Sunday morning at the early service for weeks.  His reaction to her presence was always as disturbing as it had been the first time.  He spent each service staring at her or trying not to stare at her.  He was both enchanted and miserable at church.  He dreaded Sunday all week long, and could hardly wait for Sunday to come.  Alan never let anyone know of his interest in Judith Esmond.  He was ashamed of his weakness.

After nine weeks of going daily to early service, Alan’s grand­mother felt she had sufficiently atoned for guilt related to her son-in-law.  She resumed attending church at the late Sunday service.  When her habit changed back to the old way, so did Alan’s.  He had no more occasion to see Judith Esmond.  He thought he was happy about this; he thought it meant he could now forget her because her physical person would never again reinforce his obsession.

But, despite his complete absence from her presence, he did not fully escape from her.  Sometimes, Alan saw the name of Mrs. Esmond or her husband in print, or he heard remarks made about them; and he was shaken by the sudden great interest inspired in him by these refer­ences.  In reading the obituaries, Alan always looked for one particular announcement: Robert Esmond’s death would make Judith an unmarried woman—Alan eagerly sought this news without any idea regarding what it might mean for him.

When he eventually did read of death in the Esmond family, old age was spared and extreme youth was taken: the obituaries announced the passing—one death on a hot morning at the end of July, and then a second death on an even hotter morning as August began—of the old hero’s only grandchildren, the twin infant daughters of Cornelia Esmond Flecker.

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