Broome Park
April 11th
Dear Louisa,
I have seen the woman.
Our reading hour today was farcical. Grosvenor kept interrupting himself to glance at his watch and didn’t even stop at the passages I had marked for discussion. When I asked him if he had a more pressing engagement — satirically, of course — he pretended not to hear. I was tempted to dismiss him, but for the sake of discipline decided to endure his mumblings for the allotted time.
Long before the hour was over he rose and closed the book. With considerable patience I reminded him that it lacked four minutes of three o’clock. He looked at his watch and reluctantly seated himself. I felt that he should be taught a lesson. “You’ve hurried over the marked passages,” I told him. “Would you be so good as to repeat them slowly?”
My patent displeasure seemed to have not the slightest effect on him. As he was leaving the room at three twenty, I gave him a last chance to abandon his deceitful attitude. “Is there something you’d like to tell me, Grosvenor?” I asked. For a moment his expression was so much like his father’s that I was startled. He smiled in that dreadful, secretive way that Harley had and said, “No, Mother, there’s nothing I’d like to tell you.” I heard him whistling as he hurried down the stairs, and I noted with surprise that he had left his green bottle of capsules on my table.
In a moment Martha came into the room. “If you want to see why he was in such a rush,” she told me, “just look out the window.” Without pausing to reprimand Martha for eavesdropping on the reading hour — she always has since the day Grosvenor brought home the book by that dreadful D. H. Lawrence — I summoned my energy and walked to the window.
Through my field glasses I saw Grosvenor limping swiftly toward a young woman who came forward to meet him. “She’s been waiting on the corner of Spruce and Summit since three o’clock,” Martha told me. “She was there last Saturday, too.”
Louisa, this person has nothing to recommend her. She is plain, badly dressed, utterly lacking in style, and very nearly Grosvenor’s own age. In feature she rather resembles yourself, and she has a quantity of brown hair pulled back from her face with unbecoming simplicity.
Their exhibition on meeting was disgusting. She held out her hand and Grosvenor shook it rather formally. Then he grasped her left hand as well, behaving more like a schoolboy than a man of thirty four, and they stood clasping hands in the middle of Spruce Street. Grosvenor said something and Miss Trent laughed, for what reason I couldn’t determine. After a moment Grosvenor began to laugh, too. Then he took her arm and they walked off toward Summit Avenue.
This simply cannot go on. I intend to take steps immediately.
Your friend,
Broome Park
April 12th
Dear Louisa,
I have just been subjected to a frightful scene. I am utterly exhausted. Only the fact that I am completely in the right gives me the strength to go on.
I resolved to confront Grosvenor with my knowledge of his connection with this woman at our reading hour today. Knowing only too well how rebellious my son is to guidance from myself, I decided to enlist the aid of Dr. Low, whom for some reason Grosvenor respects. After luncheon I sent Martha to summon him.
I must admit Stephen Low arrived promptly. He burst into the room, his face pale and his coat unbuttoned. He stared in astonishment as he saw me sitting upright on the chaise longue. “For God s sake, Sarah,” he said, not very cordially, “what’s all this about? Martha told me you’d had an attack.”
I knew very well what Martha had told him. “Sit down, Stephen,” I said. “This is important.”
“So are my patients, regardless of what you seem to think.” However, he sat down and gave me his attention. He glanced at my new, blue dressing gown and my hair which I’d had Martha dress high especially for the occasion. “Well, my imperishable Sarah, what job do you have for me this time?” he asked. “Is there a grave you want robbed, or merely an old friend to be quietly put out of the way?”
I ignored his tasteless humor. “I have discovered that Grosvenor is involved with a woman, Stephen. I intend to talk to him about it today. I need your help.”
“Do I understand that you want me to give Grosvenor a belated talk on the facts of life?”
Naturally, I ignored the question. I would have given Dr. Low an idea of what I planned to say, but at that instant Grosvenor knocked.
Louisa, I wish I could tell you that my son denied the charges with which I confronted him. But I cannot. When I was finished, Grosvenor said, “Let me congratulate you, Mother. For once you seem to be right about something.”
Dr. Low opened his mouth to remonstrate, but I signaled him to be silent. “May I ask if you’re planning to marry this woman?” I inquired.
Grosvenor looked at me defiantly. “If she’ll have me, yes. I haven’t asked her yet.”
What a relief it was to me that the affair had not yet reached the stage of betrothal! I knew that gentle firmness on my part could still avert catastrophe.
“My dear boy,” I said, with considerable sympathy in my tone, “I see that the time has come when Dr. Low and I must talk to you very seriously about the state of your health.”
Dr. Low gave me a startled glance but fortunately Grosvenor didn’t see it. He stared at me, apprehension dawning in his face. I pursued my advantage. “Out of consideration for your feelings, Grosvenor, Dr. Low has kept it from you but, frankly, you will never be well enough to marry.”
Suddenly Grosvenor covered his face with his hands. I realized that our battle was nearly won. “If you really care for this young woman, you won’t burden her with someone who might well end his days as an invalid,” I pointed out reasonably, and made a gesture indicating to Dr. Low that he was free to corroborate what I had said. I had no wish for him to lie, of course. What I had told Grosvenor might very possibly be so. Who can predict the future?
Louisa, you simply will not credit what happened next. Stephen Low, my friend of half a century’s standing, the man who had always claimed to care for me, a physician whose first duty is surely toward his patient, stood there and calmly gave me the lie!
“That’s utter nonsense, Sarah,” he said. “There’s not a thing wrong with Grosvenor except acute hypochondriasis.”
Grosvenor’s hands were trembling as he took them from his face. “You’re sure?” he said.
Dr. Low put his arm around Grosvenor’s shoulders. I could have slapped them both. “Of course I’m sure! It’s just your mother’s imagination working overtime again. She worries about you too much.”
Grosvenor laughed unpleasantly. “Is that it, Mother?” he asked. “Do you worry about me too much? Is all this sheer excess of mother love?”
Dr. Low tried to protest, but Grosvenor turned savagely and limped toward the door. He left without even saying goodbye.
Louisa, I must admit to you that at this point I nearly became panic-stricken. It seemed highly possible that Dr. Low, by his stupidity, had driven Grosvenor straight into the arms of this woman. When Stephen Low turned to me and said, “Sometimes I wonder about these little blind spots of yours, Sarah,” I lost control of myself completely. I told him to leave my house and never to return.
He laughed that infuriatingly inane laugh of his and reached in his bag for his hypodermic needle. “Hate to be caught, don’t you, Sarah? Roll up that pretty sleeve. It’s time for your injection.”
I repeated my orders to him. He stared at me as though I could not possibly be serious.
“I’ve endured your incompetence long enough,” I told him. “I’ve kept you on mostly out of pity for you. You’ve repaid me with disloyalty of the worst sort. Now I want you to leave.”