Eck.
Another cut. More blood.
He pressed on, carefully, learning to let the razor glide over his skin, shearing the whiskers with newfound ease as the blood flow intensified. He finished, rinsed his face in the now pink water, then set about applying alum to the cuts as Maud had instructed him. His blood stopped leaking but he felt new pain from the alum’s stypticity. He dried his face and stared at himself in the mirror. He concluded he would have to shave regularly from now on, a relentless obligation. He would, in spite of all, develop an awesome talent for shaving himself. He could feel that. He would be very good at what he did. Maud had predicted that.
Life does seem to conspire against the lofting of the spirit, does it not? Quinn came down clean-shaven from the bathroom and looked for Maud. He asked the footman if he’d seen her and the man said he had not.
Quinn went to the veranda and sat in the largest wicker rocker in North America. In the waning sunlight of the afternoon he mused on beauty, wealth, women, and the brilliance of the person who had invented shaving soap. He studied the architecture of Obadiah’s veranda with its twisted columns and the perfection of its paint, which seemed ever new. He relished the rolling symmetry of the lawn and gardens, the trellises and arches, the beds of roses and lush stands of mature trees. He felt a profound serenity overtaking him and he began to doze. He was awakened by the footman, who asked if he cared for tea. Obadiah had seen him napping and thought the tea might brace him. Quinn smiled and said yes, tea would be pleasant.
He rocked, no longer worrying where Maud might be. He knew she would be along, probably in a new dress, or in a peculiar costume, or with a new hairdo. Whatever her look, her mood would be the reverse of what it had been when they parted. She would be effusive, flirtatious. She would open her mouth and pretend to kiss him. She would tell him stories of old Spain, or of majestic horseback riding, or of her mother and the King, or she would reveal arcane secrets of love that Magdalena had passed on to her.
Quinn equated Maud with his Celtic potato platter: both of them agents of change and illusion, both of uncertain origin and significance — the platter waiting underground for another generation to unearth it, quantifying its own value and mystery in the shallow grave; and Maud propounding mysteries of the cosmos with every Maudbreath. Buried, they eluded. Resurrected, they grew lustrous.
The footman brought tea and cucumber sandwiches. Quinn apologized for not liking cucumbers and asked was there an alternative. The footman said he would speak with the cook, and returned with caviar canapés, diced celery, and raw peppers. Quinn tasted and loathed each in turn, an awareness dawning in him that something was amiss. It was unlikely that so many foods chosen by a chef should all displease him. Negative matter was being imposed on him. He wondered if Maud’s spirits were stalking him. He saw dusk settling on Obadiah’s landscape and imagined himself starving to death while the footman brought him an unending stream of food samplers: lamb’s eyes and bull’s testicles, goat fritters and fried pigskin. These would be perfectly cooked, elegantly off ered. Quinn would reject each, and passersby would soon notice his weight loss.
Obadiah sat down in the rocker next to him.
“Enjoying yourself?” Obadiah asked.
“I enjoyed the tea, but I wonder what’s keeping Maud.”
“No one has seen her since last night. She’s not in her room.”
“I was with her today. We took a carriage ride and came back here so I could shave with John McGee’s razor. I sat here to wait for her. She’s a girl of a different sort.”
“A different sort exactly,” said Obadiah. “No one has seen her since last night.”
“I was with her today. We took a carriage ride.”
“If you say so.”
“What do you mean, if I say so?”
“Well, you’re a young lad.”
“I was with her.”
“If you say so.”
“I do,” said Quinn.
“A horse is missing. From the stable.”
“A horse?”
“One of my horses. A horse.”
“Where did it go?”
“Well, that’s certainly a question. Where did it go?”
“Do you think Maud took the horse?”
“It’s been suggested.”
“Maud wouldn’t steal a horse.”
“Perhaps she’s only out riding. But she’s been gone since last night and so has the horse, and no one has seen either one of them.”
“I have. I was with her today. We took a carriage ride.”
“So you’ve said. That’s quite extraordinary. But no one has seen her since last night.”
“I have. We took a carriage ride.”
“I think you should stop saying that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s your truth. It’s certainly not my truth. I wasn’t out for a ride with anybody today.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“But you keep contradicting me. The fact is that no one wants you around here. You come in and use the razor and sit on the veranda and reject my food and now you tell me I’m a liar.”
“I didn’t say that. Where is Maud, anyway?”
“We would all prefer it if you went somewhere else and asked your questions.”
“I want to see Maud.”
“You’ll have a long wait. She’s run away with my roan stallion.”
“She knew I was waiting for her.”
“She took her bag.”
“She took her bag?”
“No one has seen her since last night.”
“I have. Where is Magdalena? Where is John?”
“They don’t want to see you. You better go along now, like a good fellow. My carriage will take you to the village.”
“How do I know Maud is gone?”
“No one has seen her since last night.”
“I have, we took a carriage ride.”
Obadiah stood up. Quinn resisted standing, but here was the man ejecting him from his home. Quinn stood.
Two days later he returned and asked for Maud. The footman said she had not been seen in three days. Quinn asked to see Magdalena and John but was told they were not at home. The footman told Quinn he was no longer welcome at the Griswold estate.
Quinn returned to Mrs. Trim’s rooming house on Phila Street and stood looking out of the window of his room at people walking and talking with one another on the sidewalk. He grew irrationally jealous of these amiable strangers and decided to lie upon his bed until the jealousy passed. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, until he felt the energy of his hostility wane. He perceived that he was not angry with Maud. He dwelled on that and felt humiliated, abandoned, and lost yet again. This condition sickened him, an emetic to his soul.
He went back to the window and looked down at the people on the street. They had become normal. He liked them now, liked the way they preened in their finery: fashion on the hoof, style on parade.
He framed Maud’s face in his memory.
This girl, he said to himself, is beyond your control. She has excluded you from her future. Well, so be it. Forget her. This part of my life is over and I will suck up to no one. I am done with all the tattered nonsense of first love. The word itself caught in my throat: love. In the years ahead I would be unable to abide all the fatuous love palaver that would assault my ears. Humming “Kathleen Mavourneen,” I packed my bag. But I caught myself humming and knew what it meant. I stopped humming, thinking: Done. Yes. Done.