The Heart Listens, page 1
The Heart Listens
Helen Van Slyke
“Graceful prose…portrays American twentieth century social history as reflected in the world of politics and business…An empathetic author shows incredible insight.”–BOOKLIST
“Helen Van Slyke tells a mighty good story.”–CLEVELAND PRESS
“No other modern writer is more gifted as a story-teller than the author of this absorbing novel…A masterpiece of fiction, full of romance, tragedy, and at the same time, strangely enough, much happiness.”–SUNDAY ADVOCATE, Baton Rouge, LA
For the dear friends who lightened this labor of love.
Contents
Copyright
Introduction
Part I: Boston 1905–1933
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Pari II: Georgetown 1933–1935
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Part III: Bethesda, Maryland 1935–1937
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part IV: Washington, D.C. 1937–1944
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part V: New York 1945–1948
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Part VI: Denver, Colorado 1948–1949
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part VII: California 1949–1972
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
CALIFORNIA
1972
The hands were soft and thin now. Almost birdlike as they rested lightly on the arms of the chair. She pretended that they belonged to someone else, some woman other than Elizabeth Quigly. It was a game she enjoyed playing, fantasizing that she was some chance acquaintance meeting and making a quick assessment of herself. What would a stranger have thought of those neat, idle hands with their oval-shaped, unpolished nails, the beginnings of the faint swelling of arthritis at the joints? He would not have seen a bruise or a callus to betray all the years of hard work. There was not even a nicotine stain to commemorate the hundreds of thousands of cigarettes which hadn’t killed her yet, though the doctors kept saying they would. Just as they said that the martinis she loved would be the death of her.
Elizabeth smiled. Poor, dumb stranger. He would have pegged her as a pampered old lady, rolling gently into her sixty-eighth year, her days spent in serene contemplation of the picture-postcard scenery outside her window. A surface analysis. Deceptive, as most are. It had been nearly fifty years since anyone had pampered Elizabeth. Many had loved her. Not a few had used her. Some, she liked to think, had benefited by knowing her. But none had pampered her. It was not a word one used in thinking of this handsome, white-haired woman with the alert blue eyes, the quick humor, the sturdy, competent air. “Elizabeth is so incredibly self-sufficient,” they said. As though she never needed a shoulder to weep on, arms to shield her, quiet words to gentle away the hurts and fears. “Elizabeth can take care of herself,” they said. And so she had.
Nor, dear stranger, was she serene. The quality mistaken for serenity is control, self-discipline. And, most of all, pride. She had built the myth of capability, fostered it. In a strange way, she supposed, even enjoyed it. Now she was stuck with it. Her still clear gaze took in the great stretch of beach below her, the restless Pacific assaulting the great black rocks, the stretch of arrogant, unassailable Monterey pines scattered like an army of memories across her line of vision. She sat quietly. And inside she laughed at herself. And at the giant joke that calls itself life.
PART I
BOSTON
1905–1933
CHAPTER 1
Ann Treadwell Quigly was the first of her friends or family to have a baby in a hospital. In 1905 it was considered suitable to give birth at home, preferably in the same bed in which the mother and her mother and her mother’s mother had been born. A bed that had come to America from England or Ireland and been handed down, reverently, through the generations to receive each succeeding infant. Ann would have none of it. This was her fourth pregnancy but her first child. And after three miscarriages, she was far less interested in tradition than in safely producing the son that Charles so desperately wanted. “New England antiques are fine for tea parties,” she said crisply, “but with my history of nonreproduction I’d much rather look at sterile instruments in a delivery room than at Great-aunt Charlotte’s dauntless old face staring at me from the foot of my bed.”
Her adoring Charles agreed in this, as he did in the case of nearly everything Ann made up her mind to do. He was a gentle, loving man, soft-spoken and devoted to this woman whose mind was as strong as her body was delicate. He did, indeed, want children. And his disappointment at their failure to have them was as great as Ann’s, though he took pains to keep that fact well hidden. “We have each other, Annie,” he reassured her when she raged against her inability to go full term in her pregnancies.
“Nonsense,” she said. “You, Mr. Quigly, are going to have a fine, strapping son if I have to die trying.”
The words turned out to be frighteningly ominous but only partially true. Ann Quigly did die trying. And though she produced a healthy, nine-pound baby, it was not the son she had predicted but a beautiful little girl whom a heartbroken Charles named Elizabeth. His family and his wife’s pleaded with him to name the baby after Ann, but he refused. “There is only one Ann,” he said. “Always was. Always will be for me.” Out of courtesy to the relatives, he compromised by giving his daughter her mother’s name as a middle name, but aside from her baptismal certificate, it was never used. “Ann and I were both fascinated by Elizabeth the First,” he explained. “Such a proud yet loving queen. She had compassion with strength of purpose. A woman of tender fire. I want this child to have dignity and courage. As her mother had.”
He never discussed it again. She was Elizabeth Quigly. Never Beth. Or Betty. Or Liz. Or Liza. Elizabeth suited her, for she did indeed, from infancy, have a kind of regal bearing that went with her name. She was a solemn baby, almost as though she knew what was expected of her. As a child, it was evident that she had her mother’s high spirits and determination, as well as Ann’s beautiful face. And she had, as well, the good mind, the humor, and the soft understanding of Charles Quigly.
“It’s God’s blessing,” Ann’s mother said. “She’s everything that my own dear daughter was, and more. There’s much of the good of you in Elizabeth, too. What a great joy she is, Charles. And how happy Ann must be, knowing that she has left you such a precious living memory.”
The bereaved husband could never quite look at it that way. He was still a young man, yet the thought of remarriage did not occur to him. He knew that a life built around a “living memory” was an incomplete existence, yet he was incapable of giving of himself to another woman in any permanent sense. His life was almost monastic. He sought forgetfulness in his work as a professor at Harvard, happiness in the company of his lively daughter. And he waited, without real hope, for grief to subside. Amazingly, he did not spoil Elizabeth. He tried to be both mother and father to her, thankful that he was sufficiently advanced in the knowledge of psychology not to blame her, even subconsciously, for the loss of the woman who never could be replaced. Occasionally he cheerlessly paid for the physical relief afforded by some prostitute who would never be seen again. And on these rare occasions he returned to the house in Cambridge therapeutically restored, drained and untouched as though he had endured some boring but necessary exercise. He lived, not entirely for Elizabeth, but for the sense of security he could bring her. He did all he could to compensate for her “lopsided life.” And Elizabeth understood and adored him.
She grew up as her own person. Sometimes a puzzling one. Beneath the circumspect, predictable exterior of the well-bred Boston girl there was another, unconventional Elizabeth, full of curiosity and a strange kind of hunger for life. She accepted, gracefully, the “outer trappings,” the comfortable, middle-class house near the university. The daily maid-cook. The seemingly endless supply of aunts and cousins and grandmothers always ready with advice about the preparation of meals, the intricacies of needlework and, later, the delicate facts of emerging womanhood. She did not go away to school. Charles urged it, but with Annlike determination she saw no need to leave the home or the father she loved. She had many friends, went to and gave parties, and indicated that she fully expected to marry a Bostonian and spend her life in the city of her birth.
That was the Elizabeth on public view. The other one was known only to herself and only glimpsed, briefly and disquietingly, by Charles. At sixteen, this pent-up Elizabeth was beginning to hammer ever so lightly at the bars of her comfortable cage. She arrived home at eleven o’clock one night from a party to which she had been escorted by a young man Charles knew and liked. Charles was reading in the library and Elizabeth came in and curled up on the floor beside his chair. She sighed deeply. Her father lowered his book.
“That sounded as though it had gre
She patted him lightly on the knee. “Parties aren’t dull, Professor. People are dull. At least the people I know are dull.”
“Thanks very much.”
“Not you, silly. People my age. They don’t care about anything important. My Lord, you’d think the world began and ended in Boston!”
Charles frowned. “And what do you think?”
Elizabeth’s chin went up in the determined gesture that was to stay with her through her life. “I think there’s a whole magic universe out there. Full of exciting places to go. Wonderful things to see. Danger, maybe, but that’s part of the gloriousness of it. There must be so many things to change. So much to do for other people. I’d like to reach out and scoop up experiences with both hands. But the people I know are only interested in getting through school and getting married and having babies and letting their whole lives go by without doing anything more exciting than belonging to the PTA! I wish I’d been a man and could have gone to Europe with the army! At least I’d have felt that I was helping to change something!”
Charles smiled. “My dear Elizabeth, I doubt that General Pershing would have accepted a twelve-year-old infantryman. Even one as high-spirited as you.”
She laughed. “Don’t tease, Father. You know what I mean. People are so self-centered. All they care about is their own well-being. Nice, safe, selfish lives. They’ll die and nobody will know they ever lived. I can’t bear that idea. My life is going by and I want it to mean something!”
“For heaven’s sake, child, you’re only sixteen.”
“Sixteen, sixty, what’s the difference? People are so stupid. So lacking in curiosity. Haven’t you ever wanted to accomplish great, exciting things, Father?”
He shook his head. “I guess I’m one of those without curiosity. All I ever wanted was my work. And you. And your mother.”
She felt ashamed. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Charles said. “If the world didn’t have people like you, Elizabeth, it would be a very dull place indeed. Like one gigantic library, I suppose. All dark and hushed and somber. Living would be a terribly pedestrian business without the impatient ones. The seekers. Always searching for something new, something relevant to leave their mark on. Always on tiptoe, anticipating discovery. Such people find change as necessary as the air they breathe.”
“Is that a bad way to be?”
“No,” he said, “but it can be dangerous. Or heartbreaking. Or both.”
She looked puzzled.
“What I mean is, my dear, that when you plunge into such ambitious waters, you can drown in a sea of disappointment. You yourself become vulnerable. People can disappoint you cruelly. Sometimes, the more you try to help, the more harm you do, to yourself and others. Helping others can be a thankless task. I don’t mean helping in the sense of church or charity. I mean taking a hand in other people’s destinies. Giving of yourself, your knowledge, your understanding, is a wonderful thing, Elizabeth, as long as you keep it in perspective. Sometimes, you know, it’s possible to confuse crusading with ego. You’ve got to remember that you’re not God. He helps but He never meddles. He doesn’t need that kind of self-gratification.”
“I don’t understand,” Elizabeth said.
“Nor should you. Even if my philosophy were a little less obscure, you’re a bit young to understand. And perhaps I am misconstruing simple youthful restlessness as exaggerated zeal. Let me give you one example, though, before we drop the subject. Do you remember your cousin Natalie?”
“The one who lives in New York?”
“That’s the one. Your second cousin, really. She was your mother’s cousin. Anyway, Natalie was a seeker. Anyone with a hard-luck story headed straight for Natalie. And if they didn’t, she went looking for them. Your mother used to say that Natalie surrounded herself with the ‘waifs and strays’–people with money problems or romantic problems or job problems. Your cousin counseled them and mothered them and tried to sort out their lives and took their troubles on her shoulders. She was so busy saving the world that she never thought about the course of her own life.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Elizabeth asked.
“Nothing. Except that one day Natalie realized why she was doing it. I’ll never know what brought her to the realization. Somebody kicked her in the teeth pretty hard, I guess. Anyway, she finally faced a cold, hard fact. She wasn’t really selflessly trying to help these people. At least, that wasn’t her primary motivation. The real impetus was that appearing all-wise and indispensable gave her more satisfaction than it gave help to the people whose lives she literally took over. She was subconsciously bolstering her own ego. Playing God, if you will. The only way she could feel important to herself was by seeming to be a very superior person in relation to a lot of very inadequate people. She thought she was changing the world. Or a small part of it. But what she was doing was using weaklings to strengthen her own very insecure opinion of herself. She couldn’t compete with competent folk, so she made herself high priestess of a bunch of parasites. Does that make any sense to you whatsoever?”
“I’m not sure,” Elizabeth said slowly. “I guess what you’re saying is that if you do things for the right reasons–or at least if you understand why you’re doing them–it’s okay to help people. Otherwise you’re just fooling yourself. Is that it?”
Charles kissed her on the forehead. “More or less. Close enough for now. Anyway, the main point is, don’t start worrying about conquering the world just yet. When you’re needed, the right people will find you. And not necessarily the waifs and strays, please God.”
Elizabeth stood up. “By the way, did Cousin Natalie ever end up doing anything important?”
“You bet she did. She married a nice, solid stockbroker without a neurosis to his name. They have three kids and live in Greenwich, Connecticut. Isn’t that important?”
“I’m not sure,” Elizabeth repeated.
The midnight conversation with her father troubled and rather disappointed Elizabeth. For the first time she felt that he did not understand her. All that rigmarole about Cousin Natalie’s waifs and strays seemed pointless. Elizabeth did not admire weak people. On the contrary, she had something closely approaching impatience with them. The people she knew now were weak, she thought. That’s why they bored her. If she had her way she’d give them all a good shaking. “Wake up!” she’d say. “Life is out there waiting to be lived!” But that was different from trying to solve their problems for them. She didn’t want to change their limited outlook. She simply refused to accept it for herself. She was amazed that Charles Quigly did not grasp that. She would never be a Natalie with a self-deluding early life and a stereotyped middle age. Never. Nor would she wait for the right people to come to her when she was needed. It was too early now, but in a few years she would find the answers to all her unformed questions. She would not die as her mother had, knowing nothing but the mundane satisfaction of producing a child. And then not even truly knowing the full joy of that.
In bed, she opened her Bible, as she’d been trained all her life to do. Wouldn’t it be funny, she thought, if I accidentally picked the passage that said, “Seek and ye shall find.” She chose a page at random. She’d missed it by a mile.
Three years later, Charles brought home a guest for dinner. He had phoned earlier to say that the son of an old school friend had come to see him and Charles had invited him to take potluck that evening. “Sorry to give you such short notice,” he said, “but he seemed so lonely that I couldn’t resist.”
Elizabeth was completely unruffled. She had long since learned to manage the house and preside graciously on the rare occasions when Charles invited guests–usually other professors and their wives–for an evening at the Quiglys’. It was no problem to have Delia set another place. The roast chicken would easily feed one more and there were vegetables and dessert enough to accommodate the unexpected addition.
“Sounds fine,” she assured Charles. “Is he madly handsome?”
“Madly.”
“New in town?”
