Free The Waterworks by E. L. Doctorow Page B

was this an entirely and forever combative family? But then the rudeness to a concerned pastor—a proven friend of her husband’s—had to be accounted for. If Sarah Pemberton and Martin were completely severed from each other she would still respond, if only to affirm that.
    The answer was provided by the Reverend himself, who informed me in a note that he now had met with Mrs. Pemberton, who was staying at the home of her late husband’s sister, Mrs. Thornhill, on East Thirty-eighth Street. So this was the comforting humdrum answer. Sarah Pemberton and her son, Noah, were not in residence at Ravenwood, and his letter had simply been delayed in forwarding. In any event she had taken quite seriously his observations concerning Martin’s mental state … and had spoken with Emily Tisdale and now hoped, in his words, “that I would call on her to discuss the matter.”
    So there I was, in the midst of things, who only felt honest outside of them … but flattered, to tell you the truth, by my inclusion in the private discourse of family, fiancée, and pastor. I arranged to call in the early evening, after the final edition of the Telegram was under the arms of the homeward bound.
    The Thornhill home at 60 East Thirty-eighth Street was a brownstone in a row of them, with trees lining the sidewalk. This was a preferred northern neighborhood of the wealthy … just a few quiet blocks from the reservoir, in fact. I don’t know what I had expected of a stepmother, but Sarah Pemberton was the loveliest, most pacific of human beings, a mature beauty in her late thirties, I would say, more womanly than the piquant and honest Miss Tisdale, with a fuller, larger frame and a paradoxically placid manner, on which her trials had made no apparent inroads. She had light blue untroubled eyes. She wore her dark hair parted in the middle and tight over the temples.A wonderful curved, clear forehead, white as alabaster … like the housing for a soul. She was a calm, handsome woman, one of those who with the least attention to themselves maintain their good looks … with an effortless grace, everything about her harmonious, unforced, and her voice a low melodious alto—but all of this making, finally, an odd impression on me, given the circumstances I was about to be informed of.
    “Shall I ask for coffee or tea? They grumble, but they bring it.”
    I assumed she meant Mrs. Thornhill’s servants, whose loyalties did not, presumably, extend to her houseguests.
    The atmosphere was oppressive. This was summer, you understand, not long after Independence Day—coming uptown in my hackney I’d noticed people still had the red and blue colored papers in their windowpanes with the candles shining through. The sitting room was furnished with a plush sofa, end tables inlaid with mosaic, and needlepoint chairs that were too small to sit in comfortably, and some quite bad European landscapes. The bay window was covered with a velour drapery of the darkest red. There was no concession to summer in this room.
    “Mrs. Thornhill is very advanced in years,” Sarah said by way of explanation. “She is sensitive to drafts and complains often of the cold.” And then with a self-deprecating smile: “We old widows are like that, you know.”
    I asked her how long it had been since she had seen her stepson.
    “A few weeks … perhaps a month. I’d assumed he was busy. He says he earns his pay by the word. That would keep anyone busy, wouldn’t it? I thought it was you who might be keeping him occupied, Mr. McIlvaine.”
    “Unfortunately not.”
    “Since speaking with Dr. Grimshaw I can only hope Martin is doing what he’s always done. He goes off by himself. He did that as a boy. He broods, he sulks. I can’t think anything would happen to him that is not under his control.”
    “He told Grimshaw and he told me …” I hesitated.
    “… his father was alive. I know. My poor Martin. You have to appreciate that with Augustus’s death,