She raced through the letter, pausing at the most weighty passages: It seems that Alfred, who could hardly wait for me to join the company, now can’t see me gone soon enough . . . A cheque will arrive for you next week as usual, but it will be the last from Knopf . . . There are several writing projects which I will with all vigor pursue in hopes of procuring some stream of income . . . I don’t care a jot about my personal comfort. I’d rather live as a wharf rat than use any of the money you’ll need for the girls . . . You may hit on the notion of my selling the Lincoln, but it’s still chugging along, and I’m loath to sacrifice it unless the situation becomes dire . . . There’s bound to be some work for me in New York, and though I’m not well at present, I shall turn all my meager energies toward finding it . . . Meantime, I know you’ll manage the house and bills with your usual diligence . . . I will stay here in the City in my shabby apartment with Margaret, for we will bear this hardship together.
Was he living with that girl? She’d suspected it. Did he have no decency? How despicable—visiting scandal and misfortune on his innocent daughters. And that Margaret Whipple: Didn’t she have parents to warn her about the impropriety of cohabiting with a married man? What kind of people did she come from, anyway?
By the next morning, she’d decided she must act. She and her girls couldn’t survive without Wilson’s cheques, and she was dubious of his plans to provide for them (as well as for himself and that vamp). She arranged for the girls to visit a neighbor and called Alfred Knopf. She knew Wilson would disapprove. But someone had to take care of their children, especially now that his rash actions imperiled them.
She asked Mr. Knopf: Hadn’t Wilson been a hard-working and talented editor? Yes, but he’d shown dreadfully poor judgment. Alfred had put Wilson in charge of the office while he and his wife spent a month in Europe. And Wilson had rewarded his confidence by installing Miss Whipple at the desk next to his, throwing the office into disarray from which it still hadn’t recovered, to say nothing of fueling the rumor mill with his rakish conduct. But couldn’t he, she pleaded, admonish Wilson and give him another chance? No, it was impossible; he’d lost all esteem for him. Furthermore, if Wilson chose to run around with that girl, how could he ever again count on him?
“No, my dear,” Knopf said, “though I sympathize with your plight, I won’t take Wilson back. I can only advise you in the strongest terms not to let him off the hook when it comes to supporting his family.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Knopf. I can certainly appreciate your position.”
She sat there, stunned. It was stupefying—Wilson destroying his reputation with Knopf by cavorting with a girl only six years older than Barbara.
She hurried out the front door to retrieve Barbara and Sabra from Adele Tyler. Adele lived only two blocks away, but Helen ended up zigzagging nearly a mile to clear her mind, railing the whole time: The man’s utterly contemptible. I cannot believe his depravity. May he get what he deserves with that girl. She’s young enough to be his daughter. Does he imagine she’ll stay with him when he’s feeble and crotchety? He’ll be in for a big surprise if he comes crying to me that he was wrong about her.
That evening she composed a letter to Anne and Oxford Meservey, dear family friends since Dartmouth days. Wilson had always looked up to Oxford, who’d taken him under his wing at the College. She asked if they might somehow intervene—perhaps invite Wilson to visit so they could impress upon him his responsibility to his family and the foolishness of an affair with a woman half his age. At the very least, someone must tell him he was damaging his prospects for a respectable post by persisting with such indecorous conduct.
Two weeks later, she received a letter from them reporting on Wilson’s response to their invitation: If this was some disquisition they were mounting, he would not be a party to it. Besides, accepting an invitation that excluded Miss Whipple was out of the question. If they truly wished to be a part of his life, they should visit him in New York. And if they did so, they must respect his station as a man entirely devoted to the only woman he’d ever found who apprehended and appreciated him. Furthermore, their apparent presumptions about himself and Miss Whipple did not come within a cannon shot of what they meant to each other. In short, he was unalterably opposed to exposing Miss Whipple or himself to circumstances under which she would be treated as an interloper.
Helen wrote back immediately, thanking Anne and Oxford for not sparing her the truth. She explained Wilson must be inhabiting a world constructed to justify his conduct. That was the only way to make sense of his actions, not only to Anne and Oxford but to herself, since exposing his disgrace to their friends and everyone else deeply embarrassed her.
But she couldn’t dwell on his dereliction, not with a family and home to tend and support. She still had access to their Connecticut Savings Bank account. Of course, that wouldn’t last long. She could afford the annual $1,000 principal bill on the house, but what of the semi-annual interest payments after that? And the taxes?
Perhaps she could find work as a teacher, although that’d require doing something with the girls during the day. She could ask Dr. Lowry’s sister, Adele Tyler, to watch them. Dr. Lowry understood only too well the straits they were in, and Adele had always been kind to
