Patterson was pleased to have Lucy and Oliver living just a half-dozen streets away from him. They were a center of gayety and life in a way that Patterson and his wife never could be, and in his role of old friend and then family doctor, Patterson was in and out of the house three or four times a week, sharing impromptu meals, invited to all parties, acting not only as a doctor to the little boy, but appointed uncle, the recipient of confidences, giver of advice (to Lucy only; Oliver never asked anyone for advice), planner of vacations and week-ends, bridge partner and privileged philosopher around the family fire. The Crown house became the center for a good many of the more attractive younger married people of the city, and it was at their dinner table that Patterson met, in different years, two pretty ladies with whom he later had affairs.
Whether Oliver and Lucy knew about the two ladies or about the other liaisons, secret and not so secret, that were inevitable in a circle like that in the 1920s and early 1930s, Patterson never knew. Neither of them gossiped or encouraged gossip and neither of them, in all that time, ever showed, for a moment, any interest in anybody else. It was a little surprising in Oliver, who before his marriage had been an easy and equal companion to the pilots and other jovial thugs with whom he had come out of the war. But with each passing year, he seemed to become more singly and happily devoted to his wife, not sentimentally or cloyingly, but with a frank gift of virility and confidence that made Patterson’s marriage, when he thought of it, which was as seldom as possible, seem barren and without purpose.
As for Lucy, the move to a smaller city and the preoccupation with the child made her seem more adult and at ease, and it was only at rare moments, at big parties, when Oliver would be, as usual, the center of a group and she found herself half-neglected in a corner, that the old impression that Patterson had had of her—that she was a visitor to the marriage, not a half-owner of it, would occur to him again.
They only had the one child. Tony was a bright and handsome little boy with very good manners, whose only disability from being an only child seemed to be a too nervous attachment to his mother. When Lucy was not in the house when he came home from school, or was late in returning from shopping, the boy developed the habit of waiting for her, sitting on her bed, and calling, on the bedside telephone table, the various friends at whose houses he felt his mother might be found. His grave, soft voice, saying, “Hello, this is Tony Crown. I wonder if my mother happens to be with you. Thank you. No, there’s no emergency,” became familiar over the telephones of ten different houses. Oliver, who, naturally, was displeased with the habit, spoke of him, half-fondly, half-annoyed, as “The Caller.”
As Patterson pointed out, there was nothing wrong with the little boy that a few brothers and sisters wouldn’t cure, but for some reason Lucy never conceived again, and by the time Tony was ten, the Crowns had given up hope o£ ever having any more children.
Those years Patterson was to regard as being the best of his life. The reason for that was not of course only the Crowns, or even primarily the Crowns. It was in that period that Patterson was establishing himself and prospering and feeling horizons opening out steadily ahead of him. But the background of the home of the Crowns, with its open door, its easy freedom, with the friendship of Oliver, and the shy warmth of Lucy and the devotion of the little boy, doubly valuable since he was himself childless, made a brightly colored setting to Patterson’s other successes that he could find nowhere else. And the feeling that he had toward Lucy, which at one time or another he described, but only to himself, and then only with a little laugh, as love, gave a new flicker of expectation and secret pleasure to him whenever he stood at
Whether Oliver and Lucy knew about the two ladies or about the other liaisons, secret and not so secret, that were inevitable in a circle like that in the 1920s and early 1930s, Patterson never knew. Neither of them gossiped or encouraged gossip and neither of them, in all that time, ever showed, for a moment, any interest in anybody else. It was a little surprising in Oliver, who before his marriage had been an easy and equal companion to the pilots and other jovial thugs with whom he had come out of the war. But with each passing year, he seemed to become more singly and happily devoted to his wife, not sentimentally or cloyingly, but with a frank gift of virility and confidence that made Patterson’s marriage, when he thought of it, which was as seldom as possible, seem barren and without purpose.
As for Lucy, the move to a smaller city and the preoccupation with the child made her seem more adult and at ease, and it was only at rare moments, at big parties, when Oliver would be, as usual, the center of a group and she found herself half-neglected in a corner, that the old impression that Patterson had had of her—that she was a visitor to the marriage, not a half-owner of it, would occur to him again.
They only had the one child. Tony was a bright and handsome little boy with very good manners, whose only disability from being an only child seemed to be a too nervous attachment to his mother. When Lucy was not in the house when he came home from school, or was late in returning from shopping, the boy developed the habit of waiting for her, sitting on her bed, and calling, on the bedside telephone table, the various friends at whose houses he felt his mother might be found. His grave, soft voice, saying, “Hello, this is Tony Crown. I wonder if my mother happens to be with you. Thank you. No, there’s no emergency,” became familiar over the telephones of ten different houses. Oliver, who, naturally, was displeased with the habit, spoke of him, half-fondly, half-annoyed, as “The Caller.”
As Patterson pointed out, there was nothing wrong with the little boy that a few brothers and sisters wouldn’t cure, but for some reason Lucy never conceived again, and by the time Tony was ten, the Crowns had given up hope o£ ever having any more children.
Those years Patterson was to regard as being the best of his life. The reason for that was not of course only the Crowns, or even primarily the Crowns. It was in that period that Patterson was establishing himself and prospering and feeling horizons opening out steadily ahead of him. But the background of the home of the Crowns, with its open door, its easy freedom, with the friendship of Oliver, and the shy warmth of Lucy and the devotion of the little boy, doubly valuable since he was himself childless, made a brightly colored setting to Patterson’s other successes that he could find nowhere else. And the feeling that he had toward Lucy, which at one time or another he described, but only to himself, and then only with a little laugh, as love, gave a new flicker of expectation and secret pleasure to him whenever he stood at
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