Things of Endless Joy

by Keri Cronin

The door to Richard’s study was closed as Susanna knew it would be. Books were piled haphazardly in the hallway, stacked akimbo as if each individual volume was plotting its slow escape. A cluster of loose papers atop one of the piles rustled as she walked by, the top sheet floating down to the carpet like a leaf in autumn. She picked it up and read the notations in Richard’s tidy handwriting. The words Nymphalis antiopa were written in large letters at the top, “Camberwell beauty/mourning cloak” in smaller script underneath.

Lepidopterology. She rolled the word around on her tongue, choking on her distaste. She thought of butterfly collecting as a dusty, old-fashioned pursuit. After all they had endured, she would never have guessed that it would be butterflies—those magical “flying flowers”—that would bring her so close to her breaking point.

Susanna hesitated in front of the closed door. She listened, her ear against the wood. What did she hope to hear? It was always the same. She knocked and when there was no answer she tentatively opened the door. Richard was seated at his desk, a drawer of pinned butterflies in front of him, pen in hand. He was labeling the most recent additions to his collection and didn’t look up. Susanna cleared her throat. He finally acknowledged her, raised his eyes in her direction. His glasses were askew, his hair an agitated tangle. He narrowed his gaze. “Yes?”

“I’m leaving for the New Year’s Eve party. Are you sure you won’t join me?”

“No, no. I have important work to do.” He sat up straighter in his chair, took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, and then looked at her for a moment. He smiled softly. “You do look lovely though, my dear.”

She blushed, aware that her dress was an extravagance they could hardly afford. She hadn’t been able to resist it; it had been so long since she had anything new or pretty. The dress was a deep sapphire blue, silk and sleeveless. A riot of beaded vines and flowers in a shimmering, slightly deeper shade of blue wove their way along the bodice. She had marveled at how, on each shoulder, the beads suddenly found order and arranged themselves into lines that reminded her of rays of sun in a child’s drawing. She paired the dress with a gauzy silver wrap that she secured at her throat with a brooch. When she bought this outfit she had felt a rush of exhilaration, but then it remained in her wardrobe unworn. What had she been thinking? They never went anywhere these days, the money could have been put to much better use.

Richard had answered her question and had gone right back to work. Susanna watched his hand glide over the page as his pen made looping repetitive motions. These notations, she knew, would be trimmed down and pinned with the unfortunate butterflies. Collected. Selected. Stuck behind glass for eternity while their brethren flitted freely. Whenever she voiced her opposition to the cruelty of his hobby, Richard reminded her that butterflies had short life spans anyhow. Somehow that made it worse in Susanna’s opinion.

But what did she know of killing? She bought meat neatly packaged from the butcher. And it was Richard who had nightmares of Ypres, who called out in the night for friends he would never see again. Was it any wonder that taking the life of a butterfly did not disturb him?

Susanna tried to be supportive of Richard’s hobby, understood he needed something to focus his mind on. She had heard tales of horror from others who came back. But Richard refused to talk about the war at all. Whenever she asked him about it, he said that she shouldn’t have to hear of such ugly things. It made her want to scream. But it was only when Richard was out of the house—when he went out with his butterfly net—that she gave herself permission to rage about all that had been lost. On her birthday, last August, she went out to the garden and threw one of his collecting jars at the crumbling stone wall of the old stable. The smashed shards remained there for weeks, winking in the sunshine until the grass grew tall and covered them up. If Richard had missed the jar he didn’t mention it.

If she were to shatter would he even notice?

Richard’s father had been a lepidopterist too, and it was his old gear that Richard now used. Apparently one of the collection cabinets that now graced their home had once been owned by the great Herman Strecker. As a boy Richard had been more into sports, found his father’s fascination with butterflies embarrassing. Are we inevitably drawn to what gave our ancestors comfort as we age? Susanna shuddered at the thought.

If Susanna had known how fleeting their youthful, joyful days together as newlyweds would be, she would have tried harder to hold tight to them. Fading memories of dancing, laughing, walking along the shore, and planning their future together were not enough to sustain her. How she wished she could have bottled those moments up and pinned them down the way Richard now preserved his precious butterflies.

She had felt a torrent of relief when Richard finally returned home, when she at last laid eyes on him. She wouldn’t let herself believe that the homecoming would actually happen until the very moment she saw him step off the train. He was more chiseled and somber than she had remembered, but he was there in the flesh. She could vividly recall the sense of release she felt in that moment, a whoosh as if a dam suddenly burst. An exhalation years in the making. She fell to her knees and sobbed along the train tracks as he gathered his kit bag and bid farewell to his traveling companions. The crowd had parted around Susanna the way a river diverts around a boulder.

The very afternoon of his return, Richard went up into the attic and retrieved his father’s old butterfly collecting equipment. Then came the ungodly sound of cabinets and bookcases being dragged across the floor. The light fixtures jumped and jiggled in response, but Susanna had just smiled to herself as she baked a chocolate cake to celebrate Richard’s homecoming. If her mother had been there she would have called up to Richard, bellowed at him to stop what he was doing lest the cake fall. Let it fall, Susanna had thought at the time. What did it matter? Richard was home and she knew the cake would taste ever so sweet no matter how it looked because they would be sharing it.

She had carefully laid out the lace tablecloth and set the iced cake next to a bowl of raspberries she had picked from the garden that morning. She brewed a fresh pot of tea and set out the finest china. She called up to Richard but he didn’t come down. She tried again, but there was no response. Eventually she took a slice of cake and some tea up to him in his study, her offering carefully balanced on a commemorative tray decorated with the solemn faces of King George V and Queen Mary.

The next morning Richard went out with a net to the meadow at the end of the road and returned with a butterfly in a jar. He was so proud of it, beaming as he held it up for Susanna to see. The insect’s wings were gray-blue, the color of a summer storm. As she leaned in closer she noticed a series of black dots and two bright orange spots near the bottom of each of the wings. They looked as though they had been daubed on with a delicate paint brush and she was about to ask Richard about them when the wings suddenly fluttered open. Susanna gasped, bringing her hands to her mouth in childlike delight as she marveled at the brilliant shimmering blue now before her. “An eastern tailed blue,” Richard had said proudly. Susanna watched the wings gently open and close, absolutely mesmerized. It was as if Richard had gone out and captured a shimmering jewel. She beamed at him. “Yes, you can see why Mr. Strecker calls butterflies things of endless joy,” he had said.

The next time she saw the blue butterfly, it had a pin through its thorax, forever stilled. She probably should have known this was to be its fate, but felt the shock of it so viscerally that she had no appetite for dinner that night. 

That ill-fated eastern tailed blue paved the way for dozens more specimens. Collections and supplies began to spill out from Richard’s study. They crowded the hallways and other nooks and crannies of their home. Susanna had declared the kitchen a butterfly free zone, but a shadow box with a dozen pinned specimens perched upon the mantle in the drawing room. She always tried to sit with her back to it, pretending it wasn’t there.

Susanna made excuses for Richard’s aloofness and absences, but knew that people talked. She was enraged by the pity in their eyes. She knew that she was lucky, that things could be so much worse. Richard was never violent towards her and he didn’t drink to excess. Was she to take some comfort that it was an intellectual pursuit that might bring their ruin instead? She knew that he might not have returned home at all. Many women her age had been widowed due to men’s follies. More than once she prayed for forgiveness after catching herself thinking that maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t come back from the front.

Susanna had felt a tickle of delight when the envelope from the Mosleys arrived last week. Their neighbors were known for their lavish New Year’s Eve parties. She held the invitation to her chest and imagined the sparkle and spectacle of the evening to come. Dancing in the candlelight, everyone in their finest. She had rushed up to tell Richard right away. His response had been disappointing and predictable.

This year she was determined to go, with or without him. But as she stepped outside she felt foolish, self-conscious. What would people say when she showed up alone? What was propelling her out the door and across the street towards party? The Mosley house glowed from inside, inviting, drawing her closer.

She had once asked Richard why moths seemed to be attracted to lamplight. “Simple phototaxis, my dear,” he had said. “They can’t help it.”

The party was loud, a jolt to her senses after the tomb-like silence of her own home. Everyone was talking at once, raising their voices to be heard over the band. Colors were too bright, the smells too harsh. It was an overwhelming potpourri and made Susanna feel slightly faint.

“Happy New Year, Mrs. Mosley,” she greeted her hostess and handed her a small jar. Last year’s pickles made festive with a scrap of ribbon.

Susanna was quickly absorbed into a lively circle of revelers talking excitedly about the solar eclipse that would be happening in January. You can’t look directly at it. Scientists coming from all over. Corona. Complete darkness. The words floated around her as she affixed what she hoped was an interested and inoffensive smile on her face. She could see across to their house from where she stood near the fireplace. The lamps in Richard’s study burned bright.

As the conversation twisted and turned, the man next to her leaned in closer, blocking her view out the window. He smelled of peppermint and whiskey. “And what are your plans for those minutes of extra darkness?” His voice was husky and low.

“I beg your pardon, Mr….?”

“Mr. Jack Watson at your service, madam.” He winked and bent closer to her, gently touching her hand as he did so. “Do you need a volunteer to keep you safe when the moon blocks out the sun?” These last words were whispered directly in her ear.

Susanna shoved Mr. Watson backwards, igniting a fit of cackles and catcalls amongst his friends. “How dare you! I am a married woman!”

“Ah yes, your husband,” Mr. Watson said, stepping back and making an exaggerated bow. “The great Captain Richard Marshall. And where might he be tonight?”

“Probably out in the meadow, fiddling with his pole and net,” one of Mr. Watson’s crew sniggered, putting his arm around his friend and steering him back over to the bar.

Susanna turned towards the window, gathering her composure. She studied her watery reflection in the glass, the party going on behind her. All she could think of were Richard’s butterflies.

She had had enough. Something had to change. She took a deep breath and then stormed over to the dining table laden with food. One of the silver platters of Oysters Rockefeller was nearly empty, only three shells remained. She picked it up and then made her way around the large table, adding more and more food onto it. Sugar glazed ham, deviled eggs, a pile of dinner rolls, and the bowl of olives for good measure. The band stopped playing, the revelers gasping at her atrocious manners. “Mrs. Marshall!” she heard her hostess exclaim. Susanna turned and grabbed a bottle of champagne from the ice bucket, bade everyone a happy 1925, and then made her exit.

Mrs. Mosley’s astonished housekeeper held the door for Susanna as she marched out into the crisp December evening with a platter in one hand and the expensive bottle of fizz in the other. She held her head high like a princess, fully aware that the party guests would be pressed against the window gawking and laughing at her. Her carefully polished leather strap shoes made the winter walk treacherous, and she nearly lost her footing as she stormed back over to the home she shared with Richard. For better, for worse. 

She let herself in their front door, awkwardly balancing the food in one hand and the bottle under one arm. She climbed the stairs and tapped on the door of Richard’s study with the champagne bottle. “I told you I wasn’t going to go and I meant it,” he said from within. She nudged the door open with her hip, undeterred.

“Happy New Year, darling. I brought the party to you.” She marched right in and set her spoils on his desk.

“Don’t put that there!” He leapt up in alarm. His tone was harsh and Susanna’s face fell, her mask of good cheer quickly dissolved by tears. She sunk into Richard’s chair by the fire, noticing the dents and grooves in the cushions from where his body had shaped it over the years. He stood over her, staring, neither of them speaking. Susanna’s presence in this room was unfamiliar and awkward.

Finally Richard took off his glasses and ran a hand through his messy, shaggy hair. He slid his desk chair closer to Susanna and then moved the bottle and platter over to the dusty side table that now sat between them. He made a theatrical bow. “Would you care to dine with me, m’lady.”

Susanna looked up at Richard, her heart full of love for this messy, broken man. She stared at him for a moment, the tears drying on her cheeks. “Richard,” she began slowly. “Tell me, which butterfly is your favorite?”