Her Father's House (21 page)

One afternoon, coming up from the outer fields where he had been overseeing the planting of hemlocks on what had been fallow acres, he was arrested by a living picture. Partway up the low hill that separated the Bensons' house from the cottage, there was a leveling, a grassy seat with an outcropping of rock for a back. There, in mingled sun and shade, was a portrait clearly titled
Woman and Children, Summer Afternoon
. The three had stepped back a century in time; the woman wore not her usual jeans, but a wide cotton skirt striped in pink and green; the little girl had a ribbon in her hair and a floppy book on her lap. The boy was leaning over her shoulder, and Jim had to chuckle at him, displaying as always the authority of his age.

“Daddy! I can read!” Laura cried out. And Ricky cried out, “I'm teaching her. Didn't I tell you I would?”

“You did. I remember it exactly. It was on your birthday.”

“Mom said I can read,” Laura said.

“‘Mom'?” Jim repeated. “You mean Ricky's mom.”

Kate said quickly, “It's only a name to her. It means nothing. It could just as easily be ‘Annie' or anything. She's simply imitating Ricky.”

He understood. She was assuring him that his child was too young to know what she was saying, and that in time, he would be able to talk to her about her mother.

Pricks of a cold needle went down Jim's back. He was about to say something, to say anything, when Kate added, “I've tried to correct her, but it hasn't worked. It must be painful for you, and I'm sorry.”

With a clumsy wave of a hand, he dismissed the subject. “You never mentioned that article about the woman who started a nursery, the shrubs and perennials.”

“Oh, I read it. And it whetted my appetite. Well, maybe someday I'll do it, too. I hope so.” She stood up. “I never leave Clarence this long, but he wanted a nap. I'd better go and check on him.”

He watched her go down the hill. How could he ever have thought that she was not beautiful? Hers was a classic beauty, calm and strong. It did not invite. It did not twinkle or sparkle. Oh, he had had his fill and more of sparkle!

   

He had always been a light sleeper, as well as one whose dreams are so vivid that he does not forget them the next morning. That night he had an erotic dream about Kate Benson.

   

So it happened that he knew he must really leave this place.
Somewhere there is a woman who is going to give you great joy,
Pratt had said. Great joy for me? With an invisible sword above my head and over Laura's? Not that it would be this woman, this Kate, who would never have me, she with her quick, disturbing glances and her avoidance. If it were not that her husband is dying and that I am helpfully here, she would—oh, ever so kindly and courteously—ask me to leave.

“Mom,” Laura said, wanting attention, “Mom said I can read.”

“Soon you will, and you'll read to me, darling.”

So quick and bright, my little girl! Tiny thing, if you had a mother, somebody like Kate—

The minute that poor man dies, I must go. There's too much guilt here with these thoughts that I have. It can't be more than a few months, if that, Scofield said. The longer it takes, the harder it will be to go away. It's been so good for Laura, this safe haven, and for me, too.

But I've been playing a role, and that's bad. Country gentleman I am, supervising my estate and tinkering with the life of a pleasant, small town. Country gentleman? Get real, Donald Wolfe. You're a wanted man.

Chapter 14

W
inter, or what passed for it this far south, came abruptly on the day Clarence died, not in the hospital where he could well have been, but in his own bed.

“He died as he wished,” Kate said. “He wanted to die in his home.”

Jim offered, some weeks after the death, to sort through Clarence's possessions and take them to a charity in town.

“I suppose you'll be going soon, you and Laura?”

“Well—yes. Is there any special time that you want us to?”

“Whenever it's convenient for you. I know he asked you to stay awhile to help us, but we'll be fine.”

“The important thing is when it will be best for you. You have a big responsibility here, bigger than ever.”

“Yes, thanks to your work, but I'll manage.”

It would not be so easy for her to manage this huge farm alone. He was also thinking about Ricky's tears.

“Mr. Fuller,” Ricky had asked that night after the funeral when the neighbors had crowded the house and heaped the table with food, “will you be umpire sometimes? Dad always was before he got sick. Will you, Mr. Fuller?”

The father, so loving and so childish himself, would be deeply missed. Nothing would be easy for either woman or boy.

“You can really build this place up,” Jim said now, briskly and cheerfully. “We've only started. The tree seedlings are a great investment for the future. I've an order in for more seedlings, tulip trees. They're very desirable on large estates up north.”

“We call them ‘yellow poplars' in this part of the country.”

“I see you've been studying.”

“I took your advice.”

She was folding sweaters into a grocery carton. Boots, old shoes, and a worn raincoat lay on chairs, ready to be sent away. He wondered about her thoughts, the ones that might lie below and behind the natural sorrow after death. Why there should be anything hidden, he did not know. He only sensed that there was.

“Look over there at the window,” she said. “I suppose he told you about that row of arborvitae? His grandfather put them there to shelter the gardens from the wind off the hills. They meant a lot to Clarence, those trees did.”

Jim could understand that. The hands of a grandfather long dead had planted those seedlings, now grown to three times the height of the grandson. And he looked out at the living green, at this row of Gothic arches serrated against the gray, hazy sky. He the newcomer, the stranger, had foreknowledge of himself: These trees, these hills, this woman, were indelibly written, were in fact engraved, upon his most secret heart.

   

Toward spring, there came a change. They were in the greenhouse, where a carpenter had been building shelves. When he left and Jim was about to follow, Kate stopped him with an odd, blunt question.

“Why do we never talk to each other?”

Once, a long time ago, she had asked another strange question: “Who are you?” And he had been unable to answer. Now, unable again, he said the first thing that came into his head.

“About what?”

“I don't know. But people talk, and you avoid me.”

He was so tempted! That flowing hair, the pure face, the warm, curved shape under the T-shirt, and the perfume of the gardenias in the flowerpots . . .

Speak kindly, he admonished himself. Be friendly, but no more than that. You have nothing substantial to give, not to her, not to any woman.

“I haven't meant to avoid you, Kate. I'm sorry. It's a misunderstanding. I will talk about anything you want or answer any question if I can.”

“All right, then. When are you leaving here?”

Storm said: If the child is on this planet, I will find her.

“I have a tentative offer from the horse people. For the spring.”

“It's already spring.”

“Within the next week or two, we will leave. Is that satisfactory?”

“I'm not pushing you out! I only asked when.”

“I know you're not pushing us,” he said. “You wouldn't do that. But it will be soon, I promise.”

“You haven't had a day away since you arrived here. Why don't you go down to Atlanta for a couple of concerts before you leave? You love music so much. I can easily keep Laura. We've two extra bedrooms.”

“That's very good of you. You've been wonderful to her, and I appreciate it. I appreciate the offer, but I need to see the people at the horse breeders' place to make arrangements.”

“I don't think much of that area. It's very isolated. Have you checked into schools over there? Laura will be ready for kindergarten before you know it, and she needs a first-rate school. She's a rare little person. I've tutored children, and I know.”

They were standing face-to-face. Hers was flushed. The gold locket that lay between her breasts seemed to rise and fall, as if she were breathing hard. And she spoke so softly that he strained to hear.

“You don't have to leave, Jim. I'm sorry I've been talking so much about your leaving. I apologize. I don't know why I did. I've been giving you the wrong impression.”

“I gave the impression myself. I have to leave. I have to find a job.”

That was true for more reasons than one. The money that had traveled south on his money belt wasn't going to last forever.

“But you already have one here.”

When he did not answer at once, she continued, “I don't know what to say. It's all so complicated.”

“I don't know anything in the world that isn't complicated, Kate.”

They were still standing face-to-face. And suddenly, as if a terrible, fierce light had been thrust upon him, Jim understood everything. That which had taken all these months to root and flourish within him had done the same within her. The terse replies, the glances, the avoidance—all these had been only an attempt to cover a struggle.

And with an equal shock, he was aware that he had never before felt such tenderness. Let nothing, let no one, and surely not me, ever hurt this woman.

Later he wondered what more he would have said at that moment if Ricky had not come into the room and interrupted the agony.

   

Certainly he could not even think of continuing to live so close to Kate. His tension mounted so that he was sure he was hearing the blood pound in his ears. Even though he despised self-pity, he had to wonder whether the fates had decreed that he should from now on stand between the devil and the deep blue sea. And early one evening after Laura had fallen asleep, he went outside to calm himself with a walk in the foothills. The light of the lengthening spring day lingered over the dirt path, while through the streaked sky in a gigantic V-formation, wild geese honked and raced toward the north. Complicated, she had said, without having the least idea how much so. At random, his thoughts spun as he walked. He saw his office at Orton and Pratt with its view of the avenue below; cars glistened like beetles as they crawled through traffic. He heard Ed Wills's distinctive nasal voice. He saw Pratt's family photograph on his desk. He saw Lillian lying on the sofa that morning in Florence. He imagined himself saying good-bye to Kate for the last time, then driving away with Laura and her rag dolls in the backseat, while his whole being yearned to stay.

How could he have failed to understand what was happening to Kate?

The path narrowed enough to let a single horse go through the underbrush. Then it was blocked by a fallen tree, struck by lightning in last week's storm. Exhausted now, he sat down on a stump and tried to collect himself.

How could he have failed to hear her unspoken words? He should have left long ago. He had waited too long. The man at the horse farm had changed his mind about retiring, so that job had fallen through. There remained only one choice: Make some move and trust to fortune that Storm's private detectives will not get wind of him. No, nothing but danger and pain to offer—danger, shame, and pain. He groaned, startling a rabbit who had been quietly feeding near where he sat as still as a stone.

Above him as he walked back, the evening star appeared on the rim of the hills. If only, like a sailor, he could fasten his eyes upon it and know his direction!

Upstairs at the cottage the night-light glowed pink. In the nest of stuffed animals, Laura lay so sweetly asleep that he wanted to pick her up and tell her how much he loved her.

Out on the steps again, he stared toward the house below, when a light came on in the downstairs room where Kate liked to read. As if compelled, he walked down the slope and knocked at the door. When she opened it, he had no idea why he had come or what he wanted to say. All he had was a flashing memory of the first time he had knocked at that door; it could have been yesterday, or a dark age ago.

For an instant, they both stood still in the hallway and looked at each other. Then with some sort of sounds, cries, or maybe questions, they came together and clung.

When he opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was the clock on the wall between the windows. The minute hand made a stiff little jump from 7:20 to 7:21. She was still in his arms when it jumped to 25. The day was Friday, the time was 7:25 on an evening in April, when he found her, and lost her.

Somewhere there is a woman who will bring you great joy,
said Augustus Pratt.

They broke apart and stood looking again, deeply now, searching each other. Her eyes were shining, and then she began to cry.

“I thought . . . oh, Jim, I thought you would never . . . I hoped.”

What had he just done? Reality, in full force, had struck him. “I wasn't able to,” he said, almost whispering.

“Because of Clarence? I would never have hurt him. You know that. But he's been dead for months, and we're alive! Oh, Jim, we'll be so good together.”

My God, what had he done?
And struggling to bring some order out of the chaos in his head, he sat down on the sofa with that poor head between his hands.

“What is it? What's wrong?”

“It's my fault. Oh, Kate, it's all my fault.”

“Your fault? What fault?”

“Because I have to go away.”

“Will you, for God's sake, say what this means?”

“Kate, you don't understand. How could you? I can't stay with you. Believe me, oh my dear, my dearest, I can't. I would give anything if I could—”

“Go away! What are you saying?”

She was quivering. When he got up and reached for both her hands to hold them in his and try, somehow try to explain, to console, to reason, she pulled them away.

“How can I find the right words? There are none. I can't stay. I can't.”

“What are you trying to do to me?” She was sobbing, beside herself. “What crazy, cruel trick is this? You have never talked! Do it now. You can't go away and leave me like this after—after—”

She fell into a chair across from him. Her mouth twisted in the ancient mask of grief, her hands twisted together on her lap, she stared and waited.

A thought came to Jim, vanished, and came back, insisting: This pressure is more than human beings should have to bear. There has to be a limit. . . . And looking fully into Kate's anguished face, he began to speak.

“My name is Donald Wolfe. A few years ago, I met and married a woman who shone like a diamond. After a while, I found that she was only a glittering imitation. I suppose I should not fault her too much because we are all what we are, and mostly we do not know why. But I did not want our child to become like her, and so I took Laura away.”

   

When he had finished, he looked at the clock just as the minute hand moved to 7:45. Twenty minutes it had taken to unfold the facts, the hopeful, the pleasing, the disappointing, the sordid, the unbearable—all of them. At the end, overcome, he buried his face in his hands and turned his back upon Kate so that she would not witness his tears.

After a while, he heard light footsteps on the rug and felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Jim, Jim, it's okay to cry. I'm crying for you.”

He whispered, “Now you see why I can't stay with you.”

“No. No, I don't see.”

“There've been things in the newspapers and one of those advertisements with photos. They're searching everywhere.”

“They won't find you! You've earned a reputation here. It was very clever of you to come out so boldly in town.”

He smiled weakly. “And clever of you to see why I did it. Not that that's the whole reason. I've made friends here, too.”

“You're safe, Jim. They'll never find you.”

“‘Never' is a big word. Suppose they do? Think what that would mean for you and Ricky. You'd be an accomplice. That's why I can't stay with you.”

“If they find you, they're welcome to find me, too. I love you, Jim. And love means being loyal.”

As you were to Clarence, he thought, and said so.

“Yes, he was a good man, very kind to me, although he and I—well, no matter. If he were living, do you think I would be telling you that I love you? He never knew it, and never would have known, that on the very first day when you came here with Laura, something happened to me. You made me feel guilty, and that's why I wanted you to go away.”

He was so tempted! But it would be wrong.

“You don't want me to be harmed if things should go bad. But you'll do more harm if you leave me now.”

Between love and danger, he thought, and could not speak.

“Once or twice I asked, ‘Who are you?' and was sorry afterward because I felt that you were hiding something, and that I shouldn't have asked. But still I knew it was nothing evil because there is no evil in you. It is a frightful thing to take a child away from its mother, and a good human being who does it must have an overwhelming reason. You are the soul of goodness, Jim, and I believe you.”

Still Jim was silent. Within heart and mind, his fear and his yearning fought each other. Long minutes passed as he sat. The dogs came into the room from wherever they had been sleeping, flopped thumping onto the floor, and went to sleep again. The screen door creaked when Ricky came home with a friend and they went upstairs. Silent, too, Kate went to the window and looked out into the fallen night.