Hers the Kingdom (70 page)

     "Why not?" Sara asked.

     "Because, well, because Soong was somehow able to see what was coming. He worried about the influence Pablo had over Thad.
He even told me he thought Sally would leave. He was afraid for us . . . still, I wouldn't have left Willa there, alone, except. . ."

     "Except?" Sara prodded.

     "Oh, Willa sent Pablo and that crazy bunch of
rurales
and their women packing—and turned right around and replaced them with a small army of more manageable
vaqueros.
Then she became so preoccupied with Thad . . . you wanted to know about Thad." I sighed, and felt the small knot of sorrow that seemed permanently lodged in my breast for Thad. "It wasn't all that dramatic, the way it happened. After the accident he just got quiet. He ate, and seemed to go on about the business of the ranch. He would answer when you asked a question, but he seemed to keep moving farther and farther away. Then one day, perhaps two months after the accident, he moved into the artist's house on the ridge, and a week later he was gone."

     "Without a word?"

     "Without a word. It has been eight months now."

     Sara thought for a while, then she said, "What about Sally? What did she do all this while?"

     "Oh, she did what she could, but Thad acted as if there was nothing between them. She tried, again and again, to talk to him—but all she got was that terrible, removed silence. It was as if he had. . .. well, as if he had left already."

     "How did Willa take all of this?"

     "She was frantic, absolutely frantic. She even seemed to blame Sally for a time, as if Sally's rejection of Thad had something to do with his climbing into the bullring. We all know Willa was out of her mind with grief. We didn't dare tell her about the
rurales'
woman who taunted Thad because we figured she would take a whip to her, or a gun. After a time she calmed down. I think she blames herself most of all, for giving in to the bullfight."

     "Poor Willa," Sara said, "she's had so much sorrow in her life, and now this. It is almost too much for any woman to bear." She paused, deep in thought. Then she said, "Isn't it strange how often we look to women for reasons?"

     "How do you mean?" I wanted to know.

     "Just that we seem to need to accept guilt—I don't think either Willa or Sally or, for that matter, the Mexican woman had anything to do with Thad's climbing into that bullring. It had to do with Thad, and his dissatisfactions, and with chance—fate, call it what you will. Maybe that's why we seem so ready to take responsibility . . . it's a way to deny chance, a way to maintain the idea of control."

     A heavy silence settled over us and we sat there for a time, thinking. Finally Sara shook herself. "How bad were Thad's injuries?" she asked.

     "Bad," I answered. "The doctor told Willa that he would never be able to function normally, as a man."

     "Lord," Sara whispered, "those two boys—Wen and Thad . . ."

     "Wen has turned up, too," I put in. "Now that Thad has disappeared, he wants control of both trust funds. I thought Willa would faint when he asked her to turn over Thad's trust to him. In the end, she only said that it would remain intact for now, that when Thad returned it would be there for him."

     "I can't imagine even Wen being so crass," Sara replied.

     "According to Arcadia, Wen and his wife live well beyond their combined incomes. Wen feels cheated, I'm sure."

     "He must be the only attorney in Los Angeles who isn't making a fortune," Sara put in caustically.

     I grimaced. "The irony is that Willa is creating fortunes for a whole covey of lawyers. Joseph has been trying to talk to her about it, but she won't listen. She is getting a reputation for litigation."

     "Joseph talked to
me
about it," Sara admitted. "He's worried, and with reason. The companies are doing well, but most of the profits are going right out to Willa's lawyers. In the end, they are the only ones who are likely to benefit."

     "You don't think she can keep the Malibu free?" I asked.

     "Not forever. At best, she can fight for delay. Why do you suppose she is so absolutely intent on keeping everyone out?" Sara
wanted to know. "Philip thinks it is a matter of conservation—that she wants to keep it wild and free for, as the conservationists like to put it,
future generations.
He considers her something of a heroine for her stand."

     I smiled, thinking of Philip. "That's part of it, I think. I'm not sure . . . I've been trying to puzzle it out for myself, but I know there's more to it than that. She's lost so much—Owen, then Wen and Thad. The Malibu was supposed to be the promised land . . .
ultima thule
. . ."

     "What?" Sara asked.

     "
Ultima thule
. . . the farthest point . . . it is what Willa used to say, when we were girls in Illinois. She wanted always to go West, as far as she could go. I'm not sure, I've often tried to understand what it is about the ranch that so absorbs Willa. You remember my telling you how our mother wouldn't leave our farm—Porter Farm—how near the end of her life she hardly left the house? I mean, it wasn't a matter of choice. She couldn't—it would make her physically sick to try to leave . . ."

     "And you think that is what has happened to Willa?"

     "No, not exactly. It's not the same, and yet something about it is . . . I think that for Willa, the Malibu is where she feels safe . . . where she feels she is in control, that if she seals herself in and keeps everybody else out the world . . ."

     Sara was shaking her head. "It doesn't make sense," she said.

     "I know," was all I could answer. "It doesn't make sense, and yet I don't think she can help herself now. I think she has to fight all those forces that are gathering, the people who feel she has no right to close off the ranch. Sometimes I think if she would only listen to them, would only be willing to make some concessions. But she can't, she just can't."

     "And that's why you left?" Sara asked.

     She caught me off guard. I hadn't thought of it, but there it was. "I didn't think so," I said truthfully, "but maybe. Maybe." Quickly I added, "You've helped Willa some, I know."

     "A little," Sara answered. "I managed to keep Charles out of her hair that time when he was so intent on ramming a railroad line through the ranch. It wasn't difficult."

     "Part of the divorce settlement, I believe? The price of freedom—if you can call his life free."

     Sara shook her head, and ran her hands through her hair. "Poor Charles, he's been done in by so many people lately—and he deserves it. I haven't a whit of sympathy for him. When he lost his sense of humor and became so almighty greedy . . . Still, he did provide a nice target for Philip. Did you know he managed to remove Charles' influence in the legislature almost totally? It must rankle Charles to know that his nemesis, Philip Bourke, is what the newspapers call 'Mrs. Owen Reade's
frequent escort.'
" She laughed, but without mirth.

     "I remember your saying you had bumped into Charles and Helen in London."

     "Humm," Sara laughed, genuinely this time. "Helen was wearing the most expensively grotesque pearls I have ever set eyes upon. At her elbow was this anemic little Duveen man, an art dealer who has 'taken over' the rich American lady, as the English put it."

     "What was Charles doing?" I wanted to know.

     "Looking so hangdog that I had a notion to give him a hearty clap on the back and tell him to buck up, the way he used to clap me on the back when we were children."

     "So you've forgiven him, is that it?"

     Sara crossed her legs so she was sitting Indian style. She poured herself another glass of champagne and looked at me, an impish grin on her face. "There was never anything, really, to forgive. I've never wanted revenge, nothing like that. Those kinds of feelings—hate, revenge, pity—are corrosive, they eat at you. I couldn't afford them, ever. No, I've been struggling not so much against Charles as against myself. In the meantime, I had to learn how to deal with Charles, and I'm glad I could help others who needed to deal with
him. He is, after all, a terribly bright man. Able. And he used to be funny. That was the best thing about him, his sense of humor. Pity he lost it."

     "Helen's fault?" I asked, feeling mischievous.

     "Bosh!" Sara all but shouted, "Charles' fault . . . and fate's, for giving him Phineas Emory as an uncle.

     "Lord, this is grim talk," Sara said, rising to fix the fire. "Tell me about Sally. That should cheer us up."

     The thought of Sally made me feel better. "She is absolutely proselytizing about the women's suffrage movement. She has joined a group which is supposed to convince legislators to pass laws that will limit the hours children can work in factories—child-labor laws. And she is also involved in the movement to set a minimum wage . . . and then there are the blind babies . . . Oh, she has so many good works going, and her letters are filled with her convictions. Can't you just see Sally up on a soap box, red hair flying, exhorting the women of the world to rise and fight for the vote?"

     I rummaged through my desk until I found the Brownie snapshot Sally had sent in her last letter. There she was, one of four young women, each wearing a derby hat and each with a big, black cigar in her mouth.

     "That's our Sally," Sara laughed, pleased. "I do believe she has found her proper niche."

     "I know you are helping her," I said.

     Sara only shrugged. "Never could smoke cigars myself," was all she would say, "better to have someone smoke them for me."

     "It makes me sad to think we won't see T. R. in the White House again," I put in, "It's a pity that he lost this time."

     "Too bad he didn't get the Republican nomination—splitting the vote was surely what threw the election to Mr. Wilson."

     Our discussions, Sara's and mine, tended to roam over all kinds of subjects, touching this and that, the serious mixed in with the frivolous, so it didn't surprise me when Sara abruptly changed
the subject. "We are women without men, aren't we? You and me, Willa and Sally and Trinidad and Aleja. Everyone except Arcadia . . . and in a way, she fits the description too."

     "Oh, no, not Arcadia. Joseph is the most devoted of husbands . . . it's just that he's not totally a husband, or . . ."

     "I know," Sara put in, "I know exactly what you mean. Too, I don't suppose we can put Willa on the list. She does have Philip."

     I rose to my knees. Sitting so long had made one of my legs feel stiff. As I rubbed it, I said, "Philip is smitten with Willa, I know that. I even think he would like to marry her. She hasn't told me . . . we don't get a chance to talk privately all that much anymore . . . not since the trouble with Thad, and my moving into Los Angeles."

     "He does want to marry her, he told me," Sara said. "Willa won't have it, because of the difference in their ages. Philip says he can't understand why the age difference bothers her so, when Owen was that much older than she . . ."

     I chuckled. "Good for Philip," I said. "I do like that man."

     Sara glanced at me in a way that meant she was trying to decide if she should reveal something. "Do you think Willa knew that Connor was younger than she?"

     "Was he?" I asked, surprised, "How do you know?"

     "I see him now and then," she answered, offhand.

     "After what he did, Sara—to Willa, the smuggling—how can you see him?"

     Sara moved her finger around the rim of her glass, then she poured herself another small sip of champagne and seemed to study the tiny rise of bubbles. "I'm glad Soong didn't ask me to limit my drinking," she said.

     "You never needed to," I answered, "but you do need to answer my question. Why do you see Connor?" I paused, then plunged ahead. "And why did you finance his mining venture?"

     "Maybe," she said slowly, still running her finger around the rim of the glass, "maybe it was because of Rose. Not just that he
never got to see her, but because he never even knew about her—that she was his. And I did know, do know. Maybe . . ."

     "But he did a terrible thing, Sara . . . and we had believed in him, trusted him . . ."

     Sara lay her head back on the chair behind her and closed her eyes.

     "Have you ever wondered why he did what he did?" she asked.

     "Why? What do you mean?"

     "I mean, I've always wondered what Connor could have wanted so much that. . ."

     "Money," I interrupted, "he wanted money and power, both of which he seems to have now, thanks to you."

     "No thanks to me, Lena, I assure you. The man has earned what he has and in doing so he has earned quite a tidy little sum for me, too. Someday that sum will be Porter's. I'm still trying to figure a way for Porter to be left out of the Reade will without causing suspicion. Joseph and I have pondered the question, and frankly we still haven't come up with a good answer."

     "I know," I sighed, "but we've got to do it. Wen is beginning to stir things up again. He is furious with Willa, says she is squandering the estate."

     She had deliberately changed the subject, and I allowed it. There were times when it was best not to push Sara. She had, I felt, said as much as she would say about Connor. I also knew we would come back to him, that he would figure in our lives once more, in some way.

     "Sometimes I think Porter himself will give us a proper reason for being disinherited," I said, "every time we go to the ranch, he manages to get into a conversation with Willa about land reform. Henry George is his latest hero. Sometimes I wish the boy would read dime novels instead of economic theorists."

     Sara laughed. "How does Willa take it?"

     "It's a good thing he isn't her son, in fact," I grimaced. "She can afford to be tolerant, but of course she doesn't much like it. And I
can't think of a way to quiet him . . . I mean, what can I say? 'She isn't your mother, she's your aunt so be nice to her'? He's supposed to be able to tell his mother what he thinks. And already he has said he doesn't much like being part of the capitalistic class."