I'll Take Manhattan (59 page)

“Swell. If you call me Dunk. Chip knows everybody calls me Dunk but tonight she’s being proper or something. What’s with you, Chip?”

“Nothing, nothing,” India rushed into the breach. “Chip’s been brought up by a very old-fashioned mother, you know, Dunk, of the old school.
Vieille
New York.”

“Punctilious, hum? My mother gets that way too. Tonight I thought she’d have a complete breakdown before I left the house. She made me change my tie three times and my socks twice. Listen, Mom, I said, just because this is my first date doesn’t mean that
you
have to get nervous. I don’t understand parents at times. In most cases I do, but not always.”

“My mother was the same way when I had my first date,” Angelica said. “Wasn’t she, Godmother?” She looked imploringly at India.

“Oh, indeed she was, Goddaughter. I thought she’d turn green. Or was it blue? But that was
ever so long ago
, wasn’t it, Uncle Toby?”

“Years, must have been years. So far in the past that I can’t even seem to remember it. Shall we go? It’s getting late.”

Toby had borrowed Maxi’s limousine for the evening. It had survived her great purge of possessions because it was the only practical way to get around New York. Cabs were never available at lunchtime in the neighborhood of
B&B
and Maxi had to race uptown for lunch and then race back to work. And her blue limo was part of her essential image of unquestioned success.

Elie ushered Angelica and her first date into the big car with not the slightest change of expression. They might have been an aged duke and duchess on their way to church, for all his solemnity. What Miss A. would say about it, he thought, he couldn’t say. He supposed that Angelica had to start carrying on sometime, but with a giant? Maybe
he was younger than he looked. At least they had chaperones, although Miss West and Mr. A. were too much in love to notice anyone but themselves, in his opinion. What a
terrible
family. He sighed in pure pleasure.

There was a large crowd gathered in front of the theater. “I wouldn’t do this for anyone but Sam,” India said. “I’m going to withdraw into being oblivious until we’re inside the theater. Just don’t let go of my arm, Toby, because I’ll be walking straight ahead as if there weren’t anyone watching me, O.K.?”

“Right. Chip can take your bows. Elie, see if you can let us off right in front of the theater, please.”

“Yes, Mr. A.,” Elie answered. You could see he wasn’t used to a good driver, asking a damn fool thing like that. Where did he think he’d be left off, halfway down the block?

Angelica and Dunk got out of the limousine first, two tall, magnificent, unknown young people who were scanned by the crowd and then ignored as if they didn’t exist. Then Toby stepped out and waited for India.

As they crossed to the entrance to the theater, so many flashbulbs went off, combined with the lights of the local television minicam crews, that India was blinded. Voices shouted out greetings to her but she didn’t hear them in her condition of willed nonresponse.

“India, India, I’ve got something for you,” one voice called, almost lost in the commotion caused by her appearance. She walked on but Toby instantly dropped her arm, whirled toward the voice and threw himself into the crowd like a linebacker, bringing a man crashing down to the street. They fought frantically for an instant, and before people started to scream there was the sound of a pop and a grunt. As if in slow motion Toby continued to struggle with the man on the pavement while the crowd stood milling, hysteria mounting, but directionless and ineffectual. Using all his great strength to hold the man down, Toby forced his fingers open until the gun he held dropped out of his hand. It was only then that India turned and screamed. It had happened so quickly that, like all such attempts, it seemed as if it were over before it had started. Only the bright arterial blood pouring out of Toby’s arm was real. And the
loaded gun that Dunk picked up carefully and held until a policeman took it away from him.

“How did you know, how did you know?” India wept, holding Toby’s hand tightly as the ambulance careened through the streets.

“Recognized his voice—the nut who kept phoning you at the house, knew it right away. Didn’t figure you’d want whatever he had for you.” Toby was still in shock and seemed not to notice the ambulance attendant who was trying to stop the flow of blood.

“He was going to kill me. I knew he was crazy but I never thought he’d try to shoot me.”

“Nobody is ever going to hurt you while I’m around.”

“How did you know
where
he was? Oh, Toby, how did you know?”

“Training, orientation training. Comes in handy lots of times …”

“Lady, would you stop talking? I’m trying to fix this man up till we can get him to the hospital. Ask questions later. Oh, Oh! India West! Say, do you think I could have an autograph when we get there? It’s for my wife … otherwise I wouldn’t bother you at a time like this but she’s a fan, see, a real big fan.”

Lily would have been content to spend the morning in the neighborhood of the guest house but Gerry was clearly anxious to see more of the surrounding forest.

“Shall we ride?” Lily proposed.

“Horses terrify me. Don’t you think we could ask that nice young man to take us for a tour in his jeep?” Gerry asked.

“Why not? Cutter left him here in case we wanted him for anything.”

Soon they were in the jeep with Bob Davies who had overcome his first attack of shyness with the city visitors. Lily soon realized that this particular woodsman was far from silent. He was impossible to shut up without downright rudeness as he regaled them with tales of the towns
that existed on the outskirts of the wild lumbering country, where the local workers got pig-drunk every Saturday night and fistfights were the normal end of the evening.

“Goodness,” said Gerry, fascinated by this rough aspect of her new domain, “have you ever been involved in a fight, Bob?”

“No, Mrs. Wilder. My father wouldn’t let me go near one of those bars when I was in high school. After that I was away at forestry school, and then I came straight here to work. That was when he retired, so suddenly. Out of the blue a relative died, someone he hadn’t even known about, and he had enough money to buy a little place in Florida. That was always my mother’s dream—she didn’t like the cold. They just packed up and left. He’s got a little boat-rental business down there now and they’re as happy as newlyweds. Mr. Amberville let me take over here without even interviewing me. I really appreciated that, believe me. This is the first time I’ve had the pleasure of seeing any of the Amberville family. The old owners were always around; bringing friends up with them for the hunting season and the fishing season, using the horses, having big cookouts, just having a great old time. Do you think you’ll be back often, now that you’ve seen the spread, Mrs. Amberville?”

“I have no idea,” Lily said distantly.

“It sounds wonderful,” Gerry remarked thoughtfully. Lily knew that Gerry was thinking that as soon as the deal went through she and Leonard would immediately begin to entertain their friends up here. She felt a sharp pang of annoyance, as if Gerry’s obviously proprietary interest were an attack on her own territory. Yet, when UBC bought Amberville none of this would still belong to her. So why not just accept it? What on earth did it matter?

The jeep drove slowly along the trail, in the shadow of the thickly planted great trees. It was a sunny day and light struck down into every space that the trees would grant its entrance.

“Oh look, Lily, there’s a sort of clearing up ahead. Why don’t we get out of the jeep and take a little walk in that direction? It seems a shame not to get some exercise,” Gerry proposed.

“Bob, could you stop here for a minute? We’re going to take a stroll,” Lily agreed.

“Will do, Mrs. Amberville.” He braked carefully to a halt and slid out of his seat to help them down. “I’d better come with you ladies. There’s a ravine on the edge of that clearing.”

“That won’t be necessary, Bob,” Lily said coldly. She wanted to have a little time this morning ungarnished by his life’s story. Reluctantly he let them go on without him and the two women walked energetically along the trail for hundreds of feet, breathing deeply of the pine-scented air. When they reached the grassy clearing they found that it was almost hot in the sun trap and they took off their coats and sat on the grass for a few minutes, enjoying the silence and the peace of the moment.

“Let’s go look for the ravine,” Gerry suggested, her eyes sparkling with interest. She’d never owned a ravine and she wanted to see it for herself. It was a feature of the place, like the horses and the lake that was reputed to be full of fish anxious to be caught. The air itself was part of the deal, the grass, the trails, the guest house. She couldn’t be less concerned with the timber except as a background for her future pleasure parties.

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind,” Lily answered. She had had enough of Gerry Wilder for the morning. “I’m feeling a bit tired. But you go on. I’ll wait for you.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Gerry wandered off and Lily forgot her, almost falling asleep. Suddenly she heard a sharp cry. “Oh, my God!” She opened her eyes and saw Gerry on the grass at a distance, backing rapidly away. “Lily! There’s the most god-awful drop there. You can’t imagine. ‘Ravine’ my eye! It looks like an opening into hell … all jagged boulders and a terrible steep drop … and you can’t even tell it’s there until you’re almost right on top of it. Those places should be marked, for heaven’s sake. They should have railings around them.”

“Well, you’ll put them there, won’t you?” Lily muttered to herself. “Come on back, Gerry. Let’s get into that jeep. It must be almost lunchtime.”

“Bob,” said Gerry, as soon as they were on their way back to the guest house, “I think it’s terribly dangerous not to mark that ravine. Why isn’t there a fence there?”

“There are so many of them, Mrs. Wilder. There must have been an earthquake here once. There are dozens just like that, but not a one that’s nearly as close to the guest house. Everyone who works in these woods knows about them. It’s only strangers who are surprised. That’s why I warned you. In fact … well, it’s not a story I should tell you ladies … it happened just before the old owners finally sold the place. My dad told me about it, but in confidence …”

“Oh, come on, Bob,” Gerry said eagerly. She wanted to know everything about this new future toy of hers and if there was a local mystery, so much the better.

“Well … I don’t know …” He was obviously dying to regale them with the story.

“Oh, Bob, what difference can it make? Tell!” Gerry insisted.

“See, my dad, he used to fly a little one-engine plane, like the new pilot who’s taking your husbands around. He was up in it one day, on his way to an emergency in a camp all the way on the other edge of the forest—a lumberjack had been injured real bad and had to be picked up and rushed to the hospital. Anyway, he spotted two guys, visitors from the city like you ladies. He never told me who they were but they were on horses. They got off the horses in the clearing back there and they must have had some sort of argument. Not so different from the boys here on Saturday night, because they got into a fistfight. One of them must have thrown a hell of a punch because the other ended up at the bottom of that ravine.”

“What did your dad do?” Gerry asked breathlessly.

“He couldn’t stop, see, not enough room to land, and he was real worried about that lumberjack I told you about. Anyway he knew that the accident was real close to the guest house and he figured the other guy would ride back as fast as possible and get help. But when he finally got back here, a day later, they still hadn’t located that poor fellow in the ravine. There was all sorts of confusion, search parties
going out in every direction but the right one. Nobody seemed to be in charge or know what was going on. Dad was fit to be tied. He led them to the ravine right away but it was, well … it was too late. The visitor from the city was dead. Nobody ever did know if it was from the fall or from being out all night in the cold. See, it was below zero that night when it happened. Anyway …”

“Stop the car!” Gerry screamed. Lily had fainted and slumped sideways, halfway out of the vehicle, and it was taking all of her strength to keep Lily from falling out onto the trail.

Lily sat in the semidarkness in the main bedroom of the guest house. She’d asked Gerry Wilder to draw the curtains and insisted, in a way that permitted nothing but obedience, that she be left alone. She hadn’t attempted to explain her brief descent into unconsciousness to the other woman. “Let me rest. I don’t want lunch. Please do not come back upstairs to see how I am,” she had ordered in a tone so absolute that Gerry Wilder had not dared to ask a single question.

Throughout the afternoon Lily sat by the window in a straight-backed chair while her memory and her vision turned in upon herself. In the passage of a few hours she grew old and bent and drained of pride and beauty. She was desperately cold, as if the flow of blood in her veins had stopped, yet she lacked the will to rouse herself to put on another sweater. At moments she muttered a few words out loud and then fell silent. From time to time she doubled over, her hands cramped painfully over her mouth to silence her spasms of howling grief, her attacks of brutish anger. She had to summon all her strength to quiet those hands. They wanted to rend her, to tear her flesh, to pluck out her hair, to damage her forever.

Eventually, as the afternoon grew to a close, she mastered her emotions and concentrated on the door to the bedroom. Soon, as she knew he must, Cutter opened it quietly, obviously expecting that she would be resting on one of the twin beds. Lily made no sound.

“Lily?” he asked, not seeing her in the gathering darkness. He walked a few steps into the room and then turned to snap on a standing lamp. “Where are … Lily, what are you doing there like that?” He approached her and stopped dead at the sight of the ugly woman whose face was contorted in a grimace of some unnameable emotion, an old woman wearing Lily’s clothes, a woman with Lily’s hair, who glared at him with savage, slashing eyes.