Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (9 page)

Tom walked around to the back of the wagon and grabbed the boys' clothes. “Plenty of food, fresh air, and exercise,” he said, trying to sound friendly but knowing he failed.

Lewis cleared his throat and, back stiff, stood in the middle of the steps. “And you, Thomas? How are you on this Lord's day?”

“Hot and thirsty, Mr. Lewis.”

“Ah, yes.” The preacher coughed nervously, but wasn't to be deterred from expressing his concern for Tom's spiritual welfare. “We see so little of you, Thomas,” he went on. “How long has it been?”

Tom glanced quickly to make sure the boys were inside the house, then swung his attention back to Lewis. “It's been months and you know it,” he replied.

Lewis slowly shook his head. “Thomas,” he said, his tone simultaneously sorrowful and chiding. “Don't you realize how unfortunate it is when one of Brand-borough's leading citizens never attends services?”

“I attended services six months ago,” Tom said tightly. “Funeral services.”

If Lewis recognized the dangerous undercurrents in Tom's voice, he chose to ignore them. “The Lord understands your pain, my boy. What He doesn't understand is why you've abandoned His divine mercy.”

The hard lines of Tom's face and the dull fire glowing in his eye betrayed his bitterness. “Maybe if the Lord had been around when Jenny was busy dying,” he snapped, “He would understand!”

The preacher flinched as if Tom had struck him. “I was just trying to be of some help,” he said, shocked by the sentiment and vehemence of Tom's outburst. “If you only knew what a comfort God can be, even now—”

“If God wants to comfort me, let him come do so Himself,” Tom interrupted. “Mr. Lewis, you've got nothing more to say that interests me, so if you don't mind, I think I'll wish you good day.”

Lewis's knuckles were as pale as his face, and his hands trembled as he gripped his Bible. Without answering, he turned and walked away.

Tom watched with relief as Lewis retreated down the road. He'd had no wish to confront the man, and knew he meant well. The problem was that preachers always had the same advice, no matter what the tragedy: simply chalk everything up to God's will and go on. Go on, no matter how crippled. But Tom wasn't built that way. He'd been hurt, and he needed time to lick his wounds.

“Feel any better?” a deep voice said from the open door.

Tom looked up and saw his father on the porch. At fifty-one, Jason Behan Paxton was a few inches shorter than his son and still solid as a log. His gray hair grew as thick as a young man's. Dark and deep-set under his black beetling brows, his eyes were able to pierce the hearts and souls of those to whom he spoke. Tom's thoughts and emotions had always been an open book to his father. As a boy and now as a man, Tom found it impossible to keep a secret from him. Up the steps and past his father, Tom hurried into the house. “I thought you were with the boys,” he said, pausing to toss his hat on a rack set just inside the door.

“I was with the boys, but found your conversation with Reverend Lewis more interesting.” Jase pulled the mahogany-paneled door closed as he followed Tom inside. “Don't you think you were a little hard on him?”

“Reverend Lewis is a fatuous, self-righteous fool,” Tom snapped. “Whether or not I go to church is no concern of his.”

“But it is. Fatuous or not, he is concerned,” Jase chided, placing a calming hand on his son's shoulder. “Look. I know how irritating he can be. Lord knows I've wanted to tell him a thing or two myself at times. But he had nothing to do with your trouble, and you have no right to take out on him your bitterness and hurt over Jenny.”

Tom swung around to face his father. “If Lewis wants to be so damned quick to speak on God's behalf, he can sure as hell take some of the blame, too.”

Jason Behan's mouth twisted in a momentary grimace. “I'm sorry you feel that way,” he said, carefully controlling his impatience. “But you're just making the matter more difficult for everyone, including yourself.”

“To hell with Lewis, and to hell with all the others in this town,” Tom said in a harsh voice. “They never accepted Jenny, never gave her a chance. You heard the gossip. An impoverished title marrying American money, the local girls not good enough for a Paxton …” His voice broke, but he cleared his throat and made himself continue. “Well, damn their hypocritical sympathy and the smiles they paste on their faces when I drive through town. They aren't fooling me for a second. They didn't like her when she was here and they didn't give a damn when she died. And nothing you or Lewis or anyone else—”

“That isn't fair and you know it,” Jase said angrily, then glanced up as tiny feet raced overhead along the second-story hall. “Come with me,” he said, starting for his study.

“What you want to say can be said right here,” Tom said. “Unless it's a lecture, in which case you can forget it.”

Jase turned with the ease of a cat. His eyes were hard chips of flint that brooked no argument. “Your mother took the twins upstairs to change their clothes. They'll be down any minute. The choice is yours. We talk in private or in front of them. But, by heaven, we talk.”

Tom started to shake his head, then closed his eye in resignation. When his father wanted something, when that steely tone appeared, there was no arguing with him. He never shouted, but his words carried too much weight to resist.

His boots echoing on the waxed hardwood floor, Jason led the way to a set of double doors made of thick mountain pine and adorned with heavy brass knobs. Inside, two walls were lined with enough books to make the Paxton library one of the finest in South Carolina. Two windows set in the east wall looked out onto the meadow, bay, and ocean, and a fireplace dominated the north wall. Arranged on these two walls were rifles and pistols with ornately carved stocks and grips, and swords and other cutting weapons both in and out of scabbards. The rapier used by Marie Ravenne herself when she commanded the pirate ship
Ravener
hung in a spot of honor over the mantel.

A massive black walnut desk was placed between the windows on the eastern wall. Jase settled into the chair behind the desk and gestured for Tom to take the one in front. “One month was reasonable,” he said as Tom sat, “two acceptable, three within the bounds of reason, given the circumstances. The fourth month of unrelieved mourning is a luxury, the fifth month a bore, and the sixth an effrontery to the living
and
the dead.” Jase slapped the shining desk top as Tom began to rise. Tom settled back in his chair. “Your mother and I and everyone else have been solicitous. I've dropped hints, I've intimated, I've insinuated, but you've been too damned stubborn and pigheaded to listen. Now, by God, you will, or you'll take yourself home and not come back until you're ready to.”

Tom almost spoke, but clamped his mouth shut under the glare of his father's eyes.

“Jenny's dead, son,” Jase continued in a gentler tone. “You don't like it, I don't like it, your mother doesn't like it, but she
is dead
, and you're going to have to learn to live with that fact. With the exception of your mother and myself and the few others at Solitary we all call family, the people who live in Brandborough are neither Paxtons nor Paxton property, and you can't expect them to predicate their lives on what happens to the Paxtons. Our trials and sorrows are our own. The people who live in this town have their own troubles, and they're not going to put ours ahead of theirs. No one in the world would.” He lifted a finger and pointed it at Tom. “To expect them to, and to excoriate them when they don't, only aggravates the situation.”

Tom's hands clenched into fists. What his father was saying made sense, but he was in no mood to acknowledge that fact. “So it's my fault now,” he said, a little too calmly and quietly. “Well, do you know what I think? I think it's obvious that you never really gave a damn about Jenny either, or you wouldn't be defending them.”

Jason Behan Paxton turned livid. “How
dare
you!” he roared. “I loved Jenny from the day you brought her here, and always tried to make her feel at home.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and when he spoke again, he'd regained his composure. “I won't let you put me off the track. What I really wanted to say to you is this: there's a fundamental truth about life, and it's time you faced up to it. Simply put: before God, the town drunk and Tom Paxton stand exactly equal. As for tragedy, no man can say when or answer why. Life is a mystery that's sometimes loving and sometimes cruel, and the way we respond to that loving, cruel mystery is brutally limited to two choices: we can accept, or we can go mad.”

Tom stared at his hands and at Marie Ravenne's sword. He stared at his father's blurred reflection in the desk top. At last, he stood and started out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Jase asked.

“I've lost my appetite,” Tom answered wearily without looking at him, “and since God's not going to treat me any better than anyone else, I'd best be getting back to Solitary. There's hay to be cut, and tobacco, cotton, and corn to be chopped.”

“You're not going to stay the night?”

“That's right,” Tom said dully, opening the library door and starting out. “I'm not. Jason? Joseph?”

Footsteps pounded overhead, and by the time Tom reached the foot of the stairs, the twins were on their way down the banister rail. “Guess what?” Joseph yelled.

Tom caught him, then Jason, and swung each in turn to the floor. “What?” he asked, gathering one in each arm.

“Grandma says Grandpa will take us out in the boat!” came the garbled double reply.

Colleen Paxton, at fifty, had gained a pound or two around her hips but was still a remarkably attractive woman. Her eyes were exactly the same color as her husband's, but softer and warmer, and her face was lined more by laughter than by years. Because Jase liked her hair long, she kept it so, and in truth took pride in its length and in its deep, luxuriant brown that had never dulled. “They're such dears,” she said, following them down the stairs. “We're going to have a marvelous time, aren't we, boys?”

The encounters with Lewis and then his father had completely ruined Tom's good mood, but he hid his anger with a smile as false as those he had complained of only moments earlier. “I'll bet you are too,” he told Colleen. “Oh, by the way, Lavinia says they've about worn out and grown out of their last pairs of good breeches. She's patching them for play and letting them out, so if you could get Joe Luke to make them each a pair for good wear, I'll pay him when I come back next week. Well …” He gave each boy a hug and a kiss. “Wish I was staying for dinner,” he said, rising. “You boys be good. Pay a mind to your grandma and grandpa, especially in that boat.”

“But I thought you were spending the night,” Colleen said, distressed.

“Something came up,” Tom said, hoping he didn't sound too abrupt but not wanting to explain further. “I'm heading back right now.”

Jason cried out in protest as he realized that his father was leaving, and Joseph joined in.

“Now, boys, there's nothing to cry about,” he reassured them. He reached over, tweaked their noses, and held his thumbs between his first two fingers of each hand. “Got your noses. You quit that crying and I'll bring 'em back to you. You don't …” he said, looking terribly fierce and serious, “I'll feed 'em to that big 'gator we saw on the way over.”

Joseph giggled. Jason took a moment longer, but finally joined in. Tom ruffled their hair, stood, and kissed his mother on the cheek. “You all take care,” he said. “I'll see you next weekend.”

“Take care of yourself, Thomas,” Colleen said, hiding her disappointment.

“No need to worry about me.” Tom retrieved his hat from the rack and started out. “Oh, yes. Maurice is back. I'll bring him with me next weekend, so you'd better see about buying an extra cow or bag of rice or something. His appetite hasn't shrunk any.”

“Maurice back?” Jase asked from the door to the study, where he'd been watching Tom's leavetaking without comment.

“Got in last week. Said to tell you …” Caught somewhere between anger and love, Tom stopped mid-sentence and stared at his father. And for the first time, Tom realized how difficult the scene in the study had been for Jase. “… to tune up the pianoforte and get that tomahawk-throwing arm of yours ready.”

“Oh, he did, eh?” Jase said. God knew it was hard raising a son. Funny thing was, even after a man figured he had his son all raised, along came something that made him wonder. But then, Jase thought with silent amusement, that wasn't so strange, because there were times when he wondered if he himself would ever grow up. A man never escaped the boy inside him: he might be a father but was always, in part, his father's son. “Well, you tell him I'm ready,” Jase said, the twinkle returning to his eyes.

“I will.” Tom almost relented, almost changed his mind, almost stayed, but didn't. “See you next week?” he asked, offering reconciliation if not absolute surrender.

“See you next week.” Jase nodded, and added, as Tom put on his hat and started out the door, “And, son?”

“Yes?”

“You ride careful. And bring those boys' sniffers back with you when you come.”

CHAPTER V

For a three-year-old, there is nothing in the world quite like being spoiled and pampered by indulgent grandparents. In the six months since their mother's death, Joseph and Jason had found a second home at Jase and Colleen's house. Sunday evening they were having a circus. They slid down the banister. They played rough-and-tumble with Jase. They feasted on molasses cookies and milk. They chased Spider, the long-nosed terrier, whose job was running a treadmill to turn the spit, but who vastly preferred playing with boys. They got away without eating their greens, turned up their noses at a rhubarb pie because it was too sour, and demolished a whole bowl of sweet cream and honey. And if neither of them liked bedtime, it was hard to resist a story told by Grandpa Jase and harder yet to keep their eyes open until the end, because Jase had a way of stretching his stories until they fell asleep.