A Song Across the Sea (28 page)

When Reece was old enough, Adrienne taught him to ride. Although he enjoyed it, Adrienne saw, with some disappointment, that her son would never share her passion for equestrienne pursuits. Nor, as he grew up, did he show a particular bent for his father’s business ventures. Noah often took the boy with him, letting him tour the printing plant of a newspaper he owned, showing him coke ovens and coal mines, factories and lumber mills.

No, Reece’s talents came to light in other ways. His mother would frequently find his toys disassembled, their pieces scattered on the floor of his playroom. When she scolded him for taking apart a mechanical bicycle and rider his Grandfather Julian had given him one Christmas the boy protested, “I just wanted to see how it worked! You pull a string on the bottom and it makes the legs move the pedals, but I wanted to see how it worked inside.”

This became his theme. His mantra.

Reece did share his parents’ love of travel, becoming something of an international citizen by the time he was ten. He learned to sample strange new foods and adapt to the customs of unfamiliar cultures.

Reece did not think it strange at all that his mother joined in all of these adventures, although when he later compared notes with his friends, he found that other mothers did not ride horses with their families through parched canyons in the upper reaches of Death Valley, riding by night and sleeping during the day because of searing heat and the possibility of Indian attacks.

While other mothers spent their afternoons terrorizing their servants, calling on each other and drinking tea, his own mother conferred with her trainers and jockeys, scheduled thoroughbreds for races and quizzed veterinarians about racing injuries.

These idiosyncrasies Reece accepted as a matter of course. He was proud of his mother. He thought her the most beautiful woman in the world. Once he asked his father how they came to meet and marry and Noah, with his characteristic candor, told the boy about the poker bet.

“You cheated?” Reece was aghast.

“I had to. I knew she was the woman I was meant to marry.”

“Why didn’t you just ask her to marry you?”

“She wouldn’t have come to me on her own,” Noah said thoughtfully. “Too proud. I could see that. She’d have had to come down from her high horse—so to speak—to let a commoner like me court her. Instead of putting her through all that aggravation, I figured out a short cut. A short cut to the altar, you might say.”

“But you said cheating is wrong!”

“It is, and I’m very, very sorry. I’ll never do it again.” With a wink at Adrienne, who’d entered the room in time to hear the last part of this conversation, Noah settled back in his chair with the day’s newspaper.

Later, much later, when things turned very bad in his life, Reece found himself realizing how much he’d learned from his parents without being aware of it at the time. The lengths a man will go to for the woman he loves. The power of dreams. He learned how quickly strength can depart, when his mother—his beautiful, strong, splendid mother—collapsed in sorrow after she learned of her beloved father’s death.

There were other lessons as well. One occurred on an April afternoon when he was twelve. He came home from school with a split lip and a black eye—the result of a confrontation with two schoolyard bullies. His father allowed that it was time to teach him how to fight.

He began to learn: feinting, blocking, punching. He was an apt pupil, his father said. Quick on his feet and coordinated. He showed such a talent for fighting that a boxing instructor was hired to come to the mansion three times a week and give him lessons. Adrienne thought this was going a bit too far—she did not want her son to grow up to be a pugilist, after all—so his father blended a little philosophy in with the lessons.

“You see these hands?” Noah said, holding Reece by the wrists. “I can tell from these that some day you’re going to be a big man. A tall, strong man.”

“Bigger than you?” It was hard to imagine. Reece was already tall for his age, but woefully skinny, with knobby knees and thin arms.

Noah studied the hands intently, as if they were crystal balls holding the secrets to Reece’s future. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Bigger than me. That’s why you must be careful, and think things through. Only fight if there’s something worth fighting for. Many’s the time I’ve walked away when a man insulted me. An insult doesn’t matter. Only fight,” he repeated firmly, “if there’s something worth fighting for.”

Reece conveniently forgot these words the next time the two boys who’d beaten him showed their faces. He listened to their taunts, then charged in and applied everything he’d learned. He felt a thrill when his fist connected with the side of one boy’s face. He watched his opponent fall hard to the ground and gloried in it. Adrenaline pumping, he turned on the second boy and gave him a severe beating, lashing him about the head and chest, reveling in the fear he saw in the boy’s eyes. In moments, both boys had run off and Reece whirled around, looking for more foes among the faces of those who’d gathered to watch the spectacle, feeling disappointed when he found no takers.

Walking home afterwards, though, he felt his knees shaking, and realized the truth of what his father had said. He had fought over nothing, really, and it made him feel sick inside. He vowed to never again ignore his father’s admonition. He kept his vow for a long, long time but when he finally broke it, it nearly destroyed him.

In the meantime, he grew from gangly boy to athletic adolescent, acquitting himself well enough in school and better than well enough in all manner of sporting endeavors. He had become a confident young man, lettering in three sports and gaining his parents’ consent to attend Princeton when he graduated high school. He planned to study engineering, his passion. During the previous two years he’d fulfilled his father’s predictions of growth, shooting up several inches in height and filling out in proportion to it. He had a talent for acquiring friends of all stripes, possibly because of his penchant for finding maximum, lighthearted enjoyment in even the most mundane activities. People were drawn to Reece, and he to them.

It was during his senior year in a preparatory boarding school that his world was torn apart.

His parents were taking a trip through the western part of the United States when one day he was summoned to the headmaster’s office. Reece listened in cold shock as the headmaster delivered the news as gently as he could. A trestle bridge over the Missouri River had collapsed, sending a train plunging to its destruction. Many souls on board perished. Reece’s parents were on that train. His father was dead, his mother badly injured. Arrangements would have to be made.

•  •  •

On a damp, chill October day, Reece went alone to meet the train bringing his father’s body back to New York. His mother was still recovering from her injuries, but the doctor pulled Reece aside and told him that she would never be fully well again. Would never walk again, in fact. The damage to the spine was too severe…

After the funeral, Reece officially withdrew from school and assumed the responsibilities of being the man of the house. He could finish school later. He hired a team of nurses to administer constant care to his mother and had elevators installed in the mansion. He made attempts to supervise the household staff but they seemed as stricken and demoralized by what had happened as he was.

He tried to attend to his father’s business concerns, but they were too far-flung for him to comprehend, so a lawyer was retained to sift through it and make sense of it all. Emory Millinder was a handsome, hearty man in his middle years with deep-set black eyes and a prominent streak of gray in his black hair. His manner seemed friendly enough, but Reece soon decided that he didn’t trust the man on a personal level. However, Millinder seemed extremely efficient at the job he was hired to do. Noah Waldron’s companies continued to operate profitably, avoiding the chaos that sometimes comes from a change in ownership.

Mostly, Reece spent a great deal of time at his mother’s bedside. The doctor reported little progress. It anguished Reece to see the once-toned flesh wasting away from her body, the pallor settle permanently over skin that had been infused with life. Quietly, together, they both grieved for Noah Waldron. Sitting in a chair nearby and watching her sleep, Reece came to understand that Noah had been the one true love of her life—a love that not even he, her son, could replace. With a newfound maturity and compassion, Reece understood and accepted this.

His mother’s spirit was broken just as badly as her spine was. Reece found his way out of his own black cave of sorrow by concentrating on her. Daily he spoke to her, sometimes evoking a faint response, sometimes none at all. He recalled out loud memories of his childhood, of his father, of silly things that happened to him at school. The stream of words was an attempt to jolt her into being alive again.

“Remember the time you got so angry with father for keeping me out so late? I must have been five or six at the time. We’d gone sledding, and then stopped at father’s club on the way home because it was so cold. Father only let me have hot chocolate, but you were still so angry when we finally got home, because we’d gotten to talking with the other men and lost track of time. They talked to me like I was grown! At least I thought so at the time. Maybe they were just being kind and humoring me. You were livid! Caught us when we tried to sneak in quietly. And you were in the middle of scolding father when he grabbed you and kissed you and made you laugh so that you forgot all about us being late. Remember?”

Remember… Remember… It continued through the remainder of autumn and into late December. Reece cut down an evergreen tree and hauled it up the stairs and into her room, calling for the staff to help him decorate it. She didn’t speak, but her eyes followed their movements as they adorned the branches with candles in tiny holders, colored hand-blown glass balls and sprigs of fresh holly.

When evening fell, he lit the candles. Their flames imparted a soft glow and sent slivers of reflected light dancing around the surfaces of the colored glass balls. The tree, standing in front of a window that held only the void of night within its casements, blocked out the cold, snow-covered world outside and brought new vitality into the room.

“That smell,” Adrienne murmured softly.

Startled, Reece looked at her.

“Pine needles,” she said. “Reminds me of mah girlhood at Arcadia.” She smiled wanly at her son. “Your grandfather Julian used to love that smell. He’d take a cup of strong chicory coffee outside first thing in the morning and stroll about, breathing deeply. Said there was something about coffee and pine trees that started his day out on an invigorating note.”

The damn was broken. Words came freely. Tears followed. They talked all through the night.

“Ah’m sorry Reece. Ah haven’t been much of a mother to you lately.”

“You’ve been fine.”

“Ah’ve been selfish. After all, you miss him as much as Ah do.”

“Yes.”

“Reece, it’s time you returned to school. You’ll not give up your education for me.”

“Yes.”

In companionable silence, they sat and watched as the window behind the Christmas tree filled with dawn.

•  •  •

Reece plunged himself back into his studies and was able to graduate on time, with honors. He was pleased that his mother was able to attend the graduation ceremonies, although the fact that she was brought there by Emory Millinder struck a sour note in him. Reece had noticed a growing familiarity between his mother and Millinder on his visits home. He tried not to resent it. After all, his mother was simply lonely.

Reece still didn’t trust the man completely. Millinder earned an excellent salary as an attorney, but being on familiar terms with a fortune as large as the Waldron holdings was liable to turn a man’s head. Since Reece was inexperienced in business matters, and ill-equipped, at his age, to manage his father’s diverse legacies, he had no choice but to allow Millinder complete control over their affairs.

The main thing was, his mother was improving. She was still weak, underweight and pale but the servants reported that she was getting around the house in her wheelchair. Regretfully, she’d sold the racehorses. Millinder lacked the specialized knowledge needed to engage in the sport, and she couldn’t bear the thought of bringing in someone else to do it. What would be the point?

She insisted that Reece go to Princeton as planned, even thought he would have preferred to delay college for a year and spend the time with her.

“That’s not necessary. Mr. Millinder is taking very good care of me.”

Reece frowned. “That’s odd. I thought that’s what the nurses were for.”

Adrienne laughed out loud—a rare sound that he welcomed, even if it was at his own expense. “Why Reece Waldron, Ah believe you’re jealous.”

“I just think Millinder is in danger of overstepping his bounds.”

“My, my. That sounds almost snobbish. Is it that he doesn’t use the servants’ entrance when he comes here?”

“That’s not what I meant. I just don’t trust the man.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” She thought hard for a moment. “If you don’t trust him, then Ah shall terminate his employment.”

Reece mentally retreated a few steps. Millinder, whatever his motives, was having a positive effect on his mother. Additionally, it would be difficult to replace him as financial manager, since he’d so thoroughly immersed himself in the position.

“No, don’t do that. He’s quite capable at his job.”

“When you are finished at Princeton, you may decide to take over your father’s business. You can return here and learn all about it from Emory. Then we shall have no need for a financial manager.”

He nodded, trying to please her, but knew in his heart of hearts that he had no talent for or interest in being a captain of industry. If that was what his mother really wanted, when the time came he would try and succeed at it. He hoped it would not be necessary.

Reece excelled at Princeton, for awhile. His classes ceased to hold his attention, though, when he discovered two things: automobiles and women. He was enthralled by all automobiles in general and by one woman in particular, and he devoted zealous energy to both, to the detriment of his studies.