Another Eden (19 page)

Immediately Sara turned her back on him and walked to the other side of the foyer. In the mirror over her head, he saw that she'd gone deathly pale. She clamped one hand over her mouth and shut her eyes tight. He went to her but didn't touch her—touching her was what had brought on this catastrophe. "Sara? Sara, I'm sorry, that was all my fault. What does it mean? What's going to happen?"

She spun around. Color returned to her cheeks like two slap marks. "I don't know! Nothing. Nothing
did
happen. Oh, Alex, for God's sake, go away." He turned to obey, and she clutched at his arm to stop him. "I'm sorry, I don't even know what I'm saying!"

"What will happen?" he repeated. "She won't say anything, will she? To Ben, I mean."

"No—no. How could she? There's nothing to say."

"Are you going to be all right?"

"Yes, of course."

He ground his teeth. "I can postpone this trip, there's no reason—"

"Don't be silly. You must go, of course."

The mask of her composure slipped back into place so easily, he wanted to shake her. "Let me write to you."

"No."

"Sara—"

"
No
, and I can't see you again. You have to go now, Alex, don't you see?"

"Sara, this is—"

"Please, if you care for me at all—!"

"All right." There was nothing else to say any-way. He opened the door, but when he looked back her mask had slipped a little; for a fleeting second he saw all the hopeless tenderness in her eyes. And so, for once, he said the very thing he was thinking at the moment he was thinking it. "I'm in love with you."

Her eyes went liquid with sorrow. He saw his truest emotions mangled and twisted into weapons that pierced to the heart, and knew he'd committed the ultimate unkindness. He couldn't bear it. He pulled the door closed, blocking out the sight of her.

Sara stood still for a long time, staring at the pattern in the oak door frame, listening to the soft hiss of the gaslights. Finally she turned—to go upstairs, she thought, but her legs gave out and she found herself slumped on the settee beside her shopping bags. The comforting numbness retreated, and all at once tears blinded her. She groped for her handkerchief A "broken heart," they called this. She felt broken. Split. Alex had ripped open all the scarred-over hurts that had been sleeping for years, and she was bleeding. Why, why hadn't he left her alone?

She couldn't stay here where any passing servant might see her—Ben might see her, or Tasha. No—Tasha had already seen her. But she must get up, pretend nothing was wrong. As much as she longed to take refuge in her room until she had her emotions in check, she had to be seen, now, no matter what it cost. She got up and crossed to the mirror—and gasped softly when she saw her face. True panic brought sweat to the palms of her hands. How could she explain this? Maybe it was better to hide after all, run upstairs and escape. No. A stronger instinct warned her she had to see Ben now, without further delay.

She used her soaked handkerchief again. No need to pinch her cheeks—they were already flushed. She took several deep breaths, squared her shoulders, and tried to arrange her features into a look of self-possession. It might serve. It had to serve.

Halfway down the hall, she could hear voices from the drawing room; but when she paused in the doorway, they abruptly stopped. Her nerves jolted. Tasha sat on the scarlet brocade sofa, her sewing in her lap; ten feet away, Ben stood beside the liquor cabinet, mixing a drink. She glanced between them, straining to gauge the atmosphere. But she could read nothing in their faces, hear nothing ominous in the silence between them.

She often Came upon them together in this room in the evening. It was the family gathering place, to the extent that there was one at all. Or, she thought cynically, to the extent that they were a family. Ben liked the "crimson" drawing room's garish, overdone opulence. He said good night to Michael there when Mrs. Drum brought him downstairs at eight, clean and combed and sweet in his nightrobe and slippers. Tasha sewed there. Sara forced herself to act wifely there when she longed to go to her little room across the hall and read a book or write a letter or think her own solitary thoughts.

Ben finished the whiskey and soda he'd just made and poured another. She wanted a drink, but if she asked him to make her one and he came close enough to hand it to her, he would see too much in her forlorn, red-eyed face. Tasha looked up and smiled at her—an odd smile, she thought. Was she being fanciful? She tried again to interpret the younger woman's dark silence as she plied her needle to the sewing in her lap, but it was impossible. Deliberately taking a seat beside her on the sofa, Sara asked, "What are you making, Tasha? That silk is lovely."

She looked up. Absurd to read anything sinister in the black, uncanny stillness of-her bottomless eyes. "A shawl for you. Do you like it?"

"It's beautiful. Thank you."

"You are welcome, Sara."

Again the familiarity almost made her wince. She looked across at Ben. He was watching both of them over the rim of the glass of his third drink. Presently he came and sat in the chair opposite, slouching down in it on his spine. He rested his glass on his belt, knees spread wide, glaring. "Who the hell does he think he is?"

"Ben, do you think this is the—"

"Goddamn son of a bitch, who the hell does he think he is? Does he think I
can't
pay? I could buy everything he owns right now with the change in my pocket."

Sara fingered the lace at her wrist, wondering why she wasn't used to his vulgarity by now. And what was he thinking of, to speak of money in front of Tasha? Still, before she could stop herself, she snapped, "Well, why don't you pay him, then?"

His bloodshot eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'll pay him when I'm goddamn good and ready. 'Show of good faith,' he says." He muttered another curse, obscene and vicious, and Sara tensed. Tasha sewed on in silence. "Ogden got him into the New York Club."

"What?"

"Ogden got McKie into the New York Club. Can you beat that?"

Ben had been trying for six years to find someone influential enough to sponsor him for membership in the most exclusive men's club in the city, probably in the country. And now they'd admitted Alex. It was too delicious; in spite of everything, Sara had to pinch her lips to keep from smiling.

"You know why, don't you? The bastard sleeps with Ogden's wife."

"That's absurd," she bit out, furious and unable to hold her tongue. "Why would you say such a thing?"

"Because he sleeps with anything that moves. Christ, everybody knows it, don't look so surprised. His favorite is other fellows' wives."

"You are ridiculous. That's a lie and you know it."
Stop
! her brain shouted. But she was shaking with anger, incapable of keeping silent.

"The hell it is. I bet he's had every man's wife in his whole damn firm."

She jumped up, but managed to conquer the impulse to shout at him. She couldn't stay in the same room with him, though. She muttered something about dinner and started to stalk past him. His hand flashed out and he grabbed her arm. "
Let go
."

"Stay here, I've got something to say to you."

She couldn't break his grip on her wrist. She kept her face a rigid blank and said quietly, "Very well. Tasha, would you mind leaving us alone for a few minutes?"

"No, certainly." She put her sewing away carefully, and so slowly that Sara wanted to scream—for Ben's hold on her arm was excruciating and he was not going to relax it until they were alone. "I will see you at dinner, then," Tasha murmured, obsidian eyes scanning them languidly as she passed Ben's chair and went into the hall.

As soon as she was gone, Sara gave a violent yank to free her arm and moved out of his range. "You bastard," she whispered; despite her best effort, tears of pain and fury streaked down her face. "What is it you want to say to me? Say it quickly."

As usual, the sight of her weeping had a sedative effect on his temper. He crossed his legs and sent her a nasty smile. "I want you to go back to Newport, and I'm tired of arguing about it. You're going."

She blinked at him, then spread her hands in genuine bafflement. "Why? It makes no sense for me to go back—specially if work on the new house has stopped." She shouldn't have said that—Alex shouldn't have told her! But Ben didn't seem to notice her gaffe. "It'll start again as soon as I send them a check. I'll send it in the morning."

"But why?" she repeated. "Why do you want me gone so badly?" It seemed he'd been trying to get rid of her since the day she'd returned. She had been uncommonly adamant in her refusal, using Michael's injuries as an excuse. But the real reason, of course, was Alex.

"I don't want you gone, Sara," he answered innocently. "I'm thinking of Michael. It'll do him good, all that fresh air and exercise."

That was such an obvious lie, she almost snorted. "You really have got a bloody cheek. Michael goes back to school in ten days, and you know it. It's a woman, isn't it? You want a free rein while you carry on with your latest whore."

He finished his drink, not looking at her. "Don't be stupid."

"Why bother to deny it? God, Ben, do you think I
care
?"

He got to his feet and came toward her slowly, and all at once she realized he was drunk. "Listen, Sare."

"Don't touch me." She backed up until she felt the liquor cabinet behind her. "I mean it, don't touch me."

He reached out with one beefy hand to stroke her cheek. "Come on. Come on, Sare, don't be like that. Jeez, you're soft." His bloodshot eyes watered lugubriously.

"Stop it."

"Be nice, Sare, c'mon. Don't you like me? Jeez, look at you. Come on, let's—"

She batted his pawing hand away and jerked sideways. "Just
don't"
she ground out, shuddering with revulsion. Once in a great while, and only when he was drunk, this kind of maudlin sentimentality replaced the callousness he usually showed her. Once, a hundred years ago, she'd mistaken it for real feeling. Now she hated it as much as his brutality, maybe more—an honest blow was almost preferable to this mawkish, grotesque affection.

Snarling, he dropped his arm. He lurched against the liquor cabinet, cursed, and started to make another drink. "You're going to Newport." His voice was ugly again. "You're going, that's it."

She could go, she realized, now that Alex wouldn't be there. She could even make it seem like a concession.

"All right," she said, facing him. "If it means so much to you, I'll go. But only on one condition." Bleary-eyed, he gulped his drink and waited. "Michael goes to school
here
, Ben, in New York. There won't be any more talk of sending him away—not this year, not ever." Heart pounding, she fixed him with a firm, falsely confident stare.

"Do you agree?"

"No."

All the blood drained from her face. "Damn you! I mean it, Ben, I won't—"

"Shut up. He can stay here—for now. We'll give it six months. That's fair. After that, we'll renegotiate." "
You bloody bastard
!" She wanted to hit him, she realized. She spun around, trembling, afraid to look at him.

He laughed, then tossed off the rest of his whiskey and made a grab for her arm. She tried to jerk away, but he gave her a savage warning shake that made her teeth clash, then solicitously tucked her hand into the bend of his elbow. "Dinner's ready by now, Sare. Come on, we don't want to keep Miss Eminescu waiting, do we?" He guided her out of the room, smiling down at her, patting her hand.

Matthew Holyfield's new grave still had no headstone. The Blessed Brethren must be waiting for the deceased's kin to cough up enough money to buy one, Alex thought as he stood over the convex dirt rectangle with hands clasped and head bowed. He wasn't praying. He was trying to decide on an appropriate epitaph for his grandfather. The Brethren expected something cheap but unctuous, no doubt—"He sleeps in peace" or "His life was a prayer." But Alex had other tributes in mind. "He tolerated no human frailty" was one. Or "He was congenitally incapable of forgiving." What about "His family feared him all his days"? or something really basic, like, "His grandson despised him"?

He swore at himself under his breath; even dead, Matthew could still bring out the worst in him. What he ought to do was
forgive
the son of a bitch. Then, if his grandfather was right and there really was a hell, Alex could watch him burn in it from a safe distance away in heaven for the rest of eternity.

He moved sideways, past the inconspicuous marker on his grandmother's grave to the one over his mother's.
Susan Holyfield
, it read. Nothing more, not even the dates. But that was probably just as well; if Matthew had wanted a message carved on his daughter's tombstone, it would've been "Wretched Sinner." That's what he'd called her often enough while she lived.

Alex knelt to lay his bouquet of bright poppies at the foot of his mother's grave. If she'd lived, she'd have been forty-eight years old today. He didn't even know, not for certain, what had killed her. One day when he was seven, she'd "taken to her bed," as the family put it. But not for long; within a few weeks she was gone. The funeral sermon, preached by his grandfather, had been so full of her shame and sinfulness that Alex had been embarrassed to show his grief But he'd mourned her in secret, keeping her memory alive in his heart during the dreadful decade that followed. And then, at sixteen, he'd run away, just as she'd been driven to do twenty years earlier. Sometimes he thought she must have been looking out for him during those first years on his own because, unlike her, he'd never been forced by circumstances to return.

"Well, bless my soul. That's Alexander Holyfield, ain't it?"

Alex shot to his feet and pivoted. An old man stood on the path twenty feet away, shielding his eyes from the sun with a veiny, gnarled hand and peering at him. He wore rusty black trousers and a collarless white shirt; a sweat-stained straw hat was jammed down over his forehead.

"Don't you remember me, boy?" He started forward at a loose-jointed amble, talking all the while. "Reese Melrose, over to Cider Creek. I was deacon in your grampa's church for a time. You recollect me now, don't you? Law, you've done changed a mite, ain't you?" He wiped his palm on the side of his pants and stuck it out to shake.

"How do you do. I'm sorry, but I don't remember. And my name's McKie now."

"McKie? Hah! Changed it, did you?"

"It was my father's name."

"That's right, I recollect that now."

I'll just bet you do, thought
Alex
, amazed at how all the anger and resentment could return in the blink of an eye, strong as ever and still as bitter as alum.

Grinning, Melrose stepped back and swept him with a good, long look, head to toe." 'Pears to me like you done pretty good after leaving outa here all sudden-like. How you been, boy? Didn't show up at your grampa's funeral, did you? Some o' the Brethren wondered about you. Glad to see you're not dead. What you been up to?"

In spite of himself, Alex almost smiled. He picked the old man's last question at random and answered, "I'm living in New York now, sir. I've become an architect."

"An
architect
. Well now, ain't that something. What would ol' Matthew have to say about that, I wonder?"

"Something about the devil's handiwork, I expect, or the sins of the father being visited. Something on that order."

Melrose whacked his thigh and whooped out a laugh. "Wouldn't he, though? Yes sir, that's just what he'd say. You got that right, Mr. Alexander
McKie
." Now Alex did smile. "How's your daughter, Mr. Melrose?"

"Ha, so you do remember me! I knew it."

"How's Charlotte?"

"Charlotte's good. Got four kids, lives over in Monterey. I'll be sure to tell her I run into you. Reckon she'll remember you pretty good."

"I reckon she will." He wasn't likely to forget her. When he was fourteen, she thirteen, he'd gotten her back behind the school building and kissed her. She'd told her mother, who had told his grandfather. Matthew had made him "confess" in front of the whole congregation of Blessed Brethren, then beaten him with a strap until blood ran down his legs.

"Why'd you come back, boy?" Melrose asked, squinting at him. "You miss the place?"

Alex looked off across the flat yellow distance, inhaling the sunny smell of summer. He'd asked himself that question many times since boarding the train from New York. He owed his grandfather nothing, and he could've hired someone to see to the disposition of Matthew's "estate."

"Miss the place?" he repeated. The drone of bees off in the seared clover was as familiar to him as his own voice; the high summer sky was a burning shade of blue that he'd never seen anywhere else in the world. "How's the crop this year?" he asked instead of answering. "Things are looking pretty dry."

"Terrible year, terrible. I give up on lettuce about four years back—got too old for all the bending. Just do sugar beets and a few pear trees now." He pushed his straw hat back to scratch the top of his bald head. "Matthew quit planting altogether after you left. You know that?"

"No, sir." And he didn't care. "Why?" he asked anyway. "Couldn't he afford another slave?"

Old Melrose pushed his lips out a few times consideringly. "Don't know if it was that or not. Got kinda peculiar, we thought. Kept to himself more. Kept preachin', o' course; nothing could make him stop preachin'. He took to carryin' on about sin in the big city and such-like, couldn't let go of it. Course, he knew you was up in San Francisco by then, so we all figured that's what was behind it. You go to school up there or something?"

"That's right." It was satisfying to think of Matthew getting crazier and crazier because of some sick notion about Alex living a life of sin and degradation in the city. Not too long ago he'd felt a compulsion to confront the old man, to rub it in his face that he'd gone out and gotten every damn thing he'd sworn to him thirteen years ago he would get. But maybe this was better; if thinking of his grandson consorting with the devil in that cesspool of wickedness and vice—Oakland—had finally driven the miserable bastard around the bend, Alex couldn't find it in himself to feel sorry.

"How are the Blessed Brethren these days?" He took care not to sneer the name of the congregation; Melrose, he recalled, was a true believer.

"It ain't the same without Matthew. That's what everybody says. Course, some of us say that ain't all bad," he added with a wink.

Alex grinned. "What brings you out here, sir?"

He pointed with a long, sunbrowned arm. "Lucille, my wife. Over yonder by that spittal pine. Passed on about nine years ago now."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"I make it up here about once a month. Talk to her and all, tell her what's going on with the children and what-not. Reckon she can hear me?"

"I—um—" he stammered, taken off guard. "It wouldn't surprise me, sir. Not a bit."

Melrose grinned slyly. "Then I reckon Matthew can hear you. Hah? I'm gonna get on now, boy, got things to do. You stay and think o' something to say to ol' Matthew, you hear?" He tipped his hat and started to shuffle off, still grinning. "Make it a good one, now, you hear? Nice talkin' to you! You're looking very prime, Mr. Alexander McKie!"

Alex laughed and held up a hand in farewell. The old man waved back, then disappeared around the first turn in the path.

Still grinning, Alex looked down at his grandfather's grave. Melrose's idea appealed to him. "Well now, let's see," he said experimentally. He never talked to himself; his voice sounded strange with no one around to hear it. "You were a mean son of a bitch your whole life, Matthew Holyfield. Nobody in the world is sorry you're dead. Nobody misses you. If you're in hell now, it's no more than—"

He stopped, sheepish. What the hell was he doing? He glanced behind him nervously, but there was no one around.

"It's no more than you deserve," he resumed confidentially. "You ruined my mother's life, you tried to ruin mine. Your wife you just beat down to nothing, so that nobody even knew she was there. When she died, we hardly even noticed."

His throat closed; all at once he felt like crying. It came back in a hot rush, how it felt to be twelve years old and full of impotent rage. "Do you know how many women I've had, Matthew? I can't even count—maybe a hundred. Sinners all. And I'm
rich
. These shoes cost thirty dollars. Every two weeks I pay a man to cut my hair. I live in New York City, and I belong to a club that's so exclusive, they wouldn't let you in to clean the toilet." He swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Here's a promise: I'm coming back in ten years so you can see how much richer I got. And I'll put flowers on
Melrose's
grave."

He laughed, then sucked in his breath and closed his eyes tight. "You're nothing, old man, you can't touch me anymore. I beat you. And I can't waste any more time thinking about you." He knelt down swiftly and put a hand on his mother's grave, a hand on his grandmother's. Then he stood up and walked away fast, not looking back.

"Good-bye, Mr. McKie, it's been a pleasure talking to you." George Mitchell's boyish face pinkened. "And—an honor."

Alex shook hands. "The pleasure was mine." Behind Mitchell's shoulder, he saw Professor Stern wink at him in amusement.

"It's really nice of you to offer to look at my drawings. Shall I send them to New York, sir, or to your hotel in San Francisco?"

"Since I'm not sure how much longer I'll be here, why don't you send them to New York. Professor Stern can give you my address."

"Very good, that's what I'll do. Thanks again, sir, it's awfully nice of you."

"Don't mention it." Bemused, he watched the professor open the door for young Mitchell and see him out.

When Professor Stern turned back, his mild gray eyes were twinkling. "Mitchell's never found talking to
me
an honor," he noted, leading the way down the hall toward his study. "Martha, don't do that now—leave it till morning and I'll help," he called to his wife as they passed by the archway to the dining room.

Mrs. Stern flapped her hand and resumed clearing the dishes from the table. "Go sit down, the coffee's almost ready." Stern shrugged and kept moving.

In the study, at the professor's insistence, Alex took the place of honor—a soft, worn leather chair whose back reclined at the touch of a button on the wooden arm rest.

"Brandy?"

"Thanks."

"What did you think of Mitchell?"

"I liked him. He seems very bright."

"He is bright, the best student I've got this year. He was thrilled when I told him you'd be here—don't be surprised if he asks you for a reference. He wants to study at the Beaux Arts. Following in the master's footsteps, don'tcha know." Alex laughed as he took the glass Stern handed him. The professor sat down on the sofa opposite and set about lighting his pipe. "So," he said, puffing cloudily. "Tell me what you really think of my new house."