Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (104 page)

She went back to her room, sat thinking. And then she tried to stop thinking. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party …

She thought she heard the busy signal, that irritating clack clack, but her room was too far away. She knew it was there, though — buzz buzz — and it was nerve-wracking.

Someone please help me
, she thought.
Won’t someone please help me?

• • •

In the morning she told Pompey.

“What am I to do?”

He rolled his eyes. “Let me find that no good, I’ll flay him alive,” he promised. “Son of a bitch, excuse my language. I just want to destroy him, the rat, the bastard, excuse my French.”

“Someone has it in for me and I don’t know who.” She gnawed at a fingernail. “I thought I’d tell Mr. Bach about it.”

He was scornful. “Him? He don’t think about nothing but his law business.” He tossed his gray head. “Maybe it’s him that calls you, maybe in his second childhood.”

“Pompey, for heaven’s sake …”

“Fairy-like, doesn’t know which end is up. Never did cotton to him. Brain, maybe, but nowheres else. Wouldn’t trust him no further than I could throw a cat.”

“Pomp, poor old Mr.
Bach
,” she said. “That harmless old man.”

“Seems like everyone’s harmless, but just the same, someone did the calling, right?”

“Yes, but — ”

“Then everyone’s supect, ain’t that so? Him too.”

“Just the same, he’s the last on my list,” she said.

“If it was like it used to be, we could find out easy,” he said discontentedly. “Operator would know. But these days, everything’s dial. No way of telling.”

“Yes, progress has its penalties,” she agreed.

“Let me think about it,” he said, dishing up breakfast. “You forget about it and let me think about it. Miss Margo, you want to get away from this place today. How about the Fair?”

“The Fair?”

“Dutchess County Fair. You have a good time. Cotton candy and apples on the stick. Hot roast beef sandwiches, ice cream. Everyone and his brother. Not far away, too.”

“That sounds very nice, Pomp.”

“Pretty good show. You don’t find
that
in the city. Now I got to get these dishes done, and then mow the lawns on this hot day. No rest for the weary.”

But he twinkled, kissed her on the cheek, and she ran upstairs for her handbag and camera. When she went down again, Ed Corliss was there, with his clipboard, attache case and hesitant smile.

“Good morning, Miss Brand.”

“Oh, hi.”

“Headed for fun and games?”

“Yes, I’m going to the Fair.”

“Fine, you’ll enjoy it.” He set his attache case down.

“More tickets on furniture?” she asked.

“That’s about it.”

“Doesn’t it bore you, rather?”

“I don’t think about it.”

“How long will all this take?”

“Several weeks.”

“My word.”

“You may not be here at the end of it, but it’s your property until you decide to do otherwise.”

“You mean
unless
I decide,” she said.

“Of course that’s what I meant,” he said smoothly, and it gave her an odd feeling. Because he had distinctly said ‘until you decide.’ Once again she thought,
He has no charisma, he’s a dull young man, not to my taste at all.
Out loud, she said, “Don’t work too hard, Ed.”

Then she got into her car and saw him looking out a window. She waved, but he drew his head back.
Funny guy
, she thought, and then gave herself up to the pleasure that lay ahead of her. It was another gorgeous day with brilliant sunshine, the beginning of July.

She sang as she drove. “The sun-burned hand I used to hold …”

She didn’t need a map; she knew the terrain as of old. She was in Ghent at just past midday, and the Fair was in full swing, the sounds of it echoing through the limpid air. She bought an apple on the stick right away and bit into it. Sticky, sweet, bringing back other years. She walked about, snapping pictures, listening to fragments of conversation, and passed the time of day with this one and that one. Then she bought a few things, such as aprons she had no use for but which had been hand made by the “natives.”

At a shooting gallery she threw away two dollars in dimes before hitting her target. “This little lady …” the barker said, bellowing it. The prizes were tawdry and worthless, and she settled for a paperweight with a winter scene and snow sifting down. She stuffed it, along with the rest of the junk, into a shopping bag that had DUTCHESS COUNTY FAIR printed on it.

The prize didn’t mean anything: it was the affirmation, like a good omen.
We’re all superstitious
, she thought. And when she wandered into the livestock section she saw Douglas right away. He was among a clutch of countrymen who were dickering over some animals. On the block was a big bull with wicked red eyes and terrible horns, and Douglas was calling his bid.

Needs it to stud his calves
, Margo thought,
all very earthy and primal.
She stood fairly near him, and then he saw her. “Hello, bright-eyes,” he said, grabbing her elbow. “Stick around, this won’t take long.”

She started getting very excited as the bidding went up. It was evident that Doug meant to have that bull. “Six hundred,” he called out.

“Six fifty,” someone else said.

“Seven hundred.”

There was a short silence, then, “Seven fifty.”

“Eight,” Douglas said, his jaw set.

This time there were no more bids.

The gavel came down. “Going … going … gone!”

There was a round of applause, and the bull was loaded into a truck, goaded up a ramp, and the gate closed. “A good job done,” Doug said, and told the man behind the wheel to drive home slowly and carefully.

“Roger and out,” the driver said, and drove off, the bull bellowing.

“Aren’t you ever afraid?” Margo asked.

“Only of women.”

“I’ll bet.”

“And now that that’s done, how about a drink?”

They left the Fair grounds and went into a local bar. “Don’t order a cocktail,” he warned her. “Just straight whiskey, with a chaser.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. I called the house. I wanted you to come with me, but you’d already left. Pompey said you were headed this way. Needless to say I was delighted.”

“Really? How about your pregnant cow?”

“Doing her post partum exercises … she dropped around three this morning.”

“Fine, fine. Girl or boy?”

“Girl, name’s Margo.”

She laughed. “Really?”

“I thought we agreed on that.”

“We did. I’m very set up. I must knit her some baby things.”

“She’d appreciate that.”

“Then I’ll get started right away.”

“Tomorrow will do. How about another drink?”

“I could manage.”

They were served, and he asked her what was new and interesting. “Nothing much,” she said. “Unless you call a visit from the Minister and Mrs. Pride interesting.”

“Oh my, your life here’s very exciting, isn’t it?” But then he smiled. “I happen to have a soft spot for old Mrs. Pride. I always thought that, if she had a parrot, it would say some shocking things.”

She laughed. “You may be right. For instance, she told me Pompey’s tea would put hair on my chest.”

“That’s only for starters. I’ve heard her say things that would … well, that you wouldn’t believe.”

“She’s rather far gone these days, I fear.”

“You mean out of it. Yes, I know.”

“For one thing, she instructed me that Aunt Vicky had left me a fortune.”

“Ah so?”

“I thought, of course, she meant the house. No, she insisted. I’m an heiress. Something about fifty thousand dollars, maybe more.”

“In a piggy bank?”

“I said, ‘Under the floor boards?’ And she scorned that, said Aunt Vicky wouldn’t be so nonsensical. She’s under the impression that there’s money somewhere, holed up in that house. In a “reticule,” or some similar place.”

“A reticule! The old dear …”

“Yes, she is, rather, but Pompey sent her home without dinner. I could have cried.”

“I see his point, in all truth. So you’ve been left a fortune.”

“According to Mrs. Pride.”

“I can’t quite see Victoria Brand depositing money in a Swiss bank, can you?”

“No. Or hiding it in a reticule either. She was such a straightforward person. Mrs. Pride told me not to tell the others.”

“Meaning?”

“You and John. Mr. Bach. She doesn’t seem to dig Mr. Bach, she called him an old goat.”

“Well, he is, rather.”

“He’s a kindly old gentleman.”

“Kindly old gentlemen sometimes conceal wicked interiors.”

“You think he stole my fortune from my aunt?”

“He could have.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, scoffing.

“Lawyers have power of attorney. Most of them. Probably Jim Bach did too.”

“And now he’s gloating, like Silas Marner, over the fortune she left me?”

“Damn his eyes.”

“You’re rather a bit of fun,” she said.

“I was hoping you’d think so.”

“Oh, Douglas …”

“Where’d you get those eyes, and what color are they, anyway?”

“Do I have to listen to this malarkey?”

“It’s up to you, my dear.”

“I have you in my power, you know. You have no means of transportation back to the farm. I can leave you stranded, circling around in the arid desert, crying for water and seeing mirages. I could do that, you know.”

“You’d never be so cruel.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

“Have another drink.”

“I’ve had quite enough. I’ll drive you back now, I can’t bear to think of you going mad in the wilderness, poor thing. I’ve too kind a heart.”

‘I’ll nominate you for sainthood. But you won’t drive me back, not yet. I’m going to take you sightseeing.”

“Really? Where?”

“To a little undersized community where, would you believe it, two witches were burned, according to the quaint custom of the times, accused of poisoning the immortal souls of a couple of misbegotten girls who claimed themselves under the power of the Devil and pointed a finger at their schoolteachers, aged twenty and twenty-one, respectively. So there was an auto da fe in the public square. This was, you understand, in the century immediately before the one which precedes ours.”

“Do you mind if we don’t talk about it,” she said, shivering.

“Not at all. What’s left is peaceful enough. I discovered it only a couple of years ago. As a matter of fact it was John who told me about it; he’s the scholar, you know. It’s off the beaten track, and what I want to show you is a little churchyard that’s nearly three hundred years old. I go there at times when my psyche isn’t all it should be. How about it, or do you have more glamorous things to do?”

“Hardly. I’d love to see your little churchyard.” He paid the bill and they got in the car again, heading north. “It’s about sixteen miles away,” Doug said. He drove because it was easier, he pointed out, than giving directions. “How about lighting me a cigarette?”

She lit two and handed him one. “Tastes like your mouth,” he said, smiling sideways.

“How would you know?”

“My fertile imagination,” he answered and, smiling back, leaned an arm on the window, exhaling smoke. “Shall I put the radio on?”

“Not for me.”

“Not for me either. Talk is better.”

They chatted idly, sometimes discussing the problems of the day, sometimes reminiscing. Doug called himself an Ethical Humanist; she liked the sound of it. “Perhaps I am too,” she said, and he remarked that if it was so it was another thing they had in common.

“What other?” she asked.

“Our childhood, after all.”

“Yes, of course, Douglas.”

“And a natural attachment for each other.”

“Do we have that too?”

He turned to her, gave her a long, serious look and said, “Yes, we do,” and then attended to the road again. There was a kind of vibration, to which she kindled, and she glanced at his handsome, browned face, his intelligent, alert eyes, and thought,
Take it easy, just take it easy.

Was she falling in love with him?

They branched off at a picayune little railroad crossing, and came to a small church almost hidden behind shrubbery and tall elms. “Here we are,” Doug said, and parked the car. The quiet was intense, the only sounds those of nature: the rustling of trees, bird-songs, the tinkle of a cowbell. “Let’s get out,” Douglas said, and they padded over leafy ground. “We’ll go in and light a candle for Aunt Vick first, and then I’ll show you the old graves.”

The door was heavy and nail-studded, creaking open rustily, and then they stood in the gloom of an almost lightless interior. There were six narrow windows, three on either side of the little church in the wildwood, long and slender as needles, darkened and grimy with age. A small rose window accented the farther end, its jewel tones subdued by dust and neglect.

Yet there was a hushed, hallowed sense of respose and sanctuary about the tiny chapel. Pilgrims had knelt here, thanking God for release from tyranny; in the high, carved lectern a man of God had once thundered a message founded on the Gospel, and a small band of parishioners, forging their way in the New World, had sipped the wine and taten the wafer on their tongues. The figure of Christ on the Cross, primitive and writhing, seemed to be saying in the solemn stillness, “This peace I give unto you … not as the world giveth, give I unto you …”

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Douglas whispered, and led her forward to the rows of flickering candles. He fished in a pocket and drew forth some coins, which he dropped into a tin box, the sound reverberating in the stillness. Then he pulled out a taper for her. She lit it from one of the flickering candles.
For my aunt,
she thought, and Doug lit another. They stood and watched the new flames flaring and then went out again.

Into the afternoon beneficence, the birds twittering madly. “Come on, honey, let’s take a gander at the gravestones, they’re older than God.”

Dating back to the beginning of the country, they dotted the hillside. Long before the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, men and women and children had been interred here, laid in the ground to the sighs and cries and sobs of mourners. Headstones half-sunk in the earth, moldering flowers, overgrown grass.
Here lies Fanny Hayes, born 1691, died 1749 …