Fortune's Hand (10 page)

“Okay. Lead the way.”

Everything was moving so fast around him, forward and back in time. The world was spinning. One morning when he woke up in his cubicle, he even thought for a second that he heard the gate's hinge creak and the hens clucking in the yard.

Where am I? Who am I?

The hotel faced the park, which was the heart of the city, a stretch of countryside scattered with silver ponds and lakes as far north as the reservoir. At the front door of the hotel, in contrast, lay the urban scene: tourists with foreign labels on their luggage, yellow taxicabs, and traffic streaming under the summer sun. From here you could walk to all the museums, the music, theaters, and shops in Manhattan, if you wanted to.

“It's the Arabian nights, and the days, too,” Robb marveled. “It's a giant bazaar.”

“You're like a child opening birthday presents.”

Up and down the long avenues and across Manhattan Island to its enclosing rivers, they went hand in hand. Ellen was touched by his amazement. Things that, during college and her travels, had become more or less familiar were for him a startling novelty. A window was filled with rare first editions; another displayed an empress's necklace on a black velvet pillow. They visited museums filled with noble, marble Romans standing tall, and noble Romans lying in their carved sarcophagi. Galleries displayed Chinese apple jade, or Impressionists, or Expressionists, or Cubists. In flowery rooms under crystal chandeliers, they dined together.
They “ate Italian,” to use Eddy Morse's famous phrase. They also ate meats wrapped in Greek phylo dough, sauerbraten, sushi, and coq au vin.

One night they were dancing on a rooftop. Smiles flickered on the faces of old ladies with their old husbands beside them, watching the dancers. It seemed to Ellen that perhaps they were remembering the poignant passage of time. And there, before them all, she raised her face toward Robb and kissed him passionately upon the lips.

“Did you think because it was my first time, that I would be afraid or shy?” she asked him as they lay awake that night.

He laughed. “You? No. I knew you wouldn't be.”

“I want you to know everything about me.”

“What I don't already know, I'm going to learn. We have a lifetime, my darling.”

Sometimes, waking early after his long habit, Robb would walk to the window to watch the last electric bulbs going out all over the city. Behind him on the bed, the first daylight would be touching Ellen's quiet sleep. He thought about the mystery of sleep. There as she lay unmoving, her mind was awake and alert inside her head. And meshed experiences of her past were being reborn to vivid life, most probably to be forgotten again as soon as her eyes opened. He wondered what her dreams might be and whether he might be a part of them. For the thousandth time, he tried to fathom the enormous power that had drawn him to Ellen and she to him. “It's chemistry,” people said, which was as good as saying nothing. There was more meaning in the
thought of a match applied to kindling wood, or of a seed's sprout upward toward the rain.

When she stirred and moved her hand, light also moved, striking a fiery spark from the ring on her finger. A foolish piece of ancient mineral it was, of no real value except as a symbol. But as a symbol, it had no price. It was his pledge.

“Take the smaller one,” Eddy had urged. “She'll appreciate quality, not size. Even if you could afford a big one, it would be too flashy for her. It's not her type. Not Wilson Grant's, either,” he had added with his inevitable, knowing grin.

Yes, she was quality in every way. Walking with her, so tall and poised, with that air about her that caused men to look, his heart swelled. And he saw her again as he would always see her, coming toward him on her father's arm with her short veil lifting in the breeze and white ribbons trailing from her white bouquet. His love! His own!

That first time, in this bed, he had kissed the hollow of her throat. He had had a feeling almost holy, a thankfulness for such incomparable joy, a yearning to be worthy of it, to be … Well, putting it too simply, a yearning to be good.

Never, never will I hurt her, he vowed now as she slept, nor cause her a moment's pain, God help me. And if I have said that once before in my life, God forgive me.

For who is there who has never made a mistake?

* * *

In Marchfield Lily Webster saw her, too, noting with a woman's eye that the gown was made of some sheer fabric, that the veil fell from a crown of stiffened lace, and that the bridal bouquet held rosebuds mingled with white iris. She had even taken a magnifying glass to the newspaper and so discovered the tiny diamond studs in the bride's ears. There she stood, Mrs. Robb MacDaniel, with her arm linked to the arm of her husband, Mr. Robb MacDaniel.

“Well, now that you've seen it,” said Lily's mother, “why don't you throw it away? You're much better off without the nasty thing.”

Undoubtedly that was true; nevertheless it stayed hidden beneath odds and ends in a bureau drawer, along with the notice in the local paper of Robb's honors at the law school commencement ceremonies.

So far, after six long months, Lily had found no truth in the old bromide about time's healing power. Time did not heal; it merely covered over. The festering, bitter agony remained intact. The trick was of course not to show it.

Those first few days were the hardest, the first day at work perhaps the hardest of all.

“I saw a nice car in front of your house the other day,” said the neighbor as Lily went down the steps. “And I took a guess. Robb's car. Right?”

“Yes, yes, it was.”

“Well, it won't be long now, will it?”

Lily looked blank. “Oh yes … I mean no … Excuse me, I've got to run. I'm late.” And she did, literally, run down the street.

Then at the library came the usual questions.

“Have you and Robb decided where you're going to live?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, it's a big decision, isn't it? People want to get settled and stay for good.”

There seemed to be no end to these trite, well-meant remarks. No end, until finally she confided the truth to one of the old librarians. There were only four in the building, but this one had a keen understanding; she would spread Lily's news with tact. And so she had.

Now there were no more questions. Instead there was a noticeable cheerfulness and gentleness in people's manner. News had spread through the little town, at least among those whom Lily was likely to encounter. When the young widow on the next street invited her to a movie on Saturday night she was grateful, to be sure, but she was also well aware of being talked about. Robb's defection made alluring entertainment.

Young men called and took her to the places where young people went: again to the movies, to a roadhouse for beer and dancing, or to another town for more of the same. It was not the paucity of all this that pained her—she was, after all, a small town girl who expected nothing different and had been contented here—it was the fact that wherever they took her she had already been innumerable times with Robb. Each place, each bend in the road, had its memories of him; his face, laugh, voice, and loving arms.

And so, one day not long after he had appeared in the paper as a bridegroom, Lily took two steps. She
destroyed the clipping. She told her mother that she was leaving Marchfield.

“You're leaving me?” Mrs. Webster was shocked.

“Not leaving you so much as leaving my past. I need to wipe it away, if I can, and that's impossible here.”

“I hope he's miserable. I hope he never has a happy day.”

“Whether he does or not, Mother, has no affect on me. Every hour of my life he's in my thoughts. I can't seem to help it. I guess I never will.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Meredith. The library there is much larger than ours. It's a county library. They have a place for me and the pay is better, too.”

“He spoiled your life.”

Yes. Yes, a thousand times over, Lily thought. A sparrow was building a nest beneath the overhang on the back porch; it must have made twenty trips in the last hour bearing twigs, scraps of the fall's dead leaves, and even a piece of twine. It had a definite purpose and the energy to carry it out. While I have none, she thought; my purpose lies discarded with the rug, the kitchenware, and the satin for the wedding dress that was to have been mine. And she sat there on the step, sat quietly so as not to frighten the bird.

Mrs. Webster's face had withered into sadness. Her daughter was wretched; her daughter was going away and leaving her forlorn.

“Don't be so sad, Mother,” Lily comforted. “Meredith isn't all that far away. We'll both go back and forth.”

There was a long silence. Down on Main Street the great clock struck noon, leaving a vibration in the air. The day moved along. And after a while Mrs. Webster spoke again.

“I suppose we should look at the bright side.” It was one of her pleasanter qualities that, after gloom and grumbling, she could turn to the “bright side.”

“Is there any?”

“Yes, maybe you'll meet a good man in Meredith.”

“Are there any?”

“Oh Lily, you do know better than that.”

“Do I? No, I don't think so. I'm burned and I'm scarred and I'm afraid of fire. That's how it is.”

J
ulie Grant MacDaniel was born in May one month before her parents' first anniversary. Her features were already delicate, and her black, scant hair gave evidence of future curls.

“She's going to look like you,” Robb said.

He was struck with awe, tall with pride, and comically dazed at the same time. Ellen, relaxed upon the hospital's pillows, was enjoying it all. Her setting was perfect, from the lace bed jacket to the flowers crowded on the window ledge, to the books and pink-wrapped baby gifts on every level surface in the room. This birth had, in a nice way, amused their friends. It was, after all, rather quaint to produce a child so promptly, while the frozen wedding cake was still edible. For goodness' sake, one might think they had actually not known how to prevent it! But the truth was that they had not cared. Having at last been able to hold those long, intimate conversations in which a man and woman come to
know each other, they had reached several decisions, among them to have four children. Ellen's brother, Arthur, was a good deal older than she, so that their contact had been limited from the start, while Robb was an “only”; therefore, a large family was a priority.

Murmuring, he bent to kiss her. “I'm so proud of you. You can't know. So proud.”

“Why? Because I've had a baby? Everybody has babies.”

“Not only that.”

“Then why else?” She liked to tease, so that he would say it again. “Because I've sold another set of illustrations?”

“Of course. I'm preparing to retire on your earnings. Oh, you know I love your book. But seriously, your father's the one who's really on cloud nine. Even the judge knows about the book. He wants to buy half a dozen copies for his relatives' kids as soon as it's in the stores.”

“I'm thinking of writing my own story next time, not just illustrating somebody else's.”

“Your professor will be awfully upset to lose you.”

“But I have some great ideas. For instance, I'd like to have a dog-show theme. I already have the title: ‘Billy the Red Setter.' The pictures could be charming.”

“How are you going to do all that now that we have Julie?”

“I don't know, but I'll manage.” Confidence, like an elixir, seemed to be passing through her veins. “I'll work out a system. I'll have to have one, won't I, by the time number four arrives?”

He was standing there just looking at her. In his eyes she read a kind of wonder, an expression that sometimes made her think of a man who had been hungry and was now being presented with a feast. And very moved, she blurted something she had not intended to say.

“My father's going to talk to you tomorrow when I get home. It's supposed to be a surprise, but I can't keep it in. When he tells you, don't dare let on that you already know. Can't you guess what it is?”

“Not at all.”

“Okay. Dad wants to take you into the firm. They've been needing somebody, and who's a more likely choice than you? Ah, look at that smile—all over your face! You did guess. I know you did.”

“Well, I admit I've been hoping a little now and then. But I know it's a three-man firm, they've wanted to keep it small, and so I didn't let myself hope too much.”

“Well darling, it's yours. Dad's very happy about it. You'll work well together. Incidentally, Judge Salmon's been telling him all year how pleased he is with you.”

“I'm sort of numb. I don't know what to say.”

“We won't be rich, you know. It's not a big-time firm, with staggering fees. Dad never wanted it to be.”

Robb smiled. “Semantics. One man's poor is another man's rich.”

“Ah, you're thinking of our house and all the nice things in the attic. It's true that Dad bought the house, but the rest came from my mother's family. Mother left a very modest income—even you might agree it's modest. No, Dad's never been a rich man.”

“Except in reputation, which is what counts. You should hear what I hear down in the courthouse.”

“Oh, I've heard. Dad's known as a ‘character,' in both senses of the word.”

“Yes, character.”

A silence, quite startling to Ellen, fell into the room. When Robb paused, frowned, and took on that distant look as if he were seeing something strange in a far corner, she knew that an abrupt, important change was coming.

“What is it, Robb?”

“I wouldn't,” he said slowly, “I wouldn't want to accept if—it was only a family obligation because I'm your husband. Are you sure you didn't ask him to give it to me? That you didn't even hint at it?”