Legacy (16 page)

I was too shocked to speak. The room, the books on the walls. Mother's face by the door - they all seemed to spin around me. I leaned against his desk and put out a hand to steady myself.

'Sam,' my mother said softly, 'how could you . . .'

'And you stay out of this, Claire. Or maybe you'd like me to do the same with you. Then you could go up and depend on the Graybars to take care of you both.'

Mother closed her eyes and lowered her head.

Father looked back at me.'I'm going to Judge Hawthorne's now, Catherine. Make your choice. Are you coming with me?'

I stood numb, mute. Had I been able to speak, I would have refused him again. I would never forgive him for the way he had spoken to Mother.

'Then, good-bye, Catherine. When I get back, you had best be packed and away from here, or I'll have you put out.'

With that he pushed abruptly past Mother and through the doorway, and then he was gone.

I rushed to Mother and put my arms around her. All the color had drained from her face and she could barely stand up. 'Don't listen to him,' she whispered. 'He doesn't mean it. He's been so worried, he doesn't know . . .' She faltered for a moment, but then determination came into her eyes. She held me close then and told me what we would do.

By the end of the afternoon I was in a suite of rooms at Father's Deer Park Hotel. Many of my clothes still remained at the house, but I had enough with me to get along for weeks, or perhaps months. In my purse I had nearly a hundred dollars, all the cash Mother had been able to find in the house. But in the hotel safe I had my jewelry and an emerald necklace of Mother's. That would see me through many months, perhaps even a year. I could travel, Mother said. I was free. She would send me money whenever she could. All I need do was to write.

I tried to look at the advantages. I got out a pen and some paper and made little notes, lists of possibilities. I tried to decide what I would do about Steven. I sent for my dinner from room service and forced myself to eat.

But I felt a great, exhausting emptiness inside. It was scarcely dark before I crawled between the cool, smooth sheets of my bed and fell instantly asleep.

Chapter Seven

That Monday morning I awoke ravenously hungry, and with a plan. I would go to Judge Hawthorne myself and tell him what I knew - that someone working for Father had likely paid Shaw. The judge would see what Father was doing and would force him to revoke whatever legal papers he had drawn up against me. The judge had always liked me, ever since I had been a little girl. He would help . . .

But in the light of day, as I ate breakfast in the hotel dining room, painted pastel yellow with white trim, I could see that Judge Hawthorne would hardly weigh my words equally with Father's. I had to be realistic, I told myself. I would sound like a spiteful child, trying to get revenge on Father for the loss of my inheritance. Father would say I had made up the story, and who was there to back me up? Brad Graybar and his men were certainly not about to come forward to say I had seen them torturing Shaw!

I would have to make other plans for my future. After the waiter brought me some of the hotel's excellent browned sausage and shirred eggs, I felt my confidence returning. I sipped at the marvelously flavorful hotel coffee, watching the others in the dining room. Many were obviously salesmen, starting their Monday with breakfast in the hotel before going out to whatever business had brought them to Grampian. Some of these looked at me with undisguised admiration, though they were careful not to stare. The staff, of course, was treating me as one would expect the owner's daughter to be treated. I had spoken briefly with Malory, the hotel manager, when I had arrived Sunday afternoon, and he had seen to it that I was given every courtesy.

While I ate breakfast I began to test out my feelings, imagining myself as one of the people around me who had to work for a living. I could not depend on Steven Graybar for my support; I knew that. He had tried to dominate me on Saturday, when I was wealthy. What would he be like when he learned that I had lost it all? I could not afford to let him have the upper hand that way. If I were to marry him, it would have to be on my terms, because I wanted to, never because I had to.

Well, then, what would I do? I could go visit friends for a while until I found a man I wanted or a situation that I liked. I had money to travel anywhere I pleased. Perhaps I might find work - where? I had a college degree in arts and sciences, which was certainly more qualification than most women had. I could volunteer, perhaps, while I still had money to live on, and then apply for a salaried position somewhere after I had gained experience. Perhaps an office somewhere. Perhaps a hospital. . .

And I thought immediately of Justin McKay. How was he, after his wound from that man's pistol? I had been so caught up in my own problems that I had forgotten him completely.

I finished my coffee, certain now of what I would do - at least for today. I would write to a few of my friends from school and suggest a visit. Then I would go off to the clinic for my regular time with the patients. After that I would see Justin. At the back of my mind, though I hardly dared think about it, was the possibility that he might take a hand in helping me, even at the risk of offending Father. And, possibly, if the feelings I had begun to sense for him began to grow . . . but I would not think about that. It was wrong to even think that way, for it would put me in the wrong position. I was not going to go to any man like a supplicant looking for help. I had beauty and intelligence enough to make them come to me.

I left the breakfast table feeling stronger than before, and as I walked up the stairs to my room, hotel stationery and envelopes in hand, a vision began to take shape in my mind. I could see myself standing atop Legacy looking down, just as I had done in my childhood fantasy. But this time I had gained control of Legacy myself.

Not long afterwards, my letters written and mailed, I had changed from my grey morning dress to a crisp, fitted blue taffeta dress with a matching jacket. I was on my way out the hotel's front entrance, ready to walk across the park to the trolley and go into town and Justin's clinic.

Pulling up to the entrance in front of me as I came through the doors was Father's carriage. It stopped. I waited. I watched, wide-eyed, as Father got out and helped Mother step down. Mother looked very tired, but she was smiling. And when Father turned to face me, all the anger had gone. He looked like a different person from yesterday. I saw love in his eyes again, and I nearly wept to see it.

He apologized calmly, with dignity, but it was an apology, all the same. He had already apologized to Mother, he said, but he did so again in front of me, just so that I would know that he had seen reason, as he put it. He had been under too much strain, working too hard and being too wrapped up with his problems. It was time for a rest. We would take a cruise to Europe again, the three of us, with maybe a friend of mine from school if I wanted to bring her along. Mother and I should take the carriage downtown and order some new clothes for wearing on the ship.

It was incredible. I had not seen him like this since those days before his first reversal, when he first had to taste defeat at the hands of Brad Graybar. The old kindliness was back, along with the exuberance I remembered. As I spoke, my eyes filled with happy tears, and my hopes slowly, cautiously, began to rise. Perhaps in time he might unbend, too, in his attitude towards the Graybars. Perhaps Steven Graybar and I might even be able to have a proper courtship and learn how well we would get along in real company, outside the hidden world of secret meetings and passionate bedroom encounters.

Afterwards, alone in the carriage with Mother on our way into town, I asked her what had happened.

She was wearing grey, without flowers either on her bonnet or her dress. The lashes of her eyes were moist and the light layer of powder she always used had been disturbed by tears. And even though relief showed clearly in her expression, it was also plain that something still troubled her.

She kept her voice even as she told me that nothing really happened. She had talked to Father when he had come back, but he had still been overwrought and obviously was not listening. They had slept apart last night. But this morning she had come down to breakfast to find him a changed man. He had apologized, and he had already sent word to Judge Hawthorne to destroy the papers of yesterday. I was his daughter again, and he was going to see to it that I was treated well before I finally decided to marry and settle down. Business could take care of itself for the summer. We were going to Europe, probably for the last time as a family, and we were going to enjoy ourselves.

'That was all,' said Mother. But I could see she was keeping something back.

'But you're still worried. I can see that. Why?'

She frowned slightly. 'I know him. He's really not been himself for a while. Something's been building up inside him for months now, and to have it just vanish in one night? . . .'

She patted my hand. The red leather upholstery of Father's coach made a squeaking noise that mingled with the hoof-beats of his matched pair of horses. The wheels clattered as we went through a patch of gravel on the packed dirt of the street. The question hung in the air.

I thought of Saturday night a week ago, when I had seen Father waiting outside in back of the house.

'Do you suppose he could have ... it may sound foolish, but might he have met someone last night? Made some secret arrangement that he thinks will somehow take care of his business problems? . . .'

My voice trailed off, because it sounded foolish even to me.

If it was a business problem, why couldn't he have met in the morning? But Mother considered the idea.

'I hope you're right,' she said finally. 'But I think it's something else, something inside him. The weather's changed too quickly, I think. I just don't want it to change back again.'

She was thoughtful for a time, as if she were about to say something else. Then her manner became brisk again. 'But let's enjoy it while we can, shall we? What do you suppose we should look for at Madame Peret's this morning?'

And the rest of the way we talked of cruise fashions, and she teased me about the effect I would have on the men I met. I did not have the heart to tell her that I still had not made up my mind whether or not I would go with them.

Mother went home after we had picked out several of the designs that Madame Peret and Harper's Weekly assured us were the latest in elegance. I had set out on my own for Justin McKay's clinic. I was walking slowly along the wooden sidewalk, still somewhat caught up in my mood of the morning, before I had been restored to Father's good graces. I watched the women with their canvas shopping bags as they moved about between the shops purchasing the day's groceries. Some of them were shopping for their own husbands and families; others, by their uniforms, I could tell were clearly kitchen maids or cook's helpers, buying for a family like ours. But their faces were quite the same, most of them, in their concentration. They all knew what they were supposed to do that day, and they were doing it. While I, however, was sure of my afternoon plans, I still had no real certainty about what direction my life would take. Yesterday and today had taught me the hazards of depending on a man, even a father. I really was hesitant about accepting his invitation to travel to Europe. It would be my third summer there, and I had the unmistakable feeling that I ought to begin to plan my own future and build a base that a man's whims or favors would not, could not, affect. What did I want? Well, I did want Legacy. I knew that much. Perhaps the way to Legacy was really through Steven, after all. If I could simply get the upper hand with him . . .

My reveries were interrupted rather abruptly. A portly, bald-headed man in a butcher's apron came stumbling backwards out of a shop doorway as I was passing and nearly knocked me down. From within the shop came a string of oaths, and then another, younger man in an apron came in a staggering rush backwards out the door and collided with the first. Together they fell from the sidewalk on to the dust of the street.

As they picked themselves up, a voice came from inside the shop and then the tall, curly-haired figure of Billy Joe Walker appeared in the doorway. 'Next time we get a load of rotten beef up at Long Reach camp,' he said, as the two butchers watched him and cringed, 'I'm gonna throw ya sons-of- bitches out from the roof! Ya hear me? From the roof!'