The Lightning Keeper (33 page)

This evening she was exhausted, and besides, Fowler was there, hitting his golf balls in the direction she would walk. She did not want to spoil his fun. She was so used to the sound of it now that when she heard the particular music of a well-struck shot she found herself listening for the distant splash. And when she heard the other one she might smile, for Fowler would be muttering things under his breath that he would never allow her to hear.

It had been simply too hot in the music room, as she now called the new glass and iron structure, even though the rolling shades had been let down and the side windows opened. She had gone to check on the cactus cuttings to make sure they seemed…well, happy was a silly word to use for a plant, but it would never do for them to seem
un-
happy when Dr. Steinmetz arrived. And although she knew that the cuttings could not have set roots in so short a time, still she was disappointed to see that they had not. She stayed afterward to do her scales, though she was already perspiring, for she was determined she must practice both in the morning and at the end of the day. Labor Day was almost upon her and she must justify Mr. Blunden's confidence in giving the solo to her. Also, and more pressing still, Dr. Steinmetz had flattered her with the request that his second visit to Beecher's Bridge should not pass without the pleasure of hearing her sing. Very softly
now she hummed the descant, hearing in her mind all those voices swelling and rising to hers. It is the perfect summer, she murmured after the last chord.

She heard the chime of the big clock: had she been that long in the bath? She wanted to be ready for Fowler when he came down. They would not dress for dinner tonight, but would have supper served on the verandah looking out over the lawn and the lake, an escape from the heat of the dining room. She had begun to count the days. They always dressed for dinner in Washington.

She opened the press to find the linen she would wear, and it did not matter that she could not quite see what she was doing, for it was as if Olivia read her mind. There on top of the pile of blouses was the one she wanted; she knew it by the tiny, perfect pleats. The towel slipped as she was powdering herself and she caught sight of a pale form in the pier glass, and for a moment there was someone else in the room, someone else who was also Harriet Truscott. She lit the lamp to find her earrings and that little necklace that Fowler admired, and the room was again familiar.

She heard Fowler humming to himself in his dressing room as she went to the stairs, and so she had a few moments to look in on her father, who would now be finishing up his supper with Mrs. Evans in the kitchen. He rarely stayed up long past the setting of the sun, and shook his head despairingly if she or Mrs. Evans or the cook tried to light a candle or lamp for him. Anything that would make him comfortable, any reasonable thing, must be done. It was very hard to make him understand that someone else now lived in Iron Hill, in fact he would
not
understand, which was why it was a blessing to have Mrs. Evans here for so much of the day. She had a way with him, and was fond of him too. Mrs. Evans, unfortunately, had made it clear that neither love nor money could persuade her to move to Washington.

“Did the work go well today, Papa?” She could not be sure that he heard what she said, but it was a familiar question, and a familiar answer.

“Pretty well, pretty well. I hope they'll be ready in time.” He barely looked up from his plate. She patted his thin shoulder and spoke over his head to Mrs. Evans. “Perhaps tomorrow, if he's had a good day, he might eat with us? It would be a nice change for him.”

“I'm not sure it will make much of a difference one way or the other, child, but we can try if you like.”

“Change, my foot,” said the cook when Harriet was gone. “Beef and potatoes today, and the same tomorrow. It's a wonder it don't kill him in this heat, nor me too. There, Mrs. Evans, he's spilled it down his front again.”

It was much more pleasant outside, and by the time they finished their supper it might almost be cool. The days were getting so short now. She had always been saddened by the long diminuendo from the solstice, but this year it affected her particularly and she resented the fact that such a clumsy metaphor had lodged in her mind. She picked a sprig of mint for her tea and stood looking out over the lake, trying to draw its peace into herself.

She heard Fowler humming at the cabinet where he kept the liquor, heard the ice going into the glass and the whiskey being poured. Here was another inevitability. It was something they did not speak about, for what was there for her to say without sounding shrill, and to what effect? She hated the smell of it, and she knew it was not rational. The only helpful thing was to attach the fault to herself rather than to him. She was thinking about her father in those dark old days of his grief when her husband came up and kissed the top of her head.

He held the chair for her and she took her place at the little wicker table. The supper was already set out, and the champagne bottle was beaded with dew. She put out her hand and touched it.

“May I pour you a glass?”

“No. No, thank you. I have my iced tea.” She remembered with pleasure the wine she had taken out of courtesy to Dr. Steinmetz on the mountain and the fiery sweetness of the Madeira she had drunk with Toma on that troubling evening in Washington. She did not see how she could explain this contradiction to Fowler, but neither was she comfortable with the idea of keeping things from him.

“I stopped by to see Toma this afternoon on my way to town.”

“And how did you find him?”

“Well enough, I suppose. Looking very much the bright new penny in those old surroundings.”

“He is making his way in the world. A young man to watch.”

“He worries much, I think.”

“I can't imagine why. He could hardly be in better hands, or have a more promising connection. General Electric, after all.”

“I do wish I understood it all a little more clearly. Everything seems to have happened almost overnight.”

“That is the way a business must be run, my dear, and how a politician flourishes, for that matter: one seizes the opportunity. There are other fellows out there, you see, with their eyes on the same prize, and so an organization like General Electric, and certainly a fellow like Coffin, must waste no time and spare no effort.”

Harriet set down her fork. She thought all this sounded very like the senator's recent remarks to the chamber of commerce in Torrington. “I'm sure you are right. But can you explain the particular urgency here? Or the prize they seek?”

Fowler Truscott refilled his glass and looked affectionately at the dance of the little bubbles in the candlelight. “As I understand it, and you must make allowances for my speaking in broad terms, Toma's machine represents an advance in a certain area of GE's business, which is the making of electricity where the water can be carried to the apparatus at a considerable height, and therefore at great pressure.”

“Such as the height of our Great Falls?”

“Oh, yes, and much more. There are the turbines they have perfected for the big, slow rivers that we have generally in these parts, the Connecticut, say, or the Hudson. But there are rivers elsewhere, in the great mountains of the west, for example, or Europe, or Canada, even South America, where you have many hundreds of feet of altitude and tremendous pressures of water at your disposal, and an entirely different machine is required. Perhaps Toma's turbine will replace all those operating in such circumstances. And then, as you heard Dr. Steinmetz explain, you have the elements of a system, his power grid, that knits all enterprise together, delivering electricity wherever it is needed. You will see factories and mills freed from the constraints of geography, and you will see every farm across the United States run by electricity. You may depend on it. An astonishing prospect, and one that should provide the foundation of a new Republican consensus, once this business in Europe is out of the way. One might say that Steinmetz's ideas will reenergize us, ha ha.”

“I cannot conceive of Dr. Steinmetz as a political man.”

“I should hope not. I have been told that he has some rather odd ideas, socialism, you know, and the less said about that the better.”

“And do you think that Toma has anything to fear from Dr. Steinmetz, or any reason to be uneasy about his situation?”

“Fiddlesticks. The boy should be on top of the world. He has to understand that he is part of a huge enterprise and not out on his own, but that should be a comfort. Wouldn't do to rock the boat just now.”

“I'm afraid Toma may be under a great deal of stress, and has had some bad news from home. So perhaps when Dr. Steinmetz comes to visit you could…”

“I think I understand. Get the lion to lie down with the lamb. That sort of thing?”

“Yes. You always find the perfect words.”

They sat in silence for a few moments after the table was cleared, and Fowler drank off the champagne. Harriet thought that if she were alone she would have liked to have that last glass for herself.

“Are you feeling well, my dear? You haven't seemed quite yourself for the last couple of days.”

“I think it must be the heat, and perhaps a little nervous anticipation of the concert.”

“I'm sure that's it.”

“Do you ever think what it would be like if we lived here?”

“But we do live here.”

“No, we live in Washington. But I have never been so happy as we have been this summer, and I was thinking…”

“Come, Harriet, we cannot simply think of ourselves. There is my work to consider, not to mention the election, and the war, which we'll have to sort out sooner or later, and that rascal Wilson. No, no, I can't imagine jumping ship under these circumstances. I should lose my self-respect.”

“Yes, Fowler, I see how it is. I was being foolish, and selfish.”

They took a turn on the lawn then, with the dew wetting their shoes, and after reading for a while in the stuffy parlor they went up to bed. He kissed her forehead at the door of her bedroom and wished her a good night.

Her foolish idea, combined and compounded with several others,
kept Harriet awake long after she had blown out her candle. It would never come right by itself, she thought, and her efforts had come to nothing. Prayer, too, had been a dead end. For the second time in her life she wondered if there were any use in getting down on one's knees. Whether, in fact, anyone was listening. She got up and found her way in the dark to her husband's bed. He was asleep. She eased herself in beside him.

“Mmmm. Hello, my little hen, what is it?”

“Fowler…” She did not want to weep so she stopped and drew a great breath. “You must tell me what to do.”

“Tell you what? Perhaps in the morning?”

“I shall never get to sleep tonight unless all this is settled.”

“Settle what?”

“I cannot go to Washington and leave Papa here, and I cannot bear to take him back there. He was so unhappy. That is why I thought, why I asked if…”

“I see, yes, of course.”

“And my duty is to you, I know that, but it doesn't help me to see what I must do. It is you who must decide.”

He stroked her hair and held her against his shoulder. When he spoke, the rumbling in his chest sounded very much like the words of an oracle, or of God Himself.

“Here is what I think must happen. You will stay here as long as you must, and I shall go to Washington. I shall miss you, of course, but I shall not resent your absence.”

“But how shall I explain it? It will seem like the end of our marriage.”

“It is your duty to your parent. And I have my own duty. It is really as simple as that, and in any case it won't be for very long.”

In a small voice, she asked, “How can one know such a thing?”

He went on in the same tone of calm assurance, with his hand making the same maddening motion on her hair. “It stands to reason, my dear. One has only to look and mark the decline, almost from one day to the next. In one sense it will be a mercy when God takes him, and for you too.”

She was quiet then, too shocked for tears, and at the back of her
mind was the quite awful possibility that he might interpret this initiative of hers as a prelude to intimacy, and she could not bear to think about that now. So she feigned the rhythms of sleep while her mind went round and round the finality of his words like an animal in a cage with a lump of poisoned meat. Eventually his hand was still and she heard that he slept. She was trapped there with his arm around her. It did not seem possible that she would ever get to sleep.

Perhaps it would have been better not to have slept. In her dream she was lying in bed with her father to comfort him as his life ebbed away; she was trying not to sleep, for she was the line by which he clung to life, and if she closed her eyes he would be gone. She awoke with a start before dawn in a cold, anxious sweat to find that it was her husband she lay with, and he was still alive.