Aly's House (2 page)

A
s Aly parked in front of the old clapboard farmhouse, she looked briefly toward the space between two large pecan trees, a habit begun when the ancient pickup Marshall had driven in high school signaled that he was home. Today her automatic glance extended into a long stare of surprise. The black secondhand Ford that had replaced the pickup when he went off to college was parked between the trees.

Marshall was home! But why?
Finals at Wharton, Elizabeth had told her, were next week. And then, at last, he would graduate from the finest business school in the country. Perplexed, Aly remained behind the wheel of her new car and considered what could possibly have dragged Marshall away from his books at such a crucial time. She knew of no one who was sick or who had died. Could good news have brought him home to Claiborne? She hadn't heard of any, but she certainly didn't want to contribute a negative note by lugging in a basket of wash for Elizabeth's ironing board. Not when she knew how Marshall felt about his mother having to do such work to make ends meet, especially for the Kingstons.

Besides, she looked the mess she usually did. If she'd only known he would be home, she would have tried to do something to her hair, her face—worn something other than cutoff jeans and a T-shirt. Not that Marshall would have noticed. He never had. He had a special look for the Kingstons, a way of looking right through them, clear out to the other side, as if they didn't exist. It was a type of disdain particularly nettlesome to Victoria, Aly's older sister and Marshall's classmate. “Somebody ought to take him down a notch or two.” Nobody ever did.

But, Aly sighed, if she didn't pick up the ironing today, her father would be deprived of his weekly supply of perfect shirts. She'd be sure to get that long look of silent reproof that she couldn't stand. Maybe today Elizabeth had the ironing ready to pick up, and she could depart without any to-do. She'd leave the basket of wash in the car and bring it back tomorrow when Marshall was gone. Surely he wouldn't be staying long, not with finals next week.

Through the door's oval pane of age-discolored glass, Aly saw Elizabeth coming up the breezeway that ran through the center of the house. Aly's misgivings increased when she noted Elizabeth's slow walk and bowed head, as if the weight of the thick, graying twist of hair on her neck were too much for her. Fear fluttered in Aly's stomach. Ordinarily, despite the clumsy, brown oxfords she wore summer and winter, Elizabeth's step would have been light, her saintly face alight with welcome for her Thursday visitor. Something must have happened to Marshall.

“Elizabeth, what's the matter?” Aly asked at once when the door opened and she saw the tired, red-rimmed eyes of her friend.

“Aly—” Elizabeth spoke painfully. “I-it's bad news.”

“What kind of bad news?”

“Tell her, Mother.” The voice, tense and deep, came from Marshall, who suddenly appeared beside his mother and glared down at Aly. Aly lifted an awestruck face. Tall and athletically slim, with eyes as richly dark as her mother's sable coat, Marshall Wayne had always been the most handsome boy she'd ever seen. But between the glimpse she'd had of him last Christmas and now, maturity had added a new dimension, a force and power that almost overwhelmed.

“You do not look at Marshall Wayne,” one of her friends once declared, “you
behold
him.” Beholding him now, noticing the hard new manliness of his features and form, she felt an odd sense of loss. He had gone, the boy who had grown up in this house. She would never again see the Marshall Wayne she had loved since the first grade.

She tore away her gaze to ask of Elizabeth, “Tell me what?”

But Marshall answered with a flash of clenched teeth, “Your father intends to foreclose on us. We got a notice from the courthouse. We have thirty days to come up with the money we owe the bank or the farm will be posted for auction.”

Stunned, Aly stared at Elizabeth for confirmation. “But that's impossible! My dad wouldn't foreclose on Cedar Hill.”

“I'm afraid you're wrong, Aly,” Elizabeth answered in weary resignation. “We haven't been able to keep up with even the interest on the principal for some time. We're way behind in our payments. Marshall came home to try to get his father to declare bankruptcy rather than to let the bank foreclose, but Sy won't hear of it.”

Aly still could not believe it. “There's been a mistake,” she declared obstinately. “What would the bank want with Cedar Hill?”

Moving his mother gently aside, Marshall stepped through the door. “That's what I intend to find out,” he said furiously. Aly backed away, awed as much by his new grandeur as by his rage.

“Where are you going, son?” Elizabeth asked anxiously.

“To see Lorne Kingston,” he replied, making for the porch steps. “He's going to explain why he wants our farm!”

Aly, after a moment's hesitation, propelled her thin, sun-browned legs after him. “Marshall—” she called, following him down the steps and across the yard. “Let me go with you. Maybe I can talk to him.”

Without altering his pace, Marshall laughed bitterly. “You think your father would listen to you, Aly? You?”

She winced from his taunt, but she persisted. “You won't get in to see him without me,” she warned. “Dad will be expecting you. He's probably already alerted the security guards. I may not be able to talk him into changing his mind, but I can at least get you into his office.”

Marshall halted to consider her argument, holding her gaze thoughtfully. Then suddenly, as if he'd never really seen it before, the brown eyes shifted in curious study of her face. Embarrassment seared through her. She had read the same expression on the faces of so many.
No, she didn't look at all like a Kingston
, she was always tempted to say. She was well aware of the joke that explained her presence in the Kingston household—that at birth she had been placed in the wrong crib at the hospital. She showed how little she cared by working hard at being as unlike any other member of her family as possible.

But now, having caught Marshall's attention for the first time in her eighteen years, she wished she'd agreed to braces for her slightly protruding teeth, to a permanent for her hair, to the cream that Victoria vowed would vanish the pox of freckles covering her face. She wished she could have forced down Annie Jo's unappetizing fare at home, the monotonous lunches at school. Then there might have been some curves to her figure, something to improve the lines of her T-shirt and jeans.

“Why don't you ever curl your hair?” Marshall asked suddenly, impatiently flicking aside her bangs, touching her for the first time in their lives. “How do you see with that mop hanging down in your eyes?”

The bangs had been her one attempt to conceal her freckles, especially abundant on her forehead. “I—I'm going to the barbershop next week.”

The dark brows quirked in reluctant humor. “The barbershop?”

“It gets Mother's goat for me to go to a barber.”

“God, Aly, why do you cut off your nose to spite your face? All right,” he said, his tone taking them back to business, “come on then. You drive your car, and I'll take mine.”

Aly followed the Ford in her sports car, her eyes never straying from the dark head in front of her. Blast her father! If this were true, the Kingstons would never be able to dig out of this hole with Marshall. She could read his hate and anger for anything remotely connected with the family name in every rigid movement of the broad shoulders, every turn of the sculpted profile. For the moment at least, she would not allow herself even to consider a foreclosure on Cedar Hill—what it would mean to the Waynes and to herself. She still believed there had been a mistake. What could her father possibly want with a farm? Farmland wasn't selling right now, and Cedar Hill was too far out of Claiborne to be developed as commercial property. It wasn't as if the bank couldn't afford to let the Waynes ride for a while. The oil boom had the Kingston State Bank flourishing. Other farmers were allowed an extensive grace period during bad financial times. Why not Sy Wayne? This whole thing had to be a mistake. Surely her father wasn't intending to foreclose on Cedar Hill.

But Aly knew too well the president and chairman of the Kingston State Bank, and depression hung over her like a dark cloud by the time they drove into the bank's parking lot. Marshall helped himself to one of the two spots marked president and chairman, the shabby black Ford a seedy contrast to her father's new white Lincoln Continental in the other. Aly had to hurry to catch up with Marshall's fast stride, reaching him as he threw open both of the heavy glass doors at once and strode defiantly toward her father's office in the rear of the bank. Their entrance attracted the immediate and fascinated attention of the tellers and employees at desks around the room. Aly could tell from their expressions that news of the foreclosure was out. By tonight it would be discussed at every supper table in town.

Mrs. Devers, her father's secretary of many years, observed Marshall with stern disapproval. She could not see Aly, only a pair of extremely thin legs in tattered jean shorts behind him. “Yes, young man, what is it?”

“I want to see the senior Lorne Kingston.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“He doesn't need one, Mrs. Devers,” said Aly, stepping from behind Marshall. “We're together.”

“So I see,” pursed Mrs. Devers critically. “Your father is busy at the moment, Aly. He doesn't wish to be disturbed.”

“Too bad,” said Aly, sailing past the older woman's desk. “Come on, Marshall.”

Lorne Kingston Sr.—warned by two sharp buzzes of the intercom that trouble was on the way—was already rising from behind his desk when Aly and Marshall entered. Buttoning his coat over a flawlessly ironed shirt, he said, “I can't say that I'm surprised to see you, Marshall, even though I understood from your father that you were busy studying for your finals.”

“Is that why you waited until this week to have the sheriff serve notice of an intent to foreclose?”

Lorne Kingston—tall, graying, imperious—straightened slim shoulders. “You flatter yourself. I fear you've wasted valuable time on a useless trip if you've come home to convince me to change my mind about foreclosing. I'm sure, however, that your coming has been a comfort to your folks.” His glance cut sharply to Aly, taking in the T-shirt and ragged-edged jeans. “Young lady, the family asks so little of you. Is it too much to expect you not to come into this bank unless you are suitably attired?”

Stunned that the bank did indeed plan to foreclose, Aly replied in amazement, “This is an emergency.”

“Your appearance will do little to aid it. Now, Marshall, have your say and get out. I'm a busy man.”

Marshall's dark eyes flashed. “I want to know why you want Cedar Hill.”

“Frankly, I don't want it. The place will be a liability to the bank until it's sold. All we want out of it is our vested interest in it. As I explained to Sy, anything over and above will be returned to him as equity. That's a promise.”

“Even if the bank buys it at auction and sells it later for a profit?”

“Yes. I think even you would agree that's more than fair. And until we do find a buyer, your family is welcome to stay on the land and pay us minimal rent. Naturally, the stock, equipment, and crops will be sold at auction. Now is there anything else?”

Her father's generosity astonished Aly. Ordinarily in a foreclosure, the bank pocketed all profits above the note value. The excess was never returned to the mortgagee, not by the Kingston State Bank. Knowing her father, she figured the offer must have been made to preserve the bank's image in Claiborne. Residents would not look kindly upon the foreclosure of Cedar Hill. Her throat tightened as she looked at Marshall. He seemed to be having trouble with his next words.

“Yes—I—it's about Sampson,” he said a little less steadily. “Matt Taylor has offered me six thousand for him. I've accepted a position at the Chase Manhattan Bank after graduation. If you'll take the money from Matt to pay the interest in arrears, I'll use every cent I can spare from my salary to pay off the debt.…”

“Sampson?” Aly interrupted in disbelief. “You would sell Sampson? But—but, Marshall, you can't. You love that horse!”

“Stay out of this, Aly!” he snapped, his eyes still on Lorne. “How about it, Mr. Kingston.”

“No.” The word fired out bullet-quick.

“No?” Aly echoed in surprise. “But why not, Dad? Marshall isn't asking for anything but a chance to pay back the bank.”

“I said no. The bank has given Sy that chance for years. And to grant an extension based on a promise that you would meet the farm's obligations, Marshall, is ridiculous. The board would laugh me out of my president's chair. You're a young man. You'll find that every cent you earn will be needed to meet your own expenses in these first years of working, especially in New York. You'll need clothes, a place to live. You'll have transportation and social expenses, insurances—an endless list to devour your salary.”

“Mr. Kingston.” Marshall stepped closer, his tone modified, and Aly held her breath at the plea she heard in it. “You control the board. This bank is yours. Whatever you say goes. If you suggest an extension, the directors will go along with it. That farm represents my parents' lives. My dad will never be able to hold his head up again if he loses it. Also—” Here Marshall had to run a tongue over dry lips. “He's got a bad heart, Mr. Kingston. Moving away from Cedar Hill, taking my mother away from the house she loves, could literally kill him. I'll do anything—sacrifice anything to pay off their debt if you'll just give us a little more time.” Aly, wide-eyed with the certain knowledge of what was coming next, shrank inside herself when she heard him force out, “Please don't foreclose, Mr. Kingston. I'm begging you.”