Barbara Greer (27 page)

She went to him, put her arms around him. Through tears, now, of joy, she saw him unchanged, youthful, the man she had married. ‘Oh, my darling!' she had said. ‘Is it any wonder I love you? Is it any wonder? Of course! I'll go wherever you want, to the ends of the earth!'

But, of course, they did not go anywhere.

The terms of his father's will, when they were revealed, precluded it. It was a beautiful will, the lawyers said. They had to admit, begrudgingly, that he had made a beautiful will, which was surprising, since he had not consulted them at all but composed it himself. It went to show, they said, that old Mr. Woodcock had been a remarkable man with a brilliant, remarkable mind, a kind of genius, right up until the very end.

There were the usual charitable bequests, including a sizeable gift to Yale University, gifts to servants, nurses, a gift to the hospital in the name of his brother, a gift to the Dobie C. Woodcock Memorial Library, which he had founded in his father's memory, to be used to purchase books for a new reference section. Of his stock in the paper company, a third went to his widow. The remaining two thirds were divided four ways. There was a bequest of stock to Barbara and an equal bequest to Peggy. There was a sizeable bequest to Cousin Billy, to give him ownership that befitted his title. To Preston, also, there was a stock bequest but it was directed to be held in trust. And the income from the trust, which gave Preston no voting privileges, was to be paid to Preston contingent upon his continued association with the company. Should Preston at any time leave the company, the will directed, the trust would pass directly to Cousin Billy. Upon Preston's death, the trust was to pass to Preston's two daughters, Barbara and Peggy, who would share it equally.

‘It's quite an ingenious arrangement, Pres,' one of the lawyers had told him. ‘And quite a compliment to you. Obviously the old man didn't like to think of what would happen to the company if you weren't on hand to help guide things along.'

Cousin Billy stood up now and walked to the library window, puffing on his pipe. ‘So you see,' he said, ‘there's nothing Peggy can do. And the sooner she realises that, the better it will be for all of us. She's wasting her time, and so is Barney. So what I thought was, Barbara—that if you could tell her, just sort of explain to her the way things stand, remind her, it would be a help to her and a help to me. That's why I wanted to talk to you. It's better if it comes from you than if it comes from me. Your sister, Peggy's never cared too much for my advice, I don't think. But if you remind her of all this, she ought to have sense enough to understand. What I want to avoid, what I want to forestall, is a big family ruckus, you know what I mean. If there's one thing I'd hate to have, it's a big family ruckus. It's like the old maxim says—a house divided against itself cannot stand! So talk to her, Barbara. That's really all I have to say.'

The sky outside had grown suddenly darker and a heavy stillness had fallen upon the air. Then a wind came up, turning the leaves at the window so that they showed their white undersides. ‘Looks like a storm,' Cousin Billy said. ‘I'd better run. Didn't bring an umbrella—' He turned to Barbara, and Barbara stood up. ‘Well, good-bye for now, Barbara,' he said, ‘and thanks for anything you can do. Drop by the house if you get a chance. Janet'd love to see you, and the kids would love it, too.' He squeezed her hand. ‘Got to run before it pours,' he said.

‘Good-bye, Billy,' she said.

He walked hurriedly out of the room. She stood at the window and watched him as he ran down the front steps, across the driveway, to his station wagon. The sky grew even darker. There was a bright flash of lightning and then, a few seconds later, a deep rumble of thunder. She could hear the family now as they rose from the terrace and hurried into the house, carrying their cocktails in advance of the storm.

She turned and started out of the library. In the darkened hall, she met Barney. He stopped her with his hand. ‘They say you're going home tomorrow,' he said. ‘Are you?'

‘Yes, I must,' she said.

‘But you came up here to see me,' he said. ‘You know you did.'

She pulled away from him, suddenly angry. ‘That's not true!' she said. ‘Leave me alone, please! Can't you leave me alone?'

And his face, as he stepped back, looked all at once so hurt, that she said more softly, ‘Please, don't you see?' Don't make things so hard for me. Everybody expects so much of me! And I'm simply not up to it.'

‘Barbara?' her mother called. ‘What did Billy want?'

‘He just stopped by to say hello, Mother,' she said. And she and Barney walked toward the living room where the rest of the family were gathering.

13

In the old days there had been many family picnics at the farm and it had been at one of these that Carson had first met Barbara's parents. He had gone home to Maryland for summer vacation, between his sophomore and junior year at Princeton, and in his pocket had been a letter from her, inviting him to come to Burketown for the second weekend in June. He remembered it now, as he sat alone in his hotel room in London, just back from the movies.

It had turned out to be an American movie, and disappointing, but he had sat through it anyway, and afterward he had walked back along the streets in the late English twilight, encountering the bold London whores, some haggard and some beautiful, who approached him imperiously and shrugged when he turned his eyes away from them, who laughed and spoke loudly as he passed. He had walked past Hyde Park slowly, watching the late, slow strollers there, and turning north, had got lost briefly in a maze of little angular streets but had finally found his way to his hotel. Now it was nine o'clock, but the sky was still light, and from his open window he could hear the distant sound of trains as they steamed into the great glass vault of Paddington Station. Perhaps, he thought, it was the train sounds that reminded him of that other summer, the train ride south from Princeton with Barbara's letter in his pocket. Still, it seemed to him now that London trains had a different sound from the trains at home; London whistles were higher-pitched and their wheels sounded more fretful than lonesome. They had, he thought, a nervous, impatient sound, different from the steady, reassuring rhythm of the Pennsylvania Railroad heading south to Washington.

He remembered the summer vacation train, the vestibules crowded with suitcases, portable typewriters, tennis rackets and lacrosse sticks, and the heady noise in the club car where everyone gathered, jammed together, sweating, shouting above the noise of other shouting, and the way the atmosphere in the club car changed when the Bryn Mawr girls got on. You could tell, he had always said, a Bryn Mawr girl by her hair. Her hair was always smooth and shining, precisely parted on the left, so sleek and perfectly in place that she seemed to be wearing an invisible hair net. And her skin, too, was smooth, and her voice was smooth and expressionless as she talked of Gide, Bergson and Russian novels. But he had had no eye for the Bryn Mawr girls that summer because in his pocket there had been the letter from Barbara Woodcock. And he would be heading north to see her again in two weeks' time.

He had arrived at the farm on Saturday. Though Barbara had told him a great deal about the farm and had often described the house, he had been unprepared for what he saw. When the house first came into view around the corner of the bumpy road, it had reminded him, suddenly, of a Mississippi side-wheeler, painted white, set adrift among the rhododendrons, which were then in full bloom. A Mississippi side-wheeler, floating serenely among purple, white and scarlet-dotted waves; and yet, as more of it appeared, the house lost its resemblance to a boat. With jutting ells, its patchwork of styles and contours, it resembled absolutely nothing in the world that he had ever seen. Barbara had come running down the steps. ‘Welcome to the farm!' she had said.

That afternoon there had been a picnic. It was like no picnic he had ever been to. They had crossed the lake behind the house in boats, and on the opposite shore, in front of the guesthouse on a wide, flat stretch of grass, the picnic had been spread upon a large white tablecloth. They sat on canvas cushions in the grass and John, the Woodcocks' houseman, made cocktails and passed them on a silver tray. Carson had never been to a picnic where cocktails had been passed and where, presently, solid silver knives and forks were placed, wrapped in heavy linen napkins, beside china plates while a Negro chef in a white coat cooked steaks above an open charcoal fire. He remembered the huge, icy bowls of salads and the steaming loaves of herb bread and the yellow ears of corn pierced with silver skewers and the small silver pitchers of melted butter, and during the meal, there had been iced champagne in tall, crystal glasses with silver stems. ‘The champagne is in your honour,' Barbara had whispered to him.

He remembered Barbara's mother most vividly from that afternoon. He had thought her a rather pretty woman, with a clear and youthful face and beautifully arranged white hair, and after the meal, when coffee was poured, she had beckoned him to come and have his coffee beside her. ‘Come talk to me, Mr. Greer,' she had said, lifting her hand to him from where she sat and letting a tinkling cascade of thin silver bracelets run down her arm. He sat beside her, and as she talked, she lifted a palm fan from her lap and fanned herself, and he remembered the soft, pleasant fragrance of her perfume that stirred in the little breeze she created for them both.

‘You're from Chevy Chase, Barbara tells me,' she had said.

‘Yes, ma'am.'

‘It's a lovely town. One of the loveliest suburbs, I think, of Washington. Tell me, was the weather warm when you left?'

‘Yes, ma'am, quite warm,' he said. ‘You know Washington.'

‘Oh, indeed I do!' Edith said. ‘But it's a beautiful city. Tell me, don't you think this is a pleasant spot for picnics—here, by the water? Pleasant, and lovely and cool?'

‘Oh, I do, Mrs. Woodcock,' he had said. ‘Very pleasant. Yes, a beautiful spot for picnics. And, I might add, a beautiful picnic, too.'

‘Why, thank you!' She gestured around her with a fan. ‘This side of the lake is quite different from the other side, where the house is, have you noticed? We've tried to keep it this way, nice and rustic. We've just let the trees go wild over here, and this strip of grass, where we're sitting now, is never mowed. We have it cut once or twice during the summer, just to keep the brush down around our picnic place, but otherwise this side of the lake is just as Mother Nature made it.'

‘Is there a road between here and the house?' he asked.

‘Just an old wood road. Do you know our New England wood roads? The woods, all around here, are crisscrossed with wood roads. If you take a walk through these woods, you'll keep coming on them. They twist and wind around, through the woods. Woodcutters used them, years ago, and along all of them are the old stone walls. Sometimes I marvel at the stamina our New England ancestors must have had to build so many stone walls! They must have been extraordinary people, don't you think?'

‘Yes, ma'am,' he said. ‘Indeed they must have been.'

‘Some of the old roads we've cleared for bridle paths, for the horses. But not all. We always say that there are only two ways to get here, where we are now, from the house. And that's by boat or by horseback! Oh, of course, they've driven in here with trucks and things, when we built this little guesthouse. But actually, the two best ways to get here are by boat or on horseback.'

‘It's a beautiful spot,' he said.

‘Thank you. We love it. Tell me, Mr. Greer,' she said, smiling, ‘what are you studying at Princeton?'

‘Well, I plan to major in history,' Carson told her.

‘History! Now isn't that interesting! I don't know whether Barbara told you or not, but my father was chairman of the History Department at Brown University.'

‘Yes, I believe Barbara mentioned it to me,' he said.

‘Yes. It's a pity my father is no longer living, because you would have enjoyed talking to him, I'm sure. He was a remarkable man, a true scholar. At his time, he was considered one of the best in his field.'

‘Is that so,' Carson said.

‘Yes.' She smiled again. ‘But I'm afraid you'll find me rather poor at history. You see, I was brought up—in Providence—in, well, perhaps you'd call it the Old World way. My father thought that it was unnecessary for a woman to have a college education, though, of course, he considered it essential for a man. So history—except for a smattering of ancient history in boarding school—is a subject I've never really studied. Strange, isn't it? That a history professor's daughter should never have studied history? Well, all I can say is that I know you would have enjoyed my father.'

‘Yes, I'm sure I would have, ma'am,' Carson said.

‘Tell me,' she said, ‘do you enjoy Princeton?'

‘Yes, ma'am,' he said. ‘Very much indeed. It's a fine school.'

She laughed lightly. ‘I'm afraid you'll find the loyalties are split in this family, Mr. Greer,' she said. ‘My loyalties are, of course, to Brown. But Barbara's father and most of his family are Yale. However,' she said, ‘we shall try not to be too unfair toward Princeton while you are here!'

‘Thank you, ma'am,' he said, smiling.

‘Tell me,' she said, ‘you roomed with our cousin Woody, didn't you?'

He felt his face redden slightly. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘For one term.'

‘I thought that was what Barbara said.'

‘Things got—' he hesitated. ‘Things got sort of switched around. They—well, you know how a dean's office is. Changing things around. They switched us around, gave us new room-mates.'

‘Oh yes,' she said. ‘Well, to be perfectly frank, if
I
were designing a college, I'd design it so that no one had a room-mate. I mean, I think it's difficult to share a room, and try to study with another person, don't you? I think individual rooms would be far, far pleasanter. At the school I went to, for instance, there were individual rooms.'