Fortune's Hand (42 page)

He stood up and went to the foot of the stairs, calling, “Lily, come down for a minute, will you, dear? There's a young lady, Julie MacDaniel, here who wants Andrew Harrison's address.”

Quick steps clicked on the uncarpeted stairs, and a small woman, rather pretty in a fussy, flowered cotton dress, entered the room with a piece of paper in her hand.

“This is Julie—you did say MacDaniel?”

“MacDaniel. Thank you so much,” Julie said. “I can't tell you how I appreciate this.”

The woman was looking at her. “MacDaniel?” she repeated, as if the name were startling.

Oh yes, oh yes of course, she is remembering the name, although it's not uncommon. But the suicide in the hotel room is something else. Hold your head up
and face it, Philip says. If it was a sin, and who is to judge, it wasn't your sin, Julie
.

“The name is familiar to me.”

“Lily, there are other MacDaniels.” The husband seemed mildly disturbed. He probably wanted his lunch.

But the wife was now frankly staring at Julie with such intense curiosity on her pink, flushed face as to be really offensive. And Julie, halfway to the door and because she had what she wanted, no longer cared whether or not her annoyance showed. This was hardly the first time, after all, that somebody had made the connection.

“Yes, I am the daughter of the Robb MacDaniel who killed himself a year ago,” she said bluntly.

The Blairs were taken aback. There was a silence in the room until the woman said, “A terrible tragedy.”

There was another silence. It was time to go, yet this very small person standing between Julie and the door was blocking her way.

“That was not the reason I recognized the name, Miss MacDaniel,” she said. “There were MacDaniels in the area where I grew up.”

“Yes, my father came from this part of the state.”

“And another reason the name rang a bell is that I am familiar with Ellen MacDaniel's books. I work at the county's main library, mostly in the children's department.”

“Ellen MacDaniel is my mother.”

The doctor, joining the conversation, remarked that
that was an interesting coincidence, but Miss MacDaniel had a long trip home, and—

His wife interrupted him. “That last book had great charm, I thought. And I thought it was wonderful that she is giving all the royalties to the cause of children with birth deformities.”

This praise of Ellen was touching, and Julie was regretful about her own hasty judgment of the woman. Feeling then that she should not make too abrupt a departure, she remarked briefly that her mother's desire was to see that every disabled child should have the same quality of life that her retarded brother now had.

“My brother, that is,” she added. And spontaneously, as if the thought had come out of the heart of memory, she added further, “It meant so much to my father, too, on account of his own retarded brother.”

“Your father? I didn't know.… It's my mother who was acquainted with the family, not I.… As I said, it was a farming town.… People knew each other … and when this tragedy was in the news last year, she recalled the family.… As I said, it was all before my time, I mean before they moved from where they had been living.… You're sure about the brother?”

Now this curiosity was really going too far. It was plain nosy. Still, Julie responded very nicely, “Quite sure,” and moved nearer to the front door.

At the same time Mrs. Blair went toward the stairs. “Mother!” she called. “Do come here and meet Julie MacDaniel. She's from the MacDaniel family that you
used to know. My mother is here visiting,” she added unnecessarily.

So Julie, snared within a few feet of the exit, came under new scrutiny. These people were obviously fascinated by the publicity and the drama of the suicide. They would like, if they could, to pump her dry. Well, she just wasn't going to be pumped.

Mrs. Webster, the mother, was another with startled eyes. She was
examining
Julie.

“Mother, do you remember any retarded child in the MacDaniel family?”

“No. Whoever said there was one?”

To seize upon a perfectly innocuous remark this way! It was absurd.

“Miss MacDaniel is in a hurry,” the doctor said.

But the older woman, persisting, held up her hand. “In a minute. Since we were neighbors long ago, I admit I'm inquisitive about this. The only brother I know of was born ten years ahead of your father, Miss MacDaniel, and there wasn't a thing wrong with him. On the contrary, he was an unusually bright little boy. He was already beginning to read when he was four years old.”

At this Julie became interested. “I don't understand,” she said. “I always heard that he was born like that.”

“Well, I do understand,” Mrs. Webster snapped.

We don't like each other, Julie thought.

“It's quite another story, miss. The boy had a severe head injury when he was five. It was New Year's Eve, and his father, who liked his drink, fell down the stairs
with the boy in his arms. The father was bruised, but the child bled severely inside his head and was never right after that. So when they moved to Marchfield among strangers, they passed him off as being backward, and the father became a teetotaler. That's the story, and that's the truth. I know what I'm talking about,” she finished, as though someone had contradicted her.

“My God,” Julie whispered. “What happened to him? How did he die?”

“Luckily for him, he died of pneumonia about a year later. So if you don't need me, Lily, I'm busy. I'm going back upstairs.”

What is it about me that angers her? Julie wondered. She certainly made no attempt to hide it, with those cold eyes and cold courtesy.

The doctor and his wife must have been embarrassed about that, too, because they walked halfway to the curb with her, as if to make amends. They were happy to have given her the address she wanted, and they wished her a safe trip home.

While the doctor went to his office, Mrs. Blair seemed to want to linger. She took great pains to describe a shortcut out of Canterbury. She mentioned Andrew's books—a surprise to Julie, of course—and would have gone on if Julie had waited, to tell of the day he had brought them there. What a very nice young man he was.…

But Julie, in a rush to get away, could not possibly have guessed what was going on in the other woman's head.

How pretty she is! Do I see something of Robb in her? Not much; she must resemble her mother. Although perhaps the mouth? The effect of a scallop on the upper lip? And there definitely is a glow about her that is like his, an urge to hurry, and enjoy, and accomplish … If I had married Robb would I have a girl like her? Or a boy like the brother? Or would I be childless as I am now? I don't think I would be as contented as I am now, anyway.…

Julie looked through the rearview mirror. Mrs. Blair was still standing there at the curb. A sweet woman, she was, a person you might like to know. But too curious. Talked too much. And the old woman had been hostile. All in all, this had been an unusual experience. An extraordinary experience! That poor child's dreadful fall downstairs! The lie that colored Dad's life! Strange … Strange. It made you wonder how many other lies in this world are left to grow and swell until they are accepted as the truth.

This particular revelation had come too late, however, to matter anymore. For her, it paled beside the slip of paper in her pocket. Barring heavy traffic near the city, she might get back in time to send the letter by overnight mail.

And then, please God, let him not have forgotten me.

Three days later Julie was at the airport. She had not been there since she had moved back to town after commencement, and so much had happened since then that it might have been a century ago.

Impatiently, she walked to the window wall, watching
the great metal birds with spread eagles' wings slide in and out. The hands of her watch went crawling around its face. When she walked to the jetway to stand there with her sleeve drawn back above the watch, its hands now seemed to be standing still.

Then the passengers appeared. A westerner in a cream-colored ten-gallon hat was first. A young woman carried a heavy baby and a diaper bag. A pair of dark-suited men held good leather attaché cases. An old couple moved slowly, their burden of parcels wrapped in brown paper. And there he was.

He did not see her. He peered over the heads of the people in front of him, searching through the waiting crowd. He looked anxious. Then he saw her, and his face opened up with that old light, that old smile. His face was bright with it. They rushed, he toward her and she toward him. His upraised hand made a thumbs-up sign, and he was laughing.

Ellen was working at the table on the porch. It was time for Philip to come home and she put her paints away. When his car stopped she rose, and the dog, who had been sleeping under the table, rose with her to greet him.

“So he arrived and all's well?” Philip asked.

“Oh, Julie sounded like a new person over the phone! They'll be coming by later to see us. We need to plan the wedding. I have no idea what they want except that they want it right away. I think this yard is plenty big enough for a lovely outdoor wedding, don't you? We'd need a tent in case it rains.”

“Are there any other plans yet?”

“All I know is—you'll never believe this—that as soon as Julie has her degree, Rufus Max is going to get them both placed in some sort of international journalism. They're both dying to see the world.”

Philip smiled. “The world? That should keep them busy for a while.”

We've been fairly busy right here in this one small spot, haven't we, Ellen thought.

And all during their supper together, even while she was listening and responding to Philip, lights were flickering on and off in the back of her head.

She was rather sweet, Julie said.… She could have made some remark to Julie, but she didn't.… Surely Robb must have thought about Lily more often than he could have admitted to me, or even to himself.… And was it not the final irony that the truth about the boy came through her, of all people? And came too late for Robb to hear it? How was one to make sense out of it all? Except to say that in the end, after the mistakes, the turmoil, the triumphs, and the joys, if you are left with love, you are left with everything.…

“You're looking thoughtful,” Philip said.

“I'm only listening to the rain. We should take him out before it teems,” she answered, for the dog was ready at the door.

Outside they stood together on the grass. Philip had his arm around Ellen, while she leaned on his shoulder. There they lingered, close as one in the summer night, in the quiet rain.