Hers the Kingdom (37 page)

     "I should have known, Willa . . ."

     She continued hooking herself into the dress, saying nothing.

     "When . . . ?" I tried to begin, but stopped and bit my tongue.

     She looked at me, her eyes wide, and she said, "I don't really know."

     Owen had returned in August;
oh please
, I prayed,
not before summer, please.

     "Not knowing—" I said, trying to choose my words, "Is it . . . difficult?"

     She walked away from me. Her dress was open in the back, I could see the tiny moles that formed a triangle at the nape of her neck. I fixed my gaze on them, I studied them as a mariner might study the stars. I saw them move, saw her shoulders heave ever so slightly.

     "Oh, Willa," I moaned, my voice suddenly cracking.

     She wheeled around, angry. "Don't, Lena, don't do that." She pulled herself up, so that it seemed she was talking to me from
some great height. "I cannot talk now, Lena," she said. "Not now, maybe not ever. But I cannot now, please." She was firm, but I could see that the firmness bordered on collapse.

     "Yes," I answered, "but . . . ask, please. I promise, I will do whatever I can . . ."

     As she turned away from me again, she nodded, I could see that. She was, I was sure, holding her breath to keep from spinning apart. Owen's voice in the downstairs hallway sent me running. I did not want to be in the room when he entered. I wondered if he knew. I thought not.

     "Good morning, Lena," Owen called to me, all good cheer. "I have had the most entertaining morning with our man Wing Soong. Quite a chap, actually," he assumed an English accent, mimicking Wing Soong, "his gentleman's English quite throws me off. Somehow, you don't expect a Chinese peasant to speak such beautiful English. Amazing, what?"

     I tried to smile, but couldn't. "Yes, he is," I finally said, trying to hide my resentment. I had not been able to speak to Wing Soong for days. We were all so much drawn into Owen's vortex; only Owen had the leisure to choose his activities. I knew it was wrong of me, wrong and irrational and yes, even hateful—but at that moment I despised Owen Reade. He came and he went at will. He made decisions for all of us, and always so very proper, so godlike, so charming and blithe and sure of himself. And so numb to reality. It would never occur to Owen that he was as much responsible as Willa for what had happened in his absence. He deserved my sympathy, I knew that. After all, I had no idea what was going on under that brittle, bright surface. Perhaps he suspected, perhaps he was in terrible pain, too. Perhaps he was struggling to maintain the charade. Perhaps.

     
Dear God
, I whispered to myself in the privacy of the arbor,
dear God, let it be Owen's.
I gripped the heavy rope that held the swing until the rough fibers cut into my burned hand.
Oh, please
, I whispered to no one at all. Even then, I knew my prayer could not be answered.

I did not sleep well in the weeks following Wen's departure. October moved into November, and I lay awake each morning waiting for the first light. On one such morning I surprised myself by climbing out of bed, pulling a shawl over my nightdress, and walking out to the arbor near the garden. It was the only refuge for me, the only place where I could feel some peace, perhaps because I had spent so many hours there with the boys.

     I sat in the swing and picked at the flaking paint and, for the first time in a very long time, I thought about home, about Illinois and Porter Farm. I was, I realized, homesick.

     I felt the tears slip down my cheeks and I tried to push them away with the back of my hand. I had left home in the springtime; a child, full of fears and full of hope. And now it was October, seven years later. I was twenty-four years old, a woman. A spinster. I tried to remember other Octobers, but I could not. I pictured the farmhouse, letting my mind roam through it. I tried to remember my brother Servia's face, but I could not. I could only see Wen sitting, small and alone, in the victoria.

     I closed my eyes and tried to think of Grandmother's dining room, with its chandelier of Bavarian crystal. I heard Willa call to me, but I did not answer. It was light and I knew I should go back, but I could not. I wanted to go home, to Porter Farm, but I could not do that either. Willa's misery overwhelmed my own, I knew. I could not leave but I could not stay, either. I could be no comfort to Willa.

     "Le-na," she called, worry in her voice. "Le-na." Thad was with her. I heard him pulling at her, pulling her back. After a time she stopped calling. I sat there, breathing deeply of the quiet, trying not to think of anything beyond the sanctuary of the arbor. As the sun rose above the hills, casting an oblique light into the leafy place, the air stirred gently, surrounding me with the scent of honeysuckle.

     I do not know how long Soong had been in the garden, only a few paces from the arbor. He had made no sound, he had not intruded on my silence or my sorrow, but he knew I was there. I wondered how long he had known.

     He did not pretend work when I stepped out, neither did he look away from me. He was sitting, arms folded gracefully. His presence was eloquent.

     "I was thinking about my grandfather's house," I told him, without preamble.

     He only looked at me, and said nothing.

     "There was a room in my grandfather's house which my grandmother called the Lincoln room." I had started to talk, and seemed unable to stop. "Grandmother even had a little brass plaque made to put on the door.
The Lincoln Room.
Pa liked the idea of Mr. Lincoln staying there, when he traveled the circuit. Pa even got to meet him once, and so did Mama, of course. It was Mama's home, you know. But Mama had the plaque taken off. She said that Mr. Lincoln had paid hard cash for his room and board, and that it was putting on airs to pretend he had been a guest."

     Soong only nodded at this strange outburst. He was looking at me steadily, as if he was expecting something.

     "I've been thinking about my home quite a bit," I added, weakly, having run out of words.

     "I know that," Soong answered.

     "How can you possibly know that?" I demanded.

     "Because it is what I think of when events of the present become too heavy. Then I seek refuge in the past, in the memory of my grandfather's house in Tsingtao."

     "Tell me about those memories, Soong," I said, close to tears, "tell me how you came to tend a garden in the Malibu ranch, tell me about the life you left in China. I want to know, I do." I could hear my voice quivering.

     "Someday, Lena, I will tell you," he answered, his voice steadying me, holding me together.

     "Now," I said, "tell me now."

     He looking at me again, and this time there was a strong urgency in his voice. "I will, I promise you that. But not now. Now I must go to work and you must go to your sister."

     
So, I thought, he knows that, too.

Owen followed the doctor's orders with amazing fidelity. He made no move to leave the ranch after the one trip in September to take Wen to the school. He did not seem discontented. On the long burnished days before the rains came, he lay on the hammock he had two of the men hang between the two big oaks, and let the world come to him.

     The world, in this case, was business acquaintances from all parts of the country. The big carriage was making almost daily trips into Santa Monica to meet the trains, carrying guests from Denver and Buffalo and Chicago. They would lumber out of the carriage and stand in front of the fountain—which Owen insisted always be spewing forth to greet them—and be amazed, as one put it, "to find this civilization in the midst of the wilds."

     Owen had the servant girls serve lunch on tables on the lawn. He would instruct Trinidad to lay out the best white damask, his mother's finest china and silver. For a time he even hired a string quartet to play. For Owen, it was a form of fun. The menus would be written in the most elegant calligraphy, with special notations for those foods grown on the ranch or taken from the sea. There would be a fish course, then mutton or beef, and often pheasant. The luncheons lasted for several hours. The gentlemen would be sent on their way with packages of tangerines or sometimes a large cabbage or a zucchini. Owen was unabashedly proud of the ranch's self-sufficiency. He had his Eden, he would say, and he wanted others to share it. I was inclined to believe that it was also good business, having these men of commerce into his home. When I
suggested this to Owen after one such lunch, he grinned impishly and said, "I suppose it can't hurt."

     On those days when no businessmen came, Owen devoted himself to Thad's education. He was absorbed in the process of teaching Thad—now all of three years old—to read. From the depths of his hammock, Owen would write a word on a tablet, hold it high so that Thad, sitting on a stool beside him, could see it and call out the word. Whenever Thad performed correctly, Owen popped a big Muscat grape into the boy's mouth, and one into his own. The two chewed happily together, relishing the big, juicy morsels before continuing with their studies.

     "Now here's a hard one, Thaddy-boy," Owen would say, elaborately drawing the words "road" or "fancy" or "seashell" on the slate, and Thad would know them most of the time, but when he didn't, Owen always said the same thing. He said: "Next time you'll get this one, I know you will." And next time Thad always did. The child wanted, I do believe, to please his father more than he had ever wanted anything. I was happy to see them together. I did not want Thad to become as attached to me as Wen had been. It was too hard.

     Before Willa's condition became visible, she would join Owen at the luncheons. It was curious to watch the visiting businessmen with her. She made them uncomfortable, I think. She would appear in her long, simply designed white linen dress with only Grandmother's brooch at her neck for decoration. She would smile, and make the appropriate remarks, but she was distant, cool. And yet, you could see that she only added to Owen's reputation: Owen Reade was an uncommon man, likeable but unpredictable. They didn't quite know what to make of Owen Reade, these men in their stiff high collars and proper shoes. And yet, they were glad to be there. Sara told me later what Charles had told her—to be invited to one of Owen's eccentric lunches gave one a certain distinction. They spoke of the tall, elegant Owen in repose on his hammock, and
his wife the Ice Queen, in their enclave of civility on the wild Malibu ranch.

     Owen spent the long autumn afternoons lying in his hammock, dressed in summer white, the sunlight playing moving shadows over his body. On those few days when nobody came, Owen would dictate his correspondence to me and I would type his letters. When our work was finished, and Thad's lesson for the day done, Willa would move to his side to keep him apprised of the news of the world. She spent an hour or so each morning scanning all the newspapers and periodicals to which Owen subscribed, clipping those items she felt would be of interest to him.

     Often enough Owen would announce from his perch in the hammock, "This is Eden, it truly is. Can you think of a more idyllic place in all the world?" Once, when he said this, I looked at Willa and wondered if it ever would be Eden for her again, or if the bitter taste of forbidden fruit would be with her always.

     Not all of Owen's visitors were impressed with his role as lord of the realm. Late one afternoon, as Willa was working over Owen's historical collection, the dogs set to barking.

     "Who's coming?" Owen asked, startled out of a nap.

     Willa cupped her hand over her eyes to diminish the glare, and groaned. "I'm afraid it's our neighbor Mr. Shurz again," she said. "Shall I tell him you aren't up to a discussion?"

     Owen looked up into the oak leaves; he sighed. "Jacob Shurz is the most confounded, dogged, stubborn creature that ever walked this earth."

     "He certainly isn't humble," Willa agreed. "Shall I send him away?"

     Owen heaved himself out of the hammock. Standing, he pulled his trousers up and tucked in his shirt. Then he pulled on a rumpled linen coat. "No," he said, "I'd best do battle now. Putting him off will mean doing it another day."