In the King's Arms (12 page)

They both thought this sounded like Cinderella’s itinerary (jumbled) and laughed. Lily got up, too, straightened her clothes, and smoothed the bed. She felt its heat in her hand. She walked over to open the bedroom door, but before she could take a step, Julian had her back on the bed, and they rolled around, kissing and struggling.

“Your clothes!” she sputtered, half twisting away. “You’ll ruin them!”

“Oh. Yeah,” he said, acting very sober, and they both laughed at this.

He stood at the mirror, straightening his shirt, and reached for the elegant bowtie. He looked straight into his own blue eyes and said, “Lily, come look. I look different, don’t I?”

“You do,” she said.

Her face was as wild as his. They felt married.

“Do my tie for me.”

As her hands rose up to his throat she couldn’t resist: she wrapped the tie around his neck and pulled him down to her open mouth. She could have drunk those kisses from the old year and into the new.

The door groaned on its hinges. They parted, whipping their heads around, half-expecting to see Timothy wielding a birch rod.

“Oops!” said Julian, sniggering into his hand.

But no one was there. A chilly wind swept in. Faintly, the voice of the radio announcer: 11:30. Lily saw Whisk in the hallway, twitching his tail.

“Timothy?” Julian called out.

She looked at him.

“We probably should have put him to bed when you came home.”

“He’ll keep,” said Julian. “He’s been to bed late before.” He looked just a tiny bit uneasy. “It’s New Year’s Eve, isn’t it?”

“Let’s go and see how he’s doing.”

Julian stood stock still for a moment. Then he descended the stairs.

“Timmy? Timmy?” Julian called out.

Lily stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, then flew down to join him.

Just beyond the sitting room where Timothy had sat, the door was swinging open, letting the world in. It was a lewd, uncanny sight. The wind blustered it to and fro; it moaned out protestingly on its hinges.

Lily took Julian’s hand to encourage him; his stayed stiff and separate. He didn’t seem to know that she was there.

“Oh, God, Oh, God,” he wailed, “what’s going on. Do you think he’s been kidnapped?”

He ran outside, Lily following him.

There was hardly any light outside; only bluish patches of snow, and strips of ice flickering like lively water. A car passed on the dirt road, turning a corner. Julian ran out toward the headlights, but the car
had passed. It was dark again. Lily wandered dully into the darkness, circling, not more than ten yards from the house. Her foot touched a warm clod. It was Timothy, face down to the ground. When she flipped him over, his eyes were closed, but he gave out a tiny groan.

“Julian!” she screamed. “I found him! Come!”

Julian ran over, and glanced downward at Timothy.

“He’s breathing, but there’s some blood, and he might be unconscious,” said Lily, her voice coming out in pants.

“I’ll go and get Mum and Archibald,” said Julian. “You call for help.”

She heard him run away, toward the New Year’s Ball. The blood on Timothy’s brow was thickening; his yellow hair was matted and stiff. She tried to lift him but fell on a big broken bough of a yew tree. He must have tripped right there, just on that very bough, running from her. Her feet slipped and slided in gullies of ice and snow. She sank down in the wet and pulled Timmy into her lap.

He was a heavy boy, and when she rose with him, they flopped down together. Finally, she made it into the house. She slammed the door against the cold. She heard her own voice saying, “Don’t worry, don’t worry.”

Timothy lay on the sofa. There was an unflappable look on his face, a look of pure disdain.

Lily grabbed the telephone and dialed the operator. When he answered, she could not speak.

“Can’t hear you, hello?”

“He fell!” she sobbed. “We fell in the snow!”

“What’s that, Miss?”

“We fell in the snow!!” she screamed into the receiver, as loudly as she could.

Timothy opened his eyes, and Lily dropped the phone, meeting
his stare head on. She could take it. His lips were pinkish blue, but his eyes burned into her. She leaned her head down towards his.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” she said. She stroked his hair with her shaking hands; she cupped his cold cheeks.

“Can I hold you?”

He let her pick him up and put him to her chest. He leaned his head on her shoulder.

“Oh, my poor baby,” she said, “I’m so sorry. Mummy and Daddy should be home, soon. Any minute. What happened?”

Timmy lifted his head and started to speak “I—I run—” and then, as though remembering, cried piteously and sank his head back down on Lily’s shoulder.

Lily cried too. Together, they shook with sadness and relief, as though they were of one flesh and one blood.

J
ULIAN DASHED INTO THE BALLROOM panting, wild-eyed. It was nearly midnight; all the faces were silly and merry. He couldn’t find Archibald or his mother for a few agonizing minutes. Then he spotted them. There they were. Dancing the tango. Archibald seemed especially bouncy and free. His haunches jiggled as he led his wife across the dance floor. Helena looked beautiful and young. She held her head up high when she saw her son. She whispered into Archibald’s ear, and they danced toward Julian.

“Darling!” she sang out, waving her arm. “Where have you been?” She threw her head back and put a long hand to her moist throat. “Gosh, isn’t it hot?”

Julian’s mind played a trick on him just then. He thought not of Timothy, but of Lily, beneath him, alive. He went hot and cold; he went electric.

“Mother.”

“Yes, dear?”

“Whatever is wrong with you?” said Archibald, beginning to notice.

“Mother tonight I—Lily was—Timothy is—”

In a moment he would confess what he’d been doing on her bed.

“What is it? What are you saying? Speak up, lad!” said Archibald, loudly.

“What is it, dear? What did you say about Timothy?”

“He’s, he’s . . .”

“Has something happened? Is Timothy all right?”

“No, Mother we’ve got to help him, we’ve got to leave!”

“But what in heaven’s name has happened, dear? Where on earth have you been?”

Suddenly she saw it all.

“You’ve been home, have you?” Bitter eyes, bitter mouth.

It was an accident, thought Julian. The baby’s escape and fall, the blood in the snow. The world was no greater than this: Lily, open and shuddering, soaked with his seed; Timothy, sinking into the cold silent earth. The tossing of bodies, this way and that. Accidents. A monumental groan escaped his lips.

“Let’s go, immediately,” said Archibald. He looked badly frightened.

“So you went home to see her,” said Helena. “And now, see what’s happened!”

She went to fetch Peter. He was chatting up a lovely brunette with porcelain skin and enormous round eyes. When his mother told him they had to leave, he looked terribly irritated. It was just before midnight.

Helena told him that Timothy had been hurt. The brunette’s mouth opened wide with surprise.

The merrymakers looked up, puzzled, as the Kendalls fled from the Ball. But then midnight struck and they lost themselves in revelry. Cheering, hugging, hailing the new.

L
ILY HEARD THE CAR pull into the driveway.

Archibald started shouting at her:

“Where’s my SON?”

Then he saw.

“What the devil have you done?”

Lily was still holding Timothy. Now sleeping peacefully, he looked like an angel. The blood on his brow looked like sweet chocolate. Helena tried to grab him away, but Lily wouldn’t let go. She slapped the girl’s face hard, twice, but she would not give the baby up. Her grip tightened. Peter gave Lily a powerful shove and she fell off the sofa, tumbling to the floor with Timothy, who burst out in panicked shrieks.

“Damn her!” cried Peter. “God! Damn her! Mother, he’s been hurt!”

“Oh, God,” sobbed Helena.

They were all huddled over the baby, shaking him, coaxing him, begging him to stop crying. Their hysteria made him cry all the harder.

“CALL THE DOCTOR!” Archibald bellowed. “The boy is injured. Call him now!”

Lily went over to where Julian stood, alone in a corner.

“I did call the doctor,” she told him softly.

“He looks better, Mum, he really does,” Julian offered. “Much better than when I saw him last—”

“Saw him last? What does that mean? You were supposed to be at the ball, and she—”

“What do you mean he looks better? What happened?”

“He fell outside, Archibald. That’s all—”

“Outside? On a winter’s night? And what about this blood, then?”

“Did she strike him?”

“No, no,” said Lily. “He fell over a stump. He might have passed out, but only for a second.”

“Oh, God, I feel sick,” said Julian. “I’m going to be sick in a moment.”

He bent over his stomach, holding it with both hands.

Then Lily noticed an old grey man in the room, bending over Timothy. Beside him was a black bag. Doctor. He had just suddenly appeared. He hovered over the yellow flannel bundle like a vulture over a duckling. “Hit his head; heads bleed quite badly, but there’s no need to panic,” he said, swabbing at the blood with a quilted pad. “Here’s another bruise, at the ankle,” he continued thoughtfully.

“But his pajamas are soaked,” sobbed Helena.

“He fell in the snow,” said Lily. “He fell down and lay there.”

“Good job he didn’t freeze to death,” snapped Peter.

He stared at Lily and Julian.

“Don’t look at him,” he said to Lily. “Look at me. You were the one in charge. You can’t hide behind Julian now.”

“I’m not trying to,” she whispered.

“Speak up. Why weren’t you minding him? You were here to mind the baby. What on earth is the matter with you?”

They all stared at her. Even the doctor.

Archibald suddenly began screaming: “But this is truly unthinkable!! Do you think there’ll be any lasting damage?”

“Shouldn’t think so,” said the doctor. “Little boys are very sturdy, and they fall from trikes and trees. But they get up again, don’t they? We’ll keep an eye on him, of course.”

“I suppose your type of people would be suing someone by now,” muttered Helena.

“God, leave her people out of it,” said Julian, nearly inaudible. Only Lily could hear him.

Timothy would survive; he would recover. Later, he remembered the incident as one in which he had behaved heroically, protecting the home from strangers at any cost.

M
Y ANGUISH was nothing to Archibald’s.”

Helena was talking to Julian. They stared at the fire in the sitting room. Lily and Peter had gone back to Oxford.

“He’s still not the same man he was. He’s always worried now. He won’t let Timothy out of his sight. And he talks to himself, darling. You mustn’t tell anyone. He talks to himself, half the time so softly that I can’t make out what it is he’s saying. The doctor told me not to worry. That he’ll get over it in time. But it makes my skin crawl. I believe he’s talking to the baby. Telling him to be careful, careful, careful!

“He stands outside Timmy’s room at night, sometimes. Just watching him sleep. Staring at him. I know, Julian. I’ve followed him. I’ve waited for him to come back to bed.

“He hardly speaks to me lately. I don’t get angry. I know he can’t help it. If he’d lost Timmy it would have been the loss of his only son. I have three.

“And I can never give Archibald another. I’m too old. His whole life is that sweet little boy. There won’t be another. Timmy’s birth nearly killed me. I don’t suppose you or Peter can remember how very ill I was. I’m not as young as I was when I married your father. Then I was as young and full of folly as you are now.”

“I suppose you think I’m rambling,” she suddenly broke off.

“No, mother. Don’t say that. I’m listening.”

“I feel you know me better than anyone, Julian. My own soul.
I used to talk to you for hours when you were just a baby. Because you have always understood. You know me better than anyone else in the world. I suppose you realize that. Did you know that your ancient, tiresome Mummy was mad about you?”

He nodded sadly.

“Don’t you like a nice toasty fire, darling?”

“Yes.”

“Darling?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be angry—”

“Please don’t, mother.”

“I must ask you something.”

“Please. I’d much rather you didn’t.”

“But Julian. It would be so much better if—I mean the way it is we’re all confused about what happened, and if we could only . . .”

“All right,” he said. “All right.” His voice was cold.

“. . . unburden each other, darling.”

“What exactly do you need to know, Mum?”

“That night. What—”

She stared down at her hands for a long time. Finally, a jagged sigh escaped her, and she covered her face.

“Please don’t cry. I can’t take it. Please.”

“Oh, oh, oh,” she sobbed.

Julian stared at her, his mother, breaking down. He felt a touch of disgust for her.

“What were you doing here, Julian? What were you doing while oh, oh . . .”

“While Timothy was alone downstairs,” he offered quietly.

“What possessed you to come back here in the middle of the New Year’s Ball?”

Now she was angry, dry. All of a sudden.

“What possessed you to leave the Ball and run, like a madman, in foul weather, to that girl?”

Her back had straightened; she glared.

He was silent. Thinking. He felt odd: he knew he would not speak until he knew. But he hadn’t thought it out before. It had been vague before.