The Towers of Love (34 page)

“I don't need any more money, Dad.”

“Well, I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about it. That's the way they're set up. They go to you. You'll have the life income from them. It won't amount to much, but it will be something. And—well, I thought you'd like to know about it, that's all.”

“Yes,” Hugh said.

“And Hugh—you know, I was thinking. About that young man. The one in Colorado.”

“Her husband, you mean?”

“Yes—her husband. I was wondering—do you think we ought to make some sort of gift to him?”

“I don't think at this point he'd appreciate getting any money from the family,” Hugh said.

“Yes. Well, that's what I thought, too. I just thought I'd sound you out on it.”

“No, I'm sure he wouldn't take kindly to that at all.”

“Yes. You're right. Well, I thought perhaps—if he ever gets to New York—I might take him to lunch at the University Club or something. Just to show him that we have no hard feelings.”

“Yes,” Hugh said.

His father stood silently for a minute or two. Then he turned to him and said, “Hugh—Hugh, I saw you after the services speaking to Caroline.”

“Yes, I spoke to her, Dad,” he said.

They stood there facing each other. Then his father looked down at the black and white marble squares between his feet. He tapped the tip of the umbrella lightly on the marble and the little tap-tap echoed in the empty hall. Then he looked back at his son. “Try not to blame me too much, Hugh,” he said.

“No, Dad, I don't blame you too much.”

His father smiled faintly. They shook hands.

Seventeen

Edrita telephoned at four o'clock. “Are you ready?” she asked him.

“Do you mean right now?”

“Yes. Right now,” she said.

“Look, I can't go right now,” he said “I—”

“Why not? Why can't you go now?”

“Let's wait a few days,” he said. “I can't go right this afternoon.”

“No,” she said. “We mustn't wait a few days. I'm ready to go now. I'm ready to go this afternoon.”

“It just isn't that easy,” he said. “It isn't easy to just pick up and walk out of here. Give me a few days.”

“Oh, Hugh. A few days is the same as a few weeks or a few months or a few years. It's the same as never. He who hesitates is lost, darling.”

“Now you're sounding like my grandfather,” he said.

“Am I? Then I'll try sounding like myself. You said you'd come back here to reappraise your life. That was what you said to me.”

“Yes.”

“Well, when you reappraise something and find that it isn't worth very much, don't you try to get rid of it as soon as possible? Don't you try to walk away from it as quickly as possible?”

“Yes.”

“And you said right after the funeral.”

“I know.”

“This
is
right after the funeral. You promised me.”

“Where will we go? Where is there to go?”

“Don't worry about that. I have that all worked out.”

“Where?”

“I'll pick you up in my car. To-night, we'll drive to New York. We'll stay at the Plaza. Then, to-morrow, I have us on a train—our own compartment.”

“A train going where?”

“To Virginia. The train will carry us back to Old Virginny! To Hot Springs, Hugh—the Homestead. It's a perfect time of year, darling. We'll sit on that big veranda and have a julep. We'll have that wonderful Homestead food. Waiters with trays balanced on their heads! Can you think of anything more perfect, because, if you can, we'll go there. But Hot Springs, Hugh! Hot Springs eternal in the human breast! All the Appalachians are in bloom right now. The Shenandoah Valley is covered with azaleas …”

“Yes.”

“We'll climb Bald Knob! We'll sit in the sun. We'll sleep till noon. Tell me you like the idea, Hugh.”

“I like it,” he said.

“Oh, darling, good! Good. Then hurry—hurry and pack your suitcase. Be a runaway. We'll both be runaways. I'll pick you up—you'll be my pick-up …”

“What are you telling your parents?”

“We're old enough, aren't we, not to tell our parents? I'm telling them that I'm driving back to Chicago. I've told them I've decided I should be getting back. The visit was a mistake, and they know it and I know it. We really don't get along very well any more. Later on, I'll write and tell them what I've really done.”

“And what are we going to do after Hot Springs?” he asked her.

“After that—whatever you say. Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do. Hot Springs is where we'll decide all those things.”

“I wish I could believe that it could be that easy,” he said.

“Easy is as easy does. I'm full of little bits of wisdom to-day, aren't I? Oh, Hugh, I feel so strange, so funny. Frightened, yes, but I feel that I'm flying, floating—like Dorothy off to see the Wizard! But I have such a funny, certain faith that this is the right thing, darling—that at last we're going to do what we were always meant to do. Hot Springs is Oz. How do you feel, Hugh?”

“I feel—not so certain,” he said.

“See? You're scared, too. Well, let's be scared together, then. We'll hold each other's hands all the way. I love you so. Tell me you like the idea of Hot Springs, Hugh.”

“I like the idea,” he said again.

“And can you think of a single, solitary reason why we shouldn't go?”

“No,” he said slowly, “I really can't. And I guess that's the trouble.”

“You see? The only trouble is that there isn't any trouble. Now hurry and pack your bag.”

“All right …”

“Good. And hurry, darling.”

“I'll have to speak to Sandy.”

“Good. Tell her—tell her anything you want. Tell her the truth, if you want to. I don't care. I don't care about anything, Hugh, except that we're going away from here together.”

“Give me—give me about half an hour, Edrita.”

“All right. I'll pick you up in half an hour. Tell me you're happy, darling.”

“I'm happy.”

“So am I. I'll pick you up in half an hour and we'll head into the sunset together!”

“All right. I'll see you then.”

“Don't be late. If you're late I'll die, thinking that you've changed your mind. Be—be strong with her, Hugh.”

“I will. Good-bye, Edrita.”

“Good-bye, darling.”

He sat for a while in the chair by the library phone. He was thinking about the house, the family, Pansy and Austin, and the faraway voice of James Lord, Junior, and about Anne, and about his father and Mrs. Schiller, and the strange way things had worked out and how, not very many days ago, he had thought that nothing about the house or family ever changed, and how suddenly everything had changed. Was it really possible, he thought, that he could leave them all so quickly and so easily and—like Edrita, like a bird—simply take wing? The investment of the years; all the years he had spent on them, seemed to hang so heavily upon him. He had changed, too; the years had changed him. There seemed to be no way of escaping their weight. He had talked about reappraising his life. But his life was only the years, and how could you reappraise years? How could you pick up years again, and look at them, and try to turn them into something different, something they had never been? The years existed now, like the stones of the house, and there was nothing about them anywhere that could be changed, or rearranged, or reappraised. He thought: Well, I seem to be going to Hot Springs. And suddenly Hot Springs, Warm Springs, Colorado Springs (why had Edrita chosen another Springs?) all seemed like the same place. And it took an effort of the mind to remember that Hot Springs was where he was going, and with Edrita. But he sat very still in the chair, not going anywhere, looking at the late, yellow sunlight on the leather furniture, the books in the shelves all around the fireplace, at the very bad nineteenth-century paintings, artfully lighted by electricity, recessed in the walnut panelling.

At last he stood up and went out of the library, across the living-room, towards the hall. Pappy and Maria had been busy, since the family had left, and everything had been picked up. The sofa cushions were plump and round again, the ash-trays had been emptied, and everything was immaculate. It was hard to believe that anyone had been there at all. He started slowly up the stairs, wondering if his mother had heard about the two tourists who had come to the funeral thinking that the house was open to the public, and thought that he might tell her about that first; it might appeal to her sense of the ridiculous. And then, after that, he would say something simple—something very simple and kind. There was no point, after all, in being unkind now. He would say something like, “Sandy, I'm going away for a few days …”

And in the middle of the stairs he suddenly thought of Ellen Brier. “Niceness is your problem, Hugh,” she had said. “I like that part of you, of course. But still niceness can be a problem.” And he wondered what Ellen would be doing now. She would be coming home from the office soon, getting into her elevator, letting herself into the apartment on Central Park West with her key. Perhaps she would fix herself a cup of coffee and then pick up the yellow foolscap sheets of her musical-comedy script, and do some more work on that, write a few more lines. As he paused on the stairs to contemplate it, the serenity of that scene seemed both real and overpoweringly appealing, and he wondered if she had meant it when she had said she would like to get away. Thinking of her wide, appraising eyes that always looked as though they could be astonished by nothing, he was sure she had. “We must keep in touch,” she had said. And now he was in that room with her, saying, “Ellen, would you like to go to California with me?”

And then, brushing away that thought, he continued up the stairs, trying to fix it in his mind that he was going to Hot Springs with Edrita. There were voices from his mother's room. He tapped lightly at the door.

Reba came to the door and quickly stepped outside into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. “Don't go in there now, Hugh,” Reba said. “She's not feeling well. She doesn't want to see anybody.”

“What's the matter with her?”

“She's sick. She's—this day has been too much for her. She's sick. She can't see anybody now.”

“I've got to speak to her, Reba.”

“Can't it wait till to-morrow?”

“No, it can't wait till to-morrow. I've got to see her now.”

“You're not going to—to tell her you're leaving, are you?”

“I want to speak to her, Reba.”

“Because if you are, I've already mentioned that—that you might be going back to New York in a few days. So she knows all that. You don't need to bother telling her about that now.”

“I want to tell her now,” he said.

“Oh, you can't be leaving
now
. Are you? Because if you are, you can't. She's too upset already. She's terribly sick, she can't—”

“What's wrong with her?”

“I—I don't know. I think perhaps—perhaps it's her heart, Hugh. You see, we can't do anything that would upset her any more.”

“Her heart? Have you called a doctor?”

“No, but I'm going to. I'm going to right now. So don't go in there, Hugh.”

“At least let me see her.”

“No!” she said. She stood across the door, blocking it with her body. “No, I won't let you. You cannot see her now.”

“I'm sorry, Reba,” he said. Gently he pushed her to one side.

“Hugh, don't go in that room!” she cried, but his hand was on the knob, and he pressed the door open and stepped inside, shutting it behind him.

“What's Reba screaming about?” his mother asked him. “What's the matter with Reba?” She looked at him from across the room. “Hi, baby,” she said.

She was sitting up in bed, wearing the white marabou jacket and all her jewellery. Her yellow hair was unpinned and hung down about her shoulders and, on the table beside her bed, there was a half-empty whisky bottle, and she had a dark-brown drink in her hand.

“Have a drink, baby,” she said, raising her glass.

He stared at her. In the corner of the room, the movie screen was set up on its tripod and, on the little table beside her chair, stood the projector. All over the floor, unwound in thin black curls, was the reel of eight-millimetre movie film.

“Well, then don't have a drink!” she said. She closed her eyes and, as she did, two tears ran down across her cheeks.

“What in God's name are you doing?” he asked her.

“What in God's name does it look like I'm doing?” she said.

“I'm going to get Dad.”

She opened her eyes and brushed at the tears with an angry gesture of her hand. “Yes, get
Dad
,” she said, “Get
Dad
. You'll have a little trouble getting
Dad
, baby.
Dad
is off with his whore. Off with his fat whore. If you try to get Dad now, you might
interrupt
something, and
Dad
wouldn't like that very much, baby.” She took a swallow of her drink and reached for the bottle beside her bed.

He stepped towards her. “Put that bottle down,” he said.

She seized the bottle and hugged it to her bosom with her ringed fingers. “Don't you dare!” she said. “Don't you dare touch this! It's mine!” She gazed fiercely at him. Then, very carefully, she tipped the bottle and poured some more whisky into her already near-full glass.

“Reba told me you were having a heart attack!”

“Ha!” she laughed. “Well, I am. I'm having an attack of heartbreak.”

“What on earth are you trying to do to yourself?” he asked her.