Those Harper Women (38 page)

“All right,” he said. “Perhaps—someday.”

“Why someday?” she asked laughing. “Why not right away—tomorrow?”

“All right—why not? Find your house, if that's what you want.”

His hair was blowing across his eyes, and she was still laughing. “Isn't it what you want too?” she asked him. His lips moved, but she couldn't hear what he was saying. She slowed her horse to a walk, and called after Charles. “Wait! Come back here a minute.”

He turned the chestnut gelding and trotted back to her. “What is it?” he said.

“I asked you if it wasn't what
you
wanted,” she said.

They were facing each other. He patted his horse's neck. “Edith,” he said carefully. “I've told you. I'm joining the Army.”

“But you can't. Not now.”

“Can't I?”

She hesitated, trying to translate the expression on his face. “Of course not. We've got our share of Papa's money now. It's for us—when we get to New York.”

Slowly, his fingers stroked the chestnut's mane, and the animal's neck quivered at his touch, its head went up and its tail swished. “I understand all this,” Charles said. “You have your money now. You can certainly buy a house with it if you like. There's enough.”

“It would be your house too!”

“No. Not yet.”

“Why not? There's money for you as well as for me.”

“Take the money if you want to,” he said. “I won't have much need for it where I'm going.”

“Don't be absurd! You're not going anywhere—except to New York with me. That's what the money's
for
, for heaven's sake! And we promised Papa—”

“I promised him nothing—except once, to help him by being some sort of decoration for his little cake. This little sugar cake of his. And now that promise has ended.”

She reached out her hand and touched his knee. “That's not fair,” she said. “Besides, darling—I need you. Diana needs you.”

“Do you?” His eyes traveled away.

They were at the corner of the road that led into the old Mandal estate, a vacant ruin used for sheep-grazing. A sheep fence ran around it and, looking at the barred gate, she said suddenly, “Let's do some jumping. Come on. We can argue about this later.”

His look followed hers. “Do you think this horse can take that gate?” he said.

“Of course he can.” She measured its height with her eyes. “It's not more than four and a half feet. This will be an easy one.”

“I'm not sure,” he said doubtfully. “I've never jumped this fellow before. Have you?”

“You've got to
make
him take it. You're the rider—you're in command. You make him take it. That's what Papa says.”

“Is that what Papa says? All right, come on.”

They started the horses toward the gate, urging them to a canter. Three lengths from the fence, Edith jerked her feet from the stirrups and pressed her knees and thighs hard into her horse's sides. Leaning forward, giving him a loose rein, she whispered into his ear, “Jump!” And they took off, cleared the top rail nicely, and came down easily on the other side. But the chestnut had veered sharply and refused the jump, the horse was rearing and snorting under Charles.

“Don't let him refuse!” she called back to Charles. “Give him the crop! Give him the crop! Don't let him refuse.” She cantered back, and jumped the gate again.

Charles's horse was standing quietly now.

“Come on—make him try it again.”

“You want to move people, don't you, Edith? You always want to move them. Why is that?”

“What do you mean?”

“You want to move me to New York with you.”

“But darling, we're rich now—we can go wherever we want. It doesn't have to be New York.”

“But I'm not taking the money.”

“Do you want us to starve?”

“Somehow,” he said smiling, “I don't think you'll ever starve, Edith.”

“Don't be difficult, darling,” she said. “Come on—make him try the jump again.”

“Why don't you tell me the real reason why you want to leave St. Thomas?” he said.

She laughed, the wind in her face. “I'm thinking of us. I want us to be free.”

“Are you? Or is it the same reason why you wanted to get rid of Bertin and his wife? Why didn't you tell me why you wanted to get rid of Monique?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Why didn't you tell me the real reason was because you were afraid of him?”

It was suddenly hard for her to hear what he was saying, and easier, safer, in the wind to dismiss his words. She let the wind blow them away. “Afraid of him?” she said. “Why should I be afraid of him?”

“Why didn't you tell me he was the one?”

She was too terrified to look at him now. “What one? Which one?”

“The one before me.”

“It's a cheap, disgusting lie!”

“And you've seen him since, haven't you?”

“No!”

“Edith,” he said, “is Diana my child or his?”

Tears jumped to her eyes. “I refuse to answer such a question!” she cried. “How can you ask me a thing like that?”

“I guess,” he said easily, “it's because it's something I'd like to know before I join, as we say, Our Doughboys Over There.”

She raised her hand.

“Are you going to give me the crop?” he said. His brown eyes were steady. “Go ahead. Give me the crop, if it helps.”

“Damn you,” she whispered. “Oh, damn you!” And then, pleading, she said, “Charles, please believe me.”

“I can't. That's why I want to go away, and why I'm not taking any money.”

“You took money when you married me, don't forget!”

He smiled. “That was different,” he said. “I accepted his money then because you were included in the price.”

“I still am!”

“It was different then. I loved you then.”

She turned her horse away. “Come on,” she said. “Make your jump.”

Once more they turned their horses toward the sheep fence and broke into a canter. Turning to Charles, she cried out, “Who told you all this about me? Was it Papa? I never loved Louis, Charles—only you!” He turned his head to her and laughed. “Don't laugh at me!” she shouted. They approached the gate, and she lifted her heels from the stirrups. “Jump!” she cried to her mare. And to Charles, beside her, she said “Jump!” But she saw the chestnut's head begin to shy, about to refuse again, and she reached out and seized the other bridle. Charles seemed to turn in the saddle and to give her a sudden look of intense interest; not fearful, but questioning. Holding his bridle in her gloved hand just below the bit, she cried, “
Jump!
” and their horses rose together. There was a clatter of hoofs as the two horses touched, their bodies thrown instantly against each other, then flung apart, and then the noisier crash of hoofs and shoes striking the fence rail. Her head snapped forward, and she clung to her mare's neck, her face in the mane. Her horse struck the ground with its front feet, stumbled, and almost fell; then it leaped up, rearing and whinnying. She had dropped her crop and, while she tried to calm the horse, she realized that she held a broken bit in her hand. She looked back. The gelding stood very still, its nose down, nibbling the grass beside the fence, and Charles lay, a graceless burden, against the lower rail, his legs twisted awkwardly beneath him. One hand clutched at the air and, as Edith leaped from her horse and went running back to him, the hand moved slowly downward.

The news from the hospital, in the beginning, was confusing. At first Edith understood that both legs were broken; then it seemed that only one leg was broken, but in several places. “Compound fracture of the right lower femur, and simple fracture of the right tibia and fibula,” was the final diagnosis which young Doctor Alan Osborn, who had only recently come to St. Thomas, gave her. It was several days before he would permit her to see Charles. And when at last she was allowed to go to the hospital Alan Osborn met her at the door and said, “We're quite sure he'll be able to walk again, Mrs. Blakewell.” They moved slowly down the hospital corridor. “Of course it will always be with difficulty. There was severe damage to the muscle and vascular tissues. But at least we managed to save the leg.” Outside the door to Charles' room, he said, “You realize that he doesn't want to see you.”

She nodded, and went into the room. Inside, the room was dark. Bending over him, she said, “Charles,
what's happened to me?
”

He looked up at her, “Hello, Edith,” he said. And then, “Well, you've won.”

“Oh, don't say that.”

“Is Diana my child or his?”

“Don't … don't …”

He turned his head away. “Please go away now,” he said.

A few days later, Alan Osborn called at her house. “He thinks he could get better treatment if he were moved to a hospital in New York,” he said. “And of course he's probably right. So, as soon as it's possible to move him, I think he should be moved.”

“Yes.”

“Will you be going with him, Mrs. Blakewell?”

“No.”

“I see …” Alan Osborn said with a noncommittal, professional face.

Two weeks later, riding in a wheelchair, Charles boarded the Quebec Line steamer
Guiana
. A nurse accompanied him. By the time the
Guiana
reached New York, America was in the war.

Then there was that little family meeting in her father's house. It was the last time Edith was inside Sans Souci until the time, years later, when she and Harold and Arthur and their respective wives went through the place dividing up the furniture after Meredith Harper died. She had told the family at the meeting that she wanted to stay in St. Thomas. They acted quite surprised. But after all, there was really no place else for her to go.

In the summer of 1918 she had a letter from Charles, postmarked from France, which was to tell her that he was safe and well, and that he had got into the war anyway—“as a soldier of sorts,” he put it—and was driving a Red Cross ambulance. That was the last she heard of him until September of that year when she was notified that a mortar had exploded beneath the ambulance, killing the driver and three civilian passengers.

His body was returned to St. Thomas for burial, and Mrs. Thomas Blakewell arrived from New York for the services—the same dry, brittle woman she had always been, only drier, brittler, ten years older. After the services she paid a brief visit to Edith at her house.

“Would you like to see your little granddaughter?” Edith asked. Diana was nearly five years old.

Mrs. Blakewell pulled on the glove which she had removed to shake hands. “I'd rather not,” she said in her husky voice. “I came mostly out of curiosity—to see the place where he was buried. It's really a terribly ugly island, isn't it? I had thought it would be prettier. Still, I suppose it's where he belongs. He used to write me such enthusiastic letters about the place.” Then, turning to Edith, she said, “Blood tells, doesn't it? I've always thought that the most absurd remark. But, like most absurd remarks, it turns out to have a lot of truth in it. A silk purse cannot be made out of a sow's ear. Heaven knows what made me think it might be otherwise. But more than anything else I feel sorry for you, Edith—yes, sorry. It always seemed to me you had so much. I suppose it was a case of having too much. Was it? I don't really care to know the answer. The only trouble is there won't be any punishment—none good enough for you, in any case. Maybe the punishment will come in the next world. I hope so.” She turned and went out the door.

Old Nellie—young Nellie then—had come into the room and said, “Will you be having dinner alone tonight, Miss Edith?”

“What?” Edith said absently and then, suddenly, throwing her arms around the little housemaid, she cried, “Nellie! Don't ever leave me, Nellie! Promise me you'll never leave me!”

And the startled Nellie, clutched in the white woman's frightening grip, said, “No, Miss Edith. I won't leave you, Miss Edith. I promise you that.”

Sixteen

Very little of the morning has entered the hotel room—only enough to discover the worn stretch of carpet by the door, a thin film of dust on the dresser top, and the curls of smoke that float up from Leona's lighted cigarette. She sits on the bed, tailor-fashion, with the top sheet pulled up around her shoulders, watching him as he moves about the room getting dressed. Now he pulls up the Venetian blind with a noisy rattle, and sharp sunlight floods into the room.

“Oooh,” she says, shielding her eyes, “did you have to do that?”

“Oh, sorry,” he says, starting to lower the blind again.

“No, leave it up,” she says. “It's time to rise and shine.”

With his foot on the window sill he tightens the laces of one shoe. She smiles at him and says, “Good morning.” And then, after a moment, she says, “Are you going out?”

He looks at her uncertainly. “I thought I might play a few holes of golf,” he says. “Do you mind? It's nice day. Can't spend a nice day—”

“Of course I don't mind.”

He pulls a blue cashmere sweater over his head. “Just a few holes.”

“When I was a little girl,” she says, “when I first began coming here, I remember it used to bother me. I'd wake up in the morning and look at the sky, and think:
another
nice day? How can it always be like this? Just one nice day after another—never any difference, never any foggy days or cold days, or snowy days, always the same.”

“How about some breakfast?” he says, moving toward the phone. “What would you like?”

“Nothing, thanks,” she says, carefully shaping the end of her cigarette against the rim of the already overcrowded ashtray. “And you—why don't you pick up something, on your way, Arch.”