Beverly Byrne (5 page)

"Yes,
you do, darling. If you're going to spend the winter in New York, you'll need a
few new dresses at least. And a new coat as well. I thought of fur, but you're
still so young."

"I'm
in mourning," Amy said in desperation. "I shouldn't buy any new
clothes yet."

"Nonsense!
I thought we settled all that this summer. Believe me, your poor mother
wouldn't want you going about the city looking a frump. That's the last thing
Jessie Norman would have wanted."

"But
..."

"I'll
telephone Donald and arrange that the bills be sent to him," Lil said
firmly. "And I'll make an appointment at the dressmaker. We can try
Altman's, but in the end I think you'll have to have most things made. It's
this awful war. Nothing at all in the shops."

Amy
was terrified by the debts she was running up, but she didn't know how to stop
Lil.

The
following week there was an engagement party for a Westerman cousin. Amy found
herself surrounded by dozens of strangers who took her hand and murmured
condolences. Then they drifted away across a barrier forged by intimacy she did
not share.

Eventually
Luke joined her. "You looked dazed."

"All
these people! Are you related to everyone of them?"

"Just
about, except for the prospective groom's side. Daunting, isn't it?"

"Incredible."
Someone jostled her arm and a trickle of punch stained the front of her new
blue dress. There were hasty apologies, and Luke led her off to find the powder
room. A young Irish maid repaired the damage quickly. Luke was waiting in the
hall when Amy emerged.

"All
fixed?"

"Yes,
thank you. It's fine."

"Do
you want to go back in there?" He nodded in the direction of the drawing
room. "They'll be serving supper soon."

She
shook her head.

"Me
neither," he said. "Let's go for a walk."

They
escaped to Fifth Avenue and a soft mild evening that belied the October date.
"Indian summer," Luke said. "Sure you're not hungry? We can
probably find somplace open."

"No,
I'm not. Tell me about your family. Who are all those people?"

"Not
one by one!" He laughed and took her arm and drew it through his.
"I'll give you a potted history. Grandpa Westerman was in the fur trade,
an agent for the Hudson Bay trappers. He married a French Canadian girl, that's
the Catholic connection, and settled in Fort Covington. It's a tiny town on the
New York-Canadian border. They had sixteen children."

"My
God!"

"Exactly.
I told you, Grandma was a Catholic. Anyway, eleven of them survived. My dad was
the youngest, by the way. Eventually Grandpa was selling more and more furs in
New York City, so they moved down here. Apparently Grandma was pretty sharp
too. She bought property, most of it up here around the eighties. It was
considered the back of beyond in those days, and she got it cheap. What with
one thing and another they died very rich. Of course the estate was cut up
eleven ways. Still, nobody did too badly."

"And
they all live in New York?"

"Most
of them. They married well, except for Lil and Warren, who didn't marry at all,
and most of that lot you met back there are either doctors or dentists. That
was Grandma's idea of respectability. She steered all her kids into medical
training or a medical marriage. Dad was the only one interested in
business."

"How
come Warren isn't a doctor?"

Luke
grinned at her ruefully. "Family skeleton. Failed medical school because
he couldn't stand the sight of blood. Lil wanted to be a nun, I'm told. Grandpa
wouldn't hear of it. She didn't defy him, but she wouldn't marry either. So they
live together on their share of the original spoils. Now you know it all. Not
very exciting, is it?"

"Maybe
not, but it's overwhelming. Don't you feel" -she groped for a
word-"stretched, pulled apart by having so many relatives?"

"It's
never occurred to me. They've just always been there." His laugh echoed in
the semi-deserted street.

They
passed a doorway sheltering a couple locked in embrace and Amy averted her
eyes. "How come so many of them seem to have known my father?" she
asked. "They were all very sweet and sympathetic, and they sounded as if
they'd known him."

"But
they did," Luke said in surprise. "He was brought up by my
grandparents. Didn't you know?"

She
shook her head and felt embarrassed. "Daddy never talked about his
childhood. I guess because Mummy was raised in an orphanage. It was very
unhappy for her, so the subject was avoided. Anyway, when you live in Africa I
think you forget about the past. Africa is so real that nothing else seems to
be. Do you understand that?"

"I
think so."

He
drew her arm tighter through his own, and Amy was conscious of his warmth
beneath the black dinner jacket. They stopped by a street light and her eyes
searched his face. Luke looked almost godlike in the glow. His perfectly
chiseled features reminded her of the ancient Greeks pictured in Warren's
leather-bound books.

"Listen,
Amy," he said. "Don't you start worrying about the past." There
was an odd hint of urgency in his voice, and of protectiveness. "You've
got your whole life to look forward to."

5

AMY
BEGAN TO SEE MORE OF LUKE. HE CAME TO THE apartment for dinner two or three
times a week, and took her to plays or concerts or for long walks in the park.
They talked endlessly, mostly about themselves, and she realized that Luke was
unhappy in his father's firm. "I'm not very good at it," he told her
ruefully.

"But
you'll learn. Just be patient."

"I
will if I have to," he agreed.

Amy
didn't see how he could avoid it, but she didn't press. Luke needed time to
adjust to being a businessman rather than a student.

Literature
was a safer subject. She discovered poetry and wasn't afraid to argue
vehemently her preferences. Luke's taste was austere, and he denounced hers as
romantic and sentimental. She developed a passion for Christina Rossetti; he
tried unsuccessfully to interest her in William Blake. "We'd better switch
to novels," he said one Sunday afternoon. "We'll never agree about
poetry."

"
Wuthering
Heights
," she said instantly.

"
Middlemarch
,"
he retorted. "Bronte can't hold a candle to Eliot."

They
looked at each other and laughed.

They
laughed a lot together, unless, as sometimes happened, they were trapped into
discussing the war.
The Times
introduced a new process called
rotogravure. Like the rest of New York, Amy and Luke lived their lives against
a background of graphic death. Exotic battlefield names such as Sulva Bay and
Gallipoli and Loos were made real by sepia-tinted photographs of horror, served
up with breakfast.

Tommy
had the paper sent to him at college, and he wrote worshipfully of the news
photographers reporting from the front lines. One letter announced that he'd
spent six dollars on a camera, Kodak's new folding pocket-size model, and was
practicing. "I'm not very good yet, but I'm snapping everything that will
stand still, and I'm getting better."

She
worried that he was nursing some crazy dream of going off to war, but she wrote
less frequently. Three letters a week shrank to one every ten days or so. She
didn't disguise the reason.

"Sorry
I haven't been in touch for a while," Amy wrote at the end of October.
"Luke's been taking up my education. Lots of plays and things. We saw Mr.
Cohan's
Hello Broadway
Tuesday night and on Saturday we're going to the
opera to hear
Faust
. It will be my first time ..."

Tommy
didn't answer that letter.

November
came bringing swift and sudden cold. A freezing wind stripped the last of the
leaves from the trees in the park, leaving black branches silhouetted bleak and
severe against a leaden sky. Two days later there was a blizzard. the earliest
anyone could remember, and Amy stared out the windows at a world of white.

"What's
the matter?" Luke asked, coming into the drawing room the day after the
storm. "You look terrible. "

"I
hate it," she said with unexpected passion. "These winters of yours
are awful. I hoped New York would be better than Boston."

"It
isn't much different." He crossed and took both her hands. He smelled of
sunshine and cold fresh air. "It's not so bad once you get used to it. It
can be a lot of fun."

"I
don't see how. The streets get icy and it's impossible to walk. Then when it
melts everything's filthy and soaking wet and . . ."

"Whoa!
Slow down. It's not my fault, I don't make the weather. Blame God if you
must."

She
looked away. She didn't want to revive the time when each of their
conversations ended by being about God. "What is there that's fun about
it? Tell me, I'm longing to be convinced."

"Well,
sleighing for one thing. And building snowmen. And snowball fights."

"I've
never done any of those things."

"Then
it's high time you did. Get your coat. Do you have snow boots?"

"Yes,
Aunt Lil made me buy them weeks ago."

"Let's
go then."

They
entered the park at Seventy-ninth Street and turned right into the big open
field skirting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was full of laughing children
watched by prim governesses. Nearby was a steep hill. Small boys hurtled down
it on shiny wooden sleds that reached breakneck speed.

"We're
too old for that unfortunately," Luke told her. "Too bad. It was great.
I've still got my old sled somewhere at home."

"You
can save it for your children," she said.

For
a moment it appeared he was going to say something serious. Instead he grinned.
"Let's find a place to build a snowman. I suspect you're going to be the
artistic type."

They
walked deeper into the park, beyond where the paths were shoveled, and the
children's voices faded into the distance. Luke selected an enormous drift
beneath a bewhitened pine. "It's easy," he said. "You begin with
a snowball. Then you start rolling it to make it bigger."

Amy
handled the snow gingerly. It was dry and powdery and still very clean. The icy
cold stung through her thick woolen gloves.

She
tried to imitate his expertise, but she was clumsy. Her attempts produced lumpy
misshapen spheres that wouldn't hold together.

Luke
made her a starter ball. "Here, begin with this." He was intent, as
if he were giving lessons in some art necessary to survival.

"Don't
take it so seriously," she said laughing. "I thought it was supposed
to be fun."

"Might
as well make a good snowman if you're going to make one at all."

She
got the hang of rolling the original snowball along the ground to make it grow.
Soon it took both of them to control the enormous result.

"Ok,
that's his lordship's body. Now we need another one."

In
a while they had a smaller round on top of the first, and Luke put his bowler
on the snowman's head. "He needs a face."

Amy
plucked a couple of pine cones for eyes. Then she removed a tortoise shell comb
from her hair and used it as a mouth. The snowman was grinning. "How's
that?"

"Perfect."
He took her hand. "Miss Norman, may I present Lord Frostbite. Seems a cold
type at first, but he's warmhearted once you get to know him."

They
laughed and suddenly he reached down and pelted her with a handful of snow.
"I told you about snowball fights, didn't I?"

"Not
fair! You have to give me time to make some!"

"Three
minutes, not a second longer. Then you're fair game."

They
stockpiled their efforts a few yards apart. "Time!" Luke called
suddenly and hurled a snowball at her.

He'd
made more than she, and his aim was better. "Give up?" he shouted
after a few seconds.

"Not
a chance!" She landed a hit.

He
charged across the distance between them brandishing an enormous snowball and
shouting lustily. She ducked and he tripped over her skirt, and they were
rolling together in the soft snow, giggling like children in a tickling match.

Then
he kissed her.

He'd
done so before, in an avuncular fashion that bespoke the five years between
them, little affectionate pecks on her forehead or her cheek. This was
different. His mouth covered hers and remained so for a long time. When he
lifted his head they stared at each other in silence. "Sorry," Luke
said at last. "I'd no right to do that."

She
didn't answer, because she didn't know what to say, and because her heart was
pounding and her breath was coming in short hard gasps not caused by the
exertion of the snowball fight.

He
drew her to her feet and brushed the snow from her coat. It was of plumcolored
wool, with a fox collar, and she wore a matching hat. Her face, surrounded by
the silvery fur, was an ivory cameo flushed pink. Her large brown eyes looked
at him questioningly. Luke leaned forward and kissed her again, on the forehead
this time.

"Come
along, little one," he said softly. "I'll take you to Schrafft's for
hot chocolate and cookies. Good little girls always get a treat."

Warren
Westerman had turned his study into a green-house. He nursed there the myriad
cuttings taken from the garden at Balmoral. "I think this rose is going to
root, Amy," he told her with enthusiasm. "I didn't think it would.
Roses are difficult."

She
looked carefully at the fragile stem. A tiny new shoot was emerging from the
tip. "Yes, I'm sure it is. Congratulations, Uncle Warren. That takes
skill."

He
moved the plantlet closer to the light. He had abolished the drapes and pushed
the furniture to one side to make room for a long table in front of the
windows. It was covered with pots and jars and an assortment of kitchenware
pressed into service as containers for greenery. "They will almost all be
ready for planting out next spring."

Amy
wondered where he intended to make his new garden. Perhaps he and Lil were
buying a summer home of their own. Before she could ask he said, "Did you
have roses in German East Africa?" It was the first time he'd ever asked
her a direct question.

"No
roses," she said. "Mummy tried, but they didn't thrive. Have you ever
seen a flame tree?"

He
admitted he hadn't, and she described the beautiful trees with scarlet blossoms
lining the long avenue to Jericho. "You and Aunt Lil must come and visit
as soon as I go home. You'll love it."

"Are
you planning to go home after the war is over?" he asked, adjusting the
position of a jam jar filled with privet sprays.

"Yes,
of course." She was surprised that he didn't know. "Everyone at
Jericho will be waiting for me. The servants have all been with us for years.
And all Mummy's and Daddy's things are there."

"Your
mother and father were happy in Africa, I believe."

"Oh
yes, and so was I. You'll come and visit, won't you?" She was suddenly
full of tenderness for this taciturn, sere old man.

"I
don't travel much," he said softly. "It's kind of you to invite me,
however."

"But
I owe you both so much! I know you were Daddy's friends, and you've been such
good friends to me. I want you to come."

He
looked away. "I knew your father of course, for many years. I cannot claim
to have been his friend. He and Charles were very close always. But I was older
and ..."

"And
what, Uncle Warren?" She wanted to hear more of her father's youth. The
subject had begun to prick her curiosity of late.

"And
less tolerant," he said.

It
struck her as a strange remark. "I don't quite follow you."

He
favored her with one of his rare smiles. "Never mind, it was all a long
time ago. You get on well with Luke, don't you?" he said, changing the
subject abruptly. "You see a lot of him."

"He's
very kind to me." Amy fingered the velvet leaf of a clump of potted
violets.

"Luke's
a nice boy." Warren seemed to be forcing out the words, as if mentioning
Luke's virtues was painful. "He's very religious you know. I think it's
because he almost died when he was a small child."

"I
didn't know that."

"No
one ever mentions it now. But he was very ill. For many weeks. Cecily was
beside herself. I remember it well."

"I'm
glad he recovered." She didn't know what else to say.