Graves' Retreat (6 page)

    He got glimpses of Susan in the moonlight. She wore a white summer dress, lacy and with a high collar, and brooch at her throat. The brooch, he knew, had belonged to her maternal grandmother, her favorite.

    “Mrs. Smythe said there was a scene at your house tonight.”

    “Yes,” she said. “Yes, there was.” She sounded worn.

    “I’m sorry.”

    “So am I.”

    She started to cry.

    “Is it-your father again?”

    “Yes.”

    He didn’t know what else to say. He repeated, “I’m sorry.”

    The horse moved smartly as the carriage rounded a bend filled with moonlight on dewy grass and pine trees. The smell was rich and deep and sweet, so much so that you wanted to get out and hold the pine in your hand and inhale it even deeper.

    “He’s so mean to Byron.”

    “I know.”

    “You do?”

    “I’ve seen him at the bank,” Les said. “He makes Byron jump.”

    “Byron doesn’t deserve to be treated that way.”

    “Byron’s a good man.”

    She looked at him. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

    “Sure. Why wouldn’t I?”

    “Some people would see Byron as their rival. I mean-our relationship and all-”

    “Whatever our relationship, Susan, it doesn’t alter the fact that Byron’s a good man. He is.”

    “I think Daddy takes special delight in bullying Byron.”

    “Why?”

    “Oh, because Byron’s family is old money. His people came here at the time when the original setders did from the East and the South. They had money before they got here, really, many of them. Daddy can’t forget he’s from the farm or that he wouldn’t own a bank at all if there hadn’t been that bank collapse back in ’57 and he got it when it went into receivership. That’s the funny thing. The wealthy people here have accepted Daddy and been very nice to him-it’s Daddy who can’t accept them-or himself.”

    “So he takes it out on Byron.”

    “Yes.”

    They reached a point where they always stopped and strolled along the river.

    He sensed that tonight was not a good time to take her hand. That she was too troubled for romance.

    They walked. On the air floated silver particles of fluffy dandelions and fireflies and pieces of dust motes in moonbeams. To their right the Cedar ran peacefully along and on the opposite shore a stand of white birches were like sentries in the night.

    They came to a pavilion used for picnicking. He put his hands round her tiny waist and helped her up to sit on the edge of the cross beam so she could look down at the river.

    “There’s something I need to say.”

    Something in the way she said it made him pay special attention.

    He was so afraid of her impending words that he could scarcely breathe.

    “All right,” he said, barely able to talk.

    Ever since he had held her note in his hands he had sensed she was going to say something terrible. Something-final.

    “I’ve spent the past week thinking about us, Les.”

    “Me, too.”

    “I thought back to how we met. At that bam dance last spring. And how ever since we kept running into each other and how-without anything ever really happening-we seemed truly drawn to each other.”

    “I know.”

    “And I know I love you and I know you love me, but I think it’s-”

    And then she stopped.

    And he almost seized her to shake her so she’d find her thought.

    "It’s what?” he said finally.

    “I think it’s just loneliness.”

    “And not real love.”

    “Oh, no, real love. But a friendship kind of love, Les.”

    “Then you love-Byron-still?”

    She took his hands and brought them together as if in prayer and then touched them to her cheek. “Yes, I do, Les.” Then she frowned. “Or I would if he’d ever stand up to Daddy.”

    But he could hardly hear her.

    His ears filled with the finality of her words.

    He walked away from her, over to where the river rushed and shone silver. He stared at the water and thought how fine a dream it had been-his dream of somehow marrying Susan-but how he’d never been able to convince himself that it would ever actually happen.

    He wanted to blame her but he couldn’t. When he thought about it, all she’d ever talked about was her father and Byron, and how she wanted Byron to take his stand against his powerful would-be father-in-law. Only once had Les ever kissed her and that had been fleeting. She had needed someone to listen, a friend, and while that did not flatter his image of himself, he had to admit she had not led him on.

    She came up and touched his shoulder. In the moonlight her small features and raven hair were lovely. “Have you seen May lately?”

    He turned back to her. “No.”

    “You’ve been my friend, Les. Now let me be yours.”

    “It’s all right, Susan,” he sighed. “Why don’t we just go back.”

    “No, please, Les. Let me say something.”

    “All right.”

    “I don’t think you gave her a decent chance. She’s a very nice girl.”

    “I know she’s a nice girl.”

    “And I think- Well, I think pride kept you from loving her.”

    “Pride?” For the first time he allowed a note of anger in his voice. "What's pride got to do with it?”

    “Men can be that way, Les. I know. Daddy’s like that. If he thinks something’s not good enough for him-well, it blinds him sometimes.”

    “I never said she’s not good enough for me.”

    “No, you didn’t say it. But I sensed it.”

    “She works in a hat shop and that’s perfectly all right,” Les said. “It
is
perfectly all right. If only you’d believe that.”

    “Let’s go.”

    “Les, I want us to part as friends.”

    “We’re friends, Susan. Don’t worry about that.”

    She stopped him and leaned forward and kissed him gently on the mouth. “I really care about you, Les. I want you to know that.”

    “Yes,” he said, but it was a dull voice and seemed to belong to somebody else. “Yes, I know that.”

    Then they got in the carriage and went back.

    

    

    On the porch, one of the roomers was saying to Mr. Waterhouse, “Tell us about that buried body again.”

    “Well,” Mr. Waterhouse said, “it’s getting kind of late.”

    “Please,” said another boarder, “just that one and then we can all go to bed.”

    Les heard all this as he approached the porch and despite his mood -despite the fact that it was clear now he would never have Susan- he had to smile to himself. The boarders were like children whenever Mr. Waterhouse started telling Cedar Rapids stories. Please, just one more before bedtime,
please.

    “Well,” said Mr. Waterhouse, “you know where the old distillery was. Well, on that site right there there’s said to be a body buried- some say it was the result of two men fighting a duel over a woman, and others say it was over money and that the killer buried the body there and then bought the property next day so he’d have a private burial site.”

    Mr. Abernathy, who loved ghost stories, added, “And didn’t you say once that people hear strange howlings there every once in a while?”

    Mr. Waterhouse, who didn’t believe in ghosts but who liked to keep his audience happy, said, “That’s right, Mr. Abernathy. That’s exactly right. Strange howlings every once in a while.”

    “My Lord,” said Mr. Abernathy, absolutely thrilled. “My Lord.” Les muttered a “Good evening” to everyone and then went inside the vestibule.

    Mrs. Smythe had the sliding parlor doors open so she could look up from the chair where she did her knitting and see who came in and out. “Les,” she called when she saw him, “could you come in here a minute, please?”

    He sighed, afraid she was going to ask him how it had gone with Susan. Right now, he didn’t feel like talking.

    “Good evening, Mrs. Smythe.”

    She nodded. “There’s somebody in your room. Waiting.”

    “Who?”

    “He didn’t say. Just said it would be all right with you.”

    Still dazed from his time with Susan, all Les could do was shrug and say, “All right, Mrs. Smythe. Thanks for telling me.”

    He nodded, grateful that they hadn’t talked about Susan, and then made his way back to the stairs. He was exhausted. First all the hoopla earlier today about the game and then tonight with Susan and-

    He pushed open the door and looked in his room. He did not think that anything could shock him anymore today.

    Yet now he stood there absolutely stunned.

    “Hello,” T.Z. said, standing up from the reading chair and putting out his arms. “I’ll bet you’re surprised to see me now, aren’t you, boy?”

    There was no doubt about that.

    All Les could do was stand there gape-mouthed and stare.

    It had been years since he’d seen his older brother, T. Z. Graves. He had been hoping it would be years more before that dubious privilege came again.

    He closed the door and went inside, and then T.Z. said, “Why don’t you and me go for a walk, brother? Neely’s waiting for us a few blocks down at a tavern."

    Neely, Les thought. The coldest and most brutal man he’d ever known.

    He looked with pity and contempt at his older brother-still dashing and handsome and slick. And still, as always, a criminal.

    “Come on, Les. Me and Neely want to talk to you about something.”

    “About what?” Les said.

    “Well, we just kind of want to see how you’re doing, for one thing, in a nice little burg like Cedar Rapids. And for another, we want to talk to you about your job.”

    “What about my job?”

    T.Z. smiled. “You got to admit, Les, it gives a couple bank robbers a pretty good edge when one of their brothers works in a bank.” T.Z. didn’t stop laughing for a full minute about that one.

    Then he said, “But you don’t look too happy to see me.”

    “I’m not.”

    T.Z. glanced around the room. “You sure have gone respectable, Les.”

    “That was my intention.”

    “And I s’pect that’s how most people in Cedar Rapids see you.”

    “How’s that?”

    “Respectable.”

    “Yes, I suppose they do.”

    “Good, then I won’t spoil their impression of you unless you force me to.”

    “What’s that supposed to mean?”

    T.Z., in his riverboat gambler outfit, stood there and shook his head ironically. “Well, sir, I don’t imagine folks around here would much take to the idea of somebody working in a bank if they knew he used to stick up banks himself.”

    T.Z. watched Les’s face fall even lower and then said, “If you catch my meaning, Les. If you catch my meaning.”

    Half a minute later, they went to meet Neely.

    

    

    Susan Edmonds stood outside the French doors looking in at her mother, who sat before the large fieldstone fireplace, with its patriotic decorations on the mantel, doing her knitting for the night.

    The Edmonds house was a three-story wooden structure with a captain’s walk and cupolas and spires that lent it a real grandness. The lawns sprawled a half mile in every direction and the livery was as big as many fine homes.

    From upstairs came the sounds of Chopin on the summer night. Her eleven-year-old sister, Estelle, practicing for her recital the following week.

    From the third-floor comer a light shone, which meant her father was working on books. He was obsessed with work. He had never forgotten his days as a poor farm boy. Her mother always said her father secretly dreaded that somebody would take from him all he’d earned.

    Guiltily, she thought: At least when he’s up in his study, he can’t yell at us.

    When her father was in one of his “moods,” he was the sort of tyrant who made you twitch from nerves and made you tear up and fly from the room. The joke in town was that Clinton Edmonds owned such big grounds because he didn’t want neighbors to hear him bellow. Susan spent her days walking around with her stomach in knots. Even when her father wasn’t ranting, her dread of his doing so produced the same effects. He had done the same things to her two older brothers, both of whom, after college, had gone as far away as possible.

    And now Byron was becoming just one more of her father’s victims.

    She closed her eyes, enjoying the Chopin and the faint glow of the fancy kerosene table lamps and the scent of mint from a nearby tree, and thought of her girlhood dreams of Byron.

    He’d always been so handsome, yet never vain about it; he’d always been so manly (except when it came to sports, where he was so clumsy) and yet gentle, too. He’d gone East to school, to Dartmouth, and gotten the best grades possible in banking and finance, and then he’d returned here to work for her father. By then it was already assumed by Cedar Rapids society that Byron and she would be married. And indeed they were inseparable-going for canters on Sunday afternoon, attending concerts on Bandstand Hill in Bever Park, leading any other couples in tennis doubles, spending one or two nights a week at the Greene Opera House, where they both enjoyed the antics of such acts as Evans, Bryant & Hoey’s (invariably billed as “A Tidal Wave of Merriment!”) and a singer named Lillie Langtry who always brought her own company to perform a W. S. Gilbert comedy.

    Yes, for the first three years following Byron’s return, everything seemed wonderful. And her father treated Byron with deference, too. Susan sometimes suspected this was true because her father was intimidated by Byron’s Dartmouth degree, her father scarcely having finished the eighth grade. But gradually this attitude changed and Byron slowly became just one more victim of her father’s wrath and bullying until now-