Thales's Folly Read online

  If a man be anointed with the juice of the herb Rue, the poison of wolf's bane, mushrooms, or todestooles, the biting of serpents, stinging of scorpions, spiders, bees, hornets and wasps will not hurt him. —John Gerard, The Herball, 1597

  Andrew was bored. He was also—as usual—depressed. About the uncertainties of his future. About this idiotic reentry into his father's world, and certainly about this party he'd been forced to attend. It was the usual corporate affair, but with a number of faux bohemians thrown in, obviously out of a misguided effort to prove how broad-minded the company could be because the party was being held in honor of an author. Xavier Saabo's book was entitled The Zen of Machinery— the word Zen was big these days—and he was here because in his book he'd said very nice things about Meredith Machines, Inc., and Andrew's father was a vice president of Meredith Machines, Inc.

  Which was why Andrew was present—under duress, as usual.

  At the moment, with some irony, Andrew was noticing how carefully Xavier ignored the cluster of SoHo guests who had been invited expressly for him. What no one had foreseen, of course—Andrew understood this perfectly—was that the less affluent contingent were looking upon Xavier with contempt because he had joined the philistines, and Xavier was regarding them with contempt because he had long since exchanged his low-rent loft for an apartment on Park Avenue.

  These musings on the creative life—of which Andrew had once been a member—were diverted when he saw that Jennifer Tallant had arrived, looking positively seductive in a black silk sheath. In his several years of college, they had seen rather a lot of each other until he realized that Jennifer assumed his ambition was to become a corporate VP like his father. He was glad now to see that she was escorted to the party by Charlie Drumm, who would very definitely become a VP, if not president of his own company, given time, and Andrew was thinking kind and charitable thoughts about her when his father suddenly appeared: tall, fit, silver-haired, and important. Authoritative, too.

  "Andrew," he said sternly, "you're not mingling."

  "You mean merging, don't you?" quipped Andrew, since Meredith Machines was in the process of an important merger with PGH Plastics, Inc.

  His father was not amused. "Mingle," he said, and turned away to continue his own mingling.

  He and his father had already quarreled earlier in the day. Summoning Andrew from his cubicle in the nether regions of the company, where he wrote copy for the Meredith Newsletter, also under duress, his father had announced that today was Friday.

  "I've noticed," Andrew said warily.

  "I've an assignment for you, Andrew," he told him. "Family business."

  "Family?" This had puzzled Andrew, for there had not been much family since his mother had left his father seven years ago. There had never been an explanation for this; once upon a time Andrew had assumed that she must have been unfaithful, but now that he knew his father better he thought she need only have found him as much of a machine as those that Meredith produced. What made this difficult for Andrew to understand was that he'd been told that in his youth his father had been a guitar-playing political activist, leading protest marches and working for civil rights, yet somewhere along the way he'd traded those values for profit margins, sales figures, acquisitions, competition, and bottom lines. It was possible at times to feel sorry for him, but not today.

  He said again, "Family?"

  "Yes, I want you to look into property left me by my aunt Harriet Thale. It's in western Massachusetts, about a four-hour drive from Manhattan, and you should be able to wrap it up in a day."

  Andrew struggled to remember who this relative could be whom he'd certainly never met. "An aunt Harriet Thale?" he repeated, frowning. "But she died all of five years ago, didn't she? Why this sudden interest now in the property?"

  "Because," his father said patiently, "I've been paying taxes on one very empty old house surrounded by twenty-five acres, and I've been too busy with the merger to look into it. It's time a decision is made."

  "You can't expect me—"

  "—to make a decision?" His tone implied that he found his son incapable of any business decision at all. "Of course not. From you I ask for an assessment of what's there. A description. The property's in a godforsaken area, distant from any tourist attractions, but it's time to establish its value so I can decide whether to sell, hold, or whether those twenty-five acres could be developed. Take a camera. It's miles from nowhere but it's time to learn precisely what the situation is."

  "Miles from nowhere," Andrew repeated, and suddenly grinned. "I remember now, it was called Thale's Folly! She was the recluse of the family, wasn't she? The family eccentric?"

  "She was an embarrassment to us all," snapped his father. "I suppose you think that's amusing."

  "I think it's very amusing," Andrew said. "I wish I'd met her. The house is empty?"

  "Of course it's empty," growled his father. "You can borrow a company car and leave early tomorrow morning—"

  "Tomorrow! You mean Saturday?" His father knew very well how precious his two days of freedom were to him.

  "—and on your way out my secretary will give you a survey map of Tottsville, the deed describing its boundaries, and directions to Thale's Folly."

  Andrew could not help but feel this ridiculous assignment was being presented to him as a subtle form of punishment. His father had patiently seen him through those first days following what he referred to as 'Andrew's unfortunate incident"—which did not quite do justice to Andrew's waking up nights in a cold sweat, or the absence of concentration that kept him from what he loved best and had assumed would be his life's work—but he failed to understand why Andrew couldn't simply get on with things now.

  In a word, he was taking too long to recover.

  Which of course was a perfectly rational viewpoint.

  As he returned to his dull work of writing copy for the company newsletter Andrew found himself devoutly wishing for a—well, what?

  For a less rational world, he thought.

  He was to get one.

  2

  The pith of the [Elder] branches when cut in round, flat shapes, is dipped in oil, lighted and then put to float in a glass of water; its light on Christmas Eve is thought to reveal all the witches and sorcerers in the neighborhood.

  —Richard Folkard, Plant-Lore, Legends and Lyrics, 1884

  Andrew awoke the next morning with the bitter residue of sleeping pills lingering on his palate. Opening his eyes he immediately realized that after five days of mindless work he was being deprived of his free Saturday, and he was convinced that he faced an ill-starred weekend. The horoscope in his morning newspaper agreed with him: this is a day to remain at home, it read, avoiding the small disappointments and aggravations the stars suggest . . . Beware of negative attitudes that will inevitably attract negative events with the force of a magnet.

  Since Andrew could find no way to curb his negative attitude he left defiantly late in the company Mercedes for Massachusetts. He was not surprised, stopping for coffee in Connecticut, when the waitress inadvertently spilled coffee over his jeans.

  "Perfectly understandable," he assured her. "My horoscope told me to stay home today."

  As he passed the sign welcoming him to the state of Massachusetts, it began to rain, and he discovered the windshield wipers of the car didn't work. While he waited in a garage for them to be repaired and operative again, he pondered his attitude, his father, astrology, and life in general, and noticed that once he was ready to set out again, the rain had perversely stopped and the sun was shining. After lunching in a restaurant just off the Thruway he discovered that he'd left his raincoat behind, and it was necessary to retrace his route five miles to regain it. Once there, leaving the engine of his car ru
nning, he dashed into the restaurant, snatched his raincoat from the clothes hook in the hall, and was on his way again, except that as he drove away he saw in his rearview mirror that his action had been misunderstood: a man had rushed out of the restaurant to wave at him hysterically, and then to scribble something—no doubt his license number— on a piece of paper.

  Damn cheeky of him, he thought, they know very well that I paid my bill.

  It was with relief that he finally reached the village of Tottsville, which struck him as too small and unpopulated to inflict any new aggravations. Scarcely a blip on the map, it was extremely rural and looked as if it had long since gone to seed. He passed a few summer cottages along the road with the names of Sunset Roost, Bide-A-Wee, and Rest-A-Wile. Then he passed a ramshackle motel—open, a garage and gas station—closed, and a post office—closed, but with a sign reporting that it was open from 7 A.M, to 12 noon, after which mail deliveries were made. The map he'd been given was on the seat beside him. According to the small penciled X on the survey map, the road to Thaïes Folly lay one mile beyond the post office, and on the left side.

  Precisely one mile from the post office he spotted a narrow break among the trees and peered into what appeared to be a road, unpaved and uninviting, devoid of any signs of house or human being, and deprived of sun by the trees. An act of faith, he supposed, and with a sigh turned off the highway and entered.

  He had not driven far when he saw that his progress was going to be a matter of zigs and zags: four winters of snow and of spring rains had pockmarked and eroded the surface of the road until, "like a blasted minefield," he muttered as he navigated around one serious-looking pothole only to swerve sharply to avoid another. The overgrown arch of trees darkened the road, masking the hollows and making him angry until ahead of him he saw a clear sunlit expanse and stepped on the accelerator; the car shot ahead and then came to an abrupt and shuddering halt.

  "Damn!" he said in a loud voice, and after finding that neither reverse nor high gear moved the car, he climbed out to assess the situation. Again he said, "Damn!" because the car was leaning to starboard, its right back wheel firmly entrenched—one might almost say half-buried—in a particularly deep and sinister hole. This was surely more than his horoscope had led him to expect. He remembered the garage that he'd passed—closed; he remembered the ramshackle motel, where no doubt there would be a telephone, and somewhere ahead on this road lay the old house and the acreage he was here to inspect.

  He had choice.

  With a glance at his wristwatch he was surprised to find that it was already after two o'clock, in fact nearly three o'clock. Common sense advised him to walk the two or three miles back to the motel, call for a tow truck, and invest the remaining hours of the day in rescuing the car. On the other hand he would only have to return in the morning to where he was now . ..

  He chose Thale's Folly.

  Opening the trunk of the car, he dug into his knapsack for notebook and pocket camera, and after locking the car—a purely reflex action, since he felt that if anyone could remove the Mercedes they could damn well have it—he set out down the road to find his great-aunt Harriet Thale's house.

  Once divorced from the car, he was surprised to find the air so fresh and filled with all the interesting fragrances of a July day: heat rose from the sun-warmed earth under his feet, and there was a distinct scent of pine. From the jungle of wild sumac lining the road there came the keening cry of a locust; a bird fluttered away, stirring the leaves of an oak tree, and this was followed by a profound silence interrupted only by the patter of the stones dislodged by his shoes; he'd forgotten what silence was like, and he was amused at the thought of its having a sound.

  He had nearly passed the house before he noticed the mailbox next to the road, almost suffocated by tall grass and bearing the name of Thale in faded letters. He stopped to look at it, and then he saw the house, set back at a distance from the road among tall trees, its clapboards bleached by the sun into a scabrous silver-gray, its windows nearly blinded by wisteria. Beyond the mailbox lay a driveway, no more than a cart track now, and as he walked up the drive a sudden freshness assailed his nostrils: water, he realized. His father hadn't mentioned a river, pond, or brook, but it would certainly add value to the property. On such a hot afternoon he would appreciate the sound of running water; he might even take off his shoes and wade in it, adding an agreeable dimension to the green woods, blue sky, derelict house, and the astonishing silence, still so utter that he started when he saw a woman seated on the long side porch of the house overlooking the empty field.

  It had not occurred to him that anyone would be occupying Thale's Folly, and his father had very definitely said it was empty since his aunt's death. But the woman sat as if she belonged here, propped up in the sun like an attenuated beanpole on which someone had placed a basket of flowers belonging to a hat composed of yards of tulle, at least a dozen chiffon roses, and a cloud of veiling.

  A voice from beneath the inverted basket said to him pleasantly, "Good afternoon."

  "Good afternoon," he said politely, and waited.

  Without moving, the woman shouted, "Gussie? Gussie!"

  From the bowels of the house came a muffled reply. The woman leaned forward to say confidingly, "She'll come now... I am Miss L’Hommedieu."

  Puzzled, he said, "How do you do? My name is . . ." He hesitated. His name was Andrew Oliver Thale, but this was obviously a situation that required delicate handling. "My name is Andrew Oliver," he said.

  A pair of beady eyes studied him with interest. "You've come about the advertisement?"

  The screen door burst open and a woman's voice cried, "What is it now, Miss L'Hommedieu? Leo and I were down in the cellar—" Her voice broke off as she saw Andrew standing in the dust, and her eyes narrowed. She said fiercely, "You're all wrong, we advertised for a younger man. I'm not saying your character's bad but you're too old by at least five years."

  A Gussie, a Miss L'Hommedieu, and an advertisement . . . "Too old for what?" he asked with interest.

  Miss l"Hommedieu chuckled. "I don't think he knows what you're talking about, Gussie."

  "I don't, I really don't," Andrew admitted, smiling up at Gussie. She looked fierce, capable, and shrewd, and she wore an apron; definitely his great-aunt's house was inhabited. "My car, " he said. "It broke down back on the road. "

  "Car?" Gussie looked astonished. "Nobody drives this road except the mailman."

  "It looked interesting," he said, and with an irony he wished he could share he added, "I hope I'm not trespassing."

  "Invite him to dinner," said Miss L'Hommedieu, tugging at Gussie's skirt. "We've got potatoes, haven't we? We'll have fish when Tarragon gets back." The flowered hat quivered as she bent toward the road. "Here she comes now. Ask her."

  Andrew turned. A girl was trudging around the rear of the house carrying a rod and bucket and wearing a pair of shorts and a man's voluminous shirt. He was not prepared for anyone so youthful, and this girl could be no more than eighteen or nineteen. She looked frail under her burden of fishing gear, and he had the most absurd desire to leap forward to carry the bucket for her, but she had already passed him to deposit it on the steps.

  "Five," she said, and wiped her face with a corner of her shirttail. It was a small, oval face with delicately modeled cheekbones, a wide tender mouth, and eyes of a startling shade of blue. Her hair had been bleached by the sun into a pale gold, and her skin had been darkened by the sun into a flawless beige just a shade darker than her hair. He realized with astonishment that she was beautiful, and wondered what on earth she was doing here.

  "Mr. Oliver, this is Tarragon. Tarragon, say hello to Mr. Oliver."

  "Hello," the girl said, ducking her head and starting to enter the house.

  Miss L’Hommedieu called after her, "He didn't come about the advertisement, Tarragon."

  The girl turned at the door to give Andrew a quick, sidelong, startled glance, and then she was gone, leaving him to wo
nder just what the advertisement might be that offered her so much relief at not being answered.

  Gussie said sternly, "If you're thinking we have a telephone for calling about your car, we don't."

  He was not at all surprised by this. "It's all right," he said.

  She nodded. "You'd better stay for dinner," and to Miss L’Hommedieu, "I'll tell Leo he's staying—dinner in forty minutes." Then she, too, vanished into the dim interior of the house.

  Andrew glanced at his watch: they would dine at half-past four in the afternoon? He thought of Manhattan, the rituals and the happy hours and the late dinners, but he was distinctly curious now and he reminded himself that a good detective adjusts. Turning to Miss L'Hommedieu he said pleasantly, "You advertised for someone?"

  She nodded, beaming. "For a young man, a very nice young man, to do light farmwork."

  "I see." He felt it extremely thoughtful of them to want to improve his father's property but he wondered if it might not be more thoughtful to let his father know they were here. "You're—uh—planning to develop the farm?"

  Miss L'Hommedieu looked shocked. "Good heavens, what gave you that idea? It's for Tarragon, of course. "

  "For Tarragon?"

  She said reprovingly, "We are quite isolated, Mr. Oliver, and it cannot have occurred to you, of course, but Tarragon— you've seen her—has very few opportunities living here. Things are, shall we say, somewhat irregular for her? We are considerably older, as you may have noticed."

  He admitted that he had noticed this, yes.

  "There is also the—shall I say, uncertainty?—of our future here."

  He grinned. "That I can understand, too."

  "The problem, then," she continued, "is to find a husband for Tarragon just as soon as we possibly can."

  He said in a stunned voice, "A what? Good heavens!" She nodded serenely. "I don't recall who said it—probably Benjamin Franklin, since he said nearly everything—but necessity is the mother of invention. It was Leo's idea. A very clever one, don't you think?"

  He said incredulously, "You mean you're advertising in the papers for a young man to work on the farm, but actually you're hoping to marry him off to Tarragon?"