Thales's Folly Page 13

  "On what we eat, that's no surprise."

  'And you look healthy and fit, not at all the pale and bored young man I glimpsed when you first came. I'm so glad you're staying."

  He said reluctantly, "I hate to leave but at some point this week I'll have to go back to Manhattan to close up my apartment and pack up my clothes, books, typewriter, and computer."

  "How long?"

  He shrugged. "Two days probably."

  She nodded. "Rent a small van. Now who is that?" she asked as a sleek blue car lurched its way up the drive. 'A gas guzzler," she announced disapprovingly. "Expecting someone?"

  He shook his head, and then, "Oh my God, it's Father."

  "It can't be!"

  Andrew nodded. "He's heard about the will and he's furious."

  His mother said calmly, "I've not seen him for seven years,

  Andrew, I think I'll just shelter myself on the porch next to Miss L'Hommedieu's chair and wait—eavesdrop—to do battle for you if it's needed."

  Andrew gave her an appreciative glance, and left to continue toward the driveway.

  His father stepped out of the car, and Andrew realized he was driving his own car today. He stood beside it, watching Andrew's approach and frowning. "Andrew?" he said, as if not quite certain who he was.

  "Who else?" said Andrew with a smile, and approaching him added bravely, "I suppose you've heard now from the lawyer."

  "Heard?" he said. "Lawyer?"

  "About the will that's been found."

  "Will," he repeated. The glance that had been fixed upon Andrew drifted toward the woods, shifted to the sky, and returned to Andrew. "Is this Thale's Folly?"

  Puzzled, Andrew said, "Thale's Folly, yes."

  "I thought—I didn't know." His father's gaze moved with curiosity to the house and to the porch, where Andrew's mother stood in the shadows, and seeing her his frown deepened. "Allison?" he faltered. "Allison?"

  "Hello, Horace," she said, moving out of shadow into the sunlight.

  He took a step toward her and stopped. "Allison here?"

  "Andrew, something's wrong," his mother said quietly. "Go to him."

  Andrew stepped up to his father and touched his arm. "What's happened? Are you all right? What's happened?"

  His father stared at him blankly.

  Thoroughly alarmed now Andrew said, "Father, what's happened?"

  "The most—most extraordinary thing."

  "Yes, but what, Father?"

  "The most—most extraordinary thing," he repeated. "I don't—don't really know why I'm here," he said helplessly. "I just got into my car to drive somewhere—anywhere." He shivered. "They don't want me anymore," he said. 'After all these years, all I've done for them."

  "Meredith Machines?" Andrew said incredulously. "They don't want you?"

  "The merger—no room for me now. I'm fired."

  "Surely you mean demoted?"

  He shook his head. "Fired."

  Quickly his mother crossed the driveway and glanced into the car. "The keys are inside, Andrew. Get your father into it at once, I'm driving him home. Now."

  "You mean to Bide-A-Wee?"

  "For a cup of very strong nonherbal tea," she said impatiently. "It's for moments like this that God invented tea, preferably laced with brandy. Get him in the car, Andrew, Heaven only knows how he got here, he's in shock."

  "I ought to go with you," he told her.

  Seated at the wheel she turned her head to look at him. 'Andrew, you're a dear, but this is strictly between your father and me." And to Horace, seated passively beside her now in the passenger seat, she said companionably, "You're not going to cry, are you, Horace?"

  "Of course not," he snapped.

  "Good," she said, and Andrew saw the twinkle in her eye as she gave him a glance that was positively roguish. "You see?" she told him. "He'll soon be himself again."

  Backing the car out of the driveway at a reckless speed, she drove away down Thale Road.

  With his father. . . Just like that—his father.

  "So the mighty have fallen" was Leo's comment.

  "Leo, you're being impertinent," said Miss L'Hommedieu. "You're speaking of Andrew's father, and the man who was Allison's husband. Have you no cup of kindness?"

  "No need to quote Auld Lang Syne,' " growled Leo. "Sorry, Andrew. Just remembering good old Aeschylus, and his 'God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer.' Apologies."

  Andrew said dazedly, "I feel so shaken up; I never thought, never dreamed, it could happen to him. He looked so vulnerable, and ten years older. I mean, he was really a big man at Meredith. All those years—and twelve hours a day working on that merger!"

  "Too many CEOs," Leo said, nodding. "You merge and you've got a hell of a lot of CEOs."

  Miss L’Hommedieu said crisply, "I hope that you realize he had no idea your mother was here, Andrew, and came to find you in what is called his hour of need. Keep that in mind."

  "He did, didn't he," he said in surprise. "Even though he wasn't sure where he was. But what on earth will he do now, he'll be lost."

  Gussie smiled at him. "I suspect that your mother will decide that for him ... Very competent woman, your mother."

  A smile appeared on Andrew's face, and broadened into a grin as he considered this. "That will be a surprise for him . . . And he must have enough money to retire, except he's too young for it."

  "Money," growled Leo. "Hubris!"

  Gussie gave Andrew a shy smile. "And we shall do very nicely without your great-aunt's money, now that we've all agreed to sell twenty-three acres. We want you to know that, Andrew. I admit that I'm not partial to Swiss chalets—"

  Tarragon interrupted to say eagerly, "But it needn't be Swiss chalets, Gussie, you own the property now, you can sell the land acre by acre, or to a developer who won't cut down all the trees or try to squeeze one hundred cottages into twenty-three acres like sardines in a can. You'll have time now for that, you quoted Mr. Margus as saying the legal business moves slowly. Probate and all. It's you who have control now."

  "Control," repeated Gussie, looking pleased. "Me! How astonishing, let's find a new realtor tomorrow."

  With a glance at Andrew, Tarragon said, "You still look in shock, Andrew, how about a swim?"

  A change of scene at this point seemed very welcome. "Gladly," he said, and went in search of his swimsuit.

  "Are you okay yet?" she asked as they walked in Indian

  file down the path to the pond. He said ruefully, "No, I'm not, I've lost my anger." 'At your father," she said, nodding.

  "Yes, and I don't know whether I feel pounds lighter, or— or cheated."

  She turned and smiled at him. "You mean the emperor had no clothes on, and you never guessed."

  "It needs adjustment," he admitted.

  "Anger must be heavy to carry."

  He laughed. "It's also a great stimulant. Let's swim!"

  She dropped her towel on the beach and plunged into the water but Andrew stopped for a moment to look across the pond at the Bide-A-Wee cottage and wonder what was happening between his mother and father. He thought how strange it was that Thale's Folly had been slowly drawing all three of them together, as if by a magnet, when eight days ago he'd not even known of its existence.

  The pond was already half-shadowed by gathering clouds; they swam contentedly, diving and splashing until at last they climbed out of the water to wrap themselves in towels and sit on Harriet Thale's boulder. Shivering, Andrew pointed off to his left, where the trees had thinned and a stripe of sunny green moss ran down to a cluster of rocks that edged the shore. He said, "Every time I've gone swimming I've thought what a perfect place for a house that would be. Just one room and loft to start with, and a balcony for the sun, and to be near the birds in that huge oak tree."

  "Already planning to move out on us," she teased.

  He turned and looked at her. "Only if I could take you with me."

  He had startled her—himself as well—and she was silent, s
taring out at the pond that was slowly losing its glitter as the sky turned gray. After a long moment she turned and looked at him with her clear, honest gaze.

  "I will tell you how it is with me, Andrew," she said softly. "I think you're wonderful, I really do, and I care. The minute I met you it was like magic—and I don't mean like Gussie's magic," she added with a smile, "but I felt I'd known you forever and ever, and I knew, just knew, we were going to be friends."

  "Only friends?"

  She leaned down from the rock, plucked a long blade of grass that had thrust its way into the light and said carefully, "You've felt really lost without the writing that's meant so much to you, Andrew. It's been your life, hasn't it? And as Leo likes to say, 'Nature abhors a vacuum.' "

  He said in astonishment, "You think I regard you as just someone to fill a vacuum?"

  "I don't know," she said gravely. "Do you? But I do know that I can't take the place of your writing, I refuse to be a substitute."

  This silenced him for a moment. He knew that for every happy moment he'd experienced at Thale's Folly he'd been aware of its being shadowed by a waiting darkness, the knowledge that something precious had been lost. He said, "You mean you can't trust how I feel about you."

  "Not until—" She hesitated.

  "Until what?" he asked. "Until I'm full of lint like some damn vacuum cleaner?"

  She laughed. "No, silly, but not writing anymore is your real nightmare. It's like an open wound, it really is, do you think we don't all of us see that, especially when Miss L'Hommedieu reads her stories every night? And that's how it will be, Andrew, until you either write again or stop feeling so lost without it. Anyway," she added, smiling, "you should feel grateful that I'm not snatching you up for a whirlwind summer romance, just to prove to Gussie that her incantations truly worked."

  Frowning, he said, "Incantations?"

  "Yes, that the first young man who came to our door would be the right one for me."

  "Wally Blore?" he said in horror.

  "Wally?" she said, laughing. "You're forgetting who came first, Andrew, it was you, not Wally."

  "Good God," he said, and lightening the moment he clapped both hands to his head and said in mock dismay, "I give up, I give up, I'm outmaneuvered!"

  "Good," she said, "because my teeth are chattering and I'm cold. Do let's go back to the house. As friends?"

  "As friends," he conceded, but added warningly, "for another week, yes, but I can't promise more."

  ..U* It rained hard that evening, and Miss L’Hommedieu #T* was just finishing the end of her story, competing with the hard rain pelting the windows, when steps were heard outside on the porch. Miss L’Hommedieu paused, and they all turned in their chairs expectantly. Abruptly the door was flung open and a most astonishing woman stood on the threshold, eyes bright, lips smiling.

  "And in all this rain!" cried Gussie. "You're wet!"

  "Zilka," cried Tarragon, upsetting her chair as she rushed to hug her.

  "We're in your meadow," Zilka said, and walking around the table she lightly touched Gussie on the shoulder, and then Leo, but when she came to Miss L’Hommedieu she gave her a long look, grasped her hand, lifted it to her lips and kissed it; almost, thought Andrew, as though a secret communication flowed between the two.

  But what a strong face this woman Zilka had: a long nose, high cheekbones, full lips, a cleft in her chin, tangles of wet black hair only half concealed by the black kerchief she wore around her head. Whatever else she wore was hidden by a bulky trench coat—a man's, surely—and her face glistened with drops of rain.

  "And who is this gadjo?" she asked, seeing Andrew.

  "Allison's son," Gussie told her, "and Harriet Thaïes nephew."

  "Is he now!" she said, peering so closely at Andrew that he felt uneasy. "There is the likeness, you know—between him and our Drabani? And will he, too, travel under the good stars?" To Andrew, leaning even closer and smiling, "We call it koosti cherino, and may your stars be as good as hers."

  "Do sit, Zilka," said Miss L'Hommedieu. "Have some tea."

  "Dordi, but no. I come only to say tomorrow . . , tomorrow night the patchiv! In the morning we buy and kill chickens to cook over the fire for you all day, and in the night Chuka and Drushano and Michael will play their fiddles and we dance."

  Leo grinned. "Last summer you bought your chickens at the grocery store, Zilka, you know you did."

  She pinched his cheek affectionately. "You are a beng, Leo. You ate it, no?"

  "But what if it rains?" asked Andrew, watching the glitter of her long gold earrings in the candlelight.

  She swung on him in surprise. "But it will not rain," she said with authority. "I go." The door opened and she was gone, leaving behind only a pattern of raindrops on the floor.

  Monday

  13

  [Betony] is good whether for the man's soul or for his body; it shields him against visions and dreams, and the wort is very wholesome. —Apelius

  With the promise of electricity on Tuesday, Andrew spent a few hours helping Leo carry up from the basement three floor lamps and seven table lamps. Having not yet experienced the cellar Andrew found himself fascinated by the similarity between it and Hobe Elkins's dump. There was, of course, the rescued space heater. There was the head of a mannequin, shelves of empty glass bottles and jars, a dozen lids of garbage pails, a tool bench, pipes, coils of wire, lampshades, and at least three dozen more books in a pile.

  Looking around him with satisfaction Leo said, "This is my place."

  Andrew nodded; he could conceive of no one else who would want it.

  Since the lamps had reposed in the basement for nearly five years Gussie waited for them in the kitchen with dust cloths and broom, and they all had become involved in cleaning and admiring them when they heard the sound of a car on Thale Road that grew loud enough to emphasize that it was not a lost tourist, but was heading up the driveway to Thaïes Folly.

  Going to the door they saw a huge and shining station wagon full of children making its way slowly up the driveway, bouncing over the rough spots. Fascinated, Gussie and Andrew walked out on the porch to see who it might be. It had no sooner stopped than a young woman in jeans and a T-shirt sprang out of the car, and seeing them shouted, "I'm so terribly sorry, I had no idea, I'm so sorry, I didn't know, I've only just heard and I'm so sorry."

  "What is she sorry about?" asked Gussie. "Who is she?"

  "What's up?" asked Andrew pleasantly, strolling toward the young woman, who appeared close to wringing her hands in apology.

  "He's been with us all this time in Pittsville, helping us clear the—I'm Tippy Morton," she said. "We had this fire, and he's been such a help, and—"

  "Who?" asked Andrew.

  "Who?" asked Gussie.

  Mrs. Morton turned with a flutter of hands toward the car. Among the tangle of children's heads in the rear there was motion, an adult head surfaced, a door opened, and a man stepped out.

  "Mr. Branowski!" cried Gussie, and to Miss L'Hommedieu on the porch and to Leo and Tarragon in the kitchen, "It's Mr. Branowski!"

  He looked pleased by his welcome, and Andrew, at once reaching for words to describe him, nodded. Hair still in damp strings—this he'd already seen before—but not the face, as brown and lined as old leather, with shaggy white eyebrows, a stubborn jaw, bad posture, a small shrunken mouth—no doubt lost teeth—and a twinkle in his eye as he looked them over.

  Mrs. Morton was still trying to explain: Mr. Branowski had been hanging a swing from a tree for the children when the call had come about the fire at their house in town . . . Mr. Branowski was so handy, her husband a busy attorney, she'd asked Mr. Branowski to come and help—paying him, of course—and he'd been such a help carrying out charred beams . . , just one room, mercifully, the rest of the house barely singed, "but when I heard—" She stopped to catch her breath.

  "It's all right," Gussie told her in hope of stopping her. "It's all right."

  "I just didn't know, didn
't realize—"

  "It's all right," Andrew said in a louder voice, and walking up to Mr. Branowski said, "I'm Andrew Thale, how do you do, we've not met." And wondered what he might have been in his previous life, since he looked as dignified as a judge, even in filthy overalls and without teeth.

  "We've missed you," Gussie told him.

  "Needed you, too," said Tarragon. "Mr. Branowski, please come in and have tea, we've something to ask you."

  "No, Tarragon," Gussie said. "Give it up."

  "Chamomile? " asked Mr. Branowski.

  Tarragon laughed. "Oh yes—at once!" and to Gussie, "We have to at least try, at least ask."

  ix children emerged from the station wagon to say goodbye to Mr. Branowski, the two smallest ones hugging his knees. Mrs. Morton extracted bills from her purse, pressed them into his hand, and with a wave and shouts of good-bye, the station wagon backed down the drive and Mr. Branowski was ushered toward the house by Tarragon.

  "Quite a welcome," he said with a chuckle, and to Miss L'Hommedieu, rising from her chair on the porch, he said, "And you, dear lady, how are you?"

  "Tolerably well, Mr. Branowski, tolerably well."

  "Leo?" called Gussie, opening the door to the basement. "We've found Mr. Branowski!"

  Once Leo joined them they all sat down at the table, except for Tarragon, who busied herself brewing tea.

  Leo said, "You start, Gussie."

  "All right. It's about Harriet Thale, Mr. Branowski."

  "Wonderful woman," he said, nodding. "Mind if I smoke?" He drew a cigarette butt out of a pocket; Leo at once handed him a match, and Tarragon, a saucer for the ash.

  "We didn't know there was a will," Gussie told him. "Never found one, and the property went to her nearest relative, Andrew's father here," she said with a nod to Andrew.

  His shaggy brows went up. "Never found the will!"

  "Not until this week," said Leo.

  "Through the most extraordinary circumstances," added Gussie.

  Miss L’Hommedieu said dryly, "So extraordinary that we now find ourselves deeply indebted to a thief who tore apart Miss Thale's bedroom."

  "It was behind the mirror," put in Andrew.