Beverly Byrne Page 3

  "But it was something. What?"

  She'd been trapped into granting his premise. "He took me to a church to see the memorial plaque to your mother and father."

  Tommy looked at her. "Why'd that make you mad?" he asked in wonder.

  "It didn't. It upset me, that's all." She told him what had happened.

  "My brother's an ass," Tommy said. "Sorry, but it's true. "

  "You mean I could have a plaque for my parents? Next to the one for yours?"

  Tommy threw another stone, this time with more force. A duck just missed being hit. "No, he told that one straight. Against church rules."

  "Well, it doesn't matter," she said, just as she had to Luke. "I don't believe in God anyway."

  "Then why worry? If I could forget about hell, I wouldn't worry about anything. It's all a damn sight easier if you convince yourself there's no God."

  Amy shook her head and the sunlight glimmered on her hair. She'd been wearing it up all summer. Now it fell loose down her back in an ebony curtain. "I'd like to think I'll see them again. I just can't make myself believe it."

  Tommy whistled softly through his teeth. "You shouldn't play about with philosophy. Women aren't suited for it. C'mon." He rose and pulled her up after him. It was always a shock to Amy to discover how strong he was.

  "Where are we going?" she asked.

  "To church."

  "No, Tommy, I don't want to. I'm sick of being dragged into churches, first by Luke and now by you."

  "Will you stop chattering," he said angrily. "Just come along." He pulled her behind him; his grip on her wrist was unbreakable. Their progress across the field and up the garden path was marked by Tommy's arhythmic movements.

  He pushed her into the Pierce-Arrow and started the motor and they headed toward the village.

  Sacred Heart Church had been built only a few years earlier. It was a small white clapboard building that existed to serve the Italians and Irish who worked on the nearby farms. "Father O'Reilly won't be here," Tommy said. "He always goes to the racetrack on Friday afternoons. But he never locks the church."

  Tommy did however. Once they were inside he threw the sliding bolt on the door and walked over to the side entrance to make sure it was locked too. Only then did he genuflect before the flickering candle near the high altar.

  Amy stood in the dimness and watched him. She felt fear, but didn't know of what she was afraid. Not of Tommy certainly. Just of his bizarre behavior perhaps. "Right here," he said, pointing to a bare piece of white painted wall beneath an elaborate stained glass window.

  Amy looked up and saw a notice. It said that the window had been the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Westerman. "Right here what?" she asked.

  "Here's where we're going to put up a memorial to your parents." Tommy grinned at her in his lopsided boyish way. He had a spattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks; they stood out in the dim interior. "You'll be hedging your bets, so to speak." he said. "In case we're right and you're wrong, and there is a God after all."

  She couldn't keep from giggling. "That's ridiculous."

  "Of course it is," he said. He was laughing too. His hair was brown and curly. A lock of it was always falling untidily over his gray eyes. Tommy had a habit of sticking out his lip and blowing upward to clear his vision. He did it now. "It's nuts," he agreed. "But we're going to do it anyway. Wait a minute."

  She watched him move off toward a small door beside the altar. It was locked, but he knew where the key was kept. He disappeared for a moment, then returned with two candles, a brass dish filled with water, and a peculiar wand-like implement.

  "We're going to do this right," Tommy said. He placed the candles on the floor and lit them. Then he sprinkled water on the wall using the wand that he said was called an agpergillum. "It's holy water," he explained. "Specially blessed. Maybe by the pope, I don't know. But I know the drill." His voice became solemn. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," he said, sprinkling the wall with water once more. "There, now it's consecrated."

  Amy watched him in fascination. He fished out a pocketknife and stepped closer to the space he'd chosen for the inscription. "How did your folks spell their names exactly?"

  She told him, but he got no further than the J in Jessie. "The wall's stone. I'm not making any impression. "

  "Here, use my ring." She pulled it from her finger and handed it to him.

  "This is real, is it?" he said in surprise. "But then it would be. The Norman Diamond Mines. I forgot."

  "It was a present from my father for my seventeenth birthday. It's the first stone he took out of the mine."

  "Good, it'll do the job and it's appropriate." He carefully etched the names Jessie and Roland Norman on the wall. "What else do you want to say?"

  "Nothing, only their names, that's all."

  "You sure? How about the date of the sinking?"

  "No, nothing more."

  "Not even R.I.P.?"

  She shook her head and he nodded in agreement. "Ok. But we'll say a prayer." Tommy gave her back the ring and once more donned an air of studied solemnity. He lifted the agpergillum and flicked holy water at the rough inscription. "Lord," he said softly. "You know what we have in mind. May they rest in peace. Amen." He looked expectantly at Amy.

  "Amen," she said.

  "Good girl."

  Afterward, when they'd put everything back in the sacristy and left, she asked him about the priest. "Won't you get into a lot of trouble?"

  "No. I'll square it with O'Reilly. He drinks like a fish, a couple of cases of Scotch will do it."

  It was close to dinner time when they got home. "I have to hurry and change," Amy said.

  "Ok. And listen, how about giving up black? We've had a proper memorial service for them now. That should end your official mourning, shouldn't it?"

  Amy smiled. He had exorcised for her more than the ghost of that stark moment with Luke in New York. "All right," she said. "No more black."

  That evening she came downstairs in a pale cream dress of cotton lace. It made the warm pink tones of her skin glow. "How very attractive you look, my dear," Lil said. "I am glad to see you wearing ordinary clothes again. You're far too young and pretty for mourning."

  A couple of days later Tommy reported. "Father O'Reilly's hung a holy picture over the inscription so no one will notice and ask questions. You don't care, do you?" He looked at her anxiously. "We know it's there. "

  "Yes," she agreed. "It's all right, I don't mind about the picture. I hope it's a nice one."

  He grinned with relief. "It is." He didn't bother to tell her the painting was entitled "Our Lady Star of the Sea."

  August was a yellow month; a time of buttery sunshine, and goldenrod blooming in the fields. The sumac trees began to turn color and hint of autumn. It was very hot, but Amy was used to that. She didn't mind the heat now that she'd given up the black serge. Slowly her emotional paralysis ebbed.

  The Cross River house was a Victorian folly of turrets and gables and sprawling porches to which an earlier owner had given the name BalmoraI. It was a self-contained universe, surrounded by seven acres of grounds, and possessed of a resident staff that Charles and Cecily had kept on when they bought the place. Balmoral was isolated by its location, but more effectively by the fact of the Westermans' religion. The local population were Yankees, and the other summer residents wealthy New Yorkers of the Protestant elite.

  It had been perverse of Charles to buy in Cross River. He should have chosen a vacation home on Long Island, Far Rockaway or Southampton, where his fellow believers congregated. His objection was that those people, the MacDonalds and the Murrays and their ilk, were Irish. The Westermans were vague about their ancestry, but they were decidedly not Irish. In his lifetime Charles Westerman did business with men of every class and shade of belief, but he was more fastidious in selecting a place to live.

  It was this very isolation which restored Amy. There was a sense in which life at Balmoral h
arked back to Jericho. It was a rural fastness without any rural inconveniences. Every comfort was provided, but no strangers came and went. She did not have to look from the windows at crowded city streets.

  Slowly she came to life. It was not merely a return to the state before Donald Varley told her of her parents' death. When she left Africa Amy had suffered a mortal wound. The ship that sailed out to the Indian Ocean through the strait between Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar severed her roots. Jessie and Roland knew that she was sad about leaving, but they assumed that, as they would, Amy would be secure about returning. She was, however, a child-without control of her own destiny-and she was gripped by the irrational fears of childhood.

  In the months at Balmoral she began to stop being a child. It was tragedy that achieved her coming of age, but she needed to absorb the pain of the loss before she recognized her adulthood. Tommy and the long golden days of that summer allowed her to do so.

  Toward the end of August Luke was called to the telephone during breakfast. He returned looking sober and sad. "I'm sorry, bad news," he announced.

  Everyone stopped eating. "We have to leave here right away," Luke said. "Balmoral has been sold, and the new owners want immediate possession. That was Uncle Donald on the phone. He's promised them we'll be out in three days."

  "Sold," Lil spoke the word as if it were a foreign tongue. "Why ever did you sell it?"

  Warren cleared his throat noisily. He had spent summers here for the past fifteen years. "My garden," he muttered. "What about my garden?"

  Luke looked pained. "It's best for the estate. I am sorry."

  "You could have warned us." Tommy's face was deathly white except for two spots of color in his cheeks. Amy looked at him and realized with shock that it was fury, not sorrow.

  "I never thought it would happen so quickly," Luke said. "I thought we'd have this summer. Then I'd tell you, and there'd be the whole winter to get used to the idea."

  Lil acted as if she'd not heard his explanation. "Why sell Balmoral? We've always been so happy here. What will we do next year?"

  "Go to the poor house, no doubt," Tommy said, rising quickly. He knocked over his chair and the noise made a welcome diversion.

  Amy felt herself an awkward witness to a drama in which she had no place. She responded, nonetheless, to the shock in Lil's face and in Warren's.

  "I'll help you, Aunt Lil," she said. "I know there will be a lot to do. And can't we take cuttings in the garden, Uncle Warren? My mother used to do that all the time. You can make new plants from all the old ones. "

  He nodded in her direction. "Yes, cuttings. It's the right time of year for most things. Thank God for that. "

  Later Luke found Amy in the linen room where she was counting table cloths. "No need for that," he said softly. "The place has been sold fully furnished. I've just explained to Aunt Lit. We don't have to move anything but our personal belongings."

  She put down the stack of lace and damask but she didn't look at him. "Luke, is it what Tommy said? Are you poor?"

  "Don't be silly," Luke said brusquely. "This is just a good move for the estate. I told everyone that. There are long term advantages in realizing some capital at this moment."

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry."

  "Of course you're not prying. You're family as far as we're concerned. You know that. It's what I came to talk to you about actually. What do you want to do for the next few weeks until your school reopens?"

  "I'm not sure." She was, but she hadn't the nerve to say so outright. "I've been thinking about it."

  "Well, you could go to that camp in Maine for a while, if you want to. Or you could stay with Aunt Lil and Uncle Warren in New York. I've already talked to Aunt Lil about it. They have a nice apartment over-looking Central Park. It's just a few blocks from our house. New York's still beastly hot, of course."

  "I'm used to heat," Amy said.

  "Yes, that's right, you are. You'll come with us, then?"

  "I'd like to," she said shyly. She had never intended to do anything else.

  4

  A HOLY STATUE IN THE FRONT HALL WAS APPARently de rigueur for the Westermans. There'd been one at Balmoral and there was one in Lil and Warren's flat. It was of white porcelain with gilt trim. A candle holder of dark red pimpled glass, and more gilt trim, stood next to it.

  Lil reached up and flicked a switch as soon as they came in the door. "I always light Our Lady's vigil light first thing we come home," she said. It wasn't a candle, it was electrified. "Now, Amy, we only have one guest room, so I can't offer you a choice. I hope you'll be comfortable."

  She led the girl to a room of polished mahogany furniture and blue and white flocked wallpaper. The drapes and bedspread were of rose-colored silk. "It's a lovely room, Aunt Lil, thank you."

  "I'll send Maureen to help you unpack. Dinner is at seven-thirty." She kissed the girl lightly on the cheek. Lil always smelled of jasmine. Jessie Norman had worn the same scent, and Amy inevitably felt a catch in her throat after one of Lil's embraces. "Welcome, darling," Lil said. "We want you to be completely at home."

  Quite soon Amy did feel at home. She had feared a return to city life, but she found that she could adjust here as she had not been able to in Boston. They were on the eleventh floor. The apartment was something of an aerie. It reminded her of the nests built by birds in the high cliffs near jericho, and she liked it. Her determination not to return to MissTaylor's school strengthened.

  She'd made up her mind about that the morning at Balmoral when the precipitous departure was announced. Now she wanted Tommy to help her mount the campaign, but he was unwilling.

  "It's crazy," he said when she told him about it. They'd been to the movies, "the flicks," Tommy called them, to see the Keystone Kops. Now they were sitting in Central Park. Tommy kicked at some fallen leaves while he spoke. "You've got to finish your education. I'm going back to Georgetown the end of this month. I'm a senior, another year to go. I'm not wild about Washington either, but it has to be done."

  "It's different for you. I'm a girl. I don't need to know anything they can teach me at Miss Taylor's. And it's horrid. The other girls are such idiots, Tommy. They don't know anything."

  He shrugged. "I know it's different for girls. Still ..."

  "Anyway, I'm going to return to Jericho as soon as this war's over. It can't last much longer. I just want to stay with your aunt and uncle till then. Besides, I can ride here." She nodded her head in the direction of one of the park's bridle paths. "Miss Taylor doesn't allow young ladies to ride."

  "What does Aunt Lil say?"

  "I haven't asked her yet. I hoped you'd do it with me. She thinks you're quite the cleverest thing alive, she'll listen to you."

  "Not a chance." He shook his head emphatically. "It's nuts, Amy, and I'm not going to help you."

  She was forced to try Luke. She telephoned and asked him to meet her at Schrafft's the next day. ". . . so there's no reason I shouldn't stay in New York," she finished. Then she looked at him closely. "You're not surprised."

  "No, Tommy warned me."

  "Warned you not to help me, you mean."

  "It's not like that, Amy. Tommy just thinks you're being unwise. I think he's right."

  "Rubbish!" She slammed a gloved hand on the marble-topped table, and the spoon in her ice cream dish rattled. "Why is everybody against me?" Luke had never seen her like this before. He stared in fascination.

  "I'm not some silly schoolgirl like those twits at Miss Taylor's. I was breaking horses and riding in the bush when I was six. In Africa I visit every shamba for miles around by myself. Sometimes I'm gone for days. Miss Taylor doesn't think girls should leave the grounds without a companion. She . . ."

  "What's a shamba?" he interrupted.

  "A farm. A homestead."

  "Oh."

  "Is that all you can say, Luke Westerman? Oh? I thought you were my friend."

  "Of course I am."

  "Then why won't you help me? My father and yours g
rew up together. They helped each other all their lives."

  Luke wondered how much Amy knew of the basis of that friendship. She'd never mentioned any of it. Perhaps she'd never been told the sordid details. Suddenly he felt more than ever sorry for her. She was so alone. "All right," he said at last. "I'll go with you and we'll talk to Aunt Lit. In the end it will be up to Uncle Donald though. He's your guardian."

  "I know that. I just want it all settled with Lil before I tackle him."

  Lil proved quite amenable to the idea. "But I'd be delighted to have you stay, darling! Such good company. We'd both be delighted, wouldn't we, Warren?" As usual she didn't wait for her brother to reply to her rhetorical question. "Tommy's going back to school of course." Lil bit her lip and looked at Luke and Amy in perplexity. "I suppose that part can't be helped. Never mind, it will be great fun."