 
Copyright © 2010 Jeanne Irelan

http://jeanneirelan.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ROSEHALL

BY

JEANNE IRELAN

1

BECCA

She walked gingerly across the porch, each step setting off a palsied shudder to the boards underfoot. The sudsy water in the pail splashed onto the rotten flooring as she set it next to another pail of vinegar water for the rinse. She hoped to get all the downstairs windows washed before winter set in, but she probably wouldn't. The windows in front were the easiest. She gave a sigh of resignation and began to scrub at the year's accumulated grime on the sidelights next to the front door. So much to do. She finished the lights and then tackled the two large windows on either side, scrubbing furiously.

Temporarily exhausted by her efforts, she threw the chamois into the rinse water and stepped off the porch onto the gravel drive where she sat down, legs outstretched. She leaned back on her arms and gazed upward. Above her, the house with its crested peaks on the broad, high front she likened to a great white bird with folded wings. A wounded swan, maybe. Or better, an ugly duckling. The white-painted bricks were worn through in places like scabs, but strangely enough, the old house was still beautiful, even after years of neglect. All the window sills were down to weathered wood, the loose sashes rattling at the slightest breeze. The massive wooden door surround was disintegrating at its base on both sides as if some beast had chewed at them. When she'd first come to Rosehall fifteen years ago the whole house was still in fine shape and bright with new white paint.

Edward had admitted soon after their marriage that the money was running out. "You won't get all the fine things that Mama got on her entry into this family. Things haven't gone well, not just for me, but Daddy, too; he got in trouble financially before he died. That's when it all began."

She assured him the money wasn't important. And it wasn't at the time. She'd lived all her growing up years so poor on the Ridge, she couldn't contemplate what Edward meant by money running out. It could never be as bad as what she'd come from, that she knew.

But from that time on, Rosehall had merely existed, waiting for the end, living off the remnants of their combined incomes and barely reflecting past glory times amidst the social elite of Monroeville, Tennessee. Still, Rosehall counted for something in this town. People took notice of its inhabitants. Becca clung to that. She dumped the buckets of water onto the patchy lawn and then stepped around the gravel drive to the side porch. Two older model cars sat somewhat askew in the drive as if abandoned. Becca marveled to herself, even after all these years, how remote her chances had been of ever living in such a grand old place. Ridge dwellers were a thing apart, never accepted in the town, never even noticed. Marrying Edward had brought her into that magic circle of at least half-acceptance. And she'd done her part to hold the Rosehall together. The work it took! And now more than elbow grease was needed. Love and money, and she only had love to give.

Off she marched to do the kitchen windows and Miss Mitty's room. And then finally, she'd tackle Charles's, on the end of the house. She'd do more another day when she found the time. She'd need to start the cookies soon, a special after-school treat for Trey and Jenny.

. David came to Rosehall that day.

She'd just taken out the last batch of spicy oatmeal cookies from the oven when she heard the commotion. She could see down the length of the great hall that a man was at the front door. Miss Mitty was talking to him a mile a minute, her dyed black bob shaking emphatically..

Someone needs rescuing, Becca thought to herself. She had in mind both the stranger and Miss Mitty.

"Can I help, Miss Mitty?" The echo of her voice hung like a bright flag in the high space of the hall as she walked towards them. The man was quite young and attractive in a citified sort of way with smart clothes. He had nice eyes, and in an instant, Becca liked him.

"Hello. I'm David Mueller, the new editor of the Gazette-News and I was hoping--"

Miss Mitty clapped her hands. "He's come about my clothes, Becca." She turned back to the stranger. "The Nashville Tennessean came once, oh, I can't remember when, and wrote a story about them." Her face puckered briefly. "I wish you had called first. I'd have had them ready to show. So many people want to see them, but I don't admit just anyone. You know that dress that Scarlett O'Hara wore in the first scene in Gone With The Wind? Well, that was my dress." The makeup on her old face cracked in a million pieces as she smiled.

"How interesting. I'd like to see them sometime, but I'm here on a different matter." He gave Becca a desperate look. "Are you the--ah, lady of the house?"

She nodded, stepping aside and motioning for him to enter. She saw him gaze wonderingly around. She could understand that. The room, shabby though it was, was fair sight, if not for all those dingy old portraits of by-gone Thorpes, then for its size.

He tore his eyes from the surroundings and turned to her. "I just moved to town a couple of weeks ago. I've been staying at the hotel. I need a place to live, but there doesn't seem to be a single decent apartment for rent in town. Mr. Robison at the hotel suggested you might have some rooms you could rent me."

"How many rooms would you be thinking of?" Her eyes went to the doors of the unused library. A little odd for old Robison to recommend Rosehall, but still, a Godsend! She'd have a time convincing the family, even though he seemed nice enough. Not as young as she first thought, possibly more than twenty-six or seven, and clean looking. A professional man, too.

"I'd like two rooms at least."

"We might could find you a couple of rooms. You'd have to share the bath, but--"

"Becca! Whatever are you discussin'?"

Mama Kate. She poked her head from one of the double parlor doors on the other side of the hall and then shuffled over in her slippers to join them. Behind her, Becca heard the muted voices from a television soap opera. At least she, unlike Mitty, was presentable with her crisply waved white hair and deep blue woolen dress. But when she moved closer, Becca saw her with the eyes of a stranger and noticed the dress was spotted with food stains and tea splashes, a consequence of older woman's failing eyesight–and her vanity. Her glasses were reserved for reading alone. Becca would have to get that dress away from her and work on it.

"Mama Kate, this is David Mueller, the new editor of Milt's paper. My mother-in-law, Miz Thorpe. He's wanting to rent some rooms from us."

"Oh, I think not, Mr. Mueller. We don't have roomers at Rosehall." Her frozen smile and tone of voice were so forbidding that Becca saw him edge toward the door

Becca touched his arm lightly and gave him a look that said, "Wait." She faced her mother-in-law. "What about Mr. Roscoe, Mama Kate?"

"Oh, that's different, dear. He's like one of the family. And, too, he has his own quarters out back." She inclined her head toward David. "Sorry, Mr. er . . . , no strangers at Rosehall." She turned and silently glided off in woolly knitted slippers in the direction she had come from. The door closed behind her.

Becca opened the door of the apartment in question and motioned him in. Miss Mitty followed, murmuring something incoherent, but Becca stopped her and said, "Why don't you fix yourself some tea, darling? The water's hot, and there's some fresh baked cookies."

"Oh, goody!" Miss Mitty pulled her long velvet skirt around to maneuver her exit, then stopped and leaned close to Becca's face and hoarsely whispered, "We don't want to make Kate angry, do we, Becca?"

"I'll take care, Miss Mitty. Go along now while the water's hot." She winked at David who smiled uncertainly. Goodness, she thought! He thinks he's in a crazy place.

"Look, I don't want to intrude. If this will be a problem . . . ."

"Don't mind them. I'm mistress here." She swept past him and went to the center of the room, surveying the lofty space with critical eyes.

The front room had been a library, not used much in recent years. It had a few old padded chairs and near the fireplace a camel back sofa with shredding upholstery. The fireplace, though needing a coat of paint, was a fine one, with paneling and carvings of urns and ribbons that covered the wall from mantel to ceiling. Deep niches on either side housed shelves overflowing with old, damp-swollen volumes in tattered vellum or morocco. Edward kept his personal books in their bedroom. At the front of the room, the broad, deep-silled windows overlooking the porch admitted the weak November sun, brightening patches on the faded floral carpet. How glad Becca was that she'd just cleaned the windows. She saw David Mueller looking at the empty curtain rods.

"The curtains was rotted, so I took them down. I can cover the windows with something."

"The room is wonderful. I like it a lot. And I can work at that table." He pointed to a large mahogany table near the window. "Room for typewriter, books."

"Let's see about the bedroom," she murmured almost to herself. He followed her through a narrow doorway into an enclosed porch. The three windows on the outside wall and the glazed top of a door to the back yard were trimmed in short muslin curtains.

"Great! I'll take it!"

Becca looked at him with amusement and then at the empty room. "I'll have to fix you up with a bed and dresser." It was nice he was so eager. He'd be easy to please. Talked funny, though, like a Yankee.

"So you're Milt's new editor."

"I worked on the Butler Eagle, in Pennsylvania, before taking this job."

She nodded. So that explained his accent. She turned her attention again to the porch that was to be his bedroom. "This here room isn't vented for the furnace. I can get an extra heater from old Roscoe's place, though. He never goes upstairs in his cabin anymore."

She pointed out the back windows to the two story-clapboard shack that had been Roscoe's home long before Becca had come on the scene. Smoke was rising from its chimney. Opposite was a row of brick structures.

"What's that row of little brick outbuildings? Looks like one, two . . . about ten in all?"

"Individual stallion barns. Once Rosehall bred horses in a big way. Those buildings are all that's left."

"How fascinating! Coming from a city environment, I've never been around horse country. What kind of horses were they, if you don't mind my ignorance."

She laughed. "No more ignorant than me. Race horses, I was told. Kentucky Derby, that sort of thing. This farm was called a stud, which means they bred a certain line of horses, both for themselves and others for a fee."

"Too bad that business died out, isn't it?"

"Like about everything else around here," she admitted dryly.

He continued to look around through the window. "Is that the back wing? This is really a big old rambling place. It's lovely."

"Yep. It'll fall down one of these days if something isn't done about it."

He continued to look out the window and said musingly, "I hope not. It's a thing of beauty. Something very civilizing went into its construction. I'd hate to see it disappear, swallowed up by the ordinary."

She gave him a close look. He sounded like a philosopher or poet maybe. He said what she felt. Rosehall meant more to her, too, than just an old house.

"The tub and commode are through here."

They passed through another inner door into the back hallway. The kitchen door was opposite, and they could see Miss Mitty scooting around the kitchen, shawl and skirt flying. The bathroom was under the stairs and was odd-shaped. There were bottles of perfume and lotions as well as shaving gear.

"Who else uses this bathroom?"

"Miss Mitty and my brother-in-law, Charles Thorpe. They both have rooms in the back wing. The rest of us sleep upstairs and have our own bathroom."

Becca guided him back through the apartment, thinking aloud about the arrangement of furnishings and other details.

"Do you want your evening meal here? You might get tired of restaurant food, and it wouldn't cost you as much either. You'd be most welcome."

He seemed to hesitate, and remembering how frosty Mama Kate had appeared, she added, "My husband is most admiring of anyone who can write. Your company'd be a fair treat for him."

"Well, thanks, yes, that would be a good deal for me."

They stopped in front of the cold fireplace and settled on the price for meals, including morning kitchen privileges. He could fix his own coffee and toast or cereal. Fine. She thought he could move in this weekend. He grabbed her outstretched hand shook it longer than necessary.

She smiled at him. "Don't get the idea that anyone here will give you trouble."

"Trouble?"

"The family won't want to admit it, but they'll soon get used to the extra money. I'll fix it up with them."

"I'm sure you will." He gave her a curious look that made her tuck a stray hair back into her ponytail. She knew she looked a fright. Worn jeans and one of Edward's shirts with the tails tied around her waist.

They strolled through the hall, and she opened the door for him. The November air was mild as she stepped outside and went with him to his car. Not a very new car, but better than the two that her husband and her brother-in-law owned.

Standing beside his car to say goodbye to her, he lifted his eyes to look over the house. She saw him pause and give an uncertain smile. She saw her husband peering at them through the curtains of the bedroom window. He had his face close to the glass without acknowledging their presence. David Mueller looked at Becca with a raised eyebrow.

She didn't explain.

In the days following, she set to cleaning up the "apartment" with happy energy. It was good to be doing something so positive--and productive. Sometimes, her discouragement with the family left her without hope that anything could change. Her efforts seemed wasted. Like trying to get rid of mud daubers on the back porch. Knock a nest down, and they'd build another. No one but she seemed to care about that or anything. If they did, they couldn't find it in themselves to do anything about it.

Yet in a sense, Edward did care. He hated the family's comedown. He talked about it as if they should be reverenced for something that was long gone. But he wouldn't work to gain back their fortunes. As far as she was concerned, he'd never done more than plant a few acres of tobacco and sell off the land. He had no talent or drive to do anything that brought in real money. A Vanderbilt man, too, that was the shame of it. Smart, why he read all the time and talked in riddles.

Charles wasn't smart. Took after his mother. But he was kindly. All he wanted to do was fool with his collection of "art objects." He lived to buy, if he had funds, but usually beg stuff off old folks in the area, including poor blacks. They sometimes had good things, like crystal or silver pieces given them when they worked in the big houses, he always said. But nothing he collected anymore seemed quite right. Broken stuff, things with missing parts, silver worn in spots. Still, it kept him occupied. He went from place to place in his ancient Chrysler visiting in the hope of getting his hands on things for his shelves or cabinets.

Becca had had no idea what she was letting herself in for when she married Edward. She had never known people like the Thorpes, coming as she had from a different class. Ridge Rats, some called those who lived up on the Highland Rim. She'd found it was a much greater distance to town than the seven miles by road. How ignorant yet hopeful she'd been, thinking she could gain a foothold to a better life through Edward Thorpe.

Edward had been easy to get. He'd been near forty and she only seventeen when she went to work in his tobacco field that fall. She'd never had a problem attracting any man when she set her mind to it. Mostly, she'd had to learn how to keep them off her.

But she wanted Edward. He was dark and thin faced and tall. A foreign creature that held a promise for her in his being. They married within three months. She knew now that the promise had been phoney. She was his to use for his purposes. He needed her zeal, her energy, her devotion to first him, then Rosehall. In turn, he'd given her the position she'd craved as mistress of one of the premier homes of the area. The fact was, she didn't get a better life than the one she'd left. The house was bigger than her Pa's cabin but ten times harder to keep up.

She felt she was doing all she could do, taking care of the folks, their meals, clothes, even their rooms. You'd think grown people could clean up after themselves, but this bunch! Besides, she had two young'uns to look after. Not that they weren't good to help, bless their hearts. Jenny Lou was such a darling and only thirteen. Still, she lived with her head in the clouds. Trey tried to be the little man, what with all his daddy's problems. But he was still like any other eleven-year-old boy. He liked the outdoors and hated school work. She had to fuss at him all the time.

And then there was her night work at the café. No easy job scrubbing the equipment. She couldn't do more. Why hadn't she thought about renting out Rosehall before? But the family wouldn't have let her advertise. Now they'd have to allow Mr. Mueller to stay. She'd already given her word. That still meant something to the Thorpes.

It wasn't until suppertime she had a chance to explain about their new renter. They always ate their evening meal in the dining parlor. The kitchen table would have been easier, but Mama Kate wouldn't have it. Even with Annie helping cook and serve, it was a chore to haul dishes and food back and forth.

"Can I go home early, Miss Becca?"

Becca put the roast on a large platter, frowning. "I guess so, Annie. Jenny Lou can help."

"Sorry, Miss Becca, but my child is sick."

"Why didn't you say so?" Foolish woman. Her help was little enough. She was more trouble than she was worth; Becca would have liked to take a stick to her. But her family had

been serving the Thorpes for generations. Becca sighed. She seemed always to be saddled with do-nothings. They couldn't really afford Annie, but she had to have some help with all the work that fell on her, even if it was of poor quality.

The family had already taken their usual seats around the table, except for Trey who had to be called twice. After Trey slid into his seat, Charles gave a mumbled blessing. It was his turn this evening. The custom of the family was to pass the honor around, though the prayer was the same one: "For what we are about to receive, let us be truly humble." Sometimes Edward, at his turn, would clear his throat suggestively and give a smirk at the end. He'd made it clear he thought they got little enough.

Edward sat at the head of the table with a book by his plate. He looked gloomy and uninterested in the others. He left the dishing up to his mother who sat at the other end.

Becca took a bite of roast and swallowed. "I rented out the library today to a nice young man. He's the new editor of Milt's newspaper. Comes all the way from Pennsylvania."

Dead silence. Except the sound of Trey and Miss Mitty's silverware scraping their plates.

"It was he, I suppose," Edward drawled, finally, "that I saw through a glass darkly this morning."

"Did you say rented?" Charles asked, talking around a large mouthful of food. "To live in, you mean?"

"Yes," Becca said, "and won't it be grand having that money coming in regular and doing hardly nothing for it?"

"Becca, you didn't!" Mrs. Thorpe intoned deeply. She closed her eyes as if she couldn't face it.

"I did and I'm glad. That old room and the enclosed porch don't serve no purpose. Leastways, now I got a reason to keep 'em up."

"Who is the gentleman?" Charles asked, resuming the attack on his meat. "A friend of Milt's, you say?"

"I don't know if he's a friend or not, but Milt hired him. I expect he'd be right interested to know his man had a place to live."

All in all, the announcement went over better than she'd imagined. They grumbled for a while about losing their privacy, but Mrs. Thorpe allowed that they were doing Milt a favor.

"What favor is that, Kate?" Miss Mitty asked her sister-in-law.

"Nothing, Mitty, we were just talking."

"That's right, Mama Kate," Becca agreed. "Milt'll be most grateful, I'm sure." She stood up to clear the table for dessert. "Come on, Jenny. You help dish up the pudding."

The girl obeyed her mother instantly. Her normally calm face was flushed with excitement.

"What's he like, Mamma?" she asked in the kitchen. "Is he good looking?"

"Oh, I don't know. Passable, I guess. Shoot, I wasn't thinking of his looks, just his rent money," Becca laughed. She carried the pudding into the dining room. There! She'd managed to gather in the family's doubts, like corralling loose marbles on a slippery table top. Back into the pouch they'd go until another problem came up and she'd have to stop their rolling about.

"You worked that well," Edward murmured to her. He was standing, ready to leave the room.

"Can't you have some pudding Edward? It would be better for you than the sherry."

"Becca, you always get your way in matters that don't come between me and my few pleasures. Be content with that."

2

ENCOUNTERS

Becca decided to stop by the newspaper to see Milt Henshaw about his new editor. Sort of like locking the barn door after the horse had run away, since she'd impulsively agreed to let David Mueller rent from them. Still, it wouldn't hurt to get Milt's opinion. He was a friend of the Thorpe family--the Henshaws and Thorpes went back to the early days of the county. But the Henshaws had kept their money through the years with good investments while the Thorpes managed only to hang on to their good name and Rosehall. Milt's latest venture was to buy up county newspapers, among them the Monroeville Gazette, and revitalize them with not just local news and picture stories, but copy from news services. He considered Monroeville his home station and kept an office there.

She nosed her six-year-old Chevy into a slot in front of the newspaper office. As she got out, she saw Mrs. Guild, her arms laden with packages. Becca knew her from her occasional visits to see Mama Kate. They'd been former school mates at an exclusive finishing school in Nashville. They also belonged to the same clubs, a garden club where nobody dug and a book club where nobody read.

"Hello, Mrs. Guild." Becca stepped up onto the sidewalk to greet her.

The woman narrowed her eyes and gave an uncertain smile. "Oh, Kate Thorpe's daughter-in-law, is it?" She halted in front of Becca.

"Yes, ma'am. Becca Thorpe. Nice to see you this morning."

"I've about worn myself out trying to get ready for my grandchildren's visit this weekend." She gave Becca a sharp look. "You do cleaning, don't you? My help is sick, and it's so difficult to get anyone at the last minute."

"No, ma'am. I don't do housework except my own. Luckily, I have some help with Annie, too. I'll be glad to give her up this week if you need her."

"I'd say that was generous, er . . . Rebecca. Please send her over as soon as possible."

She proceeded on down the street without another word.

Becca swallowed the bitterness that rose in her at Mrs. Guild's dismissal of her. Typical it was. They at least acknowledged her as a Thorpe. She made her way into the office, fixing a bright smile on her face. Doris and David, busy at their work, had time to offer only a short greeting before she stepped through the open door of Milt's office.

He rose from his desk and held out both his hands to grasp her own. "Hello, darlin'," he teasingly addressed her.

Becca liked Milt, though he was a cut above her, that was for sure. But he kidded her just like he did the others when he came over for bridge or to pass on gossip. Funny, she often thought, how he hadn't remarried after his brief, long ago venture into matrimony. A pretty boy, she'd call him. He'd been a few years behind Edward and Charles in school, so he was now, she calculated, about forty-five.

As she explained about David Mueller's housing arrangement with them, she was careful not to show how much they needed the money. She'd never cause shame by speaking out too plain about their finances. She'd made that mistake early on when a careless remark of hers at the grocery store got back to Edward.

"'Course, I'm hoping you'll recommend him, Milt. I took him on because he said you'd hired him. Then I thought, 'Heck, Milt would hire Jack the Ripper if he could write.'"

"You may be right, honey. But seriously, I think Dave is a fine boy. Had excellent references. Just in case, keep your bedroom door locked when Edward's not around." He grinned, showing his perfectly even teeth.

"You're kidding, of course. Sometimes I think you make fun of me." The joke was, Edward spent most of his waking hours in the bedroom lying about and guzzling his sherry until he passed out. But surely Milt didn't know that, or if he suspected, he was too polite to even hint of it.

"Believe me when I say I'd never want to hurt you, Becca."

"Thanks, Milt." She knew he was sincere, and it was hard to keep looking at him without tears springing to her eyes. Few people around Monroeville showed her much common kindness.

"Say," her said, grasping her arm, "did you notice the redecorating as you came in? New equipment too–a new computer to replace the old one. It's so up-to-date Doris won't use it."

"Not really."

"Come see."

Doris turned from her typing with a smile for Becca. "I suppose he told you I won't use the new computer. It scares me–the programs it has!. I believe you can have it write stories for you."

"I'm getting Dave to give her lessons on some of the finer points," Milt said in an audible aside.

"I'm glad to help." David came from around his desk, a cubby hole partitioned off by stacks of old newspapers. "I'm working on eliminating the fear factor." He smiled at Doris, still looking skeptical. "Fifteen minutes every day for a week and you'll say, 'This computer is my friend.'"

"Ha!" Doris pecked away at the old one.

"I hear you'll be living at Rosehall, Dave," Milt said in his usual suave tone.

"Yes, Mrs. Thorpe was kind enough to fix me up with a couple of rooms."

"Rosehall!" Doris sharply turned her head and gave a genteel intake of breath. "How very nice." She self-consciously retrieved a stray reddish-gray curl from her forehead as if ashamed of her tone of surprise. "You say Katherine Thorpe rented you some rooms?"

"No, I did, Doris. David--can I call you that?" Becca asked. "Call me Becca. Mrs. Thorpe sounds like my mother-in-law." David assented with a nod and smile. "David needed a place to live," she explained to Doris, "and we have the unused south room and porch off of it, so he's moving in this weekend."

"The rooms are beautiful, perfect," David added.

Doris smiled broadly and gave Milt a look. "How lovely and much better than the hotel or trying to find a suitable house to rent. You're a fortunate fellow, going to live with such a nice old family and in a house that's–well, it was glorious in it's heyday, right, Milt?"

"Absolutely! Rosehall was the end-all, be-all of residences in our county. It still retains a certain cachet among those who have lived here all their lives."

All this talk of Rosehall's past glory was beginning to bother Becca. She frowned a little and was composing her thoughts for a reply when the door clattered open and the newsboy stepped in. He stood just inside the door and beamed at them. He was a heavy, moon-faced simpleton named Lloyd Clay, though everyone called him Dandy Day because of his regular greeting.

"Mornin', Missus," he said to Doris, "dandy day, ain't it?"

"Good morning, Dandy. It surely is. Did you sell all the papers?"

He patted the huge canvas bag slung from his shoulder. "All gone. I got a lot of money, don't I." He looked at the editor. "Don't I, Mister?"

David went over and checked the empty interior of the bag. "Good for you, Dandy; you sold two hundred papers in only three days. Let me have your collection, and I'll pay you."

He sorted out the bills and change and paid the newsboy. Dandy tucked away his money in the deep pocket of his old tweed jacket and stood chatting with Doris. When she turned to her work, he didn't leave but rocked silently on his big feet and simpered at them.

"Do you want more papers?" Milt asked, a little impatiently. Dandy was useful, but he didn't encourage him to hang around the office.

"Naw, no more papers. Me got present." He slipped an object from his other pocket and held it in his closed fist.

"Well, let's see it." Milt held out his hand, but Dandy didn't hand it over, only opened his fist to show a dirty pocket knife with horn sides. He pulled out a rusty blade, saying the others were "'tuck."

"Very nice. Isn't it a beauty, Becca?" They all loudly admired it. He wouldn't leave until everyone acknowledged his present.

Then David led him to the door. "Come back in four days to get more papers, Dandy."

"You be careful with that knife, now, Dandy," Doris called out.

"Pathetic creature," Milt said after the man left.

"I guess he's quite harmless?" David asked. He peered out the window after him as if he could decide the matter from the look of his shambling walk.

"Of course," Becca said hotly. "He's just a poor old soul with half a brain, but he don't do no harm." She turned to Milt and thanked him for the tour. Doris resumed her work.

"It's almost time for lunch, Becca. Want a sandwich at the drugstore?"

"That's nice of you, Milt, but I'm not free to gallivant around. I've got to go fix lunch for that family of mine."

He looked at his watch. "They can wait while we get a cup of coffee." He took her hand and tucking it in his arm, led her out the door and across the street to the rather upscale coffee shop, an innovation to the town that was sure to go out of business in due time.

"Hi, Gloria," he called to the proprietor. "Get us two of your strongest lattes."

"My coffee is perfectly made–neither too strong or too weak. Most people don't know the difference that really good ground coffee makes."

"I'll buy that," laughed Milt, "literally, I'll buy that."

They seated themselves at a small table and looked around the room, which had pinned to the walls art works from local artists. "You've added some architectural paintings," Milt commented. "Who did those?"

Gloria explained about the artist as Becca listened absently and then not at all. She was wondering if she should have let Milt drag her into this shop. It was pleasant to be fussed over, but the townsfolk noticed everything, and she'd always been careful not to cause talk, even with Edward in his present state of reclusiveness. A steaming mug set before her jarred her into a smile at their hostess and another for Milt. "This is a fair treat for me. I don't know when I've sat and done nothing but enjoy a cup of coffee."

He tipped his head at her appraisingly. "You work too hard and I swear as pretty as you are, it's beginning to show. If there's any thing I could do to help . . ."

She blew on the hot liquid. "Thanks, Milt, but we're getting along."

"What are you doing for amusement nowadays? All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl, you know," he commented.

"I have days with my Pa on the Ridge to amuse me, as you call it. I love it there–so peaceful and lovely. Makes me forget–well, you know," she finished lamely. It would never do to spread her sorrows about, even to Milt. "It's a change for me, and I look forward to seeing my old haunts."

"Of course you do, Becca. I meant more worldly, sinful pleasures like the movies, or shopping expeditions to Nashville, that sort of thing."

She gave a chuckle of amusement. "Goodness, Milt, you still act like I'm a lady of leisure. If I need clothes, I usually make them, buy them locally, or order them from the catalogues. And as for movies, I sometimes go with Jenny Lou and Trey to the Rialto if something good comes to town."

He shook his head and gave her a bemused look. "What a life you ended up with, Miz Becca Thorpe." He drained the last of his coffee and followed her lead as she rose from her seat and left the shop. On the way out, he nodded and greeted with his usual bonhomie a couple of business men at an adjacent table.

They parted with her inviting him to Rosehall and him agreeing to come soon. It was an unnecessary invitation since he visited the house regularly, but she knew by now the formula for courtesy. She drove off with a wry backward glance at Milt, who was entering the door of the newspaper office. Well, she'd done it now. Although Milt wouldn't think anything more or less of them for taking in David, she figured the whole town would soon know anyway; Doris would see to that. But why should she care? Nothing shameful about having someone rent a room or two. Everybody knew anyhow that the Thorpes were down on their luck. Luck! She gave an exclamation of disgust. That family wouldn't take advantage of opportunities if Lady Luck came over and kicked them in the rear. Besides, success hadn't much to do with luck. Becca believed God helped those who helped themselves.

3

DAVID AND THE FAMILY

Before moving to the area, David had researched it thoroughly–from its history and peoples, to its climate and geology. He'd found, for instance, that Monroeville was located at the far edge of the Nashville Basin, a geological thumb print in an undulating landscape of geosynclines that swept across Middle Tennessee (always capitalized, he discovered). Circling the Nashville Basin on all sides with slight differences in elevations was a daisy chain of hills called the Highland Rim. It was the juxtaposition of these two land formations–hills and meadows--that had invited two very different kinds of people to settle the area. (Strictly speaking, the Indians couldn't be called native to this particular part of Tennessee since it was used only as a hunting ground for many tribes, with no one tribe calling it home.)

But the Europeans who came to the area in the 1700s seemed to be either one thing or another, David was discovering. Those who plunked themselves down among the hills seeking refuge and solitude from authority remained there as Ridge dwellers, or Ridgemanites, while the settlers with their Revolutionary land grants who farmed the land in the valleys and meadows became the "old families" of the region. They went on to achieve, more or less, some kind of notoriety, at least in the immediate area, establishing businesses and educational institutions, acquiring more and more land, or getting into politics.

Middle Tennessee was distinctly different from what was called the other two states of Tennessee–East and West. The East was home to the University of Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains, and had for its early settlers the mountain folk, a set-apart group of mainly Scots ancestry and another group that was called the Melungeons, a people who were thought to be a mixture of Portugese and American Indian. Those who were the descendants of the Scottish settlers in the Eastern end of the state were not given to the same sort of snobbery about ancestry as were their counterparts in the middle of the state. Neither were the West Tennesseans concerned about "old families" as were the Nashvillians and those from surrounding counties. The people of the Memphis area were involved in commerce, stemming originally from cotton plantations. In addition, their culture was seriously connected to long history of Mississippi river traffic and from the early days of the twentieth century, music called the blues, all of which formed the character of that region.

Music was part of the Middle Tennessee legacy, too, but its roots were different: To the stage of the Ryman Auditorium and then to radio and recording studios in the 1920s and '30s streamed those musicians from the hills and hollows with their sad songs of lost love, disappointment, and downright tragedy. A huge industry grew from these songs, inviting visitors from all over the nation. Not to say this kind of culture was all Nashville had to offer: For its more sophisticated element, it had a respectable symphony orchestra, an independent concert series, seventeen colleges and universities, and to cap it off, a replica of the Greek Parthenon, giving Nashville the soubriquet of "Athens of the South."

It was all fascinating for David, and especially was he interested in observing the representatives of the two different cultures in this one household–the Thorpes and Becca. Nothing of these distinctions remained in his home state of Pennsylvania, which in the middle and western part seemed more Midwestern with the bulk of its citizens either of the middle or working classes. He knew the seaboard area of Pennsylvania had some snobbery in its old families, but they didn't quite fit the mold he understood was so prevalent in parts of the South, particularly in this area. Now at the Thorpe dinner table, he was free to check out the attitudes of various members of this family and try to form a judgment of them.

"I understand you're not from this area, Mr. Mueller." Mrs. Thorpe was dishing up green beans, cooked to the color of khaki and larded throughout with chunks of pork fat. The liquid ran all over David's plate and instantly soaked his mashed potatoes.

The old woman's voice was cordial now. She sounded like a queen speaking to one of her subjects. David felt awed by her manner, though he tried to appear nonchalant. He could see Becca felt sorry for him, giving him an encouraging smile from time to time. She apparently didn't act as hostess at the evening meals. Her mother-in-law sat at the end of the table opposite her eldest son and handed food around family style, trying to direct the conversation as best she could.

David inclined his head slightly and answered, "Yes, I'm from Pennsylvania." He added, "My family is German, sometimes called Pennsylvania Dutch. They came right after the Revolutionary War."

"Ahhh, immigrants," Mrs. Thorpe nodded.

"Mama Kate," said Becca, swallowing a bite of chicken, "didn't we all in America come from immigrants?"

Mrs. Thorpe gave her an arch look. "Not if one's family helped found the country, Becca."

The old woman was not giving him any quarter after all, so he turned to buttering a light-textured yeast roll. They tasted like heaven and home. He murmured a compliment and Becca spoke up proudly.

"Thank you, sir. It took me a few years to get 'em just right. I had to learn some of the niceties of cooking when I became Edward's wife." She laughed. "My pa's taste ran to simpler things--mainly cornbread and pork."

Edward gave an ironic smile at this from his end of the table. He didn't seem to take much part in the conversation. Mainly he thumbed a book and ate hardly a thing. He wore a brown shawl-collared sweater wrapped closely to his neck. Looked like a monk. Acted like one too, sort of. The kind that kept to himself and meditated on things not nice. Becca had introduced him to David when he moved in over the weekend. Edward hadn't said much at the time, either in welcome or disapproval.

Brother Charles sat across from David chatting with everyone and teasing Miss Mitty on his right. Charles and Edward didn't look like brothers. He was light where Edward was dark, slow in ideas where Edward was quick, good natured to Edward's sarcastic ways.

Miss Mitty was peculiar. Dotty, that's what Milt Henshaw had termed her in his familiar way as a family friend. Kind and friendly, she seemed to live more in a dream world, which only now and then intersected with the real one. Miss Mitty couldn't have taken care of herself, Becca had told David, but as the old squire's sister, she'd always have a place here.

Altogether, they were like nothing he'd ever come across before. Apparently, this was what the so-called aristocratic South had come to, at least a fair representation of it. The adults in this family were a mass of pretensions and oddities--except for Becca, who obviously wasn't one of them. He looked at her across from him, admonishing her son to slow down his eating. She was a natural beauty, in her early thirties, he guessed. Her hair was a dark cloud, her eyes navy blue with a starburst of gold near the pupil. Not a tall woman, she was slender and lithe, her movements as quick as her tongue. Yet she, too, like the others in this strange but maybe representative family, seemed to have screened out the rest of the world. He, in contrast, was concerned with news, with happenings, while their concerns seemed parochial to a fault.

"Do you hunt, David?" Trey asked, in between shovelfuls of food. "We've got good ground for varmits."

Becca scolded him for calling him David. "Mr. Mueller to you, boy."

David smiled and said he'd like to go with him, but he didn't have a gun. "And David is fine with me. I'm the informal type."

Jenny Lou said little, but David noticed she stared at him with seeming fascination. About thirteen or fourteen, but more child than woman in her actions and resembling neither her mother or father. Her hair, though, was silvery gold, probably much like her uncle Charles's had been before he'd lost most of it.

"How's the newspaper business, Dave?" Charles had quickly gotten on a first name basis with absentminded friendliness. He stretched his long turkey neck toward David, wattles shaking, and blinked roundly bulging eyes. David had already learned from a few casual conversations earlier that his question didn't mean he was interested. It seemed more a matter of form.

"Busy. I'm having to learn a lot of new things. I have quite a lot of ground to cover, of course. I don't know my way around this county well yet, but I'm getting it."

Charles nodded approvingly, but Edward suddenly looked up from his book. He wasn't as absorbed in it as he appeared. "I find it almost ludicrous that Milt Henshaw would have hired someone outside the county for a job like that." His voice had a high pitched and harsh quality as if he wanted to annoy.

David hardly knew how to respond to what seemed like outright hostility, or at the least undeserved rudeness. He merely looked at the man blandly and waited.

Then Edward shrugged and said with a smile that transformed his face into a likeness of a charming and roughly handsome man, "'Course, maybe it took going that far afield to find a quality editor."

"Edward could have written for a newspaper," said his mother, daintily cutting a piece of the chicken breast, which unknown to her immediately slipped off her fork onto her lap. "But with all his family responsibilities, impossible." Mrs. Thorpe went on with a sigh, and there was a general assenting murmur of Edward's lost chance. She then bent to her plate and concentrated on cutting off another piece of meat.

"What business are you in, Mr. Thorpe?" David inquired of Edward. He would make every effort to hold to the amenities. He wanted very much to stay here, to have that wonderful, big room that was all his own.

"I'm what is known as a gentleman farmer, my boy. That is to say, I have a little land, and I don't work what there is of it."

There was an awkward pause until Miss Mitty stepped unwittingly into the breach by clapping her hands to get attention. Everyone looked at her politely.

"Guess what I heard from Roscoe? Floyd Scoggins stopped by last night to play a game of gin rummy and . . ."

"Humph," snorted Mrs. Thorpe, "drink some gin, you mean."

"Well, maybe, Kate, but they're very quiet about it, whatever they do. Anyway, Floyd said something about a new tax assessment for the county. I'm not sure what that is, but he was so very excited about it." Mitty beamed with pride at her recounting of the news. One of her more lucid moments.

"What!"

"Oh, I can't think . . ."

"That sounds like the usual courthouse gossip," said Becca. "We've heard that for years, and nothing has ever come of it."

"I believe," interjected David, "there may be some truth to it this time." Everyone turned to him. "I was over at the courthouse last week and happened to talk to the tax assessor . . ."

"Dupree," Becca supplied impatiently.

"Right, Mr. Dupree, who said he had information that a reassessment would be ordered by the County Judge and probably approved by the magistrates within the next year."

"What does this mean for us, Edward?" Becca asked quietly.

Edward was lighting a cigarette and calmly shook out the match, blowing smoke from one side of his mouth. He pushed his chair back from the table.

"It means disaster for us, of course. I do hate to cast any aspersions on Hatcher Lowe's judicial character, but it's hard not to suspect we're being singled out." He rose from his chair, his cigarette dangling from his mouth. "He seems quite determined to divest us of our property. Yes, I think disaster would be the word." He made his way toward the door to the parlor, then stopped and turned back to the others. "Have you ever noticed how many words that bode evil or ill fortune or weakness begin with the letters 'd' and 'i'? Diabolical, diminish, dilute, dismember, divorce, divest, disaster." He gave a thin laugh and disappeared into the parlor. A cupboard door could be heard opening along with the clink of crystal.

He did seem a bit of a show off, David observed. Or maybe that was his usual way of sliding over real issues, shoving around his word knowledge like money frivolously spent. Becca had told him, hadn't she, that her husband was admiring of those who could write. Maybe it was only his way of impressing the newcomer. To occupy the silence following Edward's departure, David examined his surroundings, sipping his coffee and smoking. The dining room, he thought, was the prettiest room in the house. David recognized as antiques the Hepplewhite sideboard against the wall with its light and graceful legs and the large set of Hitchcock chairs around the table He commented on the tall windows topped with faded brocade swags.

He came close to commenting on what at first glance looked like stenciling around the windows until he realized it was a design made by water stain.

"Mr. Mueller, have you seen my rabbits yet?" inquired Jenny Lou in her demure little-girl voice, rising from her seat.

"No, I haven't. Where do you keep them?"

"Out back. She took his hand and pulled him up from his chair. "Come with me to see them. It's time for their supper."

"I'll come along, too," Becca said. "I need to check the gates. Roscoe's old mule tends to wander off if they're left open."

David thanked Mrs. Thorpe for the meal, including Becca with his eyes. Jenny Lou led him through the door at the rear of the dining room into the kitchen, closely followed by Becca. The kitchen looked like scene from the past. It was large but thoroughly outdated. Some open shelves and a few tall cupboards were all there was to store food and dishes and such, with everything open to view. The sink was the worst, hanging desperately onto the wall in the corner. But the large chrome and green porcelain cookstove stood out like someone's pride and joy. It must have been purchased in the fifties and looked as big as David's first car. "Ma'am, could I have the parings and leftovers for Aga and Nesta?"

"Aga and Nesta?" David asked.

"That's short for Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Daddy named them. He reads Greek mythology."

"Do you, too?"

"Sometimes. Mostly the stories are too sad or scary."

"Stories, that's all her father knows." But Becca smiled at her daughter, handing her the leftovers from a sieve in the sink. "I've read a few myself, and strange as they are, David, I thought they could have been talking about us, here today."

"Literature, good literature, is like that," he said. He would have liked to talk about it more with her, but she'd already started out the door, shepherding her daughter ahead of her.

They stepped outside into a windy night half lighted by a shrouded moon. David fumbled his way down the porch steps and through the spiky grass. Jenny skipped ahead, her long cotton skirt whipping like a sail being reefed. Becca walked rapidly beside David, hugging her arms. It was cold, and none of them wore jackets, a typical habit of ignoring the advancing cold, David had observed, by the inhabitants of this region of the country. He'd noticed children at bus stops on chilly mornings in short-sleeved shirts as if it was hot September. Maybe these people, unlike their brethren in the north, simply couldn't believe it would actually get cold and stay that way in this very temperate zone.

They passed the old log cabin of Mr. Roscoe's, a small light glowing through a window. David wondered aloud what the building's original purpose had been.

"I think," said Becca, "it was a slave cabin."

"Is Mr. Roscoe a descendant of one of the old slave families?"

Becca laughed aloud as she helped Jenny, struggling with the metal bar on one of the double doors to the first of the small brick buildings. "No, David, Mr. Roscoe's white." They stooped under the top door and went in. "This family would never call a black man mister."

Another lesson learned. The old South hadn't died yet.

"Daddy says," said Jenny, expertly striking a long match to a lantern, "he's no better than a nigger for all the work he gets out of him."

David felt a disapproving frown appear on his face; Becca was watching him.

"That's not a nice thing to say, daughter," she scolded. "Daddy says things like that out of a bad habit. That doesn't mean you should repeat them."

"What kind of work is Roscoe supposed to do?"

"Tend to the yard and do odd jobs around the farm, or what's left of it."

Now inside the horse box, David looked around the small quarters at the assorted mess. It was barely recognizable as a stall. It must have looked very different when horses actually inhabited the place. Rotting, rusty tack hung from a row of pegs. On the low rafters were aged horse blankets eaten through by moth holes while empty bottles and a couple of blackened buckets stood forlornly in the corner. The plank floor was filthy. David backed up to take it all in and sat down abruptly in a wooden feeding trough that jutted out from the paneled wall. Becca and Jenny Lou laughed at him, and he joined in. Jenny took the lantern to a corner where the wire rabbit hutch was suspended on an open framework.

"So these outbuildings were designed for the racehorses?" They were unlike anything in David's experience on his grandparents' farm.

"Yes," answered Becca, "when this place was a going concern. They had stallions in these boxes. One horse per box. Way back, so I hear, the upper floor was sleeping quarters for a servant to tend each stallion."

"Really!"

But Jenny was insisting on David's inspecting her pets, a pair of spotted rabbits. She was removing them from the cages and murmuring endearments.

"There, Aga," she crooned, "don't you want your nice cabbage?"

"When did horse business die?" David persisted to Becca.

"Years before I came on the scene. Old Mr. Thorpe, Charles and Edward's father, died just after Jenny was born, but he'd already lost everything, except Rosehall, with bad investments and some cattle disease that wiped out the herd that was the family's real livelihood. Now just Mr. Roscoe's old mule and two milk cows are all we have to put in these boxes."

"And Aga and Nesta," Jenny crooned in her baby voice, "who love their little house."

David dutifully examined the creatures, and after Jenny had given them a liberal supper she latched the door and the three walked slowly back to the house, Becca somewhat behind the other two.

The girl was taller than Becca and had womanly breasts and hips, but David could not quite discover why she seemed so different from the teenagers he knew. The fleeting, sidelong glances that she gave David might be taken for seductiveness, but he reminded himself she was more child than woman. Becca stepped up beside them as they drew closer to the back porch.

"Do you like living here, Mr. Mueller?" Jenny asked.

"Here at Rosehall, you mean, or here in town?"

"In Monroeville, of course." Jenny Lou was laughingly disdainful. "I know you'll like living at Rosehall. It's the most wonderful place in the world."

"I like the town all right, but it's a change for me. I'm from a much larger, completely different kind of place, and I'm having to feel my way along, go slowly and be careful not to do the wrong things."

She laughed a tinkling, happy laugh as if he had made an unconscious boo-boo. "Oh, who cares about doing wrong things or right things. Birds aren't slow and careful, and think how much they get to see. I never shall just feel my way along."

"You're very lucky to be so free and have a place to fly any way you want."

She turned to flash her mother a grimace. "Mama tries my soul though."

He smiled at her expression. "Why is that, Jenny?"

"Why, she wants me to be like she is--worried and fretting and always thinking about the future."

"Someone has to around here," Becca offered.

"Like most mothers, she's probably wanting you to set out some goals and begin to plan."

"She wants me old before my time. Granny agrees with me, but Mama says I'm heedless."

Becca caught up with them on the porch. "Someone has to look after your interests. Mothers are supposed to do suchlike. I wish I'd had a mama when I was your age to smooth the way for me."

David held the door for her and Jenny Lou to pass through. "You lost your mother early?"

"Yes, when I was ten. Jenny takes after her in looks. After Mama died, I had to grow up fast, and I made lots of mistakes. I don't want Jenny to suffer like I did and miss opportunities, all because I was so ignorant."

He left them then and walked through the side door that led to his bedroom. He was pleased about the arrangements for the room, the narrow low post bed, the high maple chest of drawers with wooden pulls that Becca and Annie the maid had hauled down from the attic. In his front room, David had set up a little office, the spacious library table in front of the still curtainless window. He'd installed in one corner a metal file cabinet, which with its square grey shoulders looked stiffly uncomfortable in the grand room. He'd also brought his cd player for his music, a novelty for the household, which had only a couple of radios and the TV in the main parlor for amusement. He envisioned himself typing at all hours to the accompaniment of soft jazz and occasionally classical music.

4

THE ROSE GARDEN

Becca usually slept late because of her night work at the restaurant, but some mornings she walked into the kitchen just as David was leaving for work. They'd had no real conversations since the trip outside to visit the rabbits. So far, he seemed the ideal boarder, quiet and mannerly. His morning routine included fixing himself breakfast in the kitchen while Jenny and Trey ate their corn flakes or puffed wheat washed down with cocoa or buttermilk. Trey inevitably let in his dog, Skipper, to eat scraps and be petted. Becca had long gotten over the severe guilt she felt for sleeping beyond her children's breakfast hour, but she still felt sorry enough to allow her son to have the dog inside at breakfast in compensation.

The restaurant job had come about unexpectedly a few years ago when the family had gone for a cheap meal at Ridley's Restaurant one evening. Although they seldom could afford to eat out, on certain special occasions like Becca's birthday, when no one was capable of preparing a meal for her, dining out seemed the best bet, and Ridley's the cheapest solution.

And the food was good and wholesome, too, just meat and three, so beloved by the family. As Becca waited at the counter for Edward to pay, she commented to Mrs. Ridley, making change, that she wondered how she and her husband could manage the place nearly all by themselves, with only a waitress to help out in the evenings.

"Oh, Miz Becca, I'm about worn out with the cleaning up, I'll tell you true. I can't hardly get the place set up for noon lunch sometimes because I'm trying to wash the pans, and do the breakfasts while Herb waits on customers. So many pots and pans to scrub. It's hard to get help with that sort of thing anymore. Young folks want to get tips–not stay in the kitchen."

Becca commiserated with her and resolved to come back the following day to discuss an idea with the woman. What if she came after closing time and did the cleaning up of the heavy cooking vessels? The dishes could go in the dishwasher during the open hours and she could put those away before tackling the greasy skillets, the baking pans encrusted with food, the cooking utensils too coated for the dishwasher.

Her idea was duly presented and Mrs. Ridley, after speaking to Mr. Ridley, called Becca that afternoon, agreeing to the arrangement. "We couldn't be more thrilled, Miz Becca, to have your help, but . . . ." She hesitated long enough for Becca to understand.

"I'm not concerned with my position, Mrs. Ridley. I want to be home when my children come home from school. I don't have any skills except being a good worker, and I know I can do for you if you'll let me."

They agreed on an hourly wage that seemed princely to Becca, having never earned money on her own since her days in the tobacco patch. She also found that she looked rather forward to the time alone, and no one outside the family had to know of her work, if that meant something to her in-laws. Yet, gradually, various townsfolk came to hear of her work, she discovered.

One morning just a week before Thanksgiving, after Jenny Lou and Trey caught the school bus, Becca poured herself a glass of orange juice and stepped out onto the back porch. She took a surprised sniff of air. Warmer today and clear. The sun was bright in a startlingly blue sky, bathing whatever green remained to an unusual intensity. She smelled deep earthy odors, brought up by the dew and made rich by the combination of late flowering plants and decaying undergrowth. She'd about worn herself out with summer and fall vegetable gardening, but the earth always drew her, especially in fine, deceptively fine, weather like this. It made her forget for a while about the coming cold.

"Nice day, ain't it?" Charles was sitting at the far end of the porch, just outside his bedroom door, in a chair made of twigs. He was wearing a red silk dressing gown, rubbed sheer at the elbows and exposing his bare legs. They were old man legs, spindly even though he was growing stout around the middle.

Just at that moment, David stepped from the door to his bedroom, dressed for work, carrying his briefcase. He wore a herringbone tweed sport coat over grey trousers. Becca liked to see a man in a coat and tie. Her throat tightened with an emotion that she could give no name to. But it had something to do with her husband. Edward hardly went out now, hardly even looked decent. She wondered if his few suits were wearable after hanging for so many years in his closet. Even though she took them out once a year and shook them and aired them on the back porch, moths continued to make inroads among their possessions, and would someday feast on his suits.

"Wonderful morning!" David saluted the other two jauntily.

"In'ian summah," Charles said, holding out his hand to the air.

"Beg pardon?" It was obvious David had trouble making out the words from the older man's soft-toned voice. Charles, like the rest of the family, had the lazy, aristocratic pronunciation so different from the countrified speech of Becca. But with her harder r's David seemed to have no trouble understanding her. Still, she wished she wouldn't slip so readily into her "country" talk, but old habits are hard to break, she thought ruefully. If she worked at it, she could speak nearly as well as the Thorpes, and she was committed to her children having the "proper" accent. David moved down the porch nearer Becca..

"Indian summer," she repeated. "This weather. I can't say I altogether like it, even though it's so pleasant. It fools too many things."

"What do you mean?" David smiled and hung his hip on the porch rail.

Becca pointed to some small trees in the foreground. "Flowering trees and shrubs think it's spring and start to blossom. But it's not their time, and the sap gets confused."

"Why is that a problem?"

Charles spoke up with a grin. "They got no juice when they really need it."

David looked out to the property. "Do you have many things here that might be fooled?"

Becca shrugged. "If we go on like this three or four days, the dogwood and azaleas might get antsy."

"'Course," Charles interjected, "we don't have much now in the way of plantin's at Rosehall."

"I guess it had some beautiful gardens in its day."

They all looked out at the dirt side yard with tracks leading among the weeds to the outbuildings. One small path went from Mr. Roscoe's place to a tiny outhouse, barely screened by a scraggly bush. A row of trees that needed pruning edged the property about two hundred yards away. Neglect. David would see it as Becca saw it.

"Rosehall was famous for its rose ga'den, of course," Charles stood up suddenly as if abashed at forgetting his role of host and stared at David. His eyes were blue and nearly lashless. "Have you seen it yet?"

David shook his head. "Where is it?"

"Come along. It's on the other side, overlooked by the parlor and dining room." He stepped off the end of the porch, grasping his dressing gown to keep it from flying apart.

"I'll walk with you," Becca said, setting her glass on the porch rail. She and David followed in Charles's tracks and carefully stalked along the back of the house through thick dying fern fronds, trying to avoid boards and bricks and rusting tools. Charles was barefoot.

When they reached an overgrown brick terrace outside the dining room windows, Charles stopped and flung his arm largely. "There it is!"

A weathered trellis-like structure marked the entrance to what was once the garden. A lone boxwood, crippled by the occasional harsh winter and lack of pruning, was sentinel to a withered army of plantings. Becca hung back while David stepped by it into the area. It was a hideous mass of stringy vegetation that stretched the length of the house and half again its width. Her own vegetable garden was a well tended plot directly behind the house opposite the stallion barns.

Strange how she'd never considered digging her own garden here. It'd seemed off limits. Too important to the history of Rosehall to install mere vegetables among its vanished borders and rare plants. Or maybe she'd been repelled by something she hadn't quite defined. Lord knows she'd grown up in wild country, and it'd seemed lovely. Still did, the high hills banked with cedar and maple and oak and ash trees, the rocky streams with their banks of mud that squished between her toes. And the spring wild flowers. How she loved to gather them for bouquets to brighten up the cabin. The rose garden at Rosehall was a different thing. It was akin to Rosehall itself, depressing, sad. It was as if the garden, once a thing of pride and beauty, had given in, not to nature, but to something unnatural and destructive that just might creep into their own souls.

Charles was looking at David expectantly, who stood just inside the gate unmoving.

"So," David said, "this is the rose garden."

David's host apparently took the remark for admiration and led the visitor eagerly along a vague path. Becca slowly entered the area, not quite keeping up with the men.

"You'll see the extent of the plantin's if you come along over here." Charles bent over and brushed aside a layer of sediment, puffing a little from his exertion. "Brick, you see. There's a half-mile of brick paths." He walked a bit farther on, pointing to an expanse of balding Queen Anne's Lace and other weeds, "That's where the English roses were planted. And over here, all the domestic varieties."

David contemplated the departed rose bushes with noncommittal noises. Becca smiled sadly at Charles's eagerness.

Finally David said, "What a huge garden this was." He pointed to the stone monument at the far corner. The grass to each side was tall and nearly obscured some tombstones. "What's that thing over there?"

"It's not a 'thing,'dear boy. That's the burial plot and monument for the Honorable John Peyton Thorpe."

"The founder of Rosehall?"

He nodded reverentially. "My great-great-great grandfather. It was he, as a matter of fact, who renamed this fair town after the great President. Prior to that, it had a most undistinguished name, so it was a happy choice of the judge's. He himself was a man of distinction, Colonel in the Revolutionary War, lawyer and eventually Judge." Charles lifted his head proudly and began walking in a small circle. His nose had a slight hook to it, and with his flapping gown and pipe stem legs all combined to suggest a seedy bird of prey not quite up to lifting off.

"He brought the beautiful Letitia Granby from Virginia," he went on, "in 1805, but she nearly pined away until he built her the rose garden. As I mentioned, he imported the plants from Virginia and England. Andy Jackson built Rachel's garden on a plan modeled after this one. Smaller, of course. Didn't have as many varieties of roses either."

"Fascinating!" David looked quickly at his watch. "I'd like to talk to you some more about the history of this place," he said, backing away pointedly, "when I have more time. Maybe I could write it up as a feature story. We could talk about it later."

"I'd be delighted, suh," said Charles with a gracious bow, "but my brother is the historian in the family."

Becca almost snorted at that. Edward hadn't the will to do any kind of systematic study. Historian indeed! David would be lucky to get five coherent sentences out of him.

They set off around the house again, Charles yawning and mumbling to himself. Then more clearly he said, "I must get around myself soon."

"Off to town?"

"Where today, Charles?" Becca asked.

"I'm spending the day at a cousin's place on North Branch Road."

"Ah." David looked puzzled, but politely didn't pursue it.

"Old woman, nearing eighty," Charles continued breathily, puffing a little because of the others' quick pace. "Dear old thing . . . about to pop off. . . I like to. . . cheer the old ones up." He smiled companionably at David. His teeth were very crooked and yellow and there was a hole where his upper bicuspid should have been. Becca felt embarrassed at the sign of more neglect in this family. Dental work was put off for all the adults until pain drove them to the dentist. But Becca saw to it that the children were tended. She herself was lucky to have good, strong teeth.

"Sounds like a very thoughtful thing to do." David looked as if he was poised to run, waiting for Charles to complete his rambling thoughts.

"It has certain advantages for me, too." Charles paused at the porch and picked up a thin branch at his feet. "You must stop by my room and see." David looked at him blankly. "Do now, really, Dave, I mean it! I think you'd like to see my things, some really interesting pieces."

"Charles has quite a collection of different art objects and silver pieces given to him by old friends."

"Really?"

Charles nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, indeed. In fact, some of the best pieces come from the coloreds who worked in the fine homes. I visit them too," he gave an affable smile. "Black or white, makes no nevermind to me--and they positively insist I take one or two little things to remember them by. And after they're gone, I am proud to say, many of the old relatives and friends with no family mention me in their wills. Do stop by and see what I have."

"I shall do that," David promised. "But I must be off right now."

After David left in his car, Charles settled back down in the twig chair, wrapped in sunlight and whipping the branch rhythmically on the rail.

"Nice boy," he said as Becca started back to the kitchen.

She paused briefly as if to speak, but only nodded at his comment.

At supper that evening, David spoke up during a lull in the conversation. "After our discussion this morning," he said to Charles, "coincidentally, Judge John Peyton Thorpe's name came up at the office."

"And how was that, my boy?"

"Doris Clammershorn told me she was writing a novel based on the life of the judge."

"Is she still at that?" Edward asked, looking up from his book.

"You know about it, then?"

Everyone at the table except Mitty and the children laughed. "She's been promising to write that for the last eighteen years, before I even met Edward," Becca said.

"Eighteen years!"

"She spent a goodly amount of time researching it here in our library," Mrs. Thorpe commented.

She gave Becca a brief glance and Becca knew why. She and Doris's mother had plotted to get Edward and the oh-so-proper Doris together, a royal wedding, you might say.

"I put a stop to that," said Becca. Her in-laws smiled reluctantly.

David looked at Becca. "Oh?" he said inquiringly.

But she didn't respond. He didn't have to know how she'd suffered at her triumph as usurper. Becca ate silently, remembering the social events before her marriage to Edward, the sort of teas and club parties that still made her uncomfortable to think about. Doris always had been there, of course, and her resentment was evident, though it had seemed to disappear altogether through the years. Probably when she realized the future she'd escaped from.

Becca had heard later from Edward that his family had reviled him, and Doris's had shunned him for not courting Doris and choosing Becca instead. "I told Mother it would take more than the Clammershorn name to hook myself to a fat, frumpy old maid. I wasn't interested in making a dynastic marriage." She had to ask what the word meant, and when he told her she laughed.

"You might've warned me at the beginning I was disappointing two mothers' hearts." She'd glittered with pride then. Becca Tucker winning Edward, the Thorpe name, Rosehall.

David was still talking about Doris's book. Hard to imagine eighteen years devoted to a single, probably never-to-be-realized project. "Why is Doris so interested in this judge anyway? What's significant about him?"

"He's had no national recognition, if that's what you mean," Charles answered. "As I mentioned earlier, he was a lawyer, of course, and a soldier, and for his service in the Revolutionary War, he received a large land grant in the new territory."

"You're living on what remains of it." Edward's mouth curled up on one side.

"He had an interesting personal story," Charles continued as if his brother hadn't spoken, "which is part of Doris's book, as I understand it."

"Did she find any juicy scandals in the Judge's life?"

Mrs. Thorpe looked startled at David's words. Becca smiled to herself. He hadn't learned the proper reverence for the past. Maybe like her, he never would.

"Judge Thorpe had an impeccable reputation," Mrs. Thorpe answered, "both in his public life, where he was most influential, and in his private life. He had six children, one son and five daughters and they--well, admittedly, they had some problems."

"What happened?" David looked around during the silence that followed his question. Edward extended his hand to his brother for Charles to continue the story.

"The son, nothing; he kept the place going admirably. But one daughter married a notorious slave trader who built a beautiful home for her out on the Dutton Pike. The gentry in the neighborhood ostracized them. Very hypocritical of them, since they did business with him regularly."

"Was that it--the scandal in the family?"

"No." He hesitated as if to prepare himself for a painful revelation. "Another daughter, Carrie, the most beautiful one, lost her mind. The horrible thing is, they locked her away," his voice dropped to a near-whisper, "in the attic, here--at Rosehall."

"My God, for life?"

"There are two beds--still there," Becca said flatly. "One for her and one for her maid who served her. There's a long rocking bench, a table where she ate. There were straps on her bed. Not a very nice business, I think."

"But what else could they do?" Mrs. Thorpe asked with a frown at Becca. "They had to keep her like that for her own protection, I suppose."

Becca frowned back. "I never could've treated someone I loved like that. I reckon they were ashamed." She looked at David. "The Thorpes, as you might guess, never could stand to be thought less than perfect."

No one contradicted her but all went on placidly eating.

5

THANKSGIVING

The morning of Thanksgiving Day, Becca noticed David wandering around the house and out in the side yard with the kind of aimless expectancy that she recognized from those few times she'd been somebody else's guest. The idle moments of a holiday. They were lovely--and rare for her. He would have had plenty to do here today if he were a woman. Becca had corralled Miss Mitty into service since Annie was home with her own family. The turkey was roasting in the oven, the sweet potatoes peeled and in their pan of water, the corn pudding and green bean casserole were ready to be baked as soon as the pies came out of the oven.

Becca thought she'd take a breather while Mitty was cutting up the celery and onions for the big pan of cornbread dressing. The turkey wouldn't be ready for another hour and a half..

She deliberately set out to find David, just for someone to talk to. He was nearer her age than the others in the household. She hadn't that many friends. When she became a Thorpe, she cut herself off from her former neighbors on the Ridge, and she couldn't say she'd found any of the younger women from the right social circles to be receptive to her. Many from the old families, like Doris Clammershorn, were friendly enough, but she'd not been included in their affairs. After a time, she quit trying. David, though, came from a different world where concerns of the Thorpes and Monroeville would be thought, no doubt, peculiar, if David's responses so far were any indication. She'd already noticed a sympathy toward her as if he thought he should take her side. But all she needed was a friend, just a friend; that would be enough.

She found him in the great hall examining the portraits. No one else was around. Edward was obviously holed up in his room where he spent most of his time. Mama Kate was resting from the exertion of bathing and dressing for Thanksgiving dinner. The children had been taken by Charles to Thanksgiving Mass at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church.

Charles's conversion to Catholicism had come as a surprise to the family since the religious heritage of the Thorpes had been as members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The fervor of by-gone days had lessened to lukewarm loyalty through the years.

As a youngster, Becca had occasionally attended a country Baptist church with her pa, but she'd found little time or energy to attend church, any church, lately. On rare occasions--mainly Easter and Christmas, Edward took his mother and Mitty to church. But Becca admitted they weren't a churchy family, except now for Charles. He was like all new converts she'd known, terribly enthusiastic. He was making an effort to interest Jenny and Trey in his church. Neither Becca nor Edward had objected.

David had himself given up formal religion, he told the family one night at dinner. He went on quite a bit about nuns with hard rulers and priests who coldly damned lapses in devotion until he realized his mistake and tried to squirm out of it. But Charles was tolerant of others' intolerance and only smiled blandly. He invited David to visit his church where he'd find Father a very different breed from the priests of David's memory. "Top-notch man, very understanding."

Becca came into the great hall and saw David before he noticed her as she treaded quietly toward him on the threadbare oriental carpet. He was peering closely at a portrait. Then he turned at the slight sound and watched her walk up to him.

"Sure is quiet around here," she said with a smile.

"Hello!" He cleared his throat, his voice hoarse and over loud.

"Why don't you turn on the wall sconces? It's darker than a gypsy's heart." She started toward the light switch.

"No, wait. I can see all I want to."

The sun streamed in at the far end of the hall by the front door. As they turned to face one another, Becca noticed the reflected light struck his face, as it must her own, on one side, leaving the other shadowed. His thick brown hair and his features--rather narrow nose, cleft chin, broad forehead--stood out sharply. His one grey eye looked intently at her. She felt heat rise on her cheeks, too pale, she was sure, in contrast to her dark hair.

"What can you tell me about this portrait?" he asked cocking his thumb behind him without looking at the painting.

She stepped around him to examine it. "Not a thing. It don't mean a thing to me. You'll have to ask one of the family. They'll know." She looked around the room at the other portraits in various dress and artistic styles spanning at least one hundred years. "And they need every last picture, it's that important to them." Well, that was cruel and sounded like sour grapes. "That is to say, they don't have much left. Now me, I never had any important ancestors to begin with, so I don't know what I'm missing." She smiled at him.

"Who were your family then?"

"Mine? They were just poor folk from the Ridge. Most likely you'd call 'em hillbillies. They never even came close to having their pictures painted."

"Do you have any family still living around here?" They had worked their way over to a rickety French-style sofa and sat down together, a foot of space between them. David turned sideways to look at her, putting one arm over the back rail. Becca sat leaning slightly forward, her legs crossed. She mostly kept her eyes on her own knee for fear he'd think she was cozying up to him.

"My daddy's still on his place up yonder about fifteen miles. He's over sixty, but he hunts and tends to himself like a man in his prime."

"And you? How did you happen to leave the hills?"

"I reckon it was going to school in town. Then one year I came to Rosehall to work during the tobacco season. Crops were grown here then," she explained, "and I met Edward. I never did want to go back home, so I married him."

It sounded bad put that way. Had that been her only choice? A dreary life with country bumpkins or what must seem to David an even drearier one with an ageing ne'er-do-well alcoholic. She took a deep breath. "It was important for me to leave the hills. I wanted to make something of myself, and I found a man who wanted me as his wife. I was mighty impressed by Edward and his family and Rosehall. Eventually, I learned the Thorpes were just people, and I love them for that. Same thing for this old wreck of a place. It was grander fifteen years ago, but even though it's run down, it's home now and I can't imagine living anywhere else."

"I guess, then, it's been better for you-- here, I mean, rather than the Ridge."

She had to ponder that a minute. She sat back and uncrossed her leg.

Finally she said, "It was hard at first. I didn't know what I'd be getting into. Mama Kate had cherished another idea of what her son's wife would be, and I wasn't it!" She gave a brief laugh. "I thought I'd be changed into a fine lady who knew when to wear gloves and say the right things at tea parties." Her smile faded and she looked at her small, roughened hands. "It didn't work that way, David."

"I'm sorry. I can see it would be tough for an outsider to fit in around here." He hesitated a moment, frowning. "How have you stood it?" he blurted out.

"Oh, law," she laughed, tilting back her head. "We get along now, David. It's not anything like it was at first with me trying to be something I wasn't and them despising me for whatever I tried to be. After my kids came, I decided to be plain Becca Tucker and let the family go hang, but the funny thing is they loved Jenny Lou and Trey so much they wasn't so tore up about me anymore."

They heard noises of talking and doors banging from the kitchen and stood up together. Charles and the children must have come back.

"I've never thanked you," David said with a catch of intensity in his voice "for taking me in when I needed a place so badly." They could hear from beyond the kitchen Miss Mitty trilling in a high quavery voice, "I Dreamt That I Dwelt In Marble Halls."

"Shoot, you looked like such a poor lonesome dog I couldn't say no." She walked toward the kitchen with David at her side, perhaps feeling not altogether pleased at her description.

"Oh, by the way," she said, turning to him, "you are most welcome to the Thanksgiving dinner if you were wondering. I forgot to mention it earlier. We've got some others coming."

"I wish I could, but Doris Clammershorn invited me for dinner with her and her mother."

"Well, good for the Clammershorns, and good for you, too. They're nice people." She wished she could stop her face from stiffening with disappointment. For sure, she'd thought he'd be eating with them. Why hadn't she asked him earlier? But David, too, looked disappointed. And why not? Spending Thanksgiving with the proper and dull Clammershorns would be a deadly trial for him.

"Would you like to take a turn outside?" Becca asked. "I bet you haven't been to the back of the property."

"No, I haven't, and yes, I'd like very much to take a walk. I don't have anything to do until one o'clock."

"Well, I do, but I don't mind if I take a little break." She grabbed an old jacket of Edward's she'd hung in the pantry. "It's a mite nippy, so if you need a jacket . . . ."

"I'm okay. This sweater is for Pennsylvania winters. I'll probably have to shed it once I get to Doris's."

"I expect it's just right for drafty old Rosehall." But she was giving him a grin when she said it. The house, it was true, was never thoroughly warm during winter months.

As they passed through the kitchen Jenny came up to her mother and said longingly, "Can I come too, Mama?"

"You haven't finished your chores yet. Help Miss Mitty with the dressing first, and then you can walk out to the creek if you want."

"Thanks, Mama." Jenny Lou gave David a smile and took up a paring knife.

Becca led David down the lane that led past the horse boxes and then onto a grassy meadow. They passed two grazing cows and a hoary mule in their enclosures. Beyond the fence to the left lay a small cultivated field with scraps of brown plants on the ground. "The tobacco patch. That's where I worked all those years ago."

"So Edward still grows tobacco?"

"No more. We'd be a sight better off if he hadn't lost the tobacco base. That land belongs to someone else now."

David nodded, and they walked on silently. But it was a nice silence, Becca thought. The redbirds and chickadees were flitting among the bare branches and sounding their distinctive calls. Becca wished she could afford to buy bird seed and draw more of them closer to the house. Soon the two walkers heard the low notes of tumbling water as it rushed over rocks. A row of trees bordered the banks of the stream ahead. It was a small tributary, about ten feet across, of the river that ran through town.

"How picturesque!" David exclaimed.

As they drew closer a sonorous rumbling told Becca that they weren't alone. She stepped around a large willow and saw old Roscoe, nearly hidden by its overhanging wands. She shrugged. "Roscoe kinda spoils the picture, doesn't he."

The old man dozed while a fishing pole, propped across his stomach, rose and fell with each snoring breath. He was wearing a checked wool jacket over his inevitable khaki work clothes. A grimy felt hat was pulled low over his forehead.

Becca didn't want to wake him up but stood silently with David contemplating the brownish-green water that leapt over the many rocks that clotted the stream.

"It would be easy to cross," David said.

Hearing Skipper's muffled bark through the trees on the other side, Becca laughed and pointed to the distant fields. "I reckon Trey takes advantage of the stepping stones."

With some mysterious sense of the near deaf, Mr. Roscoe became aware of their presence even though they spoke in low tones, for he awoke with a startled grunt and adjusted first his hat, then his line. He mumbled something about his bad luck in attracting the bream.

"Too much rain," he growled. "Creek's full up. Running too fast for 'em, y'know. They don't like the water goin' down or comin' up."

After Becca introduced the two men, she walked off a little ways and leaned against a neighboring tree to enjoy the peace. She could easily hear the conversation of the two. A one-sided conversation to be sure. Roscoe seemed to have welcomed David without question and was treating him as a not very bright nephew who had to have everything repeated.

They discussed fish, and the stream, and the land; and eventually he told David about himself. His father had been the founder and principal of a school for young men in Monroeville. But the schoolmaster failed to inspire a love of learning or industry in his son as Roscoe was quick to admit, chuckling. Instead, he wandered from job to humbler job and but for the good graces of the Thorpes would have ended up "in the dump," as he said. Still, he seemed to have no regrets for his life as a piece of aimless flotsam. Becca could see why. Who wouldn't like to live rent free, if rather poorly? But he was too old now, a fixture at Rosehall, for Becca to be resentful of the man.

When David asked him about his years with the Thorpes, he expounded on the good name and generosity of that family. His father and the grandfather of Edward and Charles had been best friends. Though the school master died poor, old man Thorpe, a big-time farmer and horse breeder, kept up his friendship and even gave a helping hand along the way to his friend's son, a responsibility taken on by his son and then by Edward.

"Don't think young Edward wouldn't do more, if he could, not for me, y'know, but for his family. Yes, sir, he'd do plenty for them and for Rosehall if he could."

"I'm sure he would have," David shouted, "if he had more capital to farm with." He turned to Becca, who was looking at them with amusement, and shrugged hopelessly. David was obviously embarrassed by the turn the conversation had taken.

"Boy," said Roscoe sternly, his rheumy blue eyes fixing on David, "there ain't been any land left to farm for years. They've been selling off for years. Been selling off for years, y'know. That little gal," he pointed at Becca, "tried to get him to hang on to the tobacco base, but he had to let that go 'bout two, three years ago. Two, three years it was that the gal tried that."

Becca openly laughed at David's discomfiture. David would learn all about them now. Mr. Roscoe would set him straight on everyone and everything about Rosehall.

"Miss Becca did, for sure. She's worked like a horse to keep it together, but she can't seem to get 'em fired up. Never could get 'em fired up, y'know."

"Is that so?"

"She wanted young Edward to teach at the high school--could of, y'know, he's a Vanderbilt man, he is. Then she thought Miss Mitty could do dress making, and she even had a goddamned idea that Miss Kate could work at the county hospital, just because she'd done volunteer work there. Yes, she did try all that!" He heaved his ponderous weight to his feet, emitting grunts and farts. "Isn't that right, Miss Becca?" he rumbled.

"Yes, Roscoe, they're hopeless." Becca gave David a wink.

"I'm eating at the big house today," said Roscoe, "so I'd best go back and get cleaned up."

Becca joined them, and they began their walk back, Roscoe continuing his patter.

"Well, young Edward knew what he was getting when he married this here fireball. Yes, sir, he knew, that he did. The boys in town used to call her Bird Dog, y'know, when she was a school gal. Isn't that the truth, Miss Becca?"

"Oh, I suppose they did, Roscoe. But those days are long gone and best forgotten."

"Bird Dog?" David looked at Becca with a raised eyebrow.

"When I come off the Ridge to go to town school, I couldn't get enough of the boys. They seemed so fine to me. I was looking for clean fun, of course," she added rather primly.

" Purty little wild thing she was," Roscoe continued, "gonna get what she wanted. Anyone could see that. When I seen her in that tobacco patch," he pointed in the direction of a tobacco barn, which stood like a huge airy outhouse, "with her eye on Edward, I knew he was done for. I heard tell young Lowe had fixed on her first, but when she--"

"Hush now, Roscoe. David's going to think I'm terrible."

"Yes, sir, Hatcher Lowe's done right well for hisself. He's County Judge now. He was a country boy with no education to speak of, but he was crafty. Yes, sir, he was crafty. He knew enough to kow-tow to the right people."

"Hatcher Lowe?" David looked at Becca "The judge who's ordering the tax reassessment?"

Becca nodded. "The same. Up to no good, as usual."

"Powerful man," mumbled Roscoe, "wouldn't want to cross him now. Nope, wouldn't want to cross him."

David ducked to avoid a low branch and held it for Becca to pass under. Roscoe stopped and pointed at four grey weathered boxes on wooden stands nearby.

"There's my bees. Look at those hives, will you."

"Oh, you raise bees?"

Becca knew about the hives, but she saw no activity. Maybe they were nesting or hibernating or whatever bees did.

"The best goddamned honey around," Roscoe said. "Best goddamned honey." They walked over to take a closer look. David wondered aloud at the advisability of this, but Roscoe had already lifted the top off one of the boxes. They peered into an empty space.

"They just up and left one day last summer. I never knew why they did it, but something was bad wrong. I'd added extra comb boxes even, but the new queen took off with the whole damned swarm following her."

Becca and David turned at the sound of thudding footsteps and saw Jenny running toward them, dress flying, coatless.

"That girl," Becca murmured, "will catch her death."

Roscoe ignored the newcomer as he clamped the lid back on the hive and stomped off to his house with his slow, immensely long stride.

"I'd saved them poor things from starving last spring when times were hard for them," he threw back at David, who along with Becca and Jenny were following the old man. Jenny Lou had stationed herself beside David.

"What's that you say? Who?" David shouted at the old man, looking confusedly at Becca, who only shook her head.

"The colony." Roscoe rumbled. "I gave 'em sugar water that spring 'cause they didn't have enough blooms to get at. We'd had a late frost, y'know. Never had no foul brood, neither, and they still left. Probably perished somewhere for all I know." He muttered darkly at the fickleness of bees and left the others behind as he turned toward the door of his house.

"Is the dressing in the pan?" Becca asked her daughter.

"Yes, ma'am. Granny Kate wants to know when we're serving. The aunts will be here any minute."

"Oh, dear. Yes. I guess I've had enough of a break. Time to get busy again," she said. But she was glad--oh, so glad--she'd taken the walk. She felt refreshed and renewed, almost like a girl again.

David glanced down at Jenny, who'd kept pace with him at his side. "You're looking nice today. All dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner, I guess."

Jenny stared at the ground, but she smiled with pleasure.

"That's a particularly pretty necklace you're wearing. It looks old."

Jenny fingered the delicate chain. "My granny gave it to me. It belonged to her grandmother." She looked up at him through her lashes. "It has real amethysts and diamonds, and it's called a lavaliere."

"I let her wear it on special occasions," Becca noted. "We don't have many such of those anymore."

"Do you really think this Judge Lowe is trying to force you folks out?" David asked her.

"It kinda looks like it, doesn't it." But she wouldn't say more about their affairs to this man. Nice though he was, he was still a stranger.

"I may check into this tax business a little more closely. Do a story on it, at the least."

"You do that if it pleases you, David."

"I don't do it to please me. Maybe this should be investigated a little bit more. If this could be hurtful to your family, I'd like to know if it was deliberately done. I've never known a family like the Thorpes with such a--well, dramatic fall from grace, if you could call it that--and the last act is yet to come. Like a Greek tragedy. As if they sealed their fate by following the wrong goddess--some banished Io, out of favor and powerless."

"Greeks again," Jenny said. "You sound like Daddy."

"It's not important," David said with a smile and a pat on her shoulder. "I'm just using that as a figure of speech." Jenny nodded and skipped on ahead of them.

Becca nodded agreement. "You're right. And they'll be loyal to their goddess as they sink under just because the Thorpes have always worshiped her." The hallowed name of Thorpe. It was so like the family to devote themselves to a pointless ideal.

6

EDWARD

"No time like the present," was the maddening way the old man had always put it. Trying to spur him toward accomplishment. But then, a life of the mind was unacceptable to that human engine of activity. Early on Edward had experienced his father's disdain for his languidness. Inevitably, the disdain led to rude prodding for action.

"No time like the present," the old man would say. God! How irritating and predictable--frustrating, too. His daddy had never understood him, had never realized how impossible it was for him to convert the teeming activity of his mind into something practical for the mundane world. He thought of that now as he lay on the bed, midday, a glass of sherry beside him. He'd always had to sneak off for his moments of contemplation. Only after his father died did he feel free to submit to solitude without using subterfuge.

As a young man Edward wanted to share what was going on in his head. He would say, "This county needs a museum. What a shame no one has organized the records and collected artifacts." And his father would answer, "You do it. You're just the one for it, boy. Get going on it. There's no time like the present for getting started." And those inevitable words would seem to dry up Edward's interest. Once he had thought of how a great pool for horse breeding could be established in the southeast. It would have brought together the shrinking group of horse people to concentrate on developing racing stock and walkers instead of the unwanted work and riding breeds. But he was unable to Marshall his energies to pursue this plan and it trailed off into that wasteland of "one of Edward's ideas."

His mind was very active. He studied arcane subjects such as the etymology of words with a fanatic's zeal. His friends and family, seemed to find this particular study of his to be exasperating and tended to tune him out. So, naturally, he restrained his remarks to commenting in an enlightening way on any misuses of the language or to make brief observations from his readings.
It astonished him how little interested most people were in origins or concepts. They were content to live in a ho-hum routine, dead to curiosity. Maybe they couldn't help it; he didn't know, but why should it bother others if he had his own interests? His mother, of course, knew what he was about and appreciated his mental pursuits. Her own mind was, unfortunately, too vague and undisciplined to take any real delight in Edward's discourses, but at least she recognized his superior intellect.

He could talk to Milt Henshaw, who was just about his closest friend, he guessed. Milt had a keenness that divined the meandering of Edward's wit and wisdom, even though he himself was a practical man.

But Becca! Edward shakily lit a cigarette. That was a cruel bitch. She lived her life on the most common level and even there she eluded him.

She'd panted after him before they were married until he was half crazy. For a while he'd thought it was good for both of them. Sex had been a real bond between them. As far as he was concerned, their physical union was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. Then after a few years she began to just lie there as if waiting only for it to be over.

He sat up and stubbed out the cigarette. He drained the sherry and immediately poured out another. He wished he didn't care so much. He should get himself another woman. Lottie Dillehay at the library--married, but her salesman husband was away frequently--would drop her pants if he lifted his eyebrow. Or maybe Mary Beech Morgan, the friendly divorcee at the courthouse. She'd always seemed fascinated by his researches. Smiled prettily at him. Maybe. Other women he'd been slightly attracted to also rose in his imagination and just as abruptly sank.

He knew he'd do nothing, attempt no rendezvous, probably not even flirt. He wanted Becca back as she used to be. She wasn't stupid, and once they could talk. Now she didn't seem to hear him. He wanted more than her obedient respect, more than the dispatching of her duty. Self-pity choked him until he couldn't tell it from anger. He emptied the glass of sherry he'd been sipping in one gulp. No, he didn't want Becca! Fuck her! He didn't need anyone who didn't need him.

He walked to the window of his room and looked out over what once had been their land. How he wished he had a horse to ride. The old nag that Trey had ridden had gone to the glue factory. He lay back again remembering the superior horseflesh that had cavorted at Rosehall. Beautiful, strong beasts! He'd been truly the master then. His daddy had never been impatient of Edward's handling of the horses. Too bad the money had run out.

Edward turned on a small radio by his bed and twirled the dial to find the slow, sentimental music he liked. Songs about lost love and missed chances and sad memories. When the money had gone, he thought morosely, my life ended too. No one, bred to the best, could be expected to rise above these intolerable conditions. That conviction had grown stronger with the years, swollen with bitterness until he couldn't think of his father without feeling an impotent fury. He got up and began to pace around the bed. How stupid and unfair that the old man had ruined everything! His father's gambling–he'd called it investing--had reduced the great Thorpe family to paupers. Paupers! He laughed, beginning on a low derisive note which mounted to a cackle until he collapsed coughing and groaning on the bed.

He heard his name being called from downstairs. The clock on the mantel said 1:10. He remembered today was Thanksgiving. There was to be some sort of gathering. Two old aunts were coming, bringing inedible pecan pies and a musty whiff at close range. He hoped Mama wouldn't seat them near his end of the table. He'd rather have Roscoe at his elbow, cursing under his breath and eating like the greedy old man he was. Roscoe was all right. He knew where his bread was buttered, sliced thin and barely spread though it was.

Just one more drink then, before the ordeal. He only just managed to keep one step ahead of his sherry supply. His mother already gave him nearly all of her measly annuity for household expenses, and food and fuel costs were getting higher by the year. He always had to grimace at his first drink of the day, his palate insulted by the lowly grade of sherry he was forced to buy.

He walked to the door of his room in a slow swinging gait, still steady after three hours of drinking, musing on the group beginning to assemble below. A rag-tag bunch compared to the old days. He remembered the banquet table adjoined in all its sections to form an eighteen-foot length, festooned with flowers in tall epergnes, resplendent in an array of Irish lace and lead crystal, bone china, and heavy engraved silver. He couldn't remember all the people they had entertained, but the women had been beautifully gowned and the men laced with the look of prosperity. Servants had flitted like silent black wraiths between dining room and kitchen, making sure the plates and glasses were constantly filled. His mother he remembered as the cool, elegant hostess non-pareil.

And now, he mused, after all of the glory, we have come to that pathetic party awaiting him in the dining room. The whole affair would be an bore. For at least an hour he wouldn't be able to escape to solitude.

He slowly descended the great staircase. The hall was glowing with reflected sunlight and he looked around as if seeing it for the first time. This room still looked pretty good. It had the least amount of wear and tear and was protected from the elements, yet Edward was struck by the crumbling aspect of the old place. It seemed like an oil painting that had gone bad, covered with a film of filth, the beauty that the artist had sought to capture now unreal. Rosehall seemed to be nearing its end.

Why were they holding on so devoutly? So they could live like the dregs of the earth, pride nearly vanished? Edward hadn't added up their debts lately, but between the bank and Milt's generous personal loans it must be a tidy sum by now.

The dining table had a festive look, although the dishes were second or maybe third best Spode and there were no silver serving pieces. They had been carted off one by one to a Nashville pawn broker to pay for Jenny Lou's dental work and tax payments. Edward couldn't remember for sure when all the good stuff had started to go--it didn't seem but three or four years ago. The family treasures had been almost intact when his father died. Then Charles had been sent on first one, then another and another of those depressing errands. It had hurt Charles more than anyone else to get rid of the family heirlooms. Edward permitted himself a laconic smile as he took his place at the head of the table. Charles had hoped to add the lion's share of household furnishings to his moth-eaten collection. No, no, he'd said in blustering defense, it was for the children, he'd wanted to save the heirlooms for the children.

Edward sighed and looked at his children despondently. What rotten lives they had led. From the time they were old enough to remember it had been pinch-penny this, denial of that. He felt he hardly knew them. He hadn't really wanted them to know him as he was now anyway. It would have been different if they all could have enjoyed the salutary benefits of prosperity. This family knew innately how to live with style and discrimination, given half a chance. Pretty Jenny, sitting there in her cheap cotton dress. She should be attending a fine girls boarding school as her grandmother and great aunt had. Edward was startled by the recognition that his daughter had been growing up under nearly the same conditions as her mother had. He glanced up at his wife, entering the room with a bowl of mashed potatoes in one hand and one of escalloped corn in the other. Her cheeks were pink from her exertions and her eyes were bright and happy. Her beauty touched him, but he turned his head away from her.

As Becca sat down she nodded to him they were ready, but as he began to dish up the sliced turkey Charles cleared his throat noisily and nodded in savage urgency to across the table. Edward looked over and saw the black garb and prematurely balding pate of the Catholic priest. Father Noland was showing off somewhat to Mrs. Thorpe and had missed the signals.

". . . er, Father Noland?" Edward's voice cut across the buzz of general conversation and the table hushed with self-conscious expectancy. Everyone reached for his neighbor's hand to form a circle in a ritual little practiced but familiar enough.

The priest sat at his place and offered a short, formula grace, then added, "and for all our blessings may we be truly grateful."

Before Charles and the two children could intone their amens, Edward snorted audibly. The two old aunts, Miss Elizabeth and Miss Fannie Belle, looked up with surprise on their faces. The others ignored the sound, except for Mr. Roscoe, who in his deafness had heard neither the prayer nor the snort and was helping himself to the platter of turkey that sat between him and Edward.

"Blessings, huh, Father?" Edward spoke brusquely, deliberately trying to rattle the clergyman. Edward thought him a smooth, jovial fraud. "To whom do we give thanks for our curses?"

"Oh, I say, brother. . ." Charles sputtered.

The priest, however, looked briefly at Edward then down at his plate with a small smile and answered, "Ourselves, more often than not."

The table relaxed and incidental conversations sprang up. Miss Fannie Belle, sitting on pillows because of her diminutive size, beamed at Charles.

"I enjoyed your visit last week so much, Charles."

"The pleasure was all mine, Aunt."

"It was so sweet of you to bring me that old book. I hadn't read Evelina for years, since I was a school girl."

Charles grinned yellowly, showing all of his teeth. He'd confided to Edward that he was expecting a little gift himself--either the silver stamp box with the boar's head crest, or the fine piece of Lalique he'd admired in the etagere.

Becca's voice rang out, directed at the priest though Edward knew loud enough for his benefit. Good. He had been hoping for a fight.

"Blessings can be funny things, can't they Father? Sometimes we don't know what we've got till it's gone from us."

"I'd like some corn before it's gone. No more where that's come from, most likely." Roscoe's complaint cut in embarrassingly. A bowl was swiftly passed to him.

"Absolutely, my dear Becca," Father Noland responded. He seemed heartened by the turn the conversation had taken. "That's why we always must pray for our eyes to be opened. Then too, our values can change. What might be important to us at one time may later on be seen to be worthless."

"Worthless? How dreadful." Mrs. Thorpe looked shocked. "I can't imagine any such thing happening. What could happen to make someone change his thinking that much?"

"Oh, many things, Mama," said Edward airily, dishing up the last plate and handing it to his daughter. "Why, I recall when I thought the thing to do in life was to try to live somewhat above the level of beasts. Now, older and wiser, I realize what a luxury that is. Human existence is basically no different from any other animal's except we have the brains to delude ourselves, thinking we claw towards power for more altruistic or refined reasons."

"Now I think that's a bit stiff," said Charles, shaking his head and taking an enormous bite of turkey and cornbread dressing.

The priest looked at Edward with interest. "Well, it's true you could make a case for self-interest as a universal motive, even perhaps in the lives of those saints who may have devoted themselves to others with seeming self-abasement or disregard. Some critics might say they were looking ahead to some sort of eternal power as one of the inner circle."

"But you're both leaving out love," cried Becca. "Love means you don't think of yourself first, if at all. You don't do something for others for what you can get out of it."

"You couldn't have rephrased St. Paul more neatly," said Father Noland.

"Oh?" sneered Edward. "And what does all that love really get you except for some cold comfort when the world falls down around you?"

"Cold comfort can be pretty important," said Father Noland cheerfully. "Don't forget, the Holy Spirit has been called the Comforter. It has a transforming power so that what the world sees as bad can be a gateway to peace of mind and true joy. It is the absolver of sin."

Mrs. Thorpe cleared her throat nervously. It was well known to the family that religious talk seemed tasteless to her. "I understand your church is contemplating a building project?"

"Either that or renovation of the parish hall." They went off on a tangent of pledges and construction estimates and slip-shod contractors. Edward sank back in his chair and impatiently waited for the end of the meal. He wondered about the priest.

He suspected Catholic priests had better opportunities than most men for a good lay. Women always seemed to hang around them and there were no vigilant wives keeping a watchful eye on too lengthy counseling sessions. He had caught the priest's, "my dear Becca," and it didn't set too well. If Becca wasn't hot at home she must be getting it somewhere. All those nights out alone would make assignations easy. The fact that she didn't go to the church made it even more likely. He studied her face as she attended to the needs of the guests and chatted comfortably. There was no special preference given the priest, but that was just being smart. It bore thinking about.

His thoughts went to her work at the restaurant which made him shudder inwardly. How could she do such menial labor? She could be a top-notch bookkeeper somewhere if she set out to be. Her household accounts were immaculate and she was smart enough to grasp the procedure. He wondered if her working in that slimy kitchen was a slap in his face, letting everyone know in her not-so-subtle way he was not providing for them.

At last the pies were brought in along with a bowl of whipped cream. Edward and Father Noland declined to be served and sat smoking while the others finished up their dessert. Mr. Roscoe and Charles were eating their slabs with particular gusto, making appreciative noises, Mr. Roscoe inadvertently and Charles for the benefit of the aunts.

The priest rubbed his rounded belly and remarked, "The meal was delicious, and I'm afraid I made the most of it. Lucky for me that gluttony is the only sin a priest is forgiven by his flock." There were a few uncertain smiles. Edward could read their faces clearly. Too much talk of sin at this meal!

His mother had been trying her best to keep her end up, but the peculiar conversation stimulated, no doubt, by the priest's presence had seemed to confuse her already rather confused mind. She would probably find it convenient to blame Father Noland for the upset to her dinner table. It had been hard on her, Edward knew, when Charles developed this consuming interest in the Catholic church, for Mrs. Thorpe had expressed more than once that she believed with all the certainty of most Southern Protestants that Catholics in general were vaguely disreputable (so many foreigners) and Catholic priests were possibly even immoral. Even though Father Noland spoke readily on doctrinal matters, he had a troubling disregard of the proper pious attitude, which Mrs. Thorpe found somehow essential to a minister.

Father Noland seemed to have no scruples about appearing worldly. He openly smoked a cigarette, and enjoyed his drinks boldly, like a connoisseur. He'd even brought along two bottles of wine for the dinner, which he and Edward and Charles were making quick work of. At one point, he'd stunned the company into silence by remarking that every church should have at least one reformed harlot and a prodigal son to justify its existence.

The priest sat back in his chair and looked admiringly around the room. "This is quite a beautiful old place. Roomier, too, than it appears from the outside. I suppose that has something to do with proportion."

"Would you like me to show you around?" Edward rose from his seat and inclined his head toward the door to the parlor. He felt sure the priest could be persuaded to take a nip of sherry--it should have been brandy--before setting out on a tour.

"Delighted." Father Noland made a gracious departure from the table and followed Edward. All the women rose to help clear the table. Edward had noticed Becca bite her lip as she cast an anxious eye on him leading the priest out. He grinned to himself. As if he could corrupt him!

The sitting room had too much Victorian furniture and bric-a-brac to be really tasteful, but its spaciousness and certain elegant pieces still made it an impressive sight for first-time visitors like Father Noland.

Edward was proud of the twelve-foot-high pier mirrors on their low supports, gilded and ornamented with rococo designs, which stood between the tw large windows overlooking the garden area. On either side of the embellished fireplace were fine mahogany consoles. The room sparkled from Becca and Annie's industrious polishing. Father Noland seemed to be sniffing up the atmosphere as he seated himself on one of the four Belter sofas spaced around the room. Edward busied himself with the drinks from a cabinet.

"I think what I admire most about things of this period," said the priest, "is not the opulence, but the designer's attention to detail and at least giving a nod to the Greek ideal of beauty."

"Oh?" Edward handed him a glass. "I hadn't thought about it much. I guess I've always rather admired the opulence for whatever reason."

"The grand scale does express a largeness of mind and a confidence that's impressive, I will admit. However, I think it also expresses contempt. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, contempt for the small-minded and meanness in the British sense of the word. And I heartily agree with the old designers. Poverty and its accompanying humbleness shouldn't be encouraged."

"Novel thought. I had in mind humility. But your idea reminds me of the peasants who worshiped in gorgeous churches and Cathedrals. Why not, say some critics, have distributed all the money used to build those extravagant buildings to those in poverty who worship there. But I think those poor folk who never saw any beauty except when they worshiped always would opt for that over an extra chicken in their pot or a new outfit of clothes."

"Exactly. Maybe that's why we continue to live here, at Rosehall, even though we now have the status of the poor peasant."

The priest seemed not the least discomposed by Edward's candor. "It must be terribly expensive to keep up."

"It must be. I don't know, since we can't afford to."

"Well, everything changes. Maybe your fortunes will too."

"Maybe so. Let me show you the rest of the house. Take your glass with you." They left the sitting room and strolled into the Great Hall, talking quietly while Edward pointed out the portraits and furnishings. He led Father Noland upstairs, minding the glass of sherry he'd filled to the brim before leaving the parlor.

He was beginning to feel a reluctant liking for the smallish, plump priest. The Catholics gave their own a fairly decent education, and if it wasn't wasted on someone with no intellect, he might possibly be entertaining to have around. For the first time he felt more than disinterested acquiescence at the idea of his children being instructed in the Catholic faith. Charles had been so insistent and it had seemed of so little moment Edward had hardly given it a thought. Now, comparing Father Noland with the usual run of clergymen in the town he was pleased that Jenny Lou and Trey would have this man for their mentor.

"How do you amuse yourself, Father?" Edward swung open the door to his mother's room. "Your parish is small and you can't have many duties to occupy you."

The men entered the room and the priest gave a low appreciative whistle. "Wonderful room! That mantel almost looks like an Adam." He turned to Edward and gave him the smile of a confidant. "You've found me out. It takes most of my parishioners sometimes years to guess the truth. I have other interests--second, of course, to my parish--that can occupy many an idle moment. I keep my old turntable for a record collection of mainly the classical and baroque composers. Don't you think music, serious music is one of the approaches to the spiritual?"

Edward's eyes grew opaque as if a thin curtain had been drawn over them. "I don't know. My music education has been neglected."

"Please come over sometime and let me share some of my favorites with you. Not many people are even interested in learn--"

"There you are!" The door had burst open and Charles appeared, breathless from his long climb. "Father, I beseech you to help me. I've been studying the Catechism every chance I get, but for the life of me I don't understand the nature of grace and good works and why we're saved by faith alone." He looked at his brother reproachfully. "I hoped Father could give me a little time today to go over this. I don't want to sound ignorant when the Bishop comes."

The priest looked annoyed for a fleeting second and then laughed. "Charles, you never let up, like the good soldier you are, even on a holiday. Of course, I'll help you. I hope I can say I've never turned away an honest seeker of the truth."

He said to Edward before going off. "I'd like to see the rest of the house some other time, if I may. I'm really very interested in it."

Edward shrugged with the vast indifference of one who has disengaged himself from an entanglement. "Fine."

The two men left together and Edward went into his room, feeling abandoned. He told himself he was glad to be free of the priest and walked over to the radio to find his usual music. The bed looked inviting. But he'd have a little sherry first. He poured himself another drink and lay half-reclining on the bed, sunk into a reverie. The singer on the radio cried dolefully, "I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody new."

7

MISSING

Becca had not been over joyful to go to work Thanksgiving night. She'd had a hard day, what with the cooking and baking, serving and cleaning up for the large group around the dinner table. Still, the restaurant was open on Thanksgiving, and she'd made a commitment to the Ridleys, who were kindness itself to her, giving her a nice bonus if business was particularly good, not to mention leftover food portions large enough to make several meals for the Thorpes. And she'd had a chance for a brief rest after the do-for-yourself supper. When she left the house at ten-thirty, the children were in their rooms, Jenny occupied with a book, Trey sound asleep. Edward was nowhere in sight, but that wasn't unusual; he might have been sitting alone in the darkened parlor, sipping the inevitable sherry and getting pie-eyed after the strain of entertaining.

David had come in early in the afternoon and joined the others for conversation but soon went to his room for rest or writing. He popped up again around six o'clock for a turkey sandwich and cold dressing. "Better than Doris's," he said with smiling eyes directed at Becca.

At the restaurant, Becca spent her usual three hours cleaning the cooking equipment and utensils and then working an extra thirty minutes to remove the dirty tablecloths and wrap up the silverware in paper napkins for use the next day. When she returned home, it was near three in the morning. Stepping into the kitchen quietly, she was greeted by Skipper, who wagged his entire rear end guiltily. Trey was supposed to let him out at night. She patted him and then shoved him gently out the door. He'd be fine. His doghouse on the porch was fitted out with warm blankets.

As always, on the way to her bedroom, she stopped to poke her head in the children's rooms. Trey had to have the covers that he kicked off pulled up. He was huddled in a ball for warmth, but so sound asleep he didn't budge as his mother adjusted the comforter around his chin. She was amused to see his legs almost instantly straighten out,

When she looked in on Jenny, her thoughts were confused for a moment when she saw the empty bed. Could she have gotten up already? No, of course not. The bathroom had been unoccupied as she went past it to Jenny's room. Sleepwalking? Becca turned on the ceiling light, which flooded the room with a bright glare. Jenny was not in her room. The bed, a curdle of blankets and sheets, must have been slept in, or at least had held her daughter's body while she lounged and read.

Becca stood for a moment contemplating her options. This was unlike her daughter to leave her bedroom in the middle of a winter night, but not unimaginable; she might have heard something, say an animal, outside and gone to investigate. The girl was foolish at times and impulsive. Maybe she'd forgotten to feed her rabbits, what with all the company, and remembered when she was in bed. But it was so late. Panic began to rise in Becca. Where was Edward now that she needed him? He wasn't, she had noticed, in their room. He could be almost anywhere, in a chair, on a couch, sleeping it off.

She ran downstairs and went from room to room, hoping to see the pale, sleeping head of her child pillowed on the arm of a sofa. She ended up in Mitty's room behind the kitchen. But the old woman was sleeping alone, a whispering snore coming from her partially opened mouth.

She stepped outside on the porch and called softly, "Jenny Lou, are you out there?" When the only answer was the night silence, the sloughing of dead leaves in the trees, the cry of a night bird, she called again, more loudly, "Jenny, girl, come on in, right now!" No faint cry answered her plea. A scuffling noise nearby alerted her. But it was only Skipper, emerging from his doghouse. He whined at her with wagging tail, but she had no thought to pet him now. The horse box with the rabbits was dark. Maybe she'd gone there and fallen asleep while keeping her rabbits company. Becca set off with her quick stride down the path. The box was barred as usual from the outside. Nevertheless, she opened it up and again called her daughter's name into the darkness. But she knew there'd be no response.

Her heart was leaping now. The girl had probably gone out for a midnight stroll. It was cold, but she wouldn't have cared. Once in the summertime, she'd gone out to the porch and fallen asleep in Charles's twig chair until morning. Becca returned to the house and ran up the stairs to fetch the shotgun from the closet in the master bedroom. If she had to go after her, she'd be prepared for anything.

Shells, where were they? A drawer in the kitchen, she thought. She ran down the stairs and began opening drawers at random and slamming them shut.

"What's going on?"

She wheeled around to see David standing in the doorway. His hair was mussed and he wore only a T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

She opened another drawer and found the box of shells. "Jenny Lou's took missing." She began to load the shotgun.

"She's gone? Run away, you mean?"

"I don't know," she snapped, "but she's sure as hell gone off since I can't find her anywhere."

"Did she leave a note then?"

"No note, I just checked her room and she's not there."

"Maybe she's gone to another room to sleep."

She shook her head tensely. "Nope, I've looked everywhere. Even peeped in Mitty's room, but she's not there either."

He gestured toward the gun. "Why all that?"

"I'm going out after her. I don't know what critters, wild or human, I might run into." "You're not going alone. I'll get my jacket. What about the others? Shouldn't we let them know?"

"Edward must be out already. Maybe he spotted she was gone and went out after her too. I don't want the others to get upset before we know anything for sure. We'll just poke around the outbuildings and along the creek. She probably just wandered off." Her composure, which hadn't wavered up to now, began to crack. She fought to control her trembling mouth, looking at him with tears in her eyes. "There's a sliver of moon and sometimes that will draw her."

The moon, just beginning to wane, was near the horizon at this hour and barely shed enough light to cast dim shadows. David started at the sudden movement of leaves near the back of the house and at the rustle of dry branches, but it was Skipper again. They walked quickly down the path toward the creek, repeating their earlier walk. Becca had begun to call Jenny's name and David joined his voice to hers. They paused in their steps periodically to listen.

David had thought to snatch up a flashlight before they left, and he trained its feeble beam across the fence into the neighboring field. Roscoe's mule had not been put up for the night but stood next to the fence. It turned its head at their approach and looked peevishly at the light.

Becca and David paused at the entrance to the first horse box, the one that Jenny Lou's rabbits were in. Both top and bottom doors were wide open.

"I already looked in there," Becca muttered. David flashed the light around the empty barn anyway. Even the cages were empty, and for a moment Becca thought the rabbits were gone. But the flashlight revealed two quivering lumps of fur on a bale of hay in the corner. Becca let out a despairing sob. "She's been here, but she'd never leave her rabbits like this."

David suggested they turn around and walk along the road to town but Becca pointed to the dark clump of trees by the creek.

David protested at that. "Surely she wouldn't wander off into the wooded area alone."

"She's got something of the woodsy in her. Nothing seems to scare those little bones." On their way to the creek David without a word bounded over to Roscoe's cabin. Becca could hear him shouting at the top of his lungs, "Mr. Roscoe! It's me, David!"

When he returned to the path, he said, "The only answer I got was a snore from the living room."

"I didn't think she'd end up there anyway."

Then from out of the shadows of the last horse box, a tall, male form emerged. Suddenly the man seemed to lurch off toward the direction of the house, flinging back in a rough snarl, "S'cold. I'm sick. I need a goddamn drink." Edward, the loving husband and father. Becca's lips tightened with fury.

"Wait a moment!" David cried, running after him. He caught hold of the man's arm and turned him about sharply. Becca caught up with them.

"We've been looking for Jenny Lou," she said calmly and distinctly. Edward was roaring drunk, and her shame in front of David made her gather self-control. "Have you seen her?"

"Have you searched down by the creek?" David asked.

"Haven't, no," he mumbled. "Been sick, puked. Took a piss back of the house. Got mixed up in my way back. Don't know . . ."

He weaved a little and put his hand to his eyes.

David still held his arm. He gave it a jerk. "Get hold of yourself, man! Your wife is frantic. Come and help us look for Jenny." The smell of vomit was strong on the drunken man.

Edward shrugged off David's hand. "No, can't . . . go to bed. Got to go."

Becca looked at her husband coldly. "Did you hear something earlier, Edward? Is that what got you up?"

"I . . .don't know. God! Leave me be. Sick."

Becca and David looked at one another and Becca made a negative gesture with her hand. Then she spoke in a loud voice, as if trying to make a foreigner understand a strange tongue.

"Walk with us, Edward. It will help you. We all need to hunt for Jenny. She may be lost, hurt. Come and help us."

"Shit." He reeled away from them. "Leave me be."

"You go on back then, but I'm aiming to find her!" She swung on her heel and set off down the path to the creek.

They didn't find Jenny Lou that night, even though they eventually took the car and drove the road to town and along nearby lanes, calling the girl's name out the windows until they were hoarse. At five in the morning they crawled back to the house exhausted and chilled to the bone. David fixed a pot of coffee and tried to appear still hopeful, but dread and cold had stiffened Becca lips so that she could hardly speak.

"Why don't you start calling some of Jenny's friends?"

"It's too early." She took a sip of the strong liquid. "I'll wait about an hour. If she's there it won't matter, and if she's not I'd just get them out of bed for nothing."

She had to remain strong. What could she say to the others when they awoke? She didn't know what else to do except keep going.

The calls to Jenny's friends were made with no results. Charles and Miss Mitty straggled in and when they heard the story insisted Becca put a call in to the sheriff's office. The deputy on duty could hardly be made to understand the urgency of the situation, but when it finally dawned on him that they needed a search party formed and organized, he became very excited and said he'd call them right back.

Within an hour, cars and trucks were rolling in to the drive and adjacent yard. There was a great deal of shouting and countermanding of orders until at last everyone had set off on foot.

The search was extensive, intending to cover the area within three miles surrounding Rosehall. It was manned at the outset by fifteen volunteers and four professional lawmen. The assumption was that Jenny had wandered off for some reason and gotten hurt. No one was willing to suggest a more ominous reason for her disappearance. By nightfall they had reassembled at Rosehall, their ranks having swelled to thirty-two, to compare notes and devise a better plan. They agreed nothing more could be done in the dark and they would meet again at sunrise. Edward remained in his room the entire time, drinking heavily, Becca imagined, unable to deal with it.

Meals came in from neighbors, wives of the searchers. Someone packed Becca off to bed at nine o'clock that evening for rest. The house grew quiet, not just with the night, but from Jenny's absence, as if Rosehall itself was waiting with the expectation of hearing the soft, childish voice ring out.

By Saturday afternoon David had given up on the group method and asked Becca if he could drive her to some farther points in the countryside. She still felt dizzy from fatigue and her senses had grown numb, as if she couldn't cry any more tears. David must have been exhausted too, for his face was grey, and like an overcautious drunk he was driving at a snail's pace. Her idea was to go north, hit the country roads that meandered crazily, circling and sometimes crossing one another. It would have been a torturous walk to reach those roads from Rosehall, through thick woods and rocky outcroppings, but eventually a determined walker could reach the edge of the highland rim--the Ridge, Becca's home in the hills.

Nevile Tucker had driven over to offer his help in finding his granddaughter and was now plowing through fields and woods with the rest of the hunters. Becca believed it possible that Jenny Lou, upset with her mother for whatever childish reason, had gone off with the idea of asylum at her grandfather's. She may have tired out and taken shelter in a cave, or gotten hurt and was somewhere in the wild countryside between Rosehall and the Ridge some six miles distant.

The first lane they got on went beside open fields where cattle grazed and a few acres of rye had been sown. When it forked, David took the left road which followed the creek bed and dipped into valleys and swung along the wooded hills. They seemed to be driving endlessly, starting to climb now. The land grew rougher, less inhabited. Across the lane a few cabins were spaced a cautious half mile or so from one another, but other than that, the woods by the creek was host only to its familiar denizens--racoon, squirrels, possum, and wintering birds.

In the midst of a dark cedar grove an unusual spot of color caught Becca's eye.

"Stop!"

He braked sharply and they both peered. There it was--blue, not the usual color for the woods. Jenny had a blue sweater. Becca jumped from the car, followed by David. They leaped over broken logs and bramble bushes that tore at their clothes. Then he passed Becca and made a path for her through the undergrowth.

It was Jenny. She sat with her arms around the trunk of a smallish tree, facing away from them. Becca felt the hair prickle on her scalp. She called out her name, but the girl didn't move. Could she have been asleep? When they got closer they could see her eyes were open, and although she didn't seem to recognize her mother, when David reached to pick her up, she flinched and cowered, turning her face into the tree. Her face, Becca could see, was swollen and bruised, her clothing torn nearly off, streaks of dried blood down her legs. She was wearing her Thanksgiving outfit, over which she'd donned her blue sweater, nearly shredded by runs and yarn pulls. She looked toward her mother with the eyes of a wretched animal caught in a trap.

When Becca turned her gently around and encouraged her to her feet, she showed no sign of response, but she allowed Becca to lead her off to the car. She sat on her mother's lap as if she were a baby. No one spoke on the drive back. Becca hugged her daughter and made crooning sounds.

Later, while they waited at the hospital, Becca wouldn't talk, even when David tried to encourage her to hope. Then the doctor finally came out and spoke to Becca. It wasn't good. Severe mental trauma, amnesia, possible regression, not to mention contusions following a rape.

"Can I see her now?"

The doctor agreed and sent her in alone to the room.

Jenny had been given a sedative to help her sleep, and by the time Becca stood next to her daughter, the girl had nearly drifted off.

"Jenny, girl, it's Mama."

Though Jenny looked at her, she showed no sign of recognition. Then her eyes closed.

Becca returned to David. She could hardly move her limbs so stiff and heavy they were.

"The light has fled from my little girl."

"It's still early days yet. She'll get better."

"She doesn't know me, David."

They sat together on a bench and David took her hand. She closed her eyes and said in a low voice. "May God damn the fiend that did this to her!"

8

HATCHER AND THE HOUSE

Hatcher Lowe had no false notions of his place in this community. He'd risen to the highest elected position in the county, but he knew when his name was mentioned he was still described in more influential circles with a nod of contempt as "from the Ridge."

Thirty-eight years old, he thought he still looked good, even though he was now balding and some of his muscle had turned to fat. He had a coarse vitality that he was canny enough to realize repulsed some people and attracted others. He had been born and reared in a leaning shack on a neighboring ridge from the Tuckers. There his pappy had cut wood for a living, using a mule and wagon to sell his wares in the early years but later springing for a used truck.

After finishing the eighth grade, Hatcher had gone to work for the cement company in Monroeville. It had a good business going with the county resurfacing the gravel tracks that were fast becoming regular roads. Not much of a job, and when the Gulf War erupted, he'd lit out for Nashville to enlist. For taking part in a daring raid he was awarded the Bronze Star for Valor. He still walked with a slight limp from the lack of several toes on his right foot.

His service experience was the making of him. It changed his life, and forever after he divided time as "before the war" and "after the war." Everything good happened after the war. For one thing, he got married to Ella Mae Langley, the daughter of Eb Langley, owner of the cement works. She was a plain though girlish woman, who through the years seemed to remain in awe of her "strong, brave man." Even after eighteen years of marriage he occasionally chased her screaming through the house. It always ended in a flurry of impatient lovemaking if the children were absent (Ella Mae was careful about things like that), or a shower for Hatcher if they were around.

Hatcher, though not really ever accepted, knew he was generally respected for his achievements. He had, of course, gone back to the cement company and with a forward-looking eye convinced his father-in-law to adapt their business to commercial construction. In the seventies building boom this resulted in a hugely expanding business and corresponding profits. Hatcher began to make some real money.

His community interest was also noted. He had backed old Judge Brand in the campaign to demolish the 1825 courthouse and construct a bigger, modern job. The proposal was defeated by a contingent of "dead heads" as Hatcher always thought of them, led by Milt Henshaw and his shrill voice in the newspaper. Nonetheless, the alliance of Hatcher Lowe with the eminent Judge Brand (a johnny-come-lately as far as Monroeville went, but rich, rich, rich) established a nice political base for Hatcher, which he was quick to use. He ran for county treasurer and was elected, serving his term with the discretion the public liked. He may have raked off a bit, but no one seemed to be hurt and there were no scandals.

He became known as one who could get any job done. Most people were simply run over by his energy and his threateningly persuasive arguments. When he ran for county judge after Judge Brand retired, he was unopposed. He was the youngest man ever to be elected to that important executive post, and certainly the only one from the Ridge, which though a distinction, was not the right kind, as Hatcher knew very well.

He could never put behind him that miserable shack he came from. He believed no one else did either. As the years went on and he prospered so extravagantly--now a partner in Monroeville Cement--and succeeded in his many endeavors, he began to lust over the possibility of owning a Real House.

He and Ella Mae lived on North Main in a 1920's story and a half frame dwelling with overhanging eaves and a front porch that Hatcher had enclosed soon after moving in. It was in the better section of town, and the house was well built and spacious, but it was not a Real House. It had no name, and that was the measure of its lack of importance. No one remembered who had built it, and until Hatcher bought it, eleven years ago, a succession of families had moved in and out leaving scars in the oak woodwork and a general feeling of anonymity. Even houses that were not grand estates like Henshaw's Fox Run or Dandridge (the Clammershorn's original holding, sold in a rash moment after World War I) carried names of long residing owners, dead or living. Thus, the Bates place or the old Snelling house would always be that, though the last Bates or Snelling had died out or moved away years ago.

No, it had to be a place with a name, so that Hatcher Lowe would be dignified by it--given the luster of class by association, as it were. And the finer the name, the better.

The Lowes could have lived anywhere in the county, and although there were two dandy old places near Barks Landing on the market, Hatcher really preferred Monroeville. He'd done well in the town, wrung from the townsfolk a certain approval, and he hated to leave it when he was just at the point of capping it off.

He'd had his eye on Rosehall for over a year, when he'd ruled (favorably) on a petition of the Thorpes to delay payment of taxes. He had been dumbfounded that the rumors were true; the Thorpes were penniless. It wasn't just arrogance then, and a casual disregard for appearances that kept them in old cars and dog-eared clothes. The house had been showing its age too, for years. Not with the lovingly nurtured patina that care gives any old thing, but with just plain neglect.

How could it be, he asked himself? How could one family lose so much over the years and not seem to care? When he heard Becca was working nights at Ridley's he was torn between grudging pity and the satisfaction of seeing her get her come-uppance.

Hatcher had wanted Becca ever since he'd rediscovered her as a ripe fourteen-year-old girl one hot summer Sunday at the little church on the Ridge. He had been in town working for about five years, but on a visit to his folks he went to church to please his ma. Becca had stood out among her fellows like a fire in the forest. She had a roundness to her figure that promised delights, and her eyes coolly appraised him. He thought the look was meant to encourage him, and so he began to pay court to her. At first, she'd seemed to be flattered by his attentions. She was an innocent, but he knew she'd be hot when he got her going. But she'd turned off on him. Though he spent many hours sitting in the cramped cabin watching TV while Nevile Tucker politely rocked and Becca sewed quilt patches, he never made any headway. Becca, who normally was a spunky, talkative little thing, went cold and stiff all over if Hatcher brushed up against her or tried to kiss her when she showed him the door. Any few moments alone were entirely unproductive.

After enlisting and ready to leave town, he wished Becca to hell and that he'd never set eyes on her again and then paid a last visit to impress her in his uniform. She'd relented enough to let him kiss her goodbye.

When he finally returned four years later covered in glory he stopped first at the Tucker place to see Becca. She received him with more interest now. They went places together--to the movies or out for a hamburger--and she let him kiss her in his new old car. He always felt she gave him half her mind and little of her body, but one night he tried hard to make her give all of herself. After that it wasn't so good with her. She wouldn't see him when he came over to the cabin. She hung up on him when he called.

The next thing he heard, she was marrying Edward Thorpe, of all people, and soon, too. She'd be living at Rosehall. It had rankled badly all those years in-between. She'd come out swell, without doing a thing except lifting her skirt to that old goat, while he worked his ass off to get ahead.

Hatcher never forgot Becca, though he wanted to despise her. He hadn't seen much of her around town--she had kept close to Rosehall, like she was in a nunnery almost, but when he did run into her he had to admit she didn't put on airs. No, but she was still cool, and it still infuriated him.

The Thorpes would resist a sale. This Hatcher anticipated from his dealings with many of the old families of wealth or position. They treasured their possessions like a squirrel with its nuts. Sometimes they had to be nudged a bit to let 'em go. That was okay; Hatcher knew what to do then, too. The Thorpes were in a pickle, that was plain to see. No one in the family had the gumption to go out and make a new fortune, like Milt Henshaw was about to do. The Henshaws had got down to the base coat while Milt was in college but he seemed to have pulled them up again. The Thorpes would have to wait a few years before the boy Trey was old enough to try his hand at rescuing them and by that time it would be too late. Too late! Yes, they should be just about ready for some cold, hard cash, and Hatcher would be the one to offer it.

They should have heard by now of the tax reassessment. Hatcher had worked very hard to make it look all legal and ready to go, but it would never go through. He'd see to that too, after he possessed Rosehall.

He hadn't made an appointment with Edward, but he figured he'd catch him at home, and on a Saturday afternoon, near enough alone for some privacy. He didn't see any cars around when he drove through the gates and down the long drive. Becca would probably be at the hospital, seeing her daughter, who'd been hurt Thanksgiving weekend. Besides, on this first meeting, he wanted to talk only with Edward. He had an feeling he could handle him; he wasn't so sure about Becca.

He knocked sharply on the front door with his fist. It bobbled on a loose frame and he calculated an approximate sum he'd have to spend to renovate the place. He had an eye for such things and he knew it would be extensive. Rosehall had gone beyond the state of immobility that marked declining fortunes and settled into decay. Well, he would do it right, yes sir, maybe get a firm in Nashville who specialized in this kind of work. He had connections.

The boy opened the door. He was carrying a heavy wrench and as Hatcher walked into the hall he saw the parts of a bicycle laid out on an oriental carpet. A rusty, bent frame leaned against a mahogany table.

"Your mother know you're workin' in here on your bike?" Lowe rubbed the boy's dark head playfully. He thought animals liked him too.

"Ah--no, I guess not." Trey ducked away from the man's touch.

Hatcher didn't introduce himself. The boy should have recognized him as the Judge, though he'd never talked to him before. Hatcher found very few, man or boy, who didn't recognize him.

"I'm putting this ol' thing together. Mr. Scoggins found it piled up along the road. He bet I could get her going."

Lowe smiled again and asked to speak to his father.

"I guess he's upstairs," the boy answered.

"Well, go on and fetch him, boy. Tell him Judge Lowe is here to see him."

Trey backed away and then turned and scrambled up the long staircase two steps at a time as if something was chasing him.

Edward took a while arriving, and Hatcher Lowe paced around the hall, checking out the pictures and wondering if the Thorpes might like to sell any of them or the furniture. The stuff fit in nice, and Ella Mae wouldn't know where to get anything like it. Proper decorating seemed to be her downfall. Their furniture always looked different than the furniture in these old places, even though she changed it every so often and always ordered it from Nashville.

As Edward descended the stairs the two men looked at one another, neither smiling nor flinching from the gaze of the other.

"Well, Judge, what brings your honorable presence to Rosehall?"

Was there a hint of a sneer in the voice or the words? Hatcher brushed aside the thought and held out his hand. He knew who held the whip, and sure as hell, Edward Thorpe would be knowing soon himself!

"If we could have a private place to talk?" Hatcher suggested. Edward led him into the parlor.

The deal was not struck then and there, in the richly crowded parlor among the beautiful fading relics, that second weekend in December. It was culminated after two phone calls and a visit by Edward to Hatcher's attorney, a slick youngster, who'd graduated cum laude from Vanderbilt Law School and wore a pin striped suit. It was an offer Edward couldn't refuse.

The sum that Lowe first mentioned went up in $10,000 increments three times during their first meeting. At that point Hatcher knew Edward had already capitulated, but with some remnant of astuteness not dulled by alcohol must have thought it would be best to let Hatcher wait. Hatcher eventually topped it off with a final raise of $5000 to urge things along and get Edward's agreement.

It seemed to Edward a staggering amount for the old pile, and for weeks he carried the sum around in his head as if he were hugging a talisman of great power. He divided it, subtracted from it, invested it and, tantalizingly, multiplied it. It thrilled him beyond words.

The fact is, he didn't mention the transaction to anyone. Trey apparently had not told anyone of Hatcher's visit, and after the first week went by, it became less imperative to discuss it with the family. After all, it was just a poker hand at this stage. Later, as negotiations became serious, and then when the papers were signed, Edward still procrastinated. He tried not to think about the others finding out from town gossip, although Hatcher had promised him time to break it to the occupants of Rosehall. Hatcher didn't want to start renovation work until warm, dry weather in late spring, after which his family would move in. That would give the Thorpes ample time to make their plans and move out.

Edward deposited the earnest money in his new checking account and waited. Maybe after Christmas, he'd tell them after Christmas. He came to feel superstitious about his talisman and believed its secret knowledge gave him a new strength. He thought continually about the money and what he'd do with it.

He'd have to tell them eventually, of course, and without much effort he imagined their reaction. There would be breast-beating and accusations and speculation on where they'd live. He couldn't face that right now.

He was careful not to spend too much of the earnest money, still taking the allowance his mother gave him from her small annuity. But he bought a little better grade of sherry and one day treated Milt to lunch at Ridley's. God, he was a louse, but the terms of the sale and his possession of some money made him feel like a man again. He had needed this.

9

CHRISTMAS

What with Jenny Lou's condition being so serious, Christmas drew closer with Becca hardly being conscious of the season. The girl was due home from the hospital a week before the holiday, and as Becca made plans for her return she was suddenly brought up short by the fact she'd bought little or nothing for the family. She'd spent most of her days at the girl's bedside, letting the house go hang. Poor Annie had to do the best she could keeping house and fixing the meals, not a very satisfactory arrangement. But then, that job was always more than any one person could handle. Once Jenny got home she would feel better, but then her work would really begin. That included buying presents and readying the house.

Her overriding concern at the moment was Jenny's dullness, her empty eyes. Despite constant soothing words from her mother, telling her news and reading stories, the child was almost catatonic, the doctor said. Her trauma had been so severe, she couldn't face it consciously, so she'd retreated into a world of shadows and quiet, numbing her to any stimulus. It was heartbreaking. Others from the family had come to the hospital for brief visits--all but Edward, who maintained his solitary drinking while pleading ill health--but they, too, became discouraged. Now they could only hope once Jenny returned to Rosehall, she'd gather her wits about her and recover more quickly.

But a nagging doubt about Jenny's recovery pulled worry to the forefront of Becca's mind like matted yarn. The worry was dense and tangled with the idea of weakness in the Thorpes. Miss Mitty had it; she hadn't been able to get hold of herself after her own trials. And there was that haunting story of Carrie in the attic. So long ago, but now so real. The weakness seemed to run through the generations of Thorpes like cockroaches in the kitchen. It hid itself and multiplied and then would finally trickle out in one poor soul or another, but by then it was too late. Would Jenny have the mental strength to rid herself of the sickness?

After Jenny was installed in her bedroom with her mother sleeping nearby, Becca began to organize her life again. Trey and David were commissioned to find the right size cedar tree to cut and set up in the front parlor. She wanted it big--almost touching the tall ceiling and so spectacular Jenny would gasp at the sight of it. Charles got out the decorations from the back storeroom, while Mitty was given the task of baking and decorating sugar cookies. While Jenny slept, Becca went shopping.

She found bargains, being it was so close to Christmas. A warm pair of lined leather gloves for Mama Kate, a new sewing basket for Miss Mitty, an antique silver box for Charles, a shirt and sweater vest for Edward. But the children's gifts had her stumped. She finally settled on a hunting bow for Trey. He would be careful, already trained by Edward in one of his more lucid periods to hunt with Edward's own rifle. Jenny, she was afraid, wouldn't take an interest in much. What could she get her that might open her mind again to pleasure?

Then she remembered that the prized lavaliere had been lost from the time of Jenny's attack. Becca went to Bishop's Jewelers and looked among the cases for something that would suit the girl. She hadn't that much to spend, but she thought she could go as high as twenty dollars. She saw the perfect thing in the second case. Mr. Bishop drew it out for her and set it on a black velvet pad. She picked it up by the delicate gold chain and swung it so the crescent of pearls caught the light.

"Beautiful!" she exclaimed.

"Pink seed pearls in a 14 karat, pink gold mounting," Mr. Bishop said proudly.

Becca reached timidly for the little tag that told the price, and her face dropped. It was marked $59.95. "Oh, my," she said. "That's too dear. And I wanted something special for her, too."

"For your little girl?" the jeweler asked softly. The whole town seemed to be aware of the attack though nothing had appeared in the paper.

Becca nodded and returned the necklace to the velvet pad..

"I think I can do better on this for you." Mr. Bishop held it in his hand as if weighing it and said, "How would you go for $17.95? There's a huge markup in jewelry, you know. That's us jewelers' little secret. I'll throw in gift wrap."

"Why that'd be perfect, Mr. Bishop. Thank you kindly."

"No problem, it's about time it went on sale. It'll suit her coloring, won't it?" He hesitated. "I hope your girl does right well now that she's home."

Becca thanked the man and left with a lighter heart.

Christmas Day dawned sunny but cold. Becca made a fire in the fireplace to take the chill off the room and then stepped across the hall to knock on David's door.

He answered it in his bathrobe. "I've been lazy this morning," he apologized, looking down at his pajama legs beneath the robe.

"I would be too if I could get away with it. Trey's chomping at the bit. So you'd best come on now for the present opening. We'll eat at noon. For now, just throw on your clothes and come to the parlor." She'd begun bossing him like the others.

"Yes, ma'am," he saluted. "I'll get ready." He started to close the door as she turned away, but then called out, "Becca? Can I do anything to help you? With the dinner, I mean. I know you've had a lot on you with Jenny being laid up, and I'm a pretty fair hand in the kitchen. I've lived on my own for the last five years, cooking even. I'd like to help."

She nodded and smiled. David could cheer her up faster than anyone. "Good. Come on to the kitchen after presents time and I'll give you an apron."

The tree that Trey and David selected was the largest they'd had in many a year. The meager decorations hadn't gone very far. Becca had filled the gaps with popcorn strands and homemade bows from Mitty's stock of sewing goods. It looked nice, though, Becca thought warmly. She noticed Edward slouched in the corner of one of the sofas and felt an ache for what should have been between them but wasn't.

When she'd first seen Edward he'd been so very different--at least to her inexperienced eyes. It had been a late August day with the air so hot it seemed to reach from the ground and snatch her breath. She had trudged over from the main highway to seek work at Rosehall. Tobacco workers were being hired, and she was young and strong, though untried. After marveling at the house close up, she saw a lean man on a horse, dressed in twill riding breeches and a blue chambray shirt. He wore a broad brimmed hat pulled low over his brow, but even in shadow, his face, she could see, was fine-featured and bore the interesting signs of a more mature man.

When he caught sight of her, he swung out of the saddle and approached her. They'd had a brief conversation where she'd stated her wish to work and he agreed. But he'd watched her leave, she made sure by turning her head, and watched her more during the weeks that she worked for him. By the end of the season, he'd asked her out to dinner in Nashville. And made love to her in his car before he took her to the big house to meet his mother. But that was another story. Always, though, that first year, after the quick marriage, Becca had been continually seduced by Edward's aloof manner, his intellect and learning, his looks, so different from the hatchet-faced, rough boys from the hills. Though he was forty-one years old, he made even the town boys look like stupid babies. Becca sighed. His fall from grace had been so fast, so complete.

Now she looked at Jenny Lou sitting beside her grandmother and her heart swelled with hope. One of the fruits of this unhappy marriage. Maybe the memories of past happy Christmases would break through and help the girl to heal. She was so silent and dull.

"Let Jenny Lou open hers first," Trey suggested generously. He'd been hefting and shaking his packages repeatedly for the last few days.

Everyone agreed that would be appropriate, so her mother handed Jenny the little package tied in the big shiny silver bow. The girl managed to unwrap it herself, but her face showed no anticipation. When she opened the velvet box, she only looked at the lavaliere, until Becca told her to take it out. She had to be helped, though, since the chain was hooked behind some tabs to keep it in place.

"Do you like it, honey?" Becca asked anxiously.

Jenny Lou gave her mother a long look and then turned her attention on the lavaliere. But she only nodded. At least that was something, a response.

A deep, collective sigh seemed to go around the room.

"Do you want to wear it, darling?" Her grandmother leaned over to fasten it around her neck.

But Jenny drew back.

Becca signaled Mama Kate not to press her and placed it in the box for the girl.

The moment had passed, and Jenny remained quiet and unimpressed with her other gifts as well as the loud exclamations and laughter from the others that punctuated opening the remainder of the packages. Most of the presents betrayed a lack of funds, but a certain originality. Miss Mitty constructed all her items from scraps, even giving David something he had to be told was a "pipe cozy." Charles had carefully selected items from his "collection" and parted, no doubt painfully, with those he thought might be appreciated by others. Even Edward had made some small efforts to keep in the spirit of the occasion--candy for Mitty and his mother, a silk scarf for Becca, ties for Charles and David. And David, too, had done well in remembering the family and their needs. He bought personalized cocoa mugs for the children and a German coffee maker as a house gift. "Of course," he joked, "it's totally selfish, since I intend to use it without fail every morning,"

No one else was coming for dinner. Even Roscoe was absent, his friend Floyd Scoggins having invited the old man for a rabbit dinner, one of Roscoe's favorites. Becca had told Mama Kate that she couldn't handle any more people than the household, so the preparations were not as elaborate as Thanksgiving. The thought of that other meal still gave Becca the shudders, and her intention was to make this occasion as different as possible. She'd fixed a country ham with rice and gravy in addition to okra and corn put up from her garden last summer. A big pan of cornbread and an apple pie completed the menu.

"A fine meal," David commented after dinner, when Becca bemoaned its simplicity for Christmas Day.

"That's kind of you, David, but today didn't turn out the way I'd hoped, including the meal."

Jenny had been taken to her room before dinner, too weakened from the activities to eat with the others.

Becca shooed Miss Mitty from the kitchen but accepted David's help in cleaning up. They worked through the washing and drying and putting away with few words. Becca's mind was occupied, which David seemed to sense.

Becca's Pa would be dropping by any minute to give the children their gifts. He'd been invited to partake of the Christmas meal, but typically for that independent cuss, thought Becca with a smile, he'd refused.

"I know what I like and it don't include sitting with a bunch of hoity-toity snobs. I'll see my grandchildren later on in the day on my own."

"I'm sorry Jenny isn't well enough to bring her to the cabin, Pa. Maybe in a few weeks."

Her pa's visit had gone well enough with the rest of the household dispersed to their rooms to rest. Jenny was not brought downstairs again, but instead Nevile Tucker joined his daughter and grandchildren in Jenny's room where he sat like a resting animal while they opened his gifts and he theirs. His quiet manner along with his small size seemed to make him a comfortable companion for the children. They always had looked forward to his gifts, unique and thoughtful. For Jenny he had put together a little wooden flute or recorder that was perfectly calibrated to a C scale. Tucker had through the years piped on one, thrilling the children with his talent.

"I'll teach you how to play, my girl," he said, "whenever you're ready to learn."

Jenny set the instrument down beside her on the bed without a word, but she continued to look at it and touch it with her one finger while Trey opened his cache of hand finished arrows fitted with steel points.

"Them's for hunting, son," his grandfather said. "You've got plenty, your ma said, for target practice. You can come out to the cabin and hunt for varmints anytime, y'know."

Becca had knitted her father a muffler and two pairs of socks, beginning her project months before the Thanksgiving incident. She knew her father appreciated "hand wrought" goods more than "store bought." His own profession as country cabinet maker influenced his keen understanding of the time and care given to making even the simplest object.

Later, Tucker spoke to Becca outside Jenny's door. "I want to bring the girl to the Ridge as soon's she's able."

"Pa," Becca started to protest, but her father interrupted with a wave of his hand.

"There's something about this house that isn't right for her healing. I'll be back in a few weeks and we'll talk more." He left as quickly and quietly as he'd arrived. No fuss. That was Pa.

10

NEW YEAR'S

David still hadn't gotten to know Henshaw any better than when he'd first made his acquaintance. The publisher had congratulated David on the looks of his premier edition, a compliment that still rang in David's ears. He further had quizzed David in a friendly fashion about the types of reporting he'd done on the Butler Eagle. After that, he only discussed mundane business matters in languid tones as if to indicate he'd made a supreme effort toward democratic civility and the struggle had worn him out.

Henshaw was a well-built man in his early forties of medium height, with a cap of thick chestnut hair that wanted to fall across his forehead. He habitually tossed his head or combed back the unruly lock with his fingers. His features were finely chiseled, and David supposed he was thought to be quite handsome.

Henshaw's mild hazel eyes often regarded his employee with detachment, not without interest but coolly.

"You getting along all right over at Rosehall, David?" It was the week following Christmas and the atmosphere at the paper was friendlier, more casual and less hurried than other times. New Year's Day was on a Friday this year. The paper's New Year edition had been put to bed on Wednesday and out on the streets by Thursday afternoon, so David and Doris could take advantage of an extra day off without worrying about deadlines. It would make little difference to the seldom seen ad manager, Roger Neyland, who swept in and out and back in before deadline to enter his advertising copy. Also, Milt Henshaw, despite his many publishing concerns, most likely would be kicking up his heels at the parties of the country club set.

The inquiry caught David by surprise. "Oh, fine. Fine!" Did he sound too hearty? He modulated down to a more blase level. "It's an interesting old place, and the Thorpes' have been very nice, most accommodating."

"Really? Have they now?" He gave his head a sharp toss and the great bang followed. "Becca certainly would--she's a darling girl, but I might have expected the family. . . that is to say, never mind. I'm glad," he continued without enthusiasm, "you're settling in so well. Altogether, I'm pleased with your work."

"Thank you, sir," No faint praise this!

Superiority oozed from the publisher. Henshaw was so very smooth that David wanted to suspect his sincerity. He decided, though, that Henshaw meant no unkindness to him, that his demeanor was merely a typical, but beautifully cultivated, kind of Southern male suavity. Henshaw had to work for a living, but David also noticed that he was able to indicate by a mocking casualness his work wasn't to be taken too seriously. Everyone got the impression it was a hobby with him. He was very popular around town, David found, and apparently all the women adored him, Becca included.

He showed up frequently at the Thorpes' and talked with all the family with unusual animation, whether around the kitchen table or at the bridge table. Within a few weeks of David's arrival at Rosehall the new renter had been called in to make up a fourth with Charles, Edward, and Mrs. Thorpe. Eventually, Milt showed up for a game and David had an opportunity to take the measure of him and his relationship to the various Thorpes.

Henshaw was a bachelor, though David knew from talking to Doris that he'd been married years ago. His wife had left him for another man after only one year, which made David wonder about that lofty reserve and superior attributes. Edward Thorpe enjoyed Henshaw's company enormously, seemed only to come alive in his presence, laughing repeatedly in his dry, raspy way at Milt's wit. Becca also perked up at the publisher's visits, and David's jealousy soared.

In fact, it was that reaction to his boss's attentions to his landlady that had made David realize he was in love with her. He knew how foolish and futile were his feelings, but he was able to admit to himself that he was totally smitten by this woman of rough charm and delectable looks. She was not an ordinary-pretty woman. Since his introductory glimpse of her, she'd seemed not the rose but the vine, full and lustrous. He thought of pricking thorns, soft leaves twining. A sinuous and sexy woman.

New Year's Day was a beautiful, unseasonably warm interlude, though all the Thorpes told David it wouldn't last, to be prepared for the January cold snap. To David, it seemed a perfect slice of early spring and he kept coming out onto the porch to bask in the sun. Others in the household, too, were drawn to the outdoors like pasty-faced Scandinavians after a long, dark winter. They admired the pale blue sky and through tufts of weeds the rye grass of shocking green that continued to grow like an undercoat of fur. It was all very lazy-making to David. He couldn't imagine a day spent like this at home, where right now his mother would be enlisting everyone to either take down the Christmas decorations or to help with another enormous meal. David stretched and smiled to himself. What a day!

One time during the afternoon David found himself alone with Becca, a circumstance he had managed to contrive by keeping up with her movements as best he could in this disorganized household. He was quite sure she didn't give him a second thought. Otherwise, her hands would have been clenching and unclenching from self-conscious strain as his were; she would have had to clear a dry throat as he seemed forced to do each time he spoke.

He had started to dream of her at night, and during idle waking moments he pictured them together in every conceivable situation. Now, at her invitation, they were ambling like tourists toward the outbuildings, not so close their shoulders touched, but occasionally near enough their hands grazed one another's. When Becca began speaking of her husband as they strolled along the weedy, overgrown drive past the stallion boxes, David gritted his teeth in chagrin and silently swore. This was not one of the situations he'd pictured.

"I'm so worried about Edward, David. I wish he would get out in this rare sunshine and take some exercise."

"He doesn't seem to favor the outdoors," David remarked dryly.

God! What if she asked him to pal up with the old reprobate? He'd do it, of course, but the prospect nearly gagged him. He hadn't found much to like about the man. Edward's seamed, dissolute-looking face put him off, for one thing. Oddly enough, he didn't think of them together as man and wife. He believed the man was too deep in his alcoholic pit to care much about sex anymore.

She gave a sigh. "He doesn't seem to favor anything much." She gave him a shy glance. "Oh, don't laugh now. But I wish you would encourage him a bit," she went on with a hesitant laugh. "I know he likes you, respects your talents, and maybe if you could get him interested in writing again, he'd stir himself out of that room. Go on with his research."

Then she cried out, surprising him by her vehemence, "I hate it that he's alone so much, up there drinking. . . and the music. . . I hate it!" She shuddered, then taking a deep breath, caught David's arm playfully, "David, be a good ol' boy and try and get that lion from his den."

"Sure," he said with a short laugh. "I can at least talk to him about his writing. I don't know if he'll be interested, but I'll give it a try."

Her hand slid down his arm to squeeze his hand. "Thanks, Davy."

He swallowed hard and caught her hand between his fingers. Her use of a pet name for him had turned him to jelly. This was a chance to do something for her, not that he thought anything would come of her hopes for Edward, but he would do his bit.

"He needs help, you know," she continued, disengaging her hand from his, "from all of us. Not that you have any responsibility. The family, I mean. He's alone and sad too much. Some people get no healing from their troubles by turning inward. It just gets them more bitter and sour, like a pond with no fresh water coming to it. I wonder why that is?"

David shook his head with a non-committal murmur. He could have told her that self-centered, long-term dissatisfaction was not a proper meditation. He knew from the remarks Edward had occasionally thrown out that he deemed his lot harder than most men's, that he was ridden with envy and resentment. Surely Becca knew this! Wasn't his highly regarded and protracted nervous sensitivity just a hiding place from life? It was on the tip of his tongue to say something of this, but he was saved from moralizing by the sudden appearance of Trey thudding down the path toward them, arrows in the quiver, bow in hand. Skipper ran ahead barking.

"Have you fed Jenny's rabbits, boy?" his mother called as he sped past.

"Trey!" Becca's sharp tones stopped him a few yards away.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Whose britches you got on?"

Trey looked at his khaki pants rolled heavily at the ankle and cinched in like an accordion at the waist. "Mr. Roscoe gave them to me. Too small for him, he said."

"Uh-huh! Just as I thought! You go right to your room and change to your own jeans. You look like a fool. They'll probably trip you, and you'll fall down and break your neck."

He turned without further protest and stomped off into the house.

"Nothing I hate worse," said Becca to David, looking at the boy's backside, "than baggy pants. Looks like a family of cats moved out."

David laughed. "Oh, it wasn't that bad. Boys his age are all too ready to grow up. He just thinks he's bigger than he is."

"I can't allow no sloppiness in my children's appearance. They've got to be proper Thorpes, not," she grinned at David, "a half-assed one like me. They wouldn't want any more white trash around here."

David was shocked. "Why are you so hard on yourself? You're different from them but that doesn't make you less." He was serious and wanted to pursue this further, but she only laughed and changed the subject.

11

AT WORK

Most evenings Becca could hardly wait to get to work at the restaurant. For one thing, she liked driving alone down the empty roads and through the town at night. Sometimes she would stop the car and turn off the motor just to hear the familiar yet mysterious sounds in the darkness. They seemed to be calling to her from their hidden world. She would listen for the small conversations of the animals and insects and the occasional throb of an airplane or a train cutting through the quiet like a muted cry of distress. It gave her a warm feeling of kinship to those who labored while others slept.

At Rosehall she never had any such feeling; never had, and never would, she suspected. Yet, she'd not dreamed once of running away from the disappointments and the feeling of being apart. She would not wish her life away, not anymore. She'd put away her silly childish dreams like the Bible said to do when she married and became a woman. She wouldn't allow herself to fret either but instead fought to adapt to circumstances. Life could be more than just bearable if you kept busy, looked for opportunities, and were always mindful of the best in those around you. She'd tried to make that her creed. She hadn't given up on those ideas, but since Jenny's trouble the heart had gone out of all her efforts. She felt her step faltering. Still, she had to keep up her momentum for the sake of the family. That family! They frustrated her so with their contrariness, their idleness, their mule-headed ignoring ways. She'd tried always to help out, but what difference did it make now.

Since she had gotten the job at the restaurant, she'd held on better to her life among the Thorpes. She relished the time alone without any demands on her. In that great rambling house she never had a minute to herself, seemed like. She often thought of herself as the hub the household revolved around. Becca believed the family depended on her, but she also knew it was the same kind of dependence people like the Thorpes had always felt toward their servants. This she didn't mind. A friend might have said to her: Don't you have any pride, girl? Do you want them to use you? Becca would have laughed at this. How feeble, she thought, were the Thorpes collected wills compared to hers.

She slammed the door of the car and walked rapidly to the back door of the restaurant. It had turned bitter cold and her stiff, gloveless fingers fumbled with the key. Becca stepped into the greasy-smelling kitchen, now cooled off, even rather chilly. She'd soon warm up with her work, and the cloying smell would be replaced by the more refreshing one of soap and pine cleanser.

The huge grill was speckled and sticky with grease, the chopping block gory as from a sacrifice. Enormous pans and roasters and skillets encrusted with remnants of food lay around the room. Becca greeted the mess with a look of anticipation. When she finished up after three or so hours of labor everything would be transformed. She liked her work. It was satisfying to her, and the money wasn't bad either. For her energy and neatness she was well rewarded by the owners, who thought of her as a friend, too. She made a point to remember their children's birthdays with special baked surprises, and occasionally Mrs. Ridley would ask Becca to go with her to Nashville on a shopping trip.

Now with Jenny Lou safely at home and recovering slowly--maybe too slowly, she again felt the need to escape from the Thorpes by night. Since the attack, she'd hardly been apart from the girl day and night as if her focused love would help her to mend sooner. And she had healed in her body remarkably fast, the doctor said. But something was not healing in her mind. It seemed to puzzle the doctors, who refused to make long term predictions. Becca, however, would not entertain the thought her daughter might not totally recover. Oh, she had expected her to be forever touched by such a violent encounter, but surely it wouldn't leave her crazed!

It's just going to take a little more time, she'd snap, if anyone would remark on Jenny's poor mental condition. Jenny Lou was a sensitive little thing, not as tough as some, but she'd make it. So Becca told others, and herself. She thought of this now as she scoured and scrubbed and mopped.

She harbored another thought, too. It came upon her now as she worked, flickered in her brain like hot smarting flames that hurt and caused her to stop her scrubbing. She bent her head and gave out a low, strangled sob. Oh, the hatred she felt for the faceless attacker of her daughter! She desired revenge with as violent a passion as she'd felt for anything in her life. In her mind she saw herself as a fierce, avenging angel like the illustration in her King James Bible, who with God's blessing would swoop down on that misshapen male form and tear it to pieces. These thoughts gave her some relief from her sorrow. She felt they also gave her the strength to calm Miss Mitty and Mama Kate, who could only rail and weep. But most of all, her thoughts of revenge gave her the resolution to keep the family together as a family under the big, sheltering wings of Rosehall, the only home Jenny'd ever known. Jenny would be well again, she would recover.

12

AT HOME

On a dull, overcast Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks into the new year, Becca left Jenny Lou in her bedroom to the care of Miss Mitty. Awkward, loving, tearful Miss Mitty, who wore a new droop to her body as if weighed down not only by thoughts of her wounded niece but also her own shattered life. Her face had taken on a haunted look, and her hands trembled constantly.. Becca worried about her, too. As she closed the door on the two pathetic creatures she paused a moment to take a deep breath. The feeling of suffocation was with her so much now.

She turned in at the door to the upstairs bathroom to splash water on her face. After glancing at herself in the mirror, she picked up a brush and gave her hair some hard licks, making it fly with electricity. She'd washed it without rolling it up or even tying it back properly, and now it stood out from her head in misplaced waves and curls. Like a heap of doorknobs, she thought impatiently. She snatched a red ribbon from a drawer and tied her hair high on her head. She opened the drawer again and searched among the bobby pins, combs, a rusty Gillette razor, and assorted little-used cosmetics. There it was. A tube of Cover Girl lipstick that she kept for special occasions. She applied the rosy shade of lipstick clumsily, then touched her fingers to her lips and rubbed her cheeks. Pale, pale as a sheet! She looked appraisingly at her appearance and felt a little better. She was glad she'd taken the pains to look nicer. It somehow made her more alive and real to herself.

She entered the parlor where a small group had assembled. Edward and his mother, Father Noland, and David sat at the card table lost in a low-stakes bridge game. Charles, at the desk, was sorting through the contents of a chamois bag, recording the value of the trinkets in his inventory book. When the play at the table got exciting and loud, he glanced up with a small frown at having his concentration interrupted.

"I told you we could make six, partner," crowed Father Noland, sweeping up the trick.

"You were just lucky on that finesse." Edward sounded grumpy. Obviously, he and his mother had been going down badly. "Dave rightly had it figured at five."

"Oh, no," countered David, "I was cowardly. I was afraid you might be sitting on that king."

"Oh ye of little faith!" chortled Father Noland, gathering the deck together and repeatedly stacking the cards with irritating little taps on the table. Edward tightened his lips as if he could have screamed.

Glancing over at Charles, who was peering at them from his corner, the priest cried, "How's it coming, Charles? Would you like to sit in for me now?"

With a regretful sigh Charles waved him off and turned back to his sorting and figuring. "I must persevere. Having a well organized collection is sometimes a heavy burden". He didn't even acknowledge Becca as she came alongside of him.

"Can I do anything to help, Charles?"

"No, no, my girl," he said kindly but with an officious edge to his voice. "I'm doing some evaluation and that takes a practiced eye, some expertise."

Becca nodded and picked up from the top of the walnut plantation desk an old leather-bound edition of the poems of John Donne. She thumbed through the book aimlessly.

"You won't like that," said Charles, glancing at her. "I couldn't make head nor tails of them myself." He filled his pen from the ink bottle where it sputtered and emitted a fine spray of black ink on his notebook. He emitted a barely stifled curse.

Becca disregarded his advice and took the book with her to one of the sofas near the fireplace. She turned the pages without interest, but then stopped as she felt eyes on her. David was looking at her from across the room. She smiled wanly at him and then began to read a page in the book. She heard David ask in a low voice, "Has anyone heard if there's been any progress on finding Jenny's attacker? I call the sheriff every day, but he never has anything to report."

Edward gave a derisive laugh. "No, and he's not likely to, either. Our chief law enforcement officer isn't what anyone would call a sleuth." He got up abruptly to fetch more sherry from the dining room sideboard. "It might interest you to know," he remarked on his way out, "the word sleuth comes from Old Norse or Icelandic and, as you might guess, means a track or trail."

No one commented on his educational footnote, and as he left the room there was a brief, strained silence. Becca had momentarily paused at Edward's words but resumed her desultory reading.

Some of the words were strangely spelled and the sentences didn't seem to go straight forward like regular speech, yet before long her attention was engaged. She went back to the beginning of the poem and read aloud in a whisper:

"For there's a kinde of World remaining still, though

she which did animate and fill

The world be gone, yet in this last long night,

Her ghost doth walke; that is, a glimmering light,

A faint weak love of vertue, and of good,

Reflects from her, on them which understood

Her worth; and though she have shut in all day,

The twilight of her memory doth stay:"

No, she thought, Jenny wasn't dead, like the girl in the poem, but she seemed gone, nonetheless, her essence, her self. This John Donne had it right. There was a world that still went on but it wasn't the same and wouldn't be until Jenny was herself again.

Edward had just returned from the other room when he saw Becca let the book fall to the cushion beside her; then she rose and swiftly left the room. Before taking his place at the table he watched Becca until she disappeared into the Great Hall. He briefly closed his eyes. He would be firm with himself. Think of something else. He took his seat while the priest made small clucking noises and held out his glass for a refill.

"I wish," Father Noland said, "she'd let me talk with her about it. It's such a hard thing for a mother to bear."

Edward filled the other glasses with an unsteady hand. "Becca will handle it alone," he remarked dryly, "as she does everything."

Becca had been lying on the bed for about thirty minutes. For the first time since she could remember, any activity was repulsive to her. The thought of doing necessary chores around the house weakened her even more. Duty had suddenly become a meaningless word. I'm getting worse, she thought, and I can't seem to shake it. She knew the others in the family were as devastated as she but she suddenly was helpless to even try and keep their spirits up.

Earlier, when she had run upstairs from the parlor, Miss Mitty was emerging from Jenny Lou's room. They caught at one another to avoid collision. Miss Mitty's hands were bony cold, trembling and clutching like live crayfish.

"How is she, Miss Mitty?"

"She's a darling angel, just lying there so quiet and swee. . ." She broke into sobs and leaned against Becca. A half inch of white hair showed along the part of the bowed head. Poor thing, thought Becca, she's not given herself any attention either these past weeks. She led the old woman to a chair along the wall and sat her down.

"Take a rest now, darling. You've done so much and it's Mama Kate's turn to sit with her a spell. I'll get her after Father Noland leaves."

"Oh, Becca," Miss Mitty sobbed, "I don't like Rosehall anymore. It's not a nice place."

"Why, Miss Mitty, dear, you mustn't say that. You know you love Rosehall. We all do." Becca took a deep breath. She had trouble lately keeping enough air in her lungs it seemed.

"No, the evil has come. I feel it. Sometimes," she whispered, "I can almost see it. It happened before to me." She gripped Becca's hand. "When the evil comes you may as well leave. It's no good trying to live around it. I had to leave New Orleans and my beautiful house because of it." She blinked two tears and her mascara ran.

This was the closest Mitty had ever come to revealing the reason for her fear of life, her withdrawing from reality. Becca had heard something of the story from Edward soon after their marriage.

"But what terrible thing happened to her?" she had asked after yet another oblique reference to Miss Mitty's mysterious trouble.

"I've never been absolutely certain," Edward admitted. "At the time I was just a little boy, but later, after Mama let something slip, I tried to piece together what must have happened. Then Daddy gave me the straight poop, and I found out what had affected her so horribly. A strange and pathetic story, really. And it could only have happened to someone raised in a hothouse." He told her of a shy, innocent, and very foolish young woman, trained to deplore her own sexuality and weak-headed enough to believe it. The new husband was vigorous and hot-blooded and eventually gave up on gentler methods of seduction. After only a few months, unable to cope, Miss Mitty fled back to the household of her parents where she was sheltered and coddled into the life of a recluse. Since the young man's family was from Louisiana no word of the affair reached local ears and the story was given out that "poor Mitty" had witnessed something so horrible she'd nearly lost her reason. Her delicacy required the nursing of her mother and the old servant woman. Years went by, however, and Mitty took refuge in her "clothes" and remained a permanent invalid, a little queer in the head, "but sweet," as everyone liked to describe her.

Becca had heard the tale with some impatience at first and not a little contempt. It seemed impossible that a young woman at the outset of her marriage would give up on it for no better reason than that! She shook her head at the lack of ingenuity. For her the shame was in the giving up, not in the circumstances.

This day, though, as she comforted the old woman, she had a keener awareness of the condition of helplessness and the appeal of running away. "Go on and rest now, dear," she soothed. "Or, if you'd rather, the bridge players might like some of those nice petit fours you made and a cup of tea." She smiled at her encouragingly. The poor thing still had more energy to serve others than Becca herself.

"Yes, I might fix them something." Miss Mitty stood up and smoothed the sides of her short bob. "The cakes are so good. Do you really think they might be hungry for them now?" She adjusted the shawl and swung her skirt clear.

"I'm sure they are." Becca sighed as she watched her glide away down the stairs. Funny, lovable Miss Mitty.

Becca had gone to her bedroom and lain down immediately without even removing her shoes and pulling up a cover. She and Edward's bed. Odd to think of them together in it, as if they were still lovers, when in fact they barely met in passing. Edward was always blind drunk before she left for work, and by the time she got home he'd passed out completely. This had been going on several years, and as a matter of fact, she couldn't think when they had last made love.

She hadn't missed that either, and that was the odd thing when she had always been the randy one. Desire had slipped away from her before she even wondered to miss it. Sometimes, though, David's face had come to her and she imagined his arms around her, holding her tight and safe. It didn't seem wrong to want his comfort, what she somehow knew was his love.

How funny! Now, in solitary despair she was able to admit that her desperate efforts to convince herself she still loved Edward had failed, just as their love had failed. What is love? She fingered the pillow next to her. How can something she had felt so strongly, been so much part of herself disappear so completely, leaving only a faint memory. If she and Edward had continued being dear to each other how much of a comfort it would have been in bearing this tragedy.

Tears spread out on the pillow and she rolled over to face the window. Somewhere in the room or in the attic water dripped secretly, like a furtive, tiptoeing visitor in the house. The rain ran down the window like tears. Her eyes went to the wooden frame around the small panes. The paint had peeled off and years of damp had blackened the wood. It was ugly, defeating, a reminder that the house and its great age and constant demands for care were getting the best of her. She knew, as they all did, it needed real money spent on it for a new roof, paint, and replacement of rotten wood.

The house was fading away like a myth that had no believers. Did others in the family know it, know that some sort of end was near? Becca had felt it for years and instinctively tried to preserve her center. As long as they had Rosehall, they'd still be who they were.

She closed her eyes and sought words to formulate a prayer, a prayer for Jenny, for all of them. Many times over the past few weeks she had wanted to pray, but it was like trying to eat crackers and whistle. Dryness, dryness. Nothing would come out.

"Please, Lord," she cried, "help us to live through this, Lord. If you'll just show me some way to help, I'll do my part." She clenched her fists against her streaming eyes. "I'll do anything if you'll make Jenny well."

She spoke this last aloud and her ragged, intense voice startled her. Her prayer had caused her to reflect about the great mystery called God. Father Noland said it was no sin to doubt, but it was wrong not to keep on acting as if you believed. That God would eventually come to the rescue if you were faithful. But why, she thought for the umpteenth time, should she care about a God that had let something so cruel happen to her little girl? Something about this whole business would have to be reckoned with eventually, but she couldn't think about it now. She would just try to keep going.

She rose from the bed to search for a hanky to stanch her wet eyes and dripping nose. She guessed she hadn't cried this much since she was a little girl and her mother died. A check of her dresser proved fruitless. Tomorrow was washday and there wasn't hardly a clean thing left in the house. She had forbidden the buying of paper tissues for several years now, relying on the huge stock of cotton and linen handkerchiefs in the household. She turned to Edward's chest of drawers and pulled open the top one. The drawer in the old cherry chest stuck on its worn runners and she gave it a hard push in, then a yank back to get it going. It nearly flew out completely, and as she started to push it closed, she saw a crumpled hanky at the very back, half hidden by a book.

She snatched it and a small object flew out of it and landed near her feet. It was hard to see in the gloom and on the flowered carpet, but groping with her hands she felt her fingers close on it.

There was no reason for Jenny's lavaliere to be here, in Edward's drawer, but here it was. Edward not spoken out when she asked about it days after the attack, but he'd obviously found it and, Edward-like, forgotten about it. She examined it and saw the chain had broken. When she had the time, she'd take it to the jewelers. But the sight of the necklace seemed to call up that dreadful day. It seemed to renew her pain. Shuddering, she wrapped it back in the handkerchief and placed it at the back of Edward's drawer where she'd found it..

13

FRUSTRATIONS AND DELIGHT

During the weeks following the attack on Jenny, David found himself facing the first major dilemma of his career. It had not occurred to him that a story of a missing girl would be sensitive news, and so the Monday morning after Thanksgiving he'd prepared the story, omitting Jenny's name and any speculation on what may have happened to her. He was quite proud of the neat way he'd handled this story.

At nine o'clock sharp his phone rang.

"David." Milt Henshaw's drawl sounded especially languorous across the line. "I thought perhaps I'd best check and make certain you're not letting on about the trouble at Rosehall."

"Letting on? You mean a news release? I merely told of a young girl missing and then being found by volunteer searchers. Of course, I didn't say I was the one who had been present when she was found." He thought for a moment that Milt might have suspected him of trying to cash in on some glory.

Doris had stopped typing and sat with her back toward David, her whole body an immobile sound receptor as if by concentrating she could hear the voice on the other end of the line.

"Now, David," Milt continued, more firmly now. "I don't think we need to be over-zealous on this matter. It wouldn't do, I think, to get the folks all riled up, especially since she was found alive and all. Really, it was almost a false alarm. Don't y'think?"

"Yes, but I . . . my god, Milt, it doesn't seem . . ." David's face had turned red and hot. He couldn't for the life of him see anything wrong in reporting what amounted to a major manhunt.

"I don't think it bears any more talking about. Too much speculation on affairs of this sort can do irreparable damage to the family--the Thorpes, and poor Jenny Lou. The less said the better." The tone of his voice fell to end the discussion.

But David wasn't quite through. "A simple report is probably in the best interests of everyone. It seems to me that people living here have a right to know what is going on. What possible harm could there be in that?" David stumbled on, his throat aching with unexpressed sentiments of the role of the press. "And the Thorpes, too, might benefit in the long run, if someone who sees the story might be able to shed some light--"

"David." His quiet voice was ominous. David reflected on his prospects for acquiring a new job without a recommendation and caved in.

"I'll cut the story, Milt." He wouldn't say he agreed with him or saw any of his points, but he'd do it. He knew at that moment he'd stay at the Gazette-News only as long as he had to for the sake of a decent portfolio, but he resolved never again to work for a publisher that made a habit of suppressing news when it suited him.

Doris turned from her typewriter and gave David a knowing look as he hung up the phone.

"Oh, all right, all right," he said testily, "I shouldn't have argued, but this is . . .this is . . ."

"Unconscionable?" She gave him a mediating smile.

He fumed noisily, slapping papers from one pile to another, barking his shins on the corner of the desk as he stomped around feverishly. "All I want to know, are we in the information business or do we run a style sheet? Huh? Do you have any thoughts on the subject?" He rather enjoyed being rude and childish, finding a certain amount of relief in his outburst, but Doris forgave him and talked to him like a mother confronting an over-excited toddler.

"Calm down, David. You might be right, but haven't you found that occasionally you have to be generous instead of always right?"

Far from resenting Doris's tone, David wallowed in the attention and continued to pout. "No."

"Now, David," she shook her head in a kind, reproachful way, "just think for a minute about this town and the people, and how the newspaper serves them."

"Oh, I know how that game works. I just don't like it much, that's all. Hell, I wasn't giving out Jenny's name. Everybody in town probably knows something happened anyway. How did you learn, for instance?"

Doris had the good grace to blush as she answered, "There was some talk at church, so I called Milt at home last night. He said she'd been found and that's all I know."

"You see!" he crowed. "It makes the paper look dishonest by not giving an account of the disappearance and search. Now, don't you think the community has some business knowing the straight story instead of hearing it through the grapevine?"

Doris didn't reply but asked in a small voice, "Was she badly hurt?"

David nodded. "She'd been brutally assaulted." Doris gasped. "I'm afraid, too, she'll be a long time coming out of it. Right now, she's traumatized beyond words." Doris groaned and covered her face with her hands. "Now," persisted David, "do you see my point?"

Doris stared out the front window for a minute before speaking. "I wonder, David. As bad as it sounds it makes me wonder about exposing it further. Maybe you can't see it from our perspective." She had excluded him in that casual "our" for the first time in their acquaintance. "I know you're a conscientious newspaperman. You really are good, and you may be moving on someday to better things than the Gazette-News, but I wonder if you've thought about how those of us who have to go on living here must deal with the ugliness that comes along from time to time. It's part of living in the same small place for a long time, and we've learned it does help to keep it from being too . . . oh, I don't know, official. To put it on the record, when no real good can come of it."

"How do you know that? You can't just ignore that it happened, can you? Not printing it won't make it go away."

"No, but in a funny way, if this awful crime against Jenny is ignored, as you say, if it's not publicly acknowledged, then it won't become quite part of the Thorpes' name and history. I've seen the same sort of thing happen before--something terrible is rumored to have happened, or maybe it didn't. Close friends may know, but they choose to forget; soon the town does too."

She was too polite to mention his own disloyalty to the people who took him in, so he brought it up rather belligerently. "Okay, I guess I'm just an insensitive outsider. I don't have the foresight or good manners to protect my friends when I'm in a position to do so."

"Manners?" She paused for a moment as if considering the word and whether he needed to be clubbed over the head with it. "Yes, I believe it has something to do with that too. Manners really mean not hurting someone if it can be avoided, don't they? Being kind instead of callous. We're accused of being insincere with our Southern manners, and it may be true to some extent, but we've found it's a nicer way to live."

"It sounds conveniently woolly to me."

"David, our town is like a family. There is honesty about our social relations. We know--really--what everyone is like, but what good does it do to parade it around? Reserve has to play its part, too, especially in a close and rather closed society. That delicate structure of relationships can be destroyed, you know, without privacy. We cling to our privacy even in the face of the most horrible gossip."

"Or facts?"

"Yes, even then."

"Well, it seems to me you're talking about withholding truth. Why can't you say that? We're supposed to gather news here, not filter out good news from the bad. Is it really better to live like timid moles, rushing to hide when trouble comes?" He gave her a flinty look. "Or lock up our embarrassments in an attic?" This was hitting a bit below the belt, referring however obliquely to Doris's book and her emotional attachment to the girl locked in the attic.

"Yes," she admitted quietly, "that's bad, too. I don't know if you're right or if Milt's right, but it gets down to the point that you have to live with the way things are done here, or . . ."

"Or get out." Neither of them spoke for a moment. There was nothing more to say. But David couldn't pack up and leave right now, so that left him with having to lump it. He wasn't out to get the Thorpes, he was sure of himself in that regard, yet he believed he'd been professionally compromised. He sincerely believed that Monroeville or any other little ingrown place would be doomed to a slow death by suffocation without opening what he liked to think of as windows of truth. The first few weeks of his residency he had been fascinated by the idea of history being lived and pride in family, but he suddenly was irritated by those backward, clannish, falsely secure attitudes.

"Back to page one," he sighed. "What'll it be--Sheriff's Department Gets New Squad Car, or my feature on Anson Turner, The Sage of Bark's Landing?"

Doris laughed. "Terrible decision. Can't you put them both in? Sheriff Pugh would love to see that picture of himself beside the new car, and Anson Turner is my cousin and deserves his annual recognition," she gave him a broad, friendly wink, all the earlier disagreement seemingly forgotten, "if only because I work here."

David well remembered that afternoon only two months ago. Nothing had changed since then. But somehow he couldn't let it rest. The story would have to break, but now he realized that it would take catching the attacker for that to happen. He left the newspaper office and strolled across the square to the courthouse where he took note of the arraignments and trials for the day. Nothing but routine information. Then he strolled over to the Sheriff's Department. He found Sheriff Pugh in, but when he inquired about the attack on Jenny the lawman claimed to have no information for David--other than tossing out a dry bone about vagrants passing through. He left no wiser than when he'd come in, but his questions had stimulated him to seek further answers.

That afternoon he left early. He parked his car in the drive at Rosehall and wandered across the yard to Mr. Roscoe's cabin. David knew that the old man had been asleep when he and Becca set out after Jenny, but there was always the possibility he'd heard or, more likely, seen something suspicious earlier in the evening while David and the others had been locked in dreams.

He had to open the door to the cabin and yell before Roscoe acknowledged him with a gruff, "Hey!" He was in the kitchen and hollered to come on back. The living room was very cluttered, and David studied the maze for a few seconds. Eleven chairs (he counted them) on a sliding scale of comfort circled the fireplace hearth. What large group might have met here regularly? Firewood, some split, some in whole logs, was piled against the wall. He saw a beautiful old walnut hutch with open shelves that contained magazines, unmatched dishes, boxes of shotgun shells, small tools, and inexplicably, several sprouting potatoes. The log walls were covered with Roscoe's trophies--stuffed squirrels, fish, and two deer heads, one a six point, the other four. David knew that Floyd Scoggins, Roscoe's buddy, was the local taxidermist and practiced his art free of charge on Roscoe's spoils.

The little kitchen smelled wonderful. Roscoe stood over the wood burning stove tending a smoking skillet. It looked like rabbit to David. He pointed at furry feet that hung out of the pan.

"Why do you leave the feet on?"

Roscoe shook his head in despair at the ignorance of the question. "That's to turn'm over with, dang it!" He did just that, deftly flipping one of the quarters without splashing a drop of grease.

Roscoe motioned David to sit down at the table, sliding over a chipped ironstone plate, a Thorpe reject, David surmised. He protested he was expected for supper at the big house, but the old man insisted he have a taste of the rabbit.

"Not Jenny Lou's pet, I suppose?" David shouted, wanting to make a little joke.

"Oh, goddamn, no," said Roscoe, perfectly serious. "I wouldn't touch the fool pets. I like the wild critters, anyways. Yessir, I like that wild taste."

David sampled the meat, tender and different from anything he'd tasted before. They considered the disadvantages of trapping over shooting. Neither of them liked the idea of traps. Roscoe always used a shotgun himself, but didn't like cleaning out the shot. Snares, he said, were the best, but took too long. Also too much stooping, now that he was past his "prime."

After a while, David managed to turn the conversation to Jenny Lou's attack. He thought if he could find a lead or two that would break the case Milt Henshaw would never dare stop that story. He didn't want to hurt Jenny Lou further, and as far as he was concerned no victim of a brutal assault, let alone a young girl, should be further assaulted by the press, but his anger with Henshaw and the memory of a wretched little figure hugging a tree moved him to persist.

"That night," he asked Roscoe, "did you hear anything unusual outside?"

"Now how could I do that?" He frowned, David thought at him, then leaned over and spat out a bone onto his plate. "I told the sheriff the same thing when he asked me." So the sheriff had made at least routine inquiries. "I live in a quiet world," he went on in a meditative manner. "I can't even hear my mule bray anymore."

"Did you go out at all--you know . . ." David nodded suggestively in the direction of the outhouse.

"I don't go out at night. Keep a pot in my room."

"What about visitors? Did anyone come to see you that night? Your friend Scoggins?"

"Nope, he come over on Sunday when the hunt was over, but that's his usual time. No sir, I didn't do much Thanksgiving night except putter around. Cleaned my gun, things like that. Didn't have no idea nothing so bad was going on." He gave a few sorrowful clucks and resumed eating.

David leaned on the table, his head in his hands. How did one investigate something like this--so irrational and unexpected? Who was running around loose, looking for another opportunity to vent his rage on an unsuspecting girl? David groaned aloud. Why had he fallen asleep that night of all nights? Why had Skipper not been outside where he belonged, guarding the place like a proper dog? He wondered too, if the story was made public, would someone come forward with a clue, something that would tip the hand of the intruder?

These questions haunted him for days and he went about his work with half a mind on it. He turned over the possibility of running the story anyway, defying Milt's orders. It might stimulate some sort of action, not the least of which would be a major change in his career.

In the meantime, he saw Becca hardly at all. For the first two weeks after the incident she was either at the hospital or by Jenny's bedside when she came home. Except for their brief conversation New Year's Day, he'd only passed her in the hall occasionally, and neither spoke other than in brief greeting. He sensed she couldn't yet talk about it, but he hoped she understood his very real sympathy. He watched her grow thin, her face as hard and pale as bone china. He fancied to himself she actually might break if she went on like this, with that intense, driving concentration on her daughter.

Poor Jenny was not coming out of it readily on her own. David hadn't glimpsed her for a month, until one evening in late January when she was brought down to the family dinner table. She was being led like a sleepwalker. She didn't seem terrified or unhappy, but her eyes were as empty as a field lying fallow. Oddly, she wasn't pretty anymore, as if her beauty was essentially an imprint of happiness and innocence.

Everyone else at the table was overly bright and cheerful that evening, hoping to compensate for the sadness they all felt at the contrast of Jenny to her former self and the fact that she didn't seem to recognize the family members. All were there except Edward, who declined dinner, as he frequently did, and ate something in his room.

David walked out into the hall with Becca and Jenny. While Becca took the girl upstairs, he hung around in the hall, looking sightlessly at the old paintings, hoping she'd be coming back shortly. He paced up and down under the long sweep of stairs planning what to say to her. He wanted to offer her some help, but that was the problem--what had he to give her? At last she came down slowly, heavily, not with the light quick step that had been her hallmark until lately.

"How did she like her story tonight?" David called up to her.

"Oh, real fine, David." Becca had mentioned at dinner one evening she'd discovered that Jenny's childhood storybooks and fairy tales would entertain her for hours. Everyone was delighted the girl would respond to anything, since she had been as if in a waking, walking coma.

"I think she seemed glad to be with us at supper, didn't you?" Becca came alongside of him and he gazed at her sleek dark head, her thin shoulders under a long-sleeved cotton blouse. She looked vulnerable, but more than that, beautiful, as beautiful as the illustrated Snow White in one of Jenny's storybooks. A winding blue vein in her temple held his eye: her skin was translucent. He wished to stroke her face and hair; his impulse was so strong he actually lifted his hand partway.

She continued to talk, hardly seeming to notice him, as if she was getting some unexpected relief from sharing her concerns. "I wish we had some money to get her a cd player. I think music might perk her up some."

"You can use my system," he said promptly. "I never play it. I'm always typing at night, anyway. I'd like Jenny to enjoy it if she could. Come by my room and pick out some music."

She stood next to him and put her hand on his arm. When she spoke her voice was breaking as she fought for control. "Oh, Davy, that's so kind of you. How good you are. I'm so glad you're here."

He looked longingly at her crumpling face. How insanely he loved her at that moment! He would have sacrificed anything to bring her happiness! She turned her head from him and began to shake silently with sobs. He didn't deliberate on how best to comfort her, but led her over to the stairs and sat her down beside him. His arm tightened around her shoulders and she fell against him. He could feel her tears on his neck.

She cried that way for a few minutes while he patted and soothed her, then she sniffed and wiped her eyes and blew her nose with a hanky she'd taken from her pocket. She smiled at him. "I really cut loose, didn't I? I haven't done that in front of anybody else."

Her words pleased him immensely. He assured her how eager he was to be her friend, to do anything for her. "I want you to take care of yourself, too. Don't push yourself so hard."

"I'm managing." They heard a door open at the back of the hall. She leaned close to his ear and whispered, "I need to see you alone. Can I meet you in your room after I get home tonight?"

"Of course," he murmured, stifling his astonishment. She left then without another word, and David made his way back to his room in a daze of wonder.

Becca drove from her work back to Rosehall in the darkness feeling strangely calm. She'd done it. Burned her bridges, telling David she'd see him alone. He knew, he had to know, what she wanted, what they both had been wanting for some time. She needed him. Before leaving the restaurant, she'd washed herself carefully in the restroom. She didn't want to alert the rest of the household by running water unnecessarily. But no one would ever know. They no longer heard her come in.

David eased open his door to the outside as she stepped onto the porch. He'd left on his bedside lamp and from the thrifty glow of its forty watt bulb, she saw the excitement in his eyes. Becca motioned him back into his room. She turned and went through the kitchen door where she quietly made her way to the back hall, listening as she tiptoed on the wooden floor. The house was quiet, no sound even of Edward stirring. She turned the knob on the door to David's room and entered smiling.

"Davy . . ." she breathed. Then she turned and clicked the lock.

He took a step toward her, but she brushed by him and switched off the bedside lamp. As he waited in the dark, she came toward him, smelled his clean smell of soap and shaving lotion, felt his arms enfold her. Now she felt safe and comforted.

"Becca." His voice broke with emotion. "I can hardly believe it. I've dreamed of this. And now . . ." He bent his head to her lips.

She broke away suddenly and whispered, "Davy, you do really want me?"

For an answer he kissed her again, at first tenderly, but Becca's excited response made his kisses more urgent. He held her so tightly that she gave a gasping laugh and pushed him back from her.

"I need air," she whispered, "or you'll be makin' love to a dead woman."

She then began to strip off her clothes. Now it was she who couldn't wait, who tugged off his shirt and pulled him onto the bed. David seemed as starved for love and affection as she was.

"I'm just sorry," he whispered, "that we can't turn on the light. I want to see you."

"Sorry, darling, you'll have to make do with your other senses."

"It's not that much of a hardship," he laughed. His hands explored the curves of her body.

When he touched and kissed her breasts, she groaned with a pleasure she had never known, not even with Edward those first days whose only interest was getting inside her and thrusting until he was satisfied. David was different, wanting to please her, making her ready for him. She felt like a girl again, innocent and free of her burdens, loved as she needed to be loved. And best of all, she seemed to please him, too, who might have had any young thing in town for the asking.

Then while they lay close, she gave a little push and David rolled away from her with a sigh. She was not greedy; their coupling was complete for her, and she could part from him this night, living on the memory of it. Would it happen again? She didn't know.

"David," she whispered after a few silent minutes, "David, what does drinking too much do to a person?"

"What!" He sounded incredulous, shocked by her words. She guessed it was a crude thing to say to a man after he'd made love to her so beautifully. "I'm sorry, Davy. I don't mean to overstep your lovemaking with such a dumb thing to say, but I need to know."

He remained quiet, though from thinking how to answer her or from anger she couldn't tell.

"I mean, how does it hurt him physically?" she persisted.

"Oh, I guess it damages the organs, particularly the liver," her answered. "It destroys brain cells, and eventually it will kill a person." She shuddered and he drew her closer to him again. "There's really nothing you can do to help, you know."

"I figured that. I've given up on him, but I just wanted to know. Brain cells--does that mean he's on his way to crazy?"

"I expect he may already have suffered some damage, yes. For one thing, you, the children, his home haven't been enough for him. That seems crazy to me."

She lay quietly for a few moments. He began to stroke her again as if his jealousy toward her husband had evaporated as he comprehended her unhappiness.

"I can't make out what I feel for him anymore," she said. "I think I hate him sometimes, then again I feel sorrowful about him. It's an awful way to live, Davy."

"I know. You have me now, though. You can talk to me, come to me, anytime--no strings," he added quickly. He seemed to understand without her telling him that he might lose her if he tried to bind her with possessiveness.

"It's funny, I thought my need for this kind of closeness had died when Edward and I stopped our loving, but you . . ." she laughed and tickled his face with a lock of her hair, "you got me all het up like a schoolgirl, looking at me with those hot eyes. Sweet and kind you seemed to me, though, and that's what got me here in this bed. Other men have wanted me but I needed your kindness and something else, too." She thought for a moment, trying to formulate into words his appeal to her, what had drawn her to him.

"What was that?" he said, kissing her brow.

"There's something in you, Davy, that's hidden from most folks, and I wanted to be part of that, too. You're not bound by old and wrong ideas. It gives you your strength, and will sometime carry you away from me, but I love it. It makes me feel stronger."

"You! You're as strong and fine as steel."

"Steel mesh, maybe. I feel that everything good in my life slips right through the holes plumb away from me, no matter how hard I try." But she kept her voice steady. She wouldn't feel sorry for herself or let David think she did.

"Becca, why haven't you left him, before it came to such an awful point?"

"Why, that was just it! I never thought it would come to this. I kept thinking it would ease up somehow, and besides, where could I go? We can't make it with all of us pooling it, so how could me and the children make it alone? And then, too, I just couldn't bring myself to leave them, you know, the family. They need me so."

"Just as long as you don't throw yourself on the pyre."

"Pyre? What a funny way you talk. I guess that's why I never can wait for you to open your mouth. I can't imagine what's going to come out next."

"How about 'I love you'?"

His words startled her into momentary silence."No," she said gravely. "I can't handle that word, not yet. It doesn't have to be that right now, does it?"

"I guess not, if you say so." His voice was softly content.

14

REFLECTIONS

For days after his encounter with Becca, David's thoughts kept straying to the rightness of his involvement with Becca, a married woman, no matter how unhappily situated. Usually, these thoughts occurred before drifting off to sleep. If only her marriage to the worthless Edward could be ended without strain on her or too much upset to the household. He remembered hearing about some tribe or sect that had a rule for ending a marriage: the man (and it could probably never be the woman) would simply declare, "I divorce you" three times and the marriage was over. If such a thing could have been accomplished from Becca's standpoint, even if she had continued to live at Rosehall, how simple things would now be for David. But he quailed at the mess that would ensue if he could persuade–and he wasn't sure he could even do that–persuade Becca to finally leave the reprobate.

And there was David's own situation, a lowly small-town newspaper editor, still at the beginning of his so-called career. How could he offer her and the children anything? Where was this job going? He only knew he was happier as an editor than he'd been as the star crime reporter at the Butler paper. This move had been a good one, he felt sure, in giving him the credentials he would need in the future. Monroeville wasn't, however, the apex of his career, or so he hoped. It was a stepping stone, and if that sounded a bit callous, well, an ambitious man had to look forward, that he believed.

He also realized at some level that he technically could be said to be on the rebound. It was only six months since his engagement fell apart, and although it was supposed to be mutual, he still felt abandoned, maybe because he hadn't beaten Suzanne to the punch, knowing full well for some time they were doomed as a couple. They'd hooked up in college, and drifted into a relationship typical of the free-wheeling eighties, which made the serious-minded David quite uncomfortable. Although they could hardly consider themselves as friends, they slept together, he finally absolving himself from his Catholic sense of sin by proposing marriage. She seemed to accept their state of affairs without making plans for the future, a strange situation for David, who liked things secure, wrapped up.

Finally, after four years of this rather unsatisfying relationship, Suzanne broke it to him that she wanted out. He agreed with an overwhelming sense of relief. But somehow, the breakup had ramifications beyond the personal. It was then that he started to talk to employment recruiters and read professional journal want ads, looking for a place to go. He had realized he was also dissatisfied with his work. Something new and different was called for, and he found it, he believed, in this job at the Monroeville Gazette-News. And now, like a miracle, he found a woman whom he hoped to be his alone in body and spirit, as well as in name.

True, she seemed reluctant to commit to anything. Was he perhaps rushing her, giving her the same feelings for him that he'd cherished for her these few months? He wondered if his own loneliness in a strange place had precipitated this attachment to the lady of the house, but no, something about Becca drew him despite every inclination he had to leave her alone upon first meeting her.

She was married, of course, first problem; she was from a different background–almost incomprehensible to him with his middle class upbringing; she certainly hadn't overtly encouraged him, except when she had come to him in her need. But what was the real reason she'd accepted his lovemaking? Sexual hunger only? She and Edward hadn't slept together for years, it seemed, and she was a young and vital woman. An unworthy thought crept into his brain–was he merely a randy young man conveniently close by? No, she had expressed something very dear to him as they spoke. She noted his strength, his compassion as important to her. Maybe it was something temporary for her, something she needed from him at this moment, but he believed she could grow into a firmer attachment as soon as she gave up this notion that she was the rock upon which Rosehall rested.

Yes, he thought almost angrily. Somehow, Rosehall itself has become her reason for being, as if nothing could supplant her responsibility toward the occupants of the house, with the exception of her daughter's needs, of course. That was the loose cannon in the scenario, he thought. Something different might have to be on the agenda for Jenny Lou, and Becca might have to bend a little in her absorption with caring for this heap of bricks and its inmates. To be honest with himself, he quailed a bit at the thought of the care and treatment in store for the girl, maybe for several years. Could he take on such an assignment? Well, he'd simply have to move on more quickly to a better paying job. He liked the kids, and he was not unwilling to become a step-dad to them when the time came. God knows they needed someone; Edward had opted out, it seemed, a long time ago.

In the meantime, he invariably thought just before he sank into unconsciousness, he would be hers, someone she could depend on, and they would inevitably become closer and closer. Something would happen, he felt sure, to make Becca his own, despite all the seeming hurdles.

15

TO THE RIDGE

The pickup truck hit the deeply rutted road with a tearing jar to the occupant. The shocks were about gone, and the truck veered dangerously from side to side as the driver fought to keep it from sliding in the gravel.

Nevile Tucker was doing things he'd never thought he'd be called on to do. First, he'd gone to the hospital--a queer, unnatural place--three times in two weeks. Seeing her like that had cloven his heart in two. But since she'd been brought home, he only set eyes on her once, and that for just a tiny little visit at Christmas. Slow, agonizing weeks had gone by.

Becca and Trey had been out to the Ridge with news, but the old man hungered for the sight of his granddaughter. He felt bound to see for himself if she was showing any signs of improvement so she could come stay with him, away from that poisoned air of Rosehall. Becca had told him she hadn't really changed since she'd been hurt, hardly at all. How could that be, he wondered, in all this time?

That's why he was again driving through those cursed gates on a fine Saturday morning, twice in little more than a month, when he'd sworn--how many years ago?-- he'd never go back. That first time had been Becca's wedding day. The reception had been held here. It'd be fifteen years now--and Nevile Tucker had come, fool that he was. It had gone wrong, as he knew it would, and he had left early, tasting the bitterness of humiliation in his mouth. It had curled his lip and set his teeth against the Thorpes forever, and confirmed his suspicions that Becca would have it hard.

And there's nought I can do for her, he'd lamented. He knew he'd been proved right, and he almost gagged at the thought of his daughter and then his grandchildren having to live in that great tomb among those people.

He knocked gently on the back door hoping Becca would be nearby to admit him. He groaned inwardly as the door swung open and he saw Mrs. Thorpe, hair held together by wave clamps, dressed in some kind of alarming morning getup, a silky purplish wrap it was, sashed at the waist and falling in folds to the floor.

She'd been surprised to hear the knock--nine o'clock was unsuitably early for anyone to call; but when she saw the lean-faced man outside her door wearing a wrinkled brown coat and dungarees and a scruffy billed cap, she thought him a tramp and said, "Go away, no handouts." She closed the door and walked back to the kitchen table.

Miss Mitty looked up from pouring water over tea leaves in a china pot. "Who was it, Kate?"

"No one. A tramp, I guess. We haven't seen one around here for years. Do you remember all the tramps and gypsies who pestered us during the Depression?" She took a loaf of bread from the box and started to slice it. The knock sounded again.

"Oh, dear," said Miss Mitty with a worried glance at the door. "I wish Becca was up. Is Charles around? Shall I get David?" She took quick little abortive runs in three directions, then stopped.

"No, I'll take care of this. I must not have been firm enough." She opened the door a crack and looked eye to eye with the man. His eye was very blue and very angry.

"I'm Nevile Tucker."

"Oh. Becca's father?"

He nodded. "I've come to see my granddaughter."

"I see." She opened the door wider, but not wide enough for him to pass. "I'm afraid Becca's not up yet." Although he was a small man, he seemed almost frightening to her, he was so strange and different from the men she knew.

"I'm aimin' to see the girl."

"Well, then, come in, won't you?" She looked helplessly at Mitty, who stood transfixed in the middle of the room. "Mitty, you remember Mr. Tucker?"

Miss Mitty gave a little curtsy and cracked her face in a smile.

"If you'll just show me the way to Jenny's room, I'll go on up. Has she et her breakfast yet? I brung her some fried apple pies. That's one of her favorite things." Mitty took them from him to warm up and Mrs. Thorpe led him through the passageway to the main hall and up the stairs.

"Becca's sleeping in Jenny's room," explained Mrs. Thorpe as they stopped in front of the door. She knocked softly and repeated it more loudly when no one answered. The door swung open and Becca stood fastening together a white chenille robe. Mrs. Thorpe hesitated a moment and then left.

"Hello, Pa," she said in welcome, giving him a hug, "I wish I'd known you were coming. I slept a little late since I didn't get to bed until after three. My work, you know."

"I allus forget about that danged job. Can't see why you have to get out at all hours to bring in money to this bunch."

"Let's not go over that again. Come on in. Jenny's awake."

Becca led her father into the large room and they both went over to the bed. Jenny lay with her eyes open, a woven white coverlet pulled under her arms. It was a narrow spool bed brought down from the attic to make it easier to wait on the stricken girl. Becca slept in the tall tester bed. A woven rug covered the floor and the windows were hung with white dimity curtains, laundered white as sugar and carefully mended.

Tucker pulled a small chair from against the wall and placed it beside Jenny's bed. He looked at his daughter. "She still seems to be down in a hollow. Don't ye get her up and walk her around some? It might charge her up with a little more life."

"It's still early for her, Pa. We get her up every day and take her for a little walk. The doctor said he don't know about her mind ever waking up. It might be it's hurt too bad, so it has to stay closed."

"Oh, my dear Lord." The old man wiped his eyes. She was like a stunned bird that sometimes hit his window. Then he took his granddaughter's hand and spoke softly to her. "Eh, girl, you gonna say howdy to your grandpap?"

Jenny looked at him and though she didn't speak, a smile crossed her face. It was a painful and uncertain grimace.

"Look at that!" Nevile Tucker crowed. He squeezed her hand and began to talk to her of the familiars of the Ridge, the animals that visited the cabin--squirrels and chipmunks, the nervous circling deer and the night-wandering raccoon and 'possum--formerly all Jenny's woodland friends. Her eyes never left his face, and there was a faint expression of interest.

He rose and motioned Becca over to the window. "She's more peaky than I expected she'd be after all these weeks."

"I know, Pa." Becca hugged her arms tightly. "I'd hoped she'd be stronger by now, but she don't care a hoot for food."

"She needs to be out of this house more and away from all these people. They crowd her now, and maybe confuse her mind with unhealthy goings-on." He wouldn't repeat his warning of the sickness he felt all around his granddaughter, but Becca would remember.

"She got excellent care in the hospital, but that was just for her physical recovery. There's really no place but her home to help her through the mental trauma, the doctor calls it. You're right, though, she has to be eased back and not bothered too much. Mitty and Mama Kate almost suffocate her." She put her hand to her head. "Oh, I don't know. They love her and mean to help her, but . . ."

"That's what I been athinking. It's time you left her to me for a spell. Let me take her to the cabin, away from all these here folks for some weeks. I could nurse her like a baby. I got nothing else occupying me, and she'd be able to heal in her own time." Tucker softly paced the room, ending up by the side of his daughter, his eyes unblinking, hoping to will her assent.

She looked down and traced a wide crack between the ash plank flooring with the toe of her worn leather slipper. "I don't know, Pa. The family wouldn't understand. I know what you reckon to give Jenny, though." She walked again to the window and looked toward the distant hills. "There is a peacefulness there. Nothing presses on you."

"Well, then. Can't we try it, for even two weeks? A month would be better."

A faint knock on the door and a high pitched "hoo-hoo" signaled Miss Mitty's presence. She entered, carrying a plate of fried pies and a glass of milk. "Look what your grandfather brought for you," she trilled at Jenny Lou.

They sat the girl up in bed and watched as she took a pastry and nibbled on it.

Mitty and Becca exchanged pleased glances. Then the older woman departed, softly swishing across the floor in her long gown.

Becca looked at her father. "I'd like her to go. I really would." She nodded her head in a defiant gesture. "All right! I'll get her ready and you can take her." She held up her hand in admonition. "I expect you to get word to me if she gets worse or you feel you can't manage her."

Nevile Tucker got off with his mute and unprotesting granddaughter within an hour, armed with admonitions from his daughter--don't drive too fast, make Jenny eat her vegetables, don't let her wander alone--until he gave a disgusted wave and took Jenny's arm to lead her off. Becca kissed her daughter and told her she'd be out to see her the following week. The girl looked straight at her mother, then at her grandfather and again a semblance of a smile miraculously crept across her face. The others murmured wonderingly, amazed that the girl could leave without any visible anxiety. Becca had studied her daughter's face closely before she shut her up in the truck. It would be all right, she thought, at least it can't hurt, and might do her some good.

The rest of the family had reacted strongly when Becca proposed Jenny go to her grandfather's. Mrs. Thorpe's face stiffened and she overcame her reserve to take Becca aside and ask if Tucker could attend to personal things the girl might need help with. Becca assured her he could, he'd raised her with great care in those hygiene matters, and besides, Jenny had not menstruated since the accident. The doctor had suggested it might be years before she resumed.

Edward had not come down from his room before Tucker left, but Charles ambled in and when told of the plans, raised his eyebrows in disapproval.

"Much too isolated out there. Your father have a phone yet? Yes, well, even so. Dangerous, really. Elderly man and helpless girl." He shuddered. "I wouldn't like it, if it was my daughter, but . . ." he shrugged.

Miss Mitty just wrung her hands silently as Becca explained. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. "What will we do now, Becca? We'll all be lost without our Jenny to care for."

"You'll get some rest, Miss Mitty. This will give us all a chance to relax ourselves some." She sighed. "I don't know about you all, but I feel like I been rode hard and put up wet. It'll be nine weeks next Saturday and I've hardly thought of nothing else in all that time."

"But what about the rabbits?" persisted Miss Mitty. "Won't Jenny Lou miss the rabbits?"

Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had finally become parents and Trey had ambitions of becoming the rabbit king of Monroeville. At the time of the accident, he had taken over the two rabbits' care and feeding. When the tiny new creatures made their appearance, Jenny was brought out to see them. But at the entrance to the little barn she had screamed and torn herself from her mother's arms to run back to the house.

"You forget, Miss Mitty," said Becca, "Jenny can't get near the rabbits' barn."

"Oh . . . yes." Miss Mitty sank into a chair with a disconsolate cry. "This bad thing has ruined even that. What more will be touched by it? What more, Becca?"

But Becca didn't answer her. Her face felt hard, her mouth a grim line of determination. She didn't intend to be beaten by anything--man, beast, or bad luck. If they could just be allowed a little rest from the worry maybe they'd have a change in their luck.

16

TO THE SHERIFF'S

Charles was upset. Jenny had been gone to her grandfather's for over a week and the active sympathy stimulated by her presence had been replaced by an emptiness that was disturbing to this man, who normally lived in a haze of fatuous tranquility. He caught himself repeatedly thinking the girl had died and they were all mourning her.

Unaccustomed wrath rose within him. But, by heaven, she wasn't dead, he fumed, though she might as well have been, poor chick. For all their loving care, and the brief awakening when she saw old man Tucker, she was like a zombie. Perhaps she'll get better out on the Ridge--be back to normal even. His face reddened as he concentrated on assuming the positive attitude that Father Noland had advised. Oh, what a hard thing, though, to be visited on the family. His thoughts and feelings bumped painfully against each other. He was in an extremely agitated state.

For several days he had paced his room and taken long circuitous walks in the rose garden, trying to ease the tension. Then, the night before Ash Wednesday, unable to cope any longer, he put a call through to his priest. He reckoned he'd be calling him away from the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper (prepared by the Sodality and served by the altar boys), but it couldn't be helped.

One of the thoughts that had been troubling him was the inattention of the law enforcement officials. They seemed to have no interest in pursuing the case. He'd asked some discreet questions of David but he too thought the investigation had been abandoned.

This suspicion of Charles'--that they had been by-passed by the forces of justice--was surrounded by a vague but persistent feeling that his misery would be alleviated by some sort of action. The only person he could think of who might take any constructive action was the sheriff, Joe Ray Pugh. Charles' slow-turning thought process hung up on Sheriff Pugh's dereliction of duty and there it stayed. He decided the absence of a strenuous investigation was a slur on the name of Thorpe, a possibility that wouldn't have been tolerated in his father's day.

Edward, poor man, couldn't handle this sort of thing very well, couldn't follow through when it came to a tough confrontation. He had turned into a virtual recluse, now even more so since the episode, hardly meeting for a meal. No, it fell to Charles himself to uphold the honor of the family. Oh, they all had been permanently scarred by this tragedy. He was almost afraid to look at anyone in the household directly for fear of seeing that awful, hurt look in their eyes. Even Trey he had seen several times running wildly down toward the creek brandishing a stick, screaming and striking the trees in his path. For several nights after Jenny returned from the hospital the boy had been found sleeping outside her door.

Charles waited for five rings before Father Noland answered. He nervously rubbed the top of his head as if trying to remove a spot. "Father, I hope this isn't too inconvenient. Were you very busy?"

"Oh, Charles," the priest puffed, for he'd run from the kitchen downstairs to the upstairs office. "No, I do wish we had a phone downstairs instead of just a bell. The boys are cleaning up now. We missed you, but of course we understand."

"Yes, such a wretched business to try to live with. I'm not sure any of us could have gotten through the worst of it without you. Actually, it's about Jenny, in a way, that I called."

"Oh?" The priest seemed genuinely interested. He'd confessed to the family that he was disappointed that he'd not been able to break through to anything lucid in the child's mind. But then, he amended, he hadn't tried too hard since he knew the curtain that shrouded her from reality was a protective one. "Do you want me to come over?"

"No, that is, I think it would be better if I came over there."

They decided to meet in an hour at the rectory, next door to the church. Charles spent the ensuing forty-five minutes stewing in his room, working himself up into righteous indignation.

When he arrived and was greeted by the priest, Charles began to feel calmer almost immediately. He collapsed in one of a pair of blue mohair club chairs. Father Noland sat opposite him and smiled benignly. Charles looked around with an odd sort of contentment. The room was nice, not lavish, but nice. He wished he could get a similar effect in his own room. He hadn't a clue how to do it, even if he could afford to change anything, and so he could only admire.

"Well, Charles, some new developments?"

"Not exactly, Father. Something forgotten, more likely." He leaned forward, hands tightly clasped between his knees. "It's the shocking laxness of the Sheriff's Department that's bothering me. Nothing done in almost eight weeks. No suspects, no witnesses, no evidence. Why? What's going on? I'm distressed beyond words." In his agitation he stood up and began to prowl the room, idly taking up first a jade figurine, then a porcelain cup in his hand and setting them down carelessly. He kept up his nervous chatter as he paced.

"I cannot sit by and not say anything as long as this disgraceful state of affairs continues." Father Noland started as Charles waved an old German stein in the air for emphasis. It had a loose pewter lid.

Charles set the stein down and faced the priest. He was in a thorough state again, his eyes tearing up, his cheeks hot, his hair clinging damply to his forehead.

"Charles, I understand. Please calm yourself. Sit down and let's think about this a minute."

"Oh, I've thought about it. I've done nothing but think about it for weeks!" This was not quite true but it seemed like weeks.

"It's understandable you want to see justice done. 'To do justice, and to love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.' Yes, it's a deep urge in us and perfectly sound. What's to be done though in practical terms? Sheriff Pugh is in charge, and I suppose he knows his business. God knows he's been at it long enough!"

"He's an incompetent fool! All he knows to do is play politics. We just simply have to put some pressure on him. That's what those types understand. Clout!" He smacked his fist in his hand. "That's why I need your help."

"To do what?"

"You know, enlighten him as to our concerns about a criminal running around loose. We can remind him of our spheres of influence--you in the clerical community and me in the--ah, social. That should snap him to, get him going properly."

"Charles, did you notice there was nothing in the paper about the tragedy? You may have been too involved at the time to notice but I particularly looked for it. There was nothing."

"There was nothing reported?" Charles looked blank, unsure of the priest's direction.

"No, and I'm sure we can attribute that to the discretion of David and your friend Mr. Henshaw. I want to remind you that if you pursue this with the sheriff, he might be obliged to bring it out in the open. Are you willing to take the chance of some unpleasant notoriety if you don't get immediate cooperation?"

"I. . . think. . . so. Yes, we must, I do believe. Don't you agree, Father? We can't just not do anything!"

The priest gave a barely audible sigh before he spoke. "I also want to remind you that we're not doing quite nothing. Let's not overlook the prayers, the novena."

"Oh, I know, Father. And I'm grateful, we're all grateful, but don't you see, I feel I've been led to do more."

"Oh, I see." Father Noland looked sternly at this earnest member of his flock and then gave him a smile. "Yes, of course I'll help you. It should be worth a try. Have you spoken to Jenny's parents about this?"

"It would be pointless. Edward isn't well, you know, and this has driven him further from all of us. Becca, too, can only think of the child's condition. She can't bear to talk about the attack. I'm afraid it's up to me."

The next morning following the Ash Wednesday Mass the two men set off in Charles' Studebaker for the Sheriff's Office. Charles was quieter than the night before. He felt strong and certain of his mission and suffused by an unfamiliar sensation of power. The sensation was almost heady it was so unexpected. He couldn't think if he'd ever done anything quite like this before. Authority figures awed him, sometimes terrified him--he even harbored a tickling dread at the thought of meeting the Bishop this spring, and he studiously avoided confronting powerful people, or as in the case of Father Noland, maintained an attitude of deference that he remotely sensed bordered on obsequiousness.

Today was different though, and he reveled in the idea of putting the little strutting sheriff in his place. Charles did however feel a twinge of his old hapless shrinking as they entered the grubby offices. This impersonal operation in the midst of unfamiliar symbols of authority--a row of handcuffs on hooks, a locked gun case, fully stocked, stacks of official-looking forms and manuals--all were a little unnerving.

Two deputies reclined in swivel chairs, cracking jokes with the elderly female dispatcher, who sat at a microphone and control panel along the rear wall. She wore harlequin glasses and a high-necked ruffled blouse under her uniform jacket.

One of the deputies acknowledged the two men and yelled to Sheriff Pugh in his office behind a half open door to the right. The sheriff called for the visitors to come in and as they entered they found him standing behind his desk framed, as it were, in a montage of wall-hung awards, photographs, and citations from a grateful citizenry. He was a full foot shorter than Charles, but definitely in charge as he shook hands with the two men and motioned them to chairs beside his desk.

"Good morning, gentlemen. It's a pleasure for me to welcome y'all here to my small center of operations. Sit down, sit down."

Sheriff Pugh had a resonant voice and a casual reassuring manner with just enough soberness in his demeanor to indicate he took his job seriously. . .which he did, of course. He was the politician par excellence, second only to Hatcher Lowe, whom he respected above all others as he'd made clear on numerous occasions. The sheriff was also keenly aware of the relative precariousness of his position and so was careful how he enforced the law. In other words, he did not have a vocation. He eyed the men across from him and sat down himself in a heavily padded chair.

Charles jumped right in.

"We're not here to exchange pleasantries, Sheriff. I'm afraid I'll have to get right to the point. It's been eight weeks since the attack on my niece, and I've seen no evidence of any recent efforts on your part to find the culprit. As a representative of my family, I must say I'm frightfully concerned by what appears as laxness in this agency." He was slightly breathless after his speech.

"Now, now, Mr. Thorpe," the Sheriff began soothingly, "I'm deeply shocked by your suggestion. It's been a most vexatious case, as I'm sure you can appreciate. No clues, no witnesses. A difficult position for law enforcement officers." Sheriff Pugh was careful not to appear apologetic at this stage. He realized the importance of maintaining sovereign dignity in the preliminary period of a dispute with his betters.

"I've made some inquiries on my own, and as far as I can tell, Sheriff, except for a few questions to those of us close to the girl, you haven't carried on any sort of an investigation." Charles was perspiring freely, but his will was set and although he acknowledged this would take a terrific toll on his nervous system he proceeded valiantly. "It's a disgrace and an outrage. It's almost as if you were condoning violence!"

"Now, Mr. Thorpe." The sheriff rose from his chair and walked back and forth behind his desk. "The fact is, we've interrogated all possible witnesses pursuant to the case. We suspect the likelihood, although the case is certainly not closed, that it's possible the perpetrator was a vagrant passing through town. On the other hand, we've not overlooked the possibility that once we uncover the motive or find some hard evidence or a reliable witness, we might could find the alleged criminal right here in our midst."

"Sheriff," the priest's equally authoritative voice broke in, "I don't think Mr. Thorpe is being unreasonable to ask for a greater effort, or at least a little more imaginative approach. We want you to know we are very much interested in seeing justice done. Frankly, in crimes of this sort, the motive should be understood, shouldn't it? I don't think it's too much for you to tell us if you are planning on further investigation."

The sheriff paused. There had been no overt threats to throw any weight around, but the implications were clear to him. Old influential families and the clergy combined made formidable opponents. Elections were coming up next year, and the sheriff was counting on a sixth term.

"I don't want you to get your hopes up," he drawled, "and I can't give any particulars at this time, but we've been working on a lead that might--just a teeny bit--be promising."

"Really, Sheriff?" Charles was flushed suddenly with victory. He gave Father Noland an excited but rather surprised smile.

Sheriff Pugh nodded, but held up a cautioning hand. "Let me get back to you in a day or so when I have something concrete."

"Fine, fine."

"Thank you, Sheriff, for your time." Father Noland held out his hand, which was firmly grasped and shaken for some time. Sheriff Pugh then extended his hand to Charles, and they went through the same ritual.

The two men were ushered out. "I can assure you both, nobody wants to see this case solved no more than me. I've never intended to leave any stone unturned in seeing justice done."

Charles nodded. "Oh, yes, justice," he murmured.

After seeing them out, Sheriff Pugh stood rocking on his small booted feet. He appeared to be looking out the window but his eyes were glazed as he concentrated on thought.

He'd have to come up with something good P.D.Q. to pacify them. He said he would, so he'd have to do it. Self-pity welled up in him, rather unexpectedly in this normally content man. The sometimes abrasive contacts that came about because of his work usually didn't depress him, certainly never frightened him. He had developed two modi operandi \--one for the criminal, one for the voters, and his methods had given him almost unqualified success. The stupid criminal element that regularly surfaced in his jurisdiction respected the authority of his office--he could speak their language--and he thought they might even personally admire him.

The voter, he'd learned in his five consecutive terms, only wanted smiles, handshakes, and a confident manner. That was it, believe it or not! He'd made some mistakes those first few years by explaining too much, taking people into his confidence, and by listening too hard. It had nearly cost him his second term. He'd had to calm down three separate factions before they let him alone. He'd learned his lesson.

After that, he relaxed and let the town flow around him, taking care to guard against any sudden rushes of controversy, knowing each ripple would subside soon enough with another one to take its place. The fact is, he mused, most people didn't want to get too deep into criminal affairs. Sometimes they just said things out loud so as to relieve their consciences. Why, they would on most occasions actually turn on you if you took them at their word!

That was what guided him when Charles began his harangue, but by the time they'd left he'd decided it wasn't just an idle inquiry and no bluff, either.

The sheriff's mind was one small acre of unplanted furrows. He hitched himself to the plow and troweled the familiar terrain. There was a definite, substantiated crime that had been committed so there had to be a suspect, and despite the one suggestion he'd made to Charles and Father Noland, he suspected the perpetrator was still close by. Tramps were not common in this neck of the woods, and even then, Rosehall was too distant from the Nashville Pike and the railroad track to be a good stopping-over place. Besides, he'd found that bums were quiet fellows who minded their own business and generally only stole for food, avoiding violence.

Who was a likely suspect? Who could he sink his teeth into and shake until what he wanted to hear came out? A smile crossed his face as a thought unearthed itself like a renegade sprout. It came as a kind of inspiration, and he felt momentarily dazzled by its brilliance, its rightness. He whistled sharply through his teeth with the assistance of two stubby fingers and within seconds the door opened and his first deputy stood in the opening, an expectant grin on his face.

"Dawkins, didn't you handle that complaint we got a couple of days ago from that mother, ah, Mizrus Carter, wasn't it, about Lloyd Clay scaring off them kids?"

"It wasn't nothing, Sheriff. I talked to the kids and they admitted they'd been tormenting Dandy, egging him on until he picked up that little Carter gal and put her in his paper bag. She skinned her elbow when he dumped her out. I saw Dandy and plumb wore out his ass about touching them. I told him to tell us if'n he has any problems with the kids. I reckon he'll do as I say now."

"Come inside, Dawkins, and close the door."

The deputy did as he was instructed and waited. Sheriff Pugh sat behind his desk and looked up solemnly.

"Have you ever noticed, as long as we've been in the business, we can be led astray in solving the major crimes. We're so used to seeing niggers in trouble, or hearing about the infiltration of the Mafia, that we always expect a criminal to be black or strange to our kind. We tend to think if he ain't Rastus he'll have a name that ends in 'a' or 'o'. But here's the funny thing; when these big crimes are investigated, I always seem to have a pair of blue eyes staring at me from across this desk, their complexions as fair as a babe, and their name's either Floyd or Lloyd."

"Whattayamean, Sheriff?"

"I mean we're harboring a snake in our bosom, Dawkins. I mean I want Lloyd Clay, alias Dandy Day, picked up for questioning in the Thorpe assault case."

"Whompers!"

"That's right." He clucked despairingly. "This foul business going on right under our noses and us too trusting to see it." The sheriff was getting his juices up now. "A dangerous lunatic like that running loose. Why, we're just lucky we haven't had to set a murder to rights. Dawkins, you just step right on out and bring that low-life in."

"Yes, sir!" Dawkins saluted and fairly flew out the door under the impetus of the call of duty.

17

THE ARREST

After David came into the newspaper office the next morning, he made his usual call to the Sheriff's Office to see if anything exciting had happened. Of course, once a week, the Sheriff's Office would send over the complete roster of arrests, but that would be too late if anything out of the ordinary were going on. His daily procedure was to phone for the names of people charged with misdemeanors or felonies. Occasionally one would bear following up, and he prided himself that the Nashville papers had never gotten the jump on him--except by reason of the Gazette's weekly publishing status.

At first Sheriff Pugh told him the day before had been slow, with only a couple of minor traffic violations, but when David jokingly asked, "What, you don't have anybody locked up?" the sheriff hesitated in an uncharacteristic manner, then drawled that Dandy Day was being held for questioning. The first thing that crossed David's mind was what an impossible task that would be. He had a momentary flutter of sympathy for the sheriff, trying to gather information from the poor idiot.

"What for?" he asked, not very interested. He had even put down his pencil. Dandy Day most likely had taken one present too many from a shopkeeper.

"Ah, it's in connection with the Thorpe girl's assault."

"What's that?"

"We haven't charged him yet, but it looks like we might have a case. The prosecutor's coming over today."

"Any evidence?" David's mouth was dry. He remembered to pick up his pencil.

"Can't say yet. Check with me later in the day. We might have a story for you."

David sat staring at the few words he'd jotted down, "DanD. quest. evidence? D.A. later tdy," and tried to conjure up a re-creation of the assault with Dandy as the villain. Jenny Lou in the dark, curled up in a blanket with her rabbits; the heavy lumbering figure outside sees the dim light from the horse box. The demented brain registers the images--small animals, a cowering young girl--and like Steinbeck's Lennie, he wants to hold them. Jenny pushes him off, Dandy pushes back, feels her soft flesh, pulls her to him and for the first time understands his secret yearnings.

He shook his head and sighed heavily. That scenario seemed far-fetched, but then he'd never thought of Dandy as a man, a fully functioning male with urges of any kind. Dandy religiously stopped by the newspaper office several times a week, but the poor fool's pathetically simple interests had occupied Doris and him with only half their minds. He seemed like a puppy who panted for approval and loved his doggy treat. But of course puppies turned into dogs, sometimes vicious ones. Perhaps those thoughtless insults and condescending smirks that the townspeople thought had gone unnoticed had festered in the muddled recess of his brain and then, given the right opportunity, had exploded into violence.

David thought about Becca too and felt a rush of emotion. Locking up her daughter's attacker wouldn't undo the damage but it might help her to live with it. Maybe if she knew the circumstances of that black night it would act as a catharsis to give her peace of mind again.

He left the office without saying anything of the matter to Doris and headed for the county jail. Dandy was after all an employee of sorts, and he wanted to see him, maybe hoping the sight of him would convince him that the half-wit had been, as Sheriff Pugh would say, the perpetrator.

It was a short walk and David took it in brisk strides, so absorbed in his thoughts he barely noticed anyone who passed him. The jail was across the alley from the administration offices and he was greeted by a deputy taking his turn at the desk in the tall room which turned the human voice into hollow vibrations. The jail was a converted one-story Victorian commercial structure with all the gloom and none of the glitter of that period. It had always reminded David of a smaller version of the Monroeville Hotel with its narrow grimy windows and peeling paint. The building was also poorly scaled in design, the ceilings too high for its small rooms. Dandy was in the first of a double lock-up. David was admitted to the area and took a wooden chair over beside the cell. The jailer returned to his room, leaving them alone.

When Dandy saw David he began to cry. He stumbled toward the front of his cell with his awkward gait. His jacket seemed to fit even worse than usual. The sleeves hung down past his wrists, the lumpy shoulder pads well beyond his shoulders. His great round face, surmounted by tousled hanks of mouse-colored hair, looked as miserable as David had ever seen it.

"They locked me up, Mister. I don't like it."

"I'm sure you don't, Dandy. Did they tell you why?" Dandy looked at David and frowned, uncomprehending.

"Why are you here?" David repeated. "What did you do? Did you do something bad?"

"I was bad."

David took a quick intake of breath. "Tell me what you did, Dandy."

"Sheriff says I was bad. I hurt the little girl. She cried and her mama's mad at me."

In that instant David felt himself grow as cold and pristine as a white marble statue of a god surveying a decadent specimen of humanity. He looked down from the vast reaches of his Olympian perspective at the whimpering man, his compassion disappearing without a trace.

"Did you want to hurt the little girl?"

"She, ah--she. . . " He looked at David hopefully as he groped for the words. Usually the editor supplied them, but not today.

"She--she bothered me, Mister. Ah-huh, she bothered me." He seemed to like the word. David wondered if the sheriff had furnished him with it.

"She made me mad," he continued, almost eagerly as if he hoped for some kind of assistance if he told all he knew. "I hit at her. I wanted her to get off me."

Oh, God, David breathed. He was beginning to get some feeling back, but now it was revulsion that turned his face away. His job came first though, so he went on.

"Do you remember touching her, picking her up?"

"I touched her. I don't like it here, Mister. Will you ast the sheriff for to get me out?"

"We'll see, Dandy. Someone else will be in to talk to you today." David left Dandy grasping the bars with a face distorted by fear and confusion. Back at the office David prepared a couple of other stories for the next edition, chatted with Doris about inconsequential matters, and then when she went home for lunch, called his boss.

"They've picked up Dandy Day for questioning about Jenny's assault."

"When did this happen?" He admired Milt's cool response. He hoped someday to be able to emulate that unruffled reaction to anything and everything.

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Do you know if it's at all promising?"

"The sheriff says charges will probably be forthcoming this afternoon after the D.A. takes over."

"What kind of evidence?"

"Confession, I guess. I don't know for sure. The sheriff wouldn't tell me yet."

"Confession!" At last Milt seemed startled. "Confession from that boob? What can that mean?"

"I've talked to him, saw him this morning. He freely discusses it."

"Oh, my Lord. What put the Sheriff on to him?"

David had to admit ignorance. "Maybe that's the mysterious evidence, or maybe someone saw him leave Rosehall that night. I guess we'll find out."

"When did you say?"

"This afternoon, Sheriff Pugh said, so I'll call back then."

"Do that."

"Uh, Milt?"

"Yes, David?"

"What shall we do? About the story, I mean?"

"Do?"

"Right. We do print it, don't we?"

"When he's charged, of course. It becomes public record."

"How big, though? Small report tucked away between sports and classified, or a big spread with background?"

"You're the editor, David."

"Really? That is, sure, fine, thanks, Milt. I'll work it out. This afternoon after I talk to the sheriff. If Dandy's charged." His hands were clenched with excitement. This could be the big one. It would just make the deadline and probably not be picked up by any stringers who reported to the news services until it was published. His story should break it open and if handled right, might just garner a state or regional award.

He cast about in his mind for a dynamite lead. The story would take a little research for some good sidebars--Dandy's mother, maybe a few local business people he'd pestered. Had he ever attended any school? Probably not, but it would have been a nice touch, the interview with an old teacher, "No, he was very docile then, although I do remember one incident. . . ."

He began to compose in his head, "Alone in his cell, unable to make his daily rounds delivering papers or getting a handout, Lloyd Clay, known locally as Dandy Day, is now awaiting trial for aggravated rape and assault to commit murder." David had no doubts the charges would be filed, and his mind was full of the story.

Doris came back and went to her work while he wrote. An hour and a half later he had brought that night into focus, describing the emotions of the unnamed girl as best as he could imagine and telling of the attack itself. Now would be the point, he thought, to objectify the assailant. What kind of a man would do a thing like that? He thought about the many rape-assault-murder cases he'd read about or heard other reporters talking about--this was his only first hand experience of reporting one. What common denominator did the criminals have? Hatred of women? Hatred of themselves? Bursts of uncontrollable emotion? Yes, for sure. Deep frustration that went unrecognized. Yes. There was probably a profile. He saw he'd have to do more research.

All the time he was composing and revising he realized he might be a tad close to trying Dandy in the press. He didn't really care. There was no law against what he planned to do. He wrote with a sense of gratitude, almost a kind of joy that the man was behind bars. He personally had never been convinced of the wandering tramp theory that the sheriff had first tried to palm off. They both knew very well that statistics pointed out that most violent crimes are committed by persons associated in some way to the victim, either by relationship or locale.

At three o'clock he called the sheriff, who confirmed David's expectation that Dandy would be charged for aggravated rape and assault to commit murder. The prosecutor had just left and was at the courthouse. There would be a hearing in a month in front of a grand jury. They had a witness that would testify at the hearing. No, he hadn't witnessed the actual perpetration of the crime, but close enough. Sheriff Pugh wouldn't yet reveal the name, so David thanked him and hung up.

On his way out of the office he told Doris briefly what had happened and left her stunned, wearing a horrified expression on her face. His idea to interview any people close to Dandy seemed a sound one and would add that extra dimension to a story that was already bristling with high drama. He wondered if he could catch Dandy's mother at home or if she would be at the jail. He decided to try the house first.

Mrs. Clay sewed curtains to make a living for herself, and according to Doris, she was cheap in her prices and mediocre in the quality of her work. The house was only about two blocks off the square. It was a shabby, puce-colored bungalow of indeterminate age, trimmed in peeling grey.

David rapped with authority on the door, looking around at the neighboring houses, also very shabby, and marveling at what seemed to be the large number of poor families in this town. These run-down areas appeared in all directions leading from the town square like ragged crusts of moldy bread. When Mrs. Clay appeared at the door David was ready to embrace her, figuratively speaking, with his pity, but she nipped that in the bud with her business-like bustling manner.

"Come in, come in. Mind the fabric there. I just laid it out to get a good measure."

She led him through a living room festooned with draperies into the kitchen, a tiny room which gave off a sour, dark smell of past strongly flavored meals. She pointed to a chair by the gate-leg table that was pressed against the wall and David meekly sat down.

She placed in front of him a chipped ironstone cup full of hot murky coffee, dangerously splashing into the saucer. This without a word, however. Ingrained habits of hospitality were winning out over her obviously suspicious feelings. Her movements were not quick but she moved with energy. She was a rather heavy woman and wore a cheap cotton house dress made of feed sack material. The stockings that encased her fat legs like sausages were very strange to him. They looked thick and cottony but squealed like nylon as her legs rubbed together.

"I guess you're wondering. . . " he began cautiously, but she interrupted.

"I know why you're here. You're Mr. Mueller from the newspaper."

"Yes, well, I thought it might be a good idea to get some background information on Dand--er, Lloyd, his interests, what he was like as a child, that sort of thing."

"You wanna snoop, I guess. Newspapers are big snoops, almost as bad as the po-lice."

She spoke without rancor, her voice almost toneless.

"It's my job, Mrs. Clay, to inform the public on matters of interest," he said rather pompously. Did judges and bishops, who had the reputation for pompous clichés, feel as insecure as he? "Unfortunately, your son has placed himself in the public eye."

She snorted and took a sip of her coffee. "Got roped in, you mean. Lloyd didn't do nothing like they say. He's simple, but he's not bad. He don't aim to hurt nobody."

"But he's strong, isn't he? And he has a temper. I've seen him get angry. It could have happened that way, couldn't it?"

She shook her head vigorously. "He never did have thoughts of girls and such like. He's been funny that way. I thought he might need fixing when he got to manhood but he never cared about such things. I don't know why."

"Well." This was getting away from the direction he wanted to go. "What about his rovings? He's out alone all the time, isn't he? Day and night?" David had seen him at the drug store right up to its ten o'clock closing time.

"He don't like to sit still."

He asked her, "What do you remember about that night--Thanksgiving? Was he out then?"

"I don't know. Might be he was." She flared at him suddenly. "How can I keep track? I got so much to do, and I can't watch him like a baby!"

"Did you know he confessed to it?"

"Lloyd don't know what to say. He'd say anything to get out of that place." She lowered her head and her puffy eyes emitted big tears like lemons being squeezed.

"He'll be right upset to be closed up in that jail tonight. He won't know what to think." More tears rolled and she wiped her eyes roughly.

He hardened his heart and began to ask her questions about her son's early years. She became calmer and answered him with an odd, detached volubility. It was probably a story she'd told her customers time after time. A picture gradually emerged to fill his reporter's notebook. It was not so much a picture of Dandy but of this woman's struggle to deal with an abnormal child and a worthless husband, who'd left her early on to get along the best she could. The house was hers, the only inheritance she'd received from her father, a small farmer turned townsman, who had worked as a house painter. That might explain the color of the clapboards on her house. It looked suspiciously like the dregs of many paint cans mixed together.

Mrs. Clay believed Dandy had found his place in the life of the town and even was useful in his way. David agreed he had been a super paper boy with his single minded determination to sell every last paper in his bag. People would buy copies several times during the week to prevent being followed by him and his loud voiced haranguing for a sale.

The upshot of the visit was a disappointing few pages of usable notes. He hadn't learned much more about Dandy than he already knew from his association with him around the newspaper office. There seemed to be no depth at all to the man's life. He knew he'd have to go further in his investigation. Anything more to know about Dandy would be locked in that small damaged brain. It would be like trying to see into a dungeon that had no marked passage to its heart. There must be documented cases of other simpletons whose normally placid nature erupted into violence. The prospect of such an investigation excited David. He looked forward to the coming weeks when more and more of the man's nature would be exposed.

He left the house after thanking Mrs. Clay for her hospitality and walked slowly back to the office. He mulled over his idea to probe the hidden depths of depravity as his angle in this story. The contrast between the outer harmless-looking man and the inner beast should be riveting. He would use as his premise that no one can ever guess or hardly imagine the depths of evil in another. He believed he could manage this coverage with the kind of taste that would be demanded of him as a resident of Monroeville.

David expected to be the one to break the news of the arrest to the Thorpes, but someone had beaten him to it, as was evident from the excited talk around the dinner table that evening. He came in almost unobserved and took his place while Charles was expounding.

". . . no matter, I said, it's clear you've been derelict in your duty. But my word, I never expected such prompt action."

"He must have suspected him, Charles, and been waiting for evidence, or whatever." This from Becca. She looked at David as he sat down but didn't smile at him. Her expression was tense.

Mrs. Thorpe shook her head wonderingly. "I still can't quite believe it. Why would a person like that . . . it's inhuman."

"How did you hear?" David asked.

"Sheriff Pugh called this afternoon. I had just been to see him yesterday, demanding some action--"

"You?" David cut in. "You talked to the sheriff about Dandy?"

"No, no. I had no idea who might have done the evil deed, but I thought it was about time the law declared itself."

"Wait a minute, let's get this straight. Yesterday, you--"

"And Father Noland . . . "

"He too? Okay, you and Father Noland went to the sheriff and suggested he get on the stick, arrest someone for the assault?"

"Exactly. We all knew someone had done it, and he couldn't have just vanished into thin air. I mean, after all, this isn't New York City. I merely thought it was time to nudge him a bit." He added defensively, "Father Noland heartily agreed."

"Why had the sheriff sat on it so long? What had he been waiting for?" David looked at Charles, who shrugged, and then around the table at the others. Edward was not present.

"We have to assume he had his reasons," said Mrs. Thorpe. "Maybe, as Charles said, he'd just let the matter slide for more pressing concerns, and then when Charles made him . . . er, get on the stick, the obvious suspect came to mind. Well, at any rate, I'm delighted the lunatic is locked up. I'm just sorry it wasn't a few months earlier." She wiped her eye with the corner of her napkin.

"I've longed for nothing as much as hearing Jenny's attacker was locked up," Becca spoke calmly but there was a catch in her voice, too, "but I don't feel like I thought I would. When I think of the times I've bought his papers, talked with him, kidded him. Me and the children made a point to greet him when we come to town. Why, he was even Santa Claus this year, passing out candy on the courthouse lawn!" She stopped for a moment, then flashed out angrily, "Why couldn't it have been a stranger!"

"I didn't like him" said Trey, pushing around the green peas on his plate. "He gave me the creeps."

Everyone was silent for a moment. Charles's disclosure he'd pressured the sheriff had startled David at first, but in considering it, he decided the lawman might have been lying in wait and co-incidently ready to pounce when Charles came to see him. It hardly negated the evidence, witness, or whatever, not to mention the confession David had heard with his own ears.

"I think we might have a little prayer of thanksgiving," Charles suggested, holding out his hands to be grasped. Prayer at the table was ritualized in this family only to the extent of being brought in for special holiday feasts along with the better dishes. Everyone at the table self-consciously clung to each other's fingertips while Charles mumbled something very long and incoherent into his plate. David sneaked a glance at Becca. She was staring straight ahead, seeming to be engrossed in her own thoughts rather than prayer.

Despite the odd arrest pattern David whetted his pencil and worked half the night on his story. How the sheriff arrived at his conclusions as to Dandy's involvement was hardly his affair. As far as David was concerned, his responsibility was quite clear, he had been given the go-ahead from Milt, so . . . he would go on with it.

The psychological aspect continued to intrigue him the most. He pored over whatever reference books he could find among the Thorpe collection (they were surprisingly abundant), as well as some he had picked up at the library on the way home. There was something chilling about the unexpected in a person's character being revealed--the whited sepulcher. Dandy may have been an idiot, but he was to all who knew him safe and simple and childlike, someone resembling themselves.

Were we like Dandy, David pondered, capable of monstrous crimes? What if those debased urges are only kept under control by our desire to conform or maybe by a religious overlay of moral strictures or maybe by love? Like Buddha do we see the devil as one's worst self, or is it a force from outside our psyche? David considered the circumstances that may have led to Dandy's breakdown. It was probably untraceable, and he could only surmise how many humiliations had piled on one another; how much neglect, abuse, misunderstanding, that finally tipped him over the line. He wrote on.

18

STEPPING IT OFF

"The house looks so gosh-awful big, close up like this. Much bigger than from the road driving by."

She seemed kind of excited about the whole thing, but honestly, she had said to Hatcher, wasn't the house they lived in big enough? Hatcher heard her take a deep, resigned breath as they proceeded to walk toward the front steps. He smiled to himself. Ella Mae was a practical girl, She'd lived with Hatcher Lowe long enough to know that she'd have to make do with whatever he had his heart set on. She might think the house was big and ugly right now, but just wait until he finished with it. She'd be living like a queen.

"Every winda in the place needs putty," she stated in her flat voice, all expression squeezed out of it by habitually giving orders to others. It was the voice of a closet drill sergeant. Those under her control--her father, her children, servants, shop clerks--knew at first hand her true tone. Hatcher, of course, had heard for years the rat-a-tat-tat of her orders and complaints, but not directed at him. He'd never have stood for that!

Hatcher believed he knew real marital bliss. Ella Mae had given him all he'd ever expected in a wife. She had catered to him like he was a sultan and had always been a barrel of fun in the sack, or on the floor for that matter. He wished sometimes though that she hadn't gotten so fat. He eyed her surreptitiously as they walked toward the house. Her jersey dress clung revealingly to her broad buttocks under the short mouton jacket. He unconsciously sucked in the flab of gut that hung over his belt. He always thought of himself as muscular.

"I'm planning on a lot of fixing up," he relayed in puffy jerks that matched their strides. "Don't worry your head, plumb cake, Daddy'll take care of all the broken down stuff around here. I'll have it looking like a show place before I'm done."

Ella Mae squeezed his arm as they went together up the creaking front steps. The house and yard were quiet, but Sunday afternoons were a quiet time anyway in the town, generally speaking. He hadn't made an appointment with anyone to come over and look at the place. Hell, it was practically his, wasn't it? He'd been making monthly payments to Edward since December, and although it would be June or so before he'd be moving in, the papers were signed and Hatcher felt he had some rights. The news of the sale hadn't leaked out around town, so far as Hatcher knew, because he and Edward hadn't wanted it to.

The odd thing about the deal was Hatcher's delay in stepping the place off. When he'd made the bargain with Edward, it hadn't occurred to him he might have bought a pig in a poke. Rosehall's reputation had sold him years ago, although he'd only been inside the place twice in his life. Frankly, Hatcher had been bowled over by Edward's speedy acceptance of the offer. He'd begun to realize with increasing trepidation that he knew very little about what he'd bought. Strangely, he felt a reluctance to examine his purchase too closely.

A funny thought that made no sense at all had crept out periodically: If the Thorpes had finished with something it wasn't worth much anyway. Shit! What if that was true? What if he'd paid what amounted to a substantial amount of money for a laughable old hulk? He felt himself swimming in the unknown waters of sheer terror. To be duped, flummoxed! But no, it was impossible. He told himself over and over how great it'd be to live here, how fitting it was that he, the most prominent man in the county, would soon be occupying the most prominent house in the county. Hell, yes, it was an important house. So he decided this Sunday that he and Ella Mae would just hie themselves out to Rosehall and see for themselves that it was worth every penny, in more ways than one.

He shifted his weight and the rotting plank underfoot dipped in a threatening way. He rapped on the door with his hand. It seemed an affectation to use the knocker. He studied the dull brass figure with interest. It looked good, and he thought he might keep it.

Becca opened the door. When she saw who it was, she gave a start but then quickly recovered, smiling as she admitted them. The Lowes stood awkwardly just inside the door. Hatcher stared at Becca, eating her up with his eyes. She lifted her head proudly. He had no hold over her. What was past was past. But how peculiar that they would pay a call. On the other hand, many people who'd not darkened the door of Rosehall for years had come by to pay their respects because of Jenny's trouble.

"Come right on in." She turned to lead them across the hall to the open parlor door. "No rush," Hatcher said, craning his neck to look around. "I want Ella Mae to take a gander at this hall. You know each other?" The women nodded with a minimum of interest and Ella Mae took a step forward.

"Oh, Hatcher, look at the size of this place! And those stairs! You'd need full-time help just to keep them swep' up."

"Annie comes over most days to help me," said Becca quietly, "but we still can't get around to everything. I been so tied up with Jenny I'm afraid I've let it go even worse. You'll have to excuse the looks."

"Oh, it don't matter," Ella Mae flung back, "I'm just anxious to see it." Becca offered to take their coats, frowning slightly at the woman's loud and careless manner.

"How is your little girl?" asked Hatcher. "I heard she was took bad since the attack."

"Yes, she's pretty bad. She's gone now to Pa's for a spell. The doctor hopes her mind will heal in time."

"Glad to hear that they got the damned pervert locked up."

Becca nodded. She didn't want to discuss this with Hatcher.

Ella Mae had walked to the other side of the room and stood gazing at the ancestral portrait of a beautiful light-haired woman in a blue dress. "My, she's nice looking. Who is she?"

Becca shook her head. "I've been told, some long ago ancestor, but I forget who."

She stood by the door to the sitting room. "Everyone will want to see you. They're just playing cards."

"Let's go, Ella Mae. Say howdy first." He ushered her into the room.

The small group at the end of the room looked around with curiosity. David was playing partners with Charles; Edward was partnered with his mother. When he saw Hatcher, he stood up suddenly and overturned his chair.

"Hatcher!" Then he recovered himself, righted the chair, and walked over to the judge. He held out his hand. "And you've brought your lovely wife for a visit. I don't know how long it's been since I've had the pleasure of seeing you, ma'am. You remember my mother, and my aunt, Miss Mitty Thorpe." He gestured toward his aunt, sitting on the sofa, holding a lacy piece of handwork she was struggling with.

"My brother Charles, of course, and do you know David Mueller, our worthy newspaper editor and star boarder?" Mrs. Thorpe's face took on a pinched look at her son's words. David and Charles rose a little belatedly and nodded at Ella Mae.

Ella Mae greeted everyone, then turned in the middle of the room and looked about her. "This room has the highest ceilings I've ever seen, except for the stock pavilion at the fairgrounds. How do you keep these rooms warm?"

"My father had the foresight and cash to put in a coal stoker several years ago," answered Edward. "It's now rather antiquated and troublesome, but even with extraordinarily cold winters it does an admirable job."

"Coal?" Ella Mae wrinkled her nose and sat down heavily in a spindle-legged Sheraton side chair. "No wonder this place don't have a clean look." Mrs. Thorpe's gasp could be heard across the room. Edward swung over to the cabinet and began to pour out a glass of sherry.

"Anybody like a drop? Or some tea or coffee? Becca, see to our guests' pleasure."

Becca took orders and went to the kitchen. David offered to help her, and since the bridge game was obviously over, Charles and his mother took seats nearer the Lowes.

In the kitchen, David asked Becca, "I didn't know Hatcher Lowe was on social terms with the Thorpes."

"He's not!" Becca snapped, putting a teakettle on to boil. She got out cups and saucers and arranged sugar cookies on a large plate. Mrs. Lowe looked like she could put away quite a few.

David got out the milk and poured it into a pitcher shaped like a cow. "Well," he shrugged, "maybe he's trying his best to break in to society and thought he'd walk in through the front door instead of the rear."

"No one comes to call without being invited. No one except Yankees and white trash." She looked up at David's sudden silence and laughed. "Sorry, darlin', I didn't mean you when I said that." She gave him a kiss on the cheek.

They each carried a tray of refreshments to the parlor, coming in on the middle of a discussion about furnaces.

"Hatcher," continued his wife, "don't you think oil heat's best?"

Hatcher took several minutes to explain to the group his position on oil heating versus the much heralded electric furnaces, touted by the Tennessee Valley Authority and the local electric company. Everyone sat in silence until he finished.

Mrs. Thorpe still had a peculiar look on her face, but she bent her head politely to Ella Mae and inquired, "You have children, I believe, Mrs. Lowe? What ages are they now?"

"Our girl, Sissy Belle, is thirteen. Almost the same age as your poor granddaughter. The boys, Pig and little Booger, are just eleven and twelve." She chuckled and stuck out her arm as if wanting to dig her elbow into Mrs. Thorpe's side. "Hatcher and me was like a couple of rabbits back when we was first married."

"Just so . . . " murmured Mrs. Thorpe.

Edward brought Hatcher his drink and stood in front of the fireplace, glass in hand. "I wonder if you'd like to see the grounds? I'd be glad to take you for a quick turn."

Hatcher waved him off. "It's too nippy for that today. We'll come back another time and traipse around."

"Oh, good."

"What I'd like to see," blurted Ella Mae, "after we finish our tea, is the upstairs."

Becca turned at the remark, fixing a hostile look on the other woman. "I'm afraid that's impossible today. We're all topsy-turvy since Jenny Lou's been sick."

"Oh, okay. Some other time." She pulled at her skirt in an attempt to cover her plump knees. "How many bathrooms do you have?" There was an another audible gasp from Mrs. Thorpe.

"There can never be enough," said Charles dolefully.

Becca exchanged glances with David, who smiled openly at the remark. Charles was forever complaining about Miss Mitty's long grooming sessions in their shared facility.

"May I direct you to the bathroom, Mrs. Lowe?" Mrs. Thorpe seemed suddenly concerned.

Ella Mae looked confused; then she asked, "Do you mean, do I have to go?" She gave a hoot of laughter. "Why no, I was just curious is all."

Edward bounded across the room to the sherry bottle and poured another one, downed it, and then poured his third since the Lowes had arrived.

"Hatcher didn't tell me much about this place. You know how men are," she went on confidentially, "so I expect I'll havta find out on my own." She added with a cheerful grin, "Don't mind me!"

"Mind you?" said Miss Mitty, looking at Ella Mae with a delicate smile. "Why should we mind you? You seem to love Rosehall almost as much as we do. I don't like it as much now, but I can't remember why. We don't often have visitors here that are so interested. Have you seen my clothes? No, of course you haven't . I'll show them to you if you'll come--"

"Not now, Miss Mitty," said Becca. She had taken a seat beside David on one of the sofas and sat with her hands tightly clenched around her teacup. She had eaten nothing, but took sips of her tea thoughtfully. David hadn't said a word after the initial introduction, seemingly fascinated, the proceedings keeping him glued to his seat.

"Do you have much trouble with water leaking in around the windas?" Ella Mae demanded.

"Do you at your home?" asked Mrs. Thorpe sweetly.

Ella Mae couldn't seem to take her eyes off the windows. By now the entire company was mesmerized by her and her scrutiny of the room. "I wouldn't want those drapes. Bet it would cost a fortune to get new ones. The windas are so long they'd have to be special order. Where do you suppose you could get them?"

"Anywhere you want," Hatcher said grandly, "if you've got the money."

But everyone was watching his wife as she pushed the rest of a cookie in her mouth and took an enormous swig of sweetened tea from her cup. She had been steadily putting away the food and drink like an ardent trencherwoman. Suddenly she leaned forward from the waist with a violent jerk and coughed violently, spewing out tea and pieces of food.

She gagged and wheezed while everyone sat helpless.

"Y'all right?" asked Hatcher, finally coming over to her and giving her a great thump on the back.

She nodded weakly with bleary eyes and dabbed at the spots on her dress with the linen napkin. "Got down the wrong pipe," she croaked.

"Very distressing business," Mrs. Thorpe reflected. "That reminds me of my aunt on my father's side the last time she ate here."

"Great Aunt Caroline, wasn't it, Mama?" asked Charles. "I remember it very well, although I was just a little tad."

"Yes, she evidently choked on a piece of meat at the dinner table. We noticed she had left without a word and gone out onto the back porch."

"Such a surprising thing to all of us," said Miss Mitty, "for her to leave the table like that."

"What happened?" asked David with a touch of impatience.

Mrs. Thorpe looked at him imperturbably. "Well, I'm afraid she couldn't quite handle it. When we found her she had passed on."

"Gosh," breathed Ella Mae, "you mean she died without trying to get any help?"

"She was always so fearful of causing a disturbance," said Mrs. Thorpe. "Very refined woman."

"The ballroom!" cried Edward weakly. "Wouldn't you like to see the ballroom? Why, I suspect you and Mrs. Lowe didn't even know we had one."

"Why, no . . . " said Hatcher, rising. "I thought the front hall was for a big do."

"Well, that's just where you're mistaken. Come along, Mrs. Lowe, I'll escort you and your husband to one of the architectural delights of Jefferson County."

Edward gulped down the remainder of his drink and quickly poured another to carry with him. "It's in the back wing, upstairs," he offered.

Becca and David looked questioningly at one another after the party left the room.

"Well!" snapped Mrs. Thorpe.

"Isn't she sweet?" said Miss Mitty, vainly trying to pull out a knot from the tangle of fine thread in her hand. "She seems so happy to be here."

"Doesn't she though," said Becca darkly.

Charles stood at the window with his hands in his pockets looking out across the terrace to the disordered shrubbery. "Pity it's too cold to take them around the grounds. 'Course, the rose garden's not showing its best colors this time of year."

"Becca, you knew Judge Lowe, er . . . before, didn't you?" Mrs. Thorpe's voice was cold, as if she expected her daughter-in-law to admit to having issued an invitation.

"We were both raised on the Ridge," Becca answered calmly. At one time, she would have flared at negative suggestions about her origins. "He was off to the war before I got married though, and I haven't seen much of him since. I think I met his wife only once or twice."

"They acted so familiar I thought perhaps--"

"I didn't bring them here. I don't like Judge Lowe much." She gave an ironic emphasis to his title.

Mrs. Thorpe rose and began to clear the tea things and stack the tray. Soon the voices of the guests and Edward began to drift in from the dining room.

"Lordy, this room's so big I could have my family reunion in here."

"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Lowe."

"Call me Ella Mae."

". . . er, Ella Mae. This room has seen a hallowed company of presidents and governors and statesmen, not to mention the less than hallowed General Grant and his entire field staff."

"Gee."

"A little piece of history, eh, Thorpe?" Hatcher sounded pleased.

"Oh, absolutely."

After Edward returned with the Lowes, their visit was swiftly concluded. The bridge game was not resumed. Edward had disappeared in a silent retreat to his room before anyone realized it. Miss Mitty and Mrs. Thorpe went to the kitchen to clean things up and think about supper. Charles trailed off somewhere.

Out in the hall David took Becca's hands and whispered, "Tonight?"

She shook her head, and then casting a quick look around, she leaned toward him and kissed him hard on the mouth. He pulled her to him, but she broke away quickly and whispered back, "Maybe tomorrow, after work." She touched his face with a gentle hand and smiled, then turned to go upstairs.

"Becca." His voice stopped her. "Have you had a chance to read my story yet, about Dandy Day?" He had earlier given her the typescript.

"Yes, I read it last night, Davy." She looked troubled. "I don't know what to think about the whole thing. I thought I'd know for sure when I read about it that the hate would come out of me and light on the person who did it. It's funny, though, but I don't feel anything now." She smiled again, a tender wisp of a smile. "Except for you. I feel good about you." He took her by the shoulders and kissed her again, pressing her slight body close to him. His hand roved under her sweater and detached the hooks of her bra. As he touched her softness, she felt his excited response--and her own. Becca broke away nervously, glancing back toward the closed parlor doors.

"Okay, darlin'," she softly, "I'll see you later tonight." She turned again and ran up the long sweep of stairs.

Davy was sweet. It was comforting to know he cared so much about her. She broke into her own reverie. Right now, she had something to settle with Edward. He didn't awe her anymore. She got to the top of the stairs and fastened her bra, pulled her sweater firmly in place and marched toward their bedroom--now Edward's alone. Becca had remained in Jenny Lou's.

She could feel only relief in their physical separation. She remembered how shocked she'd been to detect the weaknesses in his character those long years ago. What had seemed sophisticated languor she'd discovered to be only laziness. His manners cloaked the insecurities of a small boy, and the sarcastic way he dealt with anything important showed his deep distrust of others. Pitiful it was, and disgusting too, she thought as she opened the door to confront him, that he couldn't learn anything about himself and be in charge of his life.

He was lying across the bed face down. When she slammed the door behind her he moved his head to look at her from the corner of his eye.

"Must you be so noisy?" he muttered.

"Must you be so sneaky!"

"If I am, then I must. Why do you taunt me so, Cressida?"

"Oh, shut up that crooked talk! What have you done?"

Edward rolled over and stuck a pillow under his head. "Though my life has not been o'erlong, it has been full. Where shall I begin?"

"Begin with why Hatcher Lowe was here."

"Hatcher Lowe? I guess he decided to look over his property and show his lovely wife the home she'd soon be gracing."

"Oh, Edward! I thought so. I suspected it, but I couldn't believe it. Have you really sold it, sold Rosehall?"

"It was preferable to giving it away."

Becca began to cry with loud ragged sobs. "How could you do such a hard thing to your children?"

"Consider it the least of what I've done to them." He picked up his cigarette package and took one out and lit it. "Why don't you get control of yourself and listen."

Becca sat on the edge of the bed and wiped the tears away with her hand.

"I sold the house to Hatcher in November. He's been making payments and he'll move in around June. That's the story. We've got plenty of time to make our plans to move. Also, we've got plenty of money."

"How much is that?"

"More than the old place is worth." The amount he named made Becca's eyes widen. He laughed harshly. "And to think we assumed it was mortgaged to the hilt."

"But not to tell us! Why? Couldn't you have talked it over with us before you agreed? Maybe selling isn't the answer." A thought struck her. "Have you signed all the papers?"

"Signed, sealed, and nearly delivered. Why fret? I admit I've been a little remiss in conveying this information, but I wanted some time to prepare myself for the explosions. Now, I'm ready. See how calm I am?"

"I see how drunk you are!"

"Ah, beneath this sodden cortex beats a small, cunning, animal brain. If I hadn't taken up Hatcher's offer on the spot, he might have charged off to someone else's ancestral estate to make it his own."

Becca bowed her head into her hands. "How can I bear this now, with everything else coming down so cruel on us."

"You'll bear it with your usual gutsy aplomb. Did the others guess the reason for the esteemed judge's visit?"

"No, I don't think so. Edward, have you thought what this might do to your mother or Miss Mitty?"

"I've given more thought to what this penurious existence is doing to us all."

"But without Rosehall! Can you even imagine what it would mean.?"

Edward stubbed out his cigarette and leaned back onto the pillow. He closed his eyes. "I shall try to contemplate the unthinkable. Leave me now." Then he opened his eyes and gave his wife a haunted, hollow look. "For God's sake, Becca, it's done! Leave me alone, leave me alone. You'll have to tell them." His voice took on a self-pitying whine. "I can't do it, Becca. I'm sick. I'm sick to death of everything."

"Yes, Edward. Rest, then. I'll tell them."

"Sold!" Charles's stunned expression was reflected on the faces of his mother and aunt. Becca had asked them to remain at the table after supper when David and Trey went off to a movie in town. Edward had not come down to eat, but they'd sent him up a plate.

Mrs. Thorpe placed a hand on her breast while Becca spoke.

"Why?" the old woman asked. "Why would Edward do this to me?" It was plaintive but rhetorical. No one attempted to answer. "Why isn't he here to tell us?"

"Mama Kate, you know Edward's not feeling well." That was what the family liked to call Edward's drunken stupors. "He sold the house because he knew we were desperate for money and wouldn't never be able to pay the taxes. Judge Lowe made a good offer."

"What was the amount?" Charles asked, interested.

Becca reluctantly gave him the figure. Somehow, she thought they didn't seem as staggered as she had been about the sale. "Edward admitted it was overpriced, but Hatcher wanted it that bad. He plans to move in by this summer."

"We'll have to leave Rosehall?" Miss Mitty looked from one to the other. "Where will we go?"

The question went unanswered as they silently pondered the possibilities. Finally Charles spoke. "My head is spinning with this news. We shall have to give this a great deal of thought."

"It is final then?" said Mrs. Thorpe, her voice quavering a little. Becca gave a small nod, and Mrs. Thorpe sighed and looked down at her plate. "I remember when my father sold the old place on Church Street in Nashville and we had to move. My mother wept. It had been her parents', you know. We moved out near Centennial Park. It seemed difficult at the time, but it turned out to be the best thing we could have done." She lifted her head and said with surprising vitality. "Property values!"

"It will seem strange," said Miss Mitty, "so very strange." She seemed to have heard the news while in one of her more lucid moments. Then the flare of comprehension vanished again. She hunched her shoulders under the shawl and shivered. "Something's happened to Rosehall. Something ugly, and I don't like it."

"Don't worry," said Becca to her mother-in-law and Charles, "we won't give it up without a fight. There must be something we can do." Her voice rose. "I'll talk to Hatcher. This is our home, our life. It would be . . . too . . . bad!"

They all looked at Becca and she at them. Then she left the table and went upstairs to Jenny's room to rest on her bed. Thoughts turned in her head like a ferris wheel, always ending with the thought, "We must leave Rosehall!" The house had not only contained the Thorpes, but for her, it contained something magical. It was run down, she knew that well, but as long as they lived there, they'd continued to be the Thorpes, even her. She lay there almost without moving until she heard Trey and David come in, Skipper barking as they got out a snack from the cupboard. Then she heard Trey climbing the stairs and noisily banging shut his bedroom door.

Becca rose from the bed and crept past the others' rooms and padded down the stairs. She went through the great hall and stopped at David's door to his living room, and after a moment's hesitation knocked softly. He didn't answer immediately, so she knocked again, shifting her feet nervously. When he opened it, his face broke into a smile and he drew her toward him, grasping her hands in his own.

"Becca! Sweetheart. I'm glad to. . .what is it? You look upset."

She brushed by him and flung herself onto the old sofa near the fireplace. David had started a small wood fire and the room was bathed in flickering orange light.

He joined her on the sofa and put his arm around her shoulders. "I've wanted to be alone with you, make love to you, but I can see something is wrong. Tell me. Lowe's visit?"

She nodded. "Yes, that. Can you guess why they pounced on us like that? I'll give you a clue, it wasn't no social call."

David stared at her and then said, "He and Edward have cooked up some deal over the house?"

"They not only cooked it up but it's being thrown in our faces! We have until June to get out."

"My God! Do the others know?"

"I told them. Davy, what will they do without Rosehall? What will they be? What will happen to us all?"

"Well, with a good down payment you could buy a pretty nice smaller place, I imagine."

"I don't mind for me. This old ark is a trial and I never can get to all that needs doing. But the family--it seems to me, David, that they are Rosehall. I've been thinking what they'd be like, how the town would see them without this place and I can't imagine it!"

"But if it's already been sold there's nothing you can do about it, so why get upset?"

"Maybe there's something I can do." She stood up and began to walk in front of the fire. The jumping flames gave her face an angry, disquieted look.

David looked at her affectionately. "What can you do?"

"Well, I'll just have to go to work on Hatcher, won't I."

David shook his head slowly. "You can't talk the man out of anything this big. If there's been money exchanged, and Edward has spent any of it or refuses to negotiate the house back, Hatcher could stand to lose every penny he's already put in it, which he won't do. Face it, it's gone."

"Oh, I can take care of Edward's negotiations. He hasn't spent much of it, I reckon." She turned to leave. "Rosehall shouldn't have been sold. Maybe I'm not reasonable, but I'm right!"

"How do you know that, so positively? Maybe this is the best thing that could have happened."

"I know that everything about this stinks! Hatcher's set this up--I know it." Her eyes glittered. "He cooked up the tax deal, I'll bet. Didn't he?"

"Probably," David admitted. "I checked over at the courthouse and noticed it originated from Hatcher's office." Becca didn't seem to hear him.

"Then he uses Edward, sick and not himself, like an old horse in harness to drive him where he wants to go. I'll not let this happen. I'll not let him take Rosehall from me!"

"Hey, hey," he coaxed, coming up beside her. He held her face between his hands. "Settle down, okay?"

She flung away from him angrily. "David, I don't aim to let no soft words hinder me." Then she paused and said quietly, "I don't have that much left."

But soon she allowed him to lead her again to the couch where he began kissing her. She couldn't respond the way she wanted to though, and he detected it promptly.

"Are you going to let this house business ruin things between us?" he asked with an angry inflection in his voice.

Instantly, she felt contrite. She was being selfish. With a smile, she stood up and tugged her sweater over her head and then removed her skirt. She turned to him watching her. Within a few minutes they were locked tightly together on the couch. He had some power over her to change her moods from sadness or anger to forgetful bliss.

With a few searing kisses, she turned soft and compliant and then clung to him as their excitement mounted. Still cognizant of the need for silence, however, they both quelled any outbursts of emotion and settled back against the sofa when both had found release.

"Do you love me like I love you?" he asked quietly, almost against his will. Why wouldn't she express to him what he sensed she felt?

"Oh, Davy," she murmured. "don't make me get off track. I can't love you the way I want to yet. Don't you understand I have too much to do, so many things to take care of. And now I must do something about this house business of Edward's"

"The house! The house!," he expostulated, still keeping his voice low. "Can't you forget it, even now? Give it up, Becca. Make life easy on yourself."

"Please don't let us get sideways over this. Promise me you'll understand."

He sighed and then nodded. "I'll try. But I only want you to be mine. I want you to think about me, not Rosehall."

"Davy, darlin' I told you and told you not to bring that up so positive. Can't we just be ourselves together without words."

He raised up and looked at her face beneath him. She had a little frown that showed as lines between her brows in the firelight. "Why can't you let go and love me? There's no one else, is there? You can't have given yourself to me in such abandon without feeling something of what I feel." He smoothed her frown and smiled.

"I feel too much, that's the problem. I can't let myself go until this . . . situation is resolved. My life is still in too much of an upset, Davy, and if I let go with you, I might lose my way to making amends."

"Amends! What the hell does that mean?"

She couldn't answer him in the way he wanted. She couldn't let it go--the thought that they might soon have to leave Rosehall. It never occurred to her that she could or should leave Rosehall to make a new life with David.

19

CONFESSION

Edward picked up the phone and tried to dial the number he'd found in the directory. It was impossible. His hands were shaking too much. He hung up the receiver and sat for a moment beside the small table in the back of the hall. He didn't want to do this. He wanted most to go up to his room and hide from everything, if that could ever be. But a wild tiny thing had gotten in his head and followed him wherever he went. He seemed to be getting orders from it--orders to make the call, to drive over in the car, to confront something dark and unthinkable. So peculiar to have this damned impulse. Most of the time his brain seemed like quicksand.

He got up slowly and walked through the kitchen. He hesitated in front of a small, decorative mirror near the door. For what seemed the first time in months, he actually saw himself reflected in the glass. Looked awful. No idea how strange. His hair was long and uncombed, his nose protruding from his elongated, thin face. Might have been the beak of a raptor. He wore a wrinkled flannel shirt and spotted wash pants that hung on his emaciated frame like washing on a line. Miss Mitty was bustling around the kitchen and had spoken to him in her usual rattling-on manner, but he made no sense of what she said.

He went outside and got into the old Chevy. Becca had parked it too close into the weeds near the porch. He had to struggle to get it onto the hard-packed earth and sparse gravel of the drive. The motor throbbed heavily from the hole in the muffler. Becca was still sleeping in the bedroom on the other side of the house and wouldn't hear this commotion. But Edward couldn't worry about Becca or anyone else. His thoughts and feelings occupied him totally.

For a long time he realized he'd been emotionally detached from the family, almost from himself. He'd had the canny ability to observe himself and others as if from a great unreachable distance. Now, self had descended on self. He seemed to be suffocating with awareness.

God, he was so alone. An unwitting sob caught in his throat. Tears welled up in his eyes. He was so sick, and the alcohol wasn't helping, oh God, made him sicker, closed him in with all his terrors--he must find a way to leave them behind.

The tremors had been going on for years, intermittently, but lately he'd had several attacks of delirium tremens. He didn't think anyone had observed the flailing nightmare horrors, the muted whimpers, and at the end, the vile uncontrollable shakes. He had just come out of one of the attacks yesterday. He unscrewed the top from a flask of brandy he'd begun to carry in his hip pocket and took a long swallow. He knew he couldn't overdo it. That was what had brought on the attack, but he couldn't do without it either. He had to have something to stiffen the shaking fingers, quiet the monster in his head.

He drove with abandon, though careful of the route. He didn't want to pass through the square. He vaguely thought he shouldn't be seen. The car lurched onto the shoulder and he gripped the wheel, barely regaining control. There, he could see it around the next corner. The stubby spire was visible through the leafless trees.

When he pulled up in front of the church it occurred to him the priest might not be there, or even worse, might not be alone. He didn't have on a watch, but he guessed it to be around ten. What would a priest be doing this time of the morning on a weekday? Visiting parishioners? Writing his sermon? Or maybe listening to a favorite recording from his classical music collection. He remembered the priest's invitation to come and hear his music.

Thinking of the priest's activities seemed to clear Edward's head a little, and he felt momentarily almost sharp and aware of the world. But almost immediately his consciousness veered back to his own person and he groaned.

He got out of the car and looked at the church and then at the rectory next door. The church was small, with a squat bell tower hooked on to one side of its neo-Gothic exterior. It was poorly designed and Edward had never been interested in seeing the interior. Yet now, he was drawn to the church instead of the rectory, and started up the cemented walk.

Inside it was colder than outside and smelled of damp. His gaze became immediately fixed on the altar. It was lighted from behind by an exquisite rose window in deep hues of gold and cobalt and red, and from above by two spotlights that were trained on the carved altar. Over the gilded tabernacle on the altar and pinned to the wall beneath the window was an ivory crucifix three feet high. The figure, so unlike the usual idealized Victorian images, writhed on his pale tree and suffered with unbearable tension the knowledge of his seemingly futile life and the last temptation of despair.

Edward shuffled along the runner of thin carpet that led to the sanctuary, his eyes never leaving the ivory figure. He got closer, and it became more detailed. A recoil of horror passed through his body, but he kept moving. Paint had been lightly applied to enhance the form and features and deepen the perspective. Edward saw himself. He saw his own dark hair, not much longer than he wore it, the same stringy muscles and attenuated torso. The craggy face was his face with the slightly protuberant eyes and aquiline nose.

He came to the first step of the chancel rail and wiped his forehead. He discovered he was perspiring, and he believed the musty smell of the church was from his own body, as if something decayed was leeching out of it.

A small door to one side opened suddenly and he looked across to the round smiling priest framed in the doorway. Edward stared at him then dropped his eyes. He was filled with deep shame.

"Well, what a surprise," said Father Noland, moving into the nave. "So you've finally taken me up on . . . " He stopped as he got closer to Edward and peered at his face. He led him to a front pew where they sat down.

"My dear fellow, what's happened?"

"I want to talk to you. God knows why. I didn't want to come." He looked blindly at the priest. "This is an terrible place. Terrible!" he cried with desperation in his voice. "But I'm dying, I'm death now, like he is." He gestured toward the altar. The priest said nothing but continued to hold onto Edward's arm. Edward looked at the crucifix and then turned back to the priest with a confused look. "But he was good. How can that be when I'm not good?" He put his hands to his face and cried out in a muffled voice. "I can't take much more punishment." He lowered his shaking hands and held them out and then clenched them into fists. He kept his eyes on them. "I can't be that bad, though, can I? Not as bad as it sounds?"

"Why don't you tell me about it." The priest made the sign of the cross and quietly offered a brief blessing.

"I thought she was Becca! Becca, oh, Becca. I wanted to hurt her." He began to choke out the words in dry, ragged sobs. "Everything about my life seemed to lead me to that night and what happened." He took a deep breath. "I was drunk, always I'm drunk so I won't have to see. I can't stand to see and yet I do see. Failure, it's haunted me all my life. I failed with Becca from the first, and that mattered the most, even though I didn't want it to matter." The words were spewing out of him like his own vomit, acrid and disgusting.

"I went out alone that night, thinking I'd wait for her, wanting to break through her contempt. I hated her, loved her, I don't know. I hadn't thought what I'd do if I saw her. She'd gone to work late as always, and I'd lost track of time. Something in me wished I'd pass out before she came home. I kept drinking, went outside. Then I saw her light dress as she walked down the drive and went into the horse stall. I remember the dress."

"Her dress, I see," said the priest. His face had become frozen in horror and pain.

"I went up to her. I yelled, I think. I remember the dress. I saw her through the door to the barn in the darkness. Oh, God!" he cried, and again buried his face in his hands.

The priest sat very still, as if waiting for some sign, some inspiration on how to proceed. Finally, he gave a small sigh and said, "You know what you did was wrong? That it doesn't matter whom you hurt--your wife or your daughter?"

"I know. I know. It's a wrong that nothing can put right, isn't it? I've killed my . . . own

. . . daughter." His voice quaked with terror at his words. "I've killed her chance for love, for life. I've killed her mind and her spirit. I'm dead, too."

"No, no. At least you can now admit your culpability and how sorry you are."

"Sorry! What a puny word."

"I know you must feel lost. You've been lost, but you've made the first step toward the light and wholeness."

"I'll never be whole. I'm shattered in pieces." Edward looked at Father Noland. "I just want you to sweep up the pieces and throw them in the trash."

"No one is trash in God's eyes. He loves you and forgives you. Believe me, he wants you sound and whole and able to love yourself again. You know that, don't you?" He clasped the man's bony forearm.

Edward looked again at the crucifix and then, shaking off the priest's hand, stood up, weaving slightly. "What does God have to do with me? I know nothing of that conceit."

"But, you came here . . . " the priest rose slowly, puzzlement in his eyes, "to me, for God's forgiveness, his blessing . . . didn't you?"

"Confession is good for the soul?" Edward sneered. "For the damned it just seems another quick fix. It doesn't change anything or make amends." His voice rang hollowly. Now he was fighting to regain his old defenses as if the anguished revelation of a moment ago had been only an alcoholic dream. "I'd like a cigarette." He reached into his pocket.

Father Noland took his arm again and said companionably, "Let's go to my study and talk some more. We'll be more comfortable there. Don't you feel better, now, after talking about it? You're a very sick man, you know."

"Empty. I feel empty. I'm through talking." He shook off the priest's hand. "The hour is late for me, Father, just as it is for him." He jerked a thumb at the crucifix, not looking at it. "See what awaits us all? That's something to look forward to."

"Edward, you're going through that right now. Crucifixion is the beginning. Remember the resurrection lies ahead. If you would just submit, you'll see the light of dawn."

"As a point of theology that's debatable. And when we both find out for sure it'll be too late for me anyway. I can't believe you, and if it takes that to save me, I guess I'm still lost." He'd recovered his composure; he now felt as cold and brittle as glass.

"But the cross is symbolic too, as well as being real. Those events can be acted out in each one of us. It begins when we pass the night in whatever Gethsemane we make for ourselves. Believe me, a resurrected life is very real. I've witnessed it, many times."

"Your hope is a nebulous thing to me when I think of what--" He broke off with a shudder and passed a hand over his eyes; then he straightened up and turned to go.

"By the way," he said, inclining his head toward the crucifix, "where did that gruesome-looking likeness of me come from? It couldn't have been purchased by some church committee."

"No, I bought it," the priest said, peering again at Edward's face. "There is a resemblance. How remarkable. I hadn't noticed it until you mentioned it." He turned to face the altar, his eyes narrowed. "I picked it up at an auction in New Orleans several years ago. It's believed to be Spanish. I got it, I suppose, because I thought it was such beautifully executed work and also because the artist dared to explore real human suffering. He isn't God at that moment, but we can see, if we concentrate, not sadness, not resignation, and especially not a faceless symbol. "

The outer door had closed with a scrape and click. Looking back, the priest saw that Edward had gone. He stood without moving for some time, staring at the closed door, then he faced the altar and dropped to his knees on the carpeted step.

20

DISCOVERY

Newspaper clippings and tear sheets were spread over the top of the burled walnut desk. A lighted tole lamp sat to one side and was the only illumination in the large study. Milt had had solid walnut paneling installed several years ago to give the room a cozier look. He conducted all his business affairs from this office in the old farmhouse.

He picked up the latest edition of the Gazette News and looked again at the lead story. The paper had been out nearly a week and he'd read David's reports of the attack and arrest a dozen times trying to figure out what it was about the combination of words that made them so good.

Stringers from the wire services had latched onto the stories, and publisher friends in other cities had sent him their copies of the story with their congratulations. In some papers they had printed verbatim the feature with his Countryline Newspapers copyright and David's byline. The story of the arrest of the town idiot was seen to be a bizarre tragedy and human interest story. The fact that the girl had been rendered nearly insane by the attack somehow seemed more chilling than if she had been killed outright. Her gentle upbringing and her family's place in the town were implied and provided a sympathetic contrast to the violent act itself. David had done a masterful job on the main story and the accompanying sidebars. Milt nodded thoughtfully. At least his work might be chosen for a regional award from the Southeastern Weekly Newspapers Association or maybe the Tennessee Press Association. The door across from Milt opened quietly and the slight figure of Milt's bookkeeper came toward the pool of yellow light.

Giles had begun working for Milt two years ago on a weekly in a neighboring county as an office manager. He was a precise, intelligent fellow who had taken a bookkeeping course at a business college in Nashville before applying for the job. Milt had liked his serious demeanor and efficient work and had asked him to take over the books for all of his operations. The young man had quickly made himself indispensable. He placed the monthly financial report at Milt's elbow.

"Quite a bit of notoriety for our little corner of the world, isn't it?" he said, observing the papers.

Milt made a wry face. "Good for the newspaper, bad for the town. I had no idea the report would catch on like this. It's a phenomenon, you know. I wish I'd . . . oh well, it's too late now." He flicked his finger at several of the clippings. "Pittsburgh, Des Moines, Baton Rouge. God knows where else it's gone."

"How many have asked for the copyrighted story?"

"Only three, so far. When the case comes to trial, the interest may accelerate even more. I don't know, I'm pleased in a way, but it makes me a little nervous, too." He pushed back his unruly lock of hair and gave Giles a sober look. "I wonder how much destruction will come from this little storm of words?" He sighed. "Isn't it about time for you to go home?" He looked at his watch. "Good Lord! It's nearly 7:30. Look, why don't you stay for supper with me? Run on and tell Carrie we can eat anytime."

The young man beamed. "Thanks, I'd like that." As Giles left the room, Milt watched him absently, still thinking of the story.

He picked up the clippings again. His fingers shook slightly. Milt had never questioned his own nerve; he couldn't have founded his tiny newspaper empire without a fair amount of it, but he had an uneasy feeling about this story. Nothing like this had ever been printed in any of Milt's papers. David had been accurate; that certainly could not be disputed. But the story had an unpleasant quality beyond its content, as if it were concerned only with its own clever ideas and carefully arranged words. It was objective, yes, but cruel too, maybe because of its objectivity, so fine and probing. In an odd way, the story evoked pity for Dandy as well as sorrow for the girl, not necessarily because of what happened, but because that awful scrutiny evoked a response from the reader--not altogether admirable-- that arose from God knows what depths. He folded up the clippings and tucked them in a drawer. Perhaps some good, not discernible at this time, would result. He couldn't see it himself.

As Becca rounded the curve of the drive she saw the light in the octagonal third story window under the eaves. The rest of the house was dark as it usually was when she returned from work. For a time, David had put a light on when he waited up for her, but she'd asked him to leave it off in case anyone might just happen to be up. It seemed foolish to borrow trouble if you didn't have to.

The little light gleaming like a candle from so high up in the pitch of the roof was a funny thing though. She wondered who had left it on and why they'd gone up there in the first place.

She entered the house quietly and made her way in the dark through the hall and up the stairs to the second floor landing. There, she switched on a table lamp that sat on a long table at the top of the stairs. The door to the attic was ajar, but before going up, on an impulse she ran along the north gallery to Edward's room. The door was open, the room empty. The sheets were rumpled, but they stayed that way now from one laundering to the next.

With noiseless steps she climbed up the narrow stairway to the third story. Opening the attic door, she was assailed by the rather pleasant smell of old wood, a staleness clung to the space, unused for so many years. The house was silent as she crossed the attic floor, except for the groans of protesting joists under her feet.

"Edward," she called out softly. A whisper of wind through the old rafters was the only answer. Her thoughts were muddled as she sought her husband. What would he be doing here, or if he'd left the attic and gone elsewhere, why had he left on the light? On the other hand, it was like him to be wooly-headed these days. He couldn't remember to attend to the most simple duties.

The climb had been steep, and whether from her exertions or an unaccountable anxiety, she was panting a little. The light from a central hanging bulb was unable to reach the far corners of the odd-shaped space, cut up into sections by three brick chimneys.

Becca slowly walked beyond the first fireplace barrier. She'd been up here once a year for fifteen years to do the cleaning with Annie. It hadn't taken much, just some dusting, washing the windows. The attic had never really spooked her, but she was bothered by a sighing melancholy that seemed to cling to the discarded belongings of past unknown Thorpes. Then, too, the pathetic story of poor demented Carrie always came to mind. Becca went toward a living space that had been created in a section by the south eaves, a little area fitted up to look like a room and Carrie's former dwelling place.

She turned at the second chimney and saw the simple grouping in the shadows. A tall, plain chest of drawers was at right angles to a long bench called a mammy rocker. Directly opposite the rocker, along the outside wall, were a small table and two wooden slat back chairs, and across from the chest was the bed with oddly rumpled bedclothes. The bed was free standing, and beyond it the room was swallowed up by blackness.

As she drew nearer she saw not bedclothes but a figure, the legs spread out and one arm across his face.

"Edward" she called out again in a small, shivering voice.

David awakened with a terrible start. It was still night and he was dreaming that he was on some wild ride in an old buggy trying to control runaway horses. They were neighing unnaturally, and his arms were being shaken by the pull of the reins.

"David, wake up! Davy, you've got to help me!" Becca was shaking him, crying out in a voice that was unlike her own. He sat up suddenly.

"What . . . what is it?"

She flung herself against him. He felt her tremble uncontrollably. "I can't stand this! No more, no more!. He's dead in that bed. He's dead because of what he's done."

"Dead! Who's dead?" He reached around her to turn on the bedside lamp and glanced at the clock. It was a little after three. Becca still clung to him, and he took her firmly by the arms and made her sit alongside him.

"Now, tell me what's happened."

She wasn't crying, but her face wore an expression of horror. She unclenched her hand and David took from it a crumpled piece of paper.

"I found this by his head. He wanted me to find him. That's why he turned on the light, so's I'd see it when I came home."

"Edward." David felt the dread before his eyes could focus on the message. It read: "My own wife--you are still that, more's the pity for you, though not for long. This is much too easy. For poetic justice I should have had my heart torn out by wild beasts. For that was my own unspeakable crime against my daughter. Not being sober at the time, I didn't know enough to kill myself on the spot before some innocent fool caught the blame.

"I'm still cowardly, of course, and leave it to you to tidy it up with the sheriff and the family. Someday, if you can bring yourself to it, a prayer might help. I don't think I believe in it myself, but if there is something to it I might need it. Edward P.S. The priest knows the truth too."

"God . . . " David breathed. The news was so shocking he couldn't think. He reacted as a newspaperman, though, probing for details. "He killed himself? How?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe drink and sleeping pills. It could have been natural, he was so sick, except for the note. But he's sure enough dead, up in the attic on the bed with the shackles, on top of that old stained mattress."

"The attic! How odd." David felt a prickle of horror along his spine. Confessed to the unspeakable, yes. He held out the sheet of paper. "What are you going to do about this? You never suspected, did you? That he might have hurt Jenny?"

Becca shook her head slowly. "No, I didn't, Davy. I didn't want to and I never even said it to myself in my thoughts, but I suppose after I read the note I might have guessed it. Last month I found the lavaliere that Jenny lost at the time of her disappearance in Edward's drawer. It was so strange that he never mentioned to me he had it. He must have grabbed it off her that night." She leaned her head against his shoulder as she continued to speak, almost compulsively. "I figure Jenny was wandering outside late. Maybe she'd gone out to check on her rabbits. I've caught her before doing that. One time I found her asleep in their stall."

She sobbed then, burying her face in her hands. David could hardly make out her muffled words. "No wonder Jenny was so hard hit. Now I know why she can't come out of it."

David patted her and rocked with her in his arms and she continued to talk, now crying quietly. "I suppose that's where it must have taken place, when the rabbits were running loose that night. She's scared to go out there now to the little barn, you know." She leaned back to look at him with her tear-stained face. "Even so, I can't believe he wanted to ever hurt her. He was in a bad way, and he weren't no admirable sort, but not hurt his own daughter, surely!"

David frowned. "He didn't say why he did it, except that he was drunk. And sometimes that's why a man slips over the line. If he's already turned to hating, then drinking until he's senseless--" David stopped. He couldn't excuse or explain it. Why try?

"I'll have to go to the sheriff with this, won't I," Becca said. She pointed at the note.

"Lord, yes," David said, "I forgot about Dandy." He grasped the top of his head with his hand. "What in God's name have I done!"

"Maybe the sheriff will just quietly release him."

"I'm sorry about my story, but I'd be sorrier to be in the sheriff's boots."

"We've really hit bottom now, Davy. You must think we're the worst low-down folk you ever saw. I remember stories going around in the hills about one man or another who beat or did worse to his daughter regularly. The attack itself on Jenny was bad enough; I just hope she can bear this extra burden." She made a sound of revulsion in her throat. "How can I tell them?"

David knew she meant the family. He'd been thinking the same thing. "It'll be bad, that's for sure. You'd better tell Charles first. Then he can tell his mother. Maybe Miss Mitty and Trey won't have to know."

"Oh, if it could only be kept secret." She looked at David with pain in her eyes. "Will the sheriff have to keep this note for any official reason?"

"I don't know. I doubt it. The first thing to do is call in a doctor or the coroner to certify the death. Do you want me to do that?" She nodded dumbly. Her back was bowed and her hands lay nerveless in her lap. David threw on a pair of jeans and left the room to phone.

Becca didn't move from David's bed. He may have thought this latest event had done her in, that her spirit had withered away, but that was not so. Her mind was quite busy. She was glad Edward was dead. What she had sensed, the uneasiness that had welled up inside her was a certainty now, and she felt as if a scarred, rotting tree on her property had been cut down and hauled off. She had to get things in order, and Edward's death would make it easier. She didn't give a second thought to the requested prayer for his immortal soul.

21

EVIL DAYS

It had become a pleasurable habit of David's during the early spring weekends to pack a lunch and tramp the back roads of the area. For real exercise, David jogged around the neighborhood three or four evenings a week, but a tramp in the countryside satisfied something in his soul. He found himself moved by the beauty of the place, not so very different from the wooded hills near his hometown in Pennsylvania. The various tints of new green foliage were the same, the swelling buds of the dogwood and other flowering trees, the fresh earth smells released by spring rains.

Sometimes he was stopped in his tracks by the beauty of some scene. Early in the day, when the pale sun struck the backs of the nearby hills, it cast an aureole of light that intensified the blue of the sky and the rich brown color of the earth along the road where he walked.

Other than his solitary runs and these walks, opportunities for exercise in Monroeville were limited since there were no sporting activities available to the likes of him. The affluent of the town either had their own swimming pools, tennis courts, and riding stables, or else they drove to a country club in a suburb of Nashville, sixteen miles away. Those of lesser means found their amusements where they could or did without. The hike revived him too from the growing tedium he had begun to feel living so close to the same people. He had a pretty good idea why so many townsfolk took to drinking or established their own little cultish interests that eased them happily into private eccentricities.

Two weeks after Edward's death he was swinging along the road towards Barks Landing, but he may as well have been walking in circles around the Thorpe's rose garden for all the distraction it provided. He found himself again and again staring at the ground passing under his feet, the events and complications of recent days preventing him from taking any enjoyment in the hike. He was glad to get away from the house, though. He had taken Trey with him this day so the boy could show him a cave supposedly decorated with mysterious drawings. He and Skipper had become impatient with David's steady plodding and had run ahead so far David could barely hear the dog's excited barks or Trey's cries of encouragement.

The boy had not taken his father's death with the equanimity David might have expected, given Edward's remoteness to his son. His usual sunny face was clouded, his brows furrowed in tongueless despair. But David hadn't seen him shed a tear. Nonetheless, he'd obviously been going through a kind of hell that David suspected came as much from the relationship that might have been as what actually had existed between the two. He felt sorry for the boy and hoped a day's outing would take his mind away from the pervading gloom of Rosehall.

Becca seemed to be going on as usual, though a bit grim around the mouth, but Charles and his mother were so cast down they could barely speak or move about. Miss Mitty, after recovering from the first shock of Edward's death and not knowing the rest of the story, submerged herself in a flurry of activity in her room. She pulled out all her clothes from drawers, wardrobe closets, trunks and all kinds of boxes stashed anywhere there was a space and began a seemingly endless process of resorting, cleaning, repairing and even throwing out. David found himself owning an embroidered sateen waistcoat, resplendent with jeweled, double-breasted buttons. If an invitation to a costume party came his way, he'd be well fitted out.

Jenny had remained at her grandfather's during this period and would continue there for another two weeks. And a mercy that was. True, she might not have comprehended the death and its consequences, David thought, but her presence would be even more now a painful reminder of the tragedy in the household.

The consequences! The consequences seemed to be immense and swelling each day. The sheriff had been magnanimous when Becca, accompanied by Charles and David, presented him with the note. He hemmed and hawed for a moment while he no doubt pondered how he could dismiss the charges against Dandy without creating difficulties for himself. The Thorpe name still held a certain magic, however, for finally he said, "I guess there's no way to try a dead man, if you'll pardon me, Ma'am."

"No, we just want it forgotten," Becca said nervously.

"That's what I was athinking." He picked up Dandy's records he'd gotten from his file. "I'll have to find me a rock solid witness who spent that night with Dandy." He raised his eyebrows and looked David squarely in the face with a little smile. "That there other witness I had hopes of was no-account anyway."

"Whatever you decide is best," David said solemnly.

"I guess I can do that as long as everybody agrees." David looked at the floor and cleared his throat. The fighting newsman indeed! "As far as I'm concerned," he said in an expressionless voice, "it will never leave this room."

"Good. You see, young feller, sometimes the rules have to bend a bit if we want to help our friends." He looked at Charles who had stood mutely by Becca 's side looking greenish. "I hope you'll know now what a good friend I am."

"Yes, of course, Sheriff," gasped Charles. "We thank you for your consideration. I can't tell you . . . "

"Thank you, Sheriff Pugh," cut in Becca . She was obviously impatient to leave. She had put the note back in her purse. After reading it, Sheriff Pugh had relinquished it readily to her as if ridding himself of a contaminated piece of food.

"Sheriff," David said as the others turned to leave. "I sincerely hope you'll be able to smooth over the circumstances of Dandy's arrest." David still wasn't too sure of the sheriff's discretion. "I wouldn't want it to go hard on you for doing anything improper."

He smiled again, looking absolutely charming and affable. "You just leave everything to me, and we'll never hear another thing about this whole bad business."

David nodded and followed Becca and Charles out the door. They parted company at that point, the two in-laws to go to the funeral parlor to make arrangements, David heading for the newspaper office. He dreaded the call to Milt Henshaw but it had to be done--and quickly. In one way he was grateful that Edward had confessed and cleared Dandy, but his natural instinct for self-preservation quailed at the furor that would be raised at Dandy's release. Milt would be hysterical--no, not hysterical, but cutting and snide at the turn David's overblown and now ingenuous story had suddenly taken.

He had given David tacit approval, it was true, but nonetheless it had been the editor's idea to hype the story before the trial. The astonishing publicity had seemed so well deserved not more than twelve hours earlier. How quickly, he reflected with a wry shake of his head, fate had transformed him into a source of embarrassment for his publisher and persona non grata in general. He wondered if he would be fired on the spot. He almost welcomed the prospect. How he would have loved to escape the entanglement! He was afraid though, he would be allowed to extricate himself as best he could through another series of reports.

He'd decided to make no connection at all with Edward's death and Dandy's imminent release. It would have been so convenient for David personally to have explained away the certainties of Dandy's guilt if he could have brought out the identity of the true culprit while reporting his death.

This compromise of truth bothered him not at all. He reflected on his earlier stiff-necked self-righteousness and decided he'd had it coming. He never thought he could manage a convincing act of an editor eating humble pie either but Milt wanted that too, and so he obliged..

He'd prepared a story that he hoped would be as compelling as the first one; only this story was getting no kudos. He tried to show the peculiar circumstances that led to a miscarriage of justice. His own responsibility in the affair was awesome to him, and he realized as never before the power of the written word. Because of the importance of keeping Edward's secret he went easy on the law enforcement officials. Remembering again his emotions as he tried to repair the damage, he thought again how it would have been a treat to be fired and sent packing by sundown.

The road branched into a smaller track to the right, and David paused to get his bearings before turning onto it. Then he saw the sturdy figure of Trey about one hundred yards down the lane. He was motioning impatiently for David to catch up. He stepped up his pace and joined Trey as he and the dog set off cross-country. They tramped along for about ten minutes over rough terrain. They climbed up a hill and then down the other side. This was Trey's idea of a short cut. David saw a boulder at the foot of the hill and asked for time out to get a swig from the water canteen. He was very hot and sweaty from the exertion and the sun beating down, despite the mild air.

"How much farther now?" he panted.

Trey turned his head to scan the countryside and pointed to an outcropping of stone nearly covered by low growing bushes and tall grass about a quarter of a mile away. "It's over thataway."

"Have you been here often?"

"Yep, Since I was about seven years old, I reckon. My daddy was the one who showed it to me." Silence. He looked up at David shyly through the thick dark bang. "Did you like my daddy?" His voice quavered with intensity. David realized with a pang how much the boy longed to have his father set forward as a respected personage instead of the shadowy, haunted man he had been.

"I didn't know him well, but I admired his intelligence, yes." David looked away then to hide his discomfiture. He was prepared to tell as many tall tales as necessary to shield the boy from the truth. But how long would it take for it to catch up with him? "I guess the cave was a favorite place of your father's when he was a boy?"

"I think so. He stopped coming out with me though. He didn't do much at all with me for a long time now." He frowned, and David felt the struggle going on inside the boy to control his emotions. He put his arm around Trey's shoulders. The gesture was too much for Trey and his body began to shake. He cried like a small boy, ragged and loud, and David's own eyes filled with tears. He was such a good little kid--tough and brave, and as long as David had known him he'd been as bright-faced as a new penny. How desperately he needed the memory of a warm, loving father instead of that poor sod who couldn't give to anyone, even his own son.

David held him without speaking for a few minutes more until Trey's crying subsided and he began to dry his eyes with dirty fists.

"You ready to move on, old partner?" David asked. The boy nodded and they set off. They hadn't gone more than a few steps when Trey spoke again.

"Did you know Daddy sold Rosehall?"

"Yes, I heard. Will you be sorry to leave?"

He shook his head. "I dunno. Maybe. I don't want to live in town, though. Maybe Mama and I could go live with Grandpa and Jenny. I'd like that!"

"I bet you would." And what would his mother think of that idea? Who said you can't go home again. In many ways, Becca still belonged to the Ridge, David thought. She had wanted once to escape and she had, but only to what had become her prison--Rosehall. Rosehall, that eminent, defeated hulk. Had her sojourn there made any difference, after all was said and done?

They found the cave and Trey pointed out the drawings or pictoglyphs with the flashlight. They were amazing and colorful representations of buffalo and deer and stick figure hunters who maybe had worshiped the animals; the artist might have only been detailing their exploits. Although the artists were anonymous, their reality as caring, courageous human beings couldn't be clearer. He wondered about his own legacy and suddenly understood it would never be as permanent or meaningful as these expressions of life and self from another age.

Their trek home was slow and uneventful. Or at least David's was. Again, Trey and Skipper ran on ahead and may have for all David knew made more interesting discoveries. David continued to be preoccupied by thoughts of Becca. They'd hardly had a chance to speak in the aftermath of Edward's death--perfectly understandable, what with the funeral arrangements, the visitors, the general upset to the household. Still, he'd been a little surprised she had no time for him. Not that she wasn't friendly in a casual way, but she'd definitely been avoiding moments alone with him. And then he discovered why.

The whole of the week before he'd waited in vain for her to come to him in the night. He knew she was suffering no more from Edward's death than she had from his life, so it was not grief that kept her from him. He still felt the same toward her. Had he indicated in any way other than that? No, of course not. She should know it wouldn't make any difference to him the kind of husband she'd had. He'd been a little hurt by her ignoring him. Even though he suspected she was not in love with him, or at least she'd not admitted it. It had not made any difference before, to either of them. So, the night before the walk with Trey, he decided to wait up until she came in from work and persuade her to join him in his room. He missed their intimate conversations as much as anything.

Three o'clock came and went. No Becca. He stepped out on the porch and smoked another cigarette. The moon was not quite full, but the night was clear, and he could make out the hands on his watch. Half past three. The glittering stars above him seemed a perfect backdrop for a tryst. Why wouldn't she come! He flung his cigarette onto the drive, deciding impulsively to take a quick check along the road. She might have had trouble with the old Chevy and was attempting to fix it herself. That would be just like her!

The road was clear and free of any traffic. When he approached the restaurant from a side street, he saw Becca 's car in the parking lot at the back. Feeling uneasy, he swung around to the front and parked across the street. He took a flashlight from the glove compartment and walked around to the back entrance. The windows were uncurtained and the back rooms alight. He peered in and got such a shock he nearly let out a howl of rage. Becca was in Hatcher Lowe's arms. For a moment David thought he might be attacking her, but then he saw her tilt her head back and look at him with a peculiar smile. It wasn't a smile of pleasure but rather a teasing, provocative look.

Crumpling inside, he turned away, but yet couldn't bring himself to leave. He looked again at the sordid tableau through the window pane as if viewing a play through a scrim. Becca pushed Lowe away from her and moved toward the door. They were talking and laughing but David couldn't hear a word. Evidently, nothing would be happening tonight, or at least not there. He hung back in the shadows of a large bush at the corner of the building and waited. Soon the lights went out and Becca exited, followed by Lowe. They were making plans for a safer rendezvous next week, somewhere outside of town, a poor country cabin of Lowe's but, as he said with a clearly audible leer in his voice, "It'll be nice and private for us, sweetheart."

David slipped around the corner of the building and beat it to his car. They would be occupied for a few moments, which would give him time to make a getaway. There were a few cars moving now, as people were leaving for early shifts at Nashville factories. He made it home and into his room ten minutes before Becca pulled in. He'd been so angry he prudently decided not to confront her that night but instead to bide his time for the right opportunity.

22

THE FIRST PLAN

When he and Trey got back from their hike, he found Becca outside preparing a patch of ground behind the house for a kitchen garden. She looked up as David came alongside her and smiled at him. She was wearing an old shirt of Edward's over her jeans, and if he hadn't been so upset with her he would have thought she looked charming--delectable, as usual.

"Well," he said, "aren't you a bit optimistic? I thought you were supposed to be out of the house by June." He thought that with a direct challenge she would tell him the truth. He was mistaken.

"Oh," she laughed, "I'm just putting in some early stuff. It'll be ready in six weeks."

"Really! That seems pretty fast. But then, it's much hotter here in the spring than where I come from." He hesitated, then plunged ahead. "It seems people are hotter here too." He stooped beside her and picked up a handful of the brown soil, letting it spill through his fingers.

"What does that mean?" She looked at him closely with her lips slightly parted in a smile.

"Just what I said." He rose to his feet. "You, for example. It seems one man isn't enough for you. You're entitled to change your mind, of course, but you might have talked to me first."

She stood up abruptly, then took his arm to draw him beside her. "Oh, Davy, I didn't mean to be unkind about it. It's just that when I get my mind fixed on something I can't hardly think about anything else."

"Well, thanks a lot," he said stiffly, throwing off her hand and turning to leave.

"Wait!" she cried. "I'm sorry. I can't say it right. It's not you though, not at all. I know I should have said something, but I didn't know what. I have to do this other thing, and I have to be fast and smart about it or it won't do no good."

"Are you referring to your rendezvous with Hatcher Lowe?" His voice was icy.

"I don't know how you found out, but, yes, it's about meeting with Hatcher." She clutched again at his arm. "I have to do this, Davy. It's not for me, though."

"Oh, no. I'm sure it's for the good of mankind that you have an affair with Lowe."

"No, it's for the family," she said in a small voice. "I'm doing it to save Rosehall for them."

"Oh, Becca , what nonsense!"

"No, it's not! He wants me, you know. And if I work it right he'll take me as his mistress only if I'm here at Rosehall. He wants me that bad, Davy. I can tell."

"Becca , this is sickening. No house should mean that much. Why don't you admit you're beaten and make the best of it? Edward had the last word, after all."

"No," she shook her head with violent determination. "I mean for it to go my way. I think I can talk Hatcher into letting us out of the contract."

"But that still won't solve your money problems. You still won't have enough to make the repairs and pay the taxes. Hatcher's got money, but he's no bottomless pit." He'd found out the previous week that the tax reassessment order has been rescinded because of a so-called accounting error.

When he told Becca that as he earlier helped her wash the supper dishes, she'd shrugged. "I'm not surprised. I suppose that was Hatcher's doing--but it still won't help us much. He can't be blackmailed, you know. Even if he did some dirty tricks he won't be found out. He's too clever for that."

He'd agreed, explaining that some figures had been transposed. Now, as he considered how naively she'd been led into an affair with Hatcher, he realized it had been partly his doing. He'd brought Hatcher into her mind as a way out of her dilemma.

"Davy," she said, stepping closer to him, "I don't mind doing what you think is so terrible. It don't matter now. There's no other way to get power to my side. But don't think I'm used to doing this sort of thing. I've tried working our way out of trouble but even that's not enough now."

He looked at her lovely face, her wide blue eyes, smelled the freshness of her skin and hair. Pity welled up in him for her. Becca saw life in the simplest terms. She seemed to have no idea that this play for Hatcher in what she saw as a good cause would sully her. Oddly, he also saw her as an innocent. He felt compassion and was at the same time frightened for her.

They walked over to a stack of old bricks and sat down gingerly. Becca looked thoughtful; David had forgiven her completely. He took her hand. He loved her hands. The slender, warm fingers twined in his own.

"Forget this degrading business with Hatcher, Becca . You don't need him. You don't even need Rosehall. You'll be much better off with a smaller, newer house and a little cash in the bank. Don't you see? You're hanging on to a relic, the past--and it hasn't even been that great. Why do you cling to it when it's brought you so much unhappiness?"

"It hasn't been all misery. Just these last few years have been bad. If I only had some regular income to help keep it going. It's not right to let it go without a fight, but," she sighed, "I guess I can't do it by myself, can I?"

"No, you can't," he said firmly. "Will you promise me to drop your plan with Hatcher?"

"I guess I'll have to," she said slowly. "I guess it won't work without money, like you said. You gotta have grease to fry the fish, and I expect I just better look in another direction."

David thought her hill country expression was peculiar under the circumstances, but that was Becca. He took her hand hopefully, waiting for her to say she'd come to him that night. But she only smiled and, disengaging herself, went back to her digging.

David was right, of course, that she couldn't go through with her demented plan to seduce Hatcher in what would probably be a vain attempt to keep Rosehall. She reviewed the plot as it unfolded only a week ago. How had she ever believed it would work?

Becca had been thinking, hard, about her options, now that Edward was out of the picture. With the sale, Rosehall might seem lost to her, but that was not necessarily so. She knew Hatcher Lowe had had a thing for her. The question was, would he respond now to her overtures? The thought of Hatcher and her together was oppressive, and she shrank from too vividly imagining it. What might happen between them, she'd deal with as circumstances demanded. For now, she needed to seek him out and try to discover what might be done about his ownership of Rosehall. Would he be receptive to keeping her in style, along with the rest of the family, in a newly renovated Rosehall? Could he be trusted to take care of her once he'd had his way with her?

It seemed her only hope, to somehow convince Hatcher that his occupancy of Rosehall while turning out the family would forever alienate her from him. Not that she'd ever indicated her preference for him under any circumstances, but he was vain and proud and would believe her if she told him she'd kept her feelings for him under wraps because of Edward. Now that Edward was gone, she would have a legitimate reason, according to Hatcher's reasoning, to get in touch with him.

She made her contact with the judge at his office, arriving during his office hours. She was shown in immediately after she had identified herself to his secretary, who informed Hatcher on the intercom.

As she walked in to the plush yet decorous office of dark walnut and pristine-looking books in bookcases, Hatcher rose from his desk and stepped around it, holding out his hand in welcome.

"What a nice surprise," he exclaimed. "You're looking great, considering everything. How's–er . . . the little girl?"

She was somewhat gratified he'd remembered to inquire about Jenny Lou, and she made that clear in her response. "You are so considerate, Judge, to ask about my poor girl. She's still not right, and it's going to take a while, but I have faith she'll recover."

"Fine, fine." He indicated a chair next to his desk where she sat on its edge, poised for flight if she made an ass of herself. She had dressed carefully for the occasion, wearing a navy blue cotton dress with a blue and white checked jacket. She'd worn it to Edward's funeral, but most men wouldn't remember things like that, and she knew it was becoming to her coloring. At the moment, she felt her cheeks were very rosy from her nervousness and the strain of what she had to propose. It was not inconceivable he'd laugh her out of his office. After all, he probably had everything he ever wanted. Considering his former pursuit of her, that wasn't perhaps accurate, but he most likely he now considered her damaged goods, being part of Edward Thorpe's life. She nearly talked herself out of expressing her plan when Hatcher nodded at her in a sympathetic way, his eyes expressing interest and admiration.

"Well, my gal, what's on your mind?"

"Hatcher, when I found out about the house sale, it sat heavy on my mind. I've been thinking about us and Rosehall."

"Us? You mean," he gestured between them, "you and me?"

"Yes, I can't get over the fact that I rejected you once," she said hurriedly, swallowing with difficulty, her mouth was so dry.

The judge grabbed the lapels of his khaki polyester suit and leaned back in his leather chair. "What ever do you mean, kid? 'Can't get over it?' I'm used to plain talk and so are you, or have you lived too long among the swells," he sneered.

With that, she came close to leaving his presence, but the thought of Rosehall kept her poised on her seat, her face calm, her eyes beseeching. "I have a proposal, but I want you to agree you'll not hold it against me if you refuse."

He frowned. "Come off it, Becca, what in hell do you want?"

She took a deep breath. "I want to stay on at Rosehall with my family and be more than a friend to you. I think," she said in a lower voice, "we could mean something to one another again, and you might want me taken care of properly in a house that's worthy of your attention."

There was dead silence for a long moment while Hatcher stared at her in disbelief. "What are you suggesting? That you become my mistress and live at Rosehall?"

She nodded. This looked worse and worse. He hadn't promised to leave her in peace if he rejected her plan, and now she had exposed herself to his taunts and the humiliation of being rejected.

"Becca," he said, softly, rising from his chair and coming around to her. He pulled her up out of her chair and grasped her tightly. "Do you mean it? Do you really want me now that that pansy-ass husband of yours is gone?" He held her at arm's length. "Don't act like you're shocked. I know he wasn't anything much to you."

"Hatcher, I must–"

He shook her lightly by the shoulders. "I still want you, you guessed right about that. I never got over you. When can I see you alone so we can talk more about this and make arrangements? You can't be seen here at my office very often, if I want to keep my job. Shall I come to Rosehall?"

She thought of the family, and particularly she thought of David, and frowned. "No," she responded slowly, "let's keep the meetings between ourselves for a while, until everything is set."

"Fine," he said, drawing her close to him and kissing her wetly.

She extricated herself from his grasp and walked a few steps away, thinking. This was going better than she'd imagined, but she hadn't thought far enough ahead for future meetings. "I'll be working tonight at Ridley's restaurant. I get off about three. Can you come by without causing a stir in your household?"

He stood, arms hanging limply, his mouth flaccid and hungry, looking at her. "As far as Ella Mae is concerned, I can do anything I want. Don't worry about me. Are you sure that's the best place to meet?"

"Yes, I think we should talk details, and that will take some time in private." Becca took a deep breath. "It will be wonderful to have time alone with you after all these years." Oh, God forgive these lies and my horrible need, she prayed.

Hatcher had been good as his word, meeting her at the appointed time, but after talking to him without getting him to commit to any sort of arrangements, even preliminary, she began, in retrospect, to have doubts as to the plan. All he really seemed interested in doing was making out with her. Besides that doubt was her own reaction to him. When they parted at the restaurant, she had to steel herself from revulsion as he kissed her with his meaty lips, hot with desire and forcing her mouth open. And then his hands. She shuddered in spite of herself as she recalled his ham hands squeezing her breasts.

She had agreed to meet him at the cabin, but all day she wondered about her power to convince him to keep Rosehall for the Thorpes as well as her ability to overlook his repulsiveness. Oh, he still had the hots for her, but he also was used to having things his way. She might be sacrificing herself, her honor and integrity for nothing, even if she ultimately could stand his attentions.

Stretching her back from her exertions of digging, she took the hoe and trudged to one of the horse stalls where she kept her garden tools. Now with David's words hanging in the air, she was brought swiftly to the realization her plan was absurd. She would back out of the deal with Hatcher, even if he became incensed with her, which was likely. But also hovering over her was the whisper of another, different, not quite so satisfying but still better-than-nothing plan. She would see what she could do about that in the days ahead. All was not lost yet.

23

DERBY DAY AT FOXRUN

Milton Greaves Henshaw had reached the point in his life where he'd begun to notice when people smiled blankly at his greeting. He didn't understand it. Everyone he met could count on his polite interest, whether he liked them, or even knew them, or not. He'd also begun to wonder why he seemed to have made so few real friends, why he couldn't get close to a woman he cared about. Yet the famous charm that had seen him through life had not completely deserted him. He was sure of that.

His social life was never found wanting. In truth, he knew that could be attributed to his looks, his financial position and family connections, and most of all his marital status, or lack of one. He had no obligation to reciprocate either. Single men were tacitly absolved from such duties in Monroeville. But Milt usually ground out one big bash a year, or at least every two years, just to keep the score even, and besides, he rather liked to entertain in what had become his own and--if he might say it--rather impressive style.

He had his parties either in the fall or spring, when his mother would be in town. For twenty years, after a highly visible and well thought out mourning period for his father, Alicia Henshaw took to the road. There were plenty of widows in town to keep her company, but Milt's mother preferred the warm winters and obsequious pampering of Palm Beach. In the summers she opted for the rustic comforts of obscure European hotels.

But for a few months during the best seasons in Tennessee, she would plop herself in the satined luxury of her large pink stucco imitation French Provincial mansion and get caught up. She had built it after the war, leaving Milt to rattle around in the large and what she thought too plain 1820's farm house that his great, great grandfather had built. She admitted to never really feeling at home there. Her pink house with elaborate fountain became a town landmark of pretentiousness, and people would take visiting relatives to gape and wonder and laugh.

Milt thought his mother slightly ridiculous too, but he loved her because she loved him so inordinately. His sister, married and living in Nashville, complained at her mother's obvious preference. But she, too, forgave Milt, which reminded him of a certain truth. Women always forgave him. They didn't seem to hang around long, but they did forgive him. Except for his ex-wife, but he didn't like to think about that episode in his life.

Milt had grown to manhood under what seemed to be universally admiring eyes. He was fairly intelligent and had the idea of being a writer, so it seemed right to conclude that he was an intellectual. During the process of becoming the owner-publisher of four newspapers his sense of authority grew and flourished. He seldom ran across anyone who knew more than he did on literary or journalistic matters. Other than Edward Thorpe, whom he knew to be his intellectual better. Milt had gladly sat at Edward's feet.

Poor Edward. It would be strange, Milt felt, to have the party this year without him. He'd loved the festivities so; he'd acted almost as co-host, directing newcomers to take a look at the Charles Wilson Peale over the mantel, to the bottomless punch bowl in the dining room, or to a quick tour of the grounds where Milt had stabled some fine jumpers.

Milt had been carefully reared to observe the social amenities, and with his innate love of the theatrical and his orderly mind, the task of hosting a formal party, which for most men would have been a grisly fate, was to him as routine and satisfying as putting out a paper. The key was Planning and Organization. After deciding on a theme, he would divvy up all the pertinent areas and put them under control of squad leaders, as he called them. Carrie, his servant-of-all-work, would be in charge of food and flowers; Rollie the gardener would handle, besides the outside cleanup, parking and door duties; Mandy would attend to the housecleaning and waiting on his guests for cocktails and at table. He had insisted that only the those three were to come to him for instructions. Under-servants would report to their leaders. Milt himself would order all the wine and liquor for the event, which was scheduled to come off the second Saturday in May. It was to coincide with the Kentucky Derby.

He'd gone to the Derby on and off since prep school days, but he decided a couple of years ago he didn't like the crowds. They were turning out by the thousands and ruining the race. It was much better to go to the pre-race trials, and so that's what he and a small party did this year. Derby Day itself would be a re-creation at Foxrun of the grand old days of the race, when the only people whom you rubbed elbows with were old schoolmates and friends of friends seated in their special boxes, the mint juleps forever being freshened by white jacketed waiters.

The day of the party dawned with that exquisite combination of sun, temperature, and lack of humidity that sometimes occurs in Tennessee during the spring and makes the natives beam with pride as if they'd invented the climate. Massed boughs of pink and white dogwood had been placed in enormous oriental jardinieres in the foyer. On the dining table lush bouquets of hothouse roses sprawled in antique silver vases, the pale gold of the flowers a perfect match for the heavy shafts of brocade at the windows. The host looked over the table well before his guests had begun to arrive. He ticked off the details; light finger food for this afternoon along with the juleps or sherry wine while everyone listened to the outcome of the race. Bets would be placed with Jim, Milt's personal servant; that would liven up the party considerably. A musical ensemble would play during cocktails until dinner was served.

He expected the Thorpes and Becca to come. She had told him several weeks ago she might stay home, even though the other Thorpes were coming. They would sooner have missed the train to heaven than a Henshaw party. But Becca had phoned a few days ago to say she was coming after all. He'd been pleased. She was always a delight and could be counted on to say the unexpected at a social gathering. One never knew what interesting conversational morsel would come from her beautiful lips. He chuckled with anticipation.

Becca opened the bottom drawer of her dresser and lifted out a tissue-wrapped bundle. The drawer emitted a faint spicy odor. Miss Mitty had prepared and distributed little bags of lavender to discourage the moths and silverfish that nevertheless had a few meals on the house. Becca shook out an off white cashmere sweater with a jeweled neckline and held it to the light. It looked fine, even though it was eight years old.

She hadn't had it on above three times since Edward presented it to her on her twenty-fifth birthday. She would need a sweater. The filmy dress she was wearing to the party would hardly keep her warm enough on the drive home. Becca held the sweater against the dress and looked in the clouded glass of the old cheval mirror in the corner of the bedroom. The colors were good together. Miss Mitty had done her proud with this old dress, remodeling it to suit Becca's figure and a still fashionable knee-length. It was from the seventies, made of blue silk organza embroidered with ivory flowers on the short sleeves and the panels of the skirt. She wore no jewelry to fill in the deep square neckline, but that didn't bother her a bit. She couldn't abide a fussy look.

It was early afternoon and the party wouldn't get going for a couple of hours. Becca had decided to drive over by herself ahead of the others who would come along later. She wasn't exactly looking forward to the great crowd that would assemble at Foxrun. Many of the guests she wouldn't know. How she suffered at those introductions, the polite chatter on subjects beyond or beneath her interests, then the drifting off to leave her feeling foolish and awkward like a schoolgirl. She had few friends in the town's society. There was David, of course; and Doris Clammershorn was always kindly to her. The Ridleys who owned the restaurant where she worked would not be there. They didn't run in the same crowd as Milt's friends. She didn't belong either, but here she was, soon to be smack in the middle of them.

She grinned at herself in the mirror, admiring her appearance as if she were viewing one of the portraits in the hall. She'd manage it just fine. She'd have to manage it, playing for such high stakes as she was. Her face took on a determined stiffness, as if she were screwing herself up to wring a chicken's neck. She believed she had a job to do. David thought she was crazy to try and hang on to this life when it had seemed to go so hard for her. But he didn't know there were worse hurts than not being accepted by the important people. Becca remembered what it was like when she first started coming to town with her pa and then later when she went to the town school. People had looked right through her--as if she didn't exist.

Becca had caught on quick. The Ridge dwellers were almost as cruelly treated as the blacks. Only a handful of people had ever bothered to find out what she was like and what she cared about. No, it was better to be noticed, even if they smirked or raised their eyebrows, than ignored.

She didn't allow herself to be humiliated anymore, though. That was one reason she was going early to Milt's. She would offer to help him even though his house was chock full of servants. Being by his side she would take on the role of hostess, almost. She wondered if it would be easier or harder to mix without Edward along. He'd never been a noisy drunk even though he got sarcastic as the drink took over, which embarrassed her. But he'd still been a Thorpe, and accepted, and so was she in the ways that counted for her. She couldn't be snubbed. Then the thought of Jenny entered her thoughts, clouding them with sadness. In only a couple of more years her daughter would have been making plans to go to one of Milt's parties, and other parties that the Thorpes were always invited to. Becca frowned at such an idea. As if she thought Jenny wouldn't fully recover. She mustn't let down, lose heart. And tonight she would focus on Milt and her for the sake of Jenny and the others.

Becca had thought long and hard about putting herself on a different footing with Milt. He had always been friendly to her--to the whole family. Wouldn't it seem natural-like they should get closer? If he could be won over to the idea of her without Edward, she might could help the family even more than she'd planned. But had she gone too far with Hatcher now to get out without him getting even? Could she risk doing a turn on Hatcher? The answer was yes, if Milt was part of the plan.

She walked out of her room and across the landing of the long gallery and leaned on the rail as she visualized what was in store. Without question, Milt would have to be part of her plan.

Foxrun had been built by an early Henshaw as a modest farmhouse, but in the passing years it grew to an oddly shaped house of gables and wings and Victorian appendages. It was painted the palest cream, and with its many black shutters and varied roof line it resembled ivory dice thrown into a tidy heap. Somewhere along the way, an architect with something different in mind had added a graceful section with arched windows and a brick courtyard.

It was to the courtyard that Becca headed after parking her car. Small tables topped by crisp white linen cloths were set along the perimeter. At the back near the kitchen, a long serving table was being set up by two servants. A large TV with the cord reaching through a window had been placed in a prominent position. Posters with the Derby entries and odds had been tacked up on wooden posts.

Becca walked through the courtyard and into the kitchen looking for Milt. It was a hive of activity, and Milt's housekeeper directed her through the double doors into the dining room.

"Becca!"

"Hello, Milt. I came on early to see if I can help some." She held up her hand as he protested. "Now, don't say no. Can't never get enough hands at a big do like this."

"But your gown--it's so pretty. All you really need to do is look beautiful, darlin'"

"Just give me an apron and I'll do whatever needs doing."

He laughed and shook his head wonderingly. "You beat all! Come over here then and help me carry out these tumblers to the kitchen. We'll move them in stages to the courtyard. I thought we'd bring out the pitchers of juleps and let people help themselves."

"Good idea. Oh–these are the prettiest glasses! I've always admired them"

"Mama brought those back from a trip to New York. Five dozen--can you imagine? They're not the Waterford, of course. I'd never let that gang loose outdoors with anything really good." He opened a large cupboard to reveal rows of the ornate cut crystal. He took out a wine glass and held it out for her to look at.

"Oh, yes, I can see the difference." She couldn't, but it wouldn't do to act too ignorant. It seemed a good sign that he wanted to show her his things . . . brag a little.

"Are you having many stay on for dinner?" she asked. The Thorpes had always been included in the seated dinner that invariably followed Milt's parties.

"It grows larger every year. I keep taking on new obligations and don't know how to drop the has-beens without causing an uproar." He added quickly with a smile, "It goes without saying, you and your family will always be my most honored guests."

"Thank you, Milt," Becca answered softly. She gave him a long look, inviting him to a new intimacy, and noticed with satisfaction that Milt flushed, looked embarrassed, then significantly, looked at her again. She began to feel good about the afternoon and evening ahead.

The banquet table easily sat thirty guests, and for the occasion an additional six had been squeezed in. David was a little surprised to see Becca in the exalted position to the left of the host. Across from her was Milt's mother, whose fruity contralto carried the tune of the conversation at that end of the table. David caught Becca's eye as she turned to look down the length of the banquet table, and she wiggled her fingers at him. He looked plaintively at her beyond his dinner companion. The girl was Milt's cousin, Mary Page Henshaw, home for the weekend from a swank women's college in Virginia.

David was afraid his inattention to the bright chatter next to him might be noticed, so with a quiet sigh, he donned his party manners like an obligatory party hat. For him, the entire occasion had been several notches below fun. He'd had a disappointing run of bets and had won only three dollars, sinking over twenty into the pot. It would have been a comfort if he'd had Becca for a dinner partner, but no. He got stuck with the coed. He tore his eyes reluctantly from Becca, whom he thought looked as beautiful as he'd ever seen her. Her mass of dark hair had been piled in curls to the top of her head. Her cheeks were abloom with roses and added depth to her eyes. He mustered up an interested expression as he concentrated on the girl next to him. She was prattling on about something.

" . . . and if I believed, I mean really believed in reincarnation, I could say for sure . . . don't laugh! that I lived during the War Between the States. I mean it's so close to me. I step into this house and I feel . . . ."

David tuned out again. This was the most popular female fantasy he'd observed since coming south. Even Doris, poor thing, had admitted the feelings of identification with Scarlett O'Hara. Obviously, that was why she lingered so lovingly over the material in her novel. He cast a covert look in her direction a few seats nearer the head of the table. She was laughing hugely and rather unbecomingly, tears nearly spraying from her crinkled eyes, her large teeth gleaming in the candlelight. She was listening to Francis (Fig) Newton, president of the bank, tell one of his faintly off color stories.

David's eyes were drawn again up the table to the slight figure turned first toward Milt, then to his mother. The Henshaws were being attentive, particularly Milt, who seemed to have taken over as Becca's protector, and Becca was enjoying it. David frowned, and then caught himself. He was happy, of course, that Becca was the queen bee for once. He cleared his face as he peripherally detected Mary Page's hesitation.

"I know you think I'm silly, but . . . oh, it's not just the clothes, although I must confess I think they do somehow suit me. . . ."

They had finished their fish course of baked swordfish with thyme butter and were being served the entree of beef filet when Becca began to feel very sick. She'd noticed a strange lightheadedness but had credited it to the mixing of mint juleps during the afternoon with the wine at dinner. She hardly touched drink of any kind, but this was a special occasion and she hated to stand out by refusing. Now she was downright dizzy and her stomach was all knotted up. When the candles darkened before her eyes she turned to Milt and spoke quietly.

"You'll have to excuse me, Milt, but I feel woozy." She gave a weak smile. "I've never fainted in my life, but I bet I could do it now without half trying."

"Good God, you're white as a sheet. Here, let me." He helped her to her feet, explaining to the guests seated nearby, "Just a little wooziness. I'll take her to the sitting room to rest."

She knew she'd feel a fool later, but she was too weak at the moment to worry about it. She was also more concerned about getting across the room without giving out. She saw David half rise in concern but she shook her head imperceptibly, and he sat back down. The chatter in the room dinned in her head like a flock of chickens as Milt piloted her to the room next door.

"You need some air. Here, lie down on the sofa and I'll open a window. It was close in there." He pulled at the stiff bottom sash with a small grunt. "Enough hot air in there to choke anybody up."

"Oh, Milt. I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me. I do feel better in here, though."

"Is that breeze too cold? I don't want you to get a chill."

"No, it's fine." Milt knelt down beside her and she took his hand. "The party was lovely. I really enjoyed myself. I hope you'll not think the less of me for spoiling your dinner."

"Spoiling . . . oh, don't be silly. Quit worrying about everyone else for a change and take care of yourself. I think you're doing too much, working too--"

"No, Milt," she interrupted. "I need to work. It's good for me--honest. It helps get me away from the troubles at Rosehall. I don't have to think about them every minute I'm awake if I have something else to occupy me."

"It's a crying shame you've lost the house. Now, I'll tell you just like I told Edward, not to think again about the loans. We had no paper on them, so consider them as gifts to good friends."

Tears sprang to her eyes. They came easily now, which was puzzling to Becca, since she'd hardly ever cried when she was younger.

"You have a kindness in you Milt that I cherish. I thank you for being such a good friend. Go on in now with the others. I'll rest up a bit and try to come in for dessert."

"No," he shook his head. "I'll either go back with you if you're better, or I'll stay here and you let me fetch the doctor."

"I'm not that sick. Just a funny weakness. I thought I couldn't sit up any longer, but I'm better now. You calmed me right down." She sat up and leaned back against the plump cushions. "Go on in, now."

"Well, if you're sure . . . ."

She nodded. "I'll be along in a minute." She watched him walk across the room and thought he had the best figure for a man his age she'd ever seen. He'd not be hard to love. He really wouldn't. She wondered if he would see her like that, as someone to love. How sweet he'd been to her today. He'd taken special pains for her meet people who tried hard, she could tell, to be nice to her.

She'd had a good time today. She looked around the room, the fine furniture and family objects, beautiful and cared for. None of that mixed up, overdone look of Rosehall. None of the worn around the edges look either. Becca parted her lips thoughtfully. She could fit in here, whatever people might think.

She needed what Rosehall had given her but did she really need Rosehall? Wouldn't this be better, in every way? She'd give up on Hatcher; that was, she admitted, a desperate, disgusting plan. Too complicated besides, and as David said, it wouldn't solve all their problems anyway.

Then she thought of poor Charles and Miss Mitty, Mama Kate with her sad ways, and she bit her lip in consternation. They'll be turned out, no matter what happened to her. The panic rose in her again, suffocating her. Again, the weakness started in her head and she sank back on the soft pillow. She resolved to ask Milt right out to help them--after she got him to tell her he wanted her. Milt would fix it up. She relaxed, lay there ten more minutes, then rose and slipped into the dining room, back to the laughter and the lively talk.

David lingered as inconspicuously as possible while the other guests left. He was keeping an eye on Becca, hoping to leave at the same time. Maybe they could have a quiet chat as friends on the back porch at Rosehall. He was fighting a kind of dread about Becca, standing there beside Milt, completely recovered, so it seemed, from her earlier indisposition. He couldn't think she felt anything but uncomfortable making the small talk she despised with people she usually only tolerated. He was anxious to get her alone to compare notes about the party.

The romantic Miss Henshaw paused by the door with her parents and ignoring Milt and Becca turned to David with a breathy, "Good night, David!"

"Oh, good night, Mary Page." He took her hand, outstretched to him with the palm down, and gave it a firm shake. He'd be damned if he'd kiss it! She wasn't an unattractive girl, and as a matter of fact he'd looked at the cleavage of her full young breasts with a lascivious pleasure earlier in the evening. But her conversation had done its work to shrivel up any desire for her company. Compared to Becca she was as paste to a diamond.

"Reckon I'll be seeing you around? I'll be in town a few more days."

"Maybe so. I'll call if I get a chance. Pretty busy at the newspaper with deadlines, you know." He caught Becca's eye and walked away from the female scorned, who followed her parents outside with a disappointed flounce. Milt was at the door showing out his mother, who was leaving to go into Nashville with his sister.

Becca laughed, "What an old meany you are. All she wanted was a good story to take back to her school. Couldn't you have been a little obliging and asked her to go to the movies?"

David was a little shocked that she had suggested him going out with another woman, even as a courtesy, but he treated it lightly, making a wry face, then giving her an exaggerated once-over. "If she'd had upswept dark hair and an alabaster skin, and if she'd worn a fragile clinging gown I might have considered it. You look stunning tonight." Not a diamond, but a gossamer, silver-blue moth among the gaudy butterflies.

"Thank you, Davy." She dipped her head politely. "Did you have a good time?"

"I'd say it was the high point in my social life."

"You can laugh, but a lot of folks were pining to be asked and didn't make it."

"Really? I thought Milt left no stone unturned to dig up this bunch."

She shook her head at him reproachfully.

"Are you about ready to go?" he asked, one hand on her arm. "I'll take you home."

She didn't answer him immediately, and he saw her eyes rest on Milt, standing in the open doorway sending off a small group. Only a handful, including the Thorpes, remained in the hallway.

"Thanks, but I drove myself over. I think I'll hang around a tad longer, though. I might could help Milt do some cleaning up."

"Oh? Doesn't he have enough help? There seemed to be a regiment of servants around here."

"Why, that's just it, they'll need to be shown what to do." She looked him in the eye and spoke with such earnestness it stopped further argument. David turned abruptly from her and walked over to Milt. They shook hands and murmured amenities at one another until David left without a backward glance.

As the door closed behind the last of his guests, Milt turned with an exaggerated droop of his shoulders and outstretched arms.

"Thank God, it's over!"

"Ah shoot, Milt," she said with a teasing uplifted eyebrow. "You know you love this more than a pig likes to wallow."

He came up to her and gave her a light cuff on the chin. "Think you can entice me with that sort of sweet talk?" The house seemed suddenly quiet, all the servants in the kitchen or gone for the evening.

"Did it?" She looked from beneath her lashes shyly. Milt seemed to be transfixed by her, his face flushed and excited.

"Come along into the study, dear, for a nightcap." He led her along the hall to a room opposite the old parlor. The door closed behind them with a well oiled click.

Milt went to an old cherry secretary, which held a decanter of brandy and several glasses. He poured a small amount of the spirits in two of them.

"Soda?"

Becca nodded and wandered around the room, looking at the fine hunting prints and paintings on the walls, at a display of collector's pipes in a glass cupboard, at a rack of trophies won several years earlier at the annual Steeplechase in Nashville. She took the glass from him with a smile, and they silently toasted one another. Their eyes clung as they sipped.

"Becca . . . " Milt reached to her cheek and smoothed a curl behind her ear. He took her glass from her and set it along with his own on a nearby table. Drawing her to him he clasped her in an almost convulsive gesture and then kissed her urgently, his mouth open and his tongue thrusting between her parted lips. He was aroused. Becca was aware of this with the pleasure of a woman who knows she is desired. Milt began to remove his coat and tie, while she struggled to unfasten her dress at the neck. She had an impulse to resist, to play hard to get, but that would have disappointed him. She'd follow his lead.

"Let me." He leaned forward and kissed the back of her neck. "You're so lovely." He was panting a bit when she slipped the dress over her head. As they lay on the couch he moaned and asked her to help him, hold him. Within moments it was over and Becca tried to swallow her disappointment. Her heart had hardly changed its beat. Now it was done, but just beginning too, she mustn't forget that.

"I'm sorry, darling," he gasped. "I hadn't realized you'd excite me so much. Can you spend the night? Maybe if--"

"Not tonight, Milt. We'll have to be careful, you know. Things like this have a way of getting around. I'd best go on back. It was fine now, really it was." She unwound herself from his embrace and gave him a hearty kiss. Okay, he wasn't much of a lover, maybe never would be, but that didn't have to matter so much, did it?

They joked and kissed again in front of her car, and drawing back, she studied his smooth features and thick hair, still clinging damply to his forehead.

"Why are you looking at me that way?" he asked.

"Because you're a different person to me now. I want to see the differentness when I think of you."

"Good. But I don't intend for you to be alone thinking. We'll be together every minute we can."

Driving away, Becca thought of the evening behind her. It had gone faster than she had planned. But that was O.K. Fine, really. She hadn't realized how little encouragement it took to set Milt on fire, if you could call it that. Briefly, she thought of David's ardent and prolonged lovemaking. Well, she could do without. Lord knows she'd not had much of that in her life and she was perfectly willing to make sacrifices for the main chance.

24

FACING THE INEVITABLE

The occupants of Rosehall, David included, lolled in a period of limbo while they all had to face the change in their living arrangements. David felt disconnected, as if he were a puppet being pulled about by an invisible puppet master that led him from one unhappy situation into another. First the Dandy Day affair, then the preparations to move from what had become his home, and more recently his changed relationship with Becca. They had been as close as any two human beings could be and now were nearly strangers.

Whatever brief conversations they had seemed to end in a quarrel. Her conniving to use Hatcher, now maybe Milt, he thought implausible if not demented schemes, and he told her as much. He supposed in all fairness she was right to resent his condemnation, and that he should have kept his mouth shut, but he only wanted to warn her as a friend. Sure, she may have hurt him by her actions, but he was convinced her headlong willfulness was not only mindless but also destructive. In truth, she'd disappointed him. He'd seen her as clean and strangely pure, and now she seemed tarnished, even though she claimed such actions were for some noble cause. Foolish, ignorant woman!

If mulish was David's word for Becca's behavior, then acquiescent was how he'd describe the Thorpes. The move, from their point of view, was a fait accompli. They quit sighing, or groaning, or crying, and had begun to show some actual excitement at the idea of moving to a new place. The contrast between these two attitudes was brought out sharply to David one evening at the dinner table. He had by now become an almost anonymous fixture at this ritualized occasion. It still served as a familial communion service, changed only slightly without the eldest son's brooding presence and murky pronouncements.

At first, after his death, all of them, even Trey, were constrained for their various reasons. Casual conversations had seemed forced, and no one seemed to have a sense of humor anymore. But by the end of May the group had adjusted, and the table fairly hummed with gossip and anecdotes as formerly.

One memorable evening, Trey announced to everyone's shock that Mr. Roscoe farted in public. Not that the information was news to anyone, but that Trey would state it so bluntly seemed to horrify his family. Even Becca, who minced few words, frowned. Mrs. Thorpe gathered herself together for a remonstrance.

"Trey, that is inexcusable talk at the dinner table. Please apologize."

"I'm sorry, Granny, but he does, doesn't he, Uncle Charles? When we took him to the hardware--"

"That's enough, son." Becca's voice was stern. She too knew the proprieties, and that what might have been acceptable in other circumstances was forbidden here at their high altar.

David spoke up, hoping to get the heat off Trey and the boy's mind off Roscoe's digestive system. "What's old Roscoe going to do after you folks leave?"

"We're hoping Judge Lowe will let him stay on," Charles said. "Even though that wasn't a condition of the sale."

No one mentioned who'd omitted any conditions. Edward's name had never once come up in dinnertime conversation.

"Have you found a house yet, Mrs. Thorpe?" David continued. He knew that Charles's share of the sale was to be used for the purchase of a place for himself, his mother, and aunt. Rosehall had been left to Edward alone, but he, in fairness, had designated Charles and Becca as co-beneficiaries in his will. Mrs. Thorpe had received her inheritance from her husband years before and had been managing, albeit meagerly, to help provide for the others. Now, at last, they'd all have some money--except Miss Mitty, who didn't know or care about such things. For several weeks, Charles and his mother had been taken by a realtor to look at likely properties.

"Yes, indeed, we believe we have." The old woman gave what was a bright smile for her and turned to her son. "The papers are to be signed this week, Charles?"

He nodded and chucked the remains of a crumbly chicken liver in his mouth. He struggled to swallow and answer at the same time but Miss Mitty intervened.

"Oh, it's perfect! Such a pretty place. It's on Potter Lane." She turned her raccoon eyes on David. "Do you know Potter Lane, David?"

"It's on a little hill to one side of our cousin Potter's estate, Granby," broke in Charles at last. "Modern place, small of course, but nice. Three bedrooms, even a little sitting room off the kitchen so we can have some privacy with friends. We're calling it The Eyrie."

David murmured his delight for them, then brusquely addressed Becca. "And you? Where are you and the children going? The last we spoke about it, it was . . . ah, still up in the air."

"Why is everybody in such a hurry to get us out?"Becca snapped. "We don't have to leave until the end of the month. Time enough to make plans--if we must." She looked around the table at her in-laws. "You all talk mighty brave about this awful thing," she flared, her cheeks burning.

"Becca," said Mrs. Thorpe, gently. "We don't mind that much, you know. It is hard to leave our beloved Rosehall, but still and all, it may be for the best."

"What are your plans, old boy?" Charles asked David blandly. "Anything come along yet?"

David explained how fortunate he felt to get the upper floor of some law offices on the south side of the square. The former occupant, a senior law partner in the firm and a widower, had died a few months ago, and the firm was happy to rent it out, furnishings and all, to a respectable gentleman like the editor.

"That sounds lovely, David," said Miss Mitty. "Colonel Putnam was a very good man, and his rooms should harbor pleasant memories." Then she stared sightlessly at David. "Not like Rosehall. It used to say good things to me, but not anymore."

"Altogether," said Charles, placing his hands on the table, palms down in a judicial manner, "altogether it will prove to be satisfactory for us all, in the long run. Not a sad business, not really!"

"Well!" said Becca hotly, rising to her feet, "You all should feel sad. You have no right to give it up so easily. How can you!"

Everyone stared at her in perplexity. Then Charles said soothingly, "Don't worry about us. Oh, we'll miss the old place, for sure, but it's kinda excitin'. We're really not that sad about it, are we, Mama?" He grinned at his mother in a comradely way. He'd confessed to David he never in his life thought he would have so much money to spend.

"I'm sorry you're not sad," said Becca, looking from one to the other. "Rosehall is more than a house; it's your freedom to be what you are, it's what makes you real and important to the town." Tears were standing in her eyes and everyone looked down or away in embarrassment for her. Only Jenny Lou continued to eat unperturbed. She had returned two days before from her grandfather's and seemed to be much improved, everyone agreed, though hardly normal.

Finally, Charles spoke, keeping his eyes on his plate. His ears had become very red. "I'm surprised you feel that way, my dear. We Thorpes have always loved Rosehall too, but not one of us, past or present, has ever wanted to be part of her decline. The time to leave has come, and we must go with the fewest regrets possible."

David was astonished at Charles's command of the situation, his clear view of reality, so unlike Becca's.

"I only wish that woman wouldn't have to preside here," murmured Mrs. Thorpe, still obviously distressed at the thought of Hatcher's wife.

Charles took up his fork, then laid it down and turned to look at Becca who had by now taken her seat again. "I don't think you know us as well as you think you do. If you believe we must be bound to a house for our sense of identity--well, you're very wrong, I assure you. You know, I think this is one of those times when we have to trust that the Lord is taking us on a new adventure." He spoke with a child-like simplicity that David thought moving. "Maybe Rosehall had meant too much to us and now we must learn to live without the old place."

"We will always have our name," Mrs. Thorpe added, "our traditions. We will carry with us who we are, never fear. You must be able to do the same."

Becca sat quietly for a moment, then she took her half-finished plate of food and left the room. But suddenly David understood Becca's distress and felt empathy for her. What the Thorpes considered a given was precisely Becca's problem.

It was shortly after this, the following Saturday, that David broke his leg. Against his better judgment he had agreed to knock down a wasp's nest under the back porch roof for Mrs. Thorpe. He hated wasps--damned flying torpedoes--and approached his task prickling with fear. He saw to it the ladder was securely in place; Trey handed him the hoe, and he ascended. He made short, desperate work of the nest and was descending the ladder when four sentries circled and nose dived. He banked sharply to the right and landed with one leg unnaturally hooked over the porch railing.

The Thorpes, as well as his co-workers, were sympathetic and very kind to him, treating him, instead of someone found in a ludicrous position, as a survivor honorably defeated in a battle royal. Even Roger Neyland, the seldom-seen ad manager, who like the planet Pluto made regular, infrequent appearances at the office, veered out of orbit and stopped by the office every evening for two weeks to drive David home from work. Charles had volunteered to drive him in each morning, bestirring himself on David's behalf so the editor could be at the office at eight o'clock sharp.

It was a clean break at the ankle and his convalescence was relatively short: off crutches in two weeks, into a walking cast and a cane for an additional two weeks. Nonetheless, it was, he complained, inconvenient as hell, what with his tasks at the newspaper and the need to get moved out of Rosehall. Hatcher Lowe was giving everyone until June 30th before he wanted to start the major overhauling.

David believed that Becca still hadn't made any plans to move. Three weeks before they were due to get out he asked Charles, driving to work one morning, if Becca had said anything about her plans to him. He shook his head.

"Not a word, Dave. I'm worried about her. She can't come to grips with this move and accept it as fact. She won't even talk about it. Why, I've tried to give her some helpful advice on real estate but she won't have any of it. What are we to do about her, do you think?"

What were they to do? That was the problem for David; he could see no way to get her into the right frame of mind without having her turn into a blazing Fury. Everyone else was making preparations to leave, sorting and packing, while Becca did nothing. She looked grimmer as each day went by and would leave the room whenever the new place was discussed. David began to seriously fear for her mental state. Oddly, his own malaise had lifted after he broke his leg, as if when his fractured bone had begun to knit, his scuffed-up emotional state was healing as well. He didn't know why.

Becca was considerate toward David and came in during the evenings to bring him drinks and cookies and sandwiches, which he wanted to refuse. He had put on some weight with his new sedentary life and could imagine what he'd look like after a few weeks of being pampered this way. Most evenings he sat on the huge overstuffed chair in his sitting room writing or reading and listening to music. (Becca had insisted he take back his cd player.) His swathed foot was propped on a low stool, and all that was needed, he decided, to complete the picture of a gouty old man was for him to stamp his cane on the floor and demand a fresh bottle of sack.

Several times a week, Becca joined him in his sitting room. One evening she wasn't as talkative as usual. He asked her if she was tired.

"No, not really. Davy, we are friends again, aren't we?"

"Why, of course, Becca. You know how I feel about you. I've got to admit I haven't liked what you've been doing to try to save Rosehall, but as long as you'll have me, I'm your friend." He chose his words carefully. If she'd known how hard it had been for him to watch her humiliate herself--for what amounted to nothing--she might have appreciated his feelings of affection.

She reached across the sofa to him and gave him a light kiss. "Thanks, Davy. You've made a big difference to me. I couldn't have gotten through all this without you."

"Somehow, I think you could. I'm the one that was ready to turn tail--even leave town. I stayed around because I didn't want you to think too badly of me."

She smiled and patted his hand. Then, instead of a return to intimacy, she began her usual recital of the day's events: "I think I'll have to let Annie go next week," and "Jenny can help in the kitchen now. Did you know she fixed the vegetables tonight?" Nothing more about them, about their relationship or rather the thin, twisted rag it had become.

Milt Henshaw had been over to Rosehall several times in the last few weeks, but not to visit David. He did pop his head around the door and ask if he needed anything.

"A flat screen TV would be nice." They both laughed at his little joke.

David was quick to discover Milt's real reason for the visit was to pick up Becca and take her out to eat at the club or to a movie in Nashville. David couldn't help rankling at this new connection of hers. For the life of him David couldn't understand how Becca thought this play for Milt would matter to her or the others in the family. He knew very well she didn't love him. He remembered clearly the few good natured cracks she had made about Milt's old woman fussiness, his tendency toward snobbery.

But more puzzling than that to David was Milt's slavish attention to Becca. She was certainly a good looking woman, but her charm was less elegant porcelain and more the wrought iron variety, primitive, tough, and lately, rather hard. Not exactly a match to Milt's cool, silky glibness. Marriage didn't seem likely from David's point of view, but he didn't discount Becca getting what she wanted. Then, he began to notice her attitude had changed about moving.

The evening that Becca and David were chatting together, she remarked about getting an extension from Hatcher to stay on over the summer while the repairs were underway.

"You're making plans to move then?" He almost didn't ask her for he suspected what her answer would be and he dreaded hearing it.

"I've given up on Rosehall, Davy. There's no reason to beat a dead horse, but I'm not quite set up to move right away. I think Hatcher could start on the repairs even if the children and I were to stay on a bit."

He persisted crablike, unable to let go, "What's this? Where are you moving?"

She grinned at him, but her eyes were sober. Her face was made up more than usual nowadays and it became her to have the dab of mascara and blushing lips and cheeks.

"I can tell you we'll be going to Foxrun, but it's not official yet, so don't you say nothing! It's too soon after Edward's death." Despite her happy tone, David could tell she was a little discomfited.

His own face was wooden, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't even muster up a polite smile of congratulations.

"My, you've been busy," he tossed off with a kind of contempt in his voice.

She pursed her lips and said, "You're disappointed in me, aren't you."

"You know how I feel."

"It's what I have to do, Davy. I've had to do this sort of thing before and it's not so bad."

"Oh no, it's terrific. Sell yourself to a creep you can't stand for a nice place to live. I hope he doesn't lose his money too," he added savagely.

"That's a chance I'll have to take." She turned her chin up defiantly. "And besides, I like Milt, always have!" She broke off and he remained silent, staring at her.

When she spoke again her voice was brittle and unlike any tone he'd ever heard her use before, as if all emotion had been wrung from her. "You act like I have choices, but I don't, not really. With Edward dead and Jenny Lou's sickness, and now Rosehall gone I'm already sinking." She gave a short laugh, almost a bark or a cry. "Why, pretty soon I'll be Becca Tucker again, like the last fifteen years never happened."

"And what's wrong with being Becca Tucker? You told me once that's what you had to be to get along in this family. Maybe that's more important than being Mrs. Edward Thorpe, or Mrs. Milt Henshaw."

She shook her head. "Nothing's important about Becca Tucker. She's just a little Ridge Rat."

"Becca! I can't believe you! Who are you doing this for? The townsfolk? Does what they think matter so much? Do you hate yourself and what you came from so much?"

Suddenly she burst into tears, and David knew he had gone too far. He wanted to comfort her by taking back his words, but they were planted like spikes between them.

"Becca, I didn't mean . . . don't, please . . ."

She fought to get control of herself while David struggled to move closer to her, but his clumsiness made him too slow, and she fled the room.

He cursed his immobility. He had said hurtful things, but he cared too much for her to quit needling her.

25

A PARTING OF THE WAYS

"It's done, I think." Doris patted the manuscript in front of her, unsuccessful in her attempt not to look too pleased with herself. She offered it to David with a diffident, "if you have a spare hour or two. Don't bother if you're too busy."

He assured her of his eagerness to read her work. Two hours? Not really, from the size of the manuscript. More like six or eight hours of reading--no skimming, if he wanted to be fair to Doris. And of course he did. He put the boxed bundle into his briefcase and congratulated her on her great accomplishment.

"I believe I may have captured the essence of Judge Thorpe," she said modestly, "or at least I may have rounded him out a bit. In the local histories his public qualities overshadowed his private character, which I found to be the most interesting of any man I've ever--" She laughed, embarrassed. "Goodness, I almost said met!"

"Well, in a way, you did meet him. I'm glad you still like him. Most of us couldn't stand up to an eighteen-year scrutiny."

The Honorable John Peyton Thorpe was not high on David's list of fascinating characters, but he wanted to give the novel his complete attention for the sake of the author.

The door banged open and Dandy Day stood in the opening. He didn't now lumber into the room making himself at home as formerly, but waited flat-footed by the door until someone acknowledged him.

"Good morning, Dandy," Doris called out.

"Mornin', Missus." He didn't move.

"Come in, Dandy," David said. "Shut the door behind you."

"Mornin', Mister."

They got him to empty his pockets to turn in the cash from his sales. Poor fellow! David couldn't help but notice Dandy had lost his old aggressiveness since the incident of his arrest and confinement in jail, and even his paper sales had dropped off. He was more subdued altogether. Never again did David hear him call out, "Dandy day!" and he supposed that unique salute would become a thing of the past. Probably, thought David, in years to come, young people would wonder how he came to be called Dandy Day.

Another thing. Dandy wouldn't talk to David or Doris about his "presents." If he got any, he kept the news to himself. Maybe because of own part in the travesty David thought he saw a new hurt look in the newsboy's dull eyes. He seemed suspicious, as if he were trying to make himself immune to friendly overtures. Could David have been imagining all this? He supposed so, but it was more than likely the episode had indeed changed him. David cursed the chain of events which had caused so much suffering to so many people.

Now moved to his new quarters over the law offices, his first free evening he turned to Doris's novel with curiosity if not anticipation. She had entitled it, A Candlelight Hero. David nodded his approval, romantic and appealing. It began with a prologue introducing a young ex-Revolutionary Colonel about to set off for the new Washington Territory (then part of North Carolina and soon to become Tennessee) to make his home on the lands granted to him for his services in the war. As the story unfolded about this man and his delicate, lovely bride from the wealthy planter class of Virginia, David was struck by its sense of reality, its integrity.

It took him about a week to read during his off hours. Some passages he struggled through with loyal determination when the historical facts instead of supporting the story turned into short (sometimes not so short) essays. He skipped a few tedious paragraphs to hurry back to the now compelling figure that Doris had managed so well to breathe life into. She portrayed the Judge (he was appointed to that post within twelve years after building Rosehall) with compassion. David found the Judge was no mere figurehead or an unconscious symbol for the father Doris had hardly known. She drew even his weaknesses with a granular sensitivity (as in his seemingly callous treatment of his mad daughter Carrie) that David admired.

He couldn't help but think of Edward Thorpe as he read of the earlier Thorpe. The contrasts were obvious, of course, yet he was reminded of a like quality that seemed to persist through the twists of fate in the life of the Judge. Through his successes and sad times Judge Thorpe bore an equanimity that had little to do with religion in the conventional sense. Supposedly, like others in that Age of Reason he had placed no great store in religious piety and had been merely perfunctory in attending church. The message that came through to David was the subjugation of the individual for the sake of the family. Appearances sometimes to the contrary, any action he took, particularly at times of crisis, was ultimately geared toward the perpetuation of the family and the family's good name.

David pondered this, believing that Edward too seemed to embody this attitude, at least intermittently, certainly at the end, and in retrospect that seemed impressive. In his odd way he kept the faith, fatally flawed though he was, as the one thing he could do for his family and the hallowed name of Thorpe. Even after his unforgivable act, according to Catholic doctrine, David believed he did penance for his horrible sin by taking his own life, salvaging what he could of his and the family's honor.

David finished Doris's book one Sunday afternoon sitting on a hard bench in the park. June was unusually hot and dry, and already the grass was burned to a short, beardlike brown stubble. Opposite him was a stiff row of zinnias which had survived the heat to parade themselves in mocking splendor.

He was tired of his apartment, now tightly closed to preserve the stale coolness of the window air conditioner. It seemed a pleasant enough place for his immediate needs, but as he had stated to the Thorpes, not a match for Rosehall. He felt homeless again, a stranger who could never belong.

Since his move he seemed to be marking time, even though he didn't know then how soon he'd be leaving, just that he would be going--somehow, someplace. To that end, he'd begun to send out resumes to larger newspapers. Everyone seemed to know he was not long for Monroeville--Becca, the Thorpes, and other friends, who as they were getting to know him better also seemed to be weaning themselves from his friendship. Not at all hostile, even at times going out of their way to do things for him, he could tell they had stopped viewing him as a prospective adopted son of the town.

When he first had come, there had always been the possibility he would slip unobtrusively into a nice little niche prepared especially for people like him. Now, they all knew he just didn't quite fit in and so did he. His defection had begun with his initial contempt for the Thorpes, was aggravated by his willingness to print the news of Jenny Lou's attack, and became apparent with his outlandish treatment of the Dandy Day story--a breach not only of careful reporting, but also of taste, he now saw, that marked him as an unregenerate outsider. He himself had thought when he'd first come he could become part of their world, but because he couldn't believe in their myth, he had to leave the town behind and go his own way.

The myth, of course, had become altered for some of them. The Thorpes had closed their eyes to the break up and taken the changes that came as a reshaping of the myth. Somehow they managed to pick out the substance--the indelible stamp of fabled name and fabled traditions--and dismiss the failed part without losing anything of themselves, a trick Becca could hardly grasp. He shook his head over Becca. How he wished she would come to her senses. His heart seemed to tear a bit more when he thought of her. Because of the strain in their relationship, he wanted to leave, avoid the sight of her disaffection, to make a clean break.

David set the manuscript down on Doris's desk and said, "It's one hell of a book, Doris."

She looked up from her typewriter a bit startled and became flustered at his critique. Red began to creep up her neck, mottling her fair skin. "You don't mean it!"

"With a little careful editing, some cutting and polishing before you submit it, of course. But it really is quite good."

"Submit it? You mean for publication?"

"Well, of course."

"Do you really think it's that good? That professional?"

David nodded. "It's entertaining and has excellent characterizations. Of course, I'm not a book editor, but I honestly think it could sell."

She still didn't look convinced, so he opened the cardboard box in which he'd lugged it around and pulled out a few pages. "See here, this section, the reader's sympathies are immediately engaged. What I think it needs, if you don't mind my advice, is a little paring down in spots."

"I suppose I could," she said doubtfully.

"Just a bit to keep it from slowing down the story so much. You don't need to tell that much about the history of the early settlers in Tennessee, for example."

She stared at the pages. "Would anyone really want to read it, do you think, even pruned?"

"Why, of course, Doris." He was beginning to get a little exasperated with all this modesty. "Doesn't that seem possible to you?"

"It's almost frightening to consider, letting it go, out into the world." She smiled tentatively at David. "Almost like sending a child off on its own."

"A product of your mind instead of your body," he nodded sagely, still not comprehending.

She blushed even deeper. "It would probably come in for some criticism . . . and so would its parent."

"You can take it, and so can the book."

She nervously fingered a small gold filigree cross at her neck, never very visible because the chain fitted so snugly into one soft fold of her throat. "Maybe it's not a good idea," she said in a tiny voice.

"I don't get it. Isn't the main idea in writing to communicate your story to others?"

"I guess so, but it was something else for me too. If I let it go I'll have lost that."

He looked at her, realizing he had again been insensitive, and relented. He placed the lid back on her work with a smile. "If you want my suggestions just let me know and we'll go over it."

"Thanks, David. Yes, we've got plenty of time. Just give me a while to get used to the idea."

They never spoke of the book again; David thought it a waste and rather sad, but then, he admitted, who was he to say what someone should or shouldn't do. Maybe she would write another one some day, one she could send off to make it or not on its own. He didn't know. He didn't know about so many things.

26

BECCA'S WAY

Becca sat on the back porch in a lightweight cotton robe, drinking her morning tea. She felt lazy, as if she was coddling herself. She stretched luxuriously, thinking of her freedom--the family had moved out and seemed at peace about it. Now with the financial burden lifted, she'd quit her job at Ridley's and would soon be mistress of Foxrun. Life seemed better, if not perfect, but then, whose life is? Yet besides what happened to Jenny, which she knew would always be a sore place in her heart, she still felt a nagging unease, like a sickness had crept up on her but hadn't broken out.

Although it was only a little after nine, the roofer's truck was pulling out of the drive. The temperature had reached 85 degrees in the sun, and they had to quit or the shingles wouldn't lay right. She and Jenny Lou had been alone in the house this last week--Trey was at his grandfather's on the Ridge--and the peacefulness of it almost scared her. All her married life she had been surrounded by the family. They had stuck in her craw at first, then they mellowed to a habit, and finally they seemed to be her responsibility, or so she'd believed. She now could allow herself the thought that the responsibility had been neither welcome nor necessary.

Toward the last years she had come to regard them all--even Edward--as an extension of her brood. How laughable that seemed to her now. They had not really needed her. They moved to a new house with hardly a backward glance, taking care of their own moving and settling in happily. And all these years, they had just tolerated her, mostly with kindness, but still it was shaming.

She turned her head at the sound of the back door slamming and smiled. Jenny Lou was carrying a glass of milk and a large sugar cookie.

"Not too many cookies now, girl."

"Yes, ma'am." The girl did not sit down but stepped off the porch into the yard. She smacked her lips as she ate.

"Chew with your mouth closed, Jenny," Becca called out, then sighed. This was the hard part--all the lessons to be re-taught during the slow healing of the girl's bruised mind. A quiet had come over Becca at last about the attack and Jenny's recovery. One day she had remembered her frantic prayers that Jenny be healed, and it occurred to her what the girl would have to live with if she remembered. Pray God she had a strong mind and a stronger heart.

Poor Mitty had had to deal with a lot less; she'd even been older when her trouble came, and see where it had taken her. Becca could hardly wish that for her daughter. At least Jenny was secure and even content in her small world. But it still was up to God how and when the girl might recover. She mustn't anticipate His will. Lately, she'd begun to attend services at Charles's church, and the joyous, worshipful atmosphere she found heartening.

Ah, Becca thought, it has been a cruel thing, a hard thing. She still felt the lump of bitterness near her heart when she thought of Edward. She had not truly forgiven him, even realizing she might have, at one point, killed him herself had he had not beaten her to it. She knew about hatred, though. Her pa had told her all her life about it and what it did to one. He said it's like holding a knife by the blade. Besides, Edward was gone and wouldn't do any more damage.

His death had done something more for him that puzzled her some when she tried to identify it. Somehow his weakness had been mysteriously changed--as far as the town was concerned--into the dignity he had craved in life. His self-inflicted death had lifted him from being remembered as a weak, depraved drunk into a soul with a conscience; she even had the thought that he might be regarded as a man of sorrows. And he must have believed in justice. She had watched him descend into a living hell, but she could now wonder if by his remorse he had escaped damnation. Suddenly, unexpectedly, she hoped so.

She moved to the end of the porch out of the sun and looked down into the back yard. Hatcher had been generous at the last, allowing her to stay even after the date had passed, allowing Mr. Roscoe a lifetime tenancy in the old cabin. Yes, Hatcher wanted to act like he knew the right things. He was a scum, though, and no amount of whitewash could cover that up. When she had broken off their intended affair he had called her filthy things, and it was only her hinting she might mention to Milt his devious methods to obtain Rosehall that cooled him off.

Rosehall was changing before her eyes. Not really changing, but becoming. It seemed to be rounding out, getting bigger, lovelier, livelier, as if it were warming to a quicker pulse. It was good to see. She stepped off the porch and backed up to stare at the pile. Paint had been scraped and sandblasted from the warm red brick. Rotten boards and drooping sills had been replaced and painted soft white.

Hatcher's yard man waved at her from one of the little horse barns as he wheeled out his gas powered mower. Oh, it was good to see so much care being lavished. Only a peculiar unhappiness connected with her own future marred her sense of well being. It wasn't coming out quite right, but . . . she shook her head to put an end to her doubts. She would be seeing Milt tonight, and she tried to think enthusiastically about their outing. Milt was good to her and the children. He was a fine man; he was handsome, wealthy, respected. . . . She'd had to repeat his good points frequently.

Milt's car was a big BMW. He liked a BMW, he told Becca as they drove along, better than a Mercedes, which was showier. They were stiffer in handling, too. . . .

Becca's thoughts drifted. She stared out the window of the car through the darkness and wondered about Milt and her life, and let Milt's talk of his possessions flow around her like the drone of a motor.

They were returning from a dinner party at the Reavis Clammershorns', Doris's brother and his silly little wife from Mississippi. Doris, of course, had not been there, since her brother and his wife's social circle had, as she jokingly said to Becca, steeper banks than she cared to climb.

It had been a boring, bothersome evening for Becca. She did not care a thing about those people, nor could she ever feel comfortable in their presence. Their talk of fashions and functions, the chatter that passed for real talk left her coldly contemplating the walls, the furniture, the people themselves. She felt immune to the things that animated them. What was wrong with her? Why could she not force herself into the grooves where she thought she wanted to be?

Tears filled her throat, her eyes, and overflowed onto her cheeks. What was she about to do to Milt? To herself? A sob escaped, nearly silent, but Milt turned his head.

"What is it, darlin'?"

At his words she broke down completely, burying her face in her hands, her sobs racking and painful.

Milt pulled the car to the side of the road and yanked on the emergency brake. "Becca, tell me, what's wrong."

"I can't do it . . . I can't."

"Can't do what?"

"Us." She mopped her eyes with the handkerchief he'd pulled from his pocket and given to her. "I been thinking, Milt. And I'm wondering how you really feel about marrying me?" She took a deep breath. "It's not too late, you know, for me to let you off the hook."

"Not me, but do you want off the hook, Becca? Is that what's making you miserable?"

She hesitated a moment. How could she ever explain without hurting his feelings or having him hate her for life. "I don't feel that it's solid between us--here!" She knotted a fist at her diaphragm.

"I know how I feel. I want to be with you always."

Becca groaned. "I know, and I'm sorry. I wish I felt the same. I've tried to think of us that way, but it's no use. The picture goes blurry, and I know I shouldn't be here with you. I shouldn't be spending evenings with your friends like I was one of them. I'll never be part of your life like I should, like you want me to be."

"If it's just my friends, why, that's nothing. You'll adapt eventually. Hell, we'll drop them, if that's all."

"No," she shook her head, "it's not your friends . . . or yes, it's your friends, your things, the way you live. It's not that there's anything wrong with them, but they're wrong for me. And I don't think," she added, as if to put an end to any remonstrances, "I can ever adjust. I guess I'm the queer one."

"Oh, Becca, dearest, you're not! You're wonderful, and I'm crazy about you. Don't you think when you get used to the idea, when we're living together . . . ." He placed his hand over hers and moved his finger along the curve of her thumb.

"No, Milt. And I'm sorry as can be to say it, but the truth is, I don't really love you the way I should, and that's not enough for marriage." How crazy it was to hear herself speak those words of finality. She'd had no intention of breaking up with Milt when this evening began.

"I see." He removed his hand from hers and started the engine. He drove silently for a few minutes. Becca looked at his classical features, outlined in relief from the dashboard lights. Anyone would have called her a fool. Anyone but David, she amended, but she felt a wondering relief. She also felt clean inside for not deceiving Milt or herself any longer. It would have been a bad way to start off a life together.

"I truly am sorry, Milt." They had arrived at the gates of Rosehall.

"I am too." His voice was expressionless, and she knew he was hurt. He parked the car but made no move to get out.

"You've honored me, and I'll not forget it."

"I'm very disappointed about your decision, you know." He held her hand then leaned over and gave her a kiss. "But I know you, and there's no talking you into something you don't want."

"We can still be friends--good friends." There was nothing more to be said, and she left his car quickly, not letting him accompany her to the back door.

As he backed up and drove off in a roar of engine and flying gravel, Becca stood on the step, clinging weakly to a post. Almost from the moment David had uttered those words of chastisement, she'd tried unsuccessfully to shove away the truth. Now by rejecting a life with Milt, she realized she had been changing her course right along unawares. Dear David. Her thoughts lingered for a moment on him. But no. They'd have to go their own ways to work out what life was about first. But maybe someday . . . if he'd forgive her.

Jenny Lou. The girl's recovery was her real goal now, and why did she need to cheat on anyone to take care of her daughter? She had been unopposed for so long on small matters that she had seemed to go crazy when life went beyond her control. David's words had cut to the bone, and now standing alone on the newly boarded back porch she could only silently cry for forgiveness to those living and dead she had hurt--her mother for rejecting the ways of her people, her father for refusing his advice when she left the Ridge, the Thorpes for . . . oh, so many reasons, and David--how heartlessly she had used his tenderness. Now Milt--she closed her eyes for a moment, her head bowed.

She entered the quiet of Rosehall. "I'm tired," she said aloud to the empty house. She was alone. Jenny Lou was staying the night with the Thorpes. Becca's slow footsteps through the hall, the parlor, David's rooms, echoed as a toll for something departed. She realized she was saying goodbye to Rosehall, goodbye to the old life, the old ways, her hopes, her failures, forever. And she wasn't sad or confused anymore.

Like Rosehall, she too was being warmed and strengthened. Fear had been her undoing. She had thought to trample it out of existence, but instead had trampled on others.

She looked around her with affection and gratitude. How safe it had seemed through the humiliations and troubles. But it was only a house, of brick and mortar and boards, unable to change its inhabitants. She laughed aloud. Hatcher didn't know either. He was making her mistake, and it probably would never dawn on him why he would fail.

Now she, thank the Lord, had been given another chance. She was going back to the Ridge. She felt weightless for some moments; then she settled back to earth and smiled. Law, what a queer way to feel. She walked to a sofa in the great hall and sat down. She had a vision of the hills in the spring and Jenny's happiness there. The small cabin could be enlarged for her and the children. Yes, caring for Jenny. And she'd be good at that without the distractions of money cares. There might be something beyond that; she had no vision of what that might be. If more came to her, she would accept it. But for now she felt a great longing to recover what had been lost, what she'd nearly thrown away.

27

RESTORATION

David had been away from Monroeville three years, a successful three years, professionally speaking, and could now say that he seldom thought of his years in that town with the regret that had somewhat marred his move to Louisville initially. He had done well as a sub-editor at his new paper, getting promoted to an editorship with raises each year until he was able to buy a piece of land a little outside the town and build his house. He moved in six months ago, and although it was contemporary in appearance, a multi-level frame structure allowed to weather to a soft gray, he realized his intention for the great room and even the master suite on the top floor was to imitate the lines and beauty of his room at Rosehall. The high ceilings, the carved fireplace surround and overmantle in both rooms, the long windows which in this house had a view to the river, all reminded him of the comforting room that held so many happy memories.

Still, he hadn't planned to be directly confronted with the fact of his tenure in Monroeville when he was called into the office of the Editor-in-Chief one April day.

"If I'm not mistaken, you were at one of Milt Henshaw's papers before you came to us. That right?"

"Yes, in Monroeville, Tennessee, editor of the Gazette-News." Memories, unbidden, flooded his head, some pleasant, some painful, that he quickly banned as his chief continued to give totally unexpected orders.

"I know you've been concentrating more on editing since you been with us, but you write well, and since you have a connection to the Henshaw papers, I'm sending you there on an assignment."

"Really? What kind of an assignment? A news story, you mean" This was a real departure from his usual duties, and his interest was immediately piqued.

"I've been informed that Henshaw is getting an award from the Southwestern Weekly Newspaper Association for his publishing efforts. As you know, he's built a virtual empire of weeklies in the Middle Tennessee area, some growing large enough to warrant publication three times a week. Very impressive, considering that the prognosis for that kind of paper was not very good ten years ago. The considered opinion was that the small town newspaper had to combine with other small town papers to survive and ultimately to become only a weekly section in the larger city papers. In fact, as you know, after Henshaw took over the papers in his area, they became viable again, mainly through a more readable format, and–well, why am I telling you? You were part of it, and a very strong actor in his plan, I understand."

"Thanks, but what does this have to do with me now?"

His editor handed him a fax. "This is the information I just got about Milt's award. I want you to do a story on him. Get to the real man, his story. You're good at human interest as well as a careful handling of the facts." He raised his eyebrow and gave David a smirk. "You learned how to do that there, didn't you? Maybe a human interest sidebar, as well?"

David hardly knew how to respond, so he said nothing. His widely disseminated story of Dandy Day was a blot on his escutcheon, but his overall performance as editor had allowed Milt to give him a glowing recommendation to the Louisville paper. And despite the mixup about Dandy's arrest, David's story about him was still considered a model for in-depth reporting. So far, at the Louisville paper, he'd done well and had been promised advancement to assistant editor next year when Caleb Parks retired.

"Well," the Chief went on, "I want you to leave as soon as you can get your things together. Let's see," he said, flipping through his calendar, "today's Tuesday. Your assistant can take over your responsibilities here so don't worry about that. And, Dave," he paused, tilting his head appreciatively, "stay there awhile, maybe even a week, and get the real story on Henshaw. It should be an interesting feature that could attract other news organizations when we syndicate it."

"Very good, sir. I'll get packed and leave first thing in the morning."

The drive to Monroeville was an easy three-hour jaunt, and with David ruminating over his tenure as editor of the Gazette-News, as well as his stay at Rosehall, the trip seemed even shorter. Springtime was always the most beautiful season in this part of the country and a far cry from the bleak November day when he first arrived in Monroeville. What would he find after three years? He'd had no communication with anyone there, shamefully, he thought, but he'd been busy trying to put things behind him. The quarrel with Becca still haunted him, but why would she have him after the harsh words he'd spoken? And now getting together with Milt after the trouble he'd caused. What would his old boss's reaction be to being interviewed by him? Knowing Milt as he did, however, he believed the man's vanity would overcome any reluctance to welcome David back into the fold, even temporarily.

His thoughts, though, were dominated by Becca. Had she stayed on the Ridge? She had made plans to renovate and build on to her father's cabin, but he'd left before she'd completed her arrangements. And what of Jenny Lou? Had she improved in the intervening years? Well, he'd soon get the answers to all those questions.

At first glance, Milt hadn't changed in looks a bit, now greeting him with enthusiasm. His handsome face was only slightly more lined, his hair streaked slightly with gray, but he had the start of a nice tan from, no doubt, a long vacation on some island or another. Milt's greeting was atypical to his usual cool, measured approach, and David was grateful for the sense of bonhomie that he brought to this impromptu reunion. Doris was, not surprisingly, tearful, hugging him to her soft bosom and patting his back repeatedly.

"You should have written," she kept saying. "We didn't know your address, but you knew ours. We wondered about you many times. Oh, it's so good to see you." David might have replied that they knew which paper was his employer and themselves could have gotten in touch, but he remembered the courtesy routine in Monroeville, which did not include candor. Then, of course, the implication of her words that he hadn't had the personal volition to resume his former associations in Monroeville was correct.

"And Dandy Day? Is he still selling papers?", he asked, changing the subject.

Milt shook his head. "No I had to retire him. His mother died and for a while he lived at the hotel, but eventually he had to go to Clover Bottom."

"It was bound to happen sooner or later," Doris said, giving David a sympathetic look.

So it might be true that time heals all wounds, and his perfidy was finally forgiven as the mistakes of a young and inexperienced editor. When he explained his current purpose in returning to town, Milt stunned David by blushing.

"Really, a story on me? I'll be happy to give you the interview. Where are you staying? The hotel? Nonsense! You'll come out to Foxrun and stay with me as long as you're here."

"If the hotel hasn't changed any since my first arrival in town four years ago, you may have saved me from a horrible fate."

Everyone laughed, and since it was nearing one o'clock, Milt suggested lunch to David.

Of all places, they went to Ridley's, still a popular home-style restaurant. David couldn't help thinking of Becca's night work here, as well as the clandestine meeting she'd had with Hatcher Lowe. Even so, he casually asked Milt about Becca and the children in between bites of chicken fried steak and gravy.

"You'll have to run out to the Ridge to see her. Her father died of a heart attack last year, but she's getting along fine. With the house sale money, she fixed that place up very comfortably. And the kids are blooming. Trey she's sent to a fine military academy a few hours away, and the boy loves it. I think it might end up being his career. And Jenny–well, you won't believe how well she looks, and how much she's improved."

"I suppose Becca had to take her into Nashville for psychiatric counseling?"

"Yes, she did. And they both joined the Catholic Church, which seems to be most beneficial. I'm really happy for her."

"And the remaining Thorpes?"

Milt nodded. "Kate Thorpe is still occupied with her clubs, and Charles with his old folks, whom he visits regularly." The two men looked at one another and burst out laughing. Then Milt sobered up. "Poor Miss Mitty had to go to a nursing home. Lost her mind completely." David gave an understanding nod.

They returned to the office so David could lay out his plans for the extended interview with Milt. It would include visits to the other newspapers he owned as well as access to certain files Milt would have to unearth for David's story. The afternoon drew on and soon Doris was turning off the computer and calling out her goodbyes. It was four-thirty.

David stepped into the front room and said, "You didn't mention your book, you know. I've thought many times about the story of John Peyton Thorpe." He added mischievously, "Have you changed your mind about trying to publish it? I might have a connection or two with some publishing companies. I'd be glad to recommend it."

She made a face. "Oh, David, I can't think anyone outside of Monroeville would be interested. Well, maybe Tennessee as the limit of its appeal. What do you think, really?"

"Doris, I think you've written a fine, well-documented history of someone important in the early days of this country. Don't be apologetic about it being concerned only with this region. I'd think, for one thing, historians or those seeking advanced degrees would appreciate its accuracy. I know you worked hard on that account."

She admitted as much, and with seeming reluctance and not a little pride, reached in the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a large box. "It's all here. Just let me know where to send it, if anyone is interested. If nothing comes of your inquiries, I won't be surprised. I won't even be too disappointed."

As she made ready to leave for the evening, he promised to let her know promptly about its publishing chances after discussing it with a couple of friends at university presses. Back inside the office, Milt chuckled at David's attention to Doris's book, but David would have none of it.

"I can't say it's light reading, but it really has some merit. Have you read it?"

The publisher admitted he had not. "I'm glad you can end the suspense as to its viability as a publishable book. But if it ever gets into print, the town will have lost a source of amusement: Doris's Book." He laughed again, and this time David joined in.

"Why don't we leave now and go on out to Foxrun," Milt said. "You can give Becca a call, and we can have a drink."

"Thanks, Milt. I'd like that." He took a deep breath. How strange life was, giving him perhaps another chance to make amends.

Milt's house was as spiffy as ever, gleaming with fresh white paint and black shutters and doors. David was shown to a guest room that must have been kept at the ready for anyone who dropped by for an unexpected visit, for it was immaculate with clean linen and fresh flowers. He was a little surprised that he felt so eager to talk to Becca, considering how they'd parted, but seeing an phone in the room, he called Information and retrieving the number, dialed with a feeling of almost breathless anticipation.

She answered the phone herself. No need to identify herself to him; that sweet soft country inflection came through with just the one word, "Hello."

"Becca, this is Dave."

Silence. Then a gasp as she breathed, "Davy?"

The use of her pet name for him caused a tiny pang of feeling under his left breast that kept tightening, like Rochester's little imaginary string tethering him to Jane Eyre. He gave a laugh, nerves or delight, or both, he didn't know. "I'm here, in Monroeville, on an assignment for my paper, actually." He explained about his visit and asked when he could see her.

She begged him to come for dinner that evening at seven o'clock, simple fare, she warned, but the fact was, he didn't care if they ate at all. Thrilled at her friendly response, he promised to be there at a quarter to seven sharp. He ran downstairs and found Milt in his study where he informed him he'd be engaged for dinner that evening.

"I thought it wouldn't take long for you to see her." He gave a rueful smile. "I would have liked her to be mistress of Foxrun, as you might have remembered. But she ultimately said no. She's a strong woman who knows her own mind."

David agreed, but added, "She's had to change some of her ideas, though, of that I'm sure. All of her preconceived notions of the good life were turned upside down, living with the Thorpes, and it took a lot to get her thinking straight."

"I suppose so. She's happy now. We see each other occasionally–just as friends, of course. I know better than to make any moves on her." He fiddled with a button on his blue oxford cloth shirt nervously, uncharacteristically, David thought. "I might suggest you think twice about doing the same, if you don't mind a little advice. She seems to be wary of men in general, which isn't surprising, considering her life with Edward."

"I have no designs on Becca," David said stiffly. Suddenly, he wasn't sure that was true, and he was angry with himself for saying it, and with Milt for forcing the denial from his lips. For a moment there was a strange tension in the air; then Milt suggested a drink as he moved toward a large armoire that opened to reveal a well-stocked liquor cabinet and wet bar.

"Had it designed by Davis Cabinet to my specs, so I could get a sink in here and still have it fit in with the various antiques in the room."

"Very nice," David commented, but he was impatient for the day to close so he could be off to Becca's. He looked at his watch and saw that it was only a little after five. He'd have to nurse one drink so as not to appear Under the Influence to Becca. He well knew her aversion to drinking, and after the Edward experience he couldn't blame her.

Since he'd been only once to Nevile Tucker's place, he had to get not only the address but also specific directions from Becca. Coming on the former cabin via a long wooded drive, he couldn't believe he'd gotten it right. But at the entrance, he'd noted the mailbox fastened to a wooden post, painted white with yellow daisies and "Thorpe"on the side. Nothing of the salt box-style house reminded him of the unpainted cabin in the woods that had been the Tucker home for several generations. Now it was larger as well as quite attractive with a border of tulips lining the brick walk and two dwarf Alberta spruce on either side of the steps. The house was painted a cheery yellow with white trim, and before he could walk onto the porch, the front door opened and he saw her.

My God, he thought, she's gotten more beautiful! He smiled and ran up the steps, holding out his hand to her. In his other hand was a bottle of wine he'd brought for the meal, purchased at the local liquor store on his way over. He figured she'd not object to the wine.

She held his hand briefly, then taking the wine from him with a thank you, motioned him inside. With her white shirt tied in a knot at her small waist over a jeans skirt, she brought back vivid memories of the woman who made him feel so welcome on his first visit to Rosehall. They both looked away after their initial greeting as if something about this meeting was still too painful to confront. David glanced around the living room, which was as he might have imagined a room of Becca's choosing would look like, comfortable and homey. The bright red and yellow colors of the curtains and pillows set off the dark blue velvet of the sofa and brown leather chairs. Old cherry tables and a large dresser gave character to the room–undoubtedly handiwork of her father's. Framed prints of birds and landscapes were hung with seeming care for their placement.

"What a wonderful room! " he exclaimed. "Nothing like Rosehall, and I mean that as a compliment."

Becca gave her ringing laugh, which brought a catch to David's throat. How he used to play for that laugh. "At last I was able to do as I wanted with a room. Do you really like it?"

He turned then to her, nodding, and the tension seemed to dissolve into something fine and real. "Becca, I heard about your father. I'm so very sorry. I thought he was a most genuine person and I liked him very much."

"Oh, thank you, Davy. We miss him so much."

At that moment, a tall girl in her mid-teens entered the room shyly. "Hello, David." "Jenny, is it really you all grown up?" He went over to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"I'll be a senior next year. I only had to miss a year of school after the accident."

He was taken aback at her mention of the incident but swiftly decided that must be part of the therapy and so he congratulated her on her accomplishments. "I know your mother must be proud of you."

"And of Trey, too," Becca said, inviting David to sit in a comfortable-looking leather wing chair. "Both my children make me so proud, Davy. But what of you? What are you doing here on this assignment you mentioned?"

He explained about his interview, all the while examining her, every curve of her face, her lovely blue eyes and still very dark hair that gleamed in the light from the window. But she was only thirty-six now. A good age for a woman, still in her prime and confident of herself. What a change from the hoydenish charmer that had given him the apartment, defying the other inmates of Rosehall.

"What about Rosehall?" he asked, venturing into what might be a touchy area. But some things had to be brought out into the open.

Becca gave a cheery laugh. "You can't imagine how changed it is. At first, I thought it was going to be a terrific renovation, bringing it back to its original splendor. Well, I should have known better, considering we were looking at the taste of Hatcher and Ella Mae Lowe. They simply couldn't stop and it lost all its charm from overdoing. They added wings, a master suite where the ballroom and Charles's room were, and to top it off, an enormous wall around the place. You'll have to drive by and have a good laugh."

"I'm glad you feel so detached about it. That house was a big part of your life."

"I suppose it was both a help and a hindrance to my really growing up. I'm just glad we're in this cabin, aren't we, Jenny?"

"I love it," said the girl. "It's cosy and cheerful and reminds me of Grandpa. Trey loves it too when he's home, being in the woods and all."

The evening passed quickly, interrupted by first the preparations for dinner with David joining the women in the kitchen while they cooked the ham slice, steamed the zucchini and onions, and retrieved the sweet potatoes from the oven. They sat at the end of the kitchen at the simple drop-leaf table with its country Hepplewhite lines and talked of all things current. Nothing of the sad past was allowed to intrude at this happy reunion. Jenny cleaned up the dishes while David went out onto the porch to smoke a pipe, followed by Becca.

"My concession to the dangers of smoking. Somehow, this doesn't seem quite as bad as those nasty cigarettes."

"I love a pipe. Pa smoked one and that tobacco smell brings back memories." She took a seat on the swing at the end of the porch while David leaned against the porch rail. "What about you, David? Are you married, engaged, anything like that?" she said with a funny sideways look at him.

He shrugged. "Not a bit of it. I've gone out with different women, of course, but . . ." He put down his pipe on the rail and went over to sit beside her on the swing. "To be honest, I've never gotten over a blue-eyed, black-haired gal I fell in love with." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. How could he have put her on the spot like that! Quickly, before she had time to respond, he added with a smile, "That time seems a hundred years ago when I was but a callow youth." But he didn't turn to face her on the swing, which continued to move back and forth, back and forth, Becca not commenting.

Finally, he stood up, deciding he'd done enough damage for a rather awkward reunion. Becca followed his lead, still saying nothing.

"I've enjoyed seeing you and Jenny so much," he said, taking her hand in his. "I'll be here for a few more days interviewing Milt and digging up some statistics about the papers. Can I see you again? I'd like to take you out to dinner, if I may."

She looked at him then, tilting her head, and nodded. "Yes, I'd like that. Would Friday suit? Jenny is going to a dance at school so that would work out well."

"Perfect. I'll have to inquire as to the best place to go now. Would you mind if we went in to Nashville? I remember a fine eating place in a renovated hotel. I hope it's still there."

"I know the one you mean. I've not been, but I hear the food is excellent. That would be lovely, David."

After calling in a goodbye to Jenny, he left, wondering on the drive back what was going on with him–and her, too. He cursed himself for talking too much, for exposing his feelings that had lain dormant for so long. Not until he'd seen her had he realized the extent of his attachment. Two more days and then he and she would be alone together.

Where was he heading? What were her feelings? She had grown terribly quiet when he said those personal things about love. Well, he'd always been the one to talk of love. Would it be like it was at Rosehall, with her cautioning him about using that word, urging it on her? Oh, why couldn't he have just had a pleasant, non-committal evening with her and Jenny without all the emotions streaming out again? The great thing was she had agreed to see him again. He'd be more careful when they were together again. If being with Becca, even after three years of absence, meant squelching feelings that he'd assumed were long abandoned, then he'd do it. A slow approach, if at all, was obviously what it would take to woo her back.

Friday evening came quickly after spending long hours closeted with Milt going over his history and career, interesting to say the least, but wearing. He had to spend additional hours sorting through his notes trying to get them in order and in a comprehensible form. His original shorthand had never been entirely satisfactory, but if tackled while the subject was fresh in his mind, he could unscramble the gist of the interviews. Milt had also provided him with various news stories that he'd written or had been written about him or the newspaper, which David copied at the office copier for his ever-burgeoning file.

But he would put the assignment on the back burner this evening, he promised himself, driving toward the ridge, winding upwards until he saw the sign indicating the road that angled off into the woods. He drove a mile and a half from the highway, and into the tree-shrouded drive of Becca's place.

His mood was elevated as he parked his car and lightly knocked on the screen door. He heard movements within and soon Jenny came and opened it to him, dressed in a long silken gown of cornflower blue with a jeweled halter-style bodice. "David, I'm so glad you're taking Mama out tonight. She stays home too, too much!"

"My pleasure," he answered gaily, and then holding her at arm's length, whistled. "Wow, do you look stunning. What a beautiful dress!"

She raised his hand above her head and twirled under it. "Thank you. Mama helped me pick it out. It's my boyfriend's Senior Prom tonight, so I'm really excited about it."

"You should be the queen," he said. She really was stunning in a way that he remembered noticing when he first met her. Tall and womanly with light coloring and even features, she still had a demureness about her that was different from her spunky mother, who at that moment entered the room.

"I'm surrounded by beauty," David exclaimed appreciatively, looking at Becca.

She was wearing a black pleated skirt, a matching silk blouse under a short purple jacket of fine wool with elaborate black cord frog fasteners. The colors suited her dark hair, worn softly curling this evening, and her pale skin and rosy cheeks, rosy from either artifice or nature, he couldn't be sure. She wore no jewelry, a style of hers David recalled vividly.

She looked him up and down in a playful way and said, "You look mighty nice yourself. I always admired you in a coat and tie, though I never told you. But that's enough of the mutual admiration society." With that, all three laughed, and then Becca reiterated her instructions to her daughter about curfew, and they left the house. David held the car door open for her while she climbed in. She smiled at him as he sat down beside her. "I haven't had a real date for so long I can't hardly remember when. This is such fun, David."

He kept the conversation light and rather impersonal on the forty-five mile drive in to downtown Nashville, explaining about his job, describing his house and land, and then asking her about her activities. "Jenny indicated you don't get out of the cabin much, I gathered. Surely gardening and housework aren't enough for someone as energetic as you?"

"Oh, no, I get out. I'm on a library committee, for one thing. Can you imagine it, Davy? I found I liked poetry and biographies, which I checked out all the time, and one day I was telling a friend at church, and she recommended me to the Library Board. Next thing I knew, they'd asked me to sit on a committee to get authors or others of some literary prominence in the Nashville area to review books for a monthly program. It's been really successful, probably because it's interesting and educational to boot."

"I'm impressed. I forgot about your church, too, which would keep you pretty busy if you let it. I well remember my mother's activities."

They spoke for some time about David's parents, the visit he'd recently made to Pennsylvania because of his dad's minor heart attack, and then it was into the restaurant where David encouraged Becca to order the rack of lamb while he tried Long Island duck with an orange and cranberry sauce. Then more talk about food and decor and David's stays at various hotels, which led to talk of Milt's house and Milt. Becca inquired about this assignment, and David tried to explain the reason for his interviewing the publisher.

"I never thought Milt was that important, somehow," Becca mused. "He always seemed a little flighty or just fussy, maybe. But he's a good businessman, I guess, and that's what you're after, aren't you?"

David admitted that was the direction this story would take. It was not so much Milt's newspaper skills in writing or editing as much as his talent for making the papers viable by adding features that were current and popular. "I suppose," David said, "that's an editing skill as much as looking over a story for cutting or adding to." All he knew was that he had not a smidgen of jealousy as they spoke about Becca's former suitor. It gave him a feeling of release and great happiness.

On the ride home they were much less talkative, riding in companionable silence most of the way. As she got out of the car, she invited him in for coffee and he accepted with alacrity. She bustled about the kitchen with her jacket off, the silk of her blouse showing clearly the curves he remembered well.

They sat at the kitchen table talking in low voices over unimportant matters with David longing to speak of things close to his heart. He felt he would explode if he couldn't find out her feelings. As if listening to his inner voice, Becca raised her eyes to him with a look that caused him to stop in the middle of a sentence.

"David," she said in a halting, small voice. "Can you really forgive me for those stupid, foolish things I did to try and save Rosehall?"

"Forgive you? I've been kicking myself ever since I got this assignment and was forced to remember how cruel and unsympathetic I was to you." He took her hand, resting in her lap and stood up, pulling her close to him. "You do care for me, don't you, darling Becca?"

"Davy," she said with a catch in her voice, "I know I've never cared for anyone else. It was always you. I was too stupid to recognize a good thing when I saw–" He stopped the words with his lips.

After he'd kissed her deeply and felt her respond to him, as passionately as when they first came together, he let her come up for air. "I'm not just dreaming this, am I?".

She threw her head back and looked at him. "I feel I have to explain, at least a little about those things I did back then. I had so many troubles when you were living at Rosehall I was half crazy. Jenny Lou's attack, Edward, the sale of Rosehall. They were buzzing in my head like those damned wasps that patrolled the eaves at Rosehall. I'm ashamed still of my actions, which you rightly condemned.."

"No, no Becca, I'm the one who should be sorry. I wasn't very understanding."

"I did need your wise counsel. Who else would have confronted me with my stupidity? It set me right, you know, and I was finally able to let go of Rosehall, once and for all."

"But all that's long gone." David smoothed a wisp of her hair that clung to her cheek. "Could you ever care for me again?"

For an answer she turned her face toward him and invited another kiss, with which he gladly complied. At that moment, the front door banged and Jenny Lou appeared at the kitchen door. Seeing them in each other's arms, she smiled broadly. "Oh, goody. I hoped you two would get together. If you hadn't held on to him this time, Mama, I would have never forgiven you."

"Get out of here, girl," said her mother with an embarrassed laugh. "David and I have a lot to talk about. We'll keep you filled in on the particulars when it's time. I guess the Prom was a success."

Jenny rattled on with excitement about the occasion but was eventually persuaded to retire to her room.

David spoke little, feeling dazed by the suddenness of Becca's capitulation, if that's what it was. Why had he waited so long to see her again, depending on a chance assignment to bring him back to her?

They walked out to the porch, arms entwined and sat on the swing. "I never really stopped thinking about you," Becca confessed. "I tried to, God knows, but you were always standing there beside me whenever I had a decision to make. 'What would David have said,' I would ask myself. And then I would somehow make the right decision. But I thought I'd lost you forever, and I made a new life accordingly."

"This amazes me so much, sweetheart. I thought you'd resent those harsh words of mine–never forgive me. You have to admit you were angry with me, or something. I couldn't even see you before I left town."

"I wasn't angry. I was ashamed and couldn't face you. I behaved–"

"Hush," he cautioned, placing his finger over her lips. "We're through re-living those sad times. Now we can go forward together with our lives." He held her so closely he could feel the beating of her heart, or was it his own?

"This will have to be a long-distance relationship for the time being," Becca said between kisses. "You know I can't take my girl out of school at this point. But we could come and see you now and then, and you could come back here whenever you could manage it."

"As much as I love Jenny, could we ever be alone, do you think?" he asked wistfully.

"Oh, I imagine the Thorpes would have Jenny for a long weekend if I wanted to go to Louisville occasionally. I've kept close ties with Mama Kate and Charles, since Jenny needed them, too. And I've been right impressed with them,. They've held their lives together better than you might imagine during the aftermath of–well, all the upsets and changes. In a way, they had more to deal with than I did, as far as Edward was concerned. My own affection for him had waned by the time of his death."

"What about Jenny, though, regarding her father? She seems perfectly normal. I really thought she might be affected for life."

Becca sighed. "She has been, no matter how valiant she is in trying to get back her girlhood. But Father Noland has helped her–and me–so much. It was he, you know, who heard Edward's original confession. And it wasn't Jenny, after all, that Edward thought he was attacking that night. It was me!"

"What!" David was startled by the news. "He mistook Jenny for you? True, he seemed drunk enough, but that is an incredible story. I'm glad, somehow, that he wasn't as bad as we all thought. And even though any attack on a woman is a terrible thing, at least it wasn't his daughter in his alcohol-sodden mind."

"That's what I believe, too, and had to finally discuss with Jenny. Even so, Davy, it's been hard, oh so hard, to help her along to a normal life again. But don't you fret about taking her on. As you can see, she's strong, thank God, not like the Thorpes at all."

"You will marry me then? You're not just placating me till I leave town?"

"Of course I'll marry you. When I heard your voice on the phone I was thrilled, yes, but I never dreamed this would happen, honest. But now that it has, I'm so happy I could die!"

"Don't say that, foolish woman. I want you alive and well and in my arms, all the rest of my life."

"That sounds so good, so right. How blessed I am, Davy. Like Father Noland says, we need to always remember Him with thanksgiving. I think you may be an answer to a prayer I prayed a long time ago."

"What a compliment–and responsibility. But, believe me, Becca, I'm more than willing to take it on. You sound pretty sure about me, so I promise always to remain beside you."

"Next to my heart," she said, smiling and touching her breast, "where you belong."

"Could you leave this?" He gestured toward the house. "It's always meant something to you."

"It was a haven for me at a time when I needed to do something positive. But that's behind me now. Pa's gone, Jenny will be going off to college next year, and Trey–well, he'll have his schooling. And maybe we can keep the place for summer vacations and odd weekend getaways."

"Perfect! See how quickly and neatly our lives have come together? Makes one think of kismet, doesn't it?"

She wagged her head from side to side with a look of mock reproach. "There you go again teasing me with fancy words. I know it means something good, though."

"Oh, it does, it does. Trust me on this."

But he didn't have to add that; he knew without being told that she had always trusted him. Maybe they had only needed time on their own to finally accept each other, for that was what had happened this late evening on the Ridge.

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