She felt the beginning of a spear going through her breastbone.
She wheeled to his closet and opened it, needing to persuade herself it was true. A pleasant masculine smell of well-cared-for closet floated out, gradually translating itself into darkness, emptiness.
To her right, a last pale remnant of evening fell through the window. Just one night, she thought, and everything’s gone.
In the aching stillness she felt the vibration of something more, some other absence.
She wheeled to the door that opened on the other half of the enormous closet, her side. She pulled it open and sat there, tasting coolness and enclosure and a shadow that devoured all solidity. She reached her hand out in front of her and swept the rack of gowns—that rack that should have been gowns.
Her fingers touched night.
“We gave them away,” a voice said.
Babe turned and saw her mother watching her from the hallway. A taste of betrayal flooded her. “You gave my clothes away?”
Lucia’s eyes met Babe’s carefully. Babe detected hesitation on her mother’s face, quickly giving way to decision.
“Only the gowns. It was seven years ago, dear heart—not yesterday. What were we to do? We weren’t sure you’d recover—and fashions change—and so many people need clothing.”
“I designed most of those gowns.”
“And you’ll design others.”
Lucia took charge of the wheelchair, steering Babe back down the hallway into the elevator. She looked at her daughter as though she were very anxious to play this scene well. “Times change, dear heart.”
“Why have you hired Wheelock? What happened to Banks?”
“We couldn’t keep Banks on salary for seven years.”
“And Mrs. Banks?”
“You’ll like Mrs. Wheelock every bit as well.”
The elevator hummed down the shaft toward the second floor.
“There’ve been offers for this house,” Lucia said, the brightness of her voice signaling that the subject was herewith changed. “Real estate values have shot up in this city—tenfold and more.”
“I’m not interested in selling,” Babe said.
“But you can’t live here.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve got to face facts. Scottie isn’t coming back.”
“There are other people in my life.”
The elevator stopped on the second floor. Babe took the wheels of the chair and gave it a hard push forward, out of Lucia’s grasp.
Her eyes inventoried the drawing room, sweeping familiar antiques and leather-bound books. The boiserie was hung, as always, with the Pissarro, the Sisley, the Flemish flower paintings.
But the ivory-pale wall panels were a slightly fresher ivory than she remembered, the carpets were a little brighter, and there were cut begonias in a vase on the Boesendorfer she had bought for Scottie, who had never allowed anything, not even a photograph, to be put on that piano.
On the mantelpiece above the unlit fire, the ornate ormolu clock that had never ticked before was marking time with audible tick-tocks.
The room was tidier than Babe had ever seen it. She was reminded of those rooms in her friends’ houses that were always camera-ready, in the hope that Architectural Digest or The New York Times Sunday Magazine would drop by.
As she wheeled across the Aubusson, Bill Frothingham rose from the chair by the fireplace. “The house is looking grand, Babe. As are you.”
“It’s nice of you to welcome me, Bill. Did Mama ask you here for any particular reason?”
“I asked Bill,” Hadley Vanderwalk said, and Babe turned and saw that her father was standing by the sideboard making himself a whiskey sour.
“Oh, it’s business then?” Babe said.
“Just a little something that ought to be taken care of,” Hadley said.
Babe wheeled herself to the sideboard. “I’d like a drink before I hear about this little piece of business that can’t wait till Monday.” She tonged ice into a highball glass.
“Are you allowed to?” Lucia said, coming into the room.
“Ginger ale, Mama.”
“Let me help.”
“Too late.”
The ginger ale fizzed up over the edge of the glass. Babe sopped up the overflow with two swipes of a cocktail napkin. She saw that the napkin had a monogram embossed on it, Babe Vanderwalk’s curling B and V surrounding Scottie Devens’s large D.
An immaculately uniformed gray-haired maid came in to pass a tray of hot hors d’oeuvres.
“Beatrice,” Lucia said, “this is Mrs. Wheelock.”
The maid gave a thin smile, her eyes opaque and unreadable.
Babe took a chicken liver wrapped in bacon and speared with a toothpick. “Thank you, Mrs. Wheelock. How do you do.”
Bill Frothingham opened his briefcase and took out two documents. “How’s your right hand, Babe? You remember how to sign things?”
Bill handed Babe the documents and she saw that they were two copies of a divorce petition, signed by Scott Devens as petitioner and by Hadley Vanderwalk exercising power of attorney for Beatrice Vanderwalk Devens.
“The divorce was granted on the assumption that you wouldn’t regain consciousness,” Bill Frothingham explained. “But since you have—”
“And thank God you have,” Lucia said, folding herself into a tapestry chair of leafy green.
“Since you have, thank God,” Bill Frothingham said, “your signature would be a good idea.”
For a moment Babe’s mind darted ahead, skimming possibilities. “But since I am conscious, and haven’t signed, are Scottie and I divorced?”
Bill Frothingham’s heavy eyebrows creased. “Certainly you are. The state granted the decree.”
“But is it valid if I don’t sign?”
“You have to be reasonable, dear heart,” Lucia said.
“Being reasonable seems to be a way of letting other people make decisions I should be making myself.”
Bill Frothingham was somber. He placed his hands together, interlacing his fingers stiffly. “It was Scottie who petitioned for divorce. Your signature is a formality. All it means is that you acknowledge you were informed.”
“I don’t think that’s all it means.” Babe stared coolly at the lawyer. “Scottie petitioned for this divorce thinking I would never regain consciousness. Doesn’t the whole thing have to be reviewed? Surely the law gives Scottie a chance to reconsider?”
“Scottie doesn’t deserve a chance to reconsider,” Lucia said. “And he certainly isn’t getting one.”
“What about me? What if I want to be married to my husband?”
Looks were exchanged.
“You’re being perverse, Beatrice. You know perfectly well what Scottie tried to do to you.”
“No I do not. All I know is what you claim he tried to do, and he’d be in jail if the court had agreed with you.”
“I see we’re in for a painful conversation.” Lucia sat on the edge of the chair, bristling with resolve. “Your husband,” she said, “your dear charming Scottie, confessed to the court that on the night of the celebration, after you passed out—”
“I did not pass out,” Babe said.
Lucia went at her own unhurried pace, like a clock during a tempest. “I beg your pardon, dear heart, but four men had to help you to the car. There were witnesses aplenty. Scottie brought you home and while you were unconscious, he injected you with insulin. Enough cc’s, the experts said, to kill a normal person. Well, either the experts aren’t particularly expert or you’re not especially normal.”
“Thank God,” said Hadley.
“Since you didn’t die,” Lucia continued, “Scottie couldn’t very well be tried for your murder. So your papa and I did the next best thing. We had him indicted for attempted murder.”
Babe sat stiffly forward in her wheelchair. “You had him indicted?”
“We gave the state every possible encouragement,” Hadley said.
&nbs
p; Babe considered the implications of this. “You mean you hired lawyers and detectives to help the prosecution?”
“To help you,” Lucia said. “You’re our only child. What if we had lost you?”
“But I’m not a child and the only people who’ve lost anything through all your helpfulness are Scottie and me.”
“Child, child,” Lucia said in a voice Babe remembered from long ago, the voice that was at once soothing and subtly undermining.
“Scottie was charged and convicted,” Hadley said.
“Then why isn’t he in prison?” Babe shot back.
“He appealed on a technicality,” Bill Frothingham said. “The court allowed him to plead guilty to a reduced charge of reckless endangerment.”
“It would have been negligent homicide had you died,” Lucia said.
Babe’s voice rose a little. “What was the technicality?”
“Evidence was improperly introduced in the first trial,” Bill Frothingham said. “It was disallowed in the second.”
“They couldn’t very well convict without the evidence.” Lucia’s tone made it clear she considered this unjust.
“What evidence?” Babe demanded, angry at her mounting sense that she was not being told the whole truth.
More looks were exchanged. The room seemed awash in shadows and denial.
“The syringe,” Hadley said.
“Scottie did it for money,” Lucia said. “He wanted your fortune and he wanted to live with that horrid Doria Forbes-Steinman woman.”
“I can see by Babe’s face she doesn’t believe a word of this,” Hadley said. “It’s all coming at you too quickly, isn’t it, kid.”
Lucia sat there cool, unmoved. “If she doesn’t believe us perhaps she’ll believe The New York Times.”
Lucia went into the other room and returned with an armload of newspapers. She placed them in Babe’s lap.
Slowly, Babe read an article in one of the seven-year-old late city editions. It soberly set out the details of Scott Devens’s arraignment for attempted murder.
“How handsome he is,” Babe said, “even in this terrible photograph.”
“I never liked Scottie,” Lucia said. “I never pretended to. Your papa never liked Scottie. The only people who liked him were your café society friends, and that was only because he played Gershwin so divinely on the piano. Playing Gershwin is hardly a reason to marry a man you know nothing about.”
“It wasn’t just those people who liked him,” Babe said. “I liked him too.”
“Naturally you liked him,” Lucia said, impatient now.
“And Papa liked him too.”
“He did play a good game of golf,” Hadley said.
“Your papa does not like Scottie now,” Lucia said. “No one likes him except Doria Forbes-Steinman, and she’s a fool.”
“Maybe not such a fool,” Babe said.
“Not such a fool as you, perhaps.”
Babe skimmed news reports of Scottie’s denials, his appeal, his second hearing before Judge Francis Davenport, and his subsequent confession to reckless endangerment.
“Frank Davenport heard the appeal?” Babe said. “How was that possible? Didn’t they know he’s a friend of yours?”
“He’s not a friend anymore,” Lucia said. “Two months, can you imagine? A man tries to murder another human being and after two months they let him out of prison. You’d have thought, after all we’d done for him, Francis Davenport could have arranged a little bit more for us. But Francis said the law’s the law, foolish and unjust as it is. I say Francis Davenport is Francis Davenport, foolish and unjust as he is. You really can’t count on friends anymore: you can’t count on anything except family. Thank God we’ve still got family.”
“It’s unbelievable,” Babe said. “Frank Davenport should have been barred from trying the case.”
“Babe, please just read this.” Bill Frothingham handed her another document.
Babe studied the yellowed Xerox. It was Scott Devens’s signed confession that he did recklessly, willfully, and knowingly endanger the life of Beatrice Vanderwalk Devens by not calling for assistance when I knew she was in proximate danger of death.
“He didn’t confess to injecting me.”
“It was a plea bargain,” Bill Frothingham said. “His lawyer wasn’t going to let him admit to a potentially capital offense.”
“But there was a witness, and there was evidence,” Lucia said.
“What witness, what evidence?” Babe cried. “You told me the syringe was disallowed.”
“On a sleazy technicality.”
“Then who was the witness?” Babe said. “There’s no mention of any witness in these newspapers.”
“I didn’t give you all the papers.”
“I’m not a child! I want to know and I have a right to know. This is my life, my marriage!”
“Scottie’s admission to the lesser charge,” Bill Frothingham said gently, “was tantamount to a confession of attempted murder. The word knowingly is a diplomatic way of saying he knew there was insulin in your blood.”
“And willfully,” Lucia said, “means he put it there. And if it hadn’t been for that dreadful Ted Morgenstern the syringe would have been admitted into evidence. Anyone Morgenstern defends is guilty. Everybody knows that. Why else do you think Scottie went to him?”
“Who was the witness against Scottie?” Babe said.
In the silence that fell, distant sounds came to Babe distinctly and with remembered meaning: the summer breeze softly rustling the curtains, the wood beams of the house creaking with obscure strain, the hum of the elevator.
“You don’t need another shock,” Lucia said.
“You think one more is going to finish me off? How you’ve changed in seven years, Mama—and you too, Papa, sitting there afraid to say a word without her permission. You weren’t afraid to tell me not to marry Scottie. You weren’t afraid to hire detectives to dig up his past. You weren’t afraid to tell me everything sordid and disagreeable you could unearth about my first husband. Where was all your concern then? Why are you so worried about my feelings now?”
“Because you’re ranting and hysterical,” Lucia said.
“Maybe I’ll stop ranting when you tell me who testified against Scottie.”
In the silence a new voice spoke.
“Why not tell her? It’s not a secret, is it?”
A young woman with blond hair stood in the doorway.
“Cordelia,” Lucia said.
Cordelia was wearing green suede boots and jeans and a lace blouse, and an amethyst necklace. Cordelia crossed to Babe’s wheelchair and kissed her mother on the forehead.
“Hello, Mother, you’re looking well. I was supposed to be part of the welcome home committee but the traffic in from the island was terrible.” Cordelia went to the sideboard and foraged among bottles. “Who drank the mandarine?”
“There’s poire,” Lucia said.
“Poire’s for after dinner.”
“You haven’t eaten?”
“Didn’t have a chance. Marshall Tavistock’s plane broke down. Anyone mind if I finish the Fernet-Branca?”
“I was telling your mother,” Lucia said, “that you don’t live here anymore.”
“Haven’t for years. Are you going to sell the place, Mother? You really should.”
“I like the peace here,” Babe said. “And the view.”
Cordelia dropped into a chair covered in glazed blue chintz and swirled her glass, studying the waves in her aperitif. “The Argentinian ambassador to the U.N. would buy in a minute.”
“I’m not selling.”
“It’s awfully big for one person,” Cordelia said.
“Maybe you’ll want to move back,” Babe said.
“Doubt it.”
There was a silence, and Babe said, “I hear you have a beautiful loft. I’d like to see it.”
“When you graduate to crutches you can. The elevator’s not working.”
“That elevator will be repaired long before your mother’s on crutches,” Lucia said.
“I don’t know. Mother’s moving awfully fast.” Cordelia smiled. “I see you’ve been reading old newspapers. Am I in any of them?”
“No,” Babe said. “You’re not in any of these.”
Cordelia’s glance went coolly around the room. “Who’s going to tell Mother? No one? Bill, is your drink all right? Grandpère, Grandmère, your drinks?”
“We’re fine,” Hadley said.
“The sooner we get it into the open,” Cordelia said, “the sooner we’ll never have to talk about it again.”
“Agreed,” Hadley said.
“Cordelia—” Lucia said, a warning in her voice.
“Really, Grandmère, why should Mother have to get it from the public library? She might as well know what everyone else knows. Sooner or later someone is bound to tell her anyway.”
“Let it be later,” Lucia said.
“No,” Babe said. “Now.”
“I agree with Mother,” Cordelia said. Her eyes met Babe’s. “It was me, Mother. I testified against Scottie at the first trial.”
For a long moment Babe couldn’t react, couldn’t believe it. Refusal welled up in her. “But you were only twelve.”
“I suppose that’s why no one believed me.”
“They believed you,” Lucia said.
“Well, it didn’t stick, did it.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“Anyway, now Mother knows and we don’t need to discuss it, do we? Unless Mother wants a discussion.”
“I don’t understand.” Babe’s voice faltered. She made a hacking attempt to grasp this, to understand. “Cordelia … saw Scottie …?”
“I saw him come out of the bedroom with the syringe. That famous syringe. I hope they’ve got it in a museum somewhere.”
“You saw him?” Babe tried to gain some particle of comprehension. “But you were—so young, so little.”
“Being twelve doesn’t mean I was blind—or a dolt.”
Babe shook her head slowly. “I don’t see how … I just don’t see …” She fought for some sense of direction.
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