Margaret smiled, then was silent for a long moment.
“Sometimes, Tilden,” she said to him, “when I see a person I have not met, I try to guess his name. It's a little game I play.”
Tilden waited.
“When I first saw you at Georgiana's house, I decided that your name should be Jonathan. You look like a Jonathan.”
“Because all Jonathans are noble and handsome, I take it.”
”I have decided to call our son Jonathan,” she told him. “It is not my first choice. But it is fitting and I will be pleased with it.”
”I, too, am pleased.” His eyes moistened. “Most pleased.”
“He will be christened Jonathan T Corbin. You and I will both know that the T is for Tilden. That is enough.”
Tilden's face clouded. His mind went back to the initial, similarly incomplete, which he'd given Ella's child in a moment of hurt and anguish.
“What is wrong, Tilden?” she asked. “Please do not forbid it.”
“Oh.” He kissed her. “Nothing of the sort. I was just wondering if it would be so reckless to give him Tilden as his second name and be done with it. After all, the whole town knows we've become good friends. And women have been known to name babies after people they hardly knew, such as the doctor who delivered them, or after famous people they did not know at all.”
“This way is best for now. I have a fear of you feeling too much bound to me and the child.”
“Bound,” he stammered. ”I will not hear of such a thing. You might as well say I fear being bound to my own arms and legs.”
“Later, Tilden.” She touched his lips. “Let us have one day at a time for now and be thankful for each of them.”
Now Tilden fell into a brooding silence.
“Tilden?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispered sleepily.
“Merry Christmas, my one great love.”
Gwen Leamas carried a tray of coffee and some toasted pound cake into the living room. Corbin was on the floor, cross-legged, his back against a window seat. His face, she saw, was oddly tranquil, although no less lost in thought than he'd been all morning.
“Are we about to play Indian?” It was something to say. She was tired of asking if he was all right.
“Does it feel like Christmas to you?” He looked up.
“Hmm!” She set down the tray in front of him. “We could do with some chestnuts roasting. Or at least an open fire.”
“I'll build one in a minute.” He took a cup and sipped from it. “You know something, Gwen? I think I know where I am now:”
“Where you are? You mean this house?”
Corbin nodded. “It always seemed as if I've been here before. But you know when it's most familiar? It's most familiar from down here on the floor.”
“Tilden Beckwith had no chairs?”
Corbin grimaced. “Gwen, honey, do you want me to start thinking twice before I say something to you?”
“I'm sorry,” she said. So much for trying to keep it light. “Go ahead, Jonathan.”
Corbin pointed to the doorway through which she'd come with the tray. “Tilden Beckwith walked right through that door. He came over here and picked up a ball that was rolling around between my legs. He put it in his pocket and then he picked me up. He looked at me, down here, as if to see if I was wet, and then he kissed me on the head and tucked me in one arm. If I turned my head, and I did, it was because his whiskers scratched. I could see Margaret coming from up high through the same doorway. She was fixing her hat in place with a pin and talking to a much smaller woman with straight blond hair. And the blond woman, she's very pretty, she sees me and she waggles her index finger and aims it like she's going to tickle my ribs and I start to laugh and squirm. Then Tilden growls and pretends to bite my neck.”
“Jonathan.”
“Umm?”
“Nothing. Please go on.”
“That's really all. Just some messing around with a baby. From where I sat, I was the baby.”
“Can you get it back, this vision you were having?”
“It wasn't a vision, sweetheart. I was remembering.”
“As Tilden and Margaret's child?”
Corbin nodded, smiling at the still fresh images.
“And you see nothing absolutely cockeyed weird about that?”
“You mean about going from Tilden's head into his son's? Into my grandfather's?” Corbin shrugged, still smiling gently. “You and your uncle just spent two days trying to put me at ease about what's happening to me. Now you want me to start thinking I'm crazy again?”
Good point, she told herself. Bite your tongue. But Gwen did not like this at all. Especially not that contented smile. She had liked it better yesterday and the day before. Although it scared her half out of her wits, she liked it better when Tilden would break through Jonathan's fear. And she could talk to him.
“No. No, you're quite right.” She glanced toward the doorway where he'd said Margaret and the blond woman stood. “You were saying that Tilden bit your neck and— Jonathan, I can't help it. Why do you look so damn pleased with yourself?”
“You like me better hiding behind office curtains or screaming in bathtubs? Talk about weird.” He pushed to his feet and selected two logs and a handful of kindling from a wrought iron rack by the fireplace. He tested the flue. “Listen, Gwen, I've told you right along I feel good up here. Among the things that make me feel good right now, aside from you being here with me, is that I now understand why this house was so familiar. But only the lower part and especially when I sit on the floor. I've been here, Gwen. I've visited. I didn't know what the upstairs looked like because I never had a reason to go there. I was here in this lady's house with both my parents and I was very small and very happy. We all were. Everything was ...” His voice trailed off.
“Everything was what, Jonathan?”
“Fine.” The pleasure was fading.
“Talk to me. What did you just see?”
“It's nothing.” He shook it off. “Really. It just seemed that the blond woman was telling Margaret everything would be fine. But she wasn't saying it. It was with the eyes, you know? And with a squeezed arm. So Tilden wouldn't hear.”
“Who was she?”
“And I'll tell you something else.” He brightened again. “Do you remember when I met Mrs. Starling? And she seemed familiar and I had an idea her name should be Lucy? Lucy was the baby's nurse. She was a big black woman who looked just like Cora Starling.”
Gwen Leamas set down her cup. “Who was the blond woman, Jonathan?”
”I don't know. Some friend of Margaret's.” He dismissed the question. “Do you know”—his eyes narrowed—“that I have no bad dreams when I'm in Greenwich? I mean, not one. All my life I've had a feeling that something wasn't right or that someone had it in for me. All my life I've had dreams of me beating up on people or people beating up on me. I mean, that Hoffman House thing was just the beginning. It was like a whole tournament I had to go through. All the time I was boxing in college I'd stare hard at whatever opponent I drew, trying to figure out if it was him, whoever the hell him was, and I'd do my damnedest to clobber the guy just in case. Then when I finally did get beat up in real life it was by these two men in Chicago, and I kept dreaming about that for years afterward, except in the dreams it was me beating them, I mean really totaling them. But none of this, none of it, ever happens here in Greenwich.”
“Jonathan.” He was talking so fast. Babbling. She stood up and reached to touch him. He backed away.
“Don't ruin this for me, Gwen.”
She blinked. “The blond woman, Jonathan? Is all this because I asked about the blond woman?’'
“Don't ruin this for us. I mean it.” His eyes were burning.
A car drove by outside. For an instant Gwen hoped desperately that it was her uncle Harry, but the tires she heard had chains. What's keeping him? Gwen wandered to the window, trying not to show that she
was frightened. They should have cleared the driveway for him. But he'll get in. Someone had flattened down the driveway entrance. Gwen stiffened as she heard the floorboards creak behind her. She jumped as a hand touched her hair.
“I'm sorry.” Corbin stepped back. He raised both palms as if to promise that he would not touch her again.
She crossed her arms. “I've never seen you like that.”
“Neither have I,” he murmured. He knelt and picked up the tray. It was something to do. When he stood again she saw tears in his eyes.
“Jonathan”—her shoulders trembled—”I don't know what to do. I'm afraid to ask you anything.”
“It wasn't...” He looked around helplessly. “That wasn't me.”
Uncle Harry, where are you?
“Gwen, honey. Please.” He threw up his arms. ”I don't even know what I'm saying.”
“Jonathan, how about if I made you a Bloody Mary?”
“You asked me ... I don't know that woman's name. I mean, I almost do. If I heard it, I'd know it. And it wasn't because you asked. She was Margaret's best friend. She was fine. She was telling Margaret not to worry.”
“About what, for Pete's sake?”
“Everything was so terrific here. God! Here Iam.I know, I really know, that it's dumb for me to be living up here. It's expensive, it's inconvenient, it's lonely because I don't have any friends, and even with all that, here I am still thinking how terrific it is and damn near willing to kill anybody who screws it up.”
“And you thought I was going to do that.”
“No.”
“Let me make that drink, Jonathan.”
“Gwen, I'm trying. Don't you think I know how this sounds?”
“Okay.” Gwen crossed to him. She took his hand and steered him to a wing chair by the fireplace. 'I’m going to get you a Bloody Mary and one for myself.” Except the white stuff floating in yours is going to be two of Uncle Harry's magic pills instead of horseradish. “Then we'll see if we can figure this out, okay?’'
“Laura. Aunt Laura was the blond lady.”
“Your aunt Laura.” Gwen stopped.
“There was somebody trying to ruin everything for Tilden and Margaret. Laura was trying to help. When I try to think who wanted to hurt them my mind starts churning with faces and names. There's Gould, there's .. . No, Car-ling's not there, I think he's dead. There's Ella, except she's still alive. There's this fat man a lot of people in Greenwich are afraid of...There's Bigelow...Oh, shit. Oh, God damn it.”
“Jonathan?” She squeezed his hand. “What's wrong now?”
“Bigelow.” He looked up at her. “He's one of the men in Chicago.”
“So?”
“‘He never had a name before. I had no idea who those men were.”
“I'll have your drink in two minutes.”
Thirteen
Is that your detective?” Huntington Beckwith's daughter took her eye from the antique brass telescope that was trained on her main gate. She was a slender woman, erect in carriage but for a tilt toward the cane that supported one arthritic hip. Her hair, certainly dyed, was a dark reddish brown, and she wore it cut close to her head. From behind, where Lawrence Ballanchine stood, she might have been forty years younger than her true age, the evidence of which was substantially hidden by a long-sleeved dress with black lace at her wrists and throat.
“I'm afraid it is, yes.” Ballanchine needed no glass. The distant shape squeezing out from the unwashed car was unmistakably Raymond Lesko.
“What was it you called yourself during your intrigues with him? Dancer, was it not?”
“Yes, Miss Beckwith.”
“That name implies a certain nimbleness. Do you feel that you were altogether nimble, Lawrence?”
”I did misjudge him,” Ballanchine admitted.
“You did indeed, sir.” She put her eye once more to the lens, studying the man who was searching the gateposts for a bell or voicebox.
“It's him. It's Lesko.” Tom Burke's voice rasped over an intercom on her desk. “Do I open the gate or not?”
Ella Beckwith turned toward the speaker. ”I hardly think he'll go away if we ignore him. Mr. Ballanchine and I will hear what he has to say. Is your car out of sight?’'
“Yes, ma'am.”
“You stay hidden as well. Remain in the kitchen unless I buzz you.”
“Yes, má'am. What about your brother?”
“Where is he at this moment?”
“Back in the trophy room. I better tell you he doesn't look so good. He's had a couple of drinks.”
“Leave him with his bottle and tell him I said to remain there. Have you rearmed yourself, Mr. Burke?”
“No, ma'am. I drove straight out here.”
“There is a weapons case in the trophy room. Please choose something inexpensive.”
Ella released the speaker switch and looked out the window past the telescope. Lesko was standing, hands in his overcoat pockets, watching the electric gates as they slowly swung away from him. He hesitated for a long moment. Then, brazenly, Lesko reached back into his car for what appeared to be the belt of a trench coat and proceeded to tie the open gate to the trunk of a small evergreen. He slid back behind the wheel and started up the long straight driveway.
“Wasn't something to have been done about that man by now, Lawrence?”
“Not yet, no.” Ballanchine shook his head. “In any case, not before I had his notes. Corbin was the main priority. My expectation was that Lesko would accept the commission to handle Corbin himself, which would have been the best of all worlds. We could have disposed of Lesko at our convenience.”
“But instead he chose to pocket fifteen thousand dollars of my money.” Her face grew dark. “Worse, he set about unraveling this terribly clever web you've woven.”
“Lesko knew nothing.” Ballanchine lifted his chin. “Nothing at all that could lead him to the Beckwith name. He wouldn't have even laid eyes upon the Osborne if he'd gone to Greenwich yesterday as I instructed. My mistake, if I made one, was in briefing your brother, never dreaming that he'd decide to follow Corbin around town and allow Lesko in turn to follow him back to the hotel.”
“You were aware, sir,” she said quietly, “that mybrother is unstable. You were aware that your Mr. Lesko is insubordinate. And yet you expected cheerful obedience?”
”I don't deserve sarcasm, Miss Beckwith.” Ballanchine pulled out a handkerchief and touched it to his mouth. “If I may say so, I believe I'm due some credit for trying to act decisively in your interest. You agreed, after all, that we should put the problem in Mr. Burke's hands for his immediate attention. With any sort of luck at all, Corbin would be dead and disfigured by now, and the Leamas woman with him.”
“And if I may say so,” Ella Beckwith hissed, “the measure I agreed to was a good deal more subtle than your alternate plan, which involved no less than a massacre on the doorstep of an internationally known figure. Had you hoped, sir, that it would somehow escape the notice of the media?”
“That was Burke's idea. I'd only told him the matter was urgent.”
Ella Beckwith closed her eyes and sighed. She stepped behind a Duncan Phyfe desk and sat down within reach of the intercom call button. “Would that Mr. Bigelow were still alive,” she said, shaking her head. “Your detective rather looks like him, you know. He seems equally efficient as well.”
“Bigelow would be nearly ninety by now,” Ballanchine said sourly. “In any case, he made his share of mistakes, as I understand it. Corbin should have been long dead.”
Ella Beckwith arched her brow. “You are saying that he should have divined the existence of a Chicago college girl who might be carrying a Corbin heir? A pathetic defense, sir.”
“He had a second chance,” Ballanchine said stubbornly. “He had his hands on Corbin twenty years ago, according to your brother, and he made a hash of it.”
Ella glanced over her shoulder at Lesko's car, which had slowed and stopped outside her front door. 'Tilden
told you that?” she asked.
“He told me weeks ago, when you first saw Corbin standing out on the road looking up at your house. He told me Bigelow's dying words as well. That the man who did that to him, to him and his partner, was the man in the lobby portrait.”
Ella could hear the knocking of Lesko's engine. He seemed in no great hurry to shut it off or leave the comparative safety of his automobile. She looked up at Ballanchine.
“Is Tilden yet persuaded that the man Bigelow saw was not an avenging ghost?”
“On the contrary, he believes it more than ever. He claims that on the street yesterday, Jonathan Corbin became Tilden Beckwith before his very eyes.”
Ella nodded slowly. Behind a sudden weariness in her expression, Ballanchine thought he saw the briefest glaze of fear. But she blinked it away and sat erect, her hands clasped in front of her. Ella's face became hard again.
”I have three concerns, Lawrence,” she said quietly, “aside from Mr. Corbin and his entourage. One is a brother who is a coward, a fool, and unbalanced in the bargain. The second is Mr. Lesko, who is clearly not a fool and who, due to Tilden’s stupidity and your own, knows far more than he should.”
Time Out of Mind Page 36