Thales's Folly

by Dorothy Gilman

  "It's all right," Tarragon said, joining him. "That's Mr. Branowski, he doesn't hear you because he's deaf."

  Andrew said grimly, "I thought the omelette last night was a bit skimpy. You know him, then ..."

  "Oh yes, Mr. Branowski—he's very shy—passes through every July. It was a long time before we knew he was here. One year he had pneumonia and Miss Thale and Gussie nursed him back to health and we've been friends ever since, but Gussie didn't tell me he's back."

  Removing a burr from his jeans he followed her back to the path. "And you feed him."

  She turned to look at him, wide-eyed. "But of course we feed him!" Very seriously she added, "Leo once read us the loveliest words that Rousseau wrote, I don't know where. He wrote 'What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?'. .. Isn't that lovely?"

  "Very," he acknowledged, "but a scarce commodity these days."

  "And there's the pond," she told him, as if presenting him with a gift.

  It was a surprisingly large pond, rimmed with forest except for the shore opposite where they stood, and he realized the several cottages occupying that shore must be those he'd glimpsed from the highway: Bide-A-Wee, Rest-A-Wile, and Sunset Roost, each with lawns running down to the water that glittered in the afternoon sun. "No boats?" he said.

  She laughed. "Where would they go? There's a brook feeding the pond off there"—she pointed—"and an outlet over there. For fishing, Leo's patched an old rubber raft we hide behind the bushes. And there's good swimming, and Miss Thale stocked it with trout, and there's a net at the outlet to keep them from swimming away from us so they multiply and have families."

  "Are those cottages part of the property?" he asked.

  "No, only this side." She jumped down to a shallow beach of pebbles and he joined her. "The property line runs through the middle of the pond, technically, because there was no pond here at all until Miss Thale dammed up the brook. And this is my rock," she told him, inviting him to sit with her at the very edge of the water. "Miss Thale was very firm about leaving a few big rocks to sit on."

  But he remained standing with the water lapping at his feet. The pond was dazzling in the sunshine and a warm breeze ruffled the surface of the water, sending minuscule waves to lap at the rock on which Tarragon sat. A school of minnows darted away below him, and blades of drowned grass swayed languidly with the movement of each wave. It was another moment of peace and he was grateful.

  He was not to enjoy it. Tarragon said in a matter-of-fact voice, not looking at him, "You screamed several times in your sleep last night. You seemed to think you were in an airplane."

  So he'd screamed. Damn, he thought. Humiliating. Downright embarrassing. "I'm sorry," he said. "Sorry you heard it. I'm recovering from what you might call"—he winced—"all right, a nervous breakdown."

  Pouring water from the jug into two cups she said companionably, "What causes that sort of thing?"

  He was accustomed to saying that he preferred not to talk about it, but everything about Tarragon was so artless, so natural and different, that he found himself saying, "I let a friend persuade me to fly with him in his single-engine, one-prop plane ... I'd never flown in such a small plane, there was only this thin sheath of metal between me and the earth below; I kept looking for something to hang on to, to keep from falling out, which seems ironic, considering ... I remember Burke saying we were flying at five thousand feet and would I like to try nine thousand feet and I shouted, 'Please NO" which may have been what saved us, because a few minutes later the engine went dead, the propeller stopped turning, and down we went." He hesitated and then, "It felt a very long time, that fall to earth—an illusion, of course, but that's what I have nightmares about, watching the earth come closer and closer, and the plane in free fall. Expecting—waiting—to be smashed and dead in a few seconds."

  "But it didn't happen."

  "No," he said. "Burke had been sweating over whatever steers the damn thing, and he managed to lift the nose of the plane just enough to catch the wind, so instead of plunging straight down we crashed flat-out into the side of a hill." He shivered, remembering. "The next suspense was getting out in case the plane should explode, and with both of us badly hurt. We crawled out and it did explode," he added grimly, "which at least brought help fast. The noise and the flames."

  "It sounds dreadful," she said. "And badly hurt!"

  He shrugged. "Concussion, two broken ribs, bruises, shock, a broken leg. But we both survived." He sighed. "They tell me I healed quickly, being young—physically, at least—but there's no way to heal shattered nerves from the terror of it ... In my sleep I keep falling out of the sky."

  "Like Icarus," she said gravely, and considered it thoughtfully. "It's a strange expression, a breakdown of nerves. What do nerves look like, I wonder." Frowning, she held up the flower that she'd picked on their walk to the pond, and curling her fingers around it she crushed it. "I have just shattered this yarrow cruelly," she said. "Would it feel like that?"

  She did understand. "Somewhat, yes. It's certainly tiresome and depressing. I don't sleep well, for one thing, but worst of all it's left me unable to write."

  "Write?"

  "Yes. In that other life—before it happened—I'd written two published books." He hesitated and then, with a wry smile, "They both seem pretty frivolous to me right now, but it's all I've ever wanted to do. I was writing stories when I was nine years old—very bad ones, but I had to write. If I can't do that anymore it really scares me. Shock, the doctor calls it, but it doesn't go away, everything seems meaningless and futile, I no longer feel anything."

  "That must be very troubling," she said, absently handing him a sandwich. "Miss L’Hommedieu writes, you know. She says she makes up stories because she doesn't like reality."

  Diverted, he said, "But her stories have neither middles nor endings."

  "Perhaps," Tarragon said thoughtfully, "perhaps her life has been like that. All beginning, and no proper middle." She leaned over, picked up a stone, and tossed it into the water. "I've often wondered about that."

  "Don't you ask?" he said, watching the widening circles that her stone drew on the water's surface.

  "Oh no," she said, "we'd never ask, it wouldn't be fair. She's another of Miss Thale's strays and that was one of Miss Thale's rules: no questions. Because those who come here are—well, survivors."

  "Of what?"

  She looked suddenly mischievous. "Of nervous breakdowns?"

  He laughed in spite of himself. "So I've wandered into the right place, you think?"

  "No—were sent here," and with a quick demure glance at him she said, "but I think you must stay awhile, at least until the gypsies come."

  "Gypsies!"

  "Yes, they always come in July on their way north, about the time when Mr. Branowski arrives."

  "And what will gypsies do for my nightmares?" he asked. "Or are you thinking of magic incantations from Gussie?"

  "I don't think you understand Wicca, Mr. Thale," she said sternly. "Incantations are really prayers."

  "Until now you called me Andrew," he pointed out.

  "Yes, but you just turned into a Mr. Thale," she retorted.

  "Touché," he said, and bit into his sandwich. "This isn't as much of a shock as I thought, once one adjusts to eating a fruit sandwich."

  "Dandelion leaves make delicious sandwiches, too," she confided. "Although only in the spring, of course, when they're fresh. Incidentally, you've not taken a snapshot of the lake yet for your father."

  With his mouth full of sandwich he picked up his camera and snapped a picture. "There, it's done."

  Amused, she said, "You don't seem to really like your father."

  "We're allergic to each other," he said ruefully, putting away his camera. "I've been a great disappointment to him because I'm not mechanical. When I was a kid he'd give me toy machines, and things to take apart and put together, but all I did was sketch, draw cartoons and make up stories. It's been a real shock to him that I'
ve not followed in his footsteps. Very puzzling for him, actually."

  "You sketch, too?" said Tarragon. "Oh, you must draw Miss L’Hommedieu, she'd love that." She began gathering up the detritus of their lunch. "Will you sketch her tonight?"

  "I can try," he said, and was relieved to be finished with his résumé of still another dysfunctional family.

  "Then let's go back and tell her. That," said Tarragon," will be much more fun than checkers or Parcheesi."

  Dinner was tomato soup enhanced by herbs, accompanied by thick slices of Gussie's homemade bread. And Leo had an announcement to make.

  "I've been reading Horace again this afternoon," he said. "Very wise philosopher, and I would like to quote a few chosen lines from his work that ought to interest Andrew. Or benefit him," he added.

  Andrew thought his manner rather sly, even mischievous, and presently understood that Leo was again proselytizing.

  Clearing his throat, his soup cooling, Leo read in a dramatic voice:

  " 'True riches mean not revenues;

  Care clings to wealth; the thirst for more Grows as our fortunes grow.

  I stretch my store by narrowing my wants.' "

  Here he paused to give Andrew a pointed glance before resuming:

  " 'We are not poor

  While naught we seek. Happiest to whom high heaven

  Enough—no more—with sparing hand has given.' "

  Andrew was impressed but nevertheless thought that heaven's hand had been rather too sparing with its gifts for the occupants of Thale's Folly—or squatters as his father would no doubt call them. "Very good, Leo," he said with a grin. "And by coincidence my father's name is Horace, too, although not as wise as your Greek friend."

  "And your soup is getting cold," Gussie told him.

  Leo only said, "Hmph!," lowered his head, and returned to his dinner.

  Andrew's pledge to sketch Miss L’Hommedieu that evening had not only caused much interest but needed considerable organizing, since he had no materials except a pen and pencil, and preferring chiaroscuro he asked if there might be any charcoal in the house. Leo believed there was still some in the basement, and following this there was need of a blank sheet of paper and something to lean it against. In the end the blank side of a roll of wallpaper was secured to a sheet of cardboard, and the cardboard propped against the back of a chair.

  "What's chiaroscuro?" asked Tarragon.

  They had all moved their chairs close to watch, and he felt rather like a harpist about to play after-dinner music for them. "It's this," he said, and with the flat of the charcoal he grayed the white paper. "It's not line drawing, it's using light and shade to bring a face oui of a background."

  It felt a long time since he'd sketched. With an eraser ha picked out the highlights of cheekbones and jaw, and after studying Miss L’Hommedieu's face for a moment he began to draw: the almost skeletal figure draped in chiffon scarves, the layers of satin turban on the head shading the face but not entirely the eyes, which were black as opals . . , the imperial nose, the thin stern lips...

  Tarragon, leaning closer, said excitedly, "She's actually coming out of the paper—it's Miss L’Hommedieu!"

  "Is it flattering?" inquired Miss L’Hommedieu.

  "Of course," Andrew told her.

  She nodded. "I was known once for my charm. I listened to people, refusing all conversation about myself; I queried, asked, responded, and was praised for my intelligence and my wit."

  "All by saying nothing?" said Andrew in surprise.

  "That is the art of charm, isn't it?" she asked with a shrug. "Besides, I had no conversation."

  "You were mysterious, then," said Andrew.

  She smiled upon him fondly. "You see that, yes."

  "It sounds rather Victorian," he told her. "People talk now, but nobody listens."

  "We believe," said Gussie, "that Miss L’Hommedieu in a past life was Isadora Duncan."

  "Who was strangled by her scarf," Andrew pointed out.

  Gussie regarded him reproachfully. "Everyone dies somehow, Mr. Thale, or they wouldn't be alive today."

  This gave Andrew pause. "Are you referring to theosophy? . . , don't turn your head, Miss L’Hommedieu .., do you mean you're all reincarnated or something like that?"

  Gussie smiled. "You don't feel it?"

  "I don't feel much of anything these days," he told her.

  Miss L’Hommedieu said sternly, "I insisted—wanting your character explained—that Tarragon tell me what work you really do. She said you write books."

  "Used to."

  "What kind?" asked Leo.

  "Mystery novels." Glancing at Miss L'Hommedieu, he said, "You must know how satisfying it is to write a story." He added quickly, "Even if you don't write middles."

  "Or endings, " put in Tarragon.

  Leo said, "Murder mysteries? Real murders?"

  Andrew added a shadow to Miss L’Hommedieu's turban, saying, "No, I wrote sophisticated, made-up murders."

  He received an ironic glance from Miss L’Hommedieu. 'And have you ever met a murderer, even a sophisticated one?"

  "I'm only twenty-six," he told her. "No."

  "Murder is not sophisticated," she said tartly. "It's about secrets."

  "Yes," he agreed, "but the fun of it is unmasking those secrets, the working out of the puzzle on paper that was fascinating. The mechanics of it, building the characters, making them real and the motives plausible and the murderer the person least suspected."

  But Miss L’Hommedieu appeared to have lost interest. "Really?" she said, and rose from her chair. She added with dignity, "Whatever happened to frustrate your writing of books, Andrew, it will pass. And then it will be wise to remember that Shakespeare said, 'Let us not burden our remembrances with a heaviness that's gone.' "

  With this she swept out of the room in a cloud of chiffon, leaving the drawing incomplete and Andrew furious at her certainty that his malaise would pass. How carelessly she dismissed his nightmares, he thought crossly, and then saw Tarragon watching him and smiled. He realized that he would always smile at Tarragon, and he wondered if he was falling in love with her, with her gift of enchantment, her sureness, and her almost celestial loveliness. At fifty, he thought, she would still be beautiful, and he put aside the charcoal, unpinned Miss L’Hommedieu's portrait from the board and said that yes, he would play a game of checkers before retiring for the night.

  Tuesday

  5

  Mercury claims the Dominion over [Summer Savory].... Keep it dry by you all the veer if you love your selves and your ease, as 'tis an hundred pound to a penny if you do not. —Nicholas Culpeper, The Complete Herball, 1652

  Andrew had never slept so well. He wondered, on waking, if Manuel had found a tire for the Mercedes yet, and he hoped not. He wondered, too, if he would feel compelled to return the car to New York whether he wanted to or not, a matter of submission versus assertion. Buttoning his last clean shirt, he could hear Leo and Tarragon talking down the hall. Rather than interrupt what sounded a very serious discussion he headed for the stairs and, descending, heard the murmur of voices from the kitchen. Gussie had company. He was halfway down the stairs when he tripped and swore out loud at his clumsiness; the voices abruptly stopped, the screen door slammed, and when he walked into the kitchen he saw through the window a woman hurrying toward the path that led to the pond. She wore baggy, paint-stained jeans, and there seemed to him something familiar about her long stride.

  "Who was that?" he asked, watching her disappear among the tall grasses.

  "Neighbor," Gussie said, busy scrubbing a dish at the sink. "Lives across the pond in the Bide-A-Wee cottage."

  He shrugged. "Something familiar about her, I don't know what."

  "Or why," said Gussie tartly, "since you saw her only from the rear. She brought us a jar of homemade orange marmalade you can spread on your toast." Fussing over a tentlike wire contraption on the kerosene stove, she produced a slice of toast, leaned over the second burner, rem
oved a pot of boiling water, poured it into a teapot, and brought him his breakfast tea.

  "What sort of tea this morning?" he asked with interest.

  "Chamomile—tonic for nerves and appetite. Very calming."

  He nodded. "Thank you." And with a sigh, "I suppose I'd better go and see Manuel this morning about the car."

  Gussie gave him an amused glance, but said only, "Today's the day Leo's pension check should be coming if the government's behaving itself. If you wait for Artemus's mail delivery he'll give you a ride to the highway."

  But Andrew's thoughts had strayed elsewhere, and he asked curiously, "How much would it cost to have your electricity connected again? I mean, so you could have tub baths and flush the toilet and board up the outhouse."

  "Hah," she sniffed, "I can tell you that in round numbers. We owe one hundred twenty-one dollars and sixty-three cents in arrears, and heaven only knows—a small fortune—to connect us again." She gave him a sharp glance. "We manage very well, thank you, if that's what you're thinking. Of course for Miss L'Hommedieu—well, it's hardest for her, I admit."

  "Are you—or were you, by any chance—a nurse?" he asked.

  She vigorously shook her head. "Miss Thale's companion and housekeeper I was." She smiled, her plain face suddenly radiant. "And a rare woman she was, Miss Thale. Spunky. A rebel, you might say, and kinder than anyone I ever knew."

  Andrew grinned. "Yes, I've met Mr. Branowski ... I hear the gypsies arrive next?"

  "Oh, she was always glad to see them," said Gussie, positively glowing now. "Spoke their language, you know. They called her Drabarni, the herb woman—she always had herbs waiting to give them."

  "You can't mean she spoke their actual language," he said.

  Gussie smiled. "Truth is—you might as well know, being her great-nephew—she ran away with the gypsies when she was fifteen. Lived with them a year in spite of her parents sending the police after her." She laughed. "And from what I hear she gave those police a run for their money, and some very fresh talk when they found her! Called them sleevers, that was the word she used. Good-for-nothings."

  He said in astonishment, "You're speaking of my great-aunt Harriet Thale?"