The Fire Night Ball

by Anne Carlisle

  “So, let’s accept, for the sake of argument," said Chloe patiently, "that Marlena is indeed pregnant with your child. Now, Harry, what do you wish her to do about it?"

  “I’d have to think about that one.”

  “Look me in the eye, my friend. Our very special Marlena is pregnant, and through no fault of her own. Her I.U.D. slipped. I assure you she's embarrassed, terrified, and unsure of what to do. She’s most eager to speak with you about it, though I won’t allow you near her now. But it’s not your decision to make, whether or not she has the child. It’s her body, her decision, her child, if she wants it.”

  "Oh, really. We’ll just have to see about who's in the driver's seat. I could make her life miserable, refuse to acknowledge the bastard, ruin her reputation, and throw them both over the wall without a penny."

  His face was dark and malevolent, the upper lip curled in scorn, the scar on his face throbbing. If Chloe hadn't been a psychiatrist, she would have visibly cringed. But as she said nothing and looked at him impassively, Harry continued on in an unbridled, belligerent tone.

  "Who's to say I'm the bloody father? I'll demand proof. She's still married to Dimmer, isn't she, though she dropped his name like a hot potato. Let the lawful husband take the fall. Now I think of it, he gave me the distinct impression he wanted her back on any terms, though why he does, I'm sure I don't know.”

  He stroked and relaxed his jaw, which had been clenched tight.

  Chloe said in measured tones, "I'm not sure about Coddie's motives in coming here or telling you the news, Harry. What I’m sure of is that it's not your money Marlena wants but rather your love and commitment.”

  “Come on. Knowing Marlena as we do, we both know exactly what's going on. She's a social climber in love with a fantasy, not with me.”

  “That may be true. But she's worried about how you'll react to the pregnancy and how it might affect your reputation. Those are the real issues for her, not her own well being. The question is, do you care enough about Marlena to consider what’s best for her?"

  "Oh, come on. If you think Marlena cares a fart about me or my future, you must be talking about a different cunt than the one I know."

  Along with the sneer, a new thought crossed Harry's mind. His expression now contained a flash of the cunning wolf. An alarm went off in Chloe's head, and she wasn't reassured by what he said next.

  "If ever there was a woman unfit to be a mother, it's Marlena. You asked me what I'd do. Why, I'd get the child away from her and raise it myself. It shouldn't be too difficult."

  She knew he was already thinking of the lawyers he would hire and the judges he would bribe.

  "We've been friends for a long time, Harry, but I’ve nothing more to say to you on this subject. Good day."

  As it appeared he wouldn't be getting the sympathetic ear he’d come for, Harry got up, slammed the door, and stomped off.

  But as he skied back toward Drake's Roost, fuming at being misunderstood by yet another perverse female, he was also mulling over the fact of his paternity as it began to sink in. An heir apparent to his throne wasn’t something he’d thought would ever happen to him.

  For, despite what he’d said just now to Chloe, he had no doubt he was the father. The rival he saw yesterday was a wretched cuckold; Dimmer reeked of the lunacy of the sterile cuckoo. Now that it was too late in their high-stakes game for a clear-cut win, Dimmer wanted the damaged goods back, at any cost. Why?

  God knows, but on Dimmer's watch, what would happen to the child, his child?

  Well, perhaps he needed to think this matter through more carefully before making any rash moves. He would be seeing Marlena later tonight, at the Fire Night Ball. Perhaps it was time they talked things over.

  As Harry turned over the ski poles and boot fastenings to his valet, he told the man to have his tuxedo aired and pressed and his dance shoes shined, so all would be ready for the evening activities.

  Alexander opened the door for him with the ironic smirk which he hated so much. Harry vowed once more to lay down the law with Lila; that fag had to go.

  He marched through his cavernous house and entered his office, a room that was called the Board Room but which looked more like the Vatican, with a 200-foot domed ceiling. There was a lot of correspondence to go through, but he found what he was thinking about was the unexpected Christmas gift he’d received from his young mistress.

  There were strange rumblings in the location of his heart. He pressed on his scapula.

  Could it be love for his unborn child he was feeling?

  What is love? he thought, rubbing the spot in his chest where he felt pain.

  He wished there was someone to talk to about the strange sensations. He'd be damned if he'd go see that young doctor. Chloe had all but run him off; clearly she was piqued with him. How could she think he was in the wrong?

  Harry decided to ignore both Chloe's opinion and the intermittent experiences of pain in the chest. An endless cycle of wheeling and dealing on the derailed Laramie project awaited him in the mail pile.

  But, if truth be told, the wild card that occupied his mind was the one just dealt to him by his sweetheart.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Everyone in the household seemed intent on mothering her.

  Marlena had agreed to a nap, and she even managed to doze off for a short time. Then she propped herself back up in bed and began to wade into her reading pile again.

  Yesterday, she'd bought all the childbirth books on the Alta Bookstore shelf. Dr. Ron had advised her not to read just one book on the subject, and she planned to follow his advice from here on out.

  Putting her purchases together with the books Dr. Ron had given her and the books in Chloe's office, her sampling was turning into a library. The pilot was becoming a mini-series!

  Indeed, the stack looked daunting. At the top of it was a baby name book. Atalanta wasn't on the list of A’s. Anyway, would she really want her daughter to be thought of as a roamer, like Cassandra? There had to be something better, and so now she flipped into the B's. Bathsheba, Belinda, Bess...nothing there.

  She began to look through the C's. When she got to Cassandra, her eyes stopped. Her mind zoomed back into the story of long ago that she was still absorbing.

  Outside her window, an assortment of local characters was assembling in the same way as the bonfire builders of 1900. Children and men of all ages were all over Hatter’s Field picking up sticks and long faggots. There were windy mutterings in the mountain, and a lightning storm was in the forecast for the evening.

  She flipped to the back of the book, to the Z's. And there she came upon the perfect name for a daughter: Zoe, the Greek word for "life."

  Yes, that was the one : Zoe Augusta Drake. They’d call her Zaddie. But she’d keep the name to herself for the moment. No sense getting her mother's hopes up.

  First, she had to talk to Harry. If an abortion was his preference, she would agree to it with as much grace as possible.

  Throwing on a fluffy red robe Faith had given her for Christmas, she went downstairs to see if she could help with lunch preparations, but one look at Annie's flushed face as she bustled about the kitchen was warning enough to both Chloe and Marlena to stay out of her way.

  As the sun approached its zenith, she did more speed-reading. The terminology was both intriguing and terrifying: Lamasse, spinal block, birthing room, tubal ligation, natural childbirth, pre-term eclampsia, and so forth.

  As the sun descended from its zenith, she was reading a well-thumbed copy of Our Bodies Ourselves, first published in 1971, which she'd picked up from Chloe's shelves. There was much more to the things happening inside her body than she would've guessed, changes in everything from hormones to hair follicles.

  Of course, she told herself, it was a matter of curiosity only; despite last night, she still planned to have an abortion.

  How the mighty had fallen in only a few short days. Ironic, wasn't it, how it turned out that both Chloe and Fait
h, those paragons of virtue, had got themselves knocked up while out of wedlock!

  Now here you are, Marlena, married but pregnant by another woman's husband. The apple didn't fall very far from the tree, did it?

  After Annie appeared with a teapot, she indulged herself in a spot of curiosity about her father, whose eyes were like hers. Faith hadn't said if Gordon was alive or dead. She recalled feeling detached from her parents. Her feeling of singularity was partly based on the fact she didn't look like either of them.

  Was she glad or sorry Austin had never suspected he wasn't her father? She decided she was glad. Despite his flaws, he loved me more than Harry does. What does that say?

  He’d sung songs and whistled them by the hundreds for her. “Baby face, you’ve got the cutest little baby face.” At one, she could say the name of each song. She was a genius, he said, a claim which Faith vigorously disputed: "She has a gift from God."

  At five o'clock, Marlena went out for a walk around the pond. The bonfire was laid and ready to be set off after the signal fire was lit on Hatter's Field. One of the distinct pleasures of the gathering tonight would be the smell of burning junipers down by the pond and a convivial circle around the best bonfire in town, with the mill wheel slowly turning in the background.

  It was quiet, until she heard the sound of "ker-plunk."

  She looked around and could barely make the outline of Apollo, who was finishing up with the bonfire preparations and had skipped a stone across the pond to get her attention.

  "Save a dance for me tonight?" she called out to him.

  "You got it, milady," he cheerily called back.

  The villagers were in their homes, having a quiet Christmas supper or getting ready to go out for the evening festivities. In an hour, Chloe's guests would begin arriving. The Cajun band would start up at eight o'clock. The bonfire lighting was at nine.

  Marlena thought of Harry and Lila, getting ready for the party in their cold stone mansion. Harry's silence was speaking volumes. It would serve Harry right if she had the baby, causing the maximum amount of trouble for him!

  But Chloe had wisely advised her the very worst reason to have a child was to hold paternity over a man as a weapon, using pregnancy to force a man into marriage. She’d said she would prefer to see Marlena have an abortion rather than to play such a destructive game. Faith had blanched white at that comment, but she’d kept her trap shut. That must have been difficult for her, Marlena thought, with a lurch of sympathy.

  Should she consider keeping the baby and going back to Coddie, as her mother so desperately wanted? She now so wanted to please her mother, but it seemed the least reasonable course of action.

  First, she’d have to be utterly convinced Harry didn't want her or the baby. Second, she’d have to muster the strength to give Harry up for good, even if she still loved him. How? Harry was the one great love and obsession of her life!

  Sighing, she looked back toward the house. It was beginning to get dark, and it was time to get dressed for the party. This day had gone quickly, but nine months seemed like a lifetime. If she had the child, what would her life look like at the other end of the term? For once, her imagination was failing her. She couldn't see a clear picture in the crystal ball. The clouds had gathered inside her head.

  As if to underline her emotions, menacing storm clouds were gathering overhead. The wind had whipped up, and it promised to be a tempestuous night. The perfect environment for a Fire Night, she thought, a maelstrom above and a crisis within.

  She thought of Cassandra, who’d married a man to escape her dull surroundings, only to find she was trapped here with him.

  She thought of Chloe, pregnant by a man she didn’t love and bravely enduring butchery to have her life back again.

  She thought of her own mother in the same predicament that she now found herself in--except with fewer options.

  How terrible it must have been as Faith bore her to term, all the while pretending to a virtual stranger that he was the father!

  How dreadfully their decisions had turned out for these women! Though Faith had saved face with the Church, everyone had been harmed. Marlena was born into a flawed marriage and never got the parenting she deserved, nor did she know her real father. Austin got a wife who didn’t love him, so he obsessed over his daughter to make up for it.

  Chloe’s tragedy was the saddest of all. Marlena felt sorrier for Chloe than she did for anyone. Once Faith and Austin became engaged, Chloe's hands were tied. Or so she must have thought at the time.

  Come to think of it, why didn't Chloe have the baby out of wedlock and never reveal its father? That's what Cassandra had done, and with good results. Perhaps Chloe was not as brave as Cassandra had been, when it came down to it.

  Perhaps Chloe isn’t as brave as I am!

  Suddenly Marlena realized Chloe was rooting harder than anyone else for her to have this child on her own terms, just as her own mother had done.

  Marlena smiled. Chloe kept her cards close to the vest. Certainly she wouldn't admit to a hidden agenda. But she’d been found out.

  One thing was clear. Marlena owed a lot to the two women who had got her through these seven days of reunion and her ordeal last night.

  After the worst was over, Faith and Chloe had stood arm in arm in her bedroom doorway.

  In itself the sight was heartening to behold, the two kinswomen, so different in their views but reunited after all these years in a common cause, Marlena Mae’s welfare. Imagine that.

  The last thing Chloe had said to her was: "Don’t make a decision based on what people will say. If you want the child, have it. If you don’t want it, end the pregnancy quickly and safely. We stand behind you, all for one and one for all. Be yourself."

  Tonight, the outfit she would wear would proclaim she was bold and sexy. It would surely incite disapproving stares. The velvet sleeveless designer top was cut down to the navel. The skirt was white leather Paris couture and slit to the thigh. Around her neck she’d sling an extraordinarily long aquamarine boa, Chloe's Christmas gift.

  Soon this peaceful home, which now felt to her like an oasis, would be over-run by noisy guests with prying, suspicious eyes. One more grueling ordeal to get through. Help!

  She wished she could play the Clare Brighton card, stay out of sight. But she was nothing like that character, save for her dogged allegiance to a domineering wolf named Drake.

  At the end of the evening, would she and Harry be reconciled? Would she still want to have his child, as she did at this moment? Or would she be thinking of Ron and how good she felt about herself in his warm presence, happy and child-like? Confusing! How nerve-wracking not to know how she wanted her own story to turn out!

  "Just get through this night. Tomorrow's another day," Marlena muttered. She took one last look at the glowering sky and then went inside.

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Up the long driveway trailed an ant-like army of guests, both invited and uninvited. They walked, skied, rode horses, drove, or were taxied to Chloe Vye's annual Christmas Fire Night Ball.

  Early this morning they'd opened their gifts, gone to church services, gorged themselves at dinner, and fought with their relatives. Now it was time to enjoy the best bonfire and dance music in town, with refreshments catered by the peerless banquet services of the Alta Hotel.

  Each guest was greeted warmly at the door by the hostess and given a nod by one or both of her two cousins, who were flanked on the outside by Dr. Ron Huddleston. He stood a few paces behind them, so as not to appear to be presuming a role beyond that of escort.

  Faith had pinned her corsage on her simple and elegant black dress, a Christmas gift from Chloe.

  After some consideration, Marlena had taken off the pearl-and-aquamarine bracelet and worn her camellias on her wrist.

  A female guest was looking her up and down until Marlena's cheeks reddened, and she stuck out her hand. Then the woman rudely walked off without saying a word. Ron sensed Marlena stiffen unde
r the rebuff. "You look gorgeous," he murmured to her. "Now hold up your chin and knock 'em dead."

  She smiled back gratefully, relaxing. She thought, the enemy is at hand, but bring ‘em on, so long as Dr. Ron was at her side.

  So far, no sign of Harry. Was it possible she’d once thought of this evening with great anticipation?

  A similar scene had appeared in her dreams, one in which she needed rescuing. Harry always appeared to save her, a knight on a white horse galloping through the flames to scoop her up and carry her off. But in reality, the dream was quickly turning into a nightmare.

  From their shunning behavior and the sour expressions on people's faces when they saw her, it was clear everyone had heard enough to hate her, even if the accusations were sheer speculation magnified by hocus-pocus.

  Indeed the word was out. All eyes were converging on the scarlet woman at the front door of Mill's Creek.

  Rosa Brown, Lila's source, had relayed the confidential information onward to her third cousin, Letty Brown-Hawker. Word had spread like wildfire that the uppity intruder from San Francisco was pregnant, and yet no father's name was listed in the doctor's office records. What did that tell you?

  As the line continued to grow and the people passed by, only the two lesbians, who arrived on the early side of eight, seemed genuinely glad to see Marlena. And was she glad to see them!

  With a murmured word of apology to Chloe, she grabbed an arm from each of them and beat a retreat from the receiving line.

  "You did this? Fabulous home. Where's the bar?" Sally said.

  "In the ballroom, also known as the parlor. I couldn't wait for you two to arrive. Brrrr...the natives are giving me the cold shoulder treatment. Did you notice it?"

  "Maybe the word's out about you blowing this place to go to Key West," said Stretch.

  Sally whispered in Marlena's ear, pressing her arm tightly with her bony fingertips, "Never you mind her. She's just green-eyed with jealousy about the way you look. She knows I'd like to eat you alive."