The Philanthropist's Danse

by Wornham, Paul

  Her patient slept in the barn for the rest of the day, the dog never left his side. She sat in Arnold’s broken old rocking chair that she had intended to chop for firewood and watched the two of them. When the young man’s eyes opened, he looked around and saw the dog, then the barn and the horse before he finally saw Winnie.

  “How are you feeling dear? You took a tumble off that bike of yours, been out of it all day.” He sat up and winced at the pain in his body. His leg felt as if it was on fire. He lifted the blanket and saw his pants cut off above the knee and a mess of black and blue bruises, with neatly stitched cuts.

  He looked at the woman in the broken chair. “You did this?”

  She nodded.

  “You’re a nurse?”

  “No dear, I’m a farmer. Around here, we make do. The hospital’s a long ways away, and I got no phone for an ambulance.” She pointed at his leg. “Nothing’s broke, you’re just banged up a bit. You’re a lucky young chap, no mistake.”

  He looked at his leg again. It hurt, but it looked clean and the stitches were tight and neat. He hurt all over, his arms were covered in scratches, and he felt his face and guessed he was scratched there too.

  She watched him closely. “You’re no picture, deary. You must have gone through that hedge headfirst, I reckon. Might’ve got killed if’n your leg hadn’t caught in the bike and kept you from flying too far. There’s a big old oak a few feet from where I found you. I’d guess it’s a mite stronger than your head.”

  The young stranger looked at his savior. He couldn’t place an age on her. Her face was naturally tanned and lined from exposure to the weather, but her eyes looked young and kind. He would never forget the kindness in the eyes of the woman that saved him. He stuck out his hand, ignoring the pain.

  “I’m Charlie. Charlie Wells. Thank you for your kindness, Miss—”

  “Tremethick. Mrs. Tremethick. But you can call me Winnie, everyone does.” She paused and regarded him with a quizzical look. “Where are you from then, Charlie Wells? It ain’t from around here.”

  He smiled, but that hurt too. “My accent gives me away I guess. Well, Winnie, I’m Charlie Wells from Toronto, Canada.”

  Her head tilted to one side as she thought about that. “A colonial? Funny, I never met me a Canadian before. My Arnold used to talk about you fellows after the war. Said you was all brave lads.” She looked at the scratched face and tried to judge his age. “But you’d be too young to have been mixed up in that.”

  He nodded. “My father served. His unit went to France from Plymouth which is why I was there. I wanted to see it. Then I had a notion to visit Land’s End, borrowed this bike and, well, here I am.”

  Winnie trembled as her memories came to her in a flood as the dam that had kept them contained for decades opened. A Canadian man called Charlie Wells had fallen into her life in late spring of 1965. Could Charlie Wells of Toronto have been Johnston Thurwell of New York? If he were, she had no idea why he would need to make up a name, but Charlie Wells was her one and only connection to this side of the Atlantic.

  She reached for the telephone and immediately heard Jeremy’s voice. She told him that she needed to speak with Mr. MacLean. Jeremy made no comment, but she heard a click, followed by the unfamiliar American single ring-tone and Larry MacLean’s voice. He sounded angry about something, so she talked fast. “Mr. MacLean, it’s me, Winnie. I think I’ve remembered your friend.”

  She heard a sharp intake of breath. “Mrs. Tremethick? You have? Tell me, what have you remembered?”

  Winnie recounted her memory of the young Canadian Charlie Wells and heard a curse word followed by a laugh. “Yeah. I think you’ve got it, Mrs. Tremethick. Johnston’s middle name was Charles, and it’s not too much of a stretch that he may have used Wells instead of Thurwell. He did pretend to be Canadian from time to time, especially with girls if he thought he could get, um... well, never mind. He sometimes thought it sounded more interesting to be foreign rather than just another guy from the City.”

  He agreed to join her and have lunch brought up, so they could talk about what she remembered. Larry slipped on his shoes and hastened down the hallway to see the Englishwoman, his heart beating fast. Winnie’s memory sounded right. It sounded like Johnston.

  The old lady was excited when he saw her. Her blue eyes sparkled and she looked more alive than he’d ever seen her. Larry squeezed her hand, and they sat together on the large couch. Winnie held on to his hand, he could feel the excitement in her grip.

  “Do you think your friend Mr. Thurwell might have been my Charlie Wells? It was so long ago. I had almost forgotten Charlie. Almost.”

  She said it with a quietness that made Larry look twice. She had a naturally kind expression, but there was something else there now. He could investigate later. First, he had to find out if the Canadian man she remembered was Johnston Thurwell. “Do you remember what he looked like? Was he tall or short? What color were his eyes? Tell me what you remember, tell me all of it.”

  Winnie nodded, took a sip of a tall glass of water, closed her eyes and started to talk. “He was a good-looking young fellow, quite tall as I recall. I think he might have been a bit shorter than you, but not by a lot. I’m short myself, so anyone taller than 5’6” looks big to me.

  Larry squeezed her hand to encourage her. “He had lovely eyes. Light blue, like cornflowers. He was pretty scratched and bruised, but had a good, strong face. He looked healthy, you know. At least I thought he looked healthy enough for a young man that fell off his motorcycle.”

  Larry nodded, so far nothing she had said had ruled out Charlie Wells from being Johnston Thurwell. He felt his own excitement grow. “Was he a large man, or slight?”

  “Oh, he wasn’t a big man like my Albert was. Not at all. But then I imagine he hadn’t worked the land all his life. He looked fit. He had meat on his bones, as we say in the country.”

  Larry was happy with everything he heard. His old friend would have been twenty-nine and facing thirty in 1965. He recalled Johnston had been upset at the approach of his hallmark birthday, so much so that he left his young wife and took off to Europe.

  Johnston had told no one about his trip. Larry had only discovered he was gone when he arrived at his friend’s house for a surprise visit and found Julie alone. That was the visit he first allowed himself to get too close to his friend’s wife. That spark would later lead to their affair and her divorce. Johnston never spoke about where he had gone or what he had been doing in his time away. It was a topic those close to him soon learned to avoid if they wished to be spared his temper.

  “Did Charlie Wells talk about his wife, or any details of his life back in America?”

  “You mean Canada, Mr. MacLean. Remember he told me that he was from Toronto. Not that it mattered, Toronto meant as much to me as Timbuktu. I never traveled. Until I came here, I never even rode in an airplane before.”

  He prodded her to answer his question. “I don’t think Charlie was married. He never mentioned a wife and didn’t strike me as the kind of man to have ties. He was a bit wild I think.”

  Larry saw the odd look on her face again and did some quick mental arithmetic. Winnie Tremethick had to be in her late seventies, so when she met Charlie Wells she would have been in her early to mid-thirties. It wasn’t impossible something could have happened between them.

  “Did your children meet Charlie?”

  She shook her head. “My kids left home before ‘65 and my husband died the previous autumn. There wasn’t anyone left but me. Charlie kept to himself. He wouldn’t come to Church on Sundays, never wanted to see anyone. He was quiet. He never even went to the pub of an evening.”

  Larry realized she must have had her children when she herself was only a girl. She was living alone on a farm when a mysterious Canadian fell, literally by accident, into her life.

  “How long was he with you, Mrs. Tremethick?”

  She looked at Larry and her eyes narrowed. “You think your friend a
nd me got friendly do you, Mr. MacLean?” He flushed, it was hard to imagine the elderly woman next to him as a sexual creature forty years ago and he felt embarrassed to have asked. But she was still talking, unaware of Larry. “And what if we did? Would it matter? He was hurt, and I was alone. It’s not so wrong for two people to find some comfort with each other, is it?”

  MacLean shook his head, she was right. But if Charlie Wells was Johnston Thurwell, he had been married while he was with the Englishwoman. At the same time, Larry had begun his slow seduction of his friend’s wife. “Tell me what happened, Mrs. Tremethick. When did he leave? I know when Johnston came home but when did he leave you?”

  She looked at him with deep sadness. “I drove him away. I felt guilty about falling for another man so soon after Arnold died. I didn’t know what I’d tell the kids if they came home and found another man in their father’s house. He stayed with me until the end of the summer and then we fell apart. It was lovely, but it wasn’t meant to last. He was too young in his heart and country life was too slow. He never said so, but I saw the look in his eyes when we walked the cliffs in the evenings.

  “We look out over the Atlantic, Mr. MacLean, but I could see Charlie wasn’t looking at the sea, like I was. He was looking over it, at where he belonged. He was gentlemanly enough to ask if I’d return to Toronto with him, but it wasn’t for me. I had my chickens and the farm. I was born in the village, and I’ll probably die there. It’s all I ever needed.

  “I was the wrong girl for him to go adventuring with. One night, right around the start of September, we had some words and then Charlie was gone. There was a tramp steamer in port that week, from France, I think it was. It was gone the next morning, and so was Charlie. I think he just climbed aboard and sailed away.”

  She dabbed her eyes with an old handkerchief as Larry watched her and felt the depth of her emotions as she remembered. She looked at him, her eyes red and with a shy smile on her face. “Look at me, a silly old woman crying over something like that. It was a lifetime ago, and it never would have worked. If my Charlie is your friend Mr. Thurwell, I wouldn’t have fit in his world.”

  Larry nodded, but wondered if Johnston’s life would have taken the same direction if Winnie had returned to North America with him. Perhaps the man that made a fortune would have made a different life with this simple, honest woman. “Johnston returned home in late November that year. He never said anything about where he spent his time. His wife stopped asking when she realized she didn’t want to know the answer.”

  He caught the sharp look from the old woman. “Yes he was married. I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “It was a long time ago. There’s no harm in it now.” He took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Johnston was different after that trip. He was focused, driven. He quit his job before he took off in 1965 and when he returned he started his business and never looked back.”

  Larry wondered if that last part was true, his friend had been decidedly different after he came back to his life and his wife. It was time to find out for certain if Charlie Wells was Johnston Thurwell. Larry reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an old black and white photograph he’d found in the library. Pictured were two young men laughing on the dock at the MacLean’s lake house. They had just climbed out of the water, and the camera had captured a pure, happy moment.

  It was taken in 1962, it would be close enough for Winnie to recognize if the fellow next to Larry was the man she had met, or not. He saw she was looking at him with nervous anticipation. “Is that a picture of him? May I see it?”

  She pulled her reading glasses from her handbag and slipped them on as Larry passed her the photograph. She looked at it for a long time. She said nothing but stared into the picture. Larry was bursting for her to confirm it, but he already knew from her expression that she was looking at Charlie Wells.

  Eventually, Winnie looked at Larry as she gripped the image tightly in her aged fingers and whispered. “That’s my Charlie. That’s him, no doubt about it. May I keep this, please?” She traced her finger over the smiling face in the photograph. “I forgot how handsome he was. You both are, two young men in their prime. Oh Charlie.”

  She hugged the picture to her breast and tears flowed down her cheeks. Larry was suddenly uncomfortable, unsure if he should try to hug her or hold her hand. He was saved from making a decision by a sharp knock at the door.

  Jeremy stood in the hallway with a waiter. Larry had quite forgotten he asked for lunch to be brought up. He stood aside to let the two men in, putting a finger over his lips to indicate they should be quiet. Jeremy understood immediately, as always, and took the tray from the other man and sent him out. He quietly placed the tray on the table and poured a cup of tea for the old lady. He handed it to her without a word, and she took it with a grateful “Bless you, love” and then he was gone.

  Larry marveled at the major-domo’s ability to do everything exactly right, every time. He had done the one thing Winnie needed most. He delivered the ancient salve to all English hurts, a hot cup of sweet tea. He watched as she sipped her drink and held the picture of Johnston next to her heart. She was lost in her thoughts, and Larry, having helped her discover her secret, left her in peace.

  Chapter Nineteen

  William finished a sandwich and looked at the antique clock on his desk. It was time to get the group back together. He hoped the final three would not take long to tell their stories, but he feared it was a vain hope. He knew what Bethany and Philip would say and that it would be unpleasant, but he had no idea what the group’s reaction to what Mrs. Tremethick had to tell would be.

  He telephoned Jeremy to gather everyone back in the conference room in five minutes. He picked up his laptop and papers and headed there to prepare for what was to come. He saw no one else on his walk to the conference room. There was a dull drone of conversation from the dining room, but it was nothing like the celebratory sounds he had heard at breakfast.

  His guests drifted back into the room. Freddie arrived with Janice and Dennis Elliot, the three of them talking quietly. Junior arrived solo, as did the Judge and Larry MacLean. The others arrived with serious faces. They all wanted the ordeal over with. There was a pause while the guest’s took their seats. William saw Winnie Tremethick’s seat was still vacant.

  He was about to ask if anyone knew of her whereabouts when she appeared on Jeremy’s arm. The major-domo helped her into her seat, whispered something in her ear that made her smile, and left. Silence settled as William swirled the remaining three pieces of paper around and picked one out.

  “Bethany Thurwell. Beth, it’s your turn.” When he looked at her, she seemed as if she was in physical pain, and he worried about her health. She sat still, not moving, not talking. Everyone waited for her to start and she felt the unbearable weight of every pair of judging eyes on her.

  “I can’t do this. It’s not right, I can’t do it.” She blurted the words, her mind frozen with fear. Philip tried to help. “You have to tell us, sis. You have to, or you lose your share. Come on.” She looked at her younger brother. He loved her, she knew. Would he still love her after she shared her secret? Did it matter? She had not loved herself for a long time. What difference did it make that others might not?

  William cleared his throat. “Bethany, please. You have to share your secret, or I will remove you.” She looked at the lawyer and knew he meant it. She took a deep breath and told herself the humiliation would pass. She needed her inheritance. It was hers, no matter what her father had thought of her at the end.

  Bethany summoned her courage. “It’s not a long story, although the path to how it happened is a long one. I was in a relationship, and it became serious.” Bethany looked at her brothers. They had met and liked Anton.

  “Anton asked me to marry him, but I refused. More than once. My father did not care for him and made his opinion very clear. I don’t know why I just didn’t defy him and marry the man I loved, but my courage failed me. Anton ask
ed a third time, and I refused for the last time. I think I broke his heart, he was gone within a few days. He did not return my calls or emails. I sent a gift that was returned unopened.”

  Bethany stopped to wipe a hot tear from the corner of her eye. Her hurt was real again and with it came an old anger. “I became angry. Not at Anton, but at father. I should have been angry with myself, but it was easier to be angry at him.

  “It wasn’t long after Anton left that I realized I was pregnant. I didn’t know what to do, Anton would not respond to any of my attempts to contact him. The doorman at his building turned me away. I heard he left New York to be with his family in Moscow. I was so angry with father I couldn’t even talk to him about it. So I got rid of the baby.”

  Junior and Philip gasped, unable to believe what they heard. Her brothers knew Johnston Thurwell had yearned for a grandchild. He was also a staunch supporter of pro-life groups through his philanthropy. Neither Junior nor Philip shared their father’s views, but understood he would have seen Bethany’s abortion as a cold betrayal. She had aborted his grandchild, the one thing in the world he had desired but could not buy.

  Larry looked at Bethany in a new light. He shared his dead friend’s views and felt the same shock that must have torn Johnston Thurwell apart when he learned of it. He saw Beth looking at him, but he didn’t know what to say. She had something she wanted to say, however. “It was his own fault Larry, he never thought Anton was good enough for me, and I lost the man I loved. Why would Anton’s child be good enough, if the father was not?

  “It was quid pro quo, Larry. I lost my love, father lost his grandchild. But I ran out of courage and couldn’t tell him. When I next saw him, my anger had passed, and I felt empty and drained. I decided it would be my secret alone. Until this morning, I believed I had kept it safe. I was wrong. When William told us that we each had a secret to share, I knew father had found me out. It’s the only reason I can think of that would make him reject me at the end of his days.”