At the Twilight's Last Gleaming (15 page)

“Good evening, Miss Williams.”

“Good evening, Mr. Jenkins,” I said, sliding into the back seat. Emory and Cheryl and given us a ride in the limo before, at my request, so I’d met him. No introductions were necessary.

The back leather seat was worn a bit, but soft and comfortable. This was not a new car. It dated back to the early fifties and it had seen a lot of use. But it was big and comfortable with a window between the front and the back. There was even a bar just behind this partition. Ice cubes jiggled as the car’s engine purred into a start, and we lurched forward into the night.

“I really appreciate this,” said Emory. He’d offered me a soft drink politely at first, ever the good host, but I’d said no. I didn’t want to have to keep on having to go to the bathroom on my first visit to the Clarke house.

“Oh. No problem!” I said.

I was feeling nervous, of course, and trying to figure out exactly what was the right thing to say. Naturally, nothing much came out, so the first part of the trip was quiet.

“Oh,” I said, looking up the window and noting Padgett’s Supermarket. “We’re going up Old Branch Avenue!”

“For a newcomer, you know your geography, Rebecca.”

“Oh, no, I remember that place. My brother and I rode our bikes up here back in the fall. There’s a nice rack of magazines, comics and paperbacks there. Donald got comics. I’d get a paperback. And, I confess, a bit of candy too.”

“I’ll remember that,” said Emory. “Nice to know where good book and magazine racks are! And I confess— I do like candy and comic books myself.”

“And paperback books!”

“Oh yes!” said Emory. A car passed on the other side, splashing light across his face. I could see his expression. I’d have to call it wistful.

“Oh my, you’re getting me all homesick!” he said.

“Homesick?” I said. “You mean for down in Alabama?”

“Oh yes! Summers in Alabama! Our house down there — it’s an old ante-bellum estate, you know. Ancient! Our house is by Birmingham, the capital, like I said — but it’s actually out in the countryside, much closer to small towns than the capital of the state. And small towns always have great general stores!”

“That’s pretty much what Padgett’s is. An old-fashioned general store. Not like Giant Food or Safeway!”

“Yes, and in summers, we bike or walk to the general store. Buy some soda pop. Buy a newspaper or magazine — or comic. Set on the front porch a spell. Watch the people go by. Jaw with the locals.”

I was a bit bemused. “The upper class mixes that way down South?”

“This wasn’t England. You have to understand, my Daddy’s got money and power, I guess. But his family goes back to the day when everyone was pretty much flat broke in the South, ‘cept for the Yankee carpetbaggers!” He laughed. “And ‘cides, Southern Democrats are pretty much just folks, anyway.”

“Sounds nice,” I said.

“Yep,” his Southern accent on full. “Pecan pie and mint-julep ice tea! Timeless! Up here, and even more to the North everything’s got a rigid timetable. Everybody’s uptight!” Emory sighed. “Where I come from, that just ain’t so. I guess up here, I keep a bit to myself and considered an odd duck. Guess I’m an odd duck down in Alabama too — but odd ducks don’t stick out as much. Odd ducks are just part of the countryside.”

“That’s like England!” I said. “Eccentrics are sort of, well, I wouldn’t say cherished exactly, but – I don’t know. Accepted?”

In the dim light, I could see Emory’s long head nod. “Yes. I suppose that’s the right word for England — only, I’m sorry to say, the South is not quite like that.”

“You mean…the race issue?”

“My Daddy has to deal with a lot of people who want the coloreds — excuse me, the black people — in one part of town, and on the back of the bus, so to speak. But my Daddy did just what President Johnson asked him to. He voted for the Civil Rights Bill in 1964, and the Voting Rights Bill in 1965.” He grew quiet for a moment. “But speaking of history, Rebecca, pretty soon we’ll be passing a landmark.”

We passed an older style, two floor high school, lit up in the night.

“Is that it?”

“Oh no, that’s actually the closest high school to my house, Surrattsville Senior High.”

“Why do you go to Crossland?”

“Crossland, is partly the result of Federal Programs that my father worked for with President Johnson.”

“Oh! The Great Society.”

“That’s right. President Johnson is very keen on good education for all!”

“Even hoods and blocks and greasers,” I said.

“Now Rebecca. You were just talking, I believe, about the importance of acceptance.”

“Those people sure don’t accept you!”

Emory laughed. “Not true, not true. There is, I believe, a wary respect.”

“And the collegiates don’t really accept you.”

“Oh, they are only children! We are all just children. I have my choice of Universities. Harvard. Yale. Cambridge. Oxford. I suspect that many of them are just headed for the University of Maryland. They do dress very neatly, I must say!”

“And not in black!”

“Plenty of black amongst the greasers! You see, it’s just human nature. You do what you can with it.” He peered out the window. “Ah! There it is!”

“The landmark?”

‘Yes.” He pointed. “See the sign. Now, Rebecca. Do you remember who shot President Abraham Lincoln?”

“Sure. That would be John Wilkes Booth, right? At Ford’s theatre in Washington D.C.”

“Correct. Well, that’s the house where he hid for a while after the shooting. The Mary Surratts house.”

“Oh!”

“You see, Maryland is technically below the Mason Dixon Line. And until recently Washington D.C. was always considered a Southern town.”

We drove for a while in silence and I thought about all this.

When you live in the excitement of history happening, you’re kind of caught up in the moment. You don’t think about the past much, or how much the past has to do with what’s happening now. So much of what was happening in the sixties seemed like either getting over the past, or an improvement on the past, or just plain modern progress. After all, we were sending people into space, orbiting the Earth — and Harold, who knew these things, said it wouldn’t be long before we landed a man on the moon!

“This is cool, Emory,” I said finally, just to break the silence. “You know, I never had civics and not a lot of history in schools.”

“You seem to know it all pretty well.”

“I read — and Dad’s pretty good and telling me things, I guess. But to just be around them — well, it does put things into context, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. It makes it all very quotidian, doesn’t it?”

“Quotidian?”

“Day to day. The extraordinary becomes normal. But then, you know, once upon a time, the President of the United States was just a boy in the vast hill country of Texas.”

“Makes you realize that anything is possible. Landing on the moon! Becoming president!”

We drove a bit further.

“I see why you can’t walk or bike in!” I said.

“Ah yes. Wouldn’t be able to live here except for car service, I guess.”

“You don’t drive a car yourself?” I asked.

“Oh certainly. Been doing it a while down in Alabama in off road lots. Haven’t gotten my driver’s license yet, though.”

“Me neither. My little brother is champing at the bit for one, though. Isn’t that what boys want? To drive a fast car around?”

“I suppose I’ll get around to that. There always seem to be other more pressing concerns.”

The car turned right and drove down a gravel road. Down and down, past copses of trees, we drove. We made another turn past a sprawling, dreaming oak tree –

And there it was, under the dark of a blue-black winter sky, and the light of freezing stars and shivering moon.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

O
N THE COVERS of my gothic romances, there’s usually this house.

Big or small, the house can be just a house, but mostly it’s some creaky old manor or looming castle.

This forbidding, mysterious house is always in the background of the painting. In the foreground is the heroine. The beautiful young heroine. And this beautiful young heroine — she’s often looking back at the house and there’s something in her eyes. It’s fear, yes. Lots of fear — but also awe and excitement and a mix of other emotions.

Emory Clarke’s house hovered before us now like a big old house on one of my gothic covers.

The moon was just slipping behind a bank of clouds, but it gave off just enough light to outline a bunch of gables on the high roof, and great windows that stared out at us, most without lights. It was one of those old double-floored houses that while not as imposing as a British manor house, or God-forbid one of the English or Scots “piles” of stone buildings with kazillions of rooms (some usually sporting legends). Nonetheless, it was large enough to be imposing, with columns on the veranda in front of a circular driveway centered by a driveway.

Most of the area was crowded with trees that dripped with kudzu. There was a field beyond, but it seemed overgrown. So while it looked a bit like a Southern plantation house of long ago, it also had a few elements of Northern design. During the day, it might have felt warm and friendly and convivial, a nice place to entertain guests for the weekend. Coming at it this night, I’d have to say it felt a bit forbidding.

“Wow,” I said. “What a house!”

“Oh, it looks much better during the spring, I assure you!” said Emory. His voice showed he was pleased that I seemed impressed, and I was glad I hid the true nature of the way I’d been in impressed. “We have some nice parties in the spring. We’re not here, of course, most of the summer.”

“It’s funny that you should go South for the summer.”

“Used to it, I suppose. But of course, either place we do have some air conditioning. Not central — but there are escapes during real scorchers. But of course there are other places we can go… out of the heat. Out of the light.”

“I’m sure not looking forward to the Washington summer,” I said. “Humid is the word I hear!”

“Before dear sweet AC,” said Emory. “The British classed diplomatic service here as “sub-tropical” duty!”

The car navigated the driveway and pulled up in front of the grand house, thrumming to a halt.

Emory got out and held the door open to me.

“Welcome to Waldorf Manor,” he said. “I want go too much into history. Daddy likes to do that sometimes with guests. Here! This way!”

He took my arm.

The touch of his hand and his closeness was electricity.

I was suddenly thrilled. My fear was dispelled. Suddenly I wasn’t entering a paperback cover dream. I was just a girl going with a guy to meet his Dad in a cool house, dripping with interesting stuff.

And it came to me, along with the electricity of the hand on my arm.

Emory’s family was rich. Emory’s family was powerful. Emory’s family had a fascinating past, a magnificent present — and a marvelous future.

And here was Rebecca Williams. In the middle of night, in the middle of them all!

I shuddered.

I don’t know if Emory felt the shudder, or if he saw my face, or if he had high powers of empathy and he was somehow sensing what was coursing through me.

He stopped.

“Now then, are you all right, Rebecca?” he asked, gently and kindly.

“Oh. Sure,” I said. “I’m fine. I guess… I guess, well, I’m a bit overwhelmed. It’s all rather …well. Grand. And I suddenly realize, well… I’m going to be meeting and talking to a U.S. Senator!”

“Oh, don’t worry about Daddy,” said Emory. “Daddy’s just a good ole boy. He likes big houses, but he also like barbecues and beer and folks, if you know what I mean.”

“Do I look all right? “

“You look..” said Emory, pausing as though to find just the right words. “Just adorable. Beautiful!”

I thrilled.

“Okay,” I said, after a deep breath. “I guess I’m read to meet him.”

The big arched door was unlocked. Emory pushed on the latch, and it opened. The hinges on the big oaken thing sighed a bit.

We were suddenly in a large foyer.

“Here,” said Emory. “Allow me to hang up your coat.”

I eased off my coat. He took it and hung it up on the nice racks that rang along the side wall. Then he took his own coat and hung it by mine.

“You two behave now!” I said, wagging my fingers at the coats.

He swung around and looked at me. He laughed.

“Oh yes, Daddy’s going to like you.”

“Well, we can only hope. But wait…. you car and driver. How —”

It was as though he were reading my mind. “Oh, the Senate provides a car service for Daddy. And of course he has Jenkins and the Rolls when he needs them. But he also has his own car he likes to use sometimes. It’s a Jaguar.”

“A sports car!” I said. “I saw Jaguar in England. A convertible?”

“Oh yes. Daddy likes the top down.”

“And you don’t drive it?” I said.

He looked at me with a penetrating look. “I really should get my license. shouldn’t I?”

Despite myself, a thrill raced through me.

I looked around at the foyer.

On either side were large doorways, opening into large lighted rooms. To the right was a fancy staircase, straight out of
Gone With the Wind
, with balustrade and brightly polished banister and everything. Carpeted stairs ran up to a landing decked with large paintings, and further into darkness. The foyer ran further alongside the staircase, and into gloom. The entire atmosphere was of a peculiar refinement and gentility, touched with something else.