Burnt Offerings (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) (24 page)

Marian was watching the rearview mirror, carefully backing over the twenty or so feet the car had penetrated into the drive. The field spread behind them, and beyond it, out of view, the house. They had almost backed out of the woods when Marian found herself pressing harder on the brake pedal and then stopping the car. She stared ahead through the rain-streaked window at the drive twisting beyond the trees and climbing up to the dirt road past the woods and the two stone pillars marking the gate.

The road. It was as close, as simple as a movement of her foot a few inches to the right. Just press down on the gas pedal . . .

She kept the car idling a few seconds, and then let her foot up on the brake slowly, as the thought passed, as suddenly as it had come to her. The car rolled backwards out of the drive.

She braked again, one last time, and then resolutely looked away from the narrow opening in the foliage. She turned the car, and began to drive back to the house.

Ben continued to stare at her and then said, very slowly, “You’re accepting it . . . all of it. You know . . . and you’re accepting it . . . Aren’t you . . . ? Aren’t you . . . ?”

Marian’s face remained impassive, while the house rose out of the mist and loomed ahead of them, white. Whiter. Blinding. Dissolving the mist and the glass in front of him and the sweep of the wiper, and the sound of David behind him. He closed his eyes against it, and when he opened them again, he was sitting in the back seat, and the padding around him was thick and rich and a deep gray, and in front of him, driving, was the chauffeur. Ben tried not to see him, tried to look beyond him at the whiteness rising again, coming at him like a great annihilating force, like a blow against his brain.

White. White nothingness. White.

(11)

For the first time in over a week she had gone to sleep beside him, in the double bed in their room, with a guilt or a sympathy or a fear strong enough to overcome the magnetic pull of the sitting room. She had led him up to the room herself after she had brought him and David back to the house, had even undressed him and, later in the day, carried the lunch and dinner trays up to him, just as she still did, ritualistically, for Mrs. Allardyce. And spooned the food into his mouth.

Something, somewhere between the drive and the house, or in the house, had happened to him, so traumatic that it had effectively anaesthetized his mind, reducing him to a state of shock that was as deep and paralyzing as a coma. He couldn’t see, as far as Marian could make out, or could only see dimly, and couldn’t hear, or wouldn’t, and wouldn’t speak as well. At least not to her.

If it was shock, then it might well pass eventually, she had reassured herself. But some part of her – the part that found comfort in the sitting room, and that did indeed, as Ben had said in the car, accept it, all of it, as much of it as she could understand (and when would the understanding be complete?) – knew instinctively that it was something deeper than shock; instinctively enough to make her search through the faces on the sitting room table before she had come into bed with him that night.

It was before seven the following morning when the sound of a car coming down the drive, and then the slamming of its door in front of the house jarred her awake. She had been sleeping on her right side, facing the open bedroom door and the sound below David’s windows. She propped herself up, listened for a moment, and then turned to look at Ben beside her. And gasped when she saw him sitting motionless in the chair next to the bed, staring at her, continuing to stare at the empty bed when she rose and came beside him, lowering herself and searching for some sign of recognition in the open blankness of his eyes.

They’ve come back,
flashed into her mind, and if she hadn’t been looking at Ben at that moment, if his absolute helplessness hadn’t summoned up what was left of her old self, would the feeling of relief have been so overwhelming and so liberating?
They’ve come back
.

She crossed to David’s room, and there it was below the windows, parked directly in front of the steps – the Allardyces’ huge old Packard.

“Oh, God, they’ve come back!” she said aloud, and went back for her robe and slippers, repeating it to Ben, and then leaving him and rushing halfway down the stairs before she saw Walker standing in the middle of the entrance hall and smiling up at her.

“Mornin’, Mrs.,” he said, and tipped his sweat-stained baseball cap.

Marian looked beyond him expectantly, at the door he had left open. “Where are they, Walker?” she asked. “The others.”

“What others?” He replaced his cap, and tested the rug with his scuffed shoes.

“The Allardyces. Roz and Brother.” She came down the rest of the stairs.

Walker looked up at the walls and the ceiling, inspecting. “Why, away of course,” he said casually.

“
Where
away?”

“Just . . . away. Like always.” He smiled and said, “Excuse me,” walking away from her into the living room. She followed him. “Sorry for the interruption,” he called over his shoulder; “thought I’d be in and out before any of you was up.” He was surveying the room, passing his hands over the tables and lampshades and figurines, and nodding approvingly to himself.

“You mean they haven’t come back with you?” Marian insisted.

“How could they?” He walked to the end of the room and disappeared into the alcove leading to the greenhouse. When he came back in he looked genuinely impressed. “Nice job,” he said, “darn nice job.”

“Walker, listen to me,” Marian said without hearing him, “ – they’ve got to come back. Will you tell them that for me? Please?”

“What for?” Walker said. “Place is yours, ain’t it? From whenever to . . . whenever.” He walked past her, back into the hall, and then down the corridor, peering into the dining room and the library and the kitchen and the servants’ rooms, with Marian close behind him.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Marian said suddenly, “I don’t – it’s too much, it’s more than I can handle.”

“Don’t look that way to me, Mrs.,” Walker said.

“Whatever it looks like – you’ve all got to come back.”

“Afraid that’s not for me to decide. Or you, for that matter, Mrs.”

“But you’ll tell them anyway, won’t you?” Marian pleaded.

Walker shrugged. “I’ll tell ’em.”

They were back in the hall. Walker pulled out a round gold pocket watch and checked it against the Regency clock on the console. “To the minute!” he said, snapping it shut. “ ’Scuse me again.” He climbed up the stairs, leaving Marian alone in the hall.

She brought her hands together, prayer-like, and pressed them to her lips, bowing her head thoughtfully and pacing until Walker came puffing back down the stairs, carrying a small Pan Am flight bag which he was zipping shut.

“Why did you come back?” Marian asked him.

He raised the bag. “Pick up a few things. His nibs’s pills mostly.” He started to walk across the hall.

Marian called out to stop him. “Are they far, Walker – Roz and Brother?”

“Not so far.”

“If it was an emergency, they could get back, right away?”

“There’s no emergency that I can see.”

Marian walked up to him, beside the front door.

“Walker . . .” she said, “Aunt Elizabeth is dead.”

“The ole gal?”

Marian nodded.

“Sorry to hear that,” Walker said. He paused. “And the others?”

“I don’t know!” Marian said helplessly; her voice rose and broke on the words. Walker looked toward the staircase, cautioning. “Ben – ”

“Your husband.”

Marian nodded again. “I don’t know what’s happened to him; all of a sudden. His mind – it’s – ”

“Rested,” Walker said peacefully.

“No!”

“Just rested, that’s all. We all need a little rest once in a while, Mrs.; mind as well as body.” His voice had softened strikingly.

“I don’t know what to do!” Marian pleaded.

“Just what you been doin’, Mrs.,” Walker said. He started to go out the door.

“
Walker!
” It filled the hall, part command, part plea. Marian stood where she was, in the middle of the hall, and waited for Walker to take a few steps back into the house. “I don’t
want it anymore.” She shook her head to emphasize the words.
“Not this.”

“You don’t want . . . what?” Walker asked.

Marian took a deep breath, and for the first time she gave it a voice – the suspicion that had grown to certitude: “I won’t sacrifice everything. I won’t see them hurt. I can’t, Walker. Not for
any
thing!”

“No, Mrs.,” he said, “not for anything. But what about for
everything?
” He waited for her to absorb the question, and then added, “For
her?
”

Marian hesitated, and he could almost hear the voices warring inside her. “Not even for her,” she said weakly.

“For the gold and the silver?” he reminded her, and it was his voice but it was Roz and Brother speaking as well, and the voice she had heard inside herself so often. “For her house and everything she has in it? Whatever’s hers is yours, Mrs., if you want it. You ought to know that by now . . .” He moved closer to her. “How much of a sacrifice is it – for all of this?” He looked up at the chandelier, the ceiling, the staircase, and Marian’s eyes followed his. “Think of it, think of all the others who managed to do it, to burn everything but her out of themselves. Our mother.” He paused. “What you see here is all her. Accept it, Mrs., and you accept her too.” Marian was silent. “Besides,” Walker added with head-shaking sympathy, “I’m afraid you got nothing to say about it at this point.”

“But I don’t
understand!
” Marian said helplessly.

“There’s a lot we don’t understand and accept anyhow,” Walker said, touching her arm very lightly. “Be patient, Mrs.” The touch became less than a reassuring pat.

“Tell them to come back, Walker,” Marian repeated.

“How can I, when it’s all begun?”

“It can stop, can’t it?”

“You want it to stop, Mrs.? Down inside yourself, the deepest part, you really want it to stop? You want to give up all of this?”

“Yes.” She said it inaudibly.

“When
you
begun it?” Walker continued. “You, Mrs. You’re the one’s been polishin’ the wood and the silver. You been bringin’ up her tray three times a day. You’re the one’s been fillin’ her room with flowers. You’re the one she depends on . . . for everything.” He brought his face very close to hers. “And when you see her, Mrs. – it’s all goin’ to be worth it. In your heart you know that, don’t you?”

“I
haven’t
seen her!” Marian cried.

He hushed her, his hand on her again. “You will. You will.”

“Is that why you came back? To tell me that?”

Walker’s hand tightened on her arm. “Accept it, Mrs. All the way now. Bring her back to us. Our mother.”

She repeated the words after him soundlessly, several times, like a silent prayer: “Our mother.” He was gone when she raised her eyes. She saw him crossing the porch and disappearing down the front steps.

“Walker!” Marian ran after him and stopped on the porch.

Walker looked up at her.

“Please
. . .
?” she said one final time.

He was on the bottom step; he raised his foot to the step above and leaned forward, making the wood creak.

“Step’s a little loose down here,” he said. “See to it, will you?”

He got into the car, turned clumsily, and drove off without looking back at Marian. She watched it until it had passed completely out of sight.

Then she went upstairs, past Ben and David, without looking into their rooms, and sat for a long time in the gold brocade wingchair. Until she had worked up the strength and the resolution to approach the door and press her hands against the carved surface.

“Help me,” she whispered, “to accept it. Give me the strength. And whatever’s weak . . . whatever affection in me is still keeping this door between us . . .” She waited, scarcely breathing, and then the words came out in a burst of passion: “
Burn it! Burn it out of me! Burn it out, all of it!
” Her fists hammered against the door. “
Burn it out, burn it, burn it
. . .”

As often as she went up to the sitting room, which was constantly, she would let her eyes travel slowly over the multitude of faces on the table, until she had memorized the shape and position of each of the silver-framed pictures. There was, blessedly, no change – not on the day of Walker’s visit or the day after or the day after that. And if there had been, if suddenly another frame, or two, had materialized, then what would she have done? Gathered them up, Ben and David, as Ben himself had tried to do, and spirit them away from the house? Or accept it, the way Walker had said? Submit herself to the incomprehensible will of the house and accept it with a resignation that had to be more than she could command.

Despite Walker’s assurance and despite the intensity of her plea in front of the door, it hadn’t been burned out of her; there was still an affection as strong as her longing to be part of the mystery of the house that was binding her to them. Bringing her, on several occasions, into David’s room in the middle of the night where she would sit and watch him sleep for hours, protectively. And making her seize hopefully on the merest flicker of recognition she thought she saw in Ben’s expressionless face; the slightest movement, however illusory, that might indicate a remission of the paralyzing shock that had locked him, unreachably, inside himself.

And while she watched, while the priorities alternated hourly, seemingly beyond any ultimate resolution, the house continued to flourish: the rooftiles and clapboards and flagstone gleamed, the cracks in the long stone balustrade healed themselves, there was new color in the rugs and drapes and fabrics, and a deepening richness in the wood and stone. And without incident, with nothing to alarm her.

Except Ben, if she cared to dwell on it. And David’s reaction to Ben, to the silent, staring presence in the bedroom opposite his, or on the terrace; or, on one occasion, under the beach umbrella beside the pool where Marian had seated him and watched closely for a change in his expression which never came; not even there.

It had been a testing, Marian became convinced, like a biblical trial in the desert: would she have been willing to give everything up – for the house, for Mrs. Allardyce; for the force or the abstraction behind them which she had seen in the deepest part of herself? The continuing approbation of the house was evidence enough that she would have. And, thank God, it had never had to reach the final testing point.

She searched through the photographs less frequently as the week wore on, and stopped coming into David’s room during the night, and sleeping beside Ben in their bedroom. Her nights she began to spend in the wingchair in the sitting room once again, and a good part of her days as well.

During the week her hair went completely white.

She had brought him over the rise of lawn once again and made him sit under the faded beach umbrella beside the pool, and watched him a while, and then, when there was nothing, watched David splashing in the low water, the pool incident of two weeks ago wiped completely out of his mind. When the umbrella’s shade passed beyond Ben, Marian moved from the edge of the pool and adjusted the angle of the pole to protect him from the fierce mid-day sun. His lips were dry and there were beads of sweat on his brow and upper lip, which she dampened with a wet towel. And then, calling David out of the pool and ordering him to rest in the shade until she had come back with their lunch, Marian went back to the house.

David dried himself and then sat on the concrete floor, at Ben’s feet in the circle of shade. And looked up at him without speaking, without even trying to reach him anymore. Except to touch him surreptitiously every once in a while – his foot or the hand resting limply on his knee. And that didn’t work either, and for the rest of his life his father would stare beyond him as though he didn’t even exist, however close to him he tried to come. Even when he stood up, as David did now, right in front of him, leaning forward on the arms of the chair and staring directly into Ben’s eyes.

He tried to think of something to say to him, and all that came to him beside the pool was the fact that, whatever his father used to think about him, he really
could
swim, without the tube, without anything at all. And if he wanted, he was ready to show him, and wouldn’t that be a surprise big enough to cure him of his sickness?

He announced it to Ben, and still there was no reaction, even when he kept repeating, “Do you want to see? Well, do you or don’t you?” And beside the frustration, there was a little bit of anger creeping into his voice. He shook Ben’s arm. “C’mon!
Do
you?
” And whether he wanted to or not, he’d show him; he’d do it right in front of him, while he was looking straight into the pool.

Marian would bring the tray up to Mrs. Allardyce later, after she had shepherded them both back to the house. She lifted the cups of cold consommé and the pitcher of grape juice onto the second tray, red plastic, and carried it to the kitchen door. She twisted the knob, not far enough for the door to open. She raised her knee to support the tray and twisted it again and pulled in. The door wouldn’t move. She muttered, “Dammit,” put the tray on a counter, and tried again. It was locked. Her fingers went to the inside latch; she turned it right and then left, her fingers whitening with the effort. Still, it wouldn’t open! It couldn’t have locked itself –