Change of Heart (12 page)

“Certainly,” he said as he came up to them. He looked quizzically at Liz. “As long as it doesn’t happen again,” he added.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” said Cecelia comically. “Next time I won’t hang over the net.”

Gil looked at her. “Your unconquerably sweet disposition is a constant amazement to me, baby.”

Cecelia flushed a little and Liz’s mouth tightened.

“Is Monsieur Peyre returning tonight?” she asked sweetly.

“I hope not,” said Gil. “As the only person here who’s read his bloody book, poor Cecelia is the one who gets stuck.” He frowned a little. “How
did
you come to read it, anyway?” he asked.

“I read it for a French lit course in college.” She grinned. “It’s definitely the sort of book you only come across in lit courses.”

“Was it any good?” asked Liz curiously.

“It was very clever,” Cecelia temporized.

“Was it interesting?” asked Gil.

Cecelia made a face. “Monumentally dull. All form and no subject, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes,” said Gil ruefully. “I do.” He looked around the lawn which was empty now of people. “I think it’s time we changed for dinner.”

The dinner party on Sunday night was considerably smaller than Saturday’s had been. A number of guests had departed after lunch, but Gil, who hated driving in traffic, planned to stay until Monday. M. Peyre did not come back and Cecelia had a pleasant dinner conversation with Maxwell Withers, president of Westchester’s largest bank. Mr. Withers appeared to derive a good deal of pleasure from their talk and showed every sign of wanting to continue it after dinner ended and they removed to the porch. They were joined shortly by the president of one of the top Fortune 500 companies and then a few other men and women. The conversation became general and Cecelia sat back a little, no longer contributing but listening gravely. All these people were intelligent, moderate, tolerant, and well informed. The world they inhabited seemed a different place from the world reflected in the news headlines she read.

Perhaps she too would be like this, she thought, if her life hadn’t been touched by the tragedy of Argentina. But because of what had happened to her cousins, to boys who had visited Connecticut often in her childhood, who had mended her dolls and taught her to climb trees, she could never rest secure that the world was a safe, sane, and just place. There was terror out there, and pain, and hunger and injustice. One may not be able to do very much about it, she thought, but at least one should be
aware.

Gil was not part of her group, and she looked for him and found him standing with Ben Carruthers in the corner of the porch. They were deep in conversation. As Cecelia watched, Ben took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Gil. Her husband shook his head in refusal, and Ben lit one for himself and put the pack away. Cecelia reflected that she hadn’t seen Gil with a cigarette since they had married. She remembered Dr. Stein’s admonition to him that if her father had been a smoker he would have been dead. Gil had evidently taken those words to heart. Cecelia was grateful; she might not be completely happy with her marriage but she had no desire at all to find herself a wealthy widow.

Ben commented on Gil’s abstinence as well. “Have you given up smoking? After all these years?”

“I have,” Gil replied pleasantly. “When I married Cecelia I just stopped. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

“Oho,” said Ben. “Cecelia was after you about it?”

“She never said a word.” Gil picked up his drink from the table. “But she doesn’t like it. So I quit.” He arched an eyebrow. “Don’t blow your polluted smoke in my face, please.”

Ben laughed. “There’s nothing worse than a reformed smoker.”

“So they say.” Gil looked at his empty glass. “I haven’t reformed my drinking, though,” he said pointedly.

“The bar is inside,” said Ben. “Go get it yourself.”

“Is that any way to treat a guest?” demanded Gil.

“You’re not a guest. You’re a friend.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Gil asked. Ben watched as he made his way across the porch, stopping by his wife’s side as he passed her. After a minute she detached herself from her group and accompanied him inside the house.

“Were you enjoying your conversation?” Gil asked her blandly as he waited for the barman to pour his drink. She looked at him doubtfully. “You can tell me, baby. I won’t give you away.”

“Well, they’re all very nice people, of course.”

“Cecelia,” he said rebukingly. “You can do better than that.”

“They
are
nice,” she repeated. “Polite, urbane, sane, careful.”

“They are.” Gil handed her a glass of white wine. “Isn’t it suffocating?”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “It’s never-never land. It would be nice if the world were like Mr. Withers envisions it, but it isn’t. Doesn’t he ever read the newspapers?”

“Only the financial page, I expect.” He took his own drink and leaned back against the wall, regarding her out of inscrutable eyes. “My father was just like them. That’s why I didn’t go into banking.”

“I see,” said Cecelia.

“Yes.” Gil’s voice was slow and considering. “Yes. I believe you do.”

The drive home Monday morning seemed to fly by. They talked. They talked as they had never talked before. Cecelia told him about her cousins, about the terrible letter from her Uncle Fernando that had brought the news of their disappearance.

“That was three years ago,” she said somberly. “Since then we have heard nothing of their whereabouts.”

“About eight to ten thousand people share their fate,” Gil said. “I don’t know if you’re ever going to find out what happened to them, Cecelia. The military leaders in Argentina are afraid that if the fates of those who disappeared are revealed the relatives will insist on the punishment of those involved.”

“The government was involved,” Cecelia said bitterly.

“Of course it was. But it won’t admit that.”

“It’s so terrible, Gil. And what’s even more terrible is to hear men like Maxwell Withers talking so dispassionately about the ‘risks’ of financial transactions with Latin America. They
like
the military dictatorships. They’re more stable, they say.”

“Well they are,” returned Gil calmly. “They beat the country into submission and American commerce can operate without fear of losing its investment.”

“It’s immoral,” she said stubbornly.

“Not to Maxwell Withers. Nor was it immoral to my father. The Knickerbocker Bank, of which he was the president for many years, made a great number of loans to Latin American dictatorships.”

“I see,” said Cecelia.

There was about five minutes of silence as Gil drove through the tollgate on the Throgs Neck Bridge and got into the right lane for the New England Thruway. Once they were on the correct road he allowed his attention to relax a fraction. “We might do an article on Argentina,” he said. “I don’t think it would produce any names for you, but it would make a few people very uncomfortable.”

“That would be worth something,” she said tightly.

“Yes, it would.” He grinned crookedly. “That’s why I started the magazine, after all. To stir things up, to reveal what the bureaucrats didn’t want revealed.” His voice was calm and emotionless but Cecelia had learned to read him, a little.

“You have a passion for justice, don’t you, darling?” she said softly.

He sent her a swift sidelong look. “You’re the first person to find me out,” he said with a strange note in his voice.

“I have been reading your magazine very carefully for quite a few months now,” she said. A small smile touched the corners of his mouth, but his eyes did not turn from the road. They finished the last fifteen minutes of the drive in comfortable silence.

It was a lovely homecoming. Jenny was happy to have them back, and the whole family—including Ricardo—spent a lazy contented afternoon around the swimming pool. The following day, when Gil went off to work and she and Jenny prepared to go over to the farm, Cecelia felt happier than she had in many weeks. Something important had happened between her and Gil this past weekend; she felt it, felt that their relationship had moved onto a new level. She began to be hopeful about the future.

* * * *

Gil too was regarding his marriage with new eyes. The reassessment had begun in Europe, actually, where he had found himself missing Cecelia most damnably. It was then he had decided to try to rearrange his schedule so he could spend more time with her. She had wanted to come with him and he should have brought her. It simply hadn’t occurred to him to do so at the time. Now he decided it was time he grew accustomed to the fact that he had a wife.

The Rosses were on vacation for two weeks so Gil was driving himself. At three-thirty he decided he had done enough for the day and left for home. There was no one at The Birches when he arrived so he changed his clothes and headed for the one place he was sure his wife and daughter would be.

The Buick wagon was parked in the stable yard, and Jennifer was in the tack room with several other little girls. “Hi, Daddy,” she greeted him. “Cecelia’s up at the house.” He could hear their giggles as he headed toward the path, and he smiled.

The smile left his face as soon as he opened the kitchen door. A strange young man was there, naked to the waist, and beside him stood Gil’s wife. She was looking up at the stranger and laughing.

It was only a second before they turned to see Gil in the door, but the twosome before him seemed frozen, as in a still frame, in the camera of his brain: the man’s body, the flat stomach and narrow hips, the bared torso tanned a deep Indian brown, Cecelia’s laughing face, her slender hand lying caressingly on the muscled upper arm. “Gil!” said Cecelia. “I didn’t expect to see you so early.”

“There wasn’t anyone home so I came over here.” His voice was quiet, ominously so.

“Dr. Curran came this afternoon to check Baron. I’m afraid Baron bit him for his trouble,” she explained. “I’ve just been administering first aid.” For the first time Gil noticed the bandage on the muscled upper arm of the young vet. “I don’t think you’ve ever met Dr. Curran,” his wife was going on. “Tim, this is my husband.”

Gil looked into a pair of wide-set blue eyes that held his with obstinate directness. “How do you do,” said Tim Curran.

Gil nodded, “Dr. Curran.” Neither man made any attempt to shake the other’s hand.

Cecelia turned her attention back to the vet.

“Tim, I’m most terribly sorry about this. He’s usually such a sweet-tempered pony.”

“Don’t worry, Cecelia.” The young doctor picked his shirt up from the kitchen chair and proceeded to put it on. “He’s looking fine. You can start to work him a little—-just walk and trot for a week.”

“Okay.” She smiled up at him, her emotions clear on her face. “You did a super job, Tim. I would have hated to lose that pony.”

He smiled back, and Gil had no difficulty in recognizing the emotion in the dark blue eyes. “I’m here whenever you need me,” Tim Curran said. And looked at Cecelia’s husband.

Gil stared back, his own eyes so pale and cold they looked like pieces of glass. “Good-bye, Dr. Curran,” he said.

Cecelia frowned, a little disturbed by the abruptness of his tone. She felt terrible about Tim’s being bitten. “I’ll walk with you to your car,” she said. She sent her husband a brief smile. “I’ll be right back.”

She stayed a few minutes at the door of Tim’s car, chatting, and then stepped back, waved, and turned to retrace her steps. She saw Gil by the tack room and moved to join him. “We can go home now, if you like,” she said.

“Fine.” His voice sounded peculiar—the same way it had sounded on the tennis court after Liz had slammed that ball at her. She realized with a little dismay that he was angry. Something must have happened at the office.

“I’ll take Jenny in the wagon,” she offered. He nodded briefly and strode to where he had parked the BMW. Cecelia watched as he pulled out of the stable yard, a small frown between her brows. Then she called to Jenny and the two of them got into the station wagon to follow Gil home.

* * * *

Since Nora was on vacation, Cecelia sent Jenny upstairs to work on a summer book report and she began to prepare dinner herself. Gil went into the library, and when she looked in to see if he wanted a drink it was to find he had already made a start. The scotch in his glass was almost finished. At her appearance he got up and went over to the liquor cart and began to make himself another. “Can I fix you something?” he asked.

“No. I have to finish doing the dinner. I just thought I’d tell you to go ahead without me.”

“I already have, as you see.” His voice was pleasant.

“Yes.” Cecelia backed to the door. “Dinner will be ready in about an hour.”

He had time for three more scotches before dinner. He usually had a glass of wine with his meal but tonight he had several. He seemed perfectly all right to Cecelia’s apprehensive eyes, only very silent.

Jenny didn’t appear to notice any change in her father and chattered away unself-consciously. Cecelia tried once or twice to draw Gil into the conversation; she had no success. He had come home early from work looking for her—the first time he had ever done so—and she had not been there. She thought he was annoyed at her for spending so much time over at the farm. “I don’t usually go over to the farm in the afternoons,” she offered as she collected the dishes to bring them to the kitchen. “It was just because of Tim that I went today.”

There was a distinctly nasty curve to his mouth. “So I gathered,” he said, and Cecelia felt her cheeks begin to burn. She had never heard him use that tone of voice.

She was extremely reluctant to go upstairs to her bedroom that night. After dinner Gil had had several more drinks and his quiet brooding presence began to take on the aura of a threat. It came to Cecelia, as she slowly climbed the stairs with him at eleven-thirty, that she was afraid.

It was a shock. She had never in her life been afraid of a man. Her father had always adored his little equestrian. Her husband had always been infinitely gentle with her, infinitely tender. And now she stood in her bedroom with him and the physical threat of his presence seemed to vibrate through the room. Why was he so angry?