The Fall of the Year (27 page)

When I joined Father George on the shore of the pond a minute later, however, he was no longer thinking about my vocation or his.

“Son,” he said, “I want you to do something for me when I'm gone. I want you to bring Chantal up here. Show her the brook trout spawning bed on the flow in the bog. Show her the big trout there. And take her to the top of Anderson Mountain and show her the view of the Kingdom and Canada. And there's one more thing I want you to do. After I'm gone, I want you to make sure she's all right. To—take care of her.”

“That won't be for a long time, Father George. And believe me, Chantal can take care of herself. She'll no doubt be long gone from these parts herself by then. You and I'll fish the spawning bed together this fall. All you'll have to do is sit in the canoe.”

Father George thought for a minute. “You and I will go there once more together. But it's important that you come here with Chantal. First with me. Then with her. Then you'll understand.”

“Understand what?”

“You'll see. I want to ask you a question, son. Just one. I want you to think about it and then answer it carefully. Will you do that?”

“Of course.”

“I want to know your opinion about an important matter,” Father George said. “Does Chantal really care for me? Or does she just feel sorry for a sick old man? What do you think?”

I didn't hesitate for a second. “She cares for you, Father. When she and I are alone together, you're nearly all she talks about. She thinks the world of you.”

He nodded. “That's good, son. That's really good. Now let's go home, son. It's getting toward suppertime.”

On the way back to the Common, past the grown-over farms, past the fallen-in sawmills on the river, over the disused railroad tracks from Pond in the Sky, Father George stayed awake, but he was quiet. Just as we reached the outskirts of the village, he turned to look at me, his eyes astonishingly blue and clear, and said again, quietly and with absolute certainty, “You'll understand.”

Then he closed his eyes, and when we passed the ball diamond a moment later and I looked over at him, I knew instantly that my father had left his beloved village for the last time.

 

“You'll understand.” So Father George had assured me. But I did not. I did not understand at all.

When I rushed him to Doc Harrison's and Doc ran out of his office and took his wrist and almost immediately shook his head, I did not understand, or want to understand, the finality of Father George's death. I simply couldn't accept the fact that a man so full of life could leave it so suddenly.

I thought that I might continue to feel Father George's presence on the baseball diamond, in the Big House, in the woods around the village. But I didn't. I had no sense at all of his lingering spirit. Rather, for days after his death the Common seemed unfamiliar. To me, and, I think, to everyone in Kingdom Common, it was as if, so far from leaving some part of himself behind, Father George, in dying, had taken the essence of the village with him. Chantal, for her part, was as grief-stricken as I was. She kept to her room and could not even talk about Father George's death.

My impression of finality was enhanced by the astonishing instructions in his will that there be no religious service of any kind, no calling hours, and no stone in the cemetery. His ashes were to be placed in a bird's-eye maple box he'd made fifty years before; as executor of his will, I was then to bury them. The will did not indicate where.

What I understood least of all was the call I received the day after Father George died, from the office of his longtime personal attorney in Montpelier. Mr. Moulton's secretary informed me that the major provision of Father George's will had been invalidated by the legal transfer of nearly all his property, including the $750,000 trust fund for the Academy, two days before his death.

“Hold it,” I said. “What is this you're telling me? That trust fund was intended for the kids' educations.”

“There isn't any trust fund, Mr. Bennett,” the secretary said. “But you don't need to worry about your own inheritance. That part of the will remains unchanged—ten thousand dollars. Also Father Lecoeur's hunting camp and his car, books, guns, and fly rods.”

“I'm not worried about my inheritance, damn it. I'm worried about the trust fund. And what about his house and property?”

“That, too. All his assets, except what was earmarked for you, were transferred, in Mr. Moulton's presence, last Thursday. It was perfectly legal.”

“Who was it transferred to?”

“You'll have to discuss that with Mr. Moulton.”

“Then you put Mr. Moulton on the phone right this second.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Bennett. He's out of the office.”

Moulton called me that afternoon and verified that the trust fund for the Academy students, along with the Big House, had all been transferred; that the transaction had indeed taken place in his presence, with two local persons as witnesses; and that Father George had been in full command of his faculties and these were clearly his wishes.

“Full command of his faculties? For God's sake, Mr. Moulton. He'd had a stroke just days before. I ought to know. I spent the afternoon of the day he died with him.”

“Did he seem impaired to you that afternoon?”

I hesitated. “He seemed tired.”

“There's a vast difference between being tired and being mentally impaired, Mr. Bennett. Check with your doctor, Doctor Harrison.”

“He wasn't the attending physician at the hospital when Father George had his stroke.”

“No. But he was one of the witnesses to the property transfer.”

“Just tell me,” I said angrily. “Who or what did Father George transfer his property to?”

There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. Then Moulton said in a dry, uninterested voice, “To a young woman named Chantal, from Quebec.”

 

“I know this must come as a shock to you, Frank,” Doc Harrison was saying. “But it's true that George did make the transfer, and as nearly as I could tell, professionally and from a personal viewpoint, he was entirely competent to do so. Not that it wasn't a damned fool decision, of course. I'm very sorry about it.”

“You know what that money was intended for, Doc. How could you let him do it?”

Doc loaded his pipe. He looked out his office window at the ball diamond on the common, at the yellowing elms. “I argued with him for the better part of two hours. Right up to the point where I commenced to fear that he might have another stroke. But he wasn't to be swayed. What's more, he told me that you'd understand.”

“He told me the same thing two days later, without saying what I was supposed to understand. And I don't. Not at all.”

“Neither do I, Frank. Not completely, at least. But at the risk of telling you how to conduct your business, I'm going to give you a small piece of advice: Put yourself in George Lecoeur's place and try to understand. Because I'm afraid that's about all we can do now.”

“Goddamn it, Doc! I'm going right up to the Big House this minute to have a long talk with our beautiful young heiress. That's one thing I can do.”

“Fine. But see Louvia DeBanville first.”

“What the hell has Louvia got to do with all this?”

“I don't know for sure,” Doc said. “But she was the other witness to the property transfer.”

 

“Understand?” Louvia handed me a cup of catnip tea so strong I could only pretend to sip it. “You young folks think you have to understand everything. Very little that people do is in any way understandable.”

“There has to be a reason for all this.”

“Is there a reason for love? Of course not. It's a mystery. Old Lecoeur, fool that he was, loved her. There's your explanation.”

“Louvia, listen to me. Just before he died, Father George hinted to me that something was up. He asked me to trust him, and he said I'd understand when the time came. Okay. I understand he loved Chantal. But he loved the Academy, too, and the kids. He could have left Chantal something substantial, and for years to come every single graduate of the Academy would still have had a free college education. Ask your Daughter. Assuming that somehow, somewhere, Father George is aware of all this, what does he want?”

Louvia glanced at her rose quartz gazing stone on the table, then looked away.

“What does she say?”

“Nothing. Nobody knows what the dead want. Not even my Daughter.”

“Then ask her what I should do about all this.”

Once again, Louvia cut her eyes sideways at the rose quartz. After a long minute she looked back at me. “Talk to the astrologer,” she said.

 

It was evening now. The sun had dropped behind Anderson Hill half an hour earlier, though the uppermost section of the courthouse tower still sparkled pink in its last rays. It seemed like years ago that I had stood with my heart in my mouth and watched Molly Murphy scale that tower, eons since the foggy morning that past May when I'd come back to the village to go to work for Father George.

As I hurried up the crushed gravel drive to the Big House, I spotted Chantal on the porch glider. She wore a dark shawl over her shoulders, and her long hair was as black as the shawl. She sat very straight, watching me approach.

I sat down on the glider beside her. When she turned to look at me, I could see that she had been crying again; at exactly that moment all of my anger vanished.

For a while we sat silently, side by side, looking down at the village.

Chantal brushed her eyes. I took her hand in both of mine. “I'm sorry for your loss, Chantal.”

“You know very little about my loss. But I'm sorry for your loss, too, Frank Bennett. Still. We can't hold hands, you know. Not now that we're enemies.”

“We aren't enemies.”

“Certainly we are. I know very well that you're going to drag me into court over Father George's money.”

“I want to make a proposal to you, not drag you into court. First I have to ask you a question. Were you in love with George Lecoeur?”

“In love with Father George?” Chantal seemed startled. “No. No, of course not. I loved him very much, and he felt the same about me. But not
in
love.”

“Did you know he was giving everything to you?”

“Certainly. As indeed he should have. But what is your proposal, Frank Bennett?”

“Chantal, I know Father George wanted you to have the money. But for years, for decades, he also wanted the school kids to have scholarships.”

“That was before he met me.”

“Yes. And it can't work both ways. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you'd be willing to give half of the trust fund back to the school.”

“What trust fund?”

“You know what trust fund. We're talking about three quarters of a million dollars that was supposed to go to the Academy. Half of that would still be a fortune. You could live in Paris for the next ten years.”

“There isn't any trust fund to divide, Frank. I've put it where it can't be touched. In a place Father George would have approved of, moreover. As for Paris, I have no interest in living in Paris, though it's a fine place to visit. I intend to live here, in this handsome big house.”

“Chantal, Father George thought you were in love with him.”

“He did not. He understood the situation perfectly. I have a lover of my own, if you must know. A scholar, and passionate, too. A young man I met just this past year.”

I was stunned. “You met someone in Paris?”

“In Quebec, if it's any of your concern.”

“And that's why you wouldn't get involved with me? It wasn't Father George.”

“No, it wasn't Father George. I told you. I loved him much the way you did, as a son or daughter loves a father. How dare you oppose what your father wished? Do you have any doubt that he wished me to have my legacy?”

“No. I just don't understand why.”

“Because he trusted me. You must learn that lesson.”

“And you think this experience is going to teach me that? First you take all Father G's money, and his house in the bargain. Then you tell me you love someone you met in Quebec. That's supposed to teach me trust?”

“Absolutely.”

“How?”

“You'll understand. No doubt by then it'll be too late. Still, we should part friends.”

Chantal stood up.

“You're leaving?”

“For a time. But we will part friends? Despite these unfortunate misunderstandings?”

I stood and looked at Chantal in the twilight.

“Chantal—”

“What is it now?”

She made no move to leave, and once more I thought her eyes seemed amused. “I don't think this is funny,” I said.

“You will,” Chantal said, and she threw her arms around me and kissed me hard on the mouth, then fled into the house.

 

The next several days passed, as even bad days do, but that was easily the worst week of my life. Tears would come to my eyes before I knew it, early in the morning when I stood on the red iron bridge over the pool in the Kingdom River where Father George had taught me how to catch my first trout on a fly, when I cut across the ball diamond where I'd played so many games for him, in the evening when I picked up a copy of
The Country of the Pointed Firs
he'd given me or sat alone out on the porch of the Big House, where Chantal might soon be living with her Canadian lover. I had no idea what to do about my plans to enter St. Paul's, which I'd already deferred until January. In view of the arrangements Father George had made, or rather not made, for a funeral, it now seemed quite clear that his own faith had been in this world rather than another. I supposed that I shouldn't be surprised. He had always been intensely a man of this world. But this reflection did little to reinforce my own faith. I was leaning toward putting off my decision for at least a year.