The Fall of the Year (28 page)

On the last Monday of September I met with the Academy trustees to inform them officially that the scholarship money was gone. The front doors of the school were unlocked, and as I walked into the foyer and saw the trophies in the glass display case, the ancient bronzed baseball gloves and the basketball state championship cups, the sense of desolation hit me again. It was all I could do to make myself go through with the meeting when I read the plaque over the trophy case: “Upon His Retirement from Coaching, Presented to Father George Lecoeur. Priest, Teacher, Coach, Friend.”

The three trustees, Roy Quinn, Ben Currier, and Julia Hefner, were sitting at a table near a window overlooking the common when I walked into the library. To my astonishment, they were talking about the cool fall weather, as if this were all that was on their minds.

“Well, folks, let's get started,” Roy said. “We'll hold off on the minutes of last month's meeting until we take care of Frank's little business. At this point that's just a formality, I guess.”

I looked at the trustees. “I'm sorry Father George's lawyer, Attorney Moulton, couldn't come tonight,” I said. “And I'm sorrier still to be the bearer of bad news.”

Ben Currier tapped the folder in front of him on the table. “If what's in here is bad news, Frank, I'd like to hear some good news. The Academy just fell into $750,000 for its scholarship fund. We can send every graduate on to the college of their choice for the foreseeable future.”

I shook my head. “I wish that were the case, Ben.”

The trustees looked at me uncomprehendingly. Ben Currier opened his folder and frowned at its contents.

“I don't understand,” Roy said.

“It's no secret,” I said, “that a few weeks before Father George died, a young woman, an astrologer named Chantal, from Canada, moved into the Big House. This is a copy of a legal document, executed a few days before Father George's death. In it he transferred most of his estate, including the scholarship fund, to Chantal.”

I handed a copy of the property transferral to Roy.

“We know all about the astrologer, Frank,” Julia Hefner said. “And we don't approve of Father G letting her move in with him any more than you do. But we assumed from the check that you and she were co-executors of the estate.”

“What check?”

Ben Currier turned his file around and shoved it across the table. Inside was a copy of Father George's will. Clipped to the top was a green invoice for a cashier's check dated three days before, from the First Farmers' and Lumberers' Bank of Kingdom Common. It was made out to the Scholarship Fund of the Kingdom Common Academy for the amount of $750,000; and it had been signed by Chantal, in ink as deep blue as her eyes.

 

My head was still whirling twenty minutes later when I left the Academy. Ben had explained that he had been present at the bank, along with the bank president, when Chantal signed the legacy over to the Academy. He assumed that it was just a formality and had no idea that Father George had actually given his entire estate to Chantal to do with as she wished. But the money was safely in the scholarship fund, which was the trustees' main concern, and though Roy Quinn expressed surprise that I hadn't inherited the Big House, and Julia Hefner was still clucking her tongue over Father George's liaison with Chantal, their business with me and mine with them was concluded.

It was twilight now. Hardly aware of my surroundings, I cut through the cemetery on my way back to the Big House. To my surprise, I discovered Louvia sitting on the iron bench near Peter Gambini's great sculpture of the two life-size embracing figures. She had a blue handkerchief in her hands, and her shoulders were shaking. At first I thought she was cold, but then I realized that she was crying. I'd almost managed to slip by unnoticed when she looked up and caught a glimpse of me.

Instantly she said in her sharp voice, “Why are you spying on me, Frank? Come here this minute.”

Louvia dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “Smoke from burning leaves. I've always been extremely sensitive to it.”

I sat down beside the old gypsy and took her hand. “I think you miss Father George,” I said. “Me too. The Common doesn't seem like the Common without him.”

“I suppose it seems like Times Square.”

“Come on, Louvia. I know you miss him. Who's left for you to fight with?”

“Miss him? He was a fountain of overbearing authority. Look. Someone put fresh flowers on the memorial here, if you can believe it. No doubt the astrologer did that before she skipped town. In memory of the old fool she seduced.”

On the stone bed beside the lovers lay a small bouquet of wild New England asters.

“Father George was no fool, Louvia, and Chantal didn't seduce him. She has a fiancé of her own. From Quebec. Besides, those flowers are fresh. Somebody put them there today.”

“A fiancé. Worse yet. Then she was only trifling with the old man's affections.”

“It wasn't that way at all.”

“Go ahead and defend her. If there's a fiancé in it, she used you just as badly, and you and I both know it. Don't tell me she didn't string you along. You should go instantly to Montreal and avenge yourself on the lover. A true man would exact bloody retribution. Maybe we can manage it from here. My Daughter and I could give you a certain elixir—”

“Louvia, for God's sake, if Chantal has a lover, she has a lover. That's that.”

“Why not win her back?”

“You just said she used me.”

“You don't think she's worth it?”

“I know she's worth it. But she was never mine to win back. As for Father George, I don't even know where to bury his ashes.”

“You can throw them in the river for all I care. But here, the old man gave me this. At the famous transfer of property ceremony. It's for you. I meant to drop it off sooner, but I got to reading it myself. Why I can't imagine—it's full of the most extravagant lies.”

Louvia reached under the bench and pulled out the big green cardboard box containing Father George's “Short History.” There was no letter with the manuscript, and I was disappointed by that, but it appeared to be intact. I opened it up and read the first sentence. Then I read on until it was too dark to read any longer.

Sitting alone on the stone bench by the monument—Louvia had slipped away at some point—I could hear Father George's voice in my head, hear its slightly speculative, wry resonance. And at that moment, whatever else I still did not understand about the events of the past summer, I realized that long after the passing of the hill farms and the big woods and Kingdom Common as we had known it, these stories would remain: a golden legacy, to me and to the village, from Father George.

9

In the village in those years there dwelt an old, old woman, who had kept a candle burning in her window for over fifty years, to light home the husband who'd deserted her long ago as a young bride. Her husband never reappeared, but she was as much in love with him on the day she died as on her wedding day.

—Father George, “A Short History”

 

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY
I moved out of the Big House and into a room at the Common Hotel. Though I'd begun working on my whiskey-smuggling novel again that morning, I had little idea where I would go or what I'd do next.

That evening Louvia sent word that she wanted to see me immediately. I suspended my unpacking and cut across the green and down the dirt lane between the houses of Little Quebec, wondering what the old fortuneteller wanted now.

The bright pastel homes of the French Canadian mill workers glowed in the twilight. Splashes of scarlet and gold had appeared overnight on the side of Little Quebec Mountain, set off handsomely by the dark green of the spruces and firs. The river between the mill and the railroad tracks was up and slightly cloudy from a recent rain. A year ago on an evening like this one, Father George and I might have gone trout fishing.

As usual after a fall rain, some big German brown trout had run up Little Quebec Brook to feed, and Louvia was out netting them in the pool behind her herb garden. A quilt depicting a French Canadian maple sugaring scene was airing on a sagging clothesline strung between her house and a leaning hemlock tree. The fortuneteller was dressed in a wide-sleeved green blouse and a voluminous crimson skirt. A few yellow birch and maple leaves drifted down the brook. Late-blooming phlox, hot pink and deep red, and a dozen multicolored daylilies, all recently transplanted, grew near Louvia's house.

“My God, Louvia. You've poached these flowers from the Big House,” I said.

“Nonsense. I'm perpetuating an old man's dream,” Louvia said. “Once that so-called astrologer ensconces herself for good up there, I've no doubt she'll post the property. She'll probably charge us to walk by and admire the flowers. Look here if you want to talk about poaching.” From the tall grass beside the brook she picked up a brown trout at least twenty-five inches long, with a bright yellow belly and red spots the size of dimes. “I intend to invite this gentleman to supper tonight. As the guest of honor and main course.”

Louvia reset her net, then filleted the big trout expertly on a homemade fish table covered with scales. “What do you want, Frank? I'm very busy, as you can plainly see.”

“You're the one who called me up here,” I said. “But the fact is, I've been meaning to drop by anyway. I want you to help me find Chantal.”

“Aiee! The usurper. However. Now that you're here you'd better come inside. I can't eat this entire fish by myself.”

On Louvia's listing porch several dozen butternuts lay drying, still jacketed in their green husks. A cat with one emerald eye and one gold eye surveyed me from the windowsill. As we went up the steps, Louvia had to shoo away her hissing geese to keep them from pecking my shins.

A smoky wood fire was burning in the kitchen range. Louvia opened up the damper and set a large skillet on the stove. She motioned toward a rickety kitchen chair missing part of its back. “So. How old are you, Frank? Twenty, twenty-one?”

“You know how old I am.”

It was true. In order to stay one-up on her neighbors, Louvia made it her business to know the exact age of everyone in the Common. Yet tonight she herself seemed much older. Her dark face was tired and sad, and I suspected that she was lonely. Ordinarily I'd have been glad to hear her stories of traveling with the gypsies, working the carnival circuit. But now that I'd confided in Louvia, I was determined to persuade her to help me find Chantal.

From her reticule, Louvia produced her rose quartz Daughter and set it on the table in front of me, atop a stack of paperback romance novels. I looked into the stone's milky pink interior and saw exactly what I was certain Louvia saw there: nothing. Yet something told me that the fortuneteller could help me locate Chantal if she wanted to.

“What does your Daughter have to say tonight, Louvia?”

“She wants to know what you're going to do now that you've ruled out St. Paul's.”

“I don't know that I've entirely ruled out St. Paul's. But I've begun writing a story, if she must know. About Father George's early days.”

“Another storyteller! Well, well. I suppose that's harmless enough. My Daughter wants to know when you're going to get married.”

“Maybe never. For the time being, I'm going to do whatever I have to do to find Chantal.”

“Chantal again.” Louvia leered at me, her wax bridgework gleaming. “Listen, Frank. I know you miss the astrologer. I suspect that she broke your heart. Well, I'm sorry. I understand something about that from personal experience, as you'll recall. In your case, it's mainly yourself you have to blame, but my Daughter and I intend to help you anyway. We can shake you out of this holding pattern if you'll stop repining for two minutes and listen to us.”

“I am listening to you. You're the fortuneteller.”

“Who's talking about fortunetelling?” Louvia said, looking right at me. “I'm offering you my services as a matchmaker. Now that you've given up those foolish notions about joining the priesthood, it's time we found you a wife.”

 

“Stop laughing and pay attention,” she continued. “My Daughter recommends a girl from Sherbrooke, over the line in Quebec. Brown hair, striking brown eyes with gold flecks in them, an extraordinarily provocative combination. A real head for business besides; she keeps the books for her father's sawmill. She'll make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

“Louvia, I don't need to have anybody else arrange my dates for me.”

“This isn't a date, it's a match. The woman my Daughter and I have in mind is a year or two older than you and deeply experienced in the ways of the world, if you take my meaning.”

“What's her name?” I said despite myself.

“Marie. Marie Thibodeau. She plays in a little band with her family. She's a lively one. You'll fall in love with her at first sight.”

I groaned. “I don't think so.”

“With a wife like her you'll be a millionaire by forty. Also, she's musically gifted, she writes her own songs. I'll arrange for her to be expecting you at seven day after tomorrow evening. She'll take you to a barn dance, then who knows what afterward. You'll never regret it. Marie already has six thousand dollars in a savings bank. My Daughter assures me that this will be your making.”

“I'm glad she thinks so.”

“Don't mock my Daughter. Do you want to end up like me? Alone and bitter? This Chantal woman has been bad for you, Frank. Look at you, a shadow of your former self. If you don't believe me, you can ask my Daughter.”

“I'm not going to ask a stone anything.”

“I'll have her materialize for a moment.”