The Dying of the Light

  Ashton got up, went to the bar, poured two snifters of old, good brandy, and brought one to her. Gibby, who had been left out of all of this, who had found himself wishing he were somewhere else, got up and poured himself a brandy. Nobody noticed. He poured a big one.

  “And now, surprises. Surprises and music.”

  In moments, Glenn Miller was playing softly on the phonograph, as the fire warmed the room, and the first sip of brandy warmed Diana. Before joining her on the sofa, Ash pulled from beneath the stack of records two official-looking documents, and brought them with him as he returned to sit beside her. One was thick, and tied with black grosgrain ribbon. The other was thinner, and tied in red. He gave her the thin one first.

  She held it, not knowing what to do. “Go on. Open it,” he said, and she untied the ribbon, unfolded the vellum, carefully read the document, and looked up in surprise.

  “All you have to do is sign. It legally changes your name back to Diana Cooke. Mother, it’s who you are. Father has been dead for nine years. I know there was not a lot of love between you. Children can tell more than grown-ups give them credit for. The marriage was a business deal between Daddy and your father, but this house has been a Cooke house for a hundred and fifty years. It’s time it was a Cooke house again.”

  “But it is. You . . .”

  “That’s the other part.” And he handed her the second, thicker document. It took her longer to read it thoroughly, but its meaning was clear fairly quickly. Saratoga would be in her name again.

  “Darling, I know this is well meant, and I thank you with all my heart, but I can’t do this. I have to say no.”

  “But why?”

  “I can’t afford it.”

  “You’ll have all the money you could ever need.”

  “Where am I going to get it?”

  “You’re going to get it from me. As much as you want. I’ve got gobs. The house itself is yours now. Not a life tenancy, not anything tricky like that. Yours. As it should be. As it should always have been. I’m only putting things to rights.”

  “But your father wanted you to have it.”

  “And I loved my father. I loved him dearly, and I miss him every day. But the house was never his. It’s yours. Now, let’s not fight about it. Let’s dance. I mean, if you’re not too tired.”

  And he offered her his hand, and she rose from the sofa and they danced in the dwindling light of the fire to “In the Mood,” and “When You Wish Upon a Star,” gracefully and sweetly, until it was starting to be light out, and then they put the screen in front of the fire and left the lights on in the sitting room, something Diana would never have done only a day before, not wanting to waste a penny, and they went up the long staircase and into their bedrooms and then to sleep, warm and tired and happy, both of them completely at rest and content for the first time in a long time, for as long as either could remember.

  Gibby lay awake in his room, remembering their dance. Each time her lovely face had passed, she’d looked at him, and each time the message seemed different. It changed from a cordial formality to the warmth of welcome, to that look a horse gives its owner, knowing there’s an apple in the pocket, to hunger, to a hunger she had forgotten for a decade. Through Ash’s arms, and into her bloodstream and her heart, Gibby had watched her come back to life. He knew he was not handsome, but with his forest-green eyes and his shock of red hair, he was sin writing itself on her heart.

  And he was a green fire, waiting to burn her up.

  13

  SHE DID NOT sleep for long, but she didn’t feel tired. She sat at her dressing table, crystal and silver bottles in front of the dressing-table mirror, brushing her shining hair a hundred times, as she had done every morning and night since she was twelve years old. As she reached eighty-seven, there was a soft knock on the door and Ash walked in, wearing a splendid paisley silk dressing gown with a fringed sash, his hair still wet from the bath. In his hand was the sterling boar-bristle brush that belonged to his great-grandfather, oval, shining. He held it out shyly.

  “I’ve dreamed of this. You used to . . . Would you?”

  “You were a child.”

  “It was one of the greatest pleasures of my life.”

  “The greatest pleasures of your life? Lord, silly boy. You must be very deprived of pleasures. Sit down.” And he sat on the floor, his back to her. She could see, from above, his long strong torso, covered with a fine down. She took the brush from him, and began to brush his wet, curly hair. He sighed and closed his eyes.

  “You’ve filled out, as they say.”

  “Captain of the rowing team, the riding team. Captain of the gymnastics team until I got too tall and Gibby took over. You should see him. A whiz. Still is. Father taught me a gentleman should be good at sports.”

  “He adored you. He wanted everything to be perfect for you, and he wanted you to be good at things—sports, dancing, horsemanship, even music and art, things in which he had no interest himself.”

  His hair was so thick on his head. He lay back, his solid neck in her lap, wetting Diana’s velvet dressing gown. She didn’t care.

  “Except academics,” she said. “He didn’t much care for academics. He thought there was more use, in the life you were going to lead, in knowing how to inseminate a bull than in knowing how to translate the Aeneiad, and I suppose he was right. God, we were both so empty-headed and ignorant. That’s what I’ve done in your absence. I’ve gone through Grandfather’s library, book by book, year by year, and I’ve learned things, history and art and literature and poetry, and, well, I can talk about things. Not that there’s anybody to talk to anymore.”

  “There will be, love. Wait and see. This will be the greatest house in all of Virginia, and dukes and duchesses will come to sit at your table and marvel at your wit and charm.”

  “God. What a flighty dreamer you are. There. All dry. Now go put some clothes on—work clothes, not fancy clothes—and we’ll go down to breakfast. I’m sure Priscilla has been up since six, making enough for an army. I hope you’re hungry.”

  “You know, I am. Ravenous.” He laughed and jumped to his feet, leaving her alone, strangely enervated, to finish brushing her hair, and then to dress in her old house clothes.

  She dressed and went down to the kitchen, where Priscilla and Clarence had been at it for hours, as she had known they would be. Ashton bounded in right after her, in his white shirt from last night and well-worn blue jeans and work boots.

  “That’s a new look for you, darling,” she said with a touch of amusement.

  “Well earned, I assure you,” he said. “Two summers ago, when I didn’t come home, I worked in a factory, building airplanes. Someday I want to fly them. I don’t want to be a gentleman of leisure, like my father. I want to do something with my life. You object to this, in some strange way?”

  “I promise you I don’t.” But she smiled.

  Gibby joined them, clean and dressed for the country, smelling like a baby after a bath, and when they were all seated in the kitchen, again set with fresh linens and the best silver, there was, in fact, an enormous breakfast. Ash looked at Priscilla. “Priscilla. This is too much. Until we get more help, and we will, I want you to take it easy. Let’s live a little simply for a while.”

  Turning to his mother, he said, “What really happened to my grandmother? Grandfather I understand, demon rum, but Grandmother?”

  Diana looked him in the eye. “Don’t ever start drinking too much. It seems attractive at first, but drinking too much runs in the family—think of your grandfather, and his father before him. So be careful. Promise me.”

  “I promise. Now, Grandmother. First she was here, and then she wasn’t.”

  “One day she said she was tired. She said she was more than tired. She said she was ill, dying. We called the doctor. He came. There was nothing wrong with her. She had already picked out the south bedroom on the third floor, and she moved her things, her favorite things, from all over the house up there, a
nd she got in her favorite chair, mine now, and she never got out. There was nothing wrong with her. She just wasn’t comfortable being in this house any longer, so she and your grandfather withdrew. She sat in that chair all day, healthy as a horse, only sixty-seven, and she did the needlepoint that hangs over the bed in your old room, your boyhood room, and she smoked and smoked. She only started when she was fifty-eight. She read all of Dickens from one end to the other, and then she started again at the beginning. If she wanted to see me, she sent a note by Miss Priscilla. Usually because she wanted to have a party. Her mind was going. She sent a note with the day and the time and the guest list, many of whom were dead, but we couldn’t afford to give a party anyway, and I did nothing but ball it up and throw it away, after trying in vain to explain it to her, and on the day of the party she would put on a voile tea dress from twenty years ago and get your grandfather all dressed up and drunk as a lord and they would sit in that room and wait for the guests to arrive, which of course they didn’t. She then carefully undressed, got dressed in a housedress and an old cardigan, undid your grandfather’s tie, and hung up his suit. They would get back into their chairs, as though none of it had ever been mentioned. She had one old-fashioned every day at five o’clock. Clarence carried it up to her. Arthur, of course, drank continuously.

  “Then she just gave up. She simply turned the faucet of her life off. And off it stayed. She asked for you twenty-four hours a day. And then she died. You lifted her into her wicker coffin. You lashed down the top with raffia. She died from sadness. And then your grandfather drank himself to death, quickly, in twenty-seven days. He didn’t eat, he didn’t sleep. He just held my hand as I read to him and looked at me with what was left of those beautiful eyes. And then he died. You came for that, too. So soon.”

  Gibby said nothing. Just sat and watched. He never took his eyes off Diana. Whenever she looked his way, there he was, calling out for her attention. And when she could, without quite knowing why, she returned his gaze. More and more fiercely.

  Did Ash notice? Suddenly, he stood up. “I have two phone calls to make,” he announced. “First, a call about the books.”

  “They’re lost,” said Diana, mournfully.

  “We’ll save them,” he told her. “There are people who specialize in this. I’ll make a call and find out what to do, get somebody to come, come today. Mother, don’t worry, I come alive in a crisis.”

  “Call? Call who? Who do we know?”

  “I don’t know anybody. But there’s a whole department at the University of Virginia that does nothing else. I’d bet on it. I’ll get somebody here this afternoon. Just wait here.”

  And then she was weeping for her lost lands. Gibby came to her and held her, his strong hands on her shoulders as she lowered her cheek to bathe them with her tears. She covered his hand with her own. They stayed that way for a long time, Gibby’s hand softly caressing her hair, turning her head so that she could look into his eyes.

  She suddenly felt Gibby’s touch and looked up, saw the tears in his eyes, and said softly, “Not you, too . . . ,” and suddenly they both were smiling at one another, his funny face, his hands wiping away the tears.

  “Excuse me. You make me feel . . .”

  “What?” she said, drawing away.

  “Something. Something.” He turned away from her as though they had not spoken, as though he did not belong here, in this room, with her, the mother of his friend.

  Ash came back into the room after fifteen minutes, flushed with excitement. “Lucius Walter. Grad student in library sciences at UVA. He arrives this afternoon. He says not to touch anything until he gets here. He’ll stay as long as it takes.” Gibby moved aside reluctantly as Ash stepped between them. “We may not be able to save them all. But I’ve told him everything. God, he’s dull as toast points, but he thinks we have a good chance. Now we need some mops and two chain saws. Got to get these limbs and all this water out of here. Clarence!” And Clarence stuck his head through the door, and got his instructions, and reappeared with the chain saws.

  Ash spoke brightly. “But first, the second phone call.”

  “To whom?” she asked.

  “To my friend in New York. The one with a beautiful apartment, done by the best decorator in the world. I’m going to call and dangle gobs of money, and put her on the night train. She’ll be here soon. Now to the chain saws.”

  “I somehow can’t put ‘chain saw’ and ‘the decorator’ in the same sentence, coming from you.”

  “I’ve met her. You’ll love her. She’s extremely odd, instantly dislikable, but in time you’ll find she has both exquisite taste and a kind heart. Give her a chance.”

  “What is this lovable person’s name again?”

  “Rose de Lisle.”

  What would she have done without Ash? She would have coped, as she always had. The books would have been lost. Whole beloved worlds would have been lost to her forever, but she would have managed. The slates would have continued to fall off the roof, the curtains to sag and shred. But it felt good, for the first time in a long time, to relinquish control, to let the answers, and the money, come from outside herself. She felt a tiny bit less lonely. Yes, that was the true victory of the day. Loss or gain, she was not alone in it.

  She went into the kitchen, where Gibby was eating a ham biscuit, another one in his hand. “What are we going to do until Lucius the Librarian gets here?” he asked, embarrassed.

  “Why don’t you go shoot something for supper, darling?”

  Ash appeared out of nowhere. “Do you call everybody darling, Mother? People you’re known for less than twelve hours?” He was clearly irritated.

  “Well, I guess I do.”

  “I find it extremely distasteful. He’s not a friend, and not even a distant distant relative. It’s pretentious and flirtatious and unbecoming.”

  “Aren’t you the prude?”

  “Please don’t fight on my account. I just want to know how we could spend a few idle hours, friend,” Gibby said.

  “Just don’t shoot somebody’s cow!” Diana laughed, and after a short, hostile silence, the situation was defused.

  Turning to his mother, Ash said, “Rose is on her way. Here by morning. She has a list of demands a mile long. So, no shooting. It’ll take hours just to get things to her liking.

  “Another thing. Priscilla and I were talking about staffing. How many do we need? Do you think eight?”

  “Eight is far too many. What would they all do?”

  “A proper chef—apologies, Priscilla, but you could use a rest after all this time. People to clean, men to help Clarence—I want there to be cattle again at Saratoga, Daddy would have wanted that—a lady’s maid for you . . .”

  Diana laughed. “Ash, darling. Those days are long dead. I think four is enough. And gardeners.”

  “Okay. We’ll see.”

  “As of today, you and Priscilla get your old salaries back. And then get two strong cattlemen to help with the herd. I want to start with seventy-five head of Herefords and Charolais. And then our decorator friend will come and make every room the most famous room in Virginia. It will be the most splendid house in the state.”

  “And what do I do?” Diana’s head was spinning.

  “You give orders,” said Ash.

  “To whom?” he asked.

  “To everybody.”

  “All right, then. My first decision is to put that librarian person in the black-and-white room. Monkish, almost bookish, in its way, and of course, a divine view.”

  “And far away from everybody else.”

  “Exactly. It’s important to separate the guests from the help. And Lucius Walter is definitely help.”

  It was almost three o’clock. “Well,” said Ash. “No shooting today. I’ve had almost no sleep, and I’m going to take a nap before dinner. Mother, Gibby, I suggest you do the same.”

  Gibby said, “I never nap. I get under the covers and think deep, salacious thoughts, then I spend som
e private gentleman time, and suddenly I feel completely rested.”

  “How’s your eyesight?” Ash laughed at the old locker-room joke, while Diana just looked on, bemused.

  “So far, so good. Twenty-twenty, although I realize in constant danger. Then I do a hundred push-ups and a hundred sit-ups, after which I have totally forgotten my dirty, dirty thoughts.”

  He suddenly blushed and looked shyly at Diana. “Excuse the vulgarity, ma’am. Ash and I have been together for so many years. We think we’re funny when we’re really not. Forgive me.”

  Diana just laughed and said, “God, boys are so ridiculous.”

  “Well, I’m going up for a bit,” Ash said. “Clarence, would you wake me when Lucius the Librarian arrives?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ashton.”

  Ashton looked to his mother.

  “A nap does sound nice,” she said.

  “Dinner’s at eight. Black tie,” said Ashton.

  “What? Where do you get these ideas? I don’t . . .” Diana hadn’t worn evening clothes in the last lifetime.

  “Of course you do. Even Lucius is bringing his dinner clothes. God, I can only imagine. And do me a special favor. Wear that gold dress with the beads all over it, the one you wore the night I stayed up all night watching you dancing.”

  “That’s a scandalous dress. You can practically see through it.” She thought of the long shimmering dress hanging in its bag in her closet for all these years. Thanks to a rigid regime of exercise, the fifty sit-ups and leg raises she did religiously every morning, she had no worries about whether it would fit her still, and it was extravagantly beautiful, but, but—there were so many reasons . . . “Lucius the Librarian will run for his life.”

  “He will fall at your feet and worship your being.”

  She yawned.

  “That dress weighs forty pounds. We’ll see how much strength I have left.” And she went up to a deep and untroubled sleep in which she dreamed that she was dancing, dancing until the sun came up and blossomed in the darkness.

  14