Treasures

  From far away then, she seemed to hear Preston’s voice ringing with delight. “This is the number-one guest room for VIPs.”

  She heard the slither of silk as the coverlet was removed; from the open window felt the rush of cool air on her skin as he removed the rest of her clothes and carried her, naked except for the rubies, onto the bed.

  “On second thought, I seem to remember it was in Napoleon’s time that women bared their breasts,” Preston said as they rested together.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, no matter. But if it was Josephine I’m thinking of, I can tell you Napoleon would never have gotten rid of her if she’d known some of your tricks.”

  Twinkling—Preston DeWitt actually twinkling!—he regarded Connie. A sudden vision of him in bed with his late wife Caroline, that prune, brought a tremble of a smile to Connie.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “I’m remembering something. The very first time I met you, before I married Martin, I thought you were the handsomest man I had ever seen.”

  “I remember. You wore a beige suit, and your eyes sparkled. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, Connie.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Good Lord, I wouldn’t poach on my partner’s territory!”

  Playing the coquette, she said, “I wouldn’t have let you.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? But it’s different now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Different now.”

  In the morning, for some absurd reason against which, because it seemed so childish, she fought and lost, she felt a need to speak to Lara.

  What she said was, “Lara, don’t be shocked, but I do believe Preston DeWitt will ask me to marry him. I had to tell you.”

  There was no answer.

  “Lara? Are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You’re shocked. I know you are.”

  “I don’t know what to say. It just seems—it’s not nearly a year yet.”

  “I know. I didn’t say I would actually do it now. I meant that I see it coming, that’s all I meant.”

  “That’s better.” There was a long pause. Then Lara said, “I barely remember him. Is he white haired and quite tall?”

  “Yes. Distinguished. And very sweet. You’ll like him, Lara. Really.”

  “Never mind me. It’s you who matter. You can’t really be in love again so soon, can you?”

  “Well, as you say, it’s so soon. But one can tell.… You know how it is.”

  “Maybe I don’t know.”

  This conversation had not been entirely satisfactory, Connie thought when she hung up the telephone. It was rash to have spoken out now, after all. She couldn’t be sure of what was in Preston’s mind, could she? Yet after last night, could she not?

  And she allowed a little drama to unroll. When the year was well past, perhaps next spring, there could be a very small private ceremony at Cresthill, after which the place would be sold, for he certainly wouldn’t sell Stonycroft with all his grandfather’s trees. It was actually his great-grandfather who had bought it. Thank goodness he was a widower; there’d be no exasperating divorce to delay things as there had been with Martin.… So Connie reflected.

  Her prediction was fulfilled. About a month after the night of the rubies, Preston outlined a plan exactly like the one Connie had imagined.

  “Of course, we have to wait until next spring,” he said, complaining, “but it’s damned hard. Can’t sleep together at my place except on maids’ nights out, and can’t ever sleep at yours on account of the child. However, it will pass. Patience, patience. Damn,” he said again, “I may have to go abroad for a month. We’re expanding our facility in Tokyo. In fact, it’s not ‘may have to,’ it’s ‘must.’ Since we lost Berg, there’s been nobody to take his place. I’d love it if you’d come along.”

  “I can’t leave Thérèse, Preston. She’s starting school again at the end of the month, and I need to be here.”

  He nodded. “I understand, of course. But I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too.”

  Yet, when he vanished through the departure gate at Japan Airlines, she turned away with no feeling at all, except perhaps the pleasant anticipation of a quiet evening at home with the telephone shut off, a long bath, a book, and bed. For some reason she had been feeling depressed during the last week or two. I’m getting tired, she thought suddenly, of simulating emotion; it takes all one’s energy to be passionate and vivacious when one isn’t feeling either way. For now that Preston was ‘caught,’ and was an accomplished fact in her life, the first miraculous excitement had just seemed to drain away. Where could it have gone? Perhaps she was simply getting older.…

  Then she thought: No. I’m only thirty-five. This has got to be a delayed reaction from last December’s shock. That’s all it can be.

  One day Connie happened to drive past the hospital where Peggy had been cared for. Quite naturally, then, that whole experience raced like a motion picture through her memory: the arriving airplane, the uncon scious child on the stretcher, the room on the second floor, Lara’s shrunken face, the day of the miracle when the child’s eyes opened, and in the corridor the nurses’ and the doctors’ running steps.

  He was a nice man, that Jonathan Bayer. I remember thinking, she said to herself, that I’d like to know him. I can’t say why exactly, but he just seemed interesting. At our picnic that Fourth of July I had the feeling that he liked me.

  And driving on with the top down and a fresh breeze blowing, she felt a sudden heat rise to her cheeks. Absurd, Connie. Where do you think you are? In junior high school?

  There was a choice of three routes from Cresthill to the village, the most circuitous of which was the road that passed the hospital. Nevertheless, driving one day with Thérèse in the car, she took that route again.

  “Look, Mommy. That’s where Peggy was when she was sick.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “We used to bring toys and cookies.”

  “You’re right, we did.”

  “We used to bring things for lots of other children, Mommy. You said they didn’t have enough toys.”

  “You’re right, we did. Would you like to buy some toys and bring them there again?”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  Whatever the motive, whether the child really had generous feelings or simply liked the fun of visiting a toy store, the project was a good one, and ought to be carried out. Besides …

  But how foolish! He probably wasn’t even there anymore. And if he was—so what?”

  “We’ll go tomorrow,” Connie said.

  They had half a dozen cartons filled with dolls, toy cars, simple puzzles, and other toys suited to recuperating children, when they returned the next day. It took several trips from the parking lot to carry all of these indoors. On the last one Connie, dropping a carton, was rescued as Jonathan Bayer came hurrying through the lot.

  “What’s going on? It’s not Christmas yet,” he said.

  Connie explained. “We have a special feeling for this place, because of Peggy. My sister’s child, if you remember.”

  “Remember? Of course I do!” He looked surprised.

  What a stupid remark! Naturally he remembered. And annoyed with herself for being so awkward, she made amends.

  “When she came, she might as well have been dead, and when she left, she was whole again. It was a miracle.”

  “Yes, miracles do happen, but not often.” They set the bundles down in the front hall and stood there for a moment. There was an odd sense of uncertainty about what to do next.

  “Shall I have these distributed, or do you want—?” began the doctor, when Connie interrupted hastily, “No, no, I don’t want to. That’s too much like Lady Bountiful. Oh, no.”

  He laughed. “Good for you. I’ll see to it, then. We’re always in need of toys, and we surely thank you. Especially you, Thérèse.”

  He went down the hall fast, a
lmost running, as Connie remembered he had used to do.

  Outside on the lawn patients, singly and in groups, with nurses or relatives, sat in wheelchairs or made arduous efforts to walk. A little boy about Thérèse’s age was sitting on the grass with a woman, fumbling over a puzzle.

  Thérèse stopped. “I have that game,” she told him, and uninvited, sat down beside him. “I’ll show you how to do it.”

  Connie said quickly, “No, no, don’t bother the little boy.”

  The other woman looked up, smiling. “She just wants to be friendly. We don’t mind, if you don’t.”

  So the two mothers sat watching while Thérèse, with astounding patience, demonstrated to the disabled boy how to tilt the box so that the little silver ball would run through the maze into the hole. And Connie, listening to the other woman’s tale of disaster in an automobile and long, discouraging recuperation, was struck by wave after wave of gratitude for, and fierce protectiveness of, her own feisty little girl.

  Presently, Dr. Bayer came down the walk and stopped to watch the children. When at last the silver ball fell into the hole, the boy laughed, and Thérèse clapped and stood up.

  “Time to go now,” said Connie.

  Dr. Bayer, also going in the direction of the parking lot, remarked as Thérèse ran ahead, “You have an unusual child.”

  “Yes. She’s always been quick and bright.”

  “Like you.”

  “Thank you. But she’s like her father.”

  “I see the kindness too.”

  “I’m lucky to have her, I know.” And she added, “We live alone now, the two of us. Her father was on Flight 103 that went down over Scotland last winter.”

  “Oh!” he cried. “Your husband—that vital man!”

  There was such genuine pain in his single “Oh!” that she turned to look at him. What she saw was an expression of extraordinary gentleness.

  They reached Connie’s car. When he had seen them into it, Dr. Bayer stood at the window. She had not yet started the motor. And again there was that sense of uncertainty, as if neither quite knew how to end the brief encounter.

  She said, “The things you do here … When I remember my little niece, I feel so grateful. I wish I could do something to show it. Better than bringing a few toys, I mean.”

  “You could volunteer,” he told her.

  “Why? What could I do?”

  “You could do pretty much what Thérèse did just now. The nurses don’t have enough time for all that should be done, especially on weekends.”

  “Really? I think I’d like to do that.”

  “Well, if you’re interested, come see me about it. They’ve made me medical director since you were here. I’m on the ground floor.”

  “Congratulations!”

  “Thank you.”

  “Let’s go, Mommy!” Thérèse cried impatiently.

  “All right, we’re going.”

  For once, Connie was glad of the child’s impatience.

  She asked to be with children, so on the following Saturday she was given a ten-year-old girl in charge who needed someone to walk with her around the grounds. This was such simple work that it was hardly work at all, and yet one knew how valuable it was. It might, in another sense, be thought rather odd for Connie to be spending the afternoon with a strange child while her own child was being cared for by a nanny. And she knew, of course, that the only reason she was not at home with Thérèse was Jonathan Bayer.

  He came upon her just after she had brought her charge back to her room.

  “Where’s Miss Thérèse?” he asked.

  “Oh, playing with friends.”

  “Well, how do you like this work?”

  “It’s hardly work, but I do feel I’ve done something worthwhile.”

  “You have.” He looked at her quizzically. “I’m off for the rest of the day. Would you like to have a drink with me?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “There’s a place down the road. We can sit out under an umbrella, if you’d like.”

  “That would be nice.”

  Where was her vaunted “personality”? She was as tongue-tied as a girl on a first date. They got into his car, drove, and found themselves at an umbrella table on a gilded September afternoon with nothing but silence swelling between them to fill the afternoon.

  “Why do you keep looking at your feet?” he asked abruptly.

  She hadn’t been aware of doing so, but she found an answer. “I thought I saw a hole in my stocking.”

  He laughed. “And if there were? What then?”

  “Nothing, I guess.”

  “The trouble is, we don’t know what to say to each other.”

  Her heart pounded. “There’s nothing wrong with being quiet.”

  “No, you’re right.” And he looked away across the little lawn, bisected by a gravel path on which a couple of pigeons were foraging for crumbs.

  Her mind, as she observed him, spun through time, through all she had known of life. He had none of Preston’s Roman-coin symmetry, none of Martin’s vigorous enthusiasm, and surely none of Richard’s—poor Richard!—sunny, boyish charm. What then? She could not say, did not understand, knew only that something powerful had taken hold of her, that she felt eased while she was drawn to him, and yet that she feared this thing, so fearfully unfamiliar.

  “Do you still live in the same house?” he asked abruptly.

  “Yes, in the summer.”

  “It’s very beautiful. Very grand.”

  “Yes.”

  Again the silence fell. There had been something in the way he said “grand” that disturbed her. Suddenly she saw her palace through his eyes, as his eyes would have seen it. And it seemed to her that she knew, without having been told anything about him, how his eyes would see the world.

  They finished their drinks and drove back to where Connie’s car was parked at the hospital. He took her hand on parting.

  “This was only our first time,” he said. “We’ll do better the next time.”

  There were three more times, a tea, a lunch, and a dinner. And the talk began to flow more easily between them, talk about movies, politics, about books and places Connie had never seen, such as the inside of a hospital for Cambodian refugees in Thailand. She learned that he had always wanted to be a doctor from the time he’d been nine years old. She learned that he had never been married; for some reason that pleased her. But then she had to give him in turn the bare facts of her own life, about her family and her marriages.

  She said nothing about Preston DeWitt, who would be home in a week.

  After the dinner date, in the dark of the hospital parking lot where she had kept her car, he kissed her. It was a light brush on the lips, the obligatory kiss, and that is all it was. He couldn’t know it, but if he had asked her to, if there had been a private place for them to go, she would have lain down there on the grass with him, would have cried out the marvel that it had taken all these years for her to feel, really to feel, at last.… She scarcely recognized herself.… And driving home alone through the quiet night, she wept.

  Although he was tired after the flight from Tokyo, Preston came straight from the airport to Connie’s apartment. In the familiar red library they talked.

  “I really missed having Berg along, I’ll tell you. He knew how to get things done, he was a brain. Oh, a mite too aggressive for my taste, to be honest about it, but let me tell you, what he did for our firm was stupendous. We’re richer by a couple of billion dollars because of him, and that’s not all bad.”

  “It’s not necessarily all good, either, is it?” When he looked at her with astonishment, she added, “When you see what’s happening to the country, all the bankruptcies and the unemployment, you have to wonder about a lot of things.”

  Preston shrugged. “Cycles. Everything goes in cycles. If you’re smart, you prepare for the downturns. And we’re prepared. We’ll be as busy as we ever were in the eighties, only we’ll be on the other sid
e. We’ll be deleveraging. Doing financial rescues. So I’m not worried, not a bit.”

  When I was in India, said Jonathan, I saw such things, such criminal neglect, that I felt an anger I had never known I was capable of feeling.

  Preston swirled the brandy in the snifter, contemplating the sunny liquid. “Yes,” he reflected, “the eighties are almost over, but greed isn’t and never will be, so one might as well survive by taking advantage of it.”

  “Isn’t that rather cynical?” she asked quietly.

  “Not at all. It’s true.”

  “Not of everyone. Not of Davey and Lara, for example.”

  “You still talking about them? Babes in the wood. Berg himself said so.”

  “Sometimes lately,” she said slowly, “I have a feeling that at the very end, Martin would have taken Davey’s side, that he wouldn’t have pushed through with that deal.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Connie.”

  “Maybe. But I do have the feeling, given the man Martin was.”

  Preston shook his head. “Never. Not with all that money at stake.”

  We are miles apart, she thought. He was turning and turning the snifter, warming it between his long hands. How could I ever have thought otherwise? It seems so clear now, the crazy extravagance of the Bitsy Maxwells, and yes—of Martin—and yes, of Eddy—and then the reverse snobbishness of Preston’s friends in their old dresses. False, all false. All of it.

  What has happened to me?

  “How are the Davises doing, by the way?”

  “They’re struggling, paying me back on the first of every month. But they’re very, very happy.”

  “How can they be so happy, when they’re living with a load of debt on their hands?”

  “Because they’re together. Do you understand? Together in every way?”

  I never married, said Jonathan. I always said I never would until I found the woman I couldn’t live without.

  “Something has changed you,” Preston said. “You’re dissatisfied.”

  She did not answer.