A ruling passion : a novel (3 page)

She thought of a night she and Carlton had gone square dancing with friends. Four couples held hands in a circle, pulling each other as they danced to the left and the right. She heard the country violin that rose to the rafters, sending their small circle spinning faster and faster, this way and that. She sang the tune the violin had played, her voice threadlike in the cold air, and she felt her feet grow light, skipping and tapping against the wooden floor as her skirt flew out. It was warm; the lights shone on the brightly dressed couples, the men in jeans and plaid shirts, the women in gingham and ruffles. "What a wonderful dance!" Valerie cried, her hands outstretched to hold the hands of her friends.

Her coat hung open; her body cringed against the cold. "Where am I? Where am I? Dear God, what's happening to me?" She began to cry. "Coat," she told herself "Close my coat." She pulled it around her. "Now walk. Just walk."

She took a step, then another, and suddenly there was nothing beneath her. Her foot came down into space, her body followed it, and then she was rolling, tumbling, sliding down the other side of the rise. Her face was in the snow, her eyes and mouth were full of it, her coat had flown open and branches clawed at her, snatching the cashmere scarf from her face. But at the bottom of the rise was the road.

She landed on its hard, snowpacked surface and huddled there, a small, wet mound beneath a soaked, bedraggled sable coat. Very slowly she stood up, brushing snow from her face and body. The road. The road. The road. She swayed in the center of it. She'd done it; she was there.

But the road was empty and she had to keep walking, not caring this time which direction she went. It was easier now, with no deep snow, but her feet still felt too heavy to lift and she lurched with each step. She walked until the sky was turning gray, and the moon disappeared. And that was when a young man named Harvey Gaines, who had driven all night to reach the town where he would begin a new job with the Forest Service, found her staggering along the road, her lips so stiff she could not speak.

"Don't talk," he said, and bundled her into his jeep, hurtling down the road to a farmhouse where lights were burning. The couple who

came to the door took one look at Valerie and brought her to the fire. "Don't talk," they said. "Thaw yourself out."

"Four others," Valerie said; it was barely a whisper. "A lake, south of the road where you found me. We crashed. There's a fire..."

"Got it," Harvey Gaines said briskly and went to the telephone while Valerie sat wrapped in blankets, drinking hot chocolate and letting the heat seep into her until she began, slowly, to feel warm. But she still felt nothing in her feet, and when the police arranged for a helicopter to fly her to the hospital in Glens Falls she could not walk.

Later that morning the Tarrants and Lily Grace were brought out by helicopter and flown to the hospital where Valerie was waiting for them.

And the body of Carlton was there, too. He had died three hours afi:er she set off through the forest.

The State Police came. Valerie saw them in the hospital sunroom, where she sat on a wicker loveseat beside a wall of windows, soaking up the sunlight. Her feet, painfiil and tingling now, were resting on a hassock beneath a light blanket. Her hands were bandaged, the soreness in her muscles was like a huge throbbing ache on top of the bruises from the crash, and she could barely move. She told the police the story of their flight, from the time Carlton rushed them out of their vacation house for the trip to Virginia to the time she left them to get help. "He said it wasn't an accident," she said. "We were only there four days and the plane was fine on the way up. He said—"

"Why was he in such a hurr)^ to leave?" they asked.

"I don't know. Business, I suppose. He was an investment counselor. He said—it was ver)^ strange—he said it was done on purpose. Both ftiel tanks having water, he meant; he said it never happened before. And then he said something about a woman,"

"What?"

"He said, 'I should have thought she might.'"

"Might what?"

"I don't know."

"Probably meant his plane. People call airplanes 'she.' Like boats."

"I suppose so," Valerie said slowly.

Her mother arrived the next morning. They sat together, holding hands. "I never imagined I could lose you," Rosemary Ashbrook said. "Your poor feet... what will happen to them?"

"We don't know yet." Valerie felt the flash of fear that came every

time she thought about frostbite. She was trying to believe that Carlton was gone, and then she had to face the truth of what might happen to her feet. I won't be an invalid, she thought. I'd rather die.

"Poor Carl," Rosemary said. "I was so fond of him. And I relied on him; what will we do now? I don't know anything about my money; he did it all."

"Dan will do it for a while, until we find someone else. Carl took care of mine too, you know. I feel so stupid; I don't know a thing."

"Well, I'll let you take care of it. I just can't think about money; I never could. Poor Valerie, what a terrible time for you. And the police were here! What did they want to know?"

"A lot that I couldn't answer." Valerie closed her eyes briefly, trying to understand what it meant that Carl was gone. She felt helpless. So much unfinished, so much dangling ... "I really didn't know much about Carl. But why should I? Three years married and about to be divorced."

'Valerie!"

"Well, we were trying to work things out—that's why we came up here. Carl thought a few days away from everything would make us romantic and forgetful. I don't think he really thought so, though; he was so worried about something at home he couldn't have put anything together, much less a marriage. And we'd never had the kind of passion you'd need to bring love back. And he had someone else, you know."

"He couldn't have! He adored you!"

"No, he didn't. I'm not sure what Carl felt about me. Or about anything. We were friends—we were always friends more than lovers —but lately we were hardly talking. He was so involved in something, and of course someone else..."

The next morning, very early, Lily Grace came to Valerie's room. "If you need comfort, I'd like to help you."

Valerie gave a small smile. "You can pray I don't lose my feet or toes from frostbite; I could use some intervention there. But I want to think about Carl by myself. I have a lot of sorting out to do. I hope you understand that."

"Of course." Lily looked at her thoughtfiilly. "I've never been married. But I think the death of a spouse would be like losing a part of yourself, even if your marriage was filled with doubts and silence."

Valerie returned her look. "How old are you, Lily?"

"Twenty-one. Twenty-two next week."

"And you saw that Carl and I had doubts and silence."

"It seemed clear to me." She smiled with a radiance that embraced Valerie. "I understand a great deal; it is a divine gift. You have a gift, too. I saw it in the forest: the way you knew what had to be done, and did it, at great risk to yourself. You have a strong sense of purpose and direction and you gave us our lives. I don't know how to thank you, but I'll pray for you. I'll pray that you do your sorting out and give yourself as much life as you gave us, and also that you don't have serious frostbite."

She kissed Valerie on both cheeks and left the room. And that was the last anyone saw of her. Sometime during the night she walked out of the hospital, alone. No one knew where she went. I'd like to see her again, Valerie thought, even though she knew Lily had been wrong about one thing: never in her life had Valerie Sterling had a strong sense of purpose or direction; for thirty-three years she had simply drifted wherever pleasure took her.

But I helped everyone after the crash; I got them out of the forest. That was a new Valerie. But I don't know what I should do next. Or what I want to do.

The next morning Valerie and the others were flown to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Two days later, Valerie's doctor allowed a young reporter, who had followed her from Glens Falls, to interview her. He brought a photographer. "How did you feel.>" the reporter asked. "Did you worry about wild animals .> How did you know which direction to go? Were you ever lost? Have you had survival training? Did you pray a lot? What did you think about?"

"Putting one foot in front of the other," said Valerie.

"She thought about saving the people she'd left behind," her mother said firmly. "That was what kept her going: knowing they'd die without her. She was freezing and exhausted and she'd just about collapsed when that young man found her, but she wouldn't let herself give up. She's a genuine heroine."

Those words, on the front page of the Glens Falls Times with Valerie's picture, were seen by editors in New York and Long Island, who sent their own reporters and photographers. This time Valerie gave her own answers. She thought the reporters foolish for romanticizing that awftil night, but they were so serious she patiendy repeated her story, answering all their questions except those about Carlton.

Television reporters and cameramen arrived, crowding into the hospital sunroom. All three networks, and CNN and the Enderby Broadcasting Network, because Valerie not only provided the kind of human-interest story they always looked for, she also was sensational

on television. Her beauty was captivating, even with the scratches and bruises that were just beginning to heal; her voice was low, warm and polished, and her vivid face showed every emotion as she described again and again the whole experience, from the crash landing on the lake to her rescue by Harvey Gaines.

And with the Enderby Broadcasting Network came Sybille En-derby. "You're such a celebrity!" she said to Valerie, holding her hand as she bent down to kiss her cheek. "We never thought you'd be a star on my television network, did we.>" She brought a chair close to Valerie. Her black hair was intricately braided into a chignon, and her pale-blue eyes looked like mother-of-pearl against her dark olive complexion. She wore cashmere trimmed with fur. "Tell me about Carl."

Valerie shook her head. "I can't talk about him."

"I just can't believe it. I was with him, with both of you, just a few days ago at Lake Placid. I was so glad Lily wanted to stay on when I had to get home; I thought you'd enjoy each other. Carl thought she was so unusual. And now he's gone. Could he talk after you crashed? What did he say?"

Valerie sighed. Sybille never could let go of anything. As far back as college, she never swerved from a goal she had set herself. "I won't talk about Carl," she said firmly. "Maybe someday, but not now."

'Well... but you will call me, won't you, if you want to talk? After all, I knew Carl. Not well, but he was a friend."

"I know. Have you talked to Lily Grace? She disappeared from the hospital in Glens Falls; is she all right?"

"She's fine. She's back home and singing your praises. You were a bigger hit with her than I ever was, and I was the one who gave her a job."

Valerie's eyebrows rose. "I wasn't trying to be a hit. I was trying to survive."

After that visit, Sybille telephoned often from her home in Washington, urging confidences that Valerie was not ready to give. Her other friends were more interested in the drama of the crash and her struggle through the forest. They visited all during Valerie's second week in the hospital, bringing news of the social life in New York and Washington and Virginia, telling her the parties weren't the same without her.

And later, when Valerie's brief stardom had faded and her days were quieter, flowers and a note arrived from Nicholas Fielding. It had been more than twelve years since they were together at college, and they had seen each other only once since then, but, reading his brief note in

his sprawling handwriting, she remembered with perfect clarity the clasp of their bodies in the creaky bed in his apartment in Palo Alto, and the way he had touched her cheek, just once, when she told hirn she didn't want to see him again.

Last of all, Daniel Lidiigate, Valerie's lawyer, arrived. She was in the sunroom, widi Rosemary. "Terrible diing," Lidiigate said, kissing Valerie with nervous litde pecks. "Knew him all my life; I can't imagine not seeing him on die polo field and in the club, drinking bourbon and telling the rest of us how we should have played the game. I remember when we were kids he'd do the same diing on the Softball field. Did I ever tell you about the time—we were, oh, maybe eleven or twelve—I got so mad at him I took my bat and—"

"Dan." Valerie looked up at him. "You're stalling. Sit down so I can look at you. I don't need stories about Carl; I need to know how much money I have. Not a lot of details, just the general picture."

"Right." He sat in a wicker armchair. "You don't know too much about Carl's affairs."

"I don't knovv^ anything; you know that. He was the executor of my father's estate and he's handled our portfolios. Mother's and mine, ever since. Why else would I ask you.>"

"Right." Lidiigate paused. "Valerie—" He ran a diumb along his nose, pushing up his gold-rimmed glasses; diey promptly slid down again. "There's a problem. Something I'd never have imagined of Carl. The most incredibly imprudent behavior..."

"What does that mean?" Valerie remembered Cariton's anxiety; the way they had rushed back; his distraction the past few weeks. "What is it?"

He wiped his forehead and his nose. "He lost badly, you see, in the stock market. Very badly, I'm afraid."

"How badly? Dan, how badly?"

"About fifteen million dollars. But—"

"Fifteen million dollars?"

Lidiigate cleared his throat. "Right. In the market. But that isn't there's more, you see. We assume he tried to recoup his losses. We don't have any idea how, and of course we can't ask—"

"Dan."

"Right. He borrowed, you see, on everything: your houses, your apartment in New York, your horses and paintings and antiques—he borrowed on all of it and then he converted your bonds to cash. That gave him approximately another thirteen million dollars."

Valerie tried to focus on his earnest brown eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses. "Everything we had." Her voice was a whisper. "And where is it?"