A ruling passion : a novel (75 page)

Valerie nodded. "I'd bet on that."

"Do you know who she was?"

"No. I was sure there was someone, but he denied it and I didn't push. I thought we'd work things out, or we wouldn't, and another woman wouldn't be the cause of anything; she was only a sign that things weren't that wonderful between us. But now I'd like to know."

"Why? It's been a year and a half; why fret over it.> Put it behind you."

Valerie slipped the fuel bills into an envelope. "I can't. I think about it a lot. I haven't been able to do much about it, but it's always there, at the back of my mind. There's too much I don't know."

"About what.>"

"About an)iJiing. Carl's affair—or affairs; I don't know how many he had—what he did with our money, what he meant by the things he said before he died. They probably don't have anything to do with each other, but that bothers me, too. There are too many mysteries. If I can't find all the answers, that's no reason not to try to find some of them." She went to the telephone. "I'm going to Placid. If Carl was there with someone, Mae would know."

"Mae.> Oh, the housekeeper. But the detective already talked to her."

"Of course. Obviously she didn't tell him Carl was up there in the spring and fall, without me. I'll have to ask her about that, too."

She called the airline to make reservations; she called Sophie to tell her she would not be in the next day; she called Nick at home and left a message with Elena. "I'll be back Tuesday. I have some business to take care of." And early Monday morning, she flew to the Lake Placid airport.

Mae Williamson still lived in town, in the house she had lived in all her life. After calling to make sure she was home, Valerie rented a car and drove to the house. "Oh, but it's good to see you!" Mae cried, hugging Valerie. She was tall and spare, with a narrow, long-nosed face, sharp eyes, and a warm smile for the few who won her approval. "You don't know how I've missed you, I cried for you when Mr. Sterling was killed, poor Mrs. Sterling, I said, she'll be alone now." She sat in the swing on the front porch and patted the seat beside her. "We'll have lunch in a few minutes, I fixed something when you called, but first tell me how you are and what you're doing."

"I'd love some lunch," Valerie lied, knowing she could not refuse Mae one more chance to feed her. "But then I'll have to leave; I have a job now."

"You? Oh, Lx)rd, Lx)rd, we heard about your money being gone, we didn't know how, but we heard it, and I said to myself, things'll be bad for Mrs. Sterling, I knew they would."

"Not too bad," Valerie said. "I'm getting along. Mae, I'm trying to find out some things about Mr. Sterling. I know it's been a long time, but you always had an amazing memory and if you could help me I'd appreciate it."

Mae fixed her with a melancholy look. "My memory ain't what it used to be, it skips around like a goat, there's whole patches it just misses, but I'll tell you what I remember if you're sure you want to know."

Valerie smiled. "That sounds like a warning. Mae, he had women up here, didn't he?"

"One woman. That he did."

"You didn't tell the detective."

"Why would I tell him, and make Mr. Sterling look like a bastard and you like a fool? It didn't make any difference to the detective, he was just poking around for whatever he could dig up, and he wouldn't care if you heard it from him or the town crier, but I cared, I thought if you ever needed to know I'd tell you, and it wouldn't be so hard, coming fi-om me. I don't have secrets from you, you know."

"Who was she, Mae?"

"That I don't know; I never did get her name. At first, I thought it was you. I mean, Mr. Sterling told me not to come the days he was there—he always said 'he,' never Sve'—so I didn't, I'd come in when he'd left and all I knew was somebody'd been there, and why not think it was you, since your robe was out—" Valerie winced and Mae put her hand to her mouth. "Oh, damn me, I'm hurting you."

"No, it's all right. I want to know it all; there's no sense in just knowing part of it."

"Well, that's so; nobody ever pulled a tooth halfway out and called it a day. She used your robes, both of them, and there was a little of your face powder spilled on the dressing table, and one of your lipsticks not put away, that sort of thing. I never thought too much about it at first, but later that spring I started thinking something was fishy, you never calling me like you usually do, so the next time he called and said he was coming up, I was in the house when they got there, like I hadn't finished cleaning, and I looked all surprised when they walked in, not as surprised as he was, let me tell you, but then I really was surprised, no pretending about it, because it wasn't you. I made sure I saw her a few other times after that, but I didn't know who she was. But, hold on, what's wrong with me, I'm forgetting the important part. You know her. That was another reason I didn't tell the detective, I didn't

want you to know your husband was playing around with one of your friends. I don't know how good a friend, but good enough to be a guest, because you had her staying here, her and that little blond preacher, that last weekend, just before Mr. Sterling was killed."

Chapter 26

t first, Lily was the only one who noticed a change in Sybille. She seemed distracted, unable to focus on anything for very long, and always very angry. Lily would have talked to her about it, asked her if she couldn't take some time off, maybe even go away for a vacation, but she did not. Because, just then, Lily had her own distractions. She had fallen in love.

Three months earlier, on her twenty-third birthday, Gus Emery had taken her to lunch. She was so surprised when he invited her that she went straight to Sybille to ask her what she thought. "He's probably looking for a raise," Sybille said. "Go ahead, find out what he wants; Gus never does anything without a reason."

After that, whenever Gus asked her anywhere, Lily kept it a secret. She had always liked him for his soft voice and careftil manners, the way he seemed to be watching himself to make sure he was nice to her. Sometimes he reminded her of Rudy Dominus, trying to be fatherly. And she liked his looks: handsome, almost pretty, with pale skin, long eyelashes, and a mouth that shaped each word he spoke. His voice was rough, but he kept it low with her.

Lily knew no one liked Gus as well as she did; even Valerie hadn't gotten along with him when she worked there, and that puzzled her. But Lily often was not sure what made other people behave the way they did. Sometimes she lay awake in bed, worrying about that; she really didn't know a lot about people, so how could she be giving them advice? And if she didn't know much about others, probably she didn't know very much about herself either, and then she certainly had no business telling anyone what to do.

Those were the most awfiil times, when she doubted herself. But they passed. Sybille always told her how important she was to others; Reverend Bassington put his arm around her—which she didn't like, but he meant it lovingly—and praised her miraculous understanding of the human heart; and after every sermon her congregation touched her hand and told her they loved her. Then Lily forgot those black hours and believed she was unique.

And so she did not worry about Gus's unpopularity. She liked him; she saw the good in him. It bothered her that Valerie hadn't, but Valerie had been gone for a long time, and Gus was always there. At first they'd just worked together and it had been pleasant because he was so helpftil and admiring, but later he sought her out. It was uncanny how he seemed to know where she would be, and he would be there first, or he would appear within a few minutes, at her elbow, monopolizing her, being helpful with whatever she was doing, telling her how wonderftil she was. Often he gave her little bits of advice, like suggesting she use people's names more often as she answered their letters on "At Home with Reverend Grace," to make them feel she was talking right to them.

Gus knew a great deal about the world, and he seemed totally self-sufficient. Lily was intrigued by that: how could one person not need anyone else? She asked him that the first time they went to dinner in a small town near Culpeper. "You can teach yourself not to need anybody," he said. "It's hard, but once you've learned it, nobody can hurt you, ever."

"Who hurt you so badly that you feel that way?" Lily asked. "What happened to you?"

He shook his head. 'Tou don't want to hear about me."

"Of course I do! I like you and I want to know all about you."

That pleased him, Lily saw ... or was it satisfaction that had crossed his face so fleetingly? She could not be sure. She knew so litde about him. Or about any man. Of course he was pleased, she told herself. He's pleased that I'm interested in him.

"Someday maybe I'll tell you about my past," he said. "It'll be short, though; I've forgotten most of it."

"That's not true," Lily said softly.

"It sure is. Well, for tonight ifs true."

Sybille had asked about their lunch and Lily had told her exactly what had happened: they had talked about Graceville and "At Home with Reverend Grace" and the weather. "I think he just wanted someone to eat with," Lily said. "He wasn't after anything at all."

Later, when Sybille asked Lily if Gus had suggested lunch again, Lily said no, which was the truth, because by then Gus was asking her to dinner. They went out once a week, always on Wednesday when Sybille was at a meeting; she was having so many meetings lately she was paying much less attention to Lily. Gus thought it might have to do with the spreading scandal of Jim and Tammy Bakker. Everyone involved with television evangelism was absorbed in the story, trying to be prepared for any new revelations; everyone but Lily, that is, who was serenely confident that she had nothing to do with any of it, or anything like it, and felt only pity and sorrow for those who did. But since the scandal had broken, which happened about the time Graceville was becoming a real town, Sybille had been very busy, and Lily, in her small house in Culpeper, was on her own more than ever before.

And there was Gus, taking her to dinner every Wednesday night at tiny out-of-the-way restaurants where they sat for three or four hours, talking about themselves, their hands almost touching on the tablecloth. Gus told her about his past, a few small stories at a time. Most were sad, a few were tragic. Occasionally Lily had the terrible thought that he was making them up, but she was never sure why she thought it. It might have been the calm way he told them, or the fact that he never once had tears in his eyes, or the way he would pause and look at her to see her reactions. But all that could be explained by his pretended toughness, too. Lily was convinced he was far more sensitive than he said he was; she was convinced he was acting when he seemed so self-sufficient. And so she refused to listen to her doubts: she wanted to believe that he was completely honest with her, and she did. She believed she knew him better than he knew himself.

It was the first time she had made friends with a man who was not old enough to be her father or grandfather, and it gave her a warm, shivery feeling. She never asked herself what that meant; she only knew she looked forward to her Wednesday nights with a slight shortness of breath that made her feel a little odd, until Gus arrived at her door and then she began to feel wonderful.

She hugged her feelings to herself: she had a friend. Sybille had kept people away, women and men both; Sybille had said she had to conserve her strength and hoard her energy for her congregation; Sybille had said she couldn't take chances with strangers who would take advantage of her goodness and generosity. But it had been years since they even talked about that; Lily seemed so setded, and bound to Sybille, that the subject never came up anymore. Lily hadn't even thought about it very much until Valerie's friend Sophie asked her about friends and dates. It was a few months after that that Gus had asked her to lunch, and they became friends.

But even Lily knew it was more than a friendship. One Sunday night, Gus sent her a gardenia, with a note that said her sermon that morning had been the best he had ever heard anywhere. She had inhaled the heav}^, dizzying scent of the waxy flower, and not one thought of religion had come to her. Instead, she thought of Gus's hand, close to hers on the tablecloth a few nights before, and the way his soft lips shaped her name. The following week, he sent two gardenias, and Lily had to put them outside, because the scent made her slighdy ill, but all night long she visualized those pure white, glossy flowers nesded in their bed of green tissue paper, and she thought of Gus pinning them on her dress before her next sermon, his hands touching her, and she felt faint and ver}^ hot.

She remembered, years before, the girls in boarding school talking about getting hot and excited, but she had never dated, and had never experienced any of that herself. Still, she recognized it now, and thought she knew what was happening: her body had taken over and was having its own feelings about Gus, completely separate from her mind. Her mind said he was only a friend. Her body seemed to think he might be something else too. As soon as she let herself think that, guilt washed over her, and even in the privacy of her bedroom, she blushed.