Land Sakes (18 page)

With the rain battering down, I couldn't see for sure if Percival was going to the restaurant or if there was another car parked back there. I couldn't keep my suspicions to myself any longer. “Mrs. Winchester, you don't think Percival is involved in this, do you?”

“Percival? Heavens, no. He wouldn't dare.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“He can't afford to get caught doing anything illegal.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Trust me. Percival can't afford to get arrested. That's the main reason he had us leave Chicago. He was afraid that dog owner would arrest him as well as sue me.”

Well, I was not so sure, and if he made it back to the car without anything happening to us, I made up my mind I would get to the bottom of this.

By the time Percival returned with our ham and eggs, coffee and toast, he was a pathetic sight. After taking off his slicker, he threw it in the trunk, ran around the car, and hopped in the front seat. Even so, his uniform got very wet. Before starting the car, he got busy trying to dry himself off with a towel.

As we drove on, Percival had his breakfast on the seat beside him and ate using one hand. That made me nervous. With the rain pouring down, you couldn't see far enough ahead to know if there was a washout or mud
slide on this road, a fallen tree or a stalled car. And not once did the rain slacken. If anything, it was coming down harder.

On a slow grade, Percival went around a logging truck, which scared the daylights out of me. I heard about a woman got killed when a log rolled off of one of them trucks. Percival was downright reckless. It seemed he couldn't allow anybody to be ahead of us, much less pass us. My mouth was in my throat the whole way.

Mrs. Winchester seemed not to notice. All she wanted to do was hear me talk. She wanted to know all about Dora, and when I was done telling her that, she said, “Go on.” So I told her about some of the other women at Priscilla Home.

Needless to say, I was relieved when we got to the lodge and my feet were back on solid ground, even if it was muddy ground. A young man came out the door bearing a huge umbrella. We didn't need it because we were under the entryway.

One look at Percival's white face and the circles under his eyes and I thought,
That man needs help
. He looked like warmed-over death. I told the fellow with the umbrella to take care of our luggage. “Percival, why don't you get inside and dry off? This man can park the car.”

I was surprised that Percival agreed to let the man park the car. By that, I knew he was plum wore out. He held the door open, and the three of us went inside.

The lobby of that place was built with huge timbers, and its walls were full of the heads of dead animals—moose, deer, elk, foxes, a raccoon, and who knows what
else. Gave me the creeps. Some day all them kind of animals ought to gang up on all them bloodthirsty hunters and let them have it.

Some of the staff members welcomed us—a butler-looking man and two women in white uniforms. Supper was ready, and as soon as we freshened up, Mrs. Winchester and I sat down at the table. While I waited for her to finish her double martini I wondered where Percival was eating, so I just asked her.

“Oh, he will eat in the servants' quarters.”

Here this man had knocked himself out taking care of us, driving in all that rain and getting soaked to the skin, yet he couldn't sit at the table with us? “Why?” I asked.

She looked at me kind of funny. “Well, I don't know. That's just the way it's always been.”

It wasn't my place to say anything more, but I think she got my drift. I hadn't questioned it when we were in hotels because, with him being a man, I judged Percival would rather not sit with us. But here, in her lodge, it was like being in a private home.

Soon the maid came in to serve us, announcing, “Mrs. Stonewall Jackson's Stuffed Partridges.”

Well, one look at my plate and I was about to say she could give them partridges back to Mrs. Stonewall Jackson. There was stuffing, a salad, and pieces of meat on little triangle pieces of toast. That's no way to serve up birds. The way I cook my quail is I pick plump ones, split and draw them, use lots of butter, some pepper and salt, maybe some bacon. I brown them on both sides, then roast them slow in a warm oven and keep basting
them with butter. Soon as they get tender you got yourself some good eating. This business of serving partridges on itty-bitty pieces of toast, well, that ain't nothing I'd ever seen before.

But then I took a bite. Was that ever good! Whatever herbs they put in that stuffing made it the tastiest I'd ever ate, and as for the partridges, I right away said, “I got to get this recipe.”

Mrs. Winchester smiled. “Because this is a hunting lodge, Philip thinks they should serve wild game. I like this we're having, but when it comes to elk and the like, I prefer beef or fish.” The maid brought her another drink.

I didn't go so much for the aspic-asparagus mould with Roquefort dressing, but I was hungry and ate it all, as well as the chocolate mousse they served for dessert.

When we finished eating, Mrs. Winchester took her drink and went into the library. “Feel free,” she said. “The maid will see after me. If you should see Percival, tell him Desi and Lucy will sleep in my room tonight.”

I made it my business to find Percival. I wanted to give him a hand, if I could. I found him in the garage washing the car with his sleeves rolled up. I could see how thin and pale his arms were. He was too thin to be a healthy man. It looked like he had already downed two beers; the empty bottles were over by the washcloths. I gave him Mrs. Winchester's message.

“That means I'll have to groom the dogs,” he said wearily as he sloshed suds over the back of the Rolls. “Can't I give you a hand?”

“Would you?”

“I would be glad to.”

“Here's a chamois.” He tossed me a yellow cloth. “You can dry the hood and grill.”

I worked for a while and then asked, “Percival, what did you mean when you said you have orders?”

He squeezed the sponge over the bucket. “Miss E., when I took this position, I was told that the day Mrs. Win
chus
ter succeeded in getting her name in the paper would be the day I'd get my notice. Those were my orders, and so far I've been able to keep the Win
chus
ter name out of the tabloids.”

“So that's why you didn't want to call the cops?”

“Exactly.”

That troubled me. A man like Percival shouldn't have to kowtow to “orders.” And why would he want this job—treated like some second-class citizen? Of course, I probably knew the answer, but it's unnatural for a man to love an automobile and dogs the way he does.

“Percival, when you were a boy, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

He opened another bottle. “Won't you have a beer?”

“No thanks.”

He drank several swallows and savored them before answering. “I always wanted to be a race car driver.”
That figures
.

“When I'd go in a store and see that life-size picture of Richard Petty cut out of cardboard and standing there dressed for the race, I dreamed of the day I would be that man.”

I remembered seeing those cutouts in grocery stores advertising different things, and I thought to myself,
Per
cival, that's exactly what you are. You are a cardboard cutout with no more life than Mrs. Winchester has got. You don't have no life except driving that Rolls, tending to these dogs, and jumping when she says jump
.

“Are you married, Percival?”

The question bothered him, and I was sorry I asked. “No,” he said and downed half that beer. “I'm not married nor ever will be.” He sounded bitter as gall. “Do you want to know why?”

“No, not really. That's none of my business.” Of course, I really wanted to know.

He took off his glasses and wiped his face on his sleeve. “But you do wonder why being a chauffeur is the best I can do?”

I didn't answer. “Do you want me to dry the wheels?” I asked.

“Yes, dry the wheels.”

We said nothing more until we finished washing the car and were ready to wash the dogs. I held Lucy for him. He opened another bottle and took a drink. I was getting worried; he was getting pie-eyed drunk even if he wasn't slurring his words.

“Miss E., I was born in the Ozarks,” he said. “Does that surprise you? I learned how to be a chauffeur by watching old movies where actors with phony British accents put their noses in the air and serve the wealthy. I learned how to act the part, and now it comes so naturally I'm afraid I will forget who I am... I don't want to forget who I am.”

“Percival, you've had too many beers. You don't need to be telling me all this.”

“Oh, but I do—I do need to tell you. I've been rotten to you, and yet you come and help me... Miss E., you remind me of my mother. She was a gentle woman who worked oh, so hard. I was her only child. I grew up in the Arkansas backwoods, and it was hard making ends meet. It was biscuits and gravy that kept body and soul together. Pinto beans were a treat. At fourteen I went to work in a sawmill.”

I was bowled over. This hoity-toity Percival—brought up dirt poor—working in a sawmill? He had struck me as somebody who come out of some ivy league school.

“There was an accident at the sawmill,” he was saying. “I was injured, and it left me a cripple for life.”

I was puzzled. He walked all right. Then it dawned on me that the injury had crippled him otherwise. This was too much; he was telling me more than I should be hearing.
Tomorrow if he remembers all this, he'll be sorry and ashamed that he told me
.

But Percival was determined. He drank the last of the beer and handed me the bottle to put alongside the others. I was getting Desi ready for washing and was trying to think of something to say that would change the subject. I wasn't quick enough.

“A few months after the accident,” Percival was saying, “somebody burned down the sawmill.” After combing Lucy's long silky hair, he patted her affectionately and walked around her, eyeing her looks before letting her go. “They blamed me, said I burned the mill out of revenge over my injury.” He looked me square in the eyes. “But Miss E., I swear to God, I did not do it.”

I handed over Desi to him and led Lucy to her pallet.

Percival straightened up and took a deep breath. “I was arrested, tried for arson, and sent to reform school. Needless to say, it broke my mother's heart. I was confined in that youthful offenders facility until I was eighteen, then I was sent to the penitentiary to finish out my sentence. About that time, Mama died... I don't know why... They allowed me to go to her funeral. In fact, the warden sent flowers. Afterward, he made me a trustee, gave me privileges. When I came up for parole eighteen months later, they let me go with five years' probation.”

“Percival, I had no idea—”

“It's all right, Miss E. By the way, Percival Pettigrew is not my real name. My name is Marvin Collins. I took an assumed name, hoping none of my prison mates would be able to look me up when they got out. The name I chose fits the role, don't you think?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Miss E., I tell you all this not to get your sympathy but to explain why this job means so much to me. People do not hire ex-convicts.”

“But Percival, you got this one.”

“I know, but only because some kind soul helped me. A social service worker put me in touch with one of the personnel managers of the Win
chus
ter enterprises, gave him my good prison record, and persuaded him that my incarceration better qualified me for security work. The man hired me for the main purpose of keeping Mrs. Win
chus
ter from embarrassing her husband with the publicity stunts she pulls. So far I've succeeded.”

He was finished with Desi, so I gathered up their leashes to take the dogs to Mrs. Winchester's bedroom.

“Percival, I wish I had known you better sooner. I haven't been as kind to you as I should have been. If there is ever anything I can do—”

He brushed me aside. “I haven't had anybody to talk to in years, but when you came along, a down-to-earth person, unashamed of being yourself, I felt guilty not telling you the truth. You're a good woman, a Christian lady like my mother was.”

“Thank you, Marvin.”

He smiled. “Sounds good.”

I reached for the leashes. I was too full to say anything. I felt miserable; I had treated him so bad.
How in the world will I ever make it up to him
?

18

As I took the dogs up to Mrs. Winchester's room, my mind was taken up with all Percival had told me. I felt guilty and ashamed. I had made fun of him, judged him, thought evil of him. What bothered me the most was that I found it easy to love him as Marvin but had not loved him as Percival. It's easy to love the underdog; it had not crossed my mind that I should love the snob. Yet here was one and the same in a man, one as needy as the other.