Legacy (7 page)

'You're troubling him, too. I can see it in him since you've come back. He hadn't really noticed you so much these past years, with you away at school and traveling in the summertime. But now here you are, finished with school, back in his house, and all grown up, and he just wasn't ready for it!'

We were interrupted by the too eager bright voice of Amanda Scott, who was announcing herself to the butler and greeting him as if he were a long-lost friend.

Mother turned to me and patted my hand. 'I hope you understand, dear. He's wrong, but I hope you can forgive him anyway.'

She rose and went forward to greet the Scotts, Amanda and her father, Reverend Scott, the rector of our Episcopal church.

As I waited behind, I felt the pain of uncertainty once again. I knew I could not find it in my heart to forgive Father. As much as Mother would have like me to forgive him, he had hurt me too deeply. He had deliberately denied me the respect I was entitled to, and I was too proud to let that pass. Still, I told myself, I could find other ways to get even with him instead of spoiling his dinner party tonight. After all, it was Mother's company here, as well as Father's, and she was likely to be just as hurt as he by anything I might do that would publicly embarrass him.

So I greeted Reverend Scott and then made small talk with his freckle-faced daughter Amanda as if tonight were just another night, and as if I were glad to see them. I admired Amanda's new paisley shawl and said how I thought the green of the material went well with her red hair. I examined the mother-of-pearl calling-card box that one of the women of the church had given her. I chatted about our new silver napkin rings, each of which had a tiny silver vase on its top that held a fresh red rosebud.

But I vowed that Father would get no help from me in his battle with Brad Graybar. I would not tell him what I had seen on Legacy, not even if ten of Father's paid men were going to get caught for trying to wreck Brad Graybar's mill!

At dinner I was to be seated beside Justin McKay, as I had guessed I would be. We had fourteen persons, not counting our family, at the table, but, to my delight, Dr. McKay was not yet there. During the first course I could not resist giving a frosty smile to Father, down at the end of the table, as my eyes took in the empty seat beside me. The best-laid plans!

But then the doctor's lean figure appeared at the dining room doorway, being directed to his seat by our butler. A momentary hush fell over the group as Justin sat down while Father greeted him. Justin waved their attentions aside with a few quick words of explanation and bade everyone not to mind his being late. After he had seated himself, at my right, the others at the table retuned to their conversations and he began talking with me in a casual, easy manner that put me surprisingly off my guard.

'I suppose you're done with school now for the summertime,' he remarked. 'What do you read now on your own time?' He cocked his head and looked at me out of the corner of his eye as he applied his spoon to the fruit cup. His blue eyes had a twinkle to them up close, and there were little lines at the corner of his eyelids when he smiled. Was this the snobbish know-it-all we had heard about?

'Oh, nothing much.' I was wondering how old he was - thirty-two, perhaps? - and the words just came out by themselves. 'Just a cheap novel I bought to read on the train coming home.' As soon as I said the words I winced inwardly, but then I told myself that it did not matter. I wanted to make a bad impression on Justin McKay. It would serve Father right!

'That so?' he continued amiably. 'I thought you'd say you'd been reading poetry. Don't you read poetry? I thought all the well-off young ladies read poetry.'

'I didn't say I didn't - just not now.' I found myself smiling.

'Haven't unpacked those slender little volumes yet, eh? You mean you like to read poetry?'

I allowed that I did, occasionally. Then I asked him if he read poetry, too, and he laughed.

'Only to fall asleep - wasn't that what you were expecting? No? Well, to tell you the truth, I've been known to read a verse or two in my time. In fact, I've even seen it do some good.' He went on, lightly. 'Actually, that's why I asked you in the first place about what you liked to read.'

'I don't understand.'

'Have to let me finish first,' he admonished, his eyes still laughing. 'Now, you see, down at the clinic we have quite a few people who appreciate a good story or a bit of poetry to take their minds off their troubles - and they've got troubles aplenty, I'll guarantee you. But the problem is that most of them can't read.'

'So you need someone to read to them.'

'We had someone. Nice lady, but she moved west last week and the patients miss her fiercely. Do you think you'd have time? They'd appreciate it. You can depend on that. Just an hour or two every day.'

I hesitated.

'Oh, come on, you can do it. The hard part will be getting away after just an hour or two. Come on, you'll do them a lot of good.'

'Well, I guess I could try it and see if ...'

From across the table Amanda Scott interrupted. 'Excuse me, Dr. McKay.' She leaned towards him, her green eyes bright, her thin face and mouth set in a determined smile. 'You know, I'm Amanda Scott, Reverend Scott's daughter, and I couldn't help overhearing - about the poor people at your clinic, I mean.'

He nodded politely. 'I'm delighted to meet you.'

'Well,' she continued, and suddenly I realized that Amanda was subtly copying Dr. McKay's slight Southern drawl as she spoke, 'I have had some experience with elocution and all, and I'd be delighted to come to your clinic and read' - she looked at me before she finished, and then back to him - 'if there's a need.'

He raised his eyebrows and smiled slightly. 'Well, we'd be most happy to have you, both of you. Perhaps you'll want to come on alternate days, or even work out a schedule of readings.'

'Oh, yes,' said Amanda, 'we'll have to talk about that, won't we, Catherine?'

'I'll be pleased to read to your patients, Dr.Dr. McKay,' I said. 'What time would you like ... us to be there?'

We soon agreed to meet tomorrow afternoon after church, for the first day, and to take turns in the mornings thereafter. Then Amanda's attention was drawn away by Judge Hawthorne, whom Mother had purposely seated on her left. The judge, in his fifties, nonetheless came alive in the presence of a young lady, and especially, it seemed, in the presence of Amanda. She had all she could do to maintain a polite smile on her face. As I watched her struggling with the judge's droning witticisms, I felt amusement but also sympathy. There was nothing really wrong with Amanda. She had a good heart, from all I knew of her, and she was continually doing favors for people in connection with the church. Since her mother had died, she had become more or less the mainstay of social events there, which was quite a responsibility at her age. She was only two years older than I. Why not let her have her chance at a bit of happiness? She was working hard at being good, perhaps too hard. Maybe that was the only thing about her that I didn't like.

Certainly I was not jealous because she had invited herself to share Dr. McKay's invitation to read to his patients. Dr. McKay was nothing to me. He was distant. He was a perfectionist. He was Father's idea.

Suddenly I was seized with a thought that nearly made me laugh aloud. What if he had only been looking for someone to read at his clinic? Wouldn't that be a wonderful joke on Father?

I wondered if that were the case. Dr. McKay was now talking with the woman on his right. I looked around the table. Above us the huge crystal-tiered chandelier glittered brilliantly. Around us the white linen glowed, and the gold filigree on the wine goblets shone. Those at the table were enjoying themselves. There were two ministers, three mill owners including Father and Dr. McKay, two lawyers, a judge, and their womenfolk. The net worth of this table was probably somewhere close to ten million dollars. Much of it was now in stocks and bonds and real estate, but it had all started with lumber, and that had all started with Father's idea for a lumber 'boom'. Once he had built the huge floating log corral upriver, branded logs could be kept secure until they were needed by the mills. Fewer were lost or stolen, and expenses decreased accordingly. But at the same time, with the war in the South, there was a huge rise in demand and the mills couldn't turn out enough boards to begin to satisfy the need. And so new mills had been built, and prices had gone up, and more logs were cut and branded and stored in the boom . . .

And Father, instead of being a farmer or a lawyer, was now at the head of a table of millionaires. I looked at him again, and I was forced to admit that he did carry it off well. He enjoyed himself, and he made others around the table feel a part of his excitement as he planned more great deeds. I could hear him talking about the hotel he had opened last year in the middle of the oak park near our house: two hundred rooms, four stories, an enclosed park with six white-tailed deer, and a Continental chef. Also, there was a ninety-nine-year agreement with the Pennsylvania Railroad that their passenger trains between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh would stop here for meals. And they would never move the station from where it now stood, only a hundred feet from the hotel's real entrance, even though the downtown section of Grampian was more than two miles away, further down the river. Was that an inconvenience for railway passengers who wanted to come to Grampian? Perhaps, but Father was just completing a trolley line into town for them. He had thought of everything.

But he had not thought well enough for his daughter, I told myself. He might have sent me to school and taught me to keep an account book, and even let me balance some of his own books during my vacations, but that was not enough for him to own me. Now, even if he had another plan, I had Steven Graybar!

Across the table, Reverend Scott raised his glass in an elaborate toast to praise the new cathedral Father had just given the Episcopal church. When he was done, Father glowed with pride, but he shook his head modestly.

'That's enough said about that, Reverend. Next thing you know, these Baptists and these Methodists' - he indicated the judge, and lawyer Clay Anderson - 'will be wanting me to build one for them, too!'

There was appreciative laughter around the table. On my right, Justin McKay asked me if the tall stone Gothic structure had really cost all of eighty-thousand dollars to build, the way the papers had reported.

'That's how much he paid the contractors,' I said, for I had seen Father's books on the matter just after I had come home from school last Easter. 'They estimated twenty-five thousand, but they charged him eighty.'

'That's quite a fortune. Your father must be very generous.'

'He can afford it,' was all I said. But as I spoke I remembered Mother's words, and I wondered.

'Hey, Sam,' Judge Hawthorne was saying, 'you goin' to let Brad Graybar come down to your church now that he's asked you up to his place next week?' He spoke with a good-natured laugh, obviously intending to make fun of the invitations that Brad had sent to all of the town's wealthy residents this morning. I could still picture ours, a large envelope of thick cream-colored paper, with an elaborate red wax seal. Father had torn it in half without even opening it. Now he remained silent.

'They say he's bringing in a famous orchestra from New York,' one of the other women, Clay Anderson's wife, added. 'And my baker tells me he'll be busy all week with the pastries. And there are more people coming up by train from Harrisburg.'

'Brad's spending a lot of money,' remarked Reverend Scott.

And the unasked question hung in the air: Would Father take it unkindly, be really offended, if someone who was at his table this Saturday night went up to Brad Graybar's next Saturday?

'And I suppose there'll be those who go up there to see what he's bought with it all,' said my mother, her calm voice causing heads to turn from Father's end of the table down to hers. She, in turn, looked directly at Father, as if reminding him that he ought to give his opinion on the subject and get it over with so that his guests would at least know where they stood.

Father took the hint. 'I suppose there will be, too,' he said. 'But I happen to know old Brad's got another purpose in mind besides just showing the good people of Grampian a good time. Isn't that right, Judge?'