Onyx (26 page)

There she stands, tall, slender, in a diaphanous, flowing dress, vibrant yet shy as a wood nymph … once we lay amid sycamore trees
.… He must have excused himself coherently because Caryll was at his side as they moved toward her.

“Why, Antonia.”

“Tom. It's good to see you again. And at such a proud occasion!” Her purposefully guarded smile wavered, and he knew she too was feeling the wild electric impulses set up by their nearness. “We were so delighted,” she continued a trifle breathily, “when Monty and Edwina sent us an invitation.”

“I should have thought of it myself.”

“You remember my son, Justin?”

“Sure I do. Hello, Justin.”

“Congratulations, sir.” Justin's voice was changing, but it was his air of thoughtful strength as much as his physical maturity that made him seem older than fourteen. He extended his hand.

As Tom clasped Justin's boyishly hard, bat-calloused palm, he felt an apostate quiver: a sense of wronging Caryll in Caryll's presence. “Thank you,” he said.

Antonia was fingering her daughter's silky red-gold hair. “But I don't believe you've met Zoe.”

Zoe's crisp white pleats swirled as she kicked a small curtsy. Her grace was as conspicuous as her beauty. “It's thrilling to be here, Mr. Bridger. I've only seen his royal highness at the trooping of the color.”

“You'll be much closer to the prince today,” Tom promised. “Antonia, this is my son, Caryll. Caryll, Mrs. Hutchinson is a Detroiter, at least she lived awhile on Woodward Avenue. And these are Justin and Zoe Hutchinson.”

“P-pleased to meet you,” Caryll stammered. His head remained bent, but he continued to dart timid glances at Zoe, whose thick-lashed dark gaze had remained on him. He grabbed for her hand, which was soft and pliant, releasing it only reluctantly when Justin's large, firm grip enfolded his hand. Caryll's mother having impressed on him the necessity of acting the good host, this improbably lovely little girl having captured his imagination, and Justin's blue eyes being warmer than the eyes of the other young English guests, Caryll mumbled, “Would you care for some sandwiches before the tour starts?”

“Delighted,” Zoe said grandly.

As they left the adults her eyes glinted with devilment, and she darted like a loosened spring toward the long, linen-swathed buffet. Caryll, infected by her vitality, kept up. Justin, behind them, tried for dignity.

Antonia murmured, “Tom, I—” then broke off.

Maud was descending on them. “Miss Dalzell!” she said with loud pleasure. “Who ever would have dreamed there'd be a familiar face today!”

“It's not Miss Dalzell anymore, Maud,” Tom said. “It's Mrs. Hutchinson.”

“And you're Mrs. Bridger,” Antonia said. “What a wonderful occasion.”

“Tom's day.” Maud beamed. Normally she avoided public displays of affection, but she linked her arm with Tom's. She was feeling the sweet, heady satisfaction of well-turned tables. Years ago she had sewn for Antonia and been jealous of her because of Tom.
And here I am, Tom's wife, hostess of this splash
. To Maud's credit she rarely thought of herself as a multimillionaire—but could any woman alive not relish this triumph? “How wonderful to see you again,” she said sincerely. “So you married an Englishman?”

Antonia shook her head. “An American.”

“But those
are
your two with Caryll?”

“Justin and Zoe, yes.”

“She'll be a real beauty—she is already. I'll bet you have a real time keeping your husband from spoiling her.” Maud glanced around. “Where is he? I'd love to meet him,” she said.

“I've been widowed quite a few years.”

“Oh, I am sorry.” The lowering of Maud's voice paid homage to death, and she held more tightly to her own husband. “It must be quite a chore raising children alone, especially a boy.”

“I cannot tell you how well Justin keeps Zoe and me in line.” Antonia's scrolled lips were pale, but her tone was
sec
.

Maud gave her loud, cheerful laugh.

“Caryll's a fine boy,” Antonia said. “He certainly resembles you.”

“That's what everybody says. But he has Tom's eyes, doesn't he, dear?”

Tom nodded. His breath was shallow; he felt as if liquid were being forced down his nostrils. This suffocation had nothing to do with Antonia's unanticipated presence—the joy of her nearness continued to hum along his nerves. No, it was the queer coyness of Maud's pressure against his side that he could not assimilate.

“Tom.” Monty had come over. “Can you excuse yourself from this charming company for a minute?”

“Of course he can,” Maud said, giving her husband a little push. “Go on, dear. Antonia and I have fifteen years to catch up on.”

“Hush.” Antonia put a finger to her lips. “You're giving away state secrets.”

As Monty drew Tom away Maud was laughing again.

She eyed Antonia, thinking,
She's still far too thin, I'll bet she doesn't weigh one twenty, but that Grecian cut has Poiret all over it. She's as lively as ever. A widow, hmmm
. All at once a thought popped into Maud's mind.
She certainly was cozy with Tom when I came over
. It was never Maud's proclivity to delve into the nuances of moods, but looking into Antonia's face, she saw that the luminous skin was pale and small muscles showed around the smile. Her warmth faded and a little chill penetrated through her new astrakhan cape.

“So you're great friends with Monty and Edwina?” she probed.

“We're at the same parties sometimes.”

“Then you must run into Tom.”

Antonia's lashes drew down. “I haven't seen him in years. But Hugh was over here, and he and the children write to one another. It's very kind of him—they don't know many Americans.”

“But the Edges are forever entertaining Tom, dragging him to parties,” Maud persisted. “If you're in
their
set, I don't see how you've avoided him.”

“I suppose it is odd.”

“He was quite sweet on you.”

“That was back in the ice age, Maud, our salad days.” Antonia spoke lightly, charmingly, but her eyes remained veiled.

Maud's forlorn jealousies were resurrected. “I used to think of myself as second fiddle,” she blurted.

“Antonia, darling!” a high, girlish voice caroled.

“Penelope. It's been ages.” Antonia's reply choked. “Maud, I … excuse me.”

She ran toward a full-bosomed matron to whom Maud had been introduced earlier, the countess of something. Maud touched her handkerchief to her forehead. Her immeasurable suspicions shamed her, yet the brief conversation had clinked with so many false notes that she—far from subtle—could not ignore the possibilities.

A stir was rippling through the alfresco gathering. Adults set down their champagne glasses, children raised on tiptoes to make themselves appear taller. A long black Daimler with two chauffeurs glided along the cobblestones, halting near the marquee, and a short, fair-haired young man emerged smiling from the limousine. Men bowed. Women curtsied, their big tulle-swathed hats touching their knees.

The twenty-year-old who was heir to the British empire shook hands with an American mechanic and his seamstress wife, their gentle little son, and, finally, with Trelinack, who wept openly. He, a Cousin Jack tin miner, meeting the old Queen's great-grandson! If only the missus could be here to share the golden-haired, handsome royal glory of it!

The doors to the main assembly were barred by a heavy blue satin ribbon that the rain had stiffened. The gold presentation scissors were not sharp. The Prince of Wales struggled. “My mother's better at this than I am,” he said with the smile that had charmed the world.

II

Down the five-hundred-yard length of the assembly clanked a grease-coated chain that towed an endless line of chassis frames to which axles, springs, mudguards, lamp brackets, wheels, and myriad other parts were bolted or seated or adjusted or tightened or secured, connected, grease-gunned, inspected, tagged.

Visitors, a brilliant swarm of gnats, hovered around laboring ants who wore tiny Union Jacks in their lapels. As the handsome young prince passed each worker briefly halted at his task, raising a hat, bowing: the prince, intent on listening to Tom amid the thunderous clangor, extended his upheld palm in a regal blessing that was surely descended from the ancient time of kingly priesthood. Tom's mouth curved in wry amusement. Even to his cynical mind the royal progress somehow sanctified his heavy, looming machinery.

The male guests clustered around Tom and Monty, listening. Justin, trying not to shove rudely, stayed very close. To him the platforms, engine hoists, overhead conveyors were heroic as well as huge, and he wished, fervently, that this impregnable fortress of adult masculinity were not the fiefdom of a man so mean-spirited as to blame his mother for old wrongs committed by her uncle.

After a half hour Tom and the prince reached the end of the chain, where a driver was about to get into the completed skeleton of a Fiver.

“May I?” shouted the prince.

“Your Highness,” Tom shouted back. “As you can see there's only a gasoline tank to sit on—petrol, I mean.”

“Don't strike any matches, then,” joked the young man, climbing on. Tom, too, jumped up to the cylindrical, sloshing tank, and the prince drove them off the line. Factory workers cheered, a full-throated sound above the metallic roar, as the royal prince steered their handiwork through the high door. A moment to be treasured and embellished for a lifetime. A white line had been painted along the broad alley, and the prince followed it, throttling the motor to an expert halt at the body chute.

Tom said, “You have a job anytime you apply.”

The prince laughed. “Your pay, I hear, is excellent.”

Guests swirled after them.

A drab, dark gray body emerged from the second story, jouncing down the tobogganway. Under the surveillance of the prince and his entourage, eight red-faced workers, the shortest one perched atop the improvised ladder of a wooden crate, bolted and adjusted the utilitarian body to the chassis. The assemblies continued, but the visitors were moving to a marquee where Monty presented the Prince of Wales with a gold tray engraved with a Fiver, and then everyone sipped and nibbled convivially.

III

Zoe and Caryll were sharing a plate of cucumber sandwiches.

“How old are you?” Zoe asked.

“Ten and a half.”

“I'm nine.” Zoe added more than a year and took another sandwich. “What form are you in?”

“In America we have grades. Fifth.”

“America! Grades, ha! Is Hugh your uncle?”

“Yes.”

“We write and he sends us lovely Christmas presents,” she said. “Do you always mumble?”

“I wasn't mumbling,” Caryll said louder.

Zoe gave a contented smile. “Americans never talk clearly,” she said in a kinder tone. “Have you been to a motorcar factory before?”

“Not this one. But I work Saturdays at Hamtramck.”

“Ham-tra-mack,” she enunciated scornfully. Her eyes danced and darted as if searching out a mischief. Grumbling roars escaped through a propped-open window. “What the dickens is going on in there?”

“They're assembling parts, I can't tell you which.”

“
I
don't care.
I
came to see his Royal Highness. Justin's the one who's batty about motorcars, not me.” Finishing the sandwich, she licked her pink tongue across her pretty lips. “Show me.”

“What?”

“Silly. That.” She jerked her head toward the noise.

“We're not meant to leave.”

“You're afraid.”

“Not at all,” he denied.

“Prove it,” she said. Her narrow little black leather shoes flashed over the cobbles, and she disappeared around the corner of the shop.

Caryll glanced nervously about. His parents were each with a different group, his grandfather sat on a chair next to Mrs. Edge's mother, an ancient crone whose mallard-feather hat shook constantly. Nobody appeared to be watching. He set the plate on a passing butler's tray and ran full tilt in the direction Zoe had disappeared.

She lay in wait around a corner. “Yaaaa!” she cried, laughing delightedly when he jumped. She was swinging her straw hat by its pink ribbons. Caryll took off his cap. “That's better,” she approved. “Your father makes you work. Does he beat you dreadfully?”

“Dad? Never!”

“Then why were you in such a funk about leaving?”

“It's a special day for him. I don't like to ruin it.”

“Justin hates him.”

“Your brother? He doesn't even know Dad.”

“When I was ever so little, your father came to our house and quite upset our mother. He made her ill.”

“I don't believe you,” Caryll snapped.

“Justin gave him what for, I can tell you. He never came back.”

“Liar!” Loyal anger contorted Caryll's round face, and his tone grated. “
Liar
!”

Zoe stepped backward, her lovely features fairly shriveling, her perfectly cleft chin aquiver. Caryll refused to be taken in. Wasn't this misery mere pretense? Another flagrant means of cowing him? But the beautiful dark eyes were filling with real tears.

To the outward eye Zoe trod swiftly through her school days, a goddess in navy tunic and crepe de chine blouse surrounded by a penumbra of self-confidence. In reality her security rested entirely with Antonia and Justin: her family formed the single constant star of her existence. She knew that they loved her. With everyone else red-hot pokers of skepticism burned her. How could she be assured of adoration? She teetered between moods. Either she bullied and teased the girls in her form—sometimes until they wept—to insure fealty, or she bestowed compliments, secrets, and aniseed balls on which she spent her entire pocket money. Her inconsistency, her erratic behavior, crackled with charm. The baffled mistresses spoke of Zoe Hutchinson as being a terror in the same breath that they admired her excessive beauty and vivid affections.