The Legacy (20 page)

“I . . .” she started, but could not think what to say. She looked down at her feet and saw how dusty her shoes were, and found her eyes swimming with tears.

“You’re going to be just fine,” Hutch said, his voice so low that she hardly heard him.

“Hutchinson, I’m cutting in! That’s my wife you’re cradling and she’s by far the handsomest girl in the room,” Corin announced, taking Caroline’s hands and spinning her into his embrace. His eyes were alight with happiness, cheeks flushed from sipping whisky and dancing, and he looked glorious, so glorious that Caroline laughed and threw her arms around his neck.

“Happy new year, my darling,” she whispered into his ear, letting her lips brush lightly against his neck, so that he held her tighter still.

I
n February snow fell deeply, lying in thick drifts and making the world too bright to look upon. Caroline stared at the featureless scene beyond the window in wonder, and stayed close to the stove as much as she could, her hands curled inside the fingerless mittens that Ponca had given her, which kept as much of her skin covered as possible while still allowing her to do the mending. Her chilled fingers fumbled the needle and dropped it often.

“Now you are glad to have them,” Magpie said, nodding at the thick mittens. “When White Cloud gave them to you, I saw in your face you thought you would never need them!” she smiled.

“I should have paid her double,” Caroline agreed, at which Magpie frowned slightly.

“Will you tell a story, while I do this work?” Magpie requested. She was kneeling at the wash tub, rubbing the stains out of Corin’s work wear on a ridged wooden washboard.

“What kind of story?”

“It doesn’t matter. A story of your people,” Magpie shrugged. So Caroline, unsure who her people were, told her the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and of the treacherous serpent, the delicious apple, and the subsequent fall from grace. She put down her sewing as she reached the finale, describing their sudden shame at their nakedness, and the scramble to find something with which to cover themselves. Magpie chuckled, which made her cheeks even rounder and her eyes sparkle.

“This is a good story, Mrs. Massey—a missionary man told this same story to my father once, and do you know what my father said?”

“What did he say?”

“He said this is typical of a white woman! An Indian woman would have picked up a stick and killed the snake and all would have been well in the garden!” she laughed. Caroline, stung for a moment by the implied criticism, soon found herself smiling, and then catching the girl’s infectious laughter.

“That’s probably about right,” she conceded, and they were still laughing when Corin came in, brushing the snow from his shoulders. He looked at Caroline, sitting by the stove with her sewing to one side, and at Magpie on her knees by the tub, and he frowned. “Corin? What’s wrong?” Caroline asked; but he shook his head and came over to the stove to warm himself.

Later, as they were eating supper, Corin spoke his mind.

“When I came home today, I . . . I didn’t like what I saw, Caroline,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she asked, her heart high in her throat.

“You just sitting there, keeping warm, when Maggie was working so hard—”

“It wasn’t like that! I was working at the mending! Ask Magpie . . . I just stopped to tell her the story of Adam and Eve . . .” Caroline trailed off, unhappily.

“I know you’re used to having servants, Caroline, but Maggie is no servant. I meant for her to help you in the house, of course, but she does not have time to do
everything
here. She has her own home to tend to, and soon she won’t be able to do as much. You need to help her more, love,” he finished gently. He broke a piece of bread from the loaf and crumbled it distractedly between his fingers.

“She does help me! I mean, I help her too—we share the work! What do you mean, soon she won’t be able to do as much? Why won’t she?”

“Sweetheart,” Corin looked up at her through his rough golden brows. “Maggie’s pregnant, Caroline. She and Joe are going to have a baby. Their first.” He looked away again, his face somber, and in that expression Caroline read an accusation. Tears sprang to her eyes and she was choked with an emotion a little like ire, a little like grief, a little like guilt. An insufferable mixture of the three that burned in her gut and made a roaring noise in her ears. She clattered up from the table, ran to the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

I
n a light buggy, harnessed to a bay horse with a high, proud head carriage, the journey to Woodward could be made in a day, with a dawn start and a break to rest and water the horse at noon time. Most of the ranch hands and riders accompanied them on horseback, including Joe and Magpie. Caroline watched the Indian girl, who rode a wiry gray pony, and wondered how she could have failed to spot the telltale swell at her middle, the slight deference in her movements.

“Is it wise for Magpie to ride in her condition?” Caroline whispered to Corin, although there was little chance of being heard above the thudding of hooves, the wind and the creak and whirr of the buggy wheels.

“I said the very same thing to Joe,” Corin smiled. “He just laughed at me.” He shrugged. “I guess Ponca women are a bit tougher than white women.” A few tiny flecks of rain blew out of the sky. Caroline made no reply to Corin’s remark, but she felt the sting of it. The implication she heard, whether he had intended it or not, was that she was weak and that she was failing here in the West, as a woman and as a wife.

They arrived in Woodward as dark was falling and took a room at the Central Hotel. Joe, Magpie and the ranch boys melted into the town: to the Equity, Midway, Shamrock and Cabinet saloons, to the brothel run by Dollie Kezer at the Dew Drop Inn, and to the houses of friends. Caroline’s back ached from the long drive and she was tired, but she nevertheless urged Corin to lie with her, and she shut her eyes as she felt him spend himself within her, praying that whatever magic it was that made a child coalesce into being, it would happen this time—
this time
.

Caroline’s spirits had soared with the prospect of coming into town for the spring gala day, and for dancing. Visits away from the ranch were precious scarce and they had not ventured forth for four long months since the Fosset’s shindig on New Year’s Eve. Woodward, which had seemed upon her arrival from New York to be a one-horse town indeed, now seemed a vibrant hub of life and activity. But there was something about this very fact, even, that saddened Caroline. The following day dawned fair and the streets thronged with people, cowboys and settlers alike. They formed two thick cords that ran for several blocks along the length of Main Street, undulating where a raised sidewalk ran in front of a shop. The air thronged with the smells and sounds of thousands of bodies and excited voices, the stink of horses and manure, and the parched wood and paint fragrance of the buildings. Store fronts were strung with colorful bunting and had their doors flung wide open to welcome the unprecedented opportunity for new custom that day.

The crowd was entertained with a roping and riding contest, a mock buffalo hunt, and shooting competitions. There were fancy lariat tricks and a display of bull-dogging that looked unduly violent to Caroline, who turned her face away as the steer’s head was pulled around, its lip clamped as they both crashed to the ground. Joe far outperformed all other competitors in a knife-throwing competition, sending his blade again and again into the center of a paper target pinned to hay bales to win a box of fine cigars and a brand new Bowie knife. The applause for his victory was muted compared to that lavished upon the white victors of other events, but Joe smiled his wry half-smile nonetheless and admired the new blade. They ate barbecue, fresh peaches, ice cream and honey cakes, and the ladies drank iced tea while the men took beer. Caroline, who had been without ice or refrigeration since leaving New York, found the chilled drink in her mouth to be not far short of heavenly. They caught up with neighbors, and Corin swapped the current prices of wheat and beeves with fellow ranchers; and they ran into Angie and Jacob Fosset, Angie clad in a lurid lilac gown with too much color on her face. When Corin complimented her, she laughed and exclaimed:

“Oh, I look like a show girl, I know I do; but we gals don’t get to dress up often enough! And I need a little help to look festive, Lord knows—we can’t all be pretty as paint like your wife here, Corin Massey!”

“Well,” Corin told her, with a generous tip of his hat, “you look just fine to me, Angie Fosset.” While the men talked, Angie took Caroline to one side.

“Any news, honey?” she asked in a low tone, in answer to which Caroline could only grip her lower lip in her teeth and shake her head. “Well, I’ve thought of some things you could try . . .” Angie told her.

In the evening the band played waltzes and polkas, as well as some square dances—large sheets of canvas were laid over the sand of Main Street to facilitate the dancing, since no hall in town could accommodate such a large number of pairs. Caroline danced with the grace of her upbringing, even though Corin’s steps were marred by beer and there were wrinkles in the canvas to snag unwary feet. With buildings all around her, and people, Caroline felt better than she had in months as they marked a Mexican waltz among the jostling shoulders of Woodward’s citizens. For a while, the smile she wore was not a brave one, nor a dissembling one, but a genuine one.

But later, as she stood talking to a circle of Woodward wives, Caroline saw Corin across the street, bending down in front of Magpie and putting his hands on her midriff. He seemed to cradle the bulge in her abdomen gently, almost reverently, and while Magpie looked embarrassed she also looked pleased. Caroline caught her breath and blood flooded her cheeks. Corin was in his cups, she knew, but this behavior was too much. Soon, though, it was not for this reason that her cheeks burned. Corin’s face was turned away, his gaze was unfocused. Waiting, she realized; waiting for the child to move inside the Ponca girl. And as she witnessed this act of intimacy, she suddenly thought she saw something possessive in her husband’s touch—something altogether too interested.

Chapter 4

I
t’s cold as we walk down toward the woods on the longest night of the year. All three of us. Eddie pestered Beth into coming, and in the end she seemed almost curious. There’s a brisk, bitter breeze that finds its way inside our coats, so we walk quickly, on stiff limbs. In the clear dark our torch beams stagger haphazardly. The moon is bright and the flowing clouds make it seem to sail across the sky. A vixen shrieks as we get near the trees.

“What was that?” Eddie gasps.

“Werewolf,” I say, matter-of-fact.

“Ha, ha. Anyway, it’s not a full moon.”

“All right, then, it was a fox. You’re no fun any more, Edderino.” I am in high spirits. I feel unfettered, like my strings have been cut and I can float free. Bright, restless nights do this to me. There is something about a wind blowing in the dark. The way it brushes by, its nonchalance. It seems to say:
I could pick you up; I could carry you away, if I wanted to.
There is a promise to this evening.

We can hear music now, and raised voices, laughter; and now the glow of the bonfire shines at us between the trees. Beth hangs back. She folds her arms tightly across her chest. The firelight follows every anxious line of her face. If Eddie wasn’t with us I think she would stay here, in the sheltering woods, darting from shadow to shade and watching. I pull a flat bottle of whisky from my coat pocket, fight to open it with gloved hands. The three of us, in a circle, our breath pouring up into the sky.

“Swig. Go on. It’ll warm you up,” I tell her, and for once she doesn’t argue. She takes a long pull.

“Can I have some?” asks Eddie.

“Not on your life,” Beth replies, as she wipes her chin and coughs. She sounds so real, so there, so like Beth that I grin and take her hands.

“Come on. I’ll introduce you to Patrick. He’s super nice.” I take a drink myself, feel the fire in my throat, and then we move.

There’s a moment of nerves as we step into the firelight. The same as before, of being unsure of our welcome. But then Patrick finds us and introduces us to a myriad people, and I struggle to keep their names in my head. Sarah and Kip—long hair shining in the firelight, stripy knitted hats; Denise—a tiny woman with a deeply lined face and ink-black hair; Smurf—a huge man, hands like shovels, a gentle smile; Penny and Louise—Penny the more butch of the pair, her head shaved, her eyes fierce. Their clothes and hair are bright. They look like butterflies against the winter ground. There’s a sound system in the back of a pickup and vehicles parked all the way up the lane. Children too, dodging in and out of the crowd. Eddie vanishes and I see him a little while later with Harry, threading thick wads of dead leaves onto long twigs and thrusting them into the fire.

“Who’s that with Eddie?” Beth asks, a note of alarm in her voice.

“That’s Harry. I’ve met him, don’t worry. He’s a little bit on the slow side, you could say. Dinny says he’s always got on well with children. He seems totally harmless to me,” I tell her, speaking loudly, right into her ear. The fire has put a dew of sweat along our lips and brows.

“Oh,” Beth says, not quite convinced. I see Honey, moving across the clearing, preceded by her enormous bump. Her face is alive this evening, she’s smiling, and she is lovely. I feel a small prickle of despair.

“That’s Honey, there. The blonde,” I say to Beth, in defiance of myself. Watching expressions veer wildly across Honey’s face, I am sure of it—I have taught girls older than her: she is too young to be having that baby. I feel something close to anger, but I can’t tell who or what it’s aimed at.

Then Dinny appears beside Beth, smiling his guarded smile. His hair is unbound and it hangs around his jaw, messy and black. He stands half turned toward the fire, half away, so the light cuts him in two, throws his face into sharp relief. It stops a breath in my chest, holds it until it burns.

“Glad you came down to join in, Beth, Erica,” he says, and as he smiles again I see the faint blurring of alcohol about him—a true warmth, for the first time since I saw him again.

“Yes, well, thank you very much for having us,” Beth replies, looking around at the party and nodding as if we are at some society do.

“You’ve got lucky with the weather tonight, anyway. It’s been foul,” I say. Dinny gives me an amused look.

“I don’t believe in foul weather—it’s all just weather,” he says.

“No bad weather, only the wrong clothes?” I ask.

“Exactly! Have you tried my punch? It has a certain . . . punch. Don’t take any naked flames near it, whatever you do,” he smiles.

“I tend to avoid punch,” I say. “There was an incident with punch, I’m told. Although, they might be lying because I sure as hell don’t remember anything about it.”

“Beth, then? Can I tempt you?” Beth nods, lets herself be led away. She still looks slightly dazed, almost bewildered to be here. Dinny’s hand is on her elbow, guiding her. For a moment I am left alone as he pulls her away, and some emotion scuttles through me. A familiar old emotion, to be left behind by Beth and Dinny. I give myself a shake, find faces that I know and foist myself upon them.

I can feel the whisky heat in my blood and I know I should be careful. Eddie tears past me, grabs my sleeve and pulls me round.

“You haven’t seen me! Don’t tell them you’ve seen me!” he gasps, breathless, grinning.

“Tell who?” I ask, but he’s gone, and seconds later a small tangle of children, and Harry, scurry by in his wake. I take another long pull of whisky then pass the bottle to a pixie-faced girl with rings in her nose, who laughs and thanks me as she passes. The stars wheel over my head and the ground seems to vibrate. I can’t remember when I was last drunk. Months and months ago. I had forgotten how good it can feel. And I see Beth standing next to Dinny, in a knot of people, and even though she is not speaking, she looks almost relaxed. She is part of them, not locked up inside herself, and I am happy to see it. I dance with Smurf, who spins me until I feel a little sick.

“Don’t fall in love with her, Smurf. These Calcott girls don’t stick around,” Dinny shouts to him as we pass by. I am too slow to ask him what he means. I get as close to the fire as I dare, use a poker to rake a jacket potato from the ashes at the edge, then burn my tongue on it. It has the tang of the earth. I greet Honey, and even though her reply is stilted I don’t care. And I watch Dinny. It’s not even conscious after a while. Wherever I am I seem to know where he is. As if the fire lights him a little brighter than it does everybody else. The night spins out around the camp, dark and alive; then I see flashing blue lights, coming along the lane toward us.

The police have to park and walk down to the camp. Two cars, disgorging four officers. Marching in with an air of diligence, they start checking for drugs, asking people to turn out their pockets. The music goes quiet, voices fall away. A hung moment in which the fire snaps and roars.

“Is there a Dinsdale here?” a young officer asks. A pugnacious gleam in his eye. He is short, square, very tidy.

“Several!” Patrick calls back at him.

“Can I see some identification to that effect please, sir?” the policeman asks stiffly. Dinny waves Patrick back, dips quickly into his van and presents the officer with his driving license. “Well, even so I’m required to ask you all to disperse, as this is an illegal gathering in a public place. I have reason to believe that things may escalate, constituting an illegal rave. There have been several complaints—”

“This isn’t an illegal gathering in a public place. We have the right to camp here, as you well know. And we have the same right as the rest of the population to have a few friends around for a party,” Dinny says coldly.

“There have been complaints about the noise, Mr. Dinsdale—”

“Complaints from who? It’s only ten o’clock!”

“From people in the village, and at the manor house . . .”

“From the manor house? Really now?” Dinny asks, glancing over his shoulder at me. I go over, stand next to him. “Have you been complaining, Erica?”

“Not me. And I’m pretty sure Beth and Eddie haven’t either.”

“And who might you be, madam?” the officer asks me, somewhat dubiously.

“Erica Calcott, the owner of Storton Manor. And that’s my sister Beth, and since we’re the only people
living
at Storton Manor, I think we can safely say all residents there give this party their full endorsement. And who might
you
be?” The whisky makes me bold, but I am angry too.

“Sergeant Hoxteth, Ms. . . . Lady . . . Calcott, and I . . .” I have flustered him. At the edge of my sight, I see Dinny’s eyes light up.

“It’s
Miss
Calcott. Are you any relation of Peter Hoxteth, the old bobby?” I interrupt.

“He’s my uncle, not that I think that has any relevance to—”

“Yes, well. I remember your uncle. He had better manners.”

“There have been complaints, nevertheless, and I am authorized to break up this gathering. I don’t wish for there to be any unpleasantness about it, however—”

“The Hartfords over at Ridge Farm have their summer ball every year, with twice this number of people and a live band with a massive amp. If I ring up and complain about
that
, will you go trooping in and break it up? Start searching for drugs?”

“I hardly think—”

“And anyway, this isn’t a public place. This is my land. Which, I suppose, makes this
my
party. My
private
party. To which you boys are not, I fear, invited.”

“Miss Calcott, surely you can understand—”

“We’ll turn the music down now, and off at midnight, which we were planning to do anyway. The kids need to get to bed,” Dinny interjects. “But if you want to send us all packing without making some arrests, you’d better come up with a better reason than made-up complaints from the manor house.
Officer
.”

Hoxteth bridles, his shoulders are high and tense. “It is our
duty
as police officers to investigate complaints—”

“Well, you’ve investigated. So piss off!” Honey chips in, waving her belly aggressively at the man. Dinny puts a restraining hand on her arm. Hoxteth’s eyes flicker over Honey’s youth, her beauty, the swell of her midriff. He flushes, knots forming at the corners of his jaw. He nods at his officers and they begin to file away.

“Music off. And everybody gone by midnight. We’ll be back to check,” he says, raising a warning finger. Honey raises a finger of her own, but Hoxteth has turned away.

“Tosser,” Patrick mutters. “Full of youthful zeal, that one,” he adds. Once the cars have pulled away, Dinny turns to me with a smile, an arched eyebrow.

“
Your
party, is it?” he asks, amused.

“Oh, come
on
. It did the trick,” I reply.

“That it did. I never had you down as the antiestablishment type,” he says wryly.

“Shows what you know. I even got arrested once—do I get some kudos for that?”

“Depends what you got arrested for.”

“I . . . I threw an egg at our MP,” I admit, reluctantly. “Not very anarchic.”

“Not very,” he says, flashing me a grin. “But it’s a start.”

“That was wicked,” Eddie tells me, appearing at my side, breathless. I put my arm around his shoulders and squeeze him before he can escape.

B
eth is cooking something for lunch that’s filling the ground floor with garlic-scented steam. The windows cloud with it and rain cloaks the outside world so that the house feels like an island. Eddie’s gone off into the woods with Harry, and strains of Sibelius’s fifth come creeping up the stairs with the steam. Beth’s favorite. I take it as a good sign that she has looked it out in Meredith’s music collection, and is preparing food that she might even eat. I wonder what Dinny and Honey are doing. In such rain, on such a depressing day. No rooms to wander through, no rows and rows of books or music, no television. Their lifestyle is a matter of pure speculation for me. If it were me, I suppose I’d be in the village pub. For a second I consider seeking them out there, but my stomach gives a lurch of protest and I remember the hangover I’m nursing. Instead I head for the attic stairs.

I do remember Sergeant Hoxteth’s uncle. We would see him in the village sometimes, when we went for sweets or ice cream from the shop. He had a ready smile. And he came to the house, on more than one occasion. Either because Meredith had called him, or because the Dinsdales had. They have the right to camp there, just as Dinny said. There’s a legal deed or warrant or whatever, from the time of my great-grandfather, before he married Caroline. He and Private Dinsdale were in the army together, in Africa I think. The full story has been lost down the years, but when they came back Dinsdale wanted a place to park up, and Sir Henry Calcott gave it to him. And to all members of his family, in perpetuity. They have a copy of it, and our family lawyer holds a copy. It really got Meredith’s goat.