The Puzzled Heart (19 page)

Moon didn’t know what to advise, but he did point out that William’s was one of the oldest dilemmas and had therefore given rise to many of the oldest stories in the world: the rich man (or woman, of course) putting it about that he had no money to find out how true his lover’s love was.

“Do you mean tell her William won’t have any money? Why should she believe that? And anyway, she’d only have to check with my brothers and their wives, who quite like Muriel, to learn that it wasn’t true.”

“Let me think about it,” Moon said. And they walked for a long time in silence while Moon thought. One of the things that Kate found enchanting about Moon was that you could hear him thinking—that is, could sense him thinking. However the perception occurred, one
felt
Moon thinking. In the end, reluctantly and tentatively, he offered an idea. An idea that Kate then offered to William when he came to her room.

“Do you like Moon?” Kate asked William.

“I do, actually. Very much. I doubt the family cares
for him. In fact, they’re being just this side of rude. Why did we have to be born into such a family, Kate?”

“Well, at least our father didn’t drink, like Muriel’s.”

“Drink? Muriel’s father? Don’t be silly. I’ve met the poor chap. I don’t think he’s been let off the leash long enough to have a drink. What on earth gave you the idea that he drank?”

“Never mind that. Look, William, do you think you could play a role?”

William looked blank. “A role? What on earth do you mean?”

“Oh, dear,” Kate said. “Moon had an idea. See what you think. In the next day or so, spend a lot of time with Moon. He’s ready whenever you are. Then tell Muriel that Moon has convinced you that the rich life is not a good one, that Jesus said to sell all you have and give the money to the poor, that you want to live the simple life with Moon in a sort of commune—well, I know, this does sound mad, but people are thinking that way these days. You’ll have to make it sound believable. Pretend you expect her to join you joyously in this. Say you’re keeping some money back for an annuity that will support you in your old age, but for now you want to make it on your own. Hell, I don’t know, William. Try it.”

William, who had been sitting on Kate’s bed, flopped backward. There was a long silence. “Is Moon willing to tutor me in this, so to speak? To give me the right lingo and all that?”

“Of course. But remember, if she says she wants to stay with you no matter what, you’re stuck.”

“Kate, I said she was like Mother; I didn’t say she was after my money.”

“I know. But I don’t know if she really loves you. All we do know is that she gets into an uproar when you seem to withhold the goodies like an apartment near the rest of the family. If it’s you she wants, and since you thought you loved her, you’ll have to try to make it work. Of course,” Kate added, “don’t feel pushed to do this. It’s just a suggestion, and not a terrifically brilliant or original one at that.”

For the rest of that evening, and most of the next day, William hung around with Moon. He seemed to be avoiding Muriel, which lent credence to his newfound affection for and allegiance to Moon, as well as his need for encouragement to tell her about his decision to follow Moon into a commune. Kate knew that Moon would never dream of joining a commune, and she hoped Muriel wouldn’t get a chance to ask him straight out, because Moon, Kate knew, would not lie.

Moon must have had some powerful effect upon William, however, because he went on with the plan and held to it even in the face of his whole furious family. Muriel had gone running to them, and they had descended on poor William, who, however, was certainly old enough to decide what to do with his life and bold enough to tell them he felt entitled to make
up his own mind. Muriel had a fit, she screamed, she carried on, but in the end they had to cancel the engagement party and Muriel left. The family tried to assure her that William would change his mind, but William remained adamant, and in the end he left with Kate and Moon, having failed, however, to retrieve from Muriel the rather large diamond engagement ring he had given her. Not that he tried hard.

“She’s entitled to it,” he told Kate. “I feel that I’ve behaved very badly, but oh, Kate my dear, what an escape.
What
an escape.”

Eventually William married someone else, suitable, pleasant, but hardly exciting. She was a good mother, however, and Kate was fond of their children. The whole episode of that summer retreated in Kate’s mind, not to say was actually repressed, because she felt rather ashamed of herself. She and Moon went their different ways shortly after, as a result of their having taken part in that charade, and Kate, in fact, as she now reflected, was not to meet up in any meaningful way with Moon until many, many years later, at, of all places, Harvard. And at that time, meeting unexpectedly, neither of them had even thought of, let alone mentioned, what Kate now dubbed the Muriel episode, the shameful—well, it was shameful, really—Muriel episode.

Kate lifted herself off the couch, threw aside the pillow that had stood in for Banny, and went to phone Leslie with her news of a recovered memory.
But why, she wondered, as the phone rang, had thinking of Banny helped that memory to return?

And then it came to her: Moon had had a dog that summer, not a Saint Bernard, but a large, fluffy, friendly dog who went with them everywhere and had been loved by everyone, though by the older Fanslers with moderation. Rather to Kate’s surprise, the dog had been especially fond of Muriel, and Muriel of the dog. Rack her brain though she might, Kate could not remember the dog’s name. But it seemed to Kate that the mutual affection between Muriel and the dog had made Moon the least bit unhappy about taking part in Muriel’s deception. Still, Moon did not believe that anyone should marry anyone, and certainly not if one of them didn’t want to.

“Hello, Leslie,” Kate said into the phone. “I think I’ve got it. Hold everything. I’m coming over. I think I’ll ask Reed to join us there later, if that’s all right with you.”

Thirteen

H
OURS
later, Kate, Reed, Leslie, and Jane were still discussing the situation, over a meal of Chinese takeout, and for about the eleventh time they rehearsed the ever more demanding and far-reaching questions.

“You’re quite sure you didn’t make this whole thing up?” Jane, who considered herself the most practical member of the gathering, asked Kate. Reed, no question, was also practical, but when it came to Kate, Jane did not consider him as entirely objective as he could be expected to be in other circumstances.

“Of course I didn’t,” Kate said, between mouthfuls of fried dumpling. “I know it seems improbable that she should have fallen for it, but there were two factors on our side—that is, William’s side. One was that
she had clearly overestimated Fansler loyalty to her. They were prepared to accept her as better in every way than others William might have dragged home, but they weren’t devoted to her enough to discount the possibility that she may have been after William’s money. Wasn’t everyone after the Fansler money? Also, thinking about it now, I realize that the fact that I was there with Moon softened the family up, so to speak. I always brought out their most confrontational side, and they were so horrified by Moon they were quite willing to believe he and I might magically have managed between us to bewitch poor, dear William.”

“We are, therefore,” Leslie announced, in the crisp tones of one trying to wrap up a lengthy meeting, “agreed that Muriel has been seething all these years and has finally taken her revenge in the way we know. Are we agreed?”

“It’s a possibility,” Reed said, as he and Kate plunged into the moo-shu pork. “But a possibility based on a number of assumptions. You accept the first assumption and then the second, and before you know it you have a whole theory that hangs together beautifully if you manage to forget that you haven’t a shred of evidence for the first assumption, the basis of the whole thing. There’s no getting away from that. On the other hand, if we agree, as we seem to have, that this is an act of revenge against Kate, and if this is the only source of deep resentment against her that Kate
can come up with, I think we might as well pursue it, at least for a time. If we cannot locate Muriel, we’ll have to send Kate into psychoanalysis for a more thorough dredging into her past.” He smiled at Kate, who, he knew, thought as little of classical psychoanalysis as he did.

“So,” Leslie observed, “the question of
Who is Muriel, what is she?
remains the operative one.”

“Perhaps William knows what became of her,” Jane suggested. “One does somehow often manage to hear about one’s discarded loves, at least in a general sort of way.”

“Not likely,” Kate said. “William has not got any less stuffy with the years. He’s got grown children and works on Wall Street. He probably doesn’t even remember who Muriel was. I mean, let’s face it, if I repressed this sorry episode, William has probably banished it to oblivion.”

“You remembered it,” Leslie said, “because you have a lot of guilt attached to it. I doubt that William does, though I agree with Jane that you ought to ask him, just in case he has some news of her. I mean, if she’s been dead for decades, we’re clearly whistling in a wind tunnel. But the salient point, as far as I can see”—and Leslie put down her chopsticks in a determined way—“is whether Muriel knew, or surmised, or guessed that Kate was in back of her rejection by the Fanslers. Can you know, Kate, that Muriel blamed you, or is there a possibility she didn’t and thus cannot be considered in the present circumstances?”

“Good point,” Kate said. “But I’m really sure she knew it was me behind it; in fact I remember, now, that she told me so. I’d forgotten that part. The row about her was still going on when Moon and I left. She came up to us as we were getting into the car to go. She paid no attention to Moon, and it was his supposed commune, after all, that William was supposed to be going to join. She just stood there, facing me, and said, ‘I guess you’re feeling satisfied with yourself, you stuck-up bitch,’ or similar words. And she spat at me and stalked off. I remember now; Moon took out the bottom of his T-shirt and wiped the spit off my face. I’d forgotten that part.”

Absolute quiet greeted this memory. Kate looked shaken.

“I still think Kate should have a chat with William about Muriel,” Jane said into the silence. And Kate agreed to that.

They began to gather up the cartons of food. It seemed settled, without the matter being mentioned, that questions of who Muriel was and where she was would be deferred until tomorrow.

But when Kate had enticed her brother William into meeting her for a drink the next day, he turned out to have no idea what had become of Muriel. William had been worried about meeting Kate, supposing, as her brothers always did if she asked to see them, that she would request either money or, what they dreaded
slightly more, financial advice. Their relief when the subject turned out to have nothing to do with money was always so great that they quite agreeably discussed whatever was on her mind. (Kate’s brothers, although she neither knew nor guessed it, secretly agreed with her that their wayward sister was not their father’s daughter but the offspring of some belated and, in fact, quite uncharacteristic fling of her mother’s. The sexual mores of the Nineties had made such a thought about one’s mother rather more romantic than scurrilous.) But about Muriel, William knew nothing.

Indeed, he recalled the episode only vaguely and reluctantly. “You should have simply persuaded me to tell her to go to hell,” he said now. Kate, with great restraint, did not challenge this extraordinary statement.

“You have no idea what became of her?” Kate persisted.

“No. She sent me an invitation to her wedding. I do remember that. Of course, I threw it away before Patricia could ask who she was.” Patricia was William’s wife. “It was years ago at any rate. Why on earth do you want to know about Muriel? Well forgotten, I should have thought. Are you writing your memoirs, God forbid?”

“No,” Kate assured him. “I just happened to remember her the other day and I got to wondering. You don’t remember her married name?”