The Woman Who Fell From Grace (7 page)

“You can document that?”

She stiffened. “Pardon me?”

“I understood that virtually no documentation of Jefferson’s designs existed from prior to 1770. They were all obliterated when Shadwell, his birthplace in Albemarle County, burned to the ground.”

“Ah.” She raised her chin at me. “I assure you we rely on a more accurate form of history, Hoagy.
Oral
history. You seem … well versed in the revolutionary period.”

“Not really.”

“It was the most exciting time in our nation’s history,” she declared. “A time of boldness and daring and risk. Not like today. Today we’re afraid of our own shadows. Afraid of salt, of caffeine, of good, red meat. Afraid of the air we breathe, the water we drink.
Afraid
. All we want now is a life
without
risk. Guarantees — as if there are any in life. Our forefathers knew otherwise. They’re the ones who made America a great power. We’re nothing but a bunch of neurotics now, weak willies who sit cowering before our television sets wondering why our influence in the world has dwindled.” She sat back in her chair, made a steeple of her fingers. “I suppose that is why
Oh
,
Shenandoah
remains so popular with readers. It evokes that boldness Americans like to believe we still have. And why there is so much interest in
Sweet Land of Liberty
.”

“Tell me what happens.”

She moistened her lips. “Vangie marries John Raymond, Hoagy,” she revealed. “De Cheverier dies at his hand. It is Raymond who lives. Flourishes at Jefferson’s side. Helps author the Articles of Confederation. Becomes a great leader. Only Vangie doesn’t love him, Hoagy. Not in her heart. She is miserable. She cries herself to sleep at night for the memory of Guy De Cheverier. In 1785, Raymond is posted to London as an aide to John Adams. She goes along at his side. She detests London. Despondent and lonely, she carries on a flirtation with a handsome young stableboy. Still, she remains true to Raymond. Until he is named minister to France two years later. It is in France, during the time of its own revolution, that Vangie’s passion is rekindled beyond her ability to control it. It is in France that she meets Napoleon. She has a passionate love affair with him, Hoagy. An affair that must end when Raymond is recalled to America. She is devastated. Upon their return to Shenandoah, he becomes governor of Virginia. When Jefferson is elected president in 1800, he names Raymond secretary of state. And then, Hoagy, as the war of 1812 beckons, mother intended that John Raymond, husband of Evangeline Grace, himself be elected president of the United States. A truly magnificent story, is it not?”

“It is. How detailed are her notes?”

“Not very,” she confessed.

“I understand you also have some ideas of your own.”

“They are
not
my own,” she insisted. “They are Mother’s. Mother speaks to me.”

“Want to tell me what she says?”

“That Vangie should have an illegitimate child with Napoleon,” she replied firmly. “A beautiful girl.”

“Good idea,” I said.

“Do you really think so?” she asked, pleased.

“I do. She could arrive in America as a young woman toward the end of the story. Cause her mother no end of problems.”

“Excellent, Hoagy,” Mavis exclaimed. “You impress me right off. You
breathe
narrative.”

“Yeah, I’m full of it. What else?”

She hesitated. “There’s a certain … perspective that is missing. I feel — that is, Mother and I both feel —
Oh
,
Shenandoah
and
Sweet Land of Liberty
are but a small section of a much larger, more
cosmic
canvas.”

“Cosmic?”

“Evangeline Grace is not merely a figure of the American Revolution, Hoagy. She is a woman of the ages, one who has led many lives. She was Cleopatra and Lucrezia Borgia and Anne Boleyn. She was Joan of Arc. Fictionalized, of course —”

“Of course.”

“And before all of this, before she led these many fascinating lives, Vangie came here from far, far away.”

“How far away?”

“Venus, before the greenhouse effect poisoned its atmosphere several million years ago and made it uninhabitable.”

“So you’re saying … ” I said slowly, “that Evangeline Grace, the heroine of
Oh
,
Shenandoah
, is actually an alien?”

Mavis nodded. “And that I intend — that is, Mother intends — to reveal this now, in
Sweet Land
. The entire story. It is vital. I insist upon it.”

No wonder the lunch-pail writers had quit on her. The wonder was how they’d kept this giddy little literary morsel under their hats. Their silence must have cost the Glaze brothers plenty.

Mavis leaned forward now, anxious for my reaction. She was just like every other celebrity I’d ever met. Armor on the outside, tender, mortal ego underneath.

I waited her out. I sat back and took off grandfather’s Rolex and rubbed at a scratch on its crystal. I put it back on, checked the, time, and calculated what it would be in Greece, in Fiji, in Kokomo, Indiana. And then, with just a hint of awe in my voice, I finally said, “It’s my turn to be impressed, Mavis. I didn’t realize you had such a rich, bold imagination.”

“Mother,” she countered. “Not me. Mother.”

I shook my head. “No, Mavis. Alma Glaze would never dare dream this big. This isn’t Alma talking. This is your own voice crying to be heard. This is the you that no one knows. The primitive you. The sensual you. People fear you. They think you’re some sort of tight-lipped martinet. They’re wrong. I see that now. You’re someone who has poetry inside her.”

She gulped. The woman positively gulped. “Do you … do you really think so?” she asked breathlessly.

“I do.”

“My brothers think I am mad.”

“Naturally. They’re businessmen. Earthbound, so to speak. You can’t expect them to comprehend you.”

“But
you
do?”

“I do.”

“And you agree that this belongs in
Sweet Land
?”

“May I speak frankly, Mavis?”

“Please. Hold nothing back.”

“I think it’s powerful stuff. Too powerful. I see
Sweet Land
as a traditional, old-fashioned American vehicle — a Schwinn one-speed with foot brakes. Strap a jet engine onto it and you’ll only total it.”

“But —”

“This is another book, Mavis. Your own book. Not your mother’s.
Yours
. And you will write a book, a book even bigger than
Oh
,
Shenandoah
. I believe that. And I think you do, too, deep down inside. But
Sweet Land
, I think you have to leave it be. This book is hers.” Mavis said nothing. “Vangie and Napoleon. What an idea.” And just think of the casting possibilities — Hoffman, Pacino, Michael J. Fox … “What a child they’ll have.”

“A girl,” she insisted. “It’s a girl.”

“Perfect.”

Mavis tapped the gleaming surface of the writing table impatiently with her fingernail. “I don’t know … ”

“I do,” I said. “Trust me. I’m on your side.”

She let out a short, humorless laugh. “That would be a first. It has been me against everyone else for as long as I can remember.”

“No longer. You have me now.”

She gave me her steely stare. I met it. Then she turned away and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’ll be taking over the writing?”

I nodded. “Just leave everything to me.

“What shall I be doing in the meantime?”

“Thinking about your own book. Let those ideas percolate. Let yourself go. We’ll go over what I’m doing chapter by chapter. I’ll be around if you need me.”

Again with the stare, a bit more wide-eyed now. This was new for her — being bossed. She wasn’t sure how to respond. “Very well,” she finally declared airily. “I place myself in your hands.”

“You won’t be sorry.”

She gave me her frozen smile. “When you get to know me better, Hoagy, and you shall, you will learn something about me.”

“And what’s that, Mavis?”

“I am never sorry.”

Frederick and Edward were waiting for us in the east-wing peacock parlor wearing matching gray flannel suits and apprehensive expressions. Frederick was chain-smoking. A man and woman I didn’t know were also in there. All four of them looked up at us when we came in. Mavis’s eyes went directly to the man’s and flickered a message his way. He then turned to the brothers and relayed it. They both exhaled with relief and came toward me with their hands out, beaming.

“So nice to see you again, Hoagy,” exclaimed Frederick.

“Glad everything seems to have worked out,” added Edward. “Thrilled. May I introduce you to Charlotte Neene, Mave’s treasured assistant?”

Charlotte was a thin, anemic-looking little woman in her thirties, complexion sallow, short brown hair lank, dress drab. She wore no makeup or lipstick or jewelry. Her hand was bony and gelid. “Mr. Hoag,” she murmured, careful not to make eye contact.

“Miss Neene,” I said. “Would that be your red LeMans out there in the courtyard?”

“Why, yes,” she replied, chewing nervously on her lower lip. She had pointy, rather feral little teeth. Her lip was pulpy from being chewed on. “Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been thinking of getting one. How does it handle?”

“Okay, I suppose,” she replied vaguely.

“Glad to hear it.”

“And this fine gentleman,” interjected Frederick, with more than a hint of derision in his voice, “is Mave’s husband, Lord Lonsdale.”

“
Richard
Lonsdale, Hoagy,” Richard said heartily, after he’d shot Frederick a quick, dirty look. “Do ignore the title bit. Freddy’s just having you on. Welcome, and so forth. Damned decent of you to make it down.”

Richard went at the ruddy English country-squire bit a little much for me, though I must admit it doesn’t take much to be too much for me. He had the clipped, regimental voice, the brush mustache, the robust vigor. He had the tweed Norfolk jacket, the leather-trimmed moleskin trousers, the wool shirt, the ascot. He didn’t completely pull off the ascot, but then no one has since Orson Welles died. His hair and mustache were salt-and-pepper. His shaggy brows were coal black and in constant motion. He had an involuntary blinking twitch that kept them squirming around on his forehead like two water bugs pinned to a mat. Evidently his drinking didn’t subdue it, and he did drink. The red-rimmed eyes and burst capillaries in his nose said so. He was a big-chested man, so big he looked as if he were holding his breath all the time. But he wasn’t tall. His legs were unusually short. His hands were big and hairy. They were also bandaged.

“What happened to your hands?” I asked.

“Tripped in the courtyard last night after I’d put the car away,” he replied, twitching at me. “Those bricks get damned slippery. Fell flat and scraped them both raw. Stupid, really.”

Edward leaned in toward him and softly inquired if perhaps Mavis would like a sherry before lunch. Richard glanced at her. She raised her chin a quarter of an inch.

Richard immediately flashed his large white teeth at me. “Sherry, Hoagy? To celebrate your undertaking?”

I said that would be fine and watched him fill a set of cordial glasses from a cut-glass decanter, marveling at the fine, civilized heights to which the Glazes had elevated sibling loathing. It was a subtle business, really, but it was undeniable — Mavis and her brothers never actually spoke to each other, or even made eye contact. They communicated only through Richard. He was their go-between, their envoy. He kept the peace. Or perhaps “truce” was a better word for it. Whatever, they had it down so pat they must have been existing this way for years.

Mercy breezed in the door from school as Richard was handing out the glasses. She sang out, “Hello, all,” and started up the stairs.

“You’re just in time to help us celebrate, Mercy,” Mavis called after her. “Come.”

She did, though Richard didn’t fill another glass for her. I got my own special hello and smile. I could almost feel Mavis’s eyes boring into the back of my head. We raised our glasses.

“Hoagy and I,” began Mavis, “it is my great pleasure to announce, have arrived at a creative meeting of the minds. … ”

“And here, ladies and gentlemen,” Mercy cracked brightly, “we go for the ninth time.”

“Mercy, either hold your tongue or leave this room at once,” snapped Mavis.

“Now, Mave … ,” said Richard consolingly.

“Quiet, Richard!” she ordered. Mercy started out of the room. “Mercy,
stay
.” There was no need for the lady to have dogs around. She had her family.

Mercy stayed, her eyes twinkling with amusement. Richard stood there twitching. Everyone else seemed quite used to this.

“Let us drink to
Sweet Land of Liberty
,” continued Mavis. “And to Mother.”

“To Mother,” toasted Frederick.

“Mother,” toasted Edward.

We drank. It wasn’t very good sherry. It tasted like children’s cough syrup. When mine was gone, I turned to Charlotte and said, “Do we throw our glasses into the fireplace now?”

“Why, no,” she replied, a bit goggle-eyed. Whimsy obviously wasn’t her forte. Or maybe I was just losing my touch. She excused herself and scurried off to the kitchen.

“Best of luck to you, Hoagy,” said Edward genially.

“You’ll need it,” added Frederick under his breath. “And if there’s anything you need — information, advice, a horse whip — Just let us know.” He went over to refill his glass.

Edward lingered. “I certainly do envy you, Hoagy,” he said wistfully.

“You wouldn’t if you knew me better.”

“I would. You do something creative. I always wanted to. As a young man, I even dreamt of following in Mother’s footsteps. But it was never meant to be. No talent — of any kind. I’ve come to accept it. One of the last stages of maturity, I suppose, is coming to grips with one’s own lack of uniqueness.”

“Writing is the least amount of fun you can have with your clothes on. You’re really a lot better off practicing law.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not, Hoagy. Believe me.”

The dining table was set for seven.

Mavis, high priestess of American home entertaining, immediately took charge of the seating. “Richard, you’re at that end, I’m at the other. Let’s see, that leaves us with an odd man out.”