The Colonel

by Beau North

  “He says you left him, that you were a faithless whore.”

  “He said a lot of things about me, I’m sure. As far as my faithlessness…well, I never charged money for it.”

  “Charlotte!” Richard heard himself gasp and felt a little like an old matron. She didn’t acknowledge his outburst, just continued watching the girl with steely eyes. Richard thought he might have loved her a little bit in that moment.

  Bobbie threw her head back and laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks. “I thought if we ever met, I might like you.”

  “How did you end up with him?” Richard asked. He had to know what drew people to such a man. Bobbie shrugged.

  “I liked the way he looked when he preached the gospel, when he was all lit up with holy fire. He was a pretty man. Not handsome like you but pretty, you know? I thought he was a good one too, but he was as mean as a snake.”

  “And now he’s dead by one,” Charlotte said coolly. To Richard’s astonishment, Bobbie blushed slightly.

  “From what I understand, the vipers are usually milked of their venom before services,” Charlotte continued. “Only whoever was supposed to milk these must have missed one.”

  Bobbie gave an exaggerated shrug. “It’s an easy mistake to make.”

  They held each other’s gaze for a moment, some secret understanding passing between them. Charlotte nodded, smiling thinly.

  “A rather fitting end, I suppose, since he was always warning me against serpents in the garden, etcetera.”

  “Nature takes its course,” Bobbie said.

  “That it does.” Charlotte picked up her iced tea, the ice clinking against the glass as she drank.

  Bobbie chuckled and drank from her own glass.

  “What will you do now?” Charlotte asked. “Was this his house?”

  Bobbie shook her head. “No, ma’am. My daddy left it to me. Leland was just…a guest is all.”

  “Well, that’s good then.”

  “What’s Buck…are you going to have a funeral?”

  “I told your friend to have him cremated or donate his body to the medical school. Whichever is most convenient.” She reached into her purse and brought out a thick envelope.

  “This should cover any expenses if there are any. Your coroner friend has already assured me I’ll get a copy of the death certificate, which is all I want. I hope…” She paused, and for the first time, Richard could see genuine emotion cross her face. “I hope this can help undo some of the damage my husband has done to you.”

  Bobbie took the envelope and opened it. Her eyes grew wide as saucers. “This is too much, Mrs. Collins.”

  “It’s Charlotte, please, Bobbie. Just Charlotte. And it’s not too much. Believe me, I know.”

  “Well, you should have this, at least.” She jumped up and ran into a room in the back. When she came back, she was holding a heavy silver photo frame. She passed it across the table to Charlotte, who sucked in a breath when she saw what it was.

  “Well. I can see how you think I would look so different.”

  She handed the photo to Richard. It was a photo of Leland and his bride, who looked bent under some unseen weight. They stood on the steps of the First Presbyterian Church in Meryton, neither smiling. Beside Charlotte, her mother wore a smile Richard could only call pinched, while next to Leland, Mayor Lucas beamed.

  His heart gave a nasty lurch when he looked closer. There in the background, two figures sat on a motorcycle, watching. He remembered that day, and how when he’d driven away, he could feel her tears soaking through his shirt. He looked at Charlotte to see her looking up at him.

  “Do you want to keep it?” she asked, but he shoved the frame into her hand and was out of the house in three long strides. That part of his life was always going to trigger certain feelings in him. For his own sanity, the best he could do was to avoid thinking of it. He didn’t harbor the same burning need he once had, but seeing physical, tangible proof that that time was more than just a lovesick fever-dream had come as a shock.

  Richard dug a cigarette out of the pack and wandered through the scrubby, little yard, avoiding Anne and Coroner Buck, who seemed to be talking about…football, from what Richard could overhear. He paced the yard, smoking and letting the flashing heat of surprise cool. He felt a bit silly now, for running out the way he did, but neither Charlotte nor Bobbie said anything when they emerged from the unlit interior a few minutes later.

  Charlotte embraced the girl with care, trying not to disturb her arm. “You take care of yourself, Bobbie.”

  “I will.” She nodded, a stubborn glint in her eyes.

  Charlotte smiled and touched her face in a motherly way. “Yes, I can see that you will. Good luck to you.”

  “Thank you, Charlotte. I’m glad to have met you.”

  With a smile and a wave, Charlotte climbed down the wooden steps. She came up to Richard and took his arm. He noticed she was holding the picture still. “Are you okay?’

  He nodded. “It was just…a surprise. For you too, I imagine.”

  Her lip curled in disgust. “Can you believe he kept this in their bedroom? What a pig.”

  “Folks, can you see yourselves back?” Buck asked, looking sheepishly up at them. “Bobbie’s invited me to stay for supper.”

  “We take a right out of the driveway, cross the bridge, then a left onto the three-nineteen all the way back to Sopchoppy,” Charlotte said, smiling at him. “Is that right?”

  Buck grinned. “You’ve got a good eye for direction!”

  She leaned closer to him. “Go slowly with her, Buck. She’s been through the trials.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Buck sobered and nodded, as if he were a knight embarking on a sacred quest. Richard wanted to like the little man just then.

  Richard shook his hand before handing Charlotte the keys. He was too tired to manage the drive back himself.

  Charlotte took them and got him and Anne in the Bel Air, giving one last wave to Bobbie and Buck as they pulled away.

  “What an odd pair,” Anne remarked.

  “Good luck to him,” Charlotte said. Richard repressed a shudder. To say he felt conflicted about what Bobbie had done was an understatement.

  She slowed the car as they crossed the bridge, bringing it to a full stop at the halfway point.

  “Everything okay?” Richard asked from the back seat.

  “Yeah, just taking out the trash.” And with that, Charlotte threw the photo, frame and all, into the glassy, smooth water of the Sopchoppy River. He could hear the splash and a sound like plunk! when it hit. The car moved forward again.

  “All right!” Anne said with a grin. “What now, Ducks?”

  “Onwards, says I, and no sleep until we get to Pemberley.” Charlotte smiled, looking suddenly like herself again. Richard watched as she rolled her window back up and smiled into the afternoon sun, pointing the Bel Air north, toward home.

  25

  April 6, 1954

  Pemberley Manor

  Lambton

  As glad as Georgiana was to see Anne and Charlotte, it was Richard she ran to, throwing herself into his arms the way she always had when she was a girl.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, squeezing him. The truth of everything that had happened, the truth about Ari Prenska and her feelings for him, threatened to spill from her the moment she felt Richard return her embrace.

  “Hey, kiddo, go easy on a broken-down, old soldier,” he said, laughing.

  She looked up at him. The sight of his scarred face, the fixed stare of his prosthetic eye, had never disturbed her. She didn’t care that he was scarred, because he was alive. She did regret he had to live the rest of his life with one eye but not if his life was the trade.

  “You should probably stop calling me ‘kiddo’,” she said. “I’m nearly as tall as Anne.”

  Richard pulled back and ruffled her hair. “Nah, you’re always ‘kiddo’ to me.”

  She could see that he was tired and distracte
d, and she could smell that he had already spent too long in the car. Now wasn’t the time to unburden herself to her favorite cousin but to let them rest after the long drive.

  Charlotte and Lizzie were embracing tightly, rocking side to side, while Darcy handed Anne a glass of clear liquid that Georgiana knew wasn’t water but Anne’s favorite brand of vodka.

  Elizabeth pulled back and looked at her friend, tears standing in her eyes.

  “So. It’s really done, then? You’re really…you’re really free of him?”

  Charlotte nodded, looking tired but contented. “It’s really over.”

  Georgiana had, of course, been made aware of the particulars, the reason for Charlotte’s hasty trip down to Florida.

  “What about you, Elizabeth?” Georgiana asked. “He was your cousin. Are you…all right?”

  Elizabeth sighed. “It comes for us all at one point or another, Georgie. The important thing is what you do with the time you’re given. And my cousin”―she paused to touch her palm to Charlotte’s face―“didn’t use his time well.”

  Charlotte smiled back at her friend, and they embraced again while Georgiana chewed over Elizabeth’s words.

  He answered the knock on his door without thinking, only to see Georgiana recoil at the sight of him.

  “Oh, shit. Sorry, kid.” He walked over to the nightstand and grabbed the eye patch, making sure it was in place before turning around to greet his cousin.

  “Sorry,” he said again. “I’m used to not wearing it at home when the old marble gets a wash. You okay?”

  In truth, Georgiana looked a little green. “I’m fine,” she said. “Can I come in?”

  He spread his arm in welcome. “Be my guest.”

  She walked over to the leather chair next to the fireplace and sat down. Richard had wondered when they’d arrived the day before if there had been something…off about her. But he’d been so numb after spending days in the car, he wasn’t sure of anything.

  He sat in the chair opposite her. He was still exhausted, still somewhat harrowed by the sight of Leland Collins. He felt a strange static in the air, as if big changes were coming. Georgiana seemed to feel it too, the restless energy of possibility. She shifted in her chair, looking uncomfortable.

  “What’s up, Doc?” he asked.

  “I need…I don’t know, exactly. Advice, I suppose.”

  He suppressed a groan. “From me? Do you think that’s wise? The last time I tried to be on the level with you, you took off and had us all worried sick.”

  “I’m not fifteen anymore, Richard.” She sounded as world-weary and defeated as he’d ever heard her.

  That was true enough. She’d grown into a capable young woman, thanks in part to Elizabeth’s support and encouragement, but he still worried that she’d never regain the confidence she’d lost after Wickham. The least you can do is listen to her.

  “You’re right, Georgiana. What’s on your mind?”

  She took a deep, trembling breath before the truth came spilling out. Meeting Ari, the “English lessons,” the confrontation they’d had only a few nights ago, where he’d dismissed her as “fun.”

  “So what you’re saying is he needs to see the underside of my boot,” Richard said, standing up and rolling up his sleeves. “Nobody is allowed to treat you that way, you hear me?”

  “Richard, sit down,” she said with a tearful laugh. “You’d only get yourself hurt, and then where would we be?”

  He sighed and resumed his seat. “I always worried about this, that one day I’d have to deal with men who deal with you as crooked as I dealt…well, pretty much every woman.”

  “Do you really think that’s what’s happening here?” she asked. He looked over at his cousin, the girl he’d always seen as the best and brightest hope of their family. Maybe that had been too high of a pedestal for anyone to reach. She was only human, after all, another soul to be buffeted about by love and loss and disappointment. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, still damp from his shower.

  “I honestly don’t know, kid. I do know that if you’re right about how he felt,” he trailed off, unsure of what he should say. Unsure if he should say anything at all. But then again…

  “It could be self-preservation. From what you’ve told me, he’s been through it and then some. Sometimes there’s only so much your heart can take before it seals itself up. Like scar tissue protecting a wound.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt him,” she insisted.

  “Maybe he doesn’t know that. And hurt…hurt can wear a lot of different faces. It might not be you, but your family that doesn’t accept him. Or society. Some of us are never out of the gossip pages for long, you know.”

  “You and Will wouldn’t, or Elizabeth or Anne or Charlotte. That’s all that matters to me.”

  “But that’s not the way life works for most people, Georgie. Most people can’t live in the bubble of our wealth and family names. Most people have to live with what the rest of the world thinks of them.”

  “It shouldn’t matter.” She crossed her arms, looking for a moment like she was fifteen again.

  “It shouldn’t,” he agreed calmly. “And maybe it won’t. Maybe you should come back with us. Spend some time in New York. Meet some people from our own circle.”

  She gave him a scornful look. “I’m not interested in marrying some spoiled rich boy who spends every day at the polo club.”

  “I was only suggesting you meet one. I never said anything about marrying anybody.”

  She put her head in her hands, her fingers grasping her hair, the same color and texture as his own.

  “Richard, I love him. I don’t know what to do.”

  He sighed and moved to sit on the arm of her chair, patting her back. “I can only give you the advice I should have taken for myself. If you really love him, give him time and space. Let it be his choice. And if it isn’t you…ah, hell, Georgie. If you’re not his choice, you have to accept it and move on.”

  She sniffed and looked up at him with wet eyes. “And will I? Move on?”

  Richard thought about the woman just down the hall, the cause of so many of his sleepless nights. He’d loved Elizabeth with a savage abandon that had only punished—punished him, Elizabeth, Will; even Anne and Charlotte had gotten a bitter taste of it. No good thing could flourish amid all that destruction. While it was true that the fire of that ardor had cooled, it still frightened him. Not because of her but because of himself. He was afraid to let himself care for another woman that way because he never wanted to feel that sort of reckless adoration ever again. He lost himself in it.

  “I’m sure you will,” he said, careful not to lie to her, while still unsure if he really believed it.

  “I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”

  The thunder of Orion’s hooves beating against the earth filled Georgiana’s ears and her heart as she urged the horse onward. Her pale face was wet with tears as she leaned into the animal’s rhythm, fingers curled in his mane the way she used to ride old Merry, who was now too old for this kind of riding.

  “Faster,” she urged the animal, who was younger and more powerful than her usual mounts but seemed in tune with her every want. “Faster, further, more.” Orion tossed his glossy black head and then they were racing across the rolling fields. Not racing, flying. She wanted to run and fly and never look back.

  She was frayed thin after yet another sleepless night. Another night spent thinking of him. Wondering what he must think of her. Deep in her heart, pulsing like an angry wound, was the certainty that Ari Prenska was too good for her, and that he would marry a nice Jewish girl and have a big, beautiful family. They would see each other at weddings and funerals and nod, and he would say a silent thanks that nothing ever came of their brief dalliance. Dalliance. Listen to you! You’ve kissed. That’s hardly a lifelong promise.

  But Georgiana knew that she loved this man as surely as she knew her own name. It wasn’t a passing infatuation; what she felt went beyond desi
re. She wanted him to be happy, even if it destroyed her. She’d risen with the dawn knowing that her only recourse was to stand out of his way, to love him from a distance. And that was why she was riding hell-bent through Pemberley’s grounds, to outrun the very idea of a life as polite strangers.

  With a start, she realized she’d ridden past the factory, which was always closed on Saturdays for Shabbat. She rode a little further, slowing Orion’s breakneck pace enough to gather her thoughts. She gave the horse its head, and let Orion lead her where he wanted to go while she wiped the tears that were even then still falling from her eyes.

  Orion veered right of his own volition, toward a copse of hickory trees set back in a wide, gently rolling meadow. His canter became a trot, then a walk. Georgiana pulled at the reins, wondering if she was seeing things or if maybe her horse had suddenly become magic. Striding toward her in the soft light of dawn was the very person she’d wanted to see most, as if her thoughts had conjured him to the spot. Ari was more unkempt than she’d ever seen him, his black hair bed-rumpled and his white shirt untucked. Her breath caught, and in an instant, she was off her horse, running for him.

  They crashed together, a cataclysm of hands, mouths, tears, and promises.

  “I can’t do it,” she sobbed, burying her fingers in his hair. “I can’t not love you, Ari. God help me. I can’t let you go.”

  His arms pulled her closer, against his heaving chest. “It will never…I could never…I don’t deserve…”

  She looked up at him. “Shhh. Don’t say that. I want you, Ari. I don’t care what anyone says or thinks. Don’t you understand? I love you.” She took his hands and put them over her heart.

  “You’ve made this body—this heart—an instrument of joy. It’s your touch that makes it sing. I want to make a thousand beautiful songs with you.”

  “Ana.” Tears streaked down his face. There was a shadow of an unshaved beard on his face, but nothing had ever been more perfect to her than he was in that moment.

  “Just say you do too. Tell me you feel the same.”