Her Father's House

by Belva Plain

  The day was one of those rare ones when the temperature is fitted to the comfort of the human anatomy, the sky is an arc of perfect blue over the flourishing land, and a human being should rejoice in simply being alive. Instead, Clarence renewed his pathetic litany of complaints.

  “I know I need new machinery. Some of the stuff, unbeknownst to me, was left outside to rust. But a lot of it was old even in Dad's day. It costs a fortune to replace, and I'm already up to my ears in debt. I suppose you heard, it's all over town, but you're a stranger here, so maybe you haven't heard.”

  “I have heard something, yes. What are you going to do?”

  “That's my trouble. I try to think, but I can't think anymore.”

  How well Jim knew. . . . Yet along with his wish to be compassionate, he was feeling impatience. What if the man had my problem?

  “You need to simplify,” he said abruptly. “Your father managed here, and you can, too. The land is rich, but you don't know how to use it.”

  Clarence gave him a shy, chastened look. “I told you,” he mumbled, “I wanted to use what I've learned, things my father never knew. I've just had bad luck, that's all.”

  Jim stood still. “Now look,” he said, “this place is a hodgepodge. Milk cows, untended berry fields, orchards full of rotting fruit, corn, and an expensive, unused hothouse. You've got to make up your mind what you want to be and do. Then do it.”

  Raising his head, which had been hanging, Clarence said piteously, “I want to keep this for my boy. I need to find somebody who will tell me how I can do it.”

  “I don't understand. You've lived here all your life, and you mean to tell me you have no one to pull things together for you, no one to advise you? No lawyer, no accountant, nobody at your bank?”

  Kicking pebbles, Clarence looked like a child who was being scolded. “I did have, but I guess they're tired of me and my troubles by now. I'm very sick, you see. I'm sure you'll understand because your wife died of cancer. I have it, too. They treated it a couple of years ago, and everybody thought I was all right. At least they said they did. I don't know. Now it's come back.”

  Jim was barely able to look at those eyes, only at the enormous Adam's apple, which bobbed as Clarence swallowed. So that was it: penury, and now perhaps dying, too. For a few moments he could think of nothing to say.

  Then something said itself: “I could go with you for another talk at your bank, or wherever you have your loans, if that would be any help.”

  “You would do that for me?” And when Jim nodded, “Now all I keep thinking of is Kate. There's no one in the world like her. . . . I don't want to leave her like this, her and the boy. So maybe you can think of some way to talk to these people. . . .”

  Jim turned away. I could never have been a doctor, he thought strangely. I can't stand the sight of pain.

  “Whenever you want to go, I'm ready,” Jim said.

  Chapter 12

  With a smile, Mr. Holden remarked, “You sound like a lawyer.” He was not nearly as formidable a man as Clarence had described, although that was probably, Jim had to admit, because of his own presence. And he returned the smile.

  “I've had people tell me that now and then. Working in the insurance business on wills and trusts same as you do here in the bank, we get to meet a lot of lawyers.”

  “For an insurance man, and from Maine at that, you have a pretty good handle on farming, I have to say, especially farming in Georgia.”

  “Oh, the climate's different, but the backaches and the sweat are the same, Mr. Holden.”

  “And you did say, didn't you, that you're not a relative?”

  “No, we're just friends. Both farmers.”

  “Well, as they say, friends often do more for you than your relatives will. Not that we haven't been very patient with Clarence's debts because we know he's an honest man doing the best he can. But you have presented us with some very new ideas, some fairly sensible arguments on Clarence's behalf. And so in conference, we have all decided to give you six months to see whether you can pull some of his irons out of the fire. What do you say about that, Clarence?”

  Clarence had said barely a word the whole time, and they had been in the president's office for almost two hours. Helpless as a child he sat, listening obediently; now he merely nodded and smiled.

  “I'd like to say one thing before we leave, Mr. Holden,” Jim said. “I'm well aware that it's most unusual for any bank's president to give his time to a small matter like this one. And I want to express my very deep appreciation, Clarence's and my own.”

  “Thank you. But we, all of us here who are familiar with his situation, appreciate what you've done, too. Families in this little town know each other from one generation to the next, you see. We generally trust and try to help each other.”

  Jim nodded. “I see that. I've been feeling it.”

  “But there's something else in this case. Dr. Scofield, when we talked about the Bensons and I spoke about your help, also had something to say about you. He said that you are an unusual person. You're a good Samaritan, coming forth as you have on behalf of another human being who is almost a stranger.”

  Jim smiled. “You're giving me too much credit, but of course I appreciate it, and I thank you.”

  Chapter 13

  The six months' delay that the Bensons' creditors had given them also meant six months of relative safety for Jim and Laura. If at the end of that time he should have come across no further evidence of Lillian's pursuit, he would certainly depart, regardless of whether the mortgages were foreclosed or not. He would simply have to take his chances.

  He should have no doubt that we will find him.

  Sometimes he thought about the horse farm as a possibility for a job, having delayed on accepting the office supervisor position until the opportunity was gone. He had stumbled upon the idea while looking through the paper and seeing an advertisement from somebody who wanted to lease “extensive pasture land” for his herd of American saddle horses. And immediately he had thought of using Clarence's idle land, where once beef cattle had grazed, as grazing land for those horses. He had had no idea what a fair price might be, and had been pleasantly surprised when he was able to tell Clarence what the people were willing to pay.

  As for the Holstein milkers, it was for the best that they be sold off; his own experience, slight as it had been, told him that the dairy business was an almost twenty-four-hour responsibility, for which Clarence was no longer fit. So dispense with that, he thought. Remove the cattle stanchions from the bar, replace them with stalls, and you have bad-weather accommodation for those expensive horses; the lease should cover the expense, he figured. And he went on figuring.

  One day he remembered having seen an item about fir seedlings for sale. That whole flat tract of grasses on the other side of the creek where Kate and he had paused on that morning to view the hills—would that not be a natural place in which to grow trees? If the tract should turn out to be large enough, would it not be ideal for the ornamental shrubbery that Clarence had once spoken about?

  Actually, Jim was enjoying this analysis of the Benson farm, pulling its pieces together and reorganizing them. It was in its way a practical, a mathematical, and a minor intellectual challenge. Yet even as he was sitting there with pencil and paper before him, he was always well aware that he was involving himself in the Bensons' problems because he was too afraid to concentrate on his own.

  The last of the placid Holsteins clambered into the open truck and were driven away down the lane.

  “It hurts to see them go,” Kate said. “Half of them were born on this farm. But at least they're not going to slaughter.”

  “They're going to join a herd four times the size of this one. You see,” Jim explained, “it's a case of either-or: either you go into the dairy business on a great big scale these days, or you don't do it at all.”

  She did not reply. He could barely imagine what she might be thinking while Clarence, visibly fading away, doze
d on the front porch glider with the dogs at his feet. If Jim had been free to talk, he would have said to her, “I know you are completely alone, and the nights are the worst. You are looking into a void.”

  Instead he spoke briskly. “We've been having a run of luck. Not a long run, but not too short, either. Now with the lease money, there's something in the bank, enough to take care of expenses like repairs and the wages for the blueberry harvest. Oh yes, the chickens. We got a good price for the lot, enough to pay for the fir seedlings.”

  Speak with a lift of the voice at the end of each sentence when you want to encourage. Those fir seedlings couldn't bring in much for at least five years, and even then you'd want to market only fifty percent of them, leaving the rest to bring in much more after ten years' growth. But Kate was smart. She would know all that without any need of a lilt in his voice.

  “So now we're back where we once were,” she said. “A few chickens for eggs, Lucy for milk, fruit and vegetables for our table, hay and corn for cash. And blueberries for market, lots of blueberries. That's the way it was when I came here.”

  “Well, not quite.”

  “I didn't mean—of course you've made great changes. It just feels more like what it used to be. More peaceful.”

  Jim was curious. “It must have been very different from where you grew up before you were married.”

  “Look how a mist is rising. It's going to rain,” she said, as if she had not heard him.

  “‘Autumn, season of mist,' ” he quoted for no reason except that the poet's phrase had come into his head.

  “But not the same as in England, I should think.”

  “No, not at all. What they call ‘mist,' we would call ‘fog.' ”

  “You've been there?”

  “Yes.”

  “You've done a lot of traveling for an insurance agent. England and France—where else?”

  Had he ever mentioned France? Obviously, he must have done so. He must have let it slip while talking to Clarence, surely not to her because he had had almost no conversation with her throughout the whole long summer.

  “Nowhere else. I took a little vacation once,” he said uncomfortably.

  Suddenly Kate said, “I don't understand why you are staying here and doing all this for us.”

  He seemed to recall that some time ago she had once asked that question. So he paused, and weighed his reply. “Let's put it this way. It was a tangle to unravel, a business going into failure, and it was a challenge for me.”

  “In the beginning, you said it was because you needed a change of scene and a short rest. But now, you're almost into the second year.”

  Her heavy-lidded gray eyes, of the shape and color that often seem dreamful, were bent upon him. Disconcerted, he answered with a question.

  “Have you never heard of simple human kindness? Your husband has been too ill to cope with your troubles, and he's getting worse. I merely thought I could help.”

  “That's the whole reason?”

  “It's as good a reason as any, isn't it?”

  “Don't be annoyed, Jim. I am so grateful to you for what you've done. It's just that it seems so strange. People don't usually do things like this for each other.”

  Fencing, he thought. It's one thing I hate. It would be so much easier if he could say, “Listen, I don't like your questions! I don't like feeling puzzled, being unable to figure out whether my presence bothers you or whether you want me to stay here.”

  “I was wondering whether you and Laura would want to come to Ricky's birthday tomorrow,” she said.

  “Of course we will.”

  “It's not a real party because Clarence isn't up to that. I'm bringing a cake to school and making another one for our supper at home.”

  “What shall I get for Ricky? Is there anything special that he wants?”

  “Anything at all. He hasn't had a present in a long time.”

  “I'm going into town now to do some errands and I'll think about what I wanted when I was his age.”

  Coming across the field were the two young farmhands, the ones who had so impudently jibed about Clarence that day. By offering better wages and laying down rules, Jim had pulled them both into shape. Ellis and Tom had turned out very well. A smile and a firm hand had put some sense into them. He had a feeling of such satisfaction that his mood reversed itself and he was actually able to chuckle at the thought of Augustus Pratt, Ed Wills, or any of his old associates seeing him now.

  As he progressed through the day at the supermarket, the stationers, where as always he bought the New York newspaper, and the toy store, where he bought a rag doll for Laura and a book and a baseball and bat for Ricky, his thoughts enlivened him. Ultimately he would find a good place, if not the horse farm, then some other local enterprise where nobody would delve into his past as they had at the factory. Back at the cottage, still in a good mood, he walked over to Jennie Macy's, brought Laura home, went through the usual cheerful routine, put her to bed, and entered the kitchen to clean up.

  On the counter lay mail that, in his hurry, he had tossed there unread. It still surprised him to be receiving mail here, although it should not have done so, because when you start a magazine subscription, you can expect a stream of advertisements. He was about to throw away a handful of them, when two photographs jumped up from a card and struck him between the eyes.

  Side by side, each was accompanied by a succinct paragraph: Bettina Wolfe, age, description, date missing from New York City; then Donald Wolfe, along with the same facts. Beneath was a telephone number to be used by anyone who recognized them.

  “Have you seen them?”

  He fell onto a chair. For a few seconds, the room reeled around him; he was going to be sick. There was a pounding in his ears, as though his protesting heart had sent his blood careening crazily through all his arteries. He clenched his hands and clung to the tabletop, where the two faces stared back at him.

  After long minutes, when he had managed to collect his wits, he studied the faces. A two-year-old—three by now—child did not look too different from millions of others, did it? You wouldn't, for instance, remember Laura if you had seen her somewhere last week, would you? As for himself: Would a stranger remember him or, from a crowd of men, select him, medium to tall, of indeterminate age somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, neither fat nor thin, with hair and eyes a medium brown? Did he not, if one were to give a quick glance, look almost like everybody else in a crowd? It was not as if he owned, for instance, a crown of white hair, or measured six feet nine, or four feet nine, or was sixty pounds overweight, or had a scar on his cheek, or— There are, of course, distinctive people who have unusual features, such as a prominent nose, or very large eyes, or thick glasses. He had none of these. He thought of himself as one of those faceless people you see in crowds.

  He got up to stand in front of the bathroom mirror and study himself. He had large, very regular teeth. But this photograph did not show teeth. Actually, this photograph was not a very good one. It was blurred. Lillian had apparently, and quite naturally, not bothered to keep any good ones, which was a help. Perhaps he should grow a beard? No, that would be too obvious an attempt to disguise himself.

  He was arrested between fright and a need to reason it away. Could anybody in town, having received this advertisement today, have noticed a resemblance to him? Might it not perhaps be smart to spend more time in town, walking boldly and normally among people?

  After a while, on the unproven theory that a glass of warm milk can induce sleep, Jim drank one and slept, but poorly, beset with bad dreams.

  He was of two minds. One mind was frozen in terror. The other roved around the little birthday party, produced the right comments at the right moment, and roved again without aim.

  The nice little boy, elated at being the center of attention as he sat with the cake before him, was a reminder of the jolly, vigorous son he had once expected to father. Clarence, at the foot of the small table, was livid; i
f you allowed your imagination to go free, you could see death hovering behind his chair. Across from Clarence, Kate was making an effort to keep the atmosphere cheerful. The little girl next to him was the reason Jim was in this room tonight.

  As always, his thoughts came back to her, and stayed there. Day by day, he was a witness to an unfolding, those tiny revelations of the person she would become. Yesterday she had shown him how she could count to ten on her fingers; she had named her nose, and her teeth, and her toes. She had waved to him when he left her at Jennie's. And today when he was dressing her for this birthday party, she had selected most definitely what she wanted to wear.

  Oh, what is to become of her! he cried out within himself. His hand was trembling. I need to do something with my life that will keep her safe, and I am so afraid.

  Ricky was talking. “When I am ten, I can have a horse like Dad's.”

  “That's nice,” Kate said. “But right now you have your own pony, and you love him.”

  “I know. But Dad promised me a horse like Cappy for my birthday when I'm ten. He promised.”

  None of the three adults at the table looked at the others.

  “Dad can't go riding just now,” Ricky explained in his loud, innocent voice, “but soon he will. Maybe you could ride up in the hills with me sometimes, Mr. Fuller, until Dad gets better? Mom's too busy staying with Dad.”

  “Sure. Sure I will,” Jim said.

  “In the meantime,” Kate quickly reminded Ricky, “Jennie has an errand in the village and she said she'll drive you there, since you wanted to visit your friends tonight, didn't you? I'll pick you up later. Okay?”

  “Okay, Mom. Okay, Dad.”

  “Did you mean that about going to ride with him?” Clarence asked when Ricky had left.

  What could Jim answer? God alone knew where he himself would be this time tomorrow.

  “As long as I'm still here, I'll be glad to,” he said. “He's a great little boy, especially nice.”