Would she? As soon as the question formed in his brain he despised himself for suspecting her; for not loving her enough; for not knowing her inside out. Soon after the self-loathing, a reaction set in: an irrational anger that Amanda refused to let herself be known better; that she was not dull and predictable, like nice Miss Marylsworth. And after that, yet another reaction: against the Miss Marylsworths of the world, for being so dull and predictable.
For three days Geoff tortured himself with such idle speculations. Then, as soon as the last hawser of the White Star liner was secured to its piling, he scrambled off, leapfrogging over the pearl-encrusted body of at least one member of J. P. Morgan's entourage and knocking down the lady's maid in the process, leaving his baggage to catch up with him as best it could. Within an hour he'd hired a car and bought up every newspaper he could lay his hands on.
The news was bad. A huge TNT bomb had been set to go off in a horse-drawn wagon on Wall Street. The explosion blew the horse to pieces and rocked several buildings on the Street, killing the chief clerk of the House of Morgan and sending dozens of clerks, runners, stenographers, and broker's assistants to the hospital. No one had yet taken credit for the bomb, but feeling ran high that it was a Bolshevik plot.
And Amanda wasn't in her Greenwich Village studio. Geoff told himself not to panic, not to doubt, but the barbed wire that had got tangled around his heart in the mid-Atlantic seemed to draw tighter. He found a phone and called the house in Westport. He recognized the voice of the Fains' impertinent maid, only it sounded far more cautious now. No, Amanda was not there and yes, in that case she would see if Mr. or Mrs. Fain were available, but no, he shouldn't count on it.
Mrs. Fain did come to the phone, near to tears. "You've heard about the bombing, then," she began at once, not at all surprised that Geoff was back in the States. "This is all so dreadful, more like a novel than real life, or even True Story. And so, so unfair."
Geoff murmured some words of consolation and immediately she began to cry. "It's not like the horse did anything wrong, or even all those poor people, but at least they can understand what was happening to them, although who can explain such a thing? Pa says I shouldn't carry on so about a dumb animal, but that's just it, you see—the animal didn't understand. Pa says if I have to carry on it should be for Perry, but ... but I can't, somehow. It's too horrible. When I think of it my mind wants to turn away. It's easier to cry about the horse."
The barbed wire wrapped itself more tightly around Geoff's heart; his chest seemed to be filling up with thick, heavy blood. "What—happened to the boy?" he said in a voice shuddering with fear.
"What do you mean what happened? A bomb blew him up."
"But he wasn't killed, he couldn't have been killed. I would have read—"
"I didn't say he was killed," she cried, horrified. "But his head is all wrapped up like a mummy's, and his arm is in a cast, and his poor body is one big black-and-blue mark, and no one can see him except close kin."
"How did Amanda take it?" Geoff asked quickly.
"Amanda?" Mrs. Fain hesitated, then said nervously, "I ... don't know."
"Well, where is she? How can I get in touch with her?"
"I don't know."
"What about her father? Can he help me?"
"I ... I don't know."
"Well, for God's sake—" Immediately he reined himself in. "Mrs. Fain," he said in a voice filled with gentle urgency. "I think you do know where your daughter is. If she's in any trouble, I want to help her."
"No, no, she's not in trouble," Mrs. Fain burst out. "The police have already talked to her, but that doesn't mean anything. They talked to me, to Pa, to everyone. They said that's just routine, you know. Routine business. That isn't why she's—she's gone off. It's because her uncle won't let her see Perry. Oh, it's very cruel. Amanda was devastated. She had nothing to do with it, she told me that, but he hasn't trusted her, not since she got arrested. He thinks she's some sort of Communist, he says—whoever they are. If he was my brother—but of course he's Jim's. And now I don't know what Amanda may do ...."
"Tell me where she is, Mrs. Fain," he repeated in a steady voice, wondering whether she could even hear him over his heart's hammering.
"I don't know, I said! Not—not for sure. But maybe ... we have a lodge way up in the Adirondacks, for hunting. No one ever uses it. There's no telephone, no lights. Amanda was only there once, but she was very taken with it. I keep wondering—"
Immediately he demanded and got directions. He finished up with something that he hoped sounded soothing.
"Find her, Geoff," Mrs. Fain pleaded. "Her father will never let on, but he's worried sick."
Before long Geoff was pressing north along the west side of the Hudson River, following the route of trappers and Indians into New York's still vast wilderness. He'd never traveled upstate before. Even in the dark, even in his tired and distracted condition, he was impressed. The rolling, wooded hills of the southern part of the state became higher and more rugged as he flogged his black Buick Six tourer up yet another incline. Mile after mile rolled out from under him, leaving him limp with frustration and anxiety. It seemed inconceivable to him that Amanda had made the trip alone; he began to feel that he was on a wild-goose chase.
Sometime in the middle of the night the road signs began splitting first into two, then three images; he was becoming punchy. Barely awake, he pulled over onto the shoulder and nodded off into a series of short, hallucinatory nightmares. In the last one of the sequence, Amanda was driving her Speedster down a wooded path when suddenly it blew up, leaving nothing but a red-hot forest fire behind. In the dream Geoff tried again and again to penetrate the flames, but he was forced back, his hands painfully burned. He moaned and when he awoke from the sound of his voice he found that his arm had fallen asleep. He climbed down from the car, shook himself free from his aches and stillness, and climbed back in. There were still thirty-five numbing miles to go.
When the sun finally came up the odyssey seemed suddenly more bearable. Gone were the looming giants that swayed and hissed in the night. In their place were magnificent pines, birches, hemlocks, cedars, and maples, and the only flames Geoff saw were those of fall foliage. The world through which he drove was rich, majestic, almost serene in its wildness. Here and there a farmer had tried to tame a small patch of it for himself and surrounded his irregular, rocky fields with crisscrossing stone fences. There might be a few Holsteins grazing close by a weathered barn with a tilting silo attached. But by and large this was God's country. No one else had made the effort to share it.
Except, perhaps, Amanda. As Geoff made his left turn at the only landmark for miles around—a four-foot-high wooden chicken advertising a local egg farm—he became more and more convinced that Amanda was somewhere near. This kind of terrain was right up her alley: undisciplined; untamable; even a little on the frightening side. There must be wolves and bears at night, and mountain lions. What would she do without a gun? Worse still, what would she do up here with one?
What if she wasn't here at all?
He wasn't sure whether he'd ever know the answer to the last question; frost heaves had taken their toll on the dirt lane that allegedly led to Fain's Folly, and the road was barely passable. The Buick bounced and lumbered, and the wildly overgrown brush dragged across its rolled up windows. Possibly this was not a road at all but an elaborate trap set out by the locals to catch Buicks.
Then: a sudden clearing, a Swiss-style log cabin, and a sleek and dusty Daniels with a crumpled fender. A wide grin, his first in half a week, planted itself on Geoff's face and stayed there as he made a mad dash for the open veranda and pounded on the door. The grin began to fade when no one answered after a while, then disappeared altogether when Geoff gave the door a nudge and it swung open. Inside he could see nothing; the ground level was shuttered tight. The air was stale with the smell of cigars and kerosene and something not quite rank. His heart dragged along behind him, unwilling, as he made his way to
a window and groped with the shutter bolts.
He swung open the heavy louvred panels and a tunnel of light cut across the room. It was a cavernous room, something like an English great hall, with a vaulted ceiling and bannistered walkaround on three of its sides. Bagged trophies hung from every wall: the heads of moose and elk; a bobcat; a Canadian lynx. A fat owl, a majestic eagle, the obligatory pheasant, a bear rug in front of the huge fieldstone fireplace—all the trappings of proper Victoriana were here. It was a man's retreat, far too rugged for one's wife and children.
Amanda, why did you come here?
With infinite dread he began to ascend the wide main staircase. The Oriental runner was dusty, moth-eaten, but it absorbed his footfall completely, adding to his sense that he was acting out a dream. Was he still asleep in his Buick on the side of a road somewhere? He bit his lip, felt the pain. Not asleep, then. The doors of the upper rooms were closed, all except one, from which a thin shaft of sunshine sliced the runner on the landing. Amanda. Breathing. He heard nothing, but he somehow sensed her pulse beating calmly, probably once to every three of his, and it infuriated him. He was the one who should have been calm.
He gave the door a gentle push. There she was, huddled like a wet cat on the window seat, staring out the big multi-paned window at a green and blue paradise. He resisted the urge to sweep her up in his arms, then turn her over his knee. "Hey, lady," he said softly. "Don't you lock your door? I could have been a highwayman."
The emptiness in her voice was crushing to hear. "We don't have highwaymen in the States," she said dully. "We have robbers."
But he would not be denied his rebuke. "You're being technical. What if I were a robber?"
"What would you rob me of?" she asked quietly, still staring out at the breathtaking vista. "My self-respect? Visiting privileges to Perry? My father's good opinion of me? There's nothing you can take away any more." She closed her eyes and lowered her head onto her knees.
He had not seen such devastation since the war.
Rather casually—he did not want to frighten her—he crossed the room and took a place beside her on the window seat. He was shocked by what he saw. In the full sunlight she looked diminished, both physically and spiritually. She'd lost weight, and something more intangible. She was like a firefly that had been swatted down by some thoughtless child, and now her glow was fading. He reached out and touched her hair.
She lifted her head then, and said, "Geoffrey?" in a voice of soft, sweet surprise. "When did you get here?"
It frightened him. "Just now," he whispered. "Believe it or not, I have a friend in the area," he lied. "A family friend. He's staying at a sanatorium not far from here." Geoff remembered a road sign, but not the name of the institution. He hoped she wouldn't ask.
She didn't. "Oh, how sad," she said. It was dreadful to see the pallor in her face. "Tuberculosis? Is he young? Oh, I hope he isn't young."
Mistake. He tried frantically to close the subject. "No, no. Not young. Actually, it isn't tuberculosis. It's more a kind of malaise. They don't really know what it is. It may be nothing. You don't look terribly robust yourself," he added, skimming his fingers across her high, hollow cheekbone.
She tried to smile. "Maybe I have the same malaise."
"I don't think so. Do you know what I think?"
Amanda shook her head.
"I think you're hungry. When's the last time you ate?"
She pondered his question the way a seven-year-old struggles with her multiplication tables, then gave it up. "I don't remember," she answered, drawing her dark brows together. "Not since I've been here, I don't think."
"Because you couldn't find any food?"
"Because I couldn't find a can opener," she answered with a tired smile. "It seemed like such an effort. It seemed so pointless."
"We'll see about pointless," he said a little gruffly. "Is there water?"
"There's a pump in the kitchen." Her voice had become empty again. He was losing her.
"Why don't you come down with me? While I put together something for us to eat, you can wash up." She looked so tattered, so fragile, like a war urchin left alone in the streets of London. Her hair hung limp; her face was smudged and streaked; the soft cotton frock she wore was ready to be retired once and for all. "Come. Can you stand up?" he asked her gently, taking her hands in his.
"It was nice of you to stop by, Geoff," she said in a suddenly gracious voice. "Really. We must do this again sometime. When I'm less tired." Her face was filled with tender affection. It was a look altogether new to him, and it terrified him.
He tried applying guilt. It was low, but he was desperate. "What? You're going to send me off on that hideous drive with an empty stomach? I call that bloody inconsiderate," he said, holding her hands. He was afraid that she might teeter and fall.
"Oh, you're driving? I thought you'd come by boat. Lotsy says the food was terrific and you were great fun."
Sweet lord. Along with everything else—Lotsy? "That was another lifetime ago, Amanda," he said softly. If he was certain of nothing else, he was certain that there would never be another Lotsy in his life. "Right now all I want to do is share a can of peas with you."
"All right," she replied bravely, as if he'd asked her to walk over hot coals with him.
As it turned out, she was too wobbly to manage the stairs. Geoff should have left her where she was, perhaps, but the thought was unbearable to him. Ignoring her polite murmur of protest, he scooped her up—she was so light; surely she'd been losing weight for more than two or three days—and began to carry her down the stairs.
Her arms were around his neck; her cheek lay tucked under his chin. "Do you know that this is the first time you've ever held me?" she asked with touching naïveté. "Lotsy says you dance divinely," she added. "I was so jealous about that, after I knew you for a while. Isn't that funny, that I cared so much about dancing?"
Whatever dancing Geoff had done with Lotsy, it was not on a floor. At least the woman had had the decency to speak euphemistically. "There's nothing to be jealous about, Amanda. I plan to have the next dance with you," he whispered, carrying her down slowly, lovingly, step by step.
"Wouldn't that be nice?" she asked with heart-melting innocence.
Even unwashed, she smelled irresistible. He was reminded of the day he'd visited her studio after the Cup race. At the time he was confusing his attraction for her with animal lust. At the time he was a jerk. What he was responding to—what he didn't understand until this moment—was Amanda's take-me-as-I-am quality. She was completely without pretension. She might be difficult; she might be maddening; but she was not affected.
He drank in the scent of her, reveled in the closeness of her. It seemed the most logical thing in the world to tell her he loved her—except that Amanda Fain was not logical just now. He nudged open the heavy door to the kitchen and carried her inside. The room was dusty, stale, but neatly laid up for the off-season. Geoff eased Amanda into one of the sturdy oak chairs gently, as if she'd been wounded. When he saw the embarrassed blush in her cheeks his heart lifted; any emotion was better than none at all.
He turned to the business of coaxing Amanda back from the brink of the small, terrifying little hell she'd wandered into. The lodge, he was only just discovering, was cold, despite the lovely Indian summer weather. An enormous pile of dried cordwood lay neatly stacked outside the kitchen, under a shingled lean-to. He brought in enough wood to make a fire in the old but functional wood-burning stove and before long had water heating in the cast iron kettle for washing. The fact was, he was as grimy and dusty as Amanda, and he didn't smell nearly as tantalizing. He found some linens, laid neatly away in a cedar cabinet. He found clothes. He found food. And best of all, he found tinned tea (Lipton's, no less) and a Rockingham teapot.
When the water was warm he poured some off into a large white porcelain washbowl. Amanda had been sitting close to the stove, and as the room heated up she began to thaw. A series of shivers passed over her, an
d after each wave she wilted a little more in her chair.
"The grub'll be ready in another minute," Geoff said lightly. "Would madame like to wash up before luncheon?"
Amanda looked at him with unfocused eyes. "I don't think so. It's such a lot of work."
"Here, then. Let me do it." He dipped a washcloth into the warm water, then wiped her cheeks as gently as if they were made of rose petals. It seemed impossible to treat her with too much tenderness. He loved every freckle that was stamped on her nose, every lash that ringed her gypsy eyes. He wanted her to have his children; he wanted to wash their daughters' and sons' brown-eyed faces.
He wanted Amanda to love him back, but he wasn't certain she even knew who he was.
They ate their meal in near silence, mostly because Geoff was wolfing down his crackers (tinned), cheese (tinned), and beans (tinned). His will to live was obviously strong enough. But Amanda's? He watched her pick at her food, then said, "I must say, Amanda, you really know how to cut a fellow down. Granted, the cuisine is not on a par with Henri's, but surely you can eat more than that."
She smiled a little and pushed down another forkful of beans.
And so the meal went, with Geoff coaxing, Amanda complying, and both of them looking increasingly unhappy. Tea went better. Geoff had brewed it extra strong and laced it with sugar. Amanda seemed to revive a little. She pointed to Geoff's face and said, "You look like a raccoon." Which was true. He'd been wearing driving goggles; since his arrival he'd neither washed his face nor looked in a mirror. He washed up hurriedly, then returned to his tea.
Unfortunately, he committed a stupid error in judgment by mentioning the brand name of the tea. Immediately a veil seemed to fall over Amanda's face. Who could picture Sir Tom and not think of Perry's adoring gaze? A complete ass, that's who, Geoff thought as he piled dishes into the long-legged porcelain sink. Still, he refused to have it out with her about Perry, not before they'd both had a chance to sleep off some of their exhaustion.
By The Sea, Book Two: Amanda Page 13
