As Nora drove up to the huge black iron gates of Stoneridge, the edge slipped off her nerve. In the center of the gates, one on each side, the initials C.B. were embellished in an elaborate script. These had to be the initials of the founding father of this dynasty, she thought. Another Charles Blair, no doubt. And now here she was, off to do battle with his heir and namesake. Sitting in her dented Volvo, relatively penniless, she felt shut out by the power and wealth on the other side of those gates. And to think she’d believed Charles Walker Blair was a drifter. He must have had a lark playing the role.
She felt her anger boil again and she stoked the fire. Anger was good now; it gave her courage.
The two imposing letters separated as the gates opened. “Remember who I am,” the bold initials seemed to call in the squeak of moving iron.
“Oh, yes, I remember who you are,” she whispered as she maneuvered past. Her hands tightened on the wheel.
The driveway was not nearly as long or as winding as her road to the big house on the farm. But it was paved and neatly edged by a labor force only considerable wealth could afford. The parade of trees, lined straight and tall like silent sentinels, were bare now. Beyond them, acres and acres of rolling pastures, dotted with horses and cattle, lay exposed to her view. It was incredible that here in the heart of New Jersey, where a small plot of land cost more than most houses alone, rolled a vast tract of prime real estate. The discreet yet significant display of wealth fed her disquiet. It was as though the long, winding driveway was designed to confirm the real distance between the powerful Blairs and the common man.
The gravel changed from gray to red as the drive circled before a stately brick Georgian colonial. The house stood alone. Not a tree or shrub dared to interrupt its isolation. Only in the center of the driveway circle did an immense flower bed hint at life. Yet even this mound was covered now with brittle flower stalks and molded leaves. Nora found the effect mournful. The aura of the whole estate was like the garden: a place of beauty long past its peak of color and vibrancy.
She shuddered in the November wind and clutched at her thin coat, looking again at the frost-bitten landscape. How fitting that she should end her relationship with Charles Blair while the earth lay barren and spent.
The engine was off, the deed was in her hand—there was nothing left to do but confront C.W. for the last time.
“Yes?” asked the waxen-faced, faultlessly neat butler at the stately front door.
“I’m here to see Mr. Charles Walker Blair on personal business. I am Mrs. Michael MacKenzie.”
The butler raised his nose. “I am sorry, madam. But Mr. Blair is not in residence at present.”
Nora chewed her lip. Her phone call to the Blair Bank had confirmed that Mr. Blair had returned home. She was not to be put off by the elusive Mr. Blair again.
“We shall see,” she said through gritted teeth as she pushed past the butler and stomped into the marbled foyer. This was becoming a familiar scene, and as such, she was more bold.
“C.W.! Come out of hiding! Charles Walker Blair, you come face me!” she called, wending through the rooms, head turning and eyes searching. All the while, the butler chased her about like a shadow, not really speaking but muttering something about “most unusual,” and how she’d “really have to leave.” Nora pressed on, striding through the elaborate rooms, calling for C.W.
When she came face-to-face with his visage at the end of a long row of portraits, Nora’s voice caught in her throat. She stood silently before the gilt-framed portrait, gulping back the sudden tears as she gazed upon the likeness of the man she had once loved more than herself. The artist had caught the gentleness that lay behind the steel blue eyes. Only the nose was different. It was as yet unbroken.
“Peacham, who is making such an ungodly racket?”
Nora heard the husky, slurred voice of an old woman echo from the hall, then the tight reply of the butler. “I’m sorry you were disturbed, madam. I’ve already called security. Some woman is here for Mr. Blair.”
Click, click, click. A cane sounded along the marble, followed by a shuffling of padded feet. Nora did not move, save for the squaring of her shoulders. As she gazed at C.W.’s portrait, she calmed her nerves, gathered her resolve, and prepared to meet the dread Agatha Blair.
“That won’t be necessary, Peacham. I’ll see the woman.”
“Very good, madam.”
“Well, well, well,” came the heavy voice from behind her. “If it isn’t the indomitable Mrs. MacKenzie.”
Nora’s stomach tightened as she slowly turned toward the voice. She couldn’t abide drunks; their belligerence and vulgarity turned her to stone. Facing Agatha, she saw an old woman stooped at the entry, swaying slightly over her cane. Her cloying perfume filled Nora’s nose, but that scent was overwhelmed by the bitter smell of gin.
“I’m here to see Charles,” Nora said.
“First-name basis, is it? But of course it is,” Agatha slurred with a wobbly wave of her hand. Then her eyes formed two thin crevices on her deeply lined face. “Well, your lover isn’t here. You’ll have to do your gloating elsewhere!” she spat out.
Nora stiffened and marched toward the door.
“Does your revenge taste sweet?” Agatha cried after her. “You got your lover to avenge your husband. Not bad, not bad. I underestimated you.”
Nora stopped dead in her tracks and slowly turned on her heel. Agatha was still facing the portrait of C.W. and seemed to be talking more to him than to her.
“What do you mean?”
“Once you found out that I used your husband, you lured a bigger fish for your rescue. Hah! Even the lofty Charles was a sucker for a blonde.” She shook her head in a drunken swing before rambling on to the portrait.
“I thought MacKenzie’s suicide finished you off. I was a fool.” She spat out the word, ignoring the spittle on her chin. “Well, you got me, you son of a whore. You got me good. And you!” She swung around fast, nearly losing her balance, to face Nora.
“You spurred him on, didn’t you? Showed him those papers against me. Did you whimper and cry? Or did you seduce him first?” Her voice attempted a singsong tone, but it came out like a macabre wail.
“You got your money back from me—damn you. Paid your loans back with my money. I suppose you think that’s only justice, right?” Her face constricted. “Well, it’s lousy.”
Realization set in. The weight of it caused Nora’s knees to weaken and a fine sweat to form along her brow. “Why Mike?” she asked, breathless.
Agatha turned her head and stared with gimlet eyes.
“Why Mike? Why not?” Agatha snorted. “The Big Mac…Hah! He lost all caution in his lust for power.” She waved her cane around the elaborate, richly appointed room. “He wanted all this! I saw it all over his face, and I used it.
“He was convenient,” she said with a lift of her protruding shoulder blades. “I didn’t care about MacKenzie, you fool. He was cannon fodder for my campaign against Charles. To make the bank mine.”
Her lips lifted to form a sinister smile that sent a chill down Nora’s spine. “And the beauty of it all was that Charles didn’t trust your husband. He saw him for the high roller that he was. Refused him all loans. Oh…” She groaned like one starved before a feast. “I set it all up soooo beautifully. It would have been so perfect.”
Agatha traveled slowly to the sofa and dropped into the deep upholstery. Swinging her ivory-headed cane from left to right between her bony knees, she moaned again, then muttered to herself in an alcoholic slur, “He took it all away. He took the bank from me. He took this house from me.” Her face hardened, and in that glimmer Nora saw the depth of her hatred for Charles.
“I should have strangled him in the cradle.”
Nora stepped back, so appalled was she by the woman’s bald-faced evil. What C.W. must have endured living with her, growing up with her, calling her Mother.
Nora’s heart lurched. She now heard C.W.’s words to her from a
different perspective. “Trust me.” She saw his actions from a new angle. “Trust me.”
My God, she thought in stunned horror. What had she done? He was her knight in shining armor—her champion. He picked up her glove while all others trampled upon it, and she threw it back in his face.
He had signed over the farm to her. This was no act of conscience. It was an act of faith. And of love. She remembered the Bag Balm. She remembered the note. Was there some hope after all?
Nora cast a final glance at Agatha. She looked wizened and spent, sitting there rambling, awash in self-pity. Nora could almost pity her, but then remembered Mike and C.W. and the countless others who had suffered by her quenchless thirst for power.
“Good things come to good people,” Oma had always said. It was true, she knew now. For in the end, Agatha’s spiteful tirade brought Nora her greatest triumph: she knew that C.W. had been trustworthy. She felt free from the worries about money, success or failure that had plagued her all her life. The only thing that grounded her in this life was one man.
Someday, she knew, she herself would be old and wizened, poised for leaving something behind. And she had just seen what could happen if she built her life on money and power.
She left Agatha in the big, isolated house, mumbling curses at a portrait.
Her first stop was to the Blair Bank. She ran down the long corridor, straight past the row of secretaries, to the large desk before Charles Blair’s office. The stiff-backed Mrs. Baldwin didn’t make a move to stop her but merely waved her by. Nora swung wide the heavy wooden door and stormed into his office.
The man sitting behind the desk wasn’t C.W. This man was tall, but his body was slender, not broad like C.W.’s. His hair was dark and thin, and he wore tortoiseshell glasses over eyes that were a paler blue.
“Where is he?” she asked in a high voice.
Sidney Teller stood and indicated the chair with his hand.
“You must be Nora. I’ve heard quite a lot about you. Won’t you sit down?”
She shook her head. “Where is he?” she repeated.
Sidney held back a smile. “I wish I knew. He left the bank. For good this time. Before leaving he signed over controlling interest of the bank to me and to Cornelia, Stoneridge, the family estate. Gave it all away. Said he wanted to go live on some sheep farm.”
Nora’s heart leaped as she did. It beat as fast as her feet upon the corridor as she raced to the elevator. She punched the button and tapped her foot. “Hurry, hurry,” she pleaded. “I’m going home.”
The sun shone straight above her as she crossed the border into New York State. She passed toll booth after toll booth, tossing coins into metal bins and squealing tires when the light flashed green. With her foot flat on the accelerator, she pushed past the outlines of cities and moved into long stretches of open highway. Buildings gave way to houses, which gave way to rolling hills and mountains. The color gray was pervasive: gray skies, gray trees, brown and gray earth. She had fallen in love among the bountiful colors of harvest. Now she had to learn if the colors of winter were the colors of rest, or of death.
Charles Walker Blair. The name rolled off her lips with a strange feel. Blair; one syllable that added so much. That changed so much. How Mike had hated him. And how she loved him.
He had to still love her, she prayed. Wasn’t he there, at their farm, waiting for her? She would make him forgive her, make him love her again. Once before she had fought for a loveless marriage. And though perhaps it was a losing battle, some things were worth fighting for. This time Nora knew, in every ounce of her body, that C.W. was the whole war.
Nora prayed and vowed as the sky turned dusky and she crossed the Vermont border. The highway changed to gentle roads that curved and dipped along farms, silos, herds of black-and-white cows, and quaint white houses with green shutters. She knew the markers: turn left at the green warehouse, turn right at the Poultney steepled church. Up past Ed’s syrup stand, then straight on to the marshy pond. Then, at last, it was a left turn onto the dirt-and-gravel road that bordered her farm. The window creaked as she rolled it down, allowing the crisp fall air to fill the stale compartment. It smelled of snow and pine. She could almost taste it.
She grew excited now, even as she slowed to a crawl on the bumpy road. As she drove past the lower barn she doubted whether C.W. would really be waiting for her. She told herself she had imagined the whole thing. Passing the pole barn, quiet now without the hungry ewes, she remembered the first day she spent there with C.W.: his patience and her incredible naivete. How far she had come since then.
Nora turned onto the drive then, seeing the condition of the road, and slowed to a stop. Deep ditches had been dug by the storm and coursed along both sides of the road. The narrow strip remaining was humped and littered with patches of ice. Her heart rose to her throat and her stomach tightened into a knot. In the distance, Seth’s coon dogs began howling at the sound of her approach, their incessant wail drowning out the bucolic bleats of the remaining ewes.
The engine purred in gear as she stared at the road and chewed her lips. Already her fingers were cramped around the wheel. Like a déjà vu, the mountain symbolized her fears. They were mighty indeed. Yet forward was C.W. Beyond the icy patches, around the dangerous curves, lay her happiness. She gripped the steering wheel and shifted into low. Easy and calm, she told herself. Small steps.
Despite the icy patches, gullies, and pits, Nora climbed the mountain road steady and sure. Her wheels hit a soft spot and spun, but she kept climbing up, up, past Mike’s Bench where she had at last made peace with her husband, past the stooped maple where she had had her accident, and beyond. The foliage was gone now, and the craggy limbs of the barren trees seemed to point the way. “Go on,” whispered the wind. Her dented Volvo wheezed and whined, but it limped to the top like an old dog finding its way home.
At last she saw the sharp angle of the slate roof, the broad smiling deck, and as always, she smiled back. But her smile froze as she perceived a figure on the desk. A single, tall figure, standing in his familiar stance: hands on hips.
Her own hands shook as she pulled up to the house, turned off the engine, and pulled up the brake. He did not rush down the deck steps to the car, as he had the first time. He stood still, watching, waiting for her first move.
Nora sat in the car, staring back. He was there, just as she’d known he would be. He was there for her. With a deep breath she swung open the car door and stepped out upon the gravel. Her legs felt weak and shaky, whether from the long ride or her apprehension she didn’t know. She stood, hand on the car door, staring up at the figure. He remained standing high up on the second-story deck, looking down. The thought of backing off, of playing a game, never occurred to her. She had come too far, climbed too high, for false pride. This move was hers to make.
Nora slammed the car door shut. Step by step she climbed the stairs, under his watchful gaze. Step by step her confidence grew.
He was smiling now, and his eyes were filled with love. Her heart swelled and she thought she would die. He opened his arms to her and she ran into them, laughing, crying, calling his name. No words were needed, nor were they sought. She felt his arms around her, smelled the sweet scent of his skin, and then, oh, yes, his lips were again on hers.
She felt grounded by his kiss. The current flowed and sparked her to life. Nothing had ever felt so right. She never knew she could love so much.
“How did you know I’d come back?” she asked.
He cupped her face with his hand, his thumb wiping away a single tear. “There’s an old Chinese saying: If a horse is truly yours, do not chase after it, for it will return on its own accord.
“I knew you loved me, Nora. And I always trusted you. I just had to wait until you trusted yourself.”
“I trust us.”
He smiled and pressed her head to his shoulder. “That sounds right.”
They stood for a while, shivering in the cold wind as the sun lowered, neithe
r daring to move and break the moment.
“You made it up all right. The road’s getting pretty bad.”
“Yeh-up,” she replied.
He gave her a squeeze. “You got my package?”
“You mean the Bag Balm?”
“Yes. And the deed?”
“Yes. I got them. It’s an interesting story. I met Agatha.”
He stopped stroking her hair.
“I see why you left New York.”
He laughed and kissed her head.
“I can’t accept the deed,” she said, leaning far back and looking him full in the face. “It wouldn’t be right.”
C.W. released her and reached into his jeans pocket. After a brief dig, he pulled out a ring, and taking her hand, he placed a large mine-cut diamond on her left finger.
“If you wear this,” he said, “I can’t see what the problem is.”
“Oma’s ring!” she cried, grasping her hand and staring at the treasured family heirloom. “How did you get this? When?”
“So many questions. And you know the answers. Let’s see,” he said, taking her hand. His lips turned into a smug grin. “It fits perfectly. Fate.”
“Destiny,” she replied, delighted.
His eyes glowed warm against the cold night air. Their talking ceased, the birds stopped their song, even the coon dogs ignored the early moon. Nora and C.W. stood, holding hands, in a deep mountain silence. Above them, night clouds moved over the mountain ridge, like a curtain closing the final act.
Nora lowered her shoulders, her lips parted, and her mind emptied to receive his words.
“Nora Koehler MacKenzie,” he said, speaking in his deliberate style, “I love you. And loving you has made me whole again. Will you marry me?”
Joy leaped to her throat and expressed itself in one word.
“Yes,” she replied, and buried her head against his chest.
He squeezed her so tight she could say no more.
“Come,” he said, taking her ringed hand and leading her indoors. “I’ve missed you.”
The Long Road Home Page 38
