The Apocalyptic Boomer

The Darkness Itself

2008-10-20T08:02:00.010-04:00

I have long puzzled over this saying of the Master: Take care that the light in thee be not darkness. For if the light in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness itself.

So. The archbishop of Gayland (where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars) has come out in favor of a secular political Proposition whereby marriage would be declared -marvelous to tell!- a matter between one man and one woman.

The Professional Sodomites are outraged. Speaking from the very vestibule of the proudly Gay coven center that some -including His Grace- would call a Catholic church, one such said that he just couldn't understand this latest development. His Grace had been so good on Gay Issues. Now he is lobbing hardballs "straight out of right field." The pious commentator commented further that it seems strange that with all the problems in the world- war, for example- the leaders of the Church should focus on this issue.

Professional Sodomites and their Liberal backers are all psychotic. All sociopaths.

War? They are warring against the minds and souls of little children in the Godless schools. (If you kick out God in the 60s, your punishment is to start getting Satan in the 70s.) They are warring against justices of the peace and caterers and photographers who have no wish to disgrace themselves by taking on Bob and Dave as clients on their special day. They are pushing to stamp out orthodox Christianity, to snuff out the Light of the world, in favor of their stupid and disgusting bad habits of intellect and act.

But just how dishonest is this pious Catholic Professional Sodomite being when he piously asks why an archbishop of a religious cult that still frowns on Sodomy would frown upon rampant and official and politically protected Sodomy in an appropriate social way? It's a Liberal Christian cliche. The real problems in the world are those which the World allows as problems. Funny that the holy apostles Peter and Paul have much to say about sexual vice as the cause of grief in the lives of men and nothing, not one jot, not one tittle, about the evils of war and starvation and Social Injustice. The Master? Again, not a word favorable to the Social Gospel. He did not speak much of sexual vice. (And the children of the Devil blasphemously make much of that fact.) But He saw fit to tighten the ropes as to what constitutes adultery and to prohibit divorce.

And this as His countrymen groaned under the Social Injustice of the Romans!

Was He guilty of having misplaced priorities?

It's all the fault of the Vatican II cult and those who attempt to reconcile that Kingdom of Hell with the Kingdom of Heaven. There are no Fundamentalist Protestant churches that promote Gay Culture. Many if not most New Pentecostalist churches united to Rome promote Gay Culture in some way. Why not? It's incumbent on any thrall of Rome to do so. Rome has stated solemnly that it has Profound Respect for Homosexual Persons. Meaning, not the confused high school kid with a sibilant S, but the Professional Sodomite, the only one who is demanding respect according to the transgressive Revolutionary spirit which is the true god of the Vatican II church.

The silly leader of that wicked cult babbles every now and then about "the hermeneutics of continuity." Continuity, that is, between Light and Darkness, Christ and Belial. In reality, of course, there is none. Imagine a Gay parish in the days when Sister was making girls kneel and measuring the distance between the floor and their exposed leg flesh. "But Society has changed," the apologists for Catholic corruption protest. Nonsense. It was the church of Rome which changed. In the worst possible way. His Grace out in Frisco gives Holy Communion (he thinks) to men with big bushy black mustaches who are a cross-dress between Carmen Miranda and Saint Bernadette. He smiles his dopey Vatican II smile of Openness Even to Risky Experimention in Pastoral Practice and allows obscene shenanigans (Gay fundraisers and jamborees) in a sacred edifice.

I don't know if this particular PS was putting on when he expressed mystification at the interest of his Local Ordinary in supporting a Sodom-unfriendly political move. I'll be breathtakingly original as a right wing pundit and say that my guess is that his mystification is genuine enough. He was pontificating as a Good Catholic in the name of a Gay Catholic parish. He will not be penalized. The Vatican II cult stopped teaching Christianity to its young in the 1960s. What it taught was Liberal bromides and bugaboos and bywords and tall tales. "Sins having to do with the complex field of sexual ethics are not important. They have nothing to do with the oppression of the Migrant Workers in California." Odds are that this particular PS was raised in the 60s or later. Older ones in that town don't live so long.

To be in darkness is bad. But it isn't so bad. There's always the chance that you'll see the light. The most horrible thing that can befall any human being is to have Christian light turn to darkness within him. And that's what Liberal Christianity is all about. The Poor and the Oppressed and the War-Torn become a handy distraction from your own abominations.

The Vatican II cult is a total fake. Its opposition to Sodomy and abortion and other social evils is a total fake. It is always phrased in lame, lukewarm humanistic terms that have nothing of Moses about them, nothing of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, nothing of the Living God of Israel. And nothing of Christ, either Merciful or Judgmental. Everything about the New Pentecostalist cult is upside down and backwards. It has no God. It is a law unto itself. For now it deems it prudent to keep some of the pre-Revolution strictures on its books. It presents opposing Social Sodomy as something that it feels compelled still to because of certain indications from its peculiar faith-tradition.

That's not how the late Reverend Jerry Falwell spoke of it. And that's because , unlike the so-called Catholic Church, Bible-believing Protestant churches are not total fakes.

LADY CLAUDIA: Dark Comedy (III)

2008-10-11T23:24:00.013-04:00

Peter is wearing a long black coat.

"You have no coat, your Ladyship?" he asks as they descend.

"I have a blanket in the car. Well, it's a kind of throw. My stepmother knit it for me."

"Lady Laura. Lady Laura knits, one hears. Where are we going to talk?"

"We're talking now."

"True. But there's only one more flight to go. Shall we talk in the vestibule? Our silhouettes visible to the entire world through the frosted glass?"

"Certainly not. I shall sit in the back of my car and roll down my window. You may speak to me in a very low voice from the sidewalk. I shall tell my driver to have a smoke."

"Of course. I might have guessed. But the costumes and the props are all wrong. You should be wearing a crown and sitting in a golden coach. I should be holding my greasy stocking cap in my hands and nervously wringing it as I try to control my pigs."

"It's easy to mock these conventions, Peter. Not so easy to think things through and see the wisdom of them. Appearances matter. I'm a married lady."

"And a lady. A Lady."

"It can't be helped."

"Fine. As long as you don't start quoting the play. "

*

"Warm enough, your Ladyship?" Peter asks.

"Quite warm, thank you. You must be rather chilled. Let's make this short."

He hesitates. He looks at her coyly.

"I've heard that you've become a saint of sorts. A very Victorian saint who's thoroughly Popish even though she hasn't made it all the way to Rome yet."

"That just goes to show what silly things one may hear if one is not careful."

"Saint. Wrong word. Prophetess. Prophetess of doom. You were in Jerusalem of all places, and-"

"I think you know what we need to talk about, Peter. If we're going to talk at all."

"Is that my cue? Come now, Lady Claudia. That's not being discreet. That's being cagey. You barged in and broke up my conversation with Sir Lewis. You suggested that I leave the premises at once."

"Now that you have done so is there any real need to talk about why we did what we did?"

"I got the part. Claudio."

"I was hoping that I would arrive on the scene before you got to that. That was fast work."

"All is not as it might seem."

"Seem to whom? I didn't just walk into this dark little comedy in the middle of the second act."

"I can see so clearly why you might be seeing everything upside down and inside out."

"You think so. Of course you can't exclude the possibility that I've got a broad overview that allows me to see ten times as much as you do. You think that I think that it was as crude a thing as saying, 'Unless you give me this I shall say that.' You're wrong. Just as he-"

She stops.

"He?" Peter demands. "We can't even say his name when we say these things. It's as if we want to be able to swear in court that we never meant him. Riddles and puzzles and charades."

"Just as he has probably never said, 'If you deny me this, I shall deny you that...' And yet..."

"He gets it."

"And you got it too. No matter what you say about special circumstances, and the complicated feelings and personal histories involved, you got what you wanted here tonight. Are you so foolish that you don't see the problem with that?"

"Well, Lady Claudia, I must say that I'm disappointed. This is not what I expect from a genuine prophetess of doom fresh from Jerusalem. Your point of view seems rather mundane, I'm afraid. Have you nothing to say about my soul's salvation and the Lord of Hosts?"

"You answer my question and then I'll answer yours."

"Am I so foolish et cetera? Well, that does seem rather rhetorical, doesn't it? You could hardly expect me to answer yes."

"There are some things about which we can be frank, old friend. I'll tell you this frankly. I think you should call Sir Lewis tomorrow and say that you'll pass on Claudio. For the time being."

Peter seems taken aback. Annoyed. But he also has the guilty look of someone who has been found out.

"That's what you think, is it?"

"I said so."

"So you did. I should call Sir Lewis and tell him he needs to go looking for a new Claudio."

"That would be the friendly thing to do. Doing what you did tonight was very unfriendly."

He stares at her.

"My God," he murmurs. "My God. You do see it all. You really do. And Val could have told you only so much."

"Val told me nothing. Well, Peter, I've given you my advice. I think that you'd be very foolish not to take it."

"I'm engaged to be married. To a lovely girl whom I truly love."

He seems to be convincing himself of something.

"All the more reason for you to cut out even the appearance of shady shenanigans," Lady Claudia says. "I've heard that you're a good actor. You're just not Sir Lewis's idea of a good actor. You're young and you're from the old school. He's old and he's from the new school. You want to do Shakespeare. He wants to do Freud under a Shakespearean pretext. Don't hold it against him that he wants things his way when he's paying for things. Just be happy with the Missus and the kiddies and keep the hinges on your ladders well oiled."

"You're wise, Claudia. You're also damned cheeky. And you make my prospects in life sound like a horror show. Maybe you are content living the quiet life on the farm..."

"Watch your language, dear."

"You called me old friend."

"I was fond of you. Well, I suppose I still am."

"We would both be embarrassed if I said what that means to me."

"Let's skip it, then. Now, surely you aren't going to forget to hold me to my promise."

"Promise... Promise..."

He smiles sheepishly.

"See here now, Lady Claudia. Have you nothing to say to me about my soul's salvation and the Lord of Hosts?"

"Since you ask, I do have something to say. The term religious experience gives me a pain, and yet for lack of a better term I'll say that I did have one four years ago in Jerusalem. I know that it's talked about. I know that it's known that it was not a happy experience."

"That priest... That French priest who was this big Bible scholar..."

"He died. Yes. Please let's not go into all that. It must be close to freezing out there. We have to open our hearts to God, my young friend. We have to have a merciful and kindly attitude towards our neighbor. We must always try to walk uprightly before the Lord of Hosts. Do the right thing, Peter. Do right by your friend tomorrow."

"Funny that it doesn't sound funny when you say all that about God. The greatest actor on earth couldn't make those words sound convincing... And yet when it comes to our neighbor. Well, everyone talks a good game there. 'I don't need to go to a building called a church on Sunday morning and sing hymns. I can walk in the woods and o'er hill and dale and be grateful to the Spirit of Life. I can simply love my neighbor...' But hardly anyone ever really does. Least of all those who talk about neighbor at God's expense."

"I'm afraid that's the way of it, dear. Call Sir Lewis tomorrow. Tell him. Do what's right."

He smiles mischeivously.

"And the Roman Church?"

"The True One, no doubt. But I'm having my little troubles getting in. I regret very much that this is well known. I pray that you will have a journey to Heaven which is a little less confusing."

"I should just be so lucky that I avoid the lower circles of the other place. I didn't mean to joke about you Catholic troubles. Well, I did mean to. I'm just sorry now that I did."

"That's all right, dear. Now you go on home. Get a good night's sleep. You'll want to have all your wits about you in the morning."

"I think that I will. But I think I'll sit somewhere and have a smoke first. I feel kind of..."

"Only one, dear. It's quite cold. Good night, now. And it is quite proper for you to call me just plain Claudia. That's what you called me when we first knew each other."

"Good night, Claudia."

She smiles at him. Then she rolls up the window. He walks away.

*

"Stop, Corboy!" Lady Claudia exclaims.

She had been rolling up her window.

The driver slams on the brake.

"What's wrong, Ma'am?"

"I don't know. I heard something outside. Would you mind backing up a little?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

Corboy backs up. Lady Claudia looks out the window. She throws off her dark blue and red blanket.

"I'm getting out, Corboy."

"Yes, Ma'am. Is there anything else I can do?"

"I'm not sure. There may be."

She gets out of the car. She is standing before a courtyard to the side of Sir Lewis's apartment house. Valerie and a couple in their forties are walking towards her on the sidewalk.

"What's wrong, Claudia?" Valerie asks.

"I'm not sure. I thought that I heard someone cry out. It sounded as though it was coming from in there."

She gazes into the dark area. She starts to walk in. Valerie grabs her arm.

"Well, don't you go in there," Valerie says.

She turns to the man.

"Robert, would you mind?"

"Of course not," the man says.

But he looks dubious.

He walks into the courtyard. Valerie grabs Lady Claudia's arm. They stand still for a few moments. Robert comes out of the shadows and walks towards them.

"Good God," he mutters. "We've got to call a doctor. And the police."

He runs off towards the apartment house. Valerie looks at Lady Claudia. She runs into the courtyard. Lady Claudia follows.

The silence of the night is broken by a woman's screams.

Lights go on in the windows that overlook the courtyard.

Towards the front of the courtyard there is a large rectangular stone planter. It contains a few shrubs.

Peter Dawson is on the ground, lying against it on his side.

LADY CLAUDIA: Dark Comedy (II)

2008-10-09T20:30:00.004-04:00

"He's bitter," Valerie says.

"Has he something about which to be bitter?" Lady Claudia asks. "But we can't get into that. We can't ask such questions. I lead a very peaceful life up there in the Catskills with our cows and our chickens."

"You mean a very clean life," Valerie says with a tinge of bitterness. "One does start wondering why a youthful passion for things that are true and beauteous and sublime has to lead one into a lifelong dalliance with the lowest pits of vice. It's as though there is an unwritten rule. Those who exist to pass on the moral and mental glories of Euripides and Shakespeare must be depraved. Garbage collectors may be as virtuous as elderly nuns."

Clive walks into the hallway.

"But things happened only behind the scenes with Sir Lewis's company."

"Yes. He runs a clean house, oddly enough. Except that-"

Valerie frowns.

"But I know that you wouldn't like me to go on. Even the old Lady Claudia was reticent about these things."

Clive walks out into the living room from the hallway.

"I wish that you would visit us in Camel Creek, dear," Lady Claudia says with sudden feeling. "You wouldn't want to live there. But for a visit... Oh, the mountains are so lovely. The mountain air is so pure. And even our life in our funny old farmhouse is rather sweet. In Saturday evenings we have our tea in the parlor. We chat and Floyd plays the piano and sings and we play little parlor games with neighbors who are friends..."

"I might surprise you someday," Valerie says. "I might show up on your doorstep with my pathetically tattered actor's suitcase. Sometimes I feel that I've had it with all this."

She holds a hand out towards the opening to the hallway.

"Poor Clive. This party was all his idea. He just adores the old man. But I wonder how much he gets back. Daddy has other fish to fry in other kinds of pans..."

Lady Claudia stands up.

"Oh, dear," she says...

*

She enters a bedroom. It is furnished and decorated elegantly but manfully. A group of four are chatting in one corner of the room. Two people are sitting on chairs. One is sitting on the floor. One is stretched out on the floor. The distinguished-looking man and Peter Dawson are sitting on the edge of the bed beyond a mountain of coats, their backs to the others. They are talking. They do not look particularly tense or upset.

"Sir Lewis," Lady Claudia says as she approaches the distinguished-looking man.

Both men look up. Sir Lewis smiles. Peter looks annoyed.

She bends down and kisses Sir Lewis on the cheek.

"Happy Birthday, dear," she says. "And thank you for the little remembrance earlier in the month."

"Thank you," Sir Lewis says. "And you're very welcome. How are your people doing? His Lordship and Lady?"

"Fine. It's hard. But they're fine."

"Good. When are you going back to the States?"

"My ship leaves on Tuesday morning."

"I wish that I could have seen more of you."

"Well, we'll be back in the summer. As usual."

"I heard that you left your husband seriously ill. How is he?"

"It was pneumonia. He's all better."

"And eager to have you back home, no doubt. Well, we'll have to make a date in the summer."

"Right you are. I see that you've done some renovating."

"Oh, yes. A little. Just Venetian blinds. Here and in the bathroom. I went out and bought the cord and strung them all together myself."

There is a loud noise of people crying out in jocular dismay.

"What now?" Sir Lewis asks in annoyance. "Excuse me."

He stands up and walks to the door. Lady Claudia looks after him. Then she looks down at Peter Dawson. He is looking up at her.

"All right, Peter," Lady Claudia says softly. "Up. We're leaving."

He looks stunned only for a second or two. After that he looks scornful.

"We are? I don't think so. I haven't had any caviar yet. Did you notice that there was caviar out there on the table? Of course you didn't. People like you can afford to take things like that for granted."

"I'll buy you fifty jars of caviar. Now come along, dear."

"Dear? It won't work, your Ladyship. You're beautiful. Even more so now than eight years ago. But I prefer blondes. Sorry. Or maybe you're just being maternal. Well, I have my own gray-haired mother up in Manchester, thanks very much. Now on the other hand, I find you fascinating and eminently likeable. Try saying something fascinating or likeable. Or both. You might get somewhere."

"Good night, Peter," Lady Claudia says.

She turns and walks towards the door.

"Mrs. John Floyd Brightwell!" one of the four cries out.

"I've got to run, darlings!" she replies. "Maybe this summer!"

"You'd better!" someone else cries out.

She smiles and leaves the room. She enters the hallway.

She pauses. Ahead of her is the open door of the bathroom. Sir Lewis and a young man are holding either end of the shower curtain rod. They are attempting to put it back into the fixture on either side of the tiled stall. They fail. The shower curtain is crumpled up inside the tub.

"Damn!" Sir Lewis exclaims as he sets the naked pole upright in the tub. "All right, kiddies. Out! The bathroom is for washing our hands and powdering our noses. Not for drunken rough-housing!"

"That's right," someone who cannot be seen says. "Especially when one's shower curtain rod is a lethal weapon!"

"Keep applying pressure to that!" Sir Lewis says. "You'll live. Which is more than you deserve."

There is laughter. Lady Claudia passes on.

She enters the living room.

"Claudia!" someone says as she walks through the crowd.

"I have to go, dear" she says. "So nice seeing you."

Valerie is suddenly before her. Her face has a worried, plaintive look. Lady Claudia grabs her elbows.

"I'll call tomorrow, dear," she says.

She kisses her.

She makes her way through one last stretch of mob. She opens the door. She enters a hallway. She closes the door behind her. She walks down the hallway. It is paneled in the Jacobean style with oak. She starts to go down a staircase.

"That was hardly fascinating," a voice from behind her says. "And it was eminently unlikeable."

She glances back and up at Peter Dawson.

"But it worked," she says dryly. "Good for you, dear."

Newman: The Divine Low Comedy

2008-10-09T15:39:00.009-04:00

I was posting something about the infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium on a Traditionalist website.

I was saying that the public statement of Pope Pius XII to some visiting special interest group in which he claimed that all agree that Modern Psychology generally has been a boon to mankind is more problematic than the private letter to some bishop in which Pope Pius X (yes, that Pope Pius X) defended Cardinal Newman as a Model of Faith who taught only the purest Catholic doctrine.

I first dropped Newman's name on October 3rd. I continued with a debate on both Newman's heresies on Biblical Inerrancy and the problematic quality of Pope Pius's wrongheaded defense of Newman until the 7th. Just today I found out that when they dug up Newman's grave on the 2nd they found only fragments of metal and cloth. No bones. No Newman.

Why were they trying to dig him up? The top dog in the New Pentecostalist cult might beatify him soon. They wanted to move the most illustrious English Catholic since Sir Thomas More from a country boneyard to a big fancy Oratory in the city. A Professional Sodomite had squawked. His presupposition was that Newman was gay. And Newman had asked to be buried alongside a beloved chum of his. The Professional Sodomite declared that the oppressive Church of Rome was trying to stand in the way of Eternal Gay Luv.

The accusation is not as silly as it sounds if one allows for the sake of argument something so silly as the idea that the present day church of Rome is the Church of Christ. The top dogs of the Vatican II cult have declared with all solemnity before its god of Worldly Openness that it is committed to showing Profound Respect for Sodomitical Experience and Culture. Rome speaks this same language, though with more reservations than one might find in, say, Catholic San Francisco.

Eternal Gay Luv is something for which Ratzinger-friendly Catholics are solemnly bound to have Profound Respect.

Newman was what I call a Professional Catholic. A Celebrity Catholic. A Catholic Big Shot. He converted from Anglicanism. He simply was won over to Rome by what he had deduced from his own ecclesiological research. Ever after he acted as though Rome owed him something for the inconveniences his notorious crossover had cost him. He had been an Anglican Big Shot too.

Newman was always a troublemaker. He was disliked by the eminent Cardinal Manning. Disliked not just personally. Disliked theologically. Newman was a Liberal through and through. He was a spiritual auteur. He believed things only when they seemed reasonable and fitting to John Henry Newman. His theological training was sketchy. His thinking was never truly Catholic. He agitated against the definition of papal infallibility. He denounced St Alphonsus' Mariology. He seemed to pit individual conscience against obedience to the Church. Finally, he claimed that there were "unimportant" parts of the Bible -he called them obiter dicta, or, "things said by the way"- which were not Inspired and therefore could be erroneous.

The High and Puissant Lord Pope of Eternal Rome Leo XIII declared him a cardinal when all he had done was agitate against the papal infallibility definition.

Some critics of Newman make the mistake of faulting Leo for bestowing the red hat on such a theological Yahoo. But since when have cardinals been chosen for their theological expertise? Cardinals have very often been chosen for purely political and pecuniary reasons. Make Junior His Eminence and Pop will pay Pope through the nose. All you need to be named a cardinal are things Pope Joan would not have had had she existed.

Even so, the elevation to the scarlet was especially irresponsible in the case of John Henry Newman. His agitation against the Papacy was well-known and scandalous among those in the theological know. What happened was that Rome decided to canonize, so to speak, the official cover story on Newman whereby this Loyal Son of the Church, having exercised his holy freedom to oppose for political reasons the definition of a truth in which he believed, was the first to kiss the red slippers of the officially infallible Pontiff once the dogma of papal infallibility had been promulgated. But this Roman cover story was as phony as the Acts of the Roman martyrs. Newman, the half-converted Liberal, continued to connive against the dogma and the "fanatics" who had pushed for it. It is just that this conniving was done in a small circle of like-minded bad Catholics. Leo XIII had no reason to imagine that Newman's heretical treachery would ever become common knowledge. So he went ahead and gave one of the Church's highest honors to a man over whom the anathema of a General Council was hanging.

There was an unholy phenomenon at work in all ages of the Roman Church. There was always a "borderline case" for whom even those who, you would think, would know better had a soft spot. Theodoret of Cyr. Erasmus. Baron Von Hugel. John Henry Newman. I believe that this perverse favoritism on the part of Romanist clerics was something that the God of Moses and of a certain unfortunate Galilean Subversive forced on them as a judgment against Wicked Rome in all Rome's phases, both BC and AD. Both the God and the King of the Jews always knew that the Roman Church would end in Satanistic disgrace.

They knew that the entire Romish hierarchical system would break down before God and then be built back up by Lucifer generations before the end of Time. They knew that it would one day become par for the Popish course that a cardinal archbishop proudly display an obscene image of Jesus of Nazareth, at best, being the victim of Sodomitical interest on the part of a Roman soldier. They knew that it would be only with petulant bad grace that this cardinal archbishop, worried lest the Dogma of Openness to the Modern World be in the least violated, admit that his displaying obscene images of the Apostles having a Sodomitical orgy had been a mistake. So they permitted these signs of the Satanic end of the Church as united by a Roman Pontiff to put retroactive egg on the faces of all Doctors and Approved Authors who falsely promised indefectibility for the Papacy until the end of the world.

The papacy did fail in the end. But not at the end of Time. Only the end of the age of the hula-hoop and the TV dinner in an aluminum tray.

But back to Newman, made cardinal by one pope, vindicated by another pope, about to be beatified, perhaps, by the latest sorry excuse for a pope.

I suppose that some would-be Catholic members of the New Pentecostalist cult will be tempted to think that Newman, who after all did write on occasion with perfect Catholic piety, was assumed bodily into heaven. They idolize the top dogs in the unholy cult that holds them in zombie-like thrall. They foam at the mouth in rage against Catholics who reject Modernist Rome. They will hear about this curious lack of tibia and tooth in Newman's plot and think, "God took him. Just to ratify the decision of the Holy Father to proceed with his beatification and to stick it to the Traditionalist schismatics..."

Some Catholics who hold Herr Ratzinger and Modernist Rome as anathema will see Newman's apparent reduction to dust only, skeleton and all, just a hundred and twenty years after his death as a judgment against him. They will think in terms of certain Bible verses about the dusty end of the wicked and their relegation to oblivion.

May they dissolve like the waters which run down...

Psalm 57: 8

I'm always like Frank Sinatra when it comes to these matters. Like Frank Sinatra in a movie called The Miracle of the Bells in which he played a pious but hard-headed priest, that is. There was this pretty girl in that movie. She had gone Hollywood despite being a devout Catholic and played Saint Joan of Arc in a movie that was yet to be released. She had grown up in a poor Pennsylvania mining town. She had contracted black lung. She had died out in Hollywood. The Arc picture was scrapped. The studio head did not want to release a film with a new star who couldn't rise because she was already burnt out. Fred MacMurray, a Hollywood publicist friend of the starlet, took her body back to her home town. Her coffin was placed in the church. Suddenly the earth shook and statues of angels pivoted so that they were looking at the coffin! Miracle! Fred played the story up in the papers. Now the studio would release the picture and give hope to millions of poor, obscure people.

Only one thing. After the alleged miracle Father Sinatra had gone down to the basement of the church with a flashlight. He had seen that the supporting beams of church had shifted in the soft soil because of a slight tremor of the earth. No miracle. But Fred said that there was a kind of miracle for all that. It was all in the timing.

I read some of the news stories about the abortive Newman exhumation. The one I found most enlightening had to do with news reports from the day of the burial. It was reported that Newman had requested that a layer of soft mould be placed on top of the ordinary soil in which he would be buried. Why this unusual request? Someone said that Newman had such a reverence for the letter of the Divine Word that he wanted to facilitate, not discourage, the dust-to-dust process. Apparently he believed that this soft mould would encourage decomposition. He might have had himself smeared with sugar water right before burial and had thousands of flies lay eggs on him. But, hey. The soft mould approach seems to have worked.

The whole business is silly, embarrassing, unseemly, ironic, sad, and hilarious. Which is the least that can be said about the Vatican II church itself. Good Lord. The need to associate the exhumation the holy relics of a supposed Saint with the Modernized Church's committment to Sensitivity to Sodomite Experience and Culture. The exhumation of an obscure 1890 statement about the reverence that Mr. Obiter Dicta himself supposedly had for the letter of the Divine Word.

I think that Newman rotted through and through because he had himself put himself in peat or some such corrosive thing. I need no special signs from Heaven to prove to me that his theology rotted through and through. He wrote some good stuff on the Catholic Faith and popes rewarded him. He wrote some lousy stuff on the Inspiration of Scripture among other things and popes not only failed to censure him properly but went out of their way to laud him to the skies.

Let us simply decline to be deceived by the shocking but non-binding goof-up of Pope Pius X and be on our guard against Newman's blasphemous errors and leave the dead to dig up their dead or die trying to do so.

LADY CLAUDIA: Dark Comedy (I)

2008-10-06T22:15:00.011-04:00

Dark Comedy

London. England
January 1933

Cast of Characters

Lady Claudia
Sir Lewis
Peter Dawson
Corboy
Valerie Hammer
Clive

*

"Surprise!"

Twenty-five people cry out this word as the overhead lights in the foyer and living room of a big, elegantly furnished apartment go on and they pop up from behind sofas and chairs. As they emerge from closets. From under tables.

The man in the front doorway who has switched on the lights is about fifty. He is handsome. Distinguished. He seems to freeze. He looks appalled.

A few of the people who had been smiling as they advanced towards him stop smiling. They look confused.

Standing next to the distinguished looking gentleman is a boy in his late teens. He has longish streaked blonde hair artistically combed back in waves. He is wearing a heavy black turtleneck sweater.

The older man turns to him quickly and says something. Then he grins and slaps him on the back. He opens the door. The boy leaves. The man closes the door. He turns around.

"You devils!" he exclaims. "I knew something was up from the way that kid acted! He came to my club and said that he was the landlord's son and that there was a nasty leak up here. Okay, whose son is he? Whose brother?"

Some of the people who have advanced momentarily look confused.

"I don't know," a woman in her thirties with a Cleopatra hair-do and a long string of pearls says. "Never saw him before."

"Well, it was a cute idea," the man says. stepping into the living room. "Not totally effective, though. I wouldn't give him a part in one of my plays. You people! Whose brilliant idea was this party? My first surprise party ever. I thought that I'd die one of those lucky people who never had one..."

The people around him protest laughingly.

Lady Claudia is standing behind a sofa. She is watching a young man in his middle twenties who is watching the distinguished-looking man. He is smiling. He shakes his head as though in some sort of triumph. The young man suddenly turns. He sees instantly that she had been staring at him.

He narrows his eyes.

She lowers her eyes.

*

"But really, Claudia dear," the woman with the Cleopatra hair-do pleads. "You can't stay down on the farm forever. For now it may be your funny little lark. But you were born to be an actress. You know that."

"Do I, Valerie? Well, if you know it, you should try to convince the critics."

They are sitting on the sofa behind which Lady Claudia had been standing. Valerie is holding a cocktail glass. There is a wine glass on the coffee table in front of Lady Claudia.

"Now, now. You got only one bad review. The rest were kind."

"It would be doing her Ladyship an unkindness to include anything in these lines which implies that she can act."

"Oh, him. He's a pedantic thug. But you forgot the rest. That being said, the Duke's daughter shines as Silvia. Outshines the rest of the cast, who can act, and quite well too, whenever she is on the stage. Lady Claudia should be advised. This is one of those things that can happen only once in a lifetime when one is young and the Fates are on one's side and there is magic to life. But for now, between her ravishing dark beauty and her natural sweetness and grace, she is dazzling. She is the stuff of theatrical legend."

"I believe that that is what's known as damning with fulsome praise."

"That's not the point. You were green then. The important thing is that you had that certain spectacular something we all wish we had. You don't lose that. No matter how many cows you've milked."

"My, how cheeky you've gotten. And your facts are off."

"Oh, that's right. Farmer Floyd brings in the milk. You just do the churning. After you've put by the stewed apricots in Mason jars."

"Funny you should say that. I have done some churning in my day. I enjoy it very much. You seem to forget that I have not forsaken my old life totally."

"Oh. You mean you still have the Villa Juliana?"

"We spend the winter and part of the summer there."

"Well, that's a relief anyway. Though I'd be even more upset to see you wasted as some stuffy society dame. If you're down on the farm at least I can hope that you'll play Temperance at the local church's production of The Godly Virtues Presented In Tableaux , and the bug will bite you again..."

"Valerie," Lady Claudia chuckles. "The things you say..."

"Well, I think that it's just jolly that she lives on the farm!" a young man exclaims. "With a moo-moo here and an oink-oink there!"

Lady Claudia looks up to her right. The young man who had been looking at the man who was being surprised is looking down at her. He seems to have been part of a group of talkers in which he has lost interest.

"Do you mind?" he asks Lady Claudia.

Without waiting for reply he sits on the armrest of the sofa next to Lady Claudia.

He has average good looks. He is of average height. He has dark blonde hair. He has on a gray pin-striped suit.

"You don't remember me, do you?" he asks.

"I'm afraid I don't, sir."

He starts to sing.

"Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.

And so on."

Some bystanders turned around and watched looking embarrassed. Now there is some light applause.

"You were a lot younger then, Peter," Lady Claudia says with a smile. "Your voice is even better now. It's deeper, I think. Peter Dawson. How are you?"

"Peter? Peter Dawson? I'm flattered. Fine. I'm fine. And you, your Ladyship?"

"I'm well, thank you."

His face becomes serious.

"I understand that you had a death in the family. My condolences."

"Yes. My little sister Ellen. A dear, dear little girl."

"Ah..." Peter says in commiseration. "That's rough. God rest her."

"Thank you, Peter."

"I know that you've gotten pretty straight-laced about things since you married the Yankee farmer. So this is an honor for Sir Lewis. Coming to his birthday party so soon after in your simple gray suit. If it were black we'd think, 'She really should have stayed at home if that's the way she feels about it.' But gray is just a gentle reminder to yourself and others. That's class. Eh, Val?"

"Yes, Pete," Valerie says coldly. "That's class."

"Are you still in the theater, Peter?" Lady Claudia asks.

"I'm a stage manager," Peter says. "When by all rights I ought to be Hamlet."

Lady Claudia seems taken aback. The young man is acting as though he is in earnest.

"Do you want to be Hamlet?" she asks.

"He's not that deluded," Valerie says dryly. "He wants to be Claudio in Measure For Measure."

"Oh, yes,' Lady Claudia says. "I heard that Sir Lewis is doing that one in the spring. One of the dark comedies."

"When's the last time you acted?" Lady Claudia asks. "Shakespeare, I mean."

"Three years ago," Peter replies. "Griffith in Henry VIII."

"So what's the problem?"

"Search me," Peter sniffs.

He looks around.

"Nice place," he says. "This was the only way Sir Lewis was ever going to host a party for people like us. Or have any of us as guests. So I guess it would be awkward if any of us said we had been up here before. Oh, except for you, Lady Claudia. You could have been up here with dukes and earls and contessas. I certainly have never been up here before. I've never played Hamlet, either. I've never even played Philarlio in Cymbeline."

Lady Claudia looks vaguely perplexed. But before that she looked as though she had realized something. She takes a sip of wine.

"Is that still a treat for you?" Valerie asks her.

"Our Township is still dry," Lady Claudia replies. "So yes. This is a treat."

"A sparrow couldn't get tipsy on what you drink," Peter says. "But you were always that way. You know something, Claud? Nine out of ten times people just don't believe me when I say that I knew you and worked with you way back when. Even when they have some vague memory of your having gone into show business."

"That's because you're still very young, Peter. Eight years have passed. When one is your age even people who are not all that much older than you are imagine that eight years ago you were in knickers and rolling hoops. Twenty-six. You're at the very end of being young at all. There's something bittersweet about that that gets people confused at times..."

"Yes! That's it exactly!"

There are two areas in the living room with sofas and chairs set around coffee tables. Between the two areas there is an opening that gives into a hallway. The distinguished-looking man is now talking to a few people in front of this opening.

"You look younger than twenty-six," Lady Claudia observes.

"And you look older than twenty-eight," he replies. "Oh, I don't mean that in the way you might take as an insult. You just look too wise and too tragic to be as young as you are."

"How absolutely precious, dear," Valerie says with a disdainfully mincing inflection and expression. "But a wee bit presumptuous, surely?"

The distinguished-looking man turns and walks into the hallway.

"In any case," Peter says, staring at the distinguished man, "there are some for whom I may as well be walking about with an ear trumpet and a cane."

He smiles the same gloating smile that Lady Claudia noticed earlier.

"That was rather mean of him to send poor Al away before," Peter says.

"Poor Al?" Valerie asks.

"Of course. Cousin Al. Though some of us call him Wishy."

"Wishy," Valerie repeats.

"Yes, Wishy. His real name is Aloysius, of course. He hates to be called Wishy. We got him to play the part of the landlord's son. What a shame that Sir Lewis gave him such short shrift. If you think my voice is good you should hear Wishy's. He's an accomplished counter-tenor. His specialty is Baroque Oratorio. Handel in particular."

"Really?" Valerie asks. "What was the last Handel Oratorio that Cousin Wishy performed?"

"Jemima."

"Jemima."

"You really must broaden your horizons, dear. Jemima was the daughter of the oh-so-patient Job. I grant that this was a very early and somewhat obscure work. It is a little-known fact that the music of Handel's famous Hallelujah Chorus was originally part of the score of Jemima."

"What were the lyrics?"

"Sores from Satan! Sores from Satan! Sores from Satan, Sores from Satan, Sores from Sa-aa-aa-TAN!"

A boy of twenty enters the living room from the hallway. He is tall. He has wavy dark blonde hair. His eyes are close together and squinty. He is dressed casually. He stops. He looks at Lady Claudia. He smiles. He stretches out his arm and holds up his hand in greeting. He walks off.

"Junior," Peter says.

"Not quite," Valerie says.

"Clive, I believe," Lady Claudia says. "I wouldn't have recognized him. He's a nice-looking young man."

"You think so?" Peter asks. "I've always thought that he looks like a rat. A blonde rat."

"He reminds me of my dear husband," Lady Claudia says.

"Oh," Peter says. "Yes. Now that I think of it I see the resemblance to Clark Gable. How lucky for you. But never mind the physical looks. There's a look about that kid. I've always thought that he has the glint of madness in his eyes."

"He's studying at Cambridge," Valerie says with dry dismissiveness. "Not a star pupil, but a phenomenal athlete. The best they have. Swimming, track, javelin throwing, pole-vaulting. The rumor is that he's shooting for the next Olympics."

"How nice," Lady Claudia says. "Sir Lewis must be very proud."

Valerie lowers her eyes.

"Humph!" Peter grunts with smirk.

"You started out tiresome and now you're getting perilously close to irritating!" Valerie snaps. "I see Lady Claudia only once every other year or so. I have no intention of letting you spoil this visit! And for your information her husband is an absolute dreamboat!"

Lady Claudia smiles placidly, as though she is not involved.

Peter stands up. He bows.

"Sorry if I gave offense, your Ladyship. I tend to show off around the rich and famous. Speaking of whom, I think that I need to have a chat with the birthday boy."

"It was so nice to see you again, Peter," Lady Claudia says. "And thank you for the song. The first one, I mean..."

Boomapox Diary: October 5, 2008

2008-10-05T18:08:00.007-04:00

Little did I dream when I woke up this morning that I would be having a day found worthy of describing for posterity...

First time in a year and a half, too.

It is no great mystery. Reflection on the recent death of someone I once knew after coincidence placed me in front of the house he lived in when I knew him was behind my having these Immortal Thoughts and Feelings. And it was a sunny Sunday afternoon... That always helps when it comes to getting into Immortal mode.

I was out buying a Sunday newspaper for someone. I was in a big parking lot between the backs of the stores on Main Street and the Roman Catholic church on Conklin Street which was mine before the Romish Antichrist of the New Pentecost struck me personally. I was just sitting in my car looking around. The store had sold its last newspaper. It was now past four.

I thought of the dead guy. He had not been young. But he had not been quite old enough to be my father. He was not a Boomer. But he seemed to belong to my generation. He was in my crowd and he had not stood out as seeming much older. He had had a certain chronic ailment going back to the cradle. But it wasn't one that you think of anyone's dying from in this day and age.

Just a bit to the south of this vast parking lot dotted with sycamores was the house he had lived in when I used to hang out with him. He was not a friend of mine. He was the friend of a friend. He was the salt of the earth. But he was surly. He was almost always more surly than salt of the earthy with me. He disapproved of the way in which I was constantly moving around the Island and the State and switching jobs. He thought that people had an obligation to stay near their family and friends unless something really great opened up somewhere far away. He didn't think that my prospects away from our own village were ever that great. He razzed me about it. Some of his witticisms about my tumbleweed MO were pretty funny.

This crowd I was in. Our main things were bowling, diners, and cook-outs. Just once I seemed to impress the dead guy favorably. I was never a great bowler. Usually I knocked down four or five pins and then two or three. Once I was getting strike after strike after strike. He sat there with his mouth open. "This man..." he kept intoning. "Where has this man been hiding?"

I passed the Methodist church at the end of Rose Street, the street on which the dead guy had lived. He had been a devout Methodist. It's a distinctive building. So many of the outstanding edifices in my little suburban village five miles east of Levittown are. It's made of granite blocks and has a green copper steeple.

But I abominate Vatican II and Catholic Liberalism. Don't you go to Hell if you go to the church at the wrong end of Rose Street? (The schoolyard of the Catholic parish school is diagonally across the parking lot from the other end of Rose Street.)

I went to the big suburban supermarket on Main Street. They sell newspapers. But probably not the one I wanted. They had a lot left of the others. I went back to my car. I thought of the dead guy again. I thought of something he had done which really touched me. I have to be vague in relating what it was. He had insisted that someone who wasn't doing right by me at an extremely difficult time start doing so. He had insisted in a colorfully dire tough guy way. Only someone who knew the dead guy could understand how and why the party who had not been doing right by me told me all about how the dead guy had harangued and threatened him into doing better and why that made for peace instead of further hard feelings. This guy was a force to be reckoned when it came to seeing that you took proper care of family and friends the way he did. He had little patience with social deadbeats.

I went to a third place. A convenience store. One of a chain. (Not everything in my village is quaint.) The dead guy was a school security guard who rode around town from school to school in a Jeep. He spent a lot of time in that convenience store over the decades. All that coffee... All those chili dogs... All those Fritos... They had the paper I wanted.

I decided to take a spin over to the State Park. The one I went to on that Sunday afternoon last February when I last made an entry into my Boomapox Diary and wrote some of the most horrible and shocking things (about sexual blasphemy as regards Jesus) ever written by someone who was trying to serve the turn of the King of the Kingdom of Light. I had a stray thought about the dead guy. We had been in a diner with the friend we had in common. A French fry had fallen into a fold in the front of the dead guy's security jacket. The friend starting having a fit of laughter. The fry was wedged in there in such a way that it bobbed around like a little tongue or finger when the guy moved or spoke. The guy looked at the fry and then at the friend with his usual dry surliness. But I'm sure that he figured out a way to make the fry bob about even more comically...

The State Park. A few red leaves but still no autumn. I was in much, much better health on that last Boomapox Sunday... The dead guy... had not been dead.

Back at home. I opened the car door in the driveway. But I just sat there. One has these moments in Life - I won't say that one enjoys these moments in Life, even though they impart a certain light and peace- when one feels that one could account for years, for decades, for generations of one's life in this world to any captious or dubious angel of judgment...

The old nuns who taught me at that school on the right end of Rose Street would not have had damned to Hell the Methodist heretics at the wrong end of Rose Street. Invincible Ignorance and all. Better than Precious Blood to guarantee salvation. Pope Pius IX was shocked, shocked that some laxist Catholics, overeager to placate modern sentimentalism, were saying that the salvation of those outside the Roman Church was likely, when some rigorist Catholics were saying that he was being lax when he suggested that it was even possible!

But then we got the new nuns. They said that you didn't have to go to Mass if you didn't dig going to Mass. They said that the things you are liable to read in the Bible ain't necessarily so. The catechisms that they forced on us over the fulminations of our orthodox hold-out pastor had a huge blow-up of a picture of the demented Antichristian apostate Teilhard de Chardin.

So if it was not on either end of Rose Street where was salvation then?

I was also raised on the Little Flower of the Baby Jesus. She taught us to trust God as our Papa in Heaven. She taught us to be as little children. She said that Hell and damnation are not for little children.

The Sovereign Pontiffs were at pains to vet her.

But right now I am engaged in a cyberspace religious controversy in which I am denouncing Pope Saint Pius X - Pope Saint Pius X! - for having vetted in a fallible private letter the execrable Liberal troublemaker Cardinal Newman.

I was born and baptized in the year of Grace 1957. I was born during the last twelve months of the reign of the last True Pope of Rome. I may have said one Our Father in the Kingdom of Light. Then the Popes of Rome unleashed on the world the Kingdom of Hell.

One is not left without God in this world because the Christ is dissolved into Tartarus. One lives. One breathes. One walks in the sunshine. One can be a fairly good person. One has family. One has friends.

One bowls.

But advancing age and finally the spectre of Death bring us face to face with that Christ, Who no matter what happened to His Church in this world is our only Hope for happiness in the world to come and is set up to cause us unhappiness if we are not on His right side. (It is a Certain Theological Conclusion that a Good Jew living in, say, Trachonitis who never heard of Jesus of Galilee would have been saved if he had died in March of AD 30? and damned, even though he was still good, if he died in April of AD 30?.) And whether we like it or not the Prophet of the Kingdom of Heaven preached Hell and damnation for those outside His Kingdom. Which, we must now understand as His Church. His kind of Roman Church.

I know that a large part of the Catholicism that I learned as a kid growing up in the early and middle 1960s, before the Kingdom of Hell took hold of the Roman church in my suburban village, was an abomination of accomodating Americanist Liberalism. Traditionalism taught me that. But a large part of that Catholicism was also a holy and a vast improvement on what had come before in the Church. Traditionalism shrivels the soul by dragging it willy-nilly back into the 1780s. Or the 1560s. Drag the Jews back to the Ghetto! The Jesus and Mary I knew as a Catholic child were friends. I could count on them to help me out and pull me through in the end. They were very nice people. The rules were the rules. But there was a way in which they might work with them in Mercy... One could lay oneself down to sleep in the hope that all would be well.

The fallacy of Liberal Catholicism is to choose to think that all will be saved, that a Merciful God could not have created Hell, and so forth. Our choosing to think things doesn't change the way things are. And the teaching of God Incarnate is a good clue as to the way things really are in the unseen realms. There is a Hell. And despite what the phony pope Wojtyla said, it is more than a "tragic possibility" when the God of Truth preaches on it.

But I want to believe that everyone for whom I have known and for whom I have prayed, will come to a place of light, happiness and peace. And that one day, though not too soon, I will be there with them.

The way to both presumption and despair as one contemplates Sin and Death and Judgment -one's own and those of one's loved ones, or even those of those with whom one walked under the sun that shines upon the just and the unjust- is to keep on contemplating Sin and Death and Judgment. It is the Face of Jesus of Nazareth which we should be contemplating. It is His sacred heart. It is His beautiful, beautiful Mind. We must not reason away or sentimentalize away His hard sayings. We should accept them like little children in our hearts. We should insist on them in the theological forum as though to out-Augustine Augustine. And then, like little children we should run into His arms and ask Him to do the opposite of what He said in those hard sayings just because we asked Him to...

It's funny. A lot of what I have of Jesus of Nazareth I got all on my own once I had all on my own lived down my unspeakably horrific dealings with the church of the New Pentecost. I worked out my own way of being devoted to Jesus' mother Mary. (Hard to be saved with no special devotion to her, they say.) But Saint Therese has been with me all my life as she is in herself without my having to think my own brilliant and novel thoughts about her. And there is no fear, no darkness in her. She is all Love. But she is also all Truth. Which gives you confidence that she is being Truthful, and not reductionist, when she makes the Christian thing all about Love...

What a Long and Winding Road.

But...

He who perseveres to the end will be saved...

LADY CLAUDIA: And Less Than Kind (VI)

2008-10-04T15:49:00.010-04:00

ANNE is rapping on the narrow northeastern window of the parlor of the Bisbee House.

Behind her the sun is rising and the bottom of the sky is pale pink and yellow. The top of the sky is deep blue.

Lady Claudia is sleeping all curled up on one of the sofas. They have been pushed next to each other on the north side of the room.

She sits up. She looks at Anne. She gets up. She has on a dark red bathrobe. She walks around the sofa towards the kitchen door. She opens it and enters the kitchen. She turns to her right. She draws back the white muslin curtain of the side door. Anne is standing there. She unbolts the door and opens it.

"Anne," she says, groggy and surprised.

Anne is wearing a gray skirt and a black sweater.

She advances. Lady Claudia stands aside and closes the door.

"Oh, goody. Coffee," Anne says. "I'll get me some. You too?"

"Yes, please." Lady Claudia says. "But allow me."

"Out of the question. Sit down."

Lady Claudia sits down at the kitchen table on the chair whose back is to the door. She watches as Anne gathers cups and saucers and pours the coffee from the pot on the stove.

"Huldah left for the morning?" Anne asks.

"I think so. Unless she's upstairs."

"Sorry if I alarmed you. I saw the light on in the barn but I didn't want to bother Floyd. Then I peeked in here and could just make you out on the sofa. You slept there all night?"

"Yes."

"Floyd too?"

"Yes. He insisted. He put the cot mattress on the floor and slept on that."

"Well, a promise is a promise."

Anne hands Lady Claudia a cup of coffee on a saucer.

"Thank you," Lady Claudia says.

"May I take a look inside?" Anne asks. "May I pay my respects?"

Lady Claudia looks at her.

"I could just make it out too," Anne explains.

"Of course, dear," Lady Claudia says.

Anne steps over to the door. She opens it. She flicks on the parlor's overhead light. She looks in. She closes the door.

"I'm not a big one for gawking at dead bodies," she says. "But I know that it will be a great comfort to Patricia that you did this. That you kept vigil. For as long as you could. As her cousin, thank you."

She brings her coffee over the table and sits on the chair facing Lady Claudia.

"Paradise, eh?" Anne asks. "Don't think that I didn't pick up on that. I studied loads of theology at Vassar in various roundabout ways. Reading Augustine and Dante and some of those even more dreadful Puritans. Jonathan... Jonathan Whatshisname. You didn't say Heaven."

"No. I did not."

"But you baptized her. Very discreetly. But I saw you. I heard you, though just barely."

"I'd rather not discuss that now, Anne."

"The poor little thing was born dead. Dr. Sutch said-"

"We can't be sure when she died. Let's drop it, dear."

"You're the doctor. I'm glad that I found this old thing at the back of a closet. I'd forgotten about it. It may be ratty. But it's black."

"You look fine, Anne."

"I suppose that the Floyd and the gravediggers won't mind. No clergyman?"

"No. But Herman's father is going to come. He should be here in about an hour. He wanted to represent his son and his family."

"Mother didn't mention that."

Lady Claudia's brow furrows slightly.

"I had to drive into Brightwell Spa to make the call. From the hotel. When will Floyd have the entire Township hooked up to Mr. Graham Bell's nifty invention?"

"Someday soon it will be. And it won't take Floyd to do it."

"No clergyman. But Patty Cake was always fairly religious. In a mainline Episcopalian sort of way."

"This is rather confusing for everyone. No one is quite sure of how a miscarriage at, say, three months, differs from a still birth at almost eight months, or of how a still birth differs from the death of an infant right after birth. Not everyone knows exactly what happened over there in Sprayberry's Inn. I'm sure that Mother and Aunt Lillian did not go into details. So the funereal etiquette in this case is quite a conundrum."

"Well, she looks darned good in there. Much better than yesterday. Who'd you get, Trudley or Grey?"

"Mr. Trudley handled everything. It was a little more involved than we had anticipated. Sheriff MacEveny had to be called in to ask Dr. Sutch and me certain questions. But in the end all went well. And we had candles burning in the parlor. Huldah even brought in some dried flowers."

"I saw that. I also saw that you took down the curtains. Candles, eh? Floyd probably remembers when this place almost burned down when they had old Uncle Bill Bisbee laid out in there. Back when we were kids. Aunt Parmelia's and Old Charlie's brother. Grandpappy Joe's half-brother. A curtain caught fire..."

"Floyd mentioned that."

"You really fixed it for yourself yesterday, Claw. The Aunt Lillian situation is beyond hope now. But then, that was hopeless from the day Floyd brought you home. I was thinking more of Lois... She seemed a trifle standoffish with you by the end of the day."

"She was upset."

"She was spooked."

"Have it your way, Anne."

Anne looks at Lady Claudia with narrowed eyes.

"That perfect poise. That seamless transition from joking about name etymologies to ushering this one over to a truly Jacobean dining room table and that one into Eternity... Of course, some of it comes from being brought up to take your rightful place as Queen of the World one day. But some of it comes from something deep and dark inside of you and only you..."

"I think that this analysis of my little quirks would be much more fair if Aunt Lillian were present and scheduled to be put through the wringer too."

"Oh, Aunt Lillian. One doesn't waste one's breath. Well, that's enough. You look good, Claw. All things considered. Red really is your color, isn't it? Not bright, happy, fire engine reds or Santa Claus reds. No, deep, rich, somber reds... Cherry red. Ruby red. Speaking of which, I worry about you alone in this house. That fabled ruby necklace you own. The one that King Philip IV of Spain supposedly gave his consort, Elisabeth of Bourbon..."

"Is there something else on your mind, Anne dear?"

"Ooh, you little devil. Always seeing through me. Well, since you ask, you know very well what's on both our minds. Is this the right time?"

"It's not the best time. But it's certainly the right place."

Lady Claudia glances at the telephone.

"I called because I was really annoyed," Anne said. "And the boys were really scared."

"Do you really think so, Anne?"

Anne stares at Lady Claudia. Then she looks away.

"Boy, Claw. You're really something. It's when you ask vague little questions like that that you make your boldest statements. All right. We can do this your way. No, I don't really think the boys were really scared. I think that they were desperate to prolong contact with Uncle Floyd and bask in his fatherly interest in them. And that's because their own father doesn't have much of an interest in them. And maybe that's why I was so annoyed."

"I'm sorry, Anne. I don't want to hurt or embarrass you. But surely you must understand that I don't want my husband to be hurt or embarrassed either. It was one thing for you to give him what for in your big sisterly way. It's the job of any red-blooded young uncle to relax the rules a bit with his nephews and on occasion take his lumps when Mama thinks that things have gone too far. What rankled was to have the father get into the act as though there were some serious problem and play the part of the schoolmaster who was letting the wayward uncle off with a stern warning this time. Floyd said, 'That could well be, Harry.' I think that he said that because Harry said something like, 'If you had children of your own, you'd tell different kinds of bedtime stories.' I think that because of the expression I saw on Floyd's face. I want never to see that expression on his face again, Anne. That's all I'm saying."

Anne looks at her.

"For once we're in perfect agreement," she says softly.

"Oh, Anne, Anne..."

Anne scowls and shrugs.

"Stand back. I'm going to blow a chill wind on this sudden flow of sap. I don't agree that it was Mother's party. It was held in her home. She should have stood up to Aunt Lillian. But it wasn't her party. She didn't send out the invitations and plan the food or the decorations."

"I've been thinking about what I said. About its being Mother's party. Maybe I was wrong on that point."

"Aunt Lillian is just afraid of you because people tend to die when you're around. Just as Lois is afraid of you now. Mother's attitude is a mystery to me. But there was something you said yesterday... It was the oddest thing I've ever heard anyone say. And I grew up in the Brightwell Mansion, mind you. It really gave me the creeps yesterday. I was appalled. And yet... Having thought about it all night, I woke up realizing that it was the perfectly right thing to say to that mother who had just lost her child in those circumstances... You two went through a lot together in the past months. She was like your little war buddy..."

Lady Claudia stiffens and looks at the parlor door.

"The Franklins have a big plot up in the Franklinville cemetery. That's where Herman and Patricia will go, please God no time soon. But that's not where this little one will go an hour from now. She didn't even want to see her. She didn't even try to name her. No more talk of Cecilia. When she said goodbye, she meant goodbye. But she really did want the best for the little lost angel whom no one knows how to mourn. Whom no one knows how to love. Whose generation no one on earth knows how to declare. Except for one person on earth. So she put her poor little grey ghost under the perpetual care of that one person. And there's a certain little glade under beech trees with heartbreakingly tiny headstones in the cemetery that this one person's husband happens to own. Next to which she happens to live. Will Patricia see to the little stone for her little ghost? Herman will pay for it in the end. But Lady Claudia will see to it. And Lady Claudia is the only one who will never, ever forget that poor little ghost. Gate of Heaven. One hopes. But perhaps the gate is closed. Only Lady Claudia would refuse to lie about that. On the other hand, only she would know how to make the best of it. Lady Claudia. A little less than kin, but more than kind. I guess Mother doesn't even try to figure you out. Sometimes I can't bring myself to blame her. I just know that I'll never stop. Trying, that is..."

"How nice, dear. Well. I have to wash and get dressed. Please finish your coffee. I'll be down in a few minutes."

"Sure."

Lady Claudia gets up. She walks towards the dining room door.

"Claw?"

Lady Claudia turns around.

"Yes?"

"It was a great party up until. And you were the life of it. You know something? You're funny. You're a riot."

*

Anne rolls open the door that leads from the milk room to the barn proper.

Floyd is milking Greta. He turns and looks at her. She walks over to him.

"Sis," he says. "Nice of you to drop by."

"Coming out here was nice. Coming this morning in my ratty black sweater was a sacred duty."

"Well, if that ain't you all over. People don't know how pious and how sensitive you really are. In your way."

"So you think you'd look nice with a bucket over your head? I came out here to say two things. First, sorry about that stupid phone call."

"Okay, Annie."

"Second, I think that you should go in and visit with your wife. I'll take over here."

"Oh you will, will you?"

Floyd stands up.

"Why visit? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. For the first time since Saturday night things are just fine. I said something nice to her and then Castle's girls knocked on the door and ran off. They left little bouquets of paper flowers. She's crying. Crying her dear little heart out..."

THE END

LADY CLAUDIA: And Less Than Kind (V)

2008-10-01T18:42:00.016-04:00

EVERYONE at the table looks at Lady Claudia.

Then, one by one, they look at Patricia.

"Are you all right, dear?" Aunt Lillian asks.

"I don't know, Mother. I don't think so..."

"Do you need to go to the ladies' room?"

"No... It's not... I'm not sure."

Lady Claudia pauses. Then she walks over to Patricia. Aunt Lillian looks taken aback and annoyed. Lady Claudia leans over Patricia.

"Tell me what's happening, dear," she says. "Tell me what you're feeling."

Patricia hesitates. She looks at her mother. Lady Claudia looks at Anne.

"Claudia studied nursing in her younger days," Anne says. "She practiced it for a while."

"Yes," Aunt Lillian says dryly. "In a veterans'' hospital."

Lois stands up.

"She looks so pale," she says, a whimper creeping into her voice. "She's sweating."

"Please go outside and have Freida call Dr. Sutch," Lady Claudia says to Lois.

Lois hesitates. She looks at her mother.

"I'll go," Anne mutters, standing up.

"No," Lois says. "I'll do it."

She turns and steps over to the double doors. She opens it and goes into the entry hall.

Martha stands up. Aunt Ramona starts to cry. Aunt Lillian puts her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand and stares at the miniature pink roses arrangement in the center of the table.

Patricia jolts and lets out a groan.

"Oh, Claudia," she says, beginning to cry, "This can't be happening. It can't be! Maybe it's just..."

She tries to stand up. She gasps violently and then draws in breath through clenched teeth, making a hissing sound.

"Don't try to move," Lady Claudia says. "Stay still, and take long deep breaths."

"I think that it's time," Patricia says. "That's what I'm feeling. From what women have told me... Oh, my God. Dear God in heaven. It's too soon. It's too soon."

Lois and Freida hasten in.

"His wife said he's on his way back from Wolf Hospital," Freida says. "He called fifteen minutes ago saying he was leaving."

"That means he should be here in about fifteen minutes," Lady Claudia muses. "Freida, go next door and tell Mr. Singenstraw to send Bart Kenyon out to the Turnpike where the Camel Creek road comes in. He is to flag down Dr. Sutch and tell him to come here directly. Get going, dear."

Freida hastens away. Another young woman enters the dining room. She is dressed in a waitress's uniform.

"Ida," Lady Claudia says. "Bring me the following things. Hot water immediately, boiling water as soon as possible, a sharp knife, kitchen scissors, and clean facecloths, towels and tablecloths. Do you have a first aid kit?"

Ida stares.

"Dear, do you have a first aid kit?"

"In the kitchen."

"Bring it to me. I hope it has alcohol."

She hastens away.

One of the men from the Pfaff party steps up.

"Is there anything that we can do, Claudia?" he asks.

Lady Claudia looks down at Patricia.

"Yes, Freddy," she says. "Have everyone at your table leave the room immediately."

"Claudia..." Aunt Lillian says uncertainly.

Lady Claudia ignores her.

"Go over to our house," she says. "Huldah is there. She can set up the dining room in two minutes. We'll have your dinners sent on over there. They should be ready soon, I take it."

Freddy seems dubious and embarrassed.

"We'll leave, of course" he says. "But I don't know about-"

"Nonsense. Just go over there and go on with your party seated at a Jacobean dining table at which a King of England named James actually dined. And you can remember us here when you say grace. Your doing both will make us all feel better about this. Get over there, Freddy. Please."

He wheels about.

Lois walks over. She stands behind Patricia and puts her hand on her shoulder. They are both sobbing. Then Patricia screams.

Lady Claudia looks at the floor. Her eyes widen.

"Now I'm going to have to do something, dear," she says to Patricia. "Try to stay calm. Let me know if you feel any pain."

She crouches next to Patricia. She looks up at her. She seems to be doing something with her left hand.

She stands up.

"Anne? Martha? We're going to lay her down on the carpet. Then we're going to remove her skirt and her undergarment."

Patricia's groans and sobs seem to be a despairing protest.

"What is this, Claudia?" Aunt Lillian demands.

"The baby is coming. Soon."

Aunt Lillian looks horrified.

"Impossible!" she whispers.

"Lois, please take Aunt Ramona outside," Lady Claudia says. "Maybe you should stay out there with her, dear. Mrs. Pfaff!"

Olive May has walked over to her. Lady Claudia looks about and now sees that the rest of her party has left.

"This is something I know a bit about too," she says. "Fifty-five years of helping birth babies around this countryside. Don't argue with me. I'm here. But I'm only the nurse. You're the doctor."

"Oh, I wish. Oh, how I wish..."

*

Dr. Sutch comes out of the dining room. He closes the door behind him.

He glances at the lounge area.

Aunt Ramona is seated in the center of the couch. Uncle Cal is holding her right hand. Martha is holding her left hand. She looks just stunned now.

Uncle Mitch is sitting in one of the wing-backed chairs. He is leaning forward. His head is in his hands.

Anne is sitting in the other wing-backed chair.

Floyd is standing next to the fireplace with his arms folded on his chest and his head bowed. He exchanges a glance with Dr. Sutch.

Dr. Sutch walks over to the front desk. Freida is still at her post. The waitress Ida is sitting next to her. Dr. Sutch gestures at the telephone, indicating that he would like to use it. Freida raises her hand and drops it. He picks up the receiver.

"Hello, Gladys? Dr. Sutch again. Can you get me Homer Dibble again? Thanks... Hello, Homer? Dr. Sutch again. How are we doing?... That's fine. Send her right over. It's an emergency. All right, then."

He hangs up.

He walks over to the family members and the friend.

"Your daughter is stabilized, Mr. Hathaway," he says.

Uncle Mitch looks up.

"And that means?"

"It means that the bleeding has stopped and she's no longer in shock. She's resting. Maybe not comfortably. But she's resting."

Uncle Mitch nods and flashes the ghost of a smile.

"Thank you, Dr. Sutch," he says.

"Don't thank me," he says.

He glances at Floyd.

"She knew how to stop the hemorrhaging," Dr. Sutch says. "She knew where to apply pressure and she kept it applied. She knew that above all Mrs. Franklin should not walk or sit in a car or be carted about before she was stabilized. I couldn't have done anything more for Mrs. Franklin than Mrs. Brightwell did. If your daughter had been alone, Mr. Hathaway, or if she had been with people who just panicked..."

He shakes his head. He leaves the dread possibilities hanging in the air.

"All right," he says briskly. "That was Mr. Dibble. The ambulance should be here in five, ten minutes. What a day for it to be in the shop."

"What a day," Uncle Mitch repeats. "Thank you, Doctor."

Dr. Sutch stands there.

"Is there something else, Doctor?"

"There is, Mr. Hathaway. Mrs. Franklin has made a rather unusual request. Unusual in these cases. I don't know how I feel about it as her attending physician. I don't know how you'll feel about it as her father. I think that Mrs. Hathaway was aghast at the very notion. I would recommend getting Mrs. Brightwell's opinion before we decide..."

*

Anne enters a small room that looks like an office. There is a desk and a few chairs. These are Early American antiques. Contrasting jarringly with these is an olive green filing cabinet.

Lady Claudia is sitting at the chair behind the desk. She has turned it around so that she can look out the window. It is a blur of green and gray that she contemplates.

She is holding something in her arms. Something wrapped in a white towel.

She turns around and sees Anne. She smiles.

"Anne, dear."

"Claw, dear. Floyd was going to come in. I somehow thought..."

"Of course. This really is one of those rare times when women have to take over and men have to wait on the sidelines, somber and eager to help. Deferential. And silent."

"That about describes the three out there. The ambulance should be here soon."

"Oh, good. How dreadful for Patricia to have to stay lying on that floor."

"So nice of Heck Sutch to provide an ambulance to his patients. Who would expect such a thing in a place like Camel Creek?"

"Dr. Sutch is a very progressive young doctor."

"But there's something else."

Anne seems unable to go on.

"What is it, dear?"

"Ach! I'm never as strong as I think I am when push comes to shove. I'm almost as bad as Susan."

"You were a great help before, dear."

"No. Olive May Pfaff was a great help. I just did what I could. Which wasn't much. And I don't think that I could do what you're doing now. Claudia, she wants to see her. Patricia wants to see her baby."

*

Lady Claudia walks into the waiting area holding the bundle.

Anne is standing by the fireplace talking to Floyd.

Uncle Mitch stands up.

Aunt Ramona starts to turn around. Uncle Cal prevents her doing so with his arms and hands.

Lady Claudia glances at them. She hesitates. Then she walks over to Dr. Sutch. He is now sitting at Freida's desk.

"I don't think that there would be any problem," Lady Claudia says.

"Then go on in."

She looks at the door. She looks at him. He stands up and steps forward. At that moment one of the double doors swings open. Aunt Lillian sweeps into the entrance area, closing the door behind her.

"What's going on here?" she demands. "What do you think you're doing, Claudia?"

Lady Claudia just looks at her. The she looks at Dr. Sutch.

"You know what's going on, Mrs. Hathaway," Dr Sutch says. "You know what Mrs. Brightwell is doing. You know that Mrs. Franklin asked to see her baby."

"No," Aunt Lillian says.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Hathaway?" Dr. Sutch replies.

First Floyd, and then Anne, and then Uncle Mitch start walking over.

"I doubt that I could make it any plainer, Dr. Sutch," Aunt Lillian says. "No. My daughter is not going to see the baby she just lost."

Dr. Sutch looks at her. Disgust and exasperation show on his face.

"Excuse me," he murmurs.

He turns and walks over to the fireplace. He picks up a wooden chair with one finger and plunks it down against the far wall. He sits down and crosses his arms on his chest.

"Lillian..." Uncle Mitch says.

"No," Aunt Lillian says. "I'm surprised at you, Claudia. No matter what else I've heard about you, I've also heard that you had some sense."

"Excuse me, Aunt Lillian," Floyd says, "but I hardly think that this is the time-"

"Hardly," Aunt Lillian says. "Just go back where you were, Claudia, and all will be well."

Lady Claudia looks at her.

"I intend to go in there, Aunt Lillian," she says quietly.

"Oh?" Aunt Lillian says bitterly.

"Patricia is not a child. She is a rational adult who in this present crisis has maintained remarkable self-control. She has made a perfectly understandable request. I intend to do as she asked. Patricia has the right to see her child. No one has the right to stand in the way of her doing so. Maybe one person would have had the right. But he's not here."

No one moves. For a few moments it seems as though no one breathes.

Aunt Lillian had come out into the entrance area a ways. The doors are not blocked. Lady Claudia looks at the knob on one of the doors.

"But I'm not going to make a mockery of this little girl's death by having any more of a scene out here," she says. "Either someone is going to open that door for me or someone isn't. Either you, Aunt Lillian, are going to stand in my way or you're not."

Again, there is paralysis on all sides. Then Anne springs forward and opens one of the doors. Lady Claudia and Aunt Lillian look at one another for a moment. Then Aunt Lillian closes her eyes, shakes her head, and vigorously waves Lady Claudia away.

"Come in with me, dear," Lady Claudia says to Anne as she steps forward.

*

Patricia is lying on the carpet, propped up by pillows. She is covered with an ivory-colored woolen blanket.

Lois is kneeling next to her, holding her hand. She looks up at Lady Claudia and Anne. She smiles. But she looks stricken. Patricia smiles wanly. But she seems to be at peace.

The table and chairs have been shifted away somewhat. There is one chair to Patricia's left side. Lady Claudia sits in it. Anne stands next to it.

"Thank you, Claudia," Patricia says in a far-off kind of voice. "Thanks for before. But thanks most of all for this. I know that you had some trouble out there just now."

"Well, everyone is just so upset right now, dear. Everyone is just trying to do the best thing for you according to his lights."

"That's a very nice way of putting it. Very generous."

She smiles slyly.

"According to his lights?"

Patricia looks up at Anne.

"Thanks to you too, Annie."

"Happy I could help, Patty Cake."

Patricia smiles.

"Patty Cake. You remember Patty Cake..."

"It won't be too much longer on the floor," Anne says. "Just a few minutes."

"I'm comfortable now," Patricia says. "The pain is gone. The worry is gone. Maybe I should be worrying. But I feel fine."

"That's just the shot Dr. Sutch gave you," Anne says. "Don't go by that. Go by this. He told us that you're stabilized. You'll be okay."

Patricia looks at the bundle in Lady Claudia's arms.

"I'll be okay. That's nice. But not my little girl..."

"Oh, Patricia," Lady Claudia says. "Would you like to see her, dear?"

Patricia looks sharply at her.

"Is that what they told you? No. I never said that. I said, 'Would you please bring me my baby? I want to have my baby here.' I don't want to see her, Claudia. That would be too... No. That's not what I want. What I want is just for one time... Well, I think you understand."

"I understand perfectly, dear," Lady Claudia says.

Patricia raises her arms. Lady Claudia gently leans towards her. She hands her the bundle. Patricia makes a noise as she first touches it. It is midway between a gasp and a sob. Lois bolts up. She takes a few steps backwards. Patricia is hugging the bundle tightly with her eyes closed.

"Oh, my poor little girl..." she croons. "My poor little baby..."

She lets out a sound that is midway between a sob and a sneeze.

"I couldn't even give birth to her," she says. "I couldn't bring her into the world."

"Oh, dear," Lady Claudia says in a gently stern tone. "You must never think that. God gave her to you. And now He has taken her from you and given her a life of everlasting happiness. We cannot even imagine the happiness that she now has. In a word, it's Paradise. She never knew a moment's sorrow in this world that is full of sorrows and sometimes offers little but sorrows. And in the world she knows now... Just light and rest and peace and happiness forever."

Patricia puts her cheek against the top of the bundle.

"Yes," she sighs. "My three little angels. Thank you, Claudia. I appreciate that word to the wise."

She kisses the top of the bundle.

"Goodbye, little one," she says. "Goodbye, my little angel."

She hands the bundle back to Lady Claudia. Lois turns and runs to the door with her hand over her mouth. She opens the door and runs out.

"I'm thinking, dear," Lady Claudia says, "that now may be the time for you to be alone with your father and mother. What do you think?"

Patricia sighs.

"I think that that's very considerate of you. Yes. That's the thing to do now. Mother in particular will appreciate that. But I have one more favor to ask of you."

"Tell me, dear."

Patricia smiles shyly. She seems embarrassed.

"It may seem silly..."

"I'm sure it won't."

"It may be something you won't want to do..."

"Let's see about that. Tell me."

"I'd like for you to take my baby to the hospital in Onatonga or to a certain place here in Camel Creek. Wherever it is that she must go now. I want her to remain in your arms for as long as possible. And I'd like for you to watch over her until it's time... If they let you."

"Of course, dear."

"Oh, thank you. Thank you."

Only now does Patricia start to weep normally and openly.

"I don't want her placed in some box or strapped on to some hook or whatever... I know it may seem silly. But this little one and I... I can't explain it."

"I think I understand. You two went through a lot together over the months... She's like your little war buddy."

Patricia looks up at her.

"Oh, Claudia. You really understand a mother's heart..."

Then she lowers her eyes.

"You rest now, dear," Lady Claudia says as she stands up. "Your mother and father will be in directly..."

LADY CLAUDIA: And Less Than Kind (IV)

2008-09-29T22:56:00.010-04:00

Lady Claudia enters the front hall of the Sprayberry Inn.

She folds up an umbrella. It is raining heavily.

She is wearing the same blue dress that she wore at the dinner party on Saturday evening. And the same pearl necklace.

"Mrs. Brightwell," a young woman seated at a desk to the right says with a smile. "Come in out of the rain."

"Freida," Lady Claudia says. "Don't mind if I do."

"Let me take that for you."

Frieda stands up and comes around to Lady Claudia. She takes the umbrella. She walks back to the desk. Behind it is a double door. Frieda opens the right door and puts the umbrella inside.

"It's pretty nasty out there," Frieda says. "I hope that it doesn't keep anyone away."

"Oh, I doubt that it will. The worst should be over. It was really bad early this morning."

"Well, please have a seat."

Frieda gestures towards a lounge area. There are two couches and an assortment of upholstered wing-backed chairs. There is a fireplace. There is a fire.

"Read a magazine," Frieda says gaily. "Warm your toes. Talk to me."

Lady Claudia walks over to one of the chairs and sits.

"Oh, I certainly would find the last thing the most enjoyable," she says.

She looks around. The Sprayberry Inn is premised on Colonial elegance and coziness and whiteness. The panelled walls are white. The woodwork is white. The railings and spindles of the staircase beyond the lounge area are white.

There is a portrait of a handsome young Revolutionary War officer over the fireplace.

"This is really such a lovely place," Lady Claudia says.

"It's nice," Freida replies, glancing about. "But how do you feel about the change in our view? Ours looking at you and yours looking at us across the village green?"

"Oh. You mean the war monument."

"And no more trees."

"I'll miss those wonderful old trees. But I suppose that we'll all get used to the monument. Mr. Sprayberry always does such a fine job of sprucing up the green with the flowers he so kindly donates. I'm sure that the green will be just as nice this summer. In a different way."

Freida hesitates shyly.

"But I heard that it was Mr. Brightwell who fought tooth and nail against the monument," she says. "Mr. Sprayberry objected, but Mr. Brightwell hollered."

"Well, dear, those stories are often exaggerated. And even if there is a certain amount of hollering, well, that's just the way these politicians are. In the end they shrug their shoulders and shake hands and move on to the next thing. The monument is fine with us over in the Bisbee House."

"Well, that's good," Freida says.

But she seems embarrassed, as though she had been gently rebuked.

"It's quiet today," Lady Claudia observes.

"Well," Freida says. "Tuesday. The rain... We've got two guests staying upstairs and the Pfaffs are having a little party inside. Olive May's seventieth birthday."

"How nice. Goodness. Olive May hardly seems a day over sixty."

The door opens. A young woman in her early twenties comes in. She has no umbrella. She is wearing a raincoat and hat.

She looks at Freida and then at Lady Claudia. She smiles. She makes a sound indicating that she is uncomfortably chilly. Lady Claudia stands up and walks over to her.

"Martha?" she asks.

"Martha Bisbee," the young woman says as she removes her hat. "And you are Mrs. Brightwell?"

"Claudia," Lady Claudia says. "Claudia Brightwell."

They shake hands.

"But please do get out of that wet coat," Lady Claudia says.

"Good idea," Martha says laughingly as she takes off the coat.

"I'll take those," Frieda says. "The closet is right here."

Martha looks at her dubiously.

"Thanks, honey," she says, handing them over.

"Now you girls go sit by the fire," Frieda says.

Lady Claudia and Martha look at one another.They smile. They walk over to fireplace and sit on the chairs that are nearest to it.

Martha glances at Frieda, who is hanging her coat in the closet.

"I don't think that it will dry very well in there," she says between clenched teeth. "Oh, well..."

She brightens.

"I was sorry to hear that you got sick and had to leave the party," she says. "How are you feeling now?"

"Oh, much better, thank you. I was so glad that you could join us this afternoon."

"It took a little doing to get another girl to fill in for me at the shop. But Miss Griggs was nice about it. It's the first time in three years that I've asked for a day off just to have fun. And I've called in sick only twice."

"Where do you work, Martha?"

"Oh, at the ladies' hat shop on Elm Street in Onatonga. You know. Miss Griggs' Millinery?"

She looks at Lady Claudia's simple blue turban hat. She giggles.

"Or maybe you don't know. That hat is exquisite. What's that blue?"

"Peacock blue, I believe it's called."

"Exquisite. Lois says that all your outfits always are. Simple and modest but exquisite. I mean, our stuff is fine for Onatonga, but... Let's put it this way. Lois' mother wouldn't be caught dead going there. Auntie Phyllis would come in. To buy her maid Celeste a new hat for Christmas!"

Lady Claudia smiles in such a way that it is clear that she is smiling only to be polite.

"I see. You know, Martha, you could probably guess that I'm curious about your last name."

"You mean am I an Asa or an Abner?"

Martha grins slyly.

"I'll tell you. But first I'll tell you an interesting little fact. My great, great and three or four more greats grandpappy Bisbee was not related to the Bisbees who founded Camel Creek and Bisbee Township. Maybe we're related going far back into ancient Scottish history. But my Bisbee name doesn't come from Asa or Abner Bisbee. And now here's the funny part. I am a Camel Creek Bisbee! I'm even an Asa. Through his daughter Elizabeth and her daughter Lydia and so on and so on. Then my Asa grandmother, who was a Parshall, married into this other Bisbee family."

"That is so interesting, Martha. Why didn't I see you at the last family reunion?"

"My folks aren't big on that sort of thing. They're retiring. But I definitely plan to go on my own this year. If you're still having one."

"Oh, certainly we are. I mean, we plan to."

The door opens. Six people troop in. Two elegantly attired tall women in their late fifties. Two men in their late fifties. A young woman in her early twenties. Patricia.

"No umbrellas?" Freida asks.

"No rain," the taller and handsomer of the two men says brightly. "It let up about five minutes ago."

But the women start removing their coats. Only the young woman removes her hat as well and hands it over to Freida.

Lady Claudia and Martha stand. They start walking over to the group. The young woman sees them. She runs over to them. She throws her arms around Lady Claudia.

"Hello, Lois," Lady Claudia says.

"Cousin Claudia!" Lois cries out. "This was so nice of you! I was so upset when I heard you were sick at Aunt Phyllis'. I ran out in the street. But your car was already down the block. Didn't I run out, Martha? Hi, Martha! Didn't I?"

"That you did, Loey."

Martha looks at Lady Claudia and shrugs. Lois swats her arm.

"Don't look like that! Everyone already knows that I'm nutty. No need to rub it in. You got down here all right? I was worried about you driving in all that rain."

"No trouble at all," Martha says. "I took the Camel Creek road and went twenty miles per hour."

Lois slips between Lady Claudia and Martha and slips her arms under their arms. They walk towards the others.

Lady Claudia directs her attention first to the taller of the two women.

"Aunt Lillian," she says.

She kisses her.

"Claudia. You look very lovely. And this is a lovely establishment."

"Thank you. Yes, it is nice."

She turns to the other woman.

"Aunt Ramona."

She kisses her.

"How nice to see you Claudia. Are you completely over your illness?"

"Oh, yes. It was just came and went, thankfully."

"How lucky for you."

The shorter man is bald and has a red face. He approaches Lady Claudia. He touches her hand lightly. He is smiling.

"Hello, Uncle Cal," Lady Claudia says. "So nice to see you again."

She steps over to the taller man. She puts out her hand. They shake.

"Hello, Uncle Mitch. I'm so sorry that you had to drive in such rain."

"Nonsense. It's April. It was raining violets. At least until we got to South Onatonga."

Lois laughs. Everyone else except Aunt Lillian smiles at the joke. But she is smiling. She has on a tight little wisp of a smile.

Martha greets and is greeted almost as an afterthought as Lady Claudia approaches Patricia. She takes her hands.

"Claudia..." Patricia says.

"Patricia," Lady Claudia says softly. "I didn't forget what we discussed. How are you doing, dear?"

Patricia smiles wanly.

"This morning was rough. But I'm okay now. This really is a beautiful place, Claudia."

She looks into the dining room through the panes of glass on the double doors beyond Freida's desk which open into it.

"It's quiet this afternoon," she says. "Only one party."

"Well, Tuesday afternoon," Lady Claudia says. "The rain..."

"Did we make a mistake?" Freida asks with a smile but also a note of real alarm. "I count nine."

"Oh, no," Lady Claudia says. "It's seven."

"We boys are going to shoot the breeze with the lord of the manor across the green," Uncle Mitch says. "See you later, ladies. Have a ball..."

The men turn and leave through the front door.

"Now I count six," Freida says.

"Mrs. Seebolt should be arriving shortly," Lady Claudia explains.

"Got it," Freida says.

She leads the women enter the dining room. The tables have white cloths over them. There are a few fine antique tables against the walls. The paintings are all late eighteenth century portraits.

"I just want to say a quick Happy Birthday to Mrs. Pfaff," Lady Claudia says. "You girls sit down."

Lady Claudia walks over to a long table at the front of the room. Nine people are seated at it. Two couples in their forties, two young women in their twenties, a boy of about eight, a girl of about six, and a woman who looks to be about sixty. The older woman is wearing a flowered hat and a big corsage on her shoulder.

The men start to stand up.

"Oh, no," Lady Claudia says, making appropriate gestures. "Please sit."

They obey.

"Hello, everyone. Freida told me about your special occasion. I just had to say a quick Happy Birthday to you, Mrs. Pfaff."

Olive May stretches out her hand. Lady Claudia takes it.

"Hard to believe, isn't it?" Olive May asks. "Fifty-five. And they say I don't look a day under sixty."

The others laugh and chuckle and protest variously.

"Well, again, Mrs. Pfaff, Happy Birthday," Lady Claudia says.

"Thanks, neighbor. You seem to have something special going on too."

"Oh, yes. A little bridal shower for Floyd's cousin Lois Hathaway."

"Not a baby shower? From the looks of things it wouldn't be a moment too soon."

Lady Claudia lowers her voice.

"That's Lois's sister Patricia. Looks are deceiving. She still has a while to go..."

Olive May looks at Patricia. She looks perturbed for a second. Then she brightens.

"We'll send over some cake," she says. "If there's enough left over."

Her eyes wander in Patricia's direction...

*

"Well," Patricia says shyly, "Herman and I were thinking Daniel if it's a boy and Cecilia if it's a girl."

"Cecilia?" Anne asks. "Hmm..."

They are sitting at their table in the dining room. It is in the back of the room. Lois is seated at the end of the table closest to the doors. Aunt Lillian is sitting at the other end. To Lois's left is Anne. To Aunt Lillian's right is Patricia. To Lois's right is Martha. To Aunt Lillian's left is Aunt Ramona. Lady Claudia is seated between them.

They are eating salad.

"Why hmm?" Lois demands with good humor but also with frank defensiveness. "Cecilia is a lovely name!"

"Oh, sure. I didn't mean anything, Pat. I'm just surprised. I could see Cecily. That's just being English. But Cecilia sounds so Roman. So Latin. So Catholic..."

"Yes, well," Aunt Lillian says. "That might be because you don't read the same books as Patricia, dear. Cecilia is also a very romantic name."

"Well, yes," Anne muses. "That would tie in... Cecilia. Definitely derived from the Latin. Meaning what, Lady Claudia?"

Lady Claudia glances at Patricia.

"It is such a lovely name," she says. "It evokes such sweet and inspiring thoughts of the holy virgin martyr."

"The holy what?" Lois blurts out.

Lady Claudia glances at her and smiles with an ever so slight hint of painful consternation. She turns again to Patricia.

"It means blind. In Latin."

"Well, Claw," Anne says. "I'll borrow a line from you. Oh, dear..."

"Claudia means lame," Lady Claudia says dryly. "In Latin. I suppose that it would be only at Wellesley College or Radcliffe or Vassar that the etymologically inclined pupils would give all the Cecilias and the Claudias a hard time in the schoolyard."

"Well, I don't know about Radcliffe and Wellesley," Anne chortles, "but at Vassar we tarred and feathered Claudia Van Vanderbilt and rode her out of town on one of her father's rails!"

Lois laughs hard. Martha grins uncertainly. Aunt Ramona looks confused. Aunt Lillian discreetly glares. Patricia and Lady Claudia smile indulgently.

"Don't mind me," Anne says to Patricia. "It's a beautiful name."

"How many names can you do like that, Claudia?" Lois asks. "This is fun."

"Well," Lady Claudia says. "It's funny that this subject should come up. I was just thinking before that Freida's name means peace in German. Freida is the girl who greeted us out in the lobby."

She looks around the table.

"Anne, of course, is derived from the Hebrew Hannah. We all recall Hannah in the Old Testament, the worthy mother of the prophet Samuel. The name means gracious."

"Ha!" Anne exclaims. "That's all I'll say! Ha!"

"Do me! Do me!" Lois squeals.

"Greek," Lady Claudia says. "It means good or better."

"A bit boring," Lois says. "I wish I had a Biblical name too."

"Well, you do, dear."

"I do?"

"Certainly. Lois was the name of Saint Timothy's mother."

"Saint Timothy?" Lois asks.

"The companion of Saint Paul."

"Paul," Lois says. "He fell off his horse. If I should speak with the tongues of men and angels but not have charity... Okay. I can live with that."

"Martha is another Hebrew name, of course. It means lady. Lillian, as anyone might guess, is derived from the Latin word for lily. Ramona is Spanish. It relates to the name Ramon, which in English appears as Raymond. But the name ultimately goes back to Germany. It means hands that protects . Patricia is Latin and it means noble. As in the word patrician."

"Floyd," Anne blurts out.

"Welsh. Gray."

"Timothy."

"Greek. Honoring God. "

"Esmeralda."

"Russian. Are you really going to drink that whole bottle of vodka yourself?"

Everyone except Aunt Lillian laughs or chuckles.

Patricia stops chuckling. She starts to wince. Then she looks blank.

Lady Claudia is smiling. She stops smiling. She looks at Patricia for five seconds. Then she stands up.

Lady Claudia: And Less Than Kind (III)

2008-09-28T21:14:00.008-04:00

Lady Claudia is holding the white muslin curtain aside and looking out the western front window of parlor.

She sees an eastbound car drive by the village green. She turns around.

"They're here, dear," she calls out.

Floyd comes in from the kitchen. He walks over to Lady Claudia. He looks out the window. The car is about to turn left from Brick House Hill Road on to Judge's Lane. He kisses Lady Claudia on the forehead. They walk across the parlor and into the hallway. Floyd unbolts and opens the door. They walk out. They walk down the walkway and stop on the sidewalk. The car stops in the lane in front of them.

Anne gets out of the front passenger seat. She steps over to the back door and opens it. John toddles out and down. Timmy has gotten out from the other side and raced around to this side. Anne closes the back door. The driver honks the horn. He sticks his arm out the window straight up and waves rather spastically. The car takes off.

"Uncle Floyd!"

The boys run towards Floyd. They grab on to his legs. Floyd picks John up and places him on his shoulders. He tousles Timmy's hair.

"Hello, Anne," he says. "We'll be out in the barn. Then we might take a walk on the path."

"Not near the beehives, please," she says. "We made that mistake last year."

Floyd makes a gesture indicating hapless acquiescence. He walks diagonally across the front lawn, Timmy at his side.

Lady Claudia and Anne are face to face.

"Claudia."

"Anne."

*

"Tell me something, Claw," Anne says as she puts her coffee cup down on the coffee table. "Is there really much difference between this canned coffee and that one? I mean, this is good. But is it different from the other brands?"

"Of course there's a difference, dear. Our coffee is grown in Cuba. It's going to taste different from coffee grown in Brazil. Or Mexico. It's going to taste different from Cuban coffee grown at higher altitudes. Or lower altitudes. I could go on. And on and on."

"Okay. That covers different. How about better?"

Lady Claudia takes a sip of her coffee. She is on the north parlor sofa, Anne on the south. She swallows. She takes her time swallowing.

"Really, Anne. You can hardly expect me to answer such a question."

"I suppose not. Okay, then. I called you Claw. You called me dear. Time to talk turkey."

"I think so."

"First, I want to say again that I'm sorry about what happened. That was a nasty kick in the teeth for you. You didn't deserve that. I want you to know that I had nothing to do with it. With your being excluded. It was all Aunt Lillian's doing. Though I think that Aunt Ramona bears some of the blame too. She's a sob sister and I think that her very first words were, 'Yes, Lillian. You are so right, Lillian.'"

"I think that I know you well enough to know that you never would have done something so unkind to a member of the family. Or so foolish. Unkind and foolish because I was bound to find out sooner or later. But I wasn't thinking of you. I wasn't thinking of Aunt Lillian. Or Aunt Ramona."

"Of course. Mother."

"Mother."

"It was Aunt Lillian's party."

"No it wasn't. It was Mother's. She was the hostess. It was in her home. The Brightwell Mansion is not a catering hall."

"No. It's not. All right. It was Mother's party. It was held in her home because the Brightwell Mansion is a mansion. I want you to know something else. I won't lie to you. I won't lie for Mother. Mother was not exactly aghast when it came out that you were not on the guest list. But she did speak up. She said that you ought to be invited."

"And Aunt Lillian said?"

"She said that she wasn't inviting other relatives either. She said that you hardly know Lois."

"Was Susan invited? The wife of the other son of Aunt Lillian's sister Phyllis?"

Anne does not answer.

"I'll take that as a yes. Of course she was. That's what she was doing in Onatonga. I should have realized that something was up. Everyone visiting Mother and Pop for the weekend on the same weekend? Now. I have seen Lois Hathaway at Mom and Pop's every Christmas for the past four years. She came out here with her fiancee right before this past Christmas. They sat on this very sofa and had coffee and crumpets. I'd find it very hard to believe that Lois did not mention this visit to her mother. Aunt Lillian and Mother have a brother. Laurence. He has a son. Laurence Junior. Laurence Junior has a wife. Celia. Celia and Junior live in Rome, New York. Junior met Celia in Rome and she is a native of Rome. I somehow doubt that Celia and Lois have ever been as thick as thieves. Yet Celia was invited. I saw her."

"Okay, Claw. The defense rests. Aunt Lillian is the Wicked Witch of the West. She has it out for you. Even more than Mother does. But let's confine ourselves to Mother. You think it was wrong of her to host this party knowing that you had not been invited?"

"Of course I think so. It was very wrong of her to host that party. There was no absolute need for her to do so. Aunt Lillian and Uncle Mitch don't exactly live in a hovel. Mother should have turned Aunt Lillian down flat. She should have told her that it was absolutely out of the question that she host a party from which precisely one of her daughters-in-law would be excluded."

"The question now is what comes next. How can this be made right?"

"Made right for whom?"

"Well, Lois for one. Lois kept asking where you were at the beginning of the party. Aunt Lillian and Mother stayed mum. She was starting to get suspicious. Then you came. Then you left. I tell her that you had been taken ill. Lois is a bit of a drip. But she's no dummy. She's still suspicious. And then there's... Well..."

"I? I perhaps?"

"Yes. You. Okay? You. You, you, you. Your feelings were hurt and I feel lousy about it. Boy! You perfect people really get my goat. You saints who occupy the same space as we sinners and condescend to deal with us, but whose true conversation is with angels, whose true lives are hidden with Christ in God. Who turn the other cheek as though it were as simple as breathing. Those of us who do the slapping start thinking that maybe it's easy for you to turn the other cheek simply because it doesn't hurt you to get slapped. Why are you being so normal all of the sudden? So human? Lady Claudia instead of Saint Claudia?"

"I'm not being Lady Claudia. I'm being Mrs. Floyd Brightwell."

Anne looks at her as though she is sizing her up.

"Yes," she says. "That's the god's truth, isn't it? You absolutely adore your husband. And that kind of social slap at you is a slap at him. That's how it strikes you. Okay. I get it. I don't get your heroic sanctity. But I do get your rarefied nobility. If I didn't, Pop should get his money back from Vassar. Will you be able to drop this with Mother? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that you would not dream of requiring an apology from your mother-in-law. You reverence her relationship to your spouse and her gray hairs, even though her gray hairs are as brown as your dark brown hairs are. But will you have to express your displeasure to her for the record?"

"No."

"That's all you have to say?"

"Yes."

"Aunt Lillian."

"She ignores me. I shall continue to take that as a great kindness. I have nothing to say to her. Not about this. Not about anything."

"You poor thing. Every Christmas ruined by that witch with no end in sight."

"Not ruined. Uncle Mitch is a dear. As a boy he spent time in England, my family's part of England, Northumberland, and he sings me ancient carols that even people in London and Liverpool never heard of. And Lois is a sweetheart."

"It's not envy," Anne blurts out. "It's not because all eyes turn to you and remain on you and everything becomes all about you. It's not Henry James territory. It's Edgar Allen Poe territory. It's fear. Aunt Lillian may be a witch. But she's still my aunt. In her defense, I have to say it. It's fear."

"Fear?"

"Fear. Unspoken dread. Unspeakable terror."

"I see. I'll have to ponder that as I clip my toenails tonight."

"You do that, your Ladyship. But be sure to reread your diary first. And then the scrapbook with your press clippings."

Anne takes a sip of coffee.

"Did you tell Floyd about the shower?" she asks.

A pause.

"That's none of your business, Anne."

"No, it's not. Now I'm wondering if it's your business whether or not Pop found out about this latest anti-Claudian enormity on Mother's part. But you wouldn't ask."

"I have a feeling that Pop will tell me all himself soon enough. He must have realized that something untoward was up when he left for the pool hall with the other men and Floyd and I had not shown up."

"He asked me. 'Where's Claudia?' I was evasive."

"The whole thing is so silly, Anne."

"That it is."

There is a pause for a few moments.

"We're not finished here, are we?" Anne asks. "There's something else we have to discuss. Something far more painful and difficult."

Lady Claudia stands up.

"Are you finished with your coffee, dear?"

"Yes. It was good to the, um, final ounce."

"Would you care to slurp the coffee I spilled on to my saucer off my saucer?"

Anne looks surprised. Then she smiles.

"Another time?"

"Another time, dear. We'll have to come to it. But not today."

"You seem excited, Claudia. You seem relieved or something."

"I'm having a party tomorrow afternoon. A luncheon at Sprayberry's. One o'clock. You are hereby invited. It's for Lois. I invited her, her three sisters, and her mother. Her sister Cathy can't make it. She's back in Kingston. I invited Aunt Ramona. She's coming. I invited Aunt Lina. She's not coming. I invited Mother. Mother said that she had an obligation and can't come. I invited Susan. Susan said thanks so much but no. She's back in Schenectady. That's understandable. I invited Martha Bisbee because she's Lois's dearest friend and an alternate bridesmaid if Patricia has the baby sooner rather than later. She's coming. And now I'm inviting you. You're leaving on Wednesday. You're right down the Turnpike at the farm. I hope you can make it."

Anne looks at her for a moment.

"Your own party, eh? Because you regret so much having fallen ill the moment you joined ours. Well, I know you don't fib. You did fall ill. We're a pretty sickening bunch. I'll be there. And now, Lady Claudia, it's off to the barn for us. And your dear husband and my dear brother shall see us enter arm in arm..."

LADY CLAUDIA: And Less Than Kind (II)

2008-09-26T17:56:00.015-04:00

"Nor does this- its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through a Titanism of power."

Lady Claudia is seated on her vanity table chair. It has been turned around to face the bed. She is reading to Floyd. He is in bed. He is lying on his back.

"On the contrary, those motions derive their most appalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic."

Floyd suddenly shifts so that he is lying on his side, his elbow leaning on the mattress, his head supported by his hand. Lady Claudia glances at him. Then her eyes fall back down to the page.

"Take away the tied tendons that all over seem bursting from the marble of the carved Hercules, and its charm would be gone. As devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch."

"I saw many a Roman triumphal arch when I was in Rome," Floyd says. "I've seen portraits of Goethe. He doesn't look like no Roman triumphal arch to me."

"But you didn't see Goethe disrobed when he was dead, dear."

"I certainly did not! Who is this Eckerman character, anyway? He sounds like a weirdo. Eckerman. Eckerman. There's a Sam Eckerman in South Onatonga. He sells fertilizer."

"Yes, dear. When Angelo paints even God the Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied... Oh, dear. This won't do. This is actually rather interesting."

"I was wondering how far you'd go before that struck you."

Lady Claudia seems to be reading ahead.

"Hmm," she says. "If I had gone just a little further we would have been back on track."

Floyd smiles.

"Enough about whales. I guess it's too late to break out the Summa. I was thinking that it might be timely to see what the Common Doctor has to say about backbiting."

Lady Claudia gives him a sharp look. Then she puts on a bland look.

"Really, dear? Now why would that be?"

"I've been thinking. There's a great big gap in Roman Catholic moral theology where saying bad things about other people is concerned. Detraction. Backbiting. Tale-bearing. The offense is always conceived in terms of revealing the faults of others. Never of simply discussing them. How about when two people just sit around analyzing the misbehavior of a third party which they have both witnessed? The word gossip does not appear anywhere in Aquinas. Sometimes you really have to wonder about that guy. It probably bothered him that if he were among the celestial elect he would never get the chance to shake Aristotle's hand. He'd have to be satisfied with kissing Jesus' feet."

"Now, now..."

"Sorry. But I think you take my main point. What do you call it when a married couple in the privacy of their marriage bedchamber rake their creepy kinfolk over the coals?"

"I don't know. Unkindness, perhaps?"

"I think that it was very rude of Philip to leave the minute Susan got out of the bathroom. I mean, he had her coat ready even before the last piece of potato had come back up."

"Well really, dear. Your putting it that way demonstrates exactly why both justice and charity require that we see things from our dear Philip's point of view and attribute only the best of motives to him as regards his precipitous departure. It was Philip's duty as a husband to put his wife's health and comfort before any other considerations. His wife had been forced to hear the death throes of a mouse caught in a trap and she become nauseated. Our dear Susan wasn't faking anything. She wasn't using the misfortune of the mouse as an excuse to call it a night. What happened was very unpleasant and humiliating for her. That's just how some women react where mice are concerned. I have never been one to jump on chairs myself, but-"

"You don't grab 'em by the tail the way Huldah does."

"I certainly do not!"

Floyd smiles.

"Someday one of them is going to take a bite out of her and we'll have to rush her to Heck Sutch's office" Floyd says. "That'll learn her."

"It is rather disconcerting when our dear Huldah takes them outside and tosses them to one of the cats."

"Stomach-turning, you mean. Especially when it's Persnickitty and she leaps up and gobbles them down in mid-air. All right. Anne."

Lady Claudia smiles wanly.

"Annie, you mean."

"I call her Annie. And so?"

"You're terribly fond of her, dear. She's terribly fond of you."

"The point is that she is terribly rude to both of us."

"That's just Brightwell bluff and bluster. Do I care for it? In general, no. The comment about how much red I wear was well beyond the pale. Thank you for sticking up for me. But our dear Anne... Sometimes I have to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing until I double over. I'm very fond of Anne, dear."

He looks at her. She looks away. But we both know that your feeling is not exactly reciprocated...

Floyd rubs his hands together like a miser.

"Harry," he says.

Talk your way out of that one, little Miss Sunshine...

"Maybe some Aquinas would hit the spot just about now..." she says.

He laughs. He reaches out and slaps her hand lightly with his fingers. Then he shifts in the bed so that he is closer to her. He takes her right hand.

"Do you have any idea of what a sweet kid you are?"

"I try to keep such ideas out of my head. Humility, sweetheart. Humility..."

"And it's not because you're naturally mild or demure or even-tempered. Or starry-eyed. You're my feisty little Scottish girl. You're my sensible, plainspoken little Dutch girl."

"We ten Hornes are not Dutch. We are Belgian."

"You struggled to become kindly and understanding. You worked at it."

He kisses her hand.

"And with you kindliness and understanding are a sacred science."

He kisses her hand.

"My little Augustina."

He kisses her hand again.

"My little Thomasina."

He resumes his original position.

"Now," he says. "As head of this household I am asking you, the lady of the house, for your advice. Should we ever have a little dinner party with the four of them again? Or with any two of them?"

"Oh, no," Lady Claudia says with a gentle sternness. "Heavens, no. With Anne and Philip, maybe. But we could never embarrass Philip and Susan by inviting them here again. Even at the family reunion it would be best to keep them out in the tent. This wonderful old farmhouse is not generally infested with vermin. But at certain times of the year... Well, our dear Susan has no business stepping foot into old farmhouses. Of course, it would be fine to accept an invitation to dinner at their house."

"Oh, sure. And it would be fine to accept crown and sceptre and ermine stole if Congress declared us the King and Queen of the United States."

"As for Anne and Harry... It's just not a good idea to be alone with the two of them too much anywhere. Certainly not at a dinner table. Pop keeps them in line at 61 Juniper. We should see them there. They and we will all have a better time that way."

"You're very strict," Floyd says with mock surprise and dismay. "You certainly give short enough shrift to my dear kinfolk. The heads are rolling in all directions."

"Yes. That's because I'm your feisty little Scottish... plainspoken Belgian girl."

"You are, eh? Come here, you..."

The telephone rings.

"Now who the heck is that calling at this hour?" Floyd demands.

Lady Claudia jumps up.

"I'll get it," she says.

She hastens out into the hallway.

"Yes," Floyd calls out after her. "It could be our dear Harry!"

"Hello?... Hello, Anne. Is anything wrong?... Are you serious, dear?... No... I understand that. But the answer is no. Floyd is in bed. This is nonsense, Anne... Well, the next time he'll be aware of that. But this is something that Harry and you can handle on your own tonight..."

Floyd appears in the dining room. He walks up to Lady Claudia. They gaze at one another. Lady Claudia frowns.

"Well, all right. Floyd has just come down... Here he is."

She hands Floyd the receiver.

"All right, Anne. What's this all about?... I see... Do you think so? I don't. I think that there's more to this than meets the eye... Hello? Anne?... Who's this? Harry?... Yeah, so I've heard... That could well be, Harry. But we've never had trouble like this before. Have we?... Hello? Anne? This is starting to seem rather ridiculous to me, Anne... You're kidding. Tell me you're kidding. You have them standing right there? Oh, Anne. You're really losing your grip... Fine... Fine. Put them on... Who's this? Is that you, Tim? Tim, you've got to knock this off. You know very well that there is no such thing as monsters. No Frankenstein and no bogeyman and no Robert Moses... No. Robert Moses is not going to get you... Well, yes. But he doesn't have claws and he doesn't look in windows and hurt naughty little boys... Well, yes. But not in a scary way like I pretended. It's just his job... Come on now, buddy. You know that. This is something I'd expect from Johnny. Not you. You're a big boy... Okay, then. Now you go on along to bed. Okay, buddy? Okay, then... Anne?... All right, then. Put him on..."

Lady Claudia puts out her hand.

"Is that Johnny, dear? I'd really like to talk to him myself."

Floyd looks at her. She looks calm. Calmly furious. He hands her the receiver.

"Hello, Johnny? This is Aunt Claudia... I just wanted to say hello... And now we're all going to go to bed and have sweet dreams. You, Timmy, Uncle Floyd..."

She listens for a few moments. She hands the receiver back to Floyd.

"John thinks it very unfair that Timmy gets Uncle Floyd and he gets stuck with some crummy aunt."

Floyd stares at her. He puts out his hand. She places the receiver in it.

"Hi, Johnny Boy?... Come on now, little buddy... No. Robert Moses is not going to get you..."

It is early afternoon.

Floyd walks into the parlor through the kitchen door. Lady Claudia is sitting at the south sofa. Upon the coffee table there is a box. She is wrapping it in paper that has a floral pattern. She is wearing a deep ruby red suit. She looks up and smiles.

"Rather long with your chores today," she says.

Floyd stands behind the north sofa.

"Yes," he says. "I started on the back windows. I mean, painting the frames. Then I remembered. The Lord's Day. But I was lost in thought. It was helping me get my thoughts in order. What's that?"

"Oh, a little something for Cousin Lois..."

"A wedding present?"

"Well, no. What would have been a bridal shower gift. But they're not having the usual big party. Anne said that they wanted to keep things small and simple. At some point Mother will have just Aunt Lillian, Aunt Ramona, and Lois and her sisters over for tea or something."

"Did her sisters have the usual big shin-dig? Cathy and Patricia?"

"I don't know about Cathy. That was before my time. But I went to Patricia's. Just a few weeks before we were married. It was pretty big."

"Hmm," Floyd says.

He is constitutionally incapable of caring much.

"Well, I think it's swell that you're going to have some fun in the big city with Wilma. Lunch at Benucci's ..."

"Then the art museum..."

"Wilma goes to art museums?"

"She likes the Impressionists. It should be a swell afternoon. First we'll swing by 61 Juniper and drop this off."

"What a racket. They get a shower gift and a wedding gift. Even if they don't have a shower."

"Well, it's really just a little something to show my fondness for Lois. I certainly don't want to rub it in that they didn't have a big party for her. It's just a little girl-to-girl friendship thing. She's such a sweet girl."

"Yes. Lois is a sweetheart. All three sisters are. Uncle Mitch is a sweetheart too. Aunt Lillian-"

"Is Aunt Lillian."

"Our dear Aunt Lillian?"

"You learn fast. Darling, why don't you give Castle a call and see if he wants to do some fishing?"

"I was thinking the same thing."

There is a pause.

"Do you think that they'll all still be there?"

Lady Claudia's eyes flash for a second.

"I would guess that Philip and Susan will have left for Schenectady. And that Harry and Anne will still be there. They'll leave for the farm tonight. I think that two and a half days on the farm are enough for Anne. She'll want Sunday dinner at the mansion."

There is another pause.

"Will you say anything?"

Lady Claudia shrugs.

"I'll say, 'Hi, Anne. Hi, Harry. Hear any funny mouse or Robert Moses stories lately?'"

The door to the Brightwell Mansion opens.

A woman in her thirties wearing a long dark gray dress and a white apron and cap has opened it.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Brightwell," the woman says.

Lady Claudia steps inside.

"Good afternoon, Celeste."

Celeste closes the door.

"If I may say so, Mrs. Brightwell, I was wondering when you'd get here."

"Really?"

Lady Claudia cocks her head. The muffled sound of female laughter and chatter can be heard.

"May I take that?" Celeste asks, looking at the box in Lady Claudia's hands. "I'll just put it with the others."

"No. No, thank you, Celeste. Is Mrs. Seebolt here?"

"Oh, yes. Of course."

"Of course."

Lady Claudia sits on an opulently carved oak pew that runs all along the side of the fifteen feet long entrance hall facing an identical one on the other side.

"I'm going to catch my breath here for a while, Celeste. Would you be so good as to take Mrs. Seebolt aside and tell her that I am here and would like to see her?"

"Certainly, Mrs. Brightwell."

Celeste turns and walks down the hallway. She had looked dismayed.

Lady Claudia looks at the long panel of Tiffany stained glass above the pew across from her. The stained glass is gently lit from behind. Willows are depicted. Cypresses. Doves. Deer with fawns. Lilies. Roses. Urns. Setting suns.

Two young women in their late twenties come down the ornately carved mahogany staircase that can be seen at the end of the front hallway and across a carpeted area. One looks to be about ready to give birth any minute now. She stops at the bottom of the staircase when she notices Lady Claudia. She smiles uncertainly and waves gingerly. Lady Claudia waves back. The woman starts walking her way. Her companion stands at the bottom of the staircase looking confused. Then she walks to her right. In the direction of the laughter.

"Claudia?" the woman asks as she approaches.

She seems gracious and cultured.

"Patricia," Lady Claudia says with a wan smile. "Oh dear, please do sit next to me!"

"Thank you," Patricia says with a laugh. "But sitting really is no better than standing at this point. Anyway, I'm so glad that you finally got here. Lois was getting worried."

"I'm afraid that I'll be leaving in a minute or two. I suddenly feel faint. I feel ill."

"Oh? I'm so sorry to hear that! But we'd so love to have you, Claudia. Would it be possible for you to rest upstairs and try again in an hour or so?"

Lady Claudia looks at her. Her eyes fill with tears. She puts her hand to her chest.

"Are you all right, dear?" Patricia asks. "Really, I must get Aunt Phyllis right away."

Patricia starts to struggle to her feet. Lady Claudia grabs her arm and gently pulls her back down.

"No, really," she says. "I'll be going in a minute. It's just that you're very kind. And I'm feeling very low. I'm just going to say a quick goodbye to Anne."

"How will you be getting back? Didn't Cousin Floyd go out to the pool hall with all the other menfolk?"

"He didn't take me. My driver is out there waiting."

"I see."

But Patricia looks confused. She stands up.

"I do hope that you'll be feeling better soon, Claudia. And I'm so sorry that you can't join us. Everyone's here. Cousins, aunts, neighbors, friends, even some old teachers of Lois's... Oh, Claudia. You look so pale. Can I get you anything? Some water, perhaps? A cool facecloth?"

"Oh, no. But thank you so much."

Patricia hesitates.

"I don't know quite how to say this, Claudia..."

"Yes, dear?"

"Maybe you've heard that I've had trouble with my pregnancies. I've lost two babies."

"I have heard that. And I've been praying that all goes well this time."

"Have you? That's what I wanted to ask you. Somehow I feel... Is it true that Roman Catholics have special saints to pray to for... women in my position?"

"Yes. I haven't prayed to them yet. But I can do so. I'll certainly do so now that you mention it."

"Thank you. That makes me feel better. I've come so much further this time. But I'm starting to worry... Well, I really should get back. Are you're sure that you're all right alone out here?"

"Anne will be here shortly."

"All right, then. Get well, now. Do you hear me? I want to see you at the wedding."

"See you then, Patricia. And take it easy."

"I will."

She turns and walks down the hall and disappears around the corner.

Ten seconds pass.

Anne appears at the end of the hallway. She stops short when she sees Lady Claudia. They look at one another. There is a particularly loud burst of laughter from within. And there is clapping. Twenty guests? Thirty? Lady Claudia bolts up and turns to the door. She is still holding her gift.

"Claudia!"

Lady Claudia stops. She does not turn around. She waits for Anne to walk to her.

"Two things," Anne says when she reaches her side. "First and most importantly, I'm very sorry that this has happened. But we can't discuss that now. Next thing. Can you stay? Celeste was not as discreet as she should have been. And now those two have seen you. Everyone will know that you were here. I'd have to explain why you left. Can you stay for Lois's sake?"

"Wilma is waiting for me. We have a reservation at Benucci's."

"Wilma could join us."

"Wilma doesn't know these people. And the bewildered expression on her dear, guileless face would give away the fact that we were not invited. It's out of the question, Anne. And even if Wilma weren't here I wouldn't stay."

"Why not?"

" Don't you understand why not? As an uninvited guest I'd have to ask your mother's permission to remain on the premises. I couldn't entirely exclude the possibility that Celeste would be asked to escort me to the door otherwise. That would be rather humiliating. Don't you think?"

Lady Claudia moves towards the door.

"Claudia-"

"Leave me alone, Anne. Please."

She opens the door.

"You may tell Lois if you need to tell her something that I was suddenly taken ill," she says over her shoulder. "You may tell her that I shall call her tomorrow."

She opens the door and walks out. She closes the door behind her.

LADY CLAUDIA: And Less Than Kind (I)

2008-09-24T23:43:00.009-04:00

And Less Than Kind

April 1933

Camel Creek, New York
Onatonga, New York

Cast of Characters

Lady Claudia
Floyd
Anne
Lois Hathaway
Cathy Bennett
Patricia Franklin
Aunt Lillian
Uncle Mitch
Dr Hector Sutch
Philip Brightwell
Harry Seebolt
Susan
Huldah
Wilma
Timmy
John
Mr Sprayberry
Ida
Martha Bisbee
Celeste
Oscar Pfaff
Hilda Pfaff
Peter Mason
Hal Kenyon

*

"HERE, try this," Huldah says to Lady Claudia.

They are in the kitchen of the Bisbee House. They are standing by the stove. They are wearing aprons. Huldah's is plain. Lady Claudia's is frilly and flowery. Huldah is holding out a spoon. Lady Claudia hesitates. Then she looks at Huldah and smiles. She takes and swallows what is in the proffered spoon as though she were a child taking medicine from his mother.

"Not bad?" Huldah asks.

"Not bad," Lady Claudia says. "Absolutely delicious, as a matter of fact. Oh, Huldah. You've done it again."

"Yankee pot roast. Not the toughest challenge in my cookbook. Truth is, I was surprised that you decided on that for the company you're having tonight."

Lady Claudia sits down in one of the chairs by the table. The pot had been on top of the stove. Huldah puts it back into the oven.

"Anne has said that it's Harry's favorite," Lady Claudia says. "And I don't think that Philip and Susan will raise any eyebrows. Not with a gravy that tastes like that. And not with that fine Viennese pastry you made for dessert."

"Well, this needs to stew another hour. The trick is not to put in the carrots and potatoes too soon. Not when they're straight from the jar instead of the garden."

Huldah walks over to the sink. She starts washing one of the bowls and pots in the sink. Lady Claudia walks over. She reaches up and takes a dish towel off the rack. She starts drying the bowls that Huldah hands her.

"It's so nice to have Floyd's brother and sister here tonight," Lady Claudia says. "And Harry and Susan. We've never done this before."

"Three young couples," Huldah says. "Brothers and sister. It seems so natural."

Lady Claudia glances at her. Why seems? She looks mildly pained. Then resigned.

"Was it your mother who taught you how to cook, Huldah?"

"She taught me a lot. But I experimented a lot on my own too."

"I really don't know why I just can't cook," Lady Claudia says. "Just as I just can't drive... Or sew. Or play the piano. I've tried..."

"If you want my advice, you should try again on the driving first thing."

"But that's where my failures have actually been dangerous to my neighbor."

"That was three years ago. And that was Floyd's fault. First of all, husbands should never try to teach their wives how to drive. Not even husbands who are as even-tempered as Floyd. And he should have known that you weren't ready for the Turnpike."

"That poor little concrete bridge wasn't ready for being backed into at twenty miles per hour. Oh Huldah, it was so embarrassing. Getting a ticket and having to appear in court..."

"Getting written up on the front page of The Bisbee Bugle..."

"And in the society columns of the New York papers. Oh, dear. Of course, speaking of dangers to my neighbor, some of the scrambled eggs I've made..."

Huldah grins frowningly and shakes her head.

Lady Claudia replaces the dish towel and takes off her apron. She is wearing a dark blue party dress. She is wearing a pearl necklace. She walks into the dining room. It is set for six. There is a white tablecloth over the table. She looks at the tall, narrow, elegantly designed black wrought iron stove between the windows.

"I love these old stoves," she says. "But they can be inconvenient. Lighting this one would make the room too hot on an April evening. The heat from the kitchen stove will be enough. But I don't like leaving the door to the kitchen open."

She seems to be trying to remember something.

"Oh, dear," she says.

She walks back into the kitchen. Huldah is putting her last pot in the dish rack.

"What is it?" she asks.

Lady Claudia stoops down and reaches behind the stove. She pulls out a mousetrap. She holds it aloft.

"That wouldn't be the most appetizing sound," Huldah says.

"Or thought. Oh, Huldah. I am so nervous about this dinner..."

*

Floyd enters the Yellow Room.

The light is out. Light comes in from the Bee Room.

A boy of five is lying under a blanket in the bed. A boy of seven is lying under a blanket on a cot that has been placed partly in the alcove.

"Hey, you guys," Floyd says. "You've got to settle down. Your Mamma was getting ready to come up here with a paddle."

"I don't believe you," the seven year old chortles. "A paddle! There's no paddle down there, Uncle Floyd."

"It's just an expression. Maybe she would have whacked you with a spatula. You know what a spatula is?"

"Sure I know what a spatula is," the seven years old says. "Aunt Claudia used a spatula to make our hamburgers."

"That's right," Floyd says. "And wasn't that nice of Aunt Claudia to make you hamburgers? Weren't they delicious?"

The boys look at one another. The five year old starts to giggle. He pulls his blanket over his head. Floyd sits down on the edge of the bed. He grabs at the form under the blanket.

"You little rascal!" he says.

The boy squeals with merriment.

"It's not fair that we have to go to bed," the older boy says. "It wasn't even night out when we came up here."

"It was twilight," Floyd says. "Isn't this your bedtime at home?"

"Not on Saturdays!"

The younger boy emerges from the blanket.

"One more ghost story and we'll be good!" he chirps.

"One more, eh?" Floyd says. "Seems to me I've heard that line before."

"But this time we promise!" the older boy pleads.

"All right, then. But this is more of a monster story. Like Frankenstein. It's about a monster who lives on Long Island."

"That's where we live!" the little boys exclaims.

"Yes. I know. And about this monster. He has great big eyes. And a great big nose. And great big claws. And his name is Moses. Robert Moses. And at night he climbs the walls of houses and he looks in the window to see if there are any little boys who are being naughty and not going to sleep when they ought to. And if there are any naughty boys in there he... he.... he..."

"What?" the older boy demands.

"He knocks down their house and builds a parkway!"

Floyd grabs the younger boy. He dives under his blanket again, squealing.

"That's not fair, Uncle Floyd!" the older boy protests hotly. "That's not a real monster story!"

"It will have to do for tonight," Floyd says as he stands up. "I'm late for dinner."

"Well, that means we get an extra one the next time," the seven year old says.

"Only if you're good tonight."

"Oh, all right then..."

"See you later then," Floyd says.

He backs out of the doorway. He closes the door.

*

"I have to say that I don't get it, Floyd. It seems like a big waste of your time. It seems like beating yourself over the head twice a day with a little stick as your normal daily routine. I don't get having two cows you have to get up at the crack of dawn to milk when you really don't need the milk and the people you give it to could easily buy milk elsewhere."

The speaker is sitting at the dining room table. He is sitting in the chair nearest the kitchen that faces the front of the house. He is in his late thirties. He is burly. He looks as though he might once have been better looking than he is now. He is burly. But he is not bluff. His manner is not that of a good-natured know-it-all. He speaks slowly and pointedly and dryly.

He seems to be generously keeping under control his complete contempt.

The woman sitting to his right draws in a breath and rolls her eyes. She looks to be in her middle or late thirties. She has dark honey blonde hair. There is something horsey about her face. But she is also somehow attractive.

Lady Claudia is sitting to her right at the end of the table facing the kitchen. She purses her lips and lowers her eyes. She picks up her spoon and starts to beat the table with it. Softly. But with a certain ominous steadiness.

Floyd is sitting at the end of the table across from her. He looks at her hand and the spoon. He then looks at her. He smiles. He looks delighted. He turns to the burly man who is sitting to his right.

"But we use the milk, Harry," he says. "And we like to be able to give milk away to Castle and Huldah and various little old ladies in these parts who are feeling the pinch in their purse. And we love our pretty little Guernseys. Greta and Mabel. There are other areas of our operation where we do turn a profit. A bit of a profit."

"Where? The honey? The goat cheese? The cauliflower? The maple syrup?"

"All of the above," Floyd says. "Proudly sold all over the Township under the Bisbee Homestead label. But you forgot the corn. The cow corn. The four acres of cow corn. Which we sell to dairy farmers. All over the Township."

"I still don't get it. This is no time to be going out of your way to waste time and to lose money doing it."

Lady Claudia's nostrils are now starting to flare. Her spoon rapping is getting more violent. Sitting to her right is a man in his early thirties. He has dark hair. He is handsome, but in an unremarkable, plain way. His eyes are getting wider and wider. He is staring at the spoon in Lady Claudia's hand. She notices his stare. She gingerly puts the spoon back down next to her knife. She glances at the woman to her left. The woman is staring at her hand. Then she looks at Lady Claudia.

"Are you planning a break-out tonight, dear?" the woman asks. "Or are you just trying to foment a riot among the other inmates? Letting the screws know your low opinion of the grub?"

Lady Claudia smiles. She seems to find these questions amusing.

"No, Anne. I just don't know what came over me. My fingers got restless."

"Restless fingers," Anne says. "My word. You are a caution, Claw. You are a caution. In any case, this grub is first-rate. If I offer to help with the dishes it will be only so I can lick the plates when you're not looking. And I don't mean just mine and Harry's."

"It might be nicer, Anne dear, if you asked Claudia if there is any more roast in the pot," the handsome dark-haired man says. "I'm sure that she would be willing to part with it."

"Oh, I'd wolf that down also," Anne says. "It was great, Claw. Don't you agree, Susan?"

She is addressing the pretty, tired-looking blonde woman to Floyd's left.

"It was very good," she says.

She looks at Lady Claudia.

"Very good, Claudia."

"Why, thank you, Susan. I'm so glad that you enjoyed it."

"Very nicely done," the dark-haired man says softly and hurriedly.

"Thank you, Philip."

Anne looks around.

"You've really done wonders with this place," she says. "I'm surprised that you kept as many reminders of the Auntie Parmelia regime as you did, though. This wallpaper. Granny Freelove's far from lovely mug over there."

"I rather like these colors," Lady Claudia says. "Cinammon, clay pot red, rusty rose, what have you."

"Yes. You wear those colors often enough. You look quite lovely in that blue, by the way. It's a nice change."

"Thank you. I also find Granny Freelove to be quite charming in her little widow's cap."

Philip shifts in his seat and discreetly scowls.

"Do you have a little gas, dear?" Anne asks.

Philip stares at her blankly. He looks into the empty space to his right and shakes his head as though to clear it."

"Claudia's favorite color is red," Floyd says. "Her favorite clothes color, that is. And she wears many different shades of her favorite color. And she looks great in every one of them. It's nice if she wears blue and it's just as nice if she wears red. Say Annie, I was trying to recall the other day. How often did you come down to the ancestral home when we were kids?"

Anne hesitates. Not in a way that indicates that she has taken umbrage. Rather, in a way that indicates that both the rebuke and the courtesy of his amiably changing the subject have registered.

"Not that often," she says. "I mean, it got to be that you spent more time down here than in Onatonga. I? Well, there were the few Thanksgivings that Aunt Parmelia hosted. And a few times I came along when Pop picked you up. That was about it. Aunt Parmelia and I were not big fans of one another. And, of course, when we were really little, I was terrified of Granny Freelove. Claw, Susan, you couldn't imagine. She looked like a witch and she sounded like a witch. This was their kitchen. When you walked in you half expected to see a little German boy and a little German girl in cages near the stove. Good Lord. That screeching cackle... Do you remember, Phil?"

"I don't remember her at all," he says.

"Is that a fact?" Anne asks with a leering smile that indicates disgust with his party pooping reticence.

She turns to Floyd.

"Have you ever thought of just bulldozing this entire back part of the house?" she asks. "The front is an historic showplace. Solid oak and classically proportioned. Back here... Well, you've heard of the house that Jack built."

"You seem to have nursery rhymes and fairy tales much on your mind tonight," Lady Claudia says.

Anne looks around.

"I won't say it," she says. "It would be like shooting trout in a bucket."

She starts slightly. As though her better angel had given her a good healthy jab.

"Well, be that as it may," she says, "all in all it's a lovely house. Five years ago it was the last word in Victorian Rococo hideousness. Now it's really quite spendid. In spots."

She raises a glass of water towards Floyd. As she turns and points it towards Lady Claudia the sound of metal snapping sharply against wood comes from the kitchen.

Anne's eyes widen. She cocks her head and starts chuckling as she puts down her glass.

"Oh," she says. "Ohhh...."

Lady Claudia ignores her.

"How are the girls doing, Susan?" she asks. "How do they like school?"

"Oh, they're fine," Susan says. "They like school very much. Cynthia is in Miss Portman's, of course. Priscilla just goes for a few hours three times a week to a little class at our church."

"Ah, yes," Anne says. "Your Unitarian church..."

"Is it what you'd call kindergarten?" Lady Claudia asks.

"I think that nursery school would be the correct term," Susan says.

There is a clattering sound. Something wooden is being dragged across the other side of the ceiling from the kitchen to the far end of the dining room.

There is a moment of silence. Lady Claudia looks at Floyd. He looks back at her. He leans his elbows on the table and folds his hands in front of his mouth.

"I was so glad that you brought the boys here tonight," Lady Claudia says to Anne. "We see so little of them."

"Well, it would have been a bit much to leave the boys and the girls with Mother and Pop," Anne says.

"With Pop, you mean," Harry interjects.

Floyd gives him a baleful look.

"I just hope that they're getting some shut-eye up there," Anne says.

She smiles wickedly.

"I thought I heard them scampering about before."

Lady Claudia turns to Philip.

"We were reading about one of your cases in The Onatonga Star ," she says. "The policeman who shot the picketer..."

"Yes," he says. "A certain notoriety accrued to the case and as a consequence it was covered in various regional newspapers."

"Yes," Lady Claudia says forlornly.

"That's all you'll get out of him, Claw," Anne says. "He's achieved his goal of using at least one word per sentence which was never before used under the roof under which he finds himself."

"Aunt Parmelia was very well-read, Annie," Floyd says.

"True. And garrulous. That was the whole-"

The wooden object clatters across the top of the ceiling from the far side of the room to the middle. There is silence for a moment. Then there is a sound of clacking and flipping and flopping. Then there is the sound of squeaking. Of squealing.

Susan jumps up. She puts her hand over her mouth. She turns and runs into the kitchen.

Lady Claudia jumps up. She runs towards the kitchen.

"Oh, dear..." she murmurs.

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (XV)

2008-09-22T14:38:00.010-04:00

He flicks on the light switch.

"Please, Claudia" he says. "Always have the light on when you go up and down these stairs at night."

"All right. That would be much safer."

"Except if you see a mouse you would not otherwise have seen, and lose your balance as you start screaming."

"There is that to consider. But Persnickitty has been doing a crackerjack job in the mouse reduction department."

"I don't want anything to happen to you."

He stares at her, dead serious.

"Of course not, dear," she says shyly. "I've worried about your catching cold when you bound up or down these stairs in your bare feet. But I do worry more about your slipping in your stocking feet."

"They're steep."

"Rather."

"I was in real danger of being arrested. I doubt that I would have been taken to trial, much less found guilty and sent to the hot seat. I would have had the best lawyers in the English-speaking world, for one thing. And some of the motives attributed to me would have been deemed funnier than Charlie Chaplin eating his shoe by the American public. But arrested? That was a possibility. And it wasn't his choosing the pistol he chose which saved me from that. It wasn't just the blackened fingers. It was having old friends of mine who happen to be intelligent and conscientious working the case and insisting on the proper deductions. We know how the police twisted things for the Knapps' benefit when they issued their statement to the press. It very easily could have gone the other way. Lester Knapp, 35, and Floyd Brightwell, 33, were longtime antagonists as members of the Camel Creek Village Board, frequently engaging in heated arguments at Board meetings. And according to Mr Brightwell's own statement to police they had words about Mr Brightwell's wife Claudia, 28, shortly before the fatal shot was fired."

"I kept thinking of those blackened fingers. I kept my mind fixed on them."

"Smart girl. Because it's highly likely that there never would have been a way of establishing a motive for suicide. Lawyer Phil said that it was not up to me to explain why Les shot himself. True enough, but I can hear the District Attorney informing Philip that the People could establish a motive for my shooting Les. And that that weighed much more in the scales of justice than any debatable forensic evidence. Floyd with a motive and clean fingers might make a better target than Les with black fingers but no motive in this world. Then there's Cousin Elmina. She spoke about her professional task of noting the unlikely in suicides. A man blowing his brains out upon finding out that his wife is cheating on him? That must come under the square egg heading."

"Dear, I suspect that there are countless angles that we have not considered. I'm sure, I'm sure now, that the police took seriously your indications, and Castle's, that someone had driven to the Knapps' house that night. He would have been considered a suspect too no matter what you said about Les's shooting himself. But I do agree with you that you had reason to be worried about your prospects as a free man. I never put any stock in the argument that everyone in Camel Creek knows you and knew of Louise Knapp. I put all my stock in his fingerprints' being on the trigger and not yours. How could you have wiped off yours without wiping off his? And if you wore gloves, where are those gloves? Lex was there five minutes after the shooting. Louise would have had no reason to lie about that or not to corroborate that. And then there were those blackened fingers..."

"Those blessed blackened fingers. I should have asked Hank Trudley or Jim Grey to chop them off and put them in a jar of alcohol for me. We could have put them on the table right out here. Just as a subtle reminder to all our friends and neighbors."

"Really, dear..."

"Back in the bad old days, when I was recuperating from France, I read a lot. Up in my room at home. What else was there to do? I slept all day and read all night. One summer when Brother Philip was on vacation from law school I asked him if I could read some of his books. He was reluctant, but he allowed me to take some back into my lair. Quite a few, actually. I was fascinated. I was appalled. I learned that to no small extent our rules and regulations about the conducting of trials are geared to make a certain amount of buffoonery inevitable.

'Out of my sight, O wicked false witness, O most perfidious, O thou hell-hound thou, O malevolent son of he whom Holy Writ terms the fallen star, of all false cows the falsest, who says he saw the murder transpire from across the street and yet has just admitted that he wears glasses and was not wearing them that night!' 'But, but, but, but...' 'You are here only to answer questions, Mr. Jones...' 'Yes, Your Honor, but...' 'Have the people a question for this witness?' 'The people certainly do, Your Honor! What is the problem with your eyes, Mr. Jones? Why do you wear glasses?' 'Because I'm far-sighted! Which is what I was trying to tell that clown over there!' 'Order in the court! And I find you to be in contempt of this court, Mr. Jones. Off with your head!'

"Okay. There is gamesmanship as well as comedy. In that case Counsel would have known that the People wouldn't let him get away with it. But the trickery perpetrated against Mr. Jones by Counsel could be a little more subtle than that and the People might not catch it in time or ask the witness the right question. And it could just as well be the People who played the trick, and Counsel who nodded off at the expense of his client's neck. But that's how trials work. What about police investigations? What about the relationship between the police and, say, medical examiners? That's where I was really appalled. 'And why is it, Dr Dumbbell, that you failed to examine in the usual indicated fashion the body of the six year old girl whom Mr. Jones is accused of strangling?' 'Because when I saw that little angel lying there with her golden curls on that cold hard table, I simply couldn't bring myself to do anything reminiscent of what the fiend sitting over there had done.'

"Now except for the names, this last exchange is a quote from an actual trial. Mr. Jones was dragged out of prison and burned alive by an angry mob of concerned citizens. But he had been scheduled to be electrocuted by the State for murdering the little angel. Rape being understood as the motive. Even though rape was never established. And there were no witnesses, no evidence, no clue except that Mr. Jones lived two houses down and for certain unstated reasons might be expected to have an interest in raping little angels with golden curls. Even though legally speaking there was no rape."

"I think that I can guess where this happened and why Mr. Jones in particular was thought to have that interest."

"Things like that happen all over all the time. Something like that could have happened to me. I have done something to society for which society might want to punish me."

"Oh dear, I know. I think that we're in the same boat there."

"Lex MacEveny was always the mild one. The just plain nice one. Now imagine Willy Boy wearing his badge. Imagine me at his mercy. Willy is humble. Willy is honest-"

"But he's also full of anger and envy. Directed now mostly at you because you're still alive. Yes. I'm seeing the truth in what you're saying more and more as you speak. But somehow... Well, you seem annoyed at particular people, dear. Or at someone in particular."

"I think that I am a little bit. Not with you. Maybe with-... Well, I don't know. I don't want to say with anyone in particular. I just want it to be understood that I had a close call. I very easily could have paid a heavy price for what Lester did to himself. And you would have paid too. Just my being arrested and whisked away to the big house would have been a devastating blow to us. And then the slim but very real chance of my actually standing trial. It would have been murder in the second degree. Life, perhaps. I don't care about going to a small room and not being able to do anything for years and years but read books. I've done that before. All I care about is being taken away from you. Now that I've had the pleasure of being with you."

"You told me in Catskill, Floyd. Two days before we were married. You have a low opinion of the people who run the world. And yes, you said, you do think that you could do better. And you promised to hold forth on that subject only rarely and under great provocation. I would say that you have had great provocation this week. But there is only one person who has done you wrong here, my darling. And that person in Lester Knapp. Your friend. He is your friend. He always will be. But he was the one who did something to you. He is the guilty party. Society is innocent this time out."

Floyd looks at her. Then he steps over to the wall. He flicks the switch off. He sits down on the third step. Lady Claudia watches him. Then she sits down on the edge of the landing, her legs resting on a lower step.

"That's true," Floyd says. "Les is the only one at whom I should be sore. Well, I am sore."

He looks up at her.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" he asks.

"No," she says. "The whole idea seems so silly to me. Fun house projections from the living on to the world of the dead, which is closed to us. It's always the slender young headless lady who is quite understandably looking for her head. Never the fat old biddy who is quite incomprehensibly obsessed with finding out who was bequeathed her favorite purple scarf."

"Thomas Aquinas believed in ghosts."

"Aquinas believed in souls on leave from Purgatory. There are only souls, Floyd. We can only pray for our dead. That's it. This right here, right now, is a very ghostly set-up. The place where we last saw Lester Knapp, all dim and frigid. But Les is either in Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven. That's it. He's nowhere near Camel Creek, New York."

"Could I have gone to the funeral? Was I wrong to have qualms about the burial? Or was I wrong to allow it?"

"I think that you could have gone to the funeral. We could have gone. And this without betraying our old-fashioned ideas about suicide or adopting any questionable modern sentimentality about it. Les was not a suicide in the eyes of the community. He died accidentally in the eyes of the Law."

"So maybe it was wrong not to go. My Lester shall a ministering angel be, when thou, churlish Brightwell, liest howling. Gosh, it would have been nice if I had asked your advice before. Now he's six feet under."

"It was a question of how you felt. Of how you had the right to feel. Not of some abstract moral conundrum. Mrs. Knapp understands. Cora Knapp. The burial in your cemetery? It's not a Catholic cemetery, dear. You are not a Catholic. You certainly are not a Catholic bishop. You may bury whomever you please in your own little cemetery. Bishops are in a position to make moral statements to their subjects when they permit certain questionable characters to be buried in the Church's hallowed ground. Private citizens are not. Your burying Lester Knapp was just the last step in the process that began with Lex MacEveny's covering him up with a sheet. Gate of Heaven Cemetery is not consecrated ground."

"You sound so sure."

"I've been reading up on these matters in recent days."

"That might have made good bedtime reading."

"You would have had both of us up until rosy-fingered dawn."

Floyd chuckles.

"And then I would have had you continue out in the barn as I milked Greta."

He pauses.

"Peter Knapp," he says softly. "Rochester."

"It's sad if Will doesn't even know that his father has cousins with whom he is close in Rochester. Mr. Knapp has mentioned them a number of times to us. Dear, I'm not sure that I could set forth any strict logic in what I'm going to say. But I think that Mr. Knapp's flight to such a distant land is a show of support for you. And a confession of family disgrace. Of failure as Lester Knapp's father. If he had just stayed down at the farm on the Creek road and refused to attend the funeral or even be around... If it had been a question of his sitting in his rocking chair feeding biscuits to that smelly old dog of his as all hell broke loose for his poor wife... That would have meant nothing. Or it would have meant that he strongly disapproved of Lester's deplorable recklessness where guns were concerned. His leaving town like that? That's honor, Floyd. That's shame and that's honor. A cowardly honor, some folks will say. A cruel honor. But for those of us who understand the language of the beau geste... Well, I've spent most of my life around people who speak that language. I think I understand. I also understand the thinking of people who read the Bible every day and carry over Biblical modes of thought and action into their own modern lives.

"Leaving town was Mr. Knapp's way of saying that for one thing, he knows that his son killed himself. His pretty daughter-in-law was a slut and everyone knows it and that drove his son to take his own life and put Floyd Brightwell's freedom or at least good name in jeopardy. His leaving town was his way of saying without saying it what most needs to be said. To the community, to the State, to Almighty God, Who sees and knows and judges all. Floyd Brightwell is innocent. Fleeing unto a distant land is also his way of telling the world that he is desperately sorry and unspeakably ashamed. But above all... Ah. I can't explain. But I know. He did it for you, Floyd. You would not be attending the funeral. He would not be attending. He could not show his face to his neighbors. But Floyd Brightwell could. Leaving town was his way of saying, 'I have to leave the fellowship of men with my head hanging, but Floyd Brightwell has the right to stay here among you and walk with his head held high.' His not going to Lester's funeral was a matter of honor. Just as your not going was a matter of love. Not morality, not anger. Just love."

"Love. Yeah, I reckon so. Love. You know something, Coffee Queen? Until half past nine this past Wednesday night I just always presupposed that one day the light would break for my old pal Les and I would have my old pal back. But for the first time as a true friend."

There is silence for a few moments. Floyd left the parlor door open. Lady Claudia can see him wiping his cheeks with the heel of his hand.

"But it didn't go that way, did it?" he asks, his voice breaking.

"I don't know, dear. I don't want to say no. It won't do to break our hearts with dead end formulations of that sort. The light breaking? You have a lovely picture of Christ in your parlor. You showed him Christian courtesy and kindness until the bitter end. Maybe in his last moment of life those memories and your prayers and best wishes for him had their good effect..."

"You forgot my lovely wife. You're so much nicer than that girl in the poem... That little floating waif. You know. That Beatrice. Not a bad kid, but surely a bit of a prig? And kind of a cold fish. I'm in Heaven, blah blah blah. You're in Hades, ha ha ha. She needed more pepper in her spaghetti sauce, that signorina did. You know something? I think that we've had just about enough of that blasted Inferno around here."

"I myself have always detested the Inferno. But maybe we should lay the entire Comedy to rest. The other parts get you all excited. And that's not the idea."

"True. And the Inferno wouldn't bore me anymore. It would get me all excited. But in a bad way. Yes. Les is still my friend. My heart prays to the heart of Jesus' mother for him."

"Oh, I am so glad to hear you say that, dear!"

"She's the queen in such matters, I hear. She's the one to call on first and last. The Mother of Mercy. But mind you, it's only my heart that prays to the lady I named. My mind would give me a stern lecture if it ever found out. Let's see. Lester was Dutch Reformed. He was not aboard the Ark of Salvation. But he could have had Invincible Ignorance about the Roman Church. So he could have checked out okay there. Lester was also an atheist. And not just any old atheist. An apostolic atheist. But he confessed before men that his heart was warming towards the King of the Jews in his last hour upon this earth. That was the blessing you brought upon him. So that leaves us with the fact that Lester killed himself. Well, as you say, he could have repented in his last moments. So strictly speaking he had a shot at beatitude. But if he was saved, he probably is going to be frying in Purgatory for a long time. A long time."

"We can't say that either. Let's trust in the mercy of our Heavenly Father. Let's pray every day of our lives that angels will take the soul of Lester Knapp to paradise. Let's leave it at that. But please don't feel that you shouldn't mention him. I like hearing things about him that are nice and funny, that do him credit."

"Really? Then I should be able to dig up two or three more by Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving of 1937. He was a handful, old Les was. He was a Pip. I can't think of him sitting over there in the Tavern anymore. I don't remember him driving his Model T up and down the Turnpike. I think of him suffering in Hell."

"Oh, dear..."

"Well, it's better than arguing against your point about Louise and the timing of the shot and Lex's arrival. Isn't it? I can think of a reason why she might have made it fifteen rather than five minutes."

"I know. The words were scarcely out of my mouth when I thought the same thing. Yes. Let's talk about Les suffering in Hell. I much prefer that."

"But that's only because you know that my Inferno would be worlds apart from the Inferno of that spiteful little Eye-talian Signor Alighieri. So here we go. I'm taking a guided tour through Hell. Virgil says, 'Now if you'll kindly step this way, there are some embezzlers being eaten alive unto endless ages by red ants up ahead...' Ugh. I slip away. I look for Les. My old buddy Les. Finally I spy him. He's sitting with a six or seven other Sad Sacks in some grim and dim open space. They're all ignoring one another. For some reason it strikes me: None of these Sad Sacks knows or cares that he said wistful things about Jesus right before he died the admittedly sinful way he died. None of these mugs knows or cares when his birthday is. Or that he loved classical music. Especially Bach.

"I walk right to Les. I say, 'Hi, Knappy.'

"He asks, 'Is that you, Brightwell?'

"I say, "What are ya, blind?'

"He says, 'Well, yeah. Pretty much. Last time you saw me one eye was hanging out of the socket by a string, wasn't it?'

"I say, 'Sorry. I didn't know that it worked that way.'

"He grunts in disgust over my ignorance.

"I ask, 'How bad is it down here, Knappy?'

"He says, 'Do you see me dancing on any tables, genius? Am I singing hallelujah with harp and timbrel?'

"I say, 'No. You look sad. You look tired and lost and sad.'

"He scowls at me. 'Go blow your nose, Brightwell,' he says.

"''Why did you do it, Knappy?' I ask.

"I expect him to say something rude. But he is now candid in the most gracious way.

"'It wasn't just the shock of learning what my wonderful bride really was,' he says. 'It wasn't just the humiliation of seeing myself as a cuckold. It was knowing that everything was over. I could forgive her. I would have forgiven her. But she never would have accepted my forgiveness. She was a very modern girl. She had cheated. So naturally she would piously and haughtily demand a divorce. She wouldn't marry the Lover Boy from Onatonga or Milbury. She'd hone in on some Harvard professor and move to Massachusetts. I would lose my boy. I might never marry again. It had taken me so long to find a girl the first time. My ways were not winning. And with the onset of that little paunch... And what was it that Christ had to say about divorce? I felt trapped. I felt past everything. I felt hopeless. I felt utterly unloved.'

"'I just wish that you had come back with us,' I say.

"'I do too,' he says. 'I sit here, Floyd, and I picture us sipping that brandy and smoking those cigars in the Tavern... I think of what you would have said to me. And I know that it would have been the right thing. To lift my spirits. To chase the devils away. Or maybe you just would have sat with me in silence, seeing that my grief was great. And then I see so clearly that narrow bed in the Mud Room... That crazy quilt...'"

"'Well,' I say. 'I appreciate your candor. But now it's time to go. I'm taking you to some place of light, happiness, and peace.'

'You think so, hot shot?' Les asks.

"He's sneering. He's his old self again.

"'Have you ever tried to ditch this hellhole?" I ask.

"' Watch your language,' he says. 'No, I haven't.'

"'Well then," I say with a shrug and a smile. 'Come on. Stand up. Take my arm if you need to. We're busting loose. Everything will be okay. That weirdo in the bedsheet, that ghoulish busybody, that Virgil, may be a problem. You just leave him to me. Even a pagan should have figured out that what any human heart suffers in the world is as ineffable to mortal man as the processions in the Trinity. Reducing people to representatives of certain sins and making their torments the lesson of the day is as ungodly as it is tasteless."

"'Don't push that cheeky routine too far, Brightwell,' Les says, looking over his shoulder. 'Though I seem to recall a sermon in Camel Creek Dutch Reformed about this pagan lady who had the better of it in a theological discussion with Christ Almighty. She wanted Him to help her little daughter, who was full of demons, and at first He said no...'

"You're getting the idea,' I say. 'Stand up. Let's get going.'

"'I'm scared, Floyd,' he says. 'I am so scared.'

"'So am I,' I say. 'But He's our Father. He wants to give us good things. And what all good fathers know above all is that what their children want most is another chance. Loaves of bread and eggs and fish are fine. But what children ask for most plaintively is another chance. Let's at least try, old friend. Let's give it a shot...'"

"And then Lester stands up. And he clasps my hand..."

Floyd falls silent for a few moments. But the hallway is not silent. Lady Claudia is trying to muffle the sound of her weeping. She is failing.

Floyd stands up. He crosses his arms and rests them on top of the handrail newel.

"In about a minute I am going to stop talking about Lester Knapp for a long, long time. I'm going to turn that light back on and go back into the parlor and wait for you to bring down the quilt. But one final word on my old friend Lester. I think that it may explain certain things.

"I've told you that it was he who got me out of bed in April of 1925 and told me that I was going on a European tour and two days later drove me to the pier in Manhattan himself, with Pop in the back seat. I've never told you what I heard Pop and him say when he arrived at 61 Juniper that evening. It was starting to get dark. I had been sleeping all day. I had been having bad dreams. I heard Pop call up the stairs. 'Rise and shine, sleepy head. Lester Knapp is here. He craves an audience.' I uttered some sort of catatonic gibberish. Pop took it as a refusal. He said, 'You're not so old that I can't go up there and put you over my knee!' Then Les called up. 'Did you hear that, Brightwell? But I don't think that old is the operative word here. Not with this father and son!' I smiled. I remember thinking that I hadn't smiled in weeks and weeks. I got up. I walked out into the hall. That's why I could hear what Les said to Pop. He was speaking softly. He said, 'I'm going to get our boy back to the land of the living, Pop. I don't care how long it takes. If you ever tell him I'll have to slit your throat, but I love that guy up there. That crazy, sweet, wonderful guy up there. I love him...'"

THE END

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (XIV)

2008-09-20T22:46:00.008-04:00

Wilbur looks taken aback for a moment.

"That's right," he says as he relaxes into his usual jaunty air. "And it hasn't bounced yet, either."

"I have no fear of that," Floyd says dryly. "My fear is that I'll see your Dad selling vegetables on the side of the road."

"Oh, this won't work any hardship on them. They're doing okay. They've kept their shirts. Lord knows you've been a big help. Helping them with home repairs. Showing them how to keep the bugs and the critters away from the fruits of their vines... I'm grateful to you, Brightwell."

"Happy to be of service anytime."

"Well then," Wilbur says. "You can't stand there heating the Camel Creek Village Green all night."

"You've got to get back to your mother and your wife. But you live less than an hour away. We should-"

"Forty-five minutes. But no. I don't think so, Floyd. Les and you were a couple of bullies. He was a devil. You were a Guardian Angel. But you were both a couple of bullies. You see that, don't you?"

"I don't know, Willy. I guess so. It's hard to see seventeen at thirty-three."

Wilbur looks at Claudia with a sad smile.

"And the gracious lady of this house should not be put in that position. She has had her eye on me since I got here. She'll still have to run to old Asa's flame mahogany sideboard and see if the silver is still all there."

Lady Claudia shakes her head with a sad smile and keeps shaking it. Wilbur looks at Floyd.

"No, Floyd. This is it until maybe the next trip to Gate of Heaven. I don't know how a woman like Huldah Bisbee gets stuck with a son like Bobby Bisbee. But I know exactly how a woman like Cora Knapp gets stuck with sons like Les and me. That other one. He wishes, oh how he wishes, that you had been his younger son instead of me. You would have been such a good influence on his beloved firstborn Lester. All those chats about the Bible around the kitchen table the old man and you used to have while Cora beat her batter and beamed... And now there is a special bond between you two. The Lester lovers who took a pass on attending his final send-off."

"Gosh, Will. Sounds like you hate me."

"Hate? Resent is more the word we're looking for. I feel that you have something that belongs to me. Even though you were given it, and may not even want it... Yeah, I guess I do hold that against you. But I'll get over it."

"I hope so, Will. Have a safe trip back to Stantonville. And thanks for stopping by with the check."

"Sure thing. Good night."

He bows slightly to Lady Claudia. She smiles and tilts her chin at him.

He turns and walks out into the night. Floyd watches him for a while. Then he closes the door. He stands there for a few moments leaning his head against it. Then he wheels about and faces Lady Claudia.

"And let that be a lesson to you!" he exclaims.

She grins. Then she sighs and cocks her head plaintively.

"Oh, dear..." she says.

Floyd walks towards her. He takes her hand. They turn.

"That about sums it up when it comes to Willy Knapp," he says as they walk back to the south sofa.

"But I still have my hopes about him," he says as they sit back down. "I can't help feeling that no matter how hard he pushes that good-natured Godless routine... Well, what do you think, Coffee Queen?"

"I think that he has a basic humility and honesty about himself which will stand him in good stead. It's amusing as well as terribly sad to think that he has no idea how much like Cora he really is... Has he always called his mother by her first name?"

"Les started in with that pretty early in the game. A lot of guys did that with their Dads. The Knapps were the only ones who did it with their mother."

"I see."

Floyd stares at her for a few moments. Then he reaches out and nips at her nose for a second with his bent middle and index fingers.

"Do you have any idea of what a sweet kid you are? Any idea at all?"

She shrugs.

"Lincoln," Floyd says.

Lady Claudia stares at him for a few moments. Then she jerks her head to the right.

"Mr. Abraham Lincoln," Floyd continues. "The sixteenth president of these United States."

"The immediate successor of Mr. James Buchanan."

"If you look for the bad in people, you will surely find it. Some very nice Christian ladies who've read a few books on psychology would be sitting here right now putting poor old Willy through the ringer. Bringing that check showed incredible hostility. That harangue about accepting facts was an example of unspeakable effrontery. But all you say is that he's humble and honest. And, 'Oh, dear...' Sweet, sweet kid..."

"Oh darling, don't. Wilbur is in such pain tonight. Tomorrow night I might have said some of those things. I needn't have read any psychology books, either..."

"All right. If you say so."

He looks at the stove.

"I'm really not tired," he says. "I'd like to stay up. But the fire's going down."

"That still gives us some time."

"Maybe not enough."

"Oh. I see."

"Maybe you could show me Wilma's quilt right now."

She starts to move. He grabs her arm.

"Not now," he says.

She sits back down.

"It's still warm," he explains.

A pause.

"You know what their cousin Frank Timmons told me this afternoon? Les left a whole pile of logs over at his place. Logs from the trees he cut down on the village green. For us. Split and everything. I asked Huldah about it and she said that Les had asked for permission to leave them in the woodshed here. She denied it. Of course, Les didn't need wood. He had a modern oil burner. Boy, was he proud of that oil burner and the ducts and grates he installed in that old house before Louise moved in..."

"A peace offering."

"You mean the logs? Sure. A peace offering made before he started the war. That Les. He was a funny one. I think that he may have tried to apologize about the Svenloe outrage the day Willy got married. It was at the reception back at the house. Willy was alone on the porch for a few moments and Lester went out and tried to talk to him. He said, 'Willy?' Just like that. In a gentle, tentative tone. And that was the only time I ever heard Les call Will Willy. Will saw someone out on the lawn and called out his name and just walked away from Les. Les just stood there with his head bowed. I saw and heard all this through the living room window. Maybe we'll read in The Onatonga Star tomorrow about how on that occasion I saw Lester Knapp, 21, douse Wilbur Knapp, 18, with gasoline and set him on fire."

"Stranger things have appeared in The Onatonga Star."

"They certainly have. Mr. Knapp was known to have played such practical jokes before, and Mr. Brightwell reported that his friend was in a light-hearted, jocular mood that evening."

"Oh, Floyd."

"And the heck of it is that he was making his usual wisecracks unto the bitter end. But I never reported or stated or said that Mr. Knapp was in a light-hearted, jocular mood that night. I reported and stated and said the opposite. I said that about two minutes before his death he literally collapsed in grief. What happened was that those coppers looked at everything I said Lester said that night and determined that it indicated light-hearted jocularity. And somehow Mr. Brightwell indicated became Mr. Brightwell reported."

"Well dear, we don't really know what the officers of the law said to the gentlemen of the press."

"Am I being naughty? Yes. I'm being naughty. Coppers. I'm surprised I didn't go for broke and say flat fleet. And I wasn't at my best with Will just now either. I rudely interrupted him. I used you as a buffer. I'm going to write to him. He may or may not read it. I'll never know. That's the operative phrase in all this. Never know. The Knapps will never know if I breathed a word suggestive of suicide to the police. I'll never know if Louise broke down and told them all about Lover Boy that very night. She could hear the rain. She could look out the window..."

Floyd shivers.

Lady Claudia stands up.

"That does it," she says. "I'm off to fetch Wilma's quilt. That was very naughty of Lex to make Castle and you stand out in the cold drizzle for three hours."

Floyd grabs her hand. He presses it against his cheek and closes his eyes.

"You don't baby me," he says in a soft, grave tone. "You don't mother me. You're my wife. You help me. You let me know when I'm really going wrong. But when you know I've made a serious decision you just go along with me and don't ask questions. You just stand by me."

She gently withdraws her hand. She strokes his hair.

"Yes, dear," she says. "Of course. I'm a very sweet kid. And very old-fashioned."

Floyd looks up at her and grins.

"But still sophisticated."

"Though not modern."

"No. Heaven help us. Not modern at tall."

Lady Claudia starts to walk away.

"The quilt," she says.

She enters the hallway. She starts to climb the stairs. She reaches the landing.

"Claudia?"

She turns around.

Floyd is standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at her.

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (XIII)

2008-09-13T14:19:00.021-04:00

"I was there," Floyd says. "And you're going to explain to me what happened. I think that maybe your success as a door to door salesman has gone to your head, Will. You should try an easier sell with me. Like a vacuum cleaner that doubles as a coffee percolator."

Wilbur grins.

"Oh, I'd say that I've already done all right in this field. I've already made the sale with the buyers who really count. Back to Hidden Pond Hill Road. He dragged me across on my back. Gravel. Ouch. He told me to roll over on my stomach. He stuck the shotgun against the back of my neck and told me to lick up the smashed vegetables and swallow them. I could see Old Man Svenloe looking out the parlor window. After about three gulps I started crying and puking and begging. He put down his shotgun, kicked me in the head, just to get me dizzy I guess so I couldn't roll over and lunge at him, and tied my hands behind my back with the loose end of the rope. Hog-tied, it's called, Claudia. He drove off. Old Man Svenloe came out on his porch with his shotgun. He sat in rocking chair and watched me for about five minutes. Then he went inside. He came back out holding a big carving knife. He walked over to me, stooped down, and cut through the rope around my feet. He went back inside. I lay there for about fifteen minutes. I remember being stared at by a passing woodchuck.

"I stood up. The pain in my right foot was God awful. But I started limping away from Old Man Svenloe and his knife and his gun and his squashed cucumbers. I figured that it would take me two hours just to get to the Turnpike. Then Old Man Svenloe rode by me in his horse-drawn wagon. About twenty minutes later Calvin Henlick came riding up the road in his horse-drawn wagon."

"Calvin Henlick..."

"He got out and cut the rope around my hands. He told me to get in, so I did. First he took me to his house. Myra clucked her tongue and kept saying things like, 'Land sakes!' and 'Mercy me!' She helped me get washed up. Cal took a look at my ankle and said it wasn't too bad. He wrapped a cloth around it. Then he told me to get back in the wagon. So I did. He took me back to Camel Creek. He told me that I had better forget all about what Les had done to me. If I had a notion to go to the Law and tell on my brother I had best get that notion right out of my head. He didn't approve of the lengths to which Les had gone. But I had had a lesson coming to me. The important thing was that I should learn the lesson. I just shrugged my shoulders. I thanked him for the first aid and the ride and went inside. I told the folks that Les and I had been fooling around. That he had dared me to jump out of his car. Then he had driven off. Les was in a bit of hot water with the old man. I think that he made him paint the hen house or something. But I never spoke to Les about what had happened. I never spoke to him again if I could at all help it."

"I remember," Floyd says. "It was about then that our little fraternity started to break up. This is all very distressing, Will. But I'm waiting for the big revelation."

"You don't get it? Well, I guess you wouldn't from just that. One thing that Farmer Henlick said always stuck in my mind. He said, 'Now, Will. You don't really think that that gun was loaded...' And I had to admit that I wasn't sure. Les was always playing those kinds of games with guns. You don't know that, Floyd, because he was always on his best behavior with you. That's the problem with all ye watchers and ye holy ones. You don't really know people. You don't know the score. But ask Bobby Bisbee. Ask Lex MaxEveny. Rather, ask Sheriff MacEveny. Poor old Les would be showing us his pistol collection. Then he'd put the barrel of one against his temple and say, 'Give me one good reason not to.' And naturally I'd say something like, 'Can't think of a one. And there are so many why you should. I'll get your car and your fishing rods.' Once he put a pistol in his mouth... You see, for most men who own guns the purpose is to... Well, it doesn't matter if you're Wyatt Earp or Jesse James. When you pick up a gun you're saying something plain enough to other people about your intentions. But Les had his very own gun philosophy. Les used guns to tease and frighten and confuse and mentally torture other people. Before you spoke about my asking a simple question, Claudia. Well, I do have a simple question for you, Floyd. Did you see Les load that pistol on Wednesday night?"

"No. I left him in the garage. I went out into the breezeway and then out into the driveway. How could I have seen him load that pistol?"

"We can't exclude the possibility that it was already loaded."

"And that Les plum forgot? That's weak, Will. Very weak. And he chose that night to go off his best behavior with me? Just for the heck of it?"

"You have to accept facts, Floyd. It was a practical joke turned tragic accident. It was the culmination of a long life of deplorable recklessness where guns were concerned. And that's all it was. You have to accept the facts as determined by the experts. Including your own cousin Elmina."

Floyd stares at him for a few moments.

"All right," he says. "I get it. I'm just wondering why. It's not to protect your brother's memory. It's not out of a sense of family honor. For Mom, maybe?"

"Cora's okay. But between her piety and her poetry she's turned out to be quite an old bore. Cora can fend for herself."

"The kid."

Will just looks at him for a while. Then he stands up.

"I've really got to get back. Thanks for your hospitality, Claudia."

She stands.

"You're welcome, Will."

She glances at Floyd. He does not seem to be about to move from his seat.

"Be logical, Brightwell," Wilbur says. "Don't brood about it. No one knows that you said anything different to the coppers. Heck, even I don't know! Lex is very professional about these things. So there's no question of people thinking that Crazy Floyd's testimony was discounted because he's, well, crazy. This is no kind of public humiliation for you."

"My husband is not crazy, Will," Lady Claudia says coldly. "And no one thinks he is."

Floyd jumps up.

"I'm not? They don't? Now you tell me!"

He takes Wilbur by the arm and leads him out into the hallway.

"Don't worry about me, Will. I'm not going to sit here brooding about Les. Why, I'm starting to feel better about things already. You've been a big help."

"I'm glad."

Floyd opens the door.

"I'm looking forward to Tommy's visit with your folks," he says. "Lots of young guys in similar situations come over here to learn a bit about farming. Lottie Lorsch's grandson Howie for one. From New Paltz."

"Yes," Wilbur says. "I've heard that you're quite the Pied Piper. You teach them all about farming and fishing and hunting, all the while working in a word to the wise on the manly virtues. Matter of fact, I was banking on my Tommy's getting hooked into your little academy when I finally broke down yesterday and agreed to his spending some time in Camel Creek this summer. I figure that the good you'd do him outweighs any harm being around my father for three weeks might do."

Floyd looks surprised.

"That's right, Floyd," Wilbur says. "Sincere admiration. Balancing out my unspeakable effrontery just now. See, I'm not like Les. I hate God and moral rectitude and all that sort of thing the way I hate asparagus. It just doesn't agree with me. But it never bothered me that other people like it. Les was such a clown. Making like Voltaire so people would think that deep down he must be some sort of Augustine... Well, that's enough about poor Les."

"Yes," Floyd says. "Enough about poor Les. He's dead and he's buried. In a grave that now has been paid for. Though the check has yet to be deposited..."

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (XII)

2008-09-10T18:28:00.007-04:00

FLOYD looks hard at Wilbur.

"Do you really think that that story does our friend any credit, Will?"

"Well, yes. I think that it does to some extent. I also think that it sheds light on recent events on Brick House Hill Road."

"And also on certain judgments that were reached in certain quarters about those events?"

Will returns Floyd's hard look.

"Well, let me just tell it. Then each of us can draw his or her own conclusions. Here it is. Back in the summer of 1917 there was a group of young bucks who ran all over Bisbee Township and Onatonga looking for fun and excitement and good sport. The leader of the pack was my brother Lester. He was the oldest. He had the car. Next in the line of command was this big lug right here, Claudia. He was the responsible one. The law-abiding one. He saw to it, as much as possible, that it was good clean sport. But he wasn't always around. In fact, he was around only half the time. The junior members of the pack were Lex MacEveny, Bobby Bisbee, and myself. The Three Little Pigs, Les called us. That may sound like rough boyish humor. But Les was absolutely incapable of that kind of playfulness. He called us the Three Little Pigs because that was his frank opinion of us. He thought that we were basically harmless and basically worthless flibbertigibbits who lacked any and all moral weight.

"Over in Bisbee Corners there is a back road called Hidden Pond Hill Road. An old farmer by the name of Svenloe lived there. He was nasty. He had this bristly gray and black beard that stuck straight out of his face about a foot. He stank. Luke Singenstraw finally had to bar the old stinker from his general store, though being a truly Christian Presbyterian he would call on him to pick up his grocery list, drive back to Camel Creek and fill it, and then back out to deliver it. Farmer Svenloe was a kind of bogeyman to children around the Township. When they got older he became their target. I mean, the older boys would play pranks on him and give him a hard time in every conceivable way. And not just on Halloween, though we always made sure that we had something particularly cruel planned for that occasion. Lex, Bobby, and I were the most dedicated nemeses of Old Man Svenloe."

"And once," Floyd interrupts, "Bobby and you stole Les's car and drove out to Bisbee Corners and knocked over his roadside vegetable stand and squashed all his tomatoes and squash and cucumbers. You weren't happy until you had gone into reverse and then forward twenty times to make sure the destruction was total. And Farmer Svenloe came running out of the outhouse with the top part of his overalls hanging down his legs and his red Long Johns a'blazin'. And he chased after you shaking both of his fists. And Bobby and you roared away roaring with laughter. All right, Will. I spared you the temptation to be whimsical and folksy about that part of this thoroughly revolting story."

Wilbur looks taken aback and offended for a moment or two. He glances at Lady Claudia. She twitches her nose at him. This makes her look as though she is winking. She nods slightly. It seems to be a kind of appeal. She moves closer to Floyd and takes his hand. Wilbur winks at her.

"Boy, Floyd," he says with a grin. "You've sure gotten testy in your old age!"

"I'm sorry, Willy," Floyd says. "I'm really sorry. That was out of line. You go ahead and tell your story the way you want to."

"Okay," Will says. "Okay. Well, here's the way of it... As fate would have it... I mean, in those days it came to pass... Oh, dear! I was so set on being whimsical and folksy!"

Floyd grins.

"Okay, wise guy. Okay..."

"Well, Claudia, I made the mistake of telling the guys back at the ranch all about it."

Floyd turns to Lady Claudia.

"That ranch was the Tavern, oddly enough. Aunt Parmelia let us use it as our club house."

"Aunt Parmelia always had a soft spot for wild naughty boys," Will says. "It was the seminarians who brought out the old maid in her. Anyway, I told Lex and Floyd about it. Floyd expressed dismay and strong disapproval. Ho-hum. Les looked and spoke as though he thought it was all hilarious. The best yet. 'Really?' he kept asking. 'You got the cucumbers too? You got all his tomatoes?' I wasn't too bright. I really thought that he thought it was all a hoot. I didn't pick up on anything ominous in the way he was repeating the details with this fixed grin on his face. Lex MacEveny did. He kind of slid out the side door. Les said that he wasn't sore anymore that we had taken his car without permission. He said that he wanted to go back out there to see all those squashed cucumbers for himself. Bobby was always the really stupid one in our set. He was all for going back. I didn't want to. Not that I foresaw what happened. I just didn't want to. But Les insisted. And you didn't last too long resisting when Les insisted.

"He said that he had to use the washroom. He told us to wait out in the car. He went in the back and we went outside. Floyd here grabbed my arm out by the lilac bush in the dooryard. He said, 'Are you so foolish that you don't even know your own brother? You're not going back out there with him.' I said I was. I said a few other things too. So Floyd turned to Bobby and said, 'All right. But you're kin. You I'll stop.' Bobby said he'd like to see him try. Floyd picked him up by the collar and his belt and walked over to the bushes that used to be in front of the house. He pitched him into one of them. Then he said, 'So how did you like seeing that? And that wasn't even trying.' I think that it was then that Bobby kind of got the idea. As I said. He was stupid. But he also had a good survival instinct...

"So I drove out there with Les. He didn't say a word the whole time. I stopped trying to make conversation. Then, as he turned off the Turnpike on to Hidden Pond Hill Road I noticed a small hand-painted sign on a sapling. Vegtabul for sale, it said. V-e-g-t-a-b-u-l. I don't know why exactly, but suddenly I felt bad about what I had done to Old Man Svenloe. I suddenly realized that being bored and exasperated by my folk's constant harping on doing the right thing didn't give me the right to do the wrong thing willy-nilly. Especially when it was a case of going out of my way to hurt someone else. I suddenly realized something else. Something about my brother. I looked at him. I looked at his face. At his eyes. And suddenly I knew. I knew my brother. What I didn't know was just what he had in mind where I was concerned. Never mind the Lester. He was Peter Knapp Junior. Except his weapon of choice was not the razor strap or the birch rod. I started sweating. I couldn't breath. I opened the door and jumped out about a hundred feet shy of the Svenloe farm.

"It was as though he had been waiting for it. He stopped the car. He jumped out. Naturally, I had fallen and gotten all scraped up. I had twisted an ankle. But I did manage to get to my feet and start limping in the direction of the thickets. I turned around. Les was holding his shotgun. The one he always kept in the trunk of his car. He was aiming at my head. I froze. He started walking towards me. I saw that he had a coiled rope under his arm. He lifted his arm and the rope fell on the grass. He told me to come over and pick it up. I was still frozen. He shook the gun. I had to decide right then and there. Do I really think that my brother Lester is really going to blow my head off over Old Man Svenloe's cucumbers? I decided that I really thought he really might. So I limped over and picked up the rope. He told me to sit down and tie my legs together right above the feet. He said no funny business. It should be good and tight. I wasn't about to disobey. I made it good and tight, though that was hard because it was a fairly long rope and I had to coil it around and around. He said to leave about six feet of rope free. I did so. He set his shotgun down and picked up the end of the rope and started dragging me across the road..."

"Excuse me, Will," Floyd says gently.

He turns to Lady Claudia.

"All I knew was that Les roughed him up a bit and left him on the side of the road all tied up with cucumber gunk all over his face. I never heard anything about guns and inhuman tortures until now."

"So now you want me to shut up?" Wilbur asks. "Or now do you want the lady of the house to retire to her kitchen? That's what she tried to do before. Because she's a very kind and considerate lady. But you were having none of it. I mean no disrespect, Claudia. But these are modern times. I'm sitting here looking at a young married couple who are extremely intelligent and sophisticated and, shall we say, unusual. Extremely old-fashioned too. I know that. But can't we bend the rules tonight? I'd like you to stay and hear, Claudia. I think you should. If what I hear and what I read is true, you can take it. You understand, of course, that I'm not merely indulging myself by telling this unpleasant little story about my deceased brother. We're working up to the truth about this past Wednesday night. Or at least to the unpleasant story I told Sheriff MacEveny and Lieutenant Ashwood."

Floyd looks at Lady Claudia. She squeezes his hand.

"Will," she says, "it seems that you're saying so much about this long ago incident in order to rub in the fact that you have not yet asked Floyd one simple question. What happened in that breezeway up on Brick House Hill Road this past Wednesday night?"

"I wouldn't tell your mother," Floyd says. "Not then and there. But I would have told your father. I would have told you."

"Maybe if you let me finish," Will says, "you'll understand why that, perhaps, is a question that you might well ask me. You do read the The Onatonga Star?"

Floyd stares at him.

"Sure. I read The Onatonga Star, Will."

"Then you know that Lester Knapp, 35, of Camel Creek, died of an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot wound. I came here to explain to you how that was."

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (XI)

2008-09-08T21:11:00.005-04:00

LADY Claudia picks the little basket up from the table.

She walks to the door to the dining room. She opens it. She enters the dining room. She closes the door behind her. She turns into the hallway and walks down it. She goes into the Tavern. The lights are on. It is empty.

She turns around and walks back into the hallway. She opens the door to the parlor and goes in.

Floyd is sitting on the south sofa. His posture is odd. Usually he would be sprawled out in some way. Maybe with his legs up on the coffee table and his hands clasped behind his head. Tonight he is sitting straight up. His hands are folded in his lap. He looks like a schoolboy waiting outside the principal's office.

"There you are," Lady Claudia says.

Floyd looks up at her.

"It was getting cold in there. I have this baby roaring away now. Let's sit up for a while in here tonight."

Lady Claudia sets the basket on the coffee table.

"All right. I'll get something to read."

She turns.

"No," Floyd says.

She stops.

"That's okay. I'd rather talk. Just talk. I'd like to look at you while you talk about nothing but sweet little nothings."

She cocks her head and smiles. She walks over to the north sofa and sits down.

"Well, to begin with, that's our Easter gift from June and Hannah."

"Cute."

"Wilma loved the jasmine plant. She thought it was lilacs."

"Lilacs. Sticking out of dirt in a pot."

"Horticulture is not Wilma's strong suit."

"Wilma's a peach, though. And the best seamstress in Camel Creek."

"Wilma is a dear. One of my very favorite wedding gifts was that beautiful violet and white quilt she made."

"Don't recall it."

"I keep it in the chest in the West Bedroom. I'll show it to you tomorrow."

"Are you warm enough?"

"Toasty."

"When I was a lonely bachelor the rule was that the stoves went cold from April first until October fifteenth."

"Oh, dear. It's a mercy you didn't catch pneumonia."

"It was dumb. Arbitrary. It gets pretty cold in April and October. Just a few nights ago it was snowing. Remember?"

She pauses.

"Yes, dear. I remember."

A pause.

"Ophelia gave Walt a nasty kick in the shins before when he was changing her hay. Persnickitty chased a mouse right under her and she got spooked."

"Good heavens. But he was all right?"

"Just a bruise. Nothing broken. Walt forgets what I tell him sometimes. Don't stand right behind a horse if you don't have to. But he's learning. He'll make out fine as a farmer. That's what he really wants."

"I'm sure he'll do splendidly."

"It will be time to send him packing soon. This is no place for a boy who wants to really make it as a farmer in modern times. This would be good training if he wants to be Old, Old, Old MacDonald in the historical tableaux at the Bisbee Township Fair and say, 'By crickety, back in the good old days we milked by candlelight. Now they've got them there new-fangled kerosene lanterns...'"

Lady Claudia laughs.

"But darling. When it comes to some aspects of agriculture your ideas are newer than new."

"I suppose so. I don't want to see him go. I really don't want anything to change. I feel that I'm set for life here, Coffee Queen. That's very unrealistic, I know. But I'm happy here at our funny old homestead. With good old Huldah coming in every morning except Sunday, and our livestock and gardens and cornfields and bees... Castle and Wilma right around the corner... And... And... And..."

"And Old Charlie to beat you all at poker every other Saturday night."

"Right. And that. No, no, no. That's not it. That's not it at tall. It's right now- Jesus!"

Someone has used the knocker on the front door.

Floyd immediately puts his hand over his mouth. He quickly takes it away.

"May the Most Holy Name of Jesus be adored and praised on earth and in heaven now and forever."

"That's much better, dear."

Floyd jumps up.

"Who the-"

He opens the parlor door, strides into the hallway, draws back the bolt, and opens the door.

"Willy," he says.

Lady Claudia has walked over to the doorway. Wilbur Knapp resembles Lester Knapp. He is shorter. Lester had thick dark brown hair. Wilbur has light brown hair and it is thinning on top.

"Please come in," Floyd says.

Wilbur steps in. He is smiling. He glances at Lady Claudia.

"Claudia," he says.

"Wilbur. Please come right into the parlor and have a seat."

Wilbur looks at Floyd.

"Sure, buddy. Come on in."

"Don't mind if I do. No."

He stops short. He turns around and looks at Floyd.

"I'm here on an errand, Floyd. I'd like for you and me to have our own little chat in there. It was just hi and bye this afternoon. But I want to get this other business out of the way out here right now."

"Sure."

Wilbur reaches into the inside pocket of his coat. He takes out an envelope. He hands it to Floyd.

"My father called from Rochester. Apparently Rochester is where you go when you don't go to your own son's funeral and leave your wife to handle everything alone. He said that I absolutely had to deliver this to you tonight. You know my old man. What I wanted to say to him. But I knew that it would only make things worse for my Mom in the long run. So I said, 'Sure, Dad. Whatever you say. Enjoy the rest of your vacation.' That's a check for fifty dollars, Floyd."

Floyd looks as though he has been punched in the stomach.

"Oh," he says.

He instinctively turns sideways as though he might be contemplating trying to sneak away unnoticed. He takes a few steps backward.

"Oh, Will. Holy-... Will."

"That's payment in full for my brother Lester's grave in Gate of Heaven Cemetery."

"No, sir," Floyd says, growing more agitated with every word, shaking his head. "No, sir.That's not the way things are."

Lady Claudia steps up. She takes the envelope.

"Our dear Lester was very patriotic," she says rather loudly, her voice trembling with anxiety, her forced air of bright ingenuity falling flat. "This could go to decorating the graves of the forgotten veterans on Decoration Day."

"That's right," Wilbur says. "Oddly enough for a guy like that, Les was quite the flag waver. I guess you two have occasion to recall that every minute of every day."

"Thank you, Will," Lady Claudia says abruptly. "Now please do go in."

Floyd seems to have recovered. He steps forward. Wilbur steps into the parlor. Lady Claudia steps backwards. Floyd grabs her hand and pulls her into the parlor with him.

*

"... And we hope that he'll go on to Onatonga State," Wilbur is saying. "He's a whiz at math. He could make a good living as an accountant. He's a great kid all around."

He is sitting on the north sofa, Floyd and Lady Claudia on the south.

"I hope that we'll get to see more of Tommy some day," Lady Claudia says.

"Here in Camel Creek?" Wilbur asks. "You might. This summer. He might spend a couple of weeks with the folks."

"That would be lovely," Lady Claudia says. "Will, are you sure you won't have some coffee or tea?"

Wilbur glances at Floyd, who had been staring at him glumly. Floyd's expression softens.

"Have a cup of something, Will," Floyd says. "Stay a while."

"No. No. I need to get back to my Mom. Jennie and she aren't that close, you see."

"Ah," Lady Claudia says.

"I just want to tell a story about Lester. One for the road. It's a funny kind of story. The Farmer Thompson story. You remember, Floyd."

"Sure. I remember."

"It's all about Lester's sketchy but strict sense of morality. There was a reason why Mom adored him and Father... Well, why Father just loved him. The Good Book took a lot of abuse from Lester Knapp. Everyone in these parts knows that. Everyone who read the letters to the editor in The Onatonga Star during the past ten years. But somewhere in that Book there must be a page old Les was on right alongside them. And you, Floyd. Do you know what I mean?"

"I know exactly what you mean."

"Okay, then. Let me tell my story. It's a big deal for you too, Floyd. It has to do with Lester and his little peculiarities when it came to guns..."

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (X)

2008-09-07T00:45:00.007-04:00

Lady Claudia takes a yellow basket from the top shelf in the storage room.

She is already holding a potted jasmine plant in her other hand. The pot is wrapped in violet foil. The flowers are pink.

She turns and walks through the Mud Room and into the kitchen. She smiles. Wilma has just stepped up to the door. It is dark out. The outside light is on. Wilma smiles at her. Lady Claudia places the basket and the plant on the table. She opens the door.

"That was quick," she says.

Wilma steps in. She is carrying a small basket made of woven yellow and violet paper.

Wilma notices the basket and the plant.

"Oh, how pretty."

"Well, that's from us at the Bisbee House to our dear friends at the Brick House. Happy Easter."

"Thank you! That looks like really expensive candy. Oh, look. Hannah will just love these little booklets. Let's see. About bunnies. That's funny. June wrote a little story about the Easter bunny for you. It's tucked away on the bottom. It's a little disgusting, I must warn you. One of the rabbits gets killed by the farmer with a hoe. She has a picture of that. June has odd notions at times."

"I think that June is just a natural born story teller. And she knows her readership."

"Sure. Natural born. You should hear her when she's explaining why she didn't do her chores."

"I love those two pretty red eggs."

"Well, they insisted. I told them the last thing you needed was eggs, but you know kids."

"Our eggs are white and brown. Hardly suitable for the holiday. These will brighten our table tomorrow morning. Sit, dear. Sit, sit, sit."

They both sit down at the table.

"The girls were very disappointed," Wilma says. "They were looking forward to having Aunt Claudia and Uncle Floyd over for egg coloring same as last year."

"Ah," Lady Claudia sighs, her brow furrowed sympathetically.

She waits.

"But I know that this year is different," Wilma says.

"Yes. So sadly true."

"It's been horrible, Claudia. Castle was so upset. He still is."

"Of course."

"He saw everything. And now they're saying..."

"Yes, I know. Of course, we just have to wait for it all to go away. The talk. It will, you know."

"Hmm. I'm not so sure. There are things that happened twenty years ago they still talk about down at Homer's garage like they happened yesterday."

"That's true too. Not that I've spent much time at Homer's garage."

Wilma smiles. She touches Lady Claudia's hand.

"You're so funny..."

She bends her head and smells the jasmine.

"What a wonderful smell these lilacs have."

"Well, that's jasmine, dear."

"Jasmine? I thought that jasmine was an herb like fennel. Oh, that's right. Lilacs grow on trees. Hey, just because I'm a farm girl doesn't mean I know anything about flowers! That's Huldah's territory, not mine. Did this come from the conservatory at the villa on Long Island?"

"No. It came from the window sill of the churnhouse."

Lady Claudia chuckles.

"But yes, I did bring it up from Long Island before that."

"You..."

Wilma's tone becomes softer. Her manner becomes furtive.

"So what time is dinner at Jay and Phyllis'?"

"Three o'clock."

"Do you know what she's having?"

"No. She didn't mention it. How about Huldah?"

"Ham. You know something, Claudia? Bobby was going to come this year. But he called and begged off last night. He said that he had already seen his own folks at Les's funeral gathering and he would go to Geraldine's folks after all. How do you like that? So it will be Huldah and Young Charlie, Old Charlie, Castle and me, and the girls."

"And Walt."

"Oh, and Walt. I don't believe it was just seeing Huldah twice in one weekend. I think that there was something in the air about Lester Knapp. Castle and Floyd were never part of a lot of things Les and Bobby and Willy and even Lex got up to. Things Huldah disapproved of. And Les was the real ringleader of that group. I don't know if Huldah and Bobby quarreled yesterday. But there was something unhappy in the air between those two."

"Oh, Wilma. We just have to hope and pray that the darkness will pass for all involved."

Perhaps Wilma is startled by the vehemence and the high-flown formality of this admonition. She seems intent on falling in line with it. She does not seem to have taken a hint that a change of subject is indicated.

"Reverend Baylis is going to Edna's folks in Binghamton," she says.

"Really? That's quite a long haul. But what a lovely drive. Right along the mighty Susquehanna."

"They've been having Easter dinner at Huldah's for years. They used to have it here with us when Parmelia was living here too. Just because we were all neighbors. The folks on the square. Now, suddenly... You know something? I don't think that the Baylises willl ever go to Huldah's again. Huldah is best friends with Cora Knapp. And Huldah is strong Dutch Reformed. And the whole business of Cora's going over to the Presbyterians just for that one occasion..."

"Reverend Baylis was doing Mrs. Knapp a kindness."

"But these are the things that cause hard feeling sometimes. Not when your dog buries a bone in your neighbor's petunia patch. When people feel that they've been used..."

"Yes. That's true."

Lady Claudia looks surprised and impressed by Wilma's musings.

Wilma stands up suddenly.

"Well!" she says with a nervous giggle.

She puts the plant in the crook of her left arm and holds the basket in her left hand. She turns towards the door. Lady Claudia stands and steps towards the door. She puts her hand on the knob.

"Are you sure you're all right there?" she asks.

"Oh, fine. This is nothing."

"I do worry about you, Wilma. Alone at night on the road."

"In Camel Creek? My only trouble was Lester Knapp. Remember how he used to gun it past us and honk when we used to take our walks on the road?"

"Yes. I remember."

"And yet if he had seen me out there tonight he would have stopped and insisted on my taking a ride from him. Even if I was only twenty yards from the house. That happened a few times, actually... But he always had some wisecrack about this one or that one or goings-on in the village."

Wilma lowers her eyes. She gets shy.

"There's something that bothers me in all this."

"What is it, dear?"

"Louise. We tried with her. Why didn't she like us, Claudia?"

"Well, I'm not sure that it was a question of not liking us. Certainly, she didn't seem to want to mix with any of the ladies in Camel Creek."

"She didn't want us around. She was perfectly polite. If you can be polite when you as good as tell your neighbors to drop dead."

"Oh, Wilma. Poor Louise is gone from us now. Let's let her rest in peace."

"You're right. That would be the best thing."

Again Wilma smiles nervously.

"Well..."

Lady Claudia smiles back.

"Please thank the girls for the lovely Easter gifts. I'm looking forward to watching all you ladies coming out of church tomorrow morning."

"Well, you should come on out! Me? I've got to make do with that same old yellow rag. But Huldah and I did whip up something sweet for the girls. Oh, yes. Please do come out. They'll feel so proud if it's Aunt Claudia who tells them how fine they look."

"It's a date, then."

Wilma smiles.

She starts to weep.

"Oh, Wilma! What's the matter, dear?"

She takes her hand off the doorknob.

"I'm sorry! It's just this whole thing with Lester Knapp. No. It's not Lester Knapp. It's you. You're always so kind. You always say just the right thing. Maybe if Louise had been friends with you...You always make people feel better about themselves and things and everything. That's why I'm not that worried about..."

Wilma glances at the parlor door.

"I overheard Castle with the girls before. June was saying, 'What a gyp!' that Floyd and you weren't coming. Hannah asked why not. Castle said that Uncle Floyd was feeling too sad and needed to rest at home for a few days. And then June said that Uncle Floyd always looks sad when he thinks no one is looking at him. And Castle said, 'Your Uncle Floyd is the saddest man in the whole wide world... Only your Aunt Claudia makes him feel a little happy sometimes..."

Wilma opens the door. She puts her hand over her mouth and runs out.

She stops short out on the lawn. She turns around. She lifts up the basket.

"Thanks!" she sobs.

She runs off into the darkness.

Lady Claudia looks after her for a few moments. Then she closes the door...

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (IX)

2008-08-31T09:27:00.039-04:00

Lady Claudia enters the parlor from the kitchen with a coffee tray.

She is dressed informally in a dark gray skirt and a black sweater.

"Dear, I thought-"

She stops. The room is empty. She looks at the door that leads to the hallway. She looks displeased.

She crosses over to it. She passes through the hall. She goes into the Tavern. It is a bright morning.

Floyd is sitting on the long brown leather sofa. He is wearing pajamas. He turns his head and smiles. She steps around and places the tray on the coffee table.

"I thought I'd switch over to here," he says.

"Yes. I see that."

"We get so little use out of it. By September it's too cold."

"And it's your favorite room."

She sits down.

"Corned beef on toast," Floyd says. "Swell."

They both take sips of coffee.

"Huldah had to run off, I reckon," he says.

"Yes."

"She'll sit with Pop, probably."

"She thought that Charlie might be up for it this morning. Yes, I suppose they all will sit together."

"I told Walt to take the rest of the day off and just come back this evening."

"I hope he got some breakfast with Huldah before she had to start getting ready."

"No. With Wilma. Wilma's not going either."

"Castle and Wilma. Us. Peter Knapp."

Floyd looks out the window.

"There's Pop," he says.

Lady Claudia looks out too. Pop is parking out on Judge's Lane. She looks at Floyd. She pats his hand. She stands up. She walks to the front door. She opens it and looks out. She waits as Pop walks over. She smiles at him. He shakes his head and touches her elbow. He tilts his head and purses his lips. He is displeased or doubtful about something. He steps in. She closes the door. She leads him into the Tavern. Floyd turns around.

"Morning, Pop," he says.

"Good morning, son."

Pop squeezes his neck.

"Have a seat," Floyd offers.

Pop sits down in the rocking chair.

Lady Claudia sits back down on the sofa.

"Some coffee, Pop? Toast?"

"No, thanks. I had mine. And Cora Knapp will be putting out quite a spread in a little bit."

He looks at Floyd.

"Still sticking to the plan?"

"Still sticking, Pop."

"No chance for a last ditch change of mind due to a final word to the wise from the old man?"

"Not a chance."

"Cousin Elmina's report didn't change anything?"

"It didn't change my mind about attending Lester Knapp's funeral. Nor did the tale in today's Onatonga Star about the tragic accident that befell Lester Knapp, 35, at the old Henlick Farm on Brick House Hill Road in Camel Creek this past Wednesday night."

"All right, then. I see you chose a ring side seat anyway."

"Not much gets by you, Pop."

Pop looks at his pajamas.

"No work this morning?"

"Sure. I got out there. I just wanted to get comfortable again after I washed up. Not much going on today. Some hoeing in the garden right out here."

"Lots of cauliflower again this year?"

"Yep."

"Let's hope that Huldah's heliotrope cuts down on the stink."

Floyd winces good-naturedly and shifts in his seat.

"I want to paint my newly repaired section of fence, too."

*

"Here she comes," Floyd says.

He is sitting at the table between the front windows.

Lady Claudia looks up from the sofa.

"Louise Knapp. I guess the guy with her is her brother. He's a big shot with the railroads, I've heard. That's his wife, I guess. She's got the baby. Little Pete."

There is silence for a few moments.

"Mrs. Knapp. Cora. Les's mother. She walked over and kissed her. She kissed her."

*

Floyd has changed into his work clothes. He is sitting at the table between the windows in the Tavern.

Lady Claudia is sitting on the sofa.

Floyd is leaning his elbows on the table. His clenched fists are pressed against his temples. The church bells start to ring. He looks up.

"They don't believe in the Virginal Conception of Jesus Christ Almighty over there," he says. "They don't believe in the Feeding of the Five Thousand or the Four Thousand. But they like the bells. That makes the foolish Papists like their kind of heretic more than they like the heretics who actually believe what's in the Bible they thump. Why is that?"

"I'll have to think about that one, dear."

"In the end it will spell Armageddon for the church of Rome," Floyd says. "All right, now."

He is excited. He stands up.

"All right. Here it comes. Lex and Will have the front of the box this time. There's Ima Kenyon. Ima Kenyon? I don't think she knows the Knapps. That woman would get up and walk out of her own funeral to attend someone else's. All right. All right, then. Cora seems okay. Cora seems all right. Will should have foregone the honor and stayed right next to her. I guess that's his kid though, who's got her arm. That's all right, then. Looks like a good kid. Fourteen or fifteen, I'd say. All right. Okay, then. Those two the other day must have been her sisters. They're right behind her with their husbands."

There is silence for a few moments.

"That's right. Pop him back in the hearse. They could have just walked right over. Across the street and up the hill. That would have been more poetic. It's heavy, I guess. Though that coffin looks kind of thin. And Les was what? A hundred and seventy at most? A bit less than that after Wednesday night. Unless they... Gee, I wonder how that works. There they go. That's right. Left on the Turnpike."

He cocks his head and strikes an attentive pose.

"Now left on Brick House Hill Road. His road. And now... And now..."

The black hearse passes by the front of the Bisbee House.

"Straight down Judge's Lane and into Gate of Heaven!"

Floyd walks over to the side door of the Tavern. He unbolts it and opens it. In the space between the lilac bushes, across Camel Creek, he can see the hearse climbing the cypress-lined, elm-shaded cobblestone path in Gate of Heaven Cemetery.

"Come out, come out, thou man of blood, and thou man of Belial!"

"Oh, Floyd..." Lady Claudia exclaims painfully. "You musn't!"

"Why not? In the Middle Ages they would have thrown him in a ditch outside of town. Now look. It's as if he got the influenza while visiting a widow in her distress and passed away reciting the Twenty-Third Psalm. He's right next to little Sarah Henderson. That little angel who drowned in the creek the first summer you were here with me..."

Lady Claudia stands up.

Floyd wheels about.

"We were friends as boys. We had not been boys for many, many years. We were not friends as men. We were foes. I didn't like him anymore. I didn't like his being in this house when you were here. Bellowing his stupid vulgarities so you'd be sure to hear them. I was wrong to indulge him as long as I did before I read him the riot act. And now look. If I had shown more just anger towards Lester Knapp, if I had knocked a few teeth out of his dirty mouth as I should have, I might be walking the last mile in Sing-Sing right now. The way he made fun of Jake Sprayberry all the time. Jake wanted more flowers in the village green. 'It's the village green , Jake,' Les drawls with that labored disdainfulness. 'Not the village violet or mauve or lavender.' Now that's nasty. That's nasty in a peculiar way. A special Lester Knapp way. He was better about Castle than Castle's own brother Bobby. But that wasn't always too good. Just the other night..."

Lady Claudia simply stares.

"Oh, maybe it wasn't just Les. It's this entire... He was stupid. He was a stupid, stupid, stupid kind of American guy. So proud of standing aloof and not wanting any help or any helping hands. Trying to reach out to a stupid guy like that... You can't. They look at you funny. They may be about to blow their brains out, but all they can think of with brain still intact is what's wrong with the rest of the world. Angry and selfish and shallow and lonely and mean. Drunk much of the time. Fornicating or worse as much as possible. It's a very American way to be a man. Or excuse for a man. I met scores of these creatures in the service. Maybe I brought one kind of disease back to Onatonga from France. But Lester Knapp brought a worse one back to Camel Creek. I had to scold him about something he said to Walt once. How Walt was getting to that age and he should get over to Troy sometime and look around. Oh, I know that the only two men in town who wouldn't have to swallow a smile at what I'm saying now are Castle and Parson. The thing with most men, though, is that they really would be thinking of Walt's having a little fun away from the farm and his Bible. That wasn't the thing with Les. The thing with Les was the fun he would have watching the confused and frightened expression on a pious farm boy's face the first time he deduced what a prostitute is. He was like a devil..."

Lady Claudia is still just staring.

"But the worst thing is that he made me dance."

Now she is no longer just staring. She is glaring. Moments pass. She jerks her head sharply to the right. It is a haughty gesture indicating impatience.

Floyd breaks into a wide grin. He jerks his head sharply to his right.

"Where did you get that from? I love that. Sure. He made me dance. When I heard the blast I jumped. Like this."

Floyd does a little jig, imitating the way in which he momentarily had seemed to run in place reacting to the sudden thunder of the shot.

"What do you call that? The Mexican Hat Dance? The Irish Jig? Well, a fellow doesn't like to be forced to dance by another fellow with a gun. A chap doesn't have to be from Texas not to like that."

He stops. Maybe he is finished.

She is still glaring at him. She looks angry. A stranger looking in the Tavern window might totally misunderstand. She is angry about the situation. She is angry that Floyd Brightwell has been brought to this condition by the likes of Lester Knapp. If she is angry with Floyd it is only because he is insulting himself. She cannot be demure now. She cannot smile indulgently over her endearingly odd husband's latest bit of black clowning. That would be patronizing and disrespectful. Her angry, defiant stare is a function of the seriousness with which she takes Floyd's mortal anguish. This is not the wonderful man she married at his best. But she is right there beside him in his pain. She is not above what is happening.

Floyd stares at her.

She could never pull off high tragedy on the stage. Grand defiance looks more like schoolgirl petulance on her face. It's the doll-like quality.

Now her mouth starts to tremble. Floyd crumbles.

"Oh," he sighs, his shoulders sagging. "Oh, Claudia. Oh."

He walks over to the sofa and sinks down into it.

"You should have seen him at his wedding. He was trying to look smug and indifferent. He couldn't manage it. He looked happy. Happy like a little boy on Christmas morning... Oh, Claudia..."

There is nothing but anxious compassion on her face as she rushes forward and lunges at him.

*

Lady Claudia is sitting at the table between the windows.

She looks at Floyd. He is lying on his side on the sofa. She looks out the window. A black car has pulled up in front of the walkway. A man in his middle thirties dressed in a black suit gets out of the driver's seat. He steps around the car and starts walking down the walkway. Lady Claudia stands. She frowns. She breathes out some negative expostulation. She runs to the front door. She has it open by the time the man reaches the slabstone stoop.

The man's expression is grave.

"Mrs. Brightwell? I'm Donald Robinson. I'm Louise Knapp's brother."

His tone is gentle. His voice is cultured.

Lady Claudia smiles gently. But the smile was not instantaneous.

"Hello, Mr. Robinson."

"I was wondering if I might have a word with your husband."

Lady Claudia seems hesitant.

"It will take only a moment," Mr. Robinson says.

Lady Claudia glances behind her.

"My husband is unwell this morning, I'm afraid," she murmurs. "I would be glad to pass on anything-"

Floyd appears behind her. His eyes look bleary. He seems dazed and unsteady. He steps up to the doorway.

"Mr. Brightwell?" Mr. Robinson says. "Donald Robinson. I'm Louise Knapp's brother."

Floyd looks at him blankly and extends his hand mechanically.

"Mr. Robinson."

They shake.

"I'm very sorry to disturb you at this time. But my sister insisted that I deliver this to you personally. She thought it would be best if she waited in the car."

Mr. Robinson takes a small folded card out of his jacket pocket. He hands it to Floyd. Floyd opens it and reads. He hands the note to Lady Claudia. She shakes her head ever so slightly. He drops the note on the floor.

"Thank you, Mr. Robinson," Floyd says.

"That really was it, Mr. Brightwell. I'm very sorry to have disturbed you. And you, Mrs. Brightwell."

Floyd starts walking down the front path. Both Mr. Robinson and Lady Claudia make vague gestures and barely audible noises indicating dismay and a mind to restrain him.

"Dear," Lady Claudia says as she skips after him.

Floyd strides out into the street. He raps gently on the passenger side back window. Lady Claudia stops dead on the sidewalk. Donald Robinson walks over to Floyd.

"Mr. Brightwell? Perhaps now is not the best time."

Floyd ignores him. He is looking down at a pretty blonde woman in her twenties who is dressed all in black. She is holding a baby of about fourteen months. He smiles. He makes a revolving motion with his finger. The woman rolls down the window.

"Hello, Louise," Floyd says with a light air and a casual grin.

"Floyd."

She seems polite. And very frightened.

"I saw that you brought Little Pete. I just wanted to come out and say goodbye to him."

"Oh," Louise stammers. "Oh. Well... Sure... Of course..."

She looks at a young woman in the front seat. The young woman looks horrified at first. Then she looks annoyed. She gets out of the car. She joins Floyd and Mr. Robinson by Louise's door.

"This is my wife," Mr. Robinson says. "Nancy."

"Hi, Nancy," Floyd says. "I'm saying goodbye to Little Pete. You're all going back to Schenectady now? Louise is going to resettle there?"

Nancy just looks at him.

"Of course you are. Of course she is. So I've got to say goodbye to Little Pete now. And that will be that. Right, Louise?"

Louise looks at him. She opens the door. She hands Floyd the baby.

He holds him against his chest. He then bends and kisses him on the top of his head.

"Little Pete," he says. "God bless you and keep you."

Mr. Robinson looks at Lady Claudia. She resists his effort to catch her eye. She looks at Floyd.

Floyd sets Little Pete on his feet.

"I know he can walk," he said. "Les said that he took his first steps just last week."

Floyd bends down and sticks out his two index fingers. Little Pete grasps them. He totters a few feet towards the front of the car. He twitters and cooes.

"There's my boy," Floyd says. "There's my little pal. Look at him go."

Floyd speaks to the Robinsons.

"See, Les had started bringing him down to the village in the past couple of weeks. He just plopped him on to the seat of his truck and wedged him between his knees and off they went. Let's see. We met twice in Singenstraw's and once in Dietz's."

Floyd continues walking Little Pete. Lady Claudia and Nancy Robinson exchange a glance. Lady Claudia lifts her chin in the baby's direction. Nancy Robinson seems to take this as a cue. She briskly moves forward and picks the baby up. She hands hand back to Louise. Floyd seems to be about to address her again. Lady Claudia, who has been standing by the back of the car, steps up to the open door and closes it. She leans down towards the open window.

"Goodbye now, Louise," Lady Claudia says. "We wish you a safe trip home and all the best always. And may I say what a lovely and charming child your Little Pete is."

For a moment Louise just looks. She seems surprised. Then she only seems touched.

"Thank you, Claudia. That's very kind."

Louise rolls the window back up and stares straight ahead. Little Pete starts to wail.

"Mr. Robinson," Lady Claudia says. "Mrs. Robinson."

They all smile and nod. The Robinsons get back in the car. Floyd and Lady Claudia step back on to the sidewalk. The car starts up and starts moving forward.

Floyd looks after Mr. Robinson's car as it turns left on Creek Street and passes the Presbyterian church.

"What did David say to you?" he asks with a bright smile.

She hesitates for only a moment.

"He said that you were smarter than Les. You set me up in the middle of the village."

"Really? That was it?"

"That was it."

"Hmm. You get a point for ambiguity, little brother. But you're still in trouble. Big trouble."

He turns to Lady Claudia.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart."

"Thank you, dear. But that's just David..."

"It certainly is. And David is going to have to start finding a better way to be David. We've had it with the current model here at the Bisbee Homestead."

He watches as Mr. Robinson's car makes the right on to the Turnpike and disappears.

"Little Pete really is a beautiful child, isn't he? Doesn't look a thing like Les, though. Of course, he must have gotten his golden curls from Louise."

"I don't think so, dear..."

"What? Oh..."

He shrugs.

"All she said was she's sorry about ignoring me when I kept calling for her that night telling her what had happened. She was so confused and afraid. She didn't know what to think. She has a point, you know. I mean, I could have shot him."

"Now really, dear..."

"So that's it for Louise. Funny. We haven't had much to say about Louise since that night. They met at the Bisbee Township Fair, you know."

"I know, dear."

"She was going to college in Onatonga. Hartwood. He fell in love. I guess she was infatuated with him for a time. The city college girl and the self-confident, muscular farmer who actually had read a few books beyond the primer in the schoolhouse. And then? Poor Lester had a wife and couldn't keep her. Not in that measly little pumpkin shell up on Brick House Hill Road. Maybe living in the village would have helped."

"I think it might have."

"But pretty Louise seems not to have much use for her fellow Camel Creekers. Then her old college chums started taking her off for some fun back in the big city. Leave the baby with Mamma in Schenectady and... Then what? Make the rounds of the nightclubs in Albany and Troy? I doubt it. Louise was better than that. No, just go to college faculty dinner parties where you'd be sure to meet the kind of man you should have married. She started doing that right here in Onatonga too. My cousin Hal, you know, Hal Diffendale, told me all about her. She would... Oh, Lord. Go have a good time in the city and let your husband out in the sticks work from dawn till three on the farm and then come home from his nighttime factory job to a cheese sandwich and a dark empty house."

"It's all so terribly sad."

"And terribly dumb. And now. Imagine if she did stay in that house on top of Brick House Hill Road. It's not such a bad place. It's a nice little farm. Imagine six months from now, these very church bells ringing and her marching out that church door dressed in a simple blue suit with the happy groom at her side. The happy fair-haired groom. What a world we live in, Coffee Queen. What a life this is. Lookey here."

A car is heading their way down the cemetery road. It continues on into Judge's Lane.

"Ooh!" Floyd says, wincing. "Not eastbound on Judge's Lane! That's the first and foremost traffic rule of Camel Creek! It's Willy Knapp. We'll make an exception today."

The car stops about fifteen feet to their right on the other side of the lane. Cora Knapp gets out of the back door nearest the lane. She crosses over to Floyd and Lady Claudia. She pauses to smile at Lady Claudia. Lady Claudia takes her hand and squeezes it. Then Mrs. Knapp turns to Floyd.

"I want Claudia and you to come down to the house now, Floyd. All this..."

She looks about the square.

"All this is over now. This morning there was something I just had to do for my son and I did it, even though it killed me to do it. There was something you just couldn't do for your old friend and you didn't, even though that must have killed you. And you know something? All I could think of while I was sitting over there in that church with all those people was you sitting over here alone. Not accepting what happened. Angry about what happened. Protesting against what happened. Well, it's all over now. Lester was the apple of my eye. You know that. But he was a very naughty boy. Heaven knows you know that too. His ever perplexing and troublesome doings on earth are over now. He is no longer running this show, for example. There are no more of his hoops for us to jump through. We're the two people in this world who really loved him. The rest of this day is for us. Our friends and neighbors are running the whole show now and all they want to do is help us find our way through. Come on, now. Your Dad is on his way there. And Huldah and Charlie. Will you come, Floyd?"

"Sure. Sure, Mrs. Knapp. We'll be there."

"Good," Mrs. Knapp says. "And don't worry about bringing anything. It's like the town fair over there today."

She turns and walks back to the car. She gets in. The car takes off down Judge's Lane.

"What a glorious lady," Lady Claudia murmurs.

"Well, that's Mrs. Knapp," Floyd says with a shrug. "Another of these small town college girls, like Huldah. Though she went straight from college to Pete. But she became the local historian and all that..."

"And a poetess."

"Cora Knapp is the soul of Bisbee Township. Try explaining to someone from New York City that the level of culture in a place like Bisbee Township or Onatonga or upstate New York generally can be aeons above that of a place like New York City."

"Of course. The history, the families, the communities, the churches, the farms, the homes, the roots, the ties."

"The philanthropic millionaire know-it-alls."

"Well, God bless Mrs. Knapp."

She looks at Floyd.

"Well, then..."

She seems ill at ease. Floyd looks at her.

"And you," he says accusingly. "We'll have none of your usual funny business this time out."

"No?" Lady Claudia asks demurely.

"Certainly not. You'll have only such local delicacies and regional treats as you truly enjoy. No more stuffing yourself with Huldah's gooseberry tarts because you know everyone else would sooner eat the silt from Camel Creek."

"Oh, dear. I hope no one else has noticed."

"Probably the whole Township. Everyone except Huldah. Leave it to me. There are other ways to handle these things. Things can be made to disappear."

Floyd grins at her. He jerks his head twice.

Lady Claudia smiles up at him. But tears are forming in her eyes. She has to press her lips together. She wraps both of her hands around his upper arm. She stands there, still, staring at his arm. Floyd looks down at her. He stops smiling. He puts his hand on her back and leans over her and guides her back to the house.

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (VIII)

2008-08-29T11:51:00.013-04:00

"I don't want to belabor this, Floyd," Lieutenant Ashwood says. "You've been through a lot. But you understand my position. There are a few pretty odd things to deal with in your account of Knappy's last night."

"Sure. I understand your position. You understand mine too. My biggest fear was that you wouldn't understand my wife's. Or that you would put her in some kind of false position that would needlessly embarrass her. She's doesn't know it, but outside the family circle she can be on the defensive about her husband in a way that doesn't jibe with her usual equanimity. That defensiveness can start extending to the home with which he provides her. It's endearing. To me, anyway. But she might have said too much in her account of our last first and last social visit with Knappy out of that general defensiveness and given some wrong impressions."

"I think I read you. Yes. It was still warm in the parlor. How about the monument? She gave us the impression that you just rolled your eyes and chuckled it off."

"Not just. But that's basically the way it was."

"Knappy's last words about your wife. Why do you think he would say something like that? What do you think he meant?"

"He was a man. His blood was red. He had eyes. He had a good mind. He had a heart. Normal romantic sensibilities aside, my wife is in the way of being a local answer to the Blessed Virgin Mother Mary as known to and loved by Roman Catholics. Beautiful, gracious, kind, virtuous, Godly, wise, all-understanding, all-forgiving. It was only natural that the mind of a man facing death and hellfire should turn to such a figure, having just chatted with her."

"Hellfire. Yes. Mrs. Brightwell mentioned that. I suppose she mentioned her conversation in the parlor with Knappy to you."

"Of course."

Lieutenant Ashwood has been writing on a pad.

"Those were pleasant words to write. Beautiful and virtuous and all-forgiving. It sweetens the record."

"Then throw this in too. Besides Castle, Lester Knapp was the only man I ever knew whose talk about women and the facts of life was always clean and respectful from top to bottom. At least when I was around. I don't know if it was any kind of planned moral choice generally. It was just the way he was with me. It was one of the things I liked most about him. He had never spoken about my wife before except to ask how or where she was."

"Okay. That's nice to hear too. Why did you try to send Castle home?"

"I thought that there would be some kind of trouble. I didn't think Castle's being there would help. I thought that Louise Knapp might have gone off her beam. She might come out firing the pistol she seemed to have swiped in all directions. Who knew? Less dramatically, I thought that there might be an ugly scene of some kind. Les was obviously distraught. I couldn't just drive off with him that way. I was hoping he'd walk back down the hill with me. Louise was safe in that house with the baby. She had her pistol. And ten other pistols to choose from."

"All right. We're done here. We'll be hearing from the coroner tomorrow. I suppose I'll see you at the funeral?"

"No. You will not."

Lieutenant Ashwood looks at Floyd.

"I see..."

But his face betrays nothing of what he thinks he sees...

*

"It's over with," Floyd says as Castle and Lady Claudia rise from the bench.

When Lady Claudia turns around he places his hands on her shoulders.

"How about lunch at Reeber's?" Floyd asks.

Lady Claudia turns around.

"Oh, dear. I just don't think that I'm up for that just now. How about some nice sandwiches at home with Castle and Wilma and the girls? And some of Huldah's wonderful rice pudding?"

"What do you say, Cass?"

"I like Claudia's idea better. Except the girls hate rice pudding."

Floyd opens the door.

"Probably Claudia's idea is the better idea."

He winks at Castle.

"Good Friday. We were raised Anglican, you see..."

*

Elmina Parshall appears at the window of the kitchen door, the sky darkening behind her.

She looks down at Floyd and Lady Claudia, who are gaving dinner at the table.

Lady Claudia slowly stands up.

*

Lady Claudia pours out coffee into a cup for Miss Parshall. The tray is on the coffee table in the parlor. Miss Parshall in sitting on the south sofa. Lady Claudia hands her the cup.

"Thank you, Claudia," she says.

Lady Claudia smiles and sits down next to Floyd on the north sofa. He is staring at Miss Parshall blankly.

Miss Parshall takes a sip.

"Very nice," she murmurs.

"Thank you," Lady Claudia says. "We try."

"Oh," Miss Parshall says with a smile. "Of course."

She puts in some sugar.

"It's not as bad as it seems, Floyd" Miss Parshall says. "Not quite as bad. We can only go with the evidence we're given. It's not all tell-tale body temperature and cut and dried blood splatter. We depend on witnesses too. Witnesses who seem to have no reason to lie but for some reason lie. People don't realize that about coroners and death verdicts."

"Lester Knapp's death was not an accident, Cousin Elmina," Floyd says with a glum steadiness that barely hides his angry dismay. "I know. I was there."

"It was decided otherwise. I can't tell you the details tonight. I'm taking a liberty as it is. You'll know tomorrow. It will be in the paper. First things first, Floyd. It wasn't murder either."

"It's a clear case of suicide."

"Clear to you and Claudia and me. Someone muddied up the case. Your evidence was not discounted. It was decided that you understandably misinterpreted what you saw. Your on-the-spot eyewitness evidence was overriden by another kind of witness."

"Can you give me a bottom line?"

"You took a practical joke turned tragic accident as a suicide."

Floyd stares at her.

"A practical joke."

"There were precedents in Lester's life. There was a pattern."

"Were there tire tracks?"

"No."

"No."

"Floyd, they were all gone by the time the State boys got there."

"Pistol packing Louise?"

"She had heard noises earlier. She took the gun for protection. There was no suicide, Floyd. Lester may have had some silly idea about something he may have seen in the snow. You don't have one quote from the man which indicates what that thought may have been. Not one. Maybe he saw the mysterious tracks of some critter bigger than a chipmunk but smaller than a woodchuck."

"That's very funny. Castle."

"Castle."

The name hangs in the dead air. Miss Parshall was not unkind in her inflection. Just professionally brutal.

"No motive for suicide. No motive for murder."

"But now the evidence for murder, by me, is stronger. My self-incriminating words didn't melt off Jack Ashwood's little pad."

"You're overstating your case. And the point now is that you have no case. And there's no case against you. There never was and there never was going to be. There would have been no case a hundred years ago either in the wildest part of the Wild West. I understand that you were the one who saw that straight and clear from the start, Claudia. Those blackened fingers..."

Lady Clauda frowns and shakes her head as politely as she knows how. Miss Parshall nods in comprehension.

"It was so kind of you to drive all the way up here this afternoon to lend your assistance, Cousin Elmina," Lady Claudia says.

"Well, my favorite cousin called me and asked me to," Miss Parshall says. "Good old Cousin Jairus. I was the only one who dared to call him Jairus when we were young and roaming the streets of Onatonga."

"I remember that," Floyd says softly, with a distant air. "Yes. We do appreciate your coming up. So you just stood at Dr. Weiss's elbow?"

"Just about. He's a good man. But it's always good to have four eyes instead of two."

"Where are you staying tonight?" Lady Claudia asks. "With your brother, perhaps?"

"No. With Phyllis and Jay. I get a yellow and mauve Victorian budoir instead of the couch in the living room."

"That's a lovely room."

There is a silence.

"Yet they questioned me as though I were a suspect after having perused at their leisure those tell-tale blackened fingers," Floyd says. "Extensively."

"There were anomalies, Floyd. Here's another thing that coroners do about which most people haven't an inkling. Know what's the usual thing in a suicide and what's one in a ten million bizarre. He did it in front of you. He waited for you to come back into the breezeway. He wanted your company. That's not the way men do it. It has a funny look. It had to be looked at."

"From under raised eyebrows. Blackened fingers aside. Not that I couldn't have forced the gun into his mouth. Of course, now that we know that it was all a hilarious practical joke turned tragic accident that I, the village idiot, misunderstood, the whole point would have been that he wait for his audience to return."

"I can't really say anymore, Floyd. Now you have to start dealing with the thing as just the ghastly death of an old friend. I knew you when you were a kid. I took you to see the farm animals up at the Aggie School. The horsies and the piggies and the lambs. Do I have a right, dear boy?"

Floyd looks at her. Then he smiles.

"Sure. Sure you do, Cousin Elmina."

"Lester committed a crime. He involved you and yours in it. He wasn't thinking of that. I know you too well to start trying to convince you to harden your heart against him and say good riddance. I know that this is breaking your heart. And that it will haunt you for the rest of your life. But there has to be some real justice here. Let that justice be that you resolve to suffer less over it. That you refuse to feel so bad."

"That's very kind of you, Cousin Elmina," Floyd says. "I really appreciate that."

She stands up.

"Think about it, honey. Now I must run."

Floyd and Lady Claudia stand. Miss Parshall shakes hands with both of them. She turns and starts walking to the front door. They follow.

"This is such a lovely home," she says. "You two really have turned it into a Federal style showplace. Though I do believe that your beautiful parlor is Late Empire."

"There's still a lot of Early Victorian Old Maid, too," Floyd says dryly.

"Thank you, Cousin Elmina," Lady Claudia says. "Please come and see us again."

Floyd unbolts the door and opens it. Miss Parshall walks out. He follows. She has parked behind him on Judge's Lane. They reach her car. She touches his cheek with his hand. She gets in her car and drives off. Lady Claudia puts her hand to her chest. Floyd turns around and looks at her. She quickly removes it and smiles. He walks back over to the front door.

"I think I need to take a walk," he says. "I need to think about things."

"Of course, dear. Just stop out back for your coat."

He looks at her.

"Are you mad? We'll both stop out back for coats. I want to walk with you."

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (VII)

2008-08-26T21:22:00.015-04:00

"Hello, dear," Lady Claudia says with a warm smile as she enters the East Bedroom.

Floyd is lying on his side facing the other way. He raises his head suddenly. He freezes. Then he spins around so that he is facing Lady Claudia. He puts his head on the pillow. He smiles at her. He raises his hand and gives her a little wave. Then he just looks at her, smiling.

"I hope that you liked your dinner, dear," she says. "Pop and I had the same thing. Delicious. I think that there's a hint of nutmeg in the tomato soup."

She turns her vanity table chair around and puts it near the bed. She sits down.

"Floyd, I have something to tell you. This may be a little trying to hear. That was Lex who called earlier. We have to go to the police station tomorrow to answer more questions. Not from him. From the state police."

Floyd's smile fades.

"Of course, we'll see how you're feeling tomorrow," she blithely continues. "I would like to say how sorry I am that you're not feeling well. But I know that you'll feel better tomorrow. Everything will be all right, dear."

I would like to say how sorry I am that you're not feeling well...

The ghost of a certain kind of smile appears on Floyd's face. A Brightwell smile. Pop. Anne. David, presumably. The left side of the lip and the left nostril are slightly scrunched up. The eyebrows are lowered -with Floyd, slightly- denoting bemused puzzlement.

Don't I know you, lady? Haven't I seen you around here before?

Lady Claudia's expression betrays no embarrassment, no unsureness about herself and her treatment of her husband in these circumstances.

Floyd's smile loses that Brightwell aspect with her last words. Everything will be all right, dear...

*

"Holy Hannah," Floyd says.

He is sitting at the kitchen table looking out the window. Castle is walking across the lawn towards the door. He is dressed in a black suit. He has parked his car out on Brick House Hill Road.

"Now he looks like he's ready for Trudley & Gray."

Lady Claudia has just come in through the dining room. She looks at him. He is much better. But he is not his old self. The spark is not there.

"That is a bit much for a State Police grilling."

She is wearing a light gray suit with a string of pearls.

"Must have been Wilma's idea," Floyd says.

Floyd is dressed in every day street clothes. He stands up and opens the door.

"Right on time," he says.

He steps out on to the stoop and reaches back for Lady Claudia's hand. She takes it and steps out, closing the door. They start crossing the lawn.

"Nervous?" Floyd asks Castle.

"A little."

"I too. But let's just get a good grip on ourselves and keep it. Okay, buddy? You shouldn't be nervous, anyway. You look great. I should be nervous. I look like a bum next to you."

"Sounds like a good idea to me."

"And you, Mrs. Brightwell?"

"Good idea," she says. "We might have a good grip and still be nervous..."

*

Castle steps out of Sheriff MacEveny's inner office. Sheriff MacEveny is standing behind him, having opened the door for him.

"Mrs. Brightwell?" Sheriff MacEveny asks.

Lady Claudia stands up. She had been sitting next to Floyd on a long Early American style wooden bench with a spindle backing. Above the bench is a long, large window. One can see the Victorian calligraphy advertising Reeber's Sweet Shoppe in the window of a store across the street. Next to it is the spinning red, white, and blue pole of Ruisi's Barber Shop.

Floyd touches Lady Claudia's hand as she walks away. She smiles as she passes Castle. He smiles back, but seems shaken.

Through the gaps in the Venetian blinds of the office she can see a man in his late thirties dressed in a gray suit sitting behind a desk.

"Claudia," Sheriff MacEveny says softly with a weak smile.

"Lex," she murmurs.

She enters the office. The man stands.

"Mrs. Brightwell," he says. "I am Lieutenant Ashwood of the State Police. I'm based in Onatonga. Thank you for coming down this afternoon. Please have a seat."

He gestures at a chair that has been set right in front of the desk.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," she says as she sits down.

She glances behind her. Sheriff MacEveny has sat down in a chair set against the wall behind her. Just for a moment her smile seems to bespeak awareness of a police tactic that she finds rather silly. She turns around. She looks at Lieutenant Ashwood. Now her smile bespeaks the respectful patience of a conscientious citizen.

"First, I would like to express my condolences, Mrs. Brightwell. I understand that Mr. Knapp was a friend of the family."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

"You must be very upset."

"I hardly knew Mr. Knapp. And he was not a friend of the family. Not of the Brightwell family that resides in Camel Creek. He was a boyhood chum of my husband. They lost contact for many years. Their contact in recent years has been limited to their dealings with one another as members of the Village Board of Trustees."

"I see. I would appreciate it, Mrs. Brightwell, if you could tell me everything you can remember about your own dealings with Lester Knapp on Wednesday night."

"Certainly, Lieutenant. At about 8:45 on Wednesday night I was in my husband's and my bedroom reading to him before he retired. I thought that I heard some kind of crash further on down Brick House Hill Road. Being still dressed, I said that I would go down to investigate. My husband insisted on going with me."

"What were you reading, Mrs. Brightwell?"

"Excuse me, Lieutenant Ashwood, but is it really necessary that anyone should know what I was reading to my husband in our bedroom on Wednesday night when Lester Knapp crashed his car into our fence?"

"Strictly speaking, it wasn't necessary that you mention reading at all. But you did. Now I'm asking you what you were reading. You can refuse to answer and I'll have to move on. But I wouldn't appreciate that. It would be the wrong way for you to go."

"I'll have to mind what I say, it seems. Dante's Divine Comedy, Lieutenant."

"Paradise, Purgatory, or the Inferno?"

The very blankness of Lady Claudia's cold stare bespeaks her surprise, bafflement and uneasiness.

"Inferno, Lieutenant Ashwood" she says. "One of the earlier cantos. I can't cite the number. We were engaging in cheeky banter about a certain false cow."

"So Mr. Brightwell was in high spirits?"

"No higher than usual."

"So Mr. Brightwell and you went downstairs."

"Yes. To the kitchen door. My husband opened it and looked out. At that time we heard a banging at the front door. I mean, someone was using our knocker. We went to answer it. It was Lester Knapp. He explained that he had crashed into our fence, having skidded on the snow."

"Was any hostility expressed between Lester Knapp and your husband, Mrs. Brightwell?"

"No."

"I see. Tell me exactly what was said and done."

"When we opened the door, Mr. Knapp had his back to us. He turned around and made some comment about the war memorial that he had managed to install in the village green while my husband and I were away for the winter. My father had been strongly opposed to it."

"What was the comment?"

"I don't remember exactly. It had something to do with the statue of the Spirit of Liberty on top of the column."

"If I may say so, Mrs. Brightwell, that monument is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. I mean, putting the Spanish American War on a par with the Revolutionary War and World War I and the Civil War just to fill an empty space on the fourth side..."

"Precisely what my husband said. Mr. Knapp made this comment with what I considered good-natured boyish humor, and then-"

"Ah, so now the comment is emerging from the mist somewhat in your mind. But I'm still in the dark. Excuse me, Mrs. Brightwell, but I have the feeling that you have been engaging in what the Jesuits call mental reservation. Was Mr. Knapp's comment in any way coarse?"

Lady Claudia looks proudly embarrassed.

"It was. In a subtle way it was what any lady would consider at least mildly coarse."

"You don't have to tell me exactly what Lester Knapp and Mr. Brightwell and you said. I think you know very well that exactitude in our present dealings is neither demanded nor expected. But you do have to be forthcoming with me. You may not withhold information as you see fit. Not even if you surpass some Jesuits in honesty and sweetly indicate in this way and that that you're not being entirely forthcoming."

"I understand, Lieutenant Ashwood."

"And may I say that I dislike asking a lady to repeat a coarse comment. But I'm asking you to do so."

"I wasn't being as Jesuitical as you might have thought, Lieutenant. I don't remember what the comment was. It was made in a sort of elliptical way, I recall. But it had something to do with the fact that Lady Liberty is facing Sprayberry Inn and has her back to the Bisbee House."

"I think I understand. Thank you. Mrs. Brightwell. Now please go on."

"Well, then Lester told us what had happened with his car and then pointed out with good-natured sarcasm that we had not yet invited him in. My husband invited him to come in out of the cold and he said, "Well, let's just say in.' This was a reference to the notorious fact that the Bisbee House has no central heating and that the rooms and areas without stoves are cold in the winter."

"What was Mr. Brightwell's response to that witticism?"

"I don't think that he had a response. I don't recall any."

"And then?"

"Mr. Knapp used the telephone in the kitchen. He said that he wanted to call his wife."

"What did Mr. Brightwell and you talk about while he was away?"

Lady Claudia hesitates. She looks at Lieutenant Ashwood. She lowers her eyes.

"I suggested that he stay at our house for the night."

"Why?"

"I thought that it would be best for everyone. I knew that my husband would somehow get involved in taking Mr Knapp home and I didn't think it wise to drive up any snowy hills, especially at night."

"The Henlick Farm is just a mile and a half away. There was half an inch of snow, if that. Lester was a big boy."

"Do you have a question for me, Lieutenant?"

"You're quite right, Mrs. Brightwell. It just seems odd that you should think of inviting Mr. Knapp to spend the night at your house when his wife and baby were alone in their own house a mile and a half away. It sounds like you just had a feeling..."

"My husband pointed out the foolishness of my proposition. When Mr. Knapp came back he said that he would go out with him and get Castle Bisbee to drive them to Mr. Knapp's house. Mr. Knapp objected, but my husband insisted, saying the Castle was probably already out there, residing as he did a mere two hundred feet from the site of the crash and undoubtedly having heard it as I did all the way down the road. So my husband got dressed and they left together. I went to bed myself. My husband called from Mr. Knapp's house about an hour and a half later."

"Where were Mr. Knapp and you while your husband got dressed?"

Lady Claudia could not quite hide her surprise.

"In the parlor. It was still warm, though there was no more fire in the stove."

"What did you talk about?"

"The war monument."

"What did you say?"

"Mr. Knapp having insisted that I give it to him straight, I said that I didn't think it all that bad, but also that it should have been placed somewhere in the cemetery. I said that my own chief complaint was that he had caught down all the beautiful maples and elms in the green in order to show off his pride and joy to viewers on all sides. I also chided him for having gone about the whole business in such a surreptitious manner."

"Surreptitious. Sneaky. What was Mr. Knapp's reaction to that? Did he know what surreptitious meant?"

"He chided me, good-naturedly but unjustly, for imagining that he wouldn't know and rubbing that in. Then he said that he was having second thoughts too and that the cemetery idea could have been a good compromise. He also said without the slightest trace of sarcasm or hostility that he was sorry about the way in which he had gone about things."

"The way in which Mr. Knapp went about things might be thought to show a certain hostility towards your husband."

"My husband simply was the most strongly opposed to the monument. Dr. Sutch and Mr. Sprayberry were also opposed. Mrs. Lorsch, Dr. Dignus, and Homer Dibble were undecided. I don't at all see how what Mr. Knapp did in the case of the monument shows a particular hostility towards my husband. Mr. Knapp really wanted that monument in the middle of the Camel Creek village green and he shrewdly waited to push for its installation when his most vociferous opponent in that area was inactive as a member of the Camel Creek Village Board. How does that in itself show a hostility towards my husband?"

"Did Mr. Knapp and you discuss anything else?"

She hesitates.

"He brought up religion."

"How so?"

"He said that he was aware that neither my husband nor I went to church anywhere. He asked why not."

"Your reply?"

"Too late at night and none of his business anyway."

"That was it?"

"No. He also asked my opinion about the afterlife. I said that I accepted the teachings of the Catholic Church of Rome in that department. He said that he was afraid to start believing in heaven again because then he might slip into believing in hell again. Then he looked at the print of Christ entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on the wall across the room and said that maybe it was time to just place his soul, if he had one, in the good Rabbi's hands. He said that there is no living Jesus down in the long run. And He was the one Who did more to develop and popularize the notion of eternal hellfire than anyone in religious history. I said that I was very glad to hear him talk like that and hoped he kept on that track."

"It seems that Mr. Knapp's last thoughts in this world were of you, Mrs. Brightwell."

"Were they? That's not what I hear. I hear that poor Mr. Knapp's last thoughts were of my husband. I hear that they were uncharacteristically warm and friendly and respectful thoughts. As for his previously thinking of me, I would say that it was more a case of thinking of his recent conversation with me on the subject of the afterlife."

"I'm sure you would. How well did you know Mr. Knapp?"

They look at one another. She already said that she barely knew him. But he had not asked.

"As I said, Lieutentant. I barely knew him. I would see him in Singenstraw's or the post office now and then and say hello. I would see him and hear him in the spring and summer when the Board meetings were held in the Tavern of the Bisbee House. I would run into him at events on the green. Beyond that, Mr. Knapp had been a boyhood friend of my husband. There was a familiarity and affection between them which, I suppose, extended to me."

"He opened up his heart and soul to you and then plunged into eternity thinking of you."

"He did what? Really, Lieutenant. He saw a picture of Jesus that touched him and he talked about it to me and not to Old Charlie Bisbee because I and not Old Charlie Bisbee happened to be in the room with him at the time."

"And the other?"

She looks at him blankly. She shakes her head.

"I see. That will be all, Mrs. Brightwell. Thank you for coming down and talking with us today."

"You're welcome, Lieutentant.""

Lady Claudia stands up.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant."

He stands up.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Brightwell."

She turns around. Sheriff MacEveny is standing up and holding the door open for her. She smiles at him and goes out. He closes the door.

"Now there goes an absolutely delightful woman," Lieutenant Ashwood says with professional assurance as he sits back down. "Poor old Knappy always did have a high degree of culture for a one room schoohouse drop-out and small town farmer. Woah, Nellie. I had no idea that Brightwell was blessed to this degree. Did you see her eyes? Right on my jugular. I hate driving people who are obviously smart, truthful, and above all innocent as the Christ Child to start getting all foxy and cagey in rather stupid ways. But I love that little throaty sound when she says previously or really. It's like a little lady frog croaking, 'In a previous life I was the Queen of England.' She's not only beautiful. She's a cutie-pie. What a woman. What a wife. Let's bring in the suspected suspect."

Sheriff MacEveny remains standing.

"Okay, Jack. As a friend and a colleague. That was a performance you should never repeat. First, you came off as flirtatious. To me, anyway. I would imagine that you did all the more to her. The tougher you got on her the more you came off as a smitten Romeo. Jumping Jehosaphats. Why didn't you take her outside and find a puddle to put your coat over for her? And may I say, Mrs. Brightwell... The other thing. You seemed to be showing off. Bringing in the Jesuits?"

"I got around in my younger days, Lex. I learned things and I met people. For all you know, I know that the eminently pious Lady Claudia is known to favor the Dominicans and it was a clever ruse on my part-"

"Okay, Yalie. Make me look dumb. You know you can do it. All you well-off Onatonga guys who go see Paree and for some unearthly reason choose to come back to the farm, so to speak. Your whole lives start to be about showing off. You're almost as bad as Dr. Sutch. You all do it except for Floyd Brightwell. Go, Cornell."

"He flunked out after a year."

"Did you know about the bad cow in Dante?"

"Never heard of her before. What am I, a Cambridge don? I'm an Onatonga cop. Mooo..."

"Right. Oh, and I guess Mrs. Brightwell was relieved that she hadn't been reading the minutes of all those Board of Trustees meetings at which Knappy and he had all those heated discussions about the monument."

"All right, Lex. You're probably right on all the above points. But cut me some slack. First, I am smitten. You're not?"

"We all learn to fight it down here in Camel Creek."

They grin at one another. Suddenly Lieutenant Ashwood stops grinning.

"This is a farce," he says. "Maybe that drove me to be a bit farcical. We both know what we're doing here. We know how things are going to be decided. Right now we're just covering the bases. We're not here only as officers of the Law. We're also here as minions of the Powers That Be. They want things to fall down a certain way in this case. Everyone is going to be happy in the end. The grieving mother, the proud father, the relieved widow, the little boy when he grows up, heck, even poor old Knappy's ghost. Everyone's going to be happy. Except the Brightwells. Their Highnesses. They're going to be sitting pretty, of course. But they're never going to be happy about this. A great wrong was committed here in your village, Lex. Someone has to be punished a bit for it. Fate elected the Brightwells. The way they're sweating it out until the coroner's verdict comes out. And the way they'll have to hold their tongues and change the subject for the rest of their lives in Camel Creek. Now. Bring in the Most Christian King of Camel Creek."

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (VI)

2008-08-25T02:19:00.004-04:00

LADY Claudia is stooping in front of the Parthenon stove in the parlor.

She is sticking a few pieces of wood into it. The sound of the kitchen door opening and closing can be heard. She looks to her left.

Huldah appears in the doorway.

"I thought I'd come back and do a few things," she says.

Lady Claudia stands.

"How is Charlie feeling now?" she asks.

"Better. It's getting cold again. Dad says there won't be any more snow, though. Not tonight anyway."

"Floyd is the one who isn't doing so well now," she says. "We sent him up to bed. I don't see why Sheriff MacEveny had Castle and him stand out in the rain for hours last night. Let's hope that Castle doesn't come down with anything. I thought that some scrambled eggs and some tomato soup would be good for Floyd later on. And some raspberry preserves on one of those wonderful sweet rolls."

"Sounds good. I was thinking that Dad and I could help Castle with the milking."

"I was thinking that Pop and I might help."

Huldah looks at Lady Claudia. She glances at the portrait of Aunt Parmelia. Then she turns around.

"Okay. I'll put on a kettle for tea."

Lady Claudia looks after her. She takes a few steps forward. Then she stops. Then she seems to be resolving to go on. She enters the kitchen. Huldah is not there. She walks across the room and enters the pantry. Huldah is looking inside the refrigerator.

"Huldah?"

She turns around.

"Just checking supplies."

"I suppose that it was rather silly of me to think about Pop's and my doing any milking. I would be very grateful if Old Charlie and you could help out."

Huldah steps forward.

"Not silly at all," she says. "What if Charles had been in a bad way and I couldn't leave him and Dad suddenly turned eighty-three for real? On a farm everyone has to be prepared to do his level best to do anything in a pinch."

They walk into the kitchen. Huldah picks up the kettle from the stove and walks over to the sink.

She turns on the tap and starts filling the kettle.

"Well, in any case," Lady Claudia says, "thank you. If you would like me to look in on Charlie..."

"You know something? I'd appreciate that. Later. When Dad comes over."

Lady Claudia's gaze flickers. She smiles and goes back into the parlor...

*

Pop pours some tea in a cup. The china pot is on a tray on the coffee table between the sofas.

"Thanks, Pop," Lady Claudia says as she picks up the cup.

He pours a cup for himself.

He is sitting on the south sofa. He looks at the kitchen door. It is closed.

"If I may ask, Claudia," he says softly. "Did you talk to Huldah about Floyd?"

She starts to turn her head to the door and then stops herself.

"Still closed," Pop says. "No worries there. It was different when Aunt Parmelia lived here. The things we would say to get her going..."

"I can imagine. No, Pop. She didn't ask and I didn't say anything. I don't plan to."

"Frankly, I'm glad to hear you say that. It's your own business, of course. But I'd prefer to keep what happened before under our hats."

"It's not so much what happened before, Pop. It's milking time and Floyd can't go out to the barn. He can't.""

He frowns and raises his eyebrows. He takes a sip of tea.

"We've never talked about this before," Lady Claudia says.

Pop looks at her.

"Floyd's trouble," she says. "The War."

"He came back a changed boy. No doubt about it."

"Pop, he flunked out of Cornell and stayed in his room for five years."

Pop looks at Lady Claudia. He seems surprised.

"That's right, Pop. I can be very blunt. My husband is in dire straits."

"Well, my son was just a late bloomer. And I suppose you know who it was who got him out of that room for good and all..."

"Let's get to the bottom line, Pop. I think that we're in basic agreement. Castle can go up there. And Mom, of course."

"Oh, of course."

"No one else needs to see Floyd. Floyd is feeling poorly. Sheriff MacEveny and then the State police made him stand out in the cold rain for three hours."

"Drizzle. Cold drizzle. But, yes. Floyd is unwell. He's under the weather."

"Yes. There are certain words we don't want used around here right now."

"Breakdown. Disturbed. Nuts. Crazy. Crazy! Crazy like a fox! Who chased whom across the Camel Creek village green hollering? He wanted that woman to stop hurtling after him. He wanted her to shut up. He wanted her to go. She stopped. She shut up. She went."

"That's rather harsh, Pop."

"No offense to Cora. I have nothing against Cora. Pete's a different story."

"Floyd doesn't think that way."

"He doesn't? You're reading too much into what I said. It was best for all concerned that Cora knock it off. It goes without saying that Floyd's tears were heartfelt. As for the bear hug and that rather ungainly slow dance... What a shock to Cora's system that must have been. But that's what did the trick."

"So much for the case we could make about Floyd's state of mind. But right now we have a man upstairs..."

"Who's feeling poorly. No big deal. He'll pull through. It doesn't mean anything. He can handle it. We can handle it."

"All right, Pop. Let's leave it at that for now."

"We called them spells. Floyd is having one of his spells. The first one in four years, I believe?"

She hesitates.

"Yes, Pop. What has happened does not come as a surprise. But it's one thing to hear about it..."

She chokes up.

"I know," Pop says. "Another thing to see it unfold in the middle of the village square. This is hell on you too..."

"But what you say is true. We just have to have faith in Floyd. This will pass."

"Yes. And let's keep things in perspective. He's not up there because the cow stomped on his favorite barn cat ..."

The phone rings.

Lady Claudia stands up.

"Excuse me," she says.

She turns around and walks towards the kitchen door.

*

"Philip," she says as she comes back in.

"Yes, I heard."

"What did Counsel have to say?"

"He seemed to be leery of saying too much. Of speaking on the record, as it were. But I would say that he agreed with me that if there's any serious suspicion about Floyd, it's the forensic evidence that will set them straight. He said that we shouldn't be worrying and speculating about all the clues and the local drama. Lester could have blown his head off for reasons of his own about which we know nothing. Financial straits. An affair of his own. The burden is not on Floyd to provide a motive for Lester Knapp. Not if Floyd was not covered with blood and brains when Sheriff MacEveny walked in five minutes after the shot was fired. Not if Lester's fingers were black with gun powder. On the other hand, Floyd's inferences and intuitions about Lester's psychological reactions to what he saw when he got home last night don't mean anything if-"

"If the police think he could be making it all up as he goes along. Philip is a smart boy. We should close the curtain on all the drama and riddle and dog that didn't bark. What Louise told the police or didn' tell them. What they're saying at Homer Dibble's gas station. Who cares? Floyd didn't shoot Lester Knapp. Lester Knapp shot himself."

"That's right. Good for you, Pop. Good for us. Was Floyd sleeping?"

"Not exactly. Resting."

Lady Claudia nods.

"All right. I'll go up later with dinner."

The telephone rings.

"Busy day," Pop says.

"Excuse me once again."

She walks to the kitchen door and opens it. She enters the kitchen. Huldah holds the receiver out to her.

"Lex MacEveny," she says.

Lady Claudia hesitates. She walks over and takes the phone.

"Sheriff?... Fine, thanks... Oh?... Well, of course... No. We'll go down there... All right, then... Goodbye."

She hangs up the phone. She walks to the parlor doorway. She looks at Huldah and then at Pop.

"Sheriff MacEveny said that a Lieutenant Ashwood from the State Police wants to speak to Floyd, Castle, and me down at the courthouse at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

Lady Claudipedia

2008-08-24T18:44:00.025-04:00

B

BISBEE, Abner (1763-1851)

The younger brother of Judge Asa Bisbee. They both left Connecticut with their families for upstate New York in 1790 and settled in the area that became known as Camel Creek. Both were gentlemen farmers at that time, but Asa had attended Yale and studied law and became his Camel Creek's most accomplished and illustrious citizen. Abner remained just a farmer. His farm was located on Henrietta Creek on the other end of Camel Creek from the Asa Bisbee Farm. There is a half-serious rivalry between the Asa and the Abner branches of the Bisbee family. The Asas are fewer and wealthier. Floyd is an Asa. The millionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Josephus Brightwell, Floyd's grandfather, was the Judge's great-grandson. Floyd's best friend Castle is an Abner.

BISBEE, Asa (1758-1833)

BISBEE, Castle (1904-)

Floyd's best friend. The son of Huldah and Charlie Bisbee, that latter being a half-cousin of Floyd's father Jay Brightwell. Castle grew up in the Bisbee House when it was divided into apartments, Parmelia Bisbee occupying the front historic Federal portions and the Bisbees occupying the odd tacked-on structure in back of it. Floyd got to know Castle from his frequent childhood visits to Camel Creek and the Bisbee Homestead. Five years younger than Floyd, Castle was not at first his friend as a boy and a youth: It was Castle's older brother Bobby with whom Floyd was friends. But Floyd began to take a protective, older brotherly interest in Castle the more that it became apparent that the latter was "slow" and needed extra encouragement and help in life. Castle returned the favor during the dark years in the Twenties when Floyd was holed up in the Brightwell Mansion in Onatonga, depressed and all but immobile. Castle would come by and make him go fishing with him, taking charge at least thus far in his quiet, sensitive, instinctive way.

Castle lives with his wife Wilma and their two daughters Hannah and May at the base of Brick House Hill Road in Camel Creek, just a three minute's walk from the Bisbee House. He works as a farm hand at the biggest dairy farm in Camel Creek, that of Tom Betts, whose property borders Floyd's on the northwestern side.

BISBEE, Old Charlie (1850- ) The father-in-law of Lady Claudia's housekeeper Huldah. He is eighty-three years old. He is quiet. He is "as strong as an oxe." He fought in the Civil War. His wife Dora died in 1921. He lives with his son, Young Charlie, and Huldah in a small house on the Camel Creek village green. He is the half-brother of Floyd's late grandfather, the millionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Josephus Brightwell. He is the son of the legendarily eccentric Freelove Brightwell Bisbee: Freelove bore Josephus in 1848 to a Brightwell who died young that same year, and then married a distant cousin of the deceased Brightwell, one Castle Bisbee, with whom she had six children, including Old Charlie.

BISBEE, Young Charlie (1871- )

The eldest son of Old Charlie Bisbee. The husband of Lady Claudia's Camel Creek housekeeper Huldah. The half-cousin of Floyd's father, Jairus (Jay) Brightwell. Most of his life has revolved around the Camel Creek village green. He lived with his family in the back half of the Bisbee House for almost thirty years while working as the assistant manager at Dietz' Feed store. He attends the Dutch Reformed Church on the green. He now resides in a small house on the green with Old Charlie and Huldah. Young Charlie is sometimes seen and sometimes heard. But he usually is away from the action due to ill health. There is nothing remarkable about him. In Thou Man of Blood Huldah comes close to intimating that she married him for his looks and his spirited youthful masculinity and now can live contentedly with him because of his good moral fiber, his kind heart, and their shared religious faith. The ever ailing Young Charlie appears and says the most in the final Lady Claudia story, Sorrows End.

I tried and tried to come up with a distinctive personality for Huldah's husband. I finally gave up. That was the problem: Young Charlie was always nothing more than "Huldah's husband." He just wasn't needed. Huldah plays against Lady Claudia and Floyd's father Jay, whom she knew and liked long before she met her husband.

Make Huldah a widow? I didn't like that idea. Have Young Charlie merely as a name to drop? I didn't want another "gimmick" character, such as Lady Claudia's father, who is never seen or heard, or Homer Dibble, who is never seen and heard only once (in A Shill For Jehovah).

Huldah is in the Bisbee House, her former home, to work. There would be no reason for Young Charlie to be popping in during her work day. On the other hand, Huldah and the Bisbees are friends and relatives too. He couldn't never be there at all. I made Young Charlie a sickie so he wouldn't be cluttering up the parlor and the kitchen of the Bisbee House on occasions when a healthier retired man who was a friend, relative, and neighbor would most likely be there. But I didn't want to make any kind of joke about Young Charlie's chronic ill health as contrasted with Old Charlie's legendary eighty-three year old spryness. The poor man is just getting on in years and does not have much to say for himself, especially around such daunting conversationalists as the Brightwells. There is no crime there in my book. So he is around when he would likely be around, at family gatherings and such, saying the things that a retired feed store assistant manager who never left his small village in the northwestern foothills of the Catskills and has no great talent or intellect might say.

BISBEE, Huldah (1872- )

Lady Claudia's trusty housekeeper and confidante. The wife of Jay Brightwell's half-cousin Charles (Young Charlie). The mother of Floyd's best friend Castle. She raised her children Robert, Castle, Jean, and Mary in the Bisbee House, residing in the back half of it from the time of her marriage in 1899 until Floyd took over the House in 1928. At that time Young Charlie, Old Charlie (her aged father-in-law) and she moved into a smaller but far more comfortable house right on the village green, next door to the Presbyterian parsonage and a stone's thrown from the Bisbee House.

Huldah began working as the Brightwells' housekeeper shortly after they were married (December 31, 1929). The Bisbees needed the money. Floyd did not want Lady Claudia to be forced to start playing the unsuitable role of a country housewife. The routine is that Huldah comes in at about She leaves at seven, comes back at eleven to start on lunch, cleans and washes and irons until three and then leaves for the day. Lady Claudia and Floyd usually handle supper themselves. Sunday is Huldah's day off.

Lady Claudia insists on assisting with some chores. Flower gardening. Holiday baking. Setting up for parties and family dinners.

Huldah attends the Dutch Reformed Church in Camel Creek. She is deeply religious. She believes in the Rapture and the like. She rarely discusses religion and never brings it up.

Huldah, who grew up in Onatonga and knew Floyd's father Jay growing up, was the Camel Creek village librarian when she caught Charlie Bisbee's eye. She is a college graduate. She is tall, slim, and sturdy. She figures in Lady Claudia's adventures mostly as a somewhat dour, down-to-earth, ruthlessly realistic foil to their rather rarefied idealism. But her outspokenness is never impudent. It is only with Jay Brightwell that she joshes at times in a sarcastic, familar way: except in extreme circumstances of worry and stress, her attitude towards Floyd and Lady Claudia is appropriately deferential and reserved. Lady Claudia sometimes seems to be fishing with scant success for a more materal sentiment towards her on Huldah's part.

Huldah appears in Thou Man of Blood (Spring), Midnight Christian (Summer), Angels to Beckon Me , The Darkness and the Deeps and Sorrows End (Autumn).

It would have been easy to make a cliche of a character such as Huldah Bisbee. The plain-spoken peasant trying to drive a lick of sense into these high-falutin' Brightwell toffs and the "high holy Queen of Sorrows" herself. The "no- nonsense country mouse." Thelma Ritter. But Huldah is by no means a peasant. She is well-bred. Courteous. She is the only college graduate among the main characters. She can operate with ease on Lady Claudia's intellectual and social level. But she is keenly aware of the fact that she stands apart. And lower down.

BISBEE, PARMELIA (1861- )

The youngest of Freelove and Henry Bisbee's six children. The sister of Old Charlie. A beauty in her youth, she became a Victorian "old maid" and lived in the front half of the Bisbee House with her mother until the latter's death in 1907, and alone there until Floyd inherited the house in 1928. At that time she moved to Florida and totally changed her lifestyle and appearance, becoming a stylish modern gal who loved all sorts of fun and games. In Thou Man of Blood Jay Brightwell accused her of eavesdropping on the other Bisbees when they all shared the Bisbee House.

BISBEE, Wilma (1906-)

The wife of Floyd's best friend, Castle. She is a native Camel Creeker. She is a warm-hearted chatterbox who laughs easily and cries easily. Lady Claudia and she frequently take walks together. Wilma appears in Thou Man of Blood (Spring), Midnight Christian (Summer) and The Darkness and the Deeps (Fall).

BRIGHTWELL II, Josephus (1895-1918)

Floyd's deceased older brother. The eldest of the children of Jairus and Phyllis Brightwell. He was killed in France serving as a soldier in World War I. More is implied than stated by those who speak of him, but he seems to have been a throroughly bad lot.

BRIGHTWELL II, Philip (1828-1848)

The father of Josephus Brightwell. Floyd's great-grandfather. He married Freelove Dent in Camel Creek in 1848 and died (in the Bisbee House) shortly before their son was born on December 11 of that year.

BRIGHTWELL III, Philip (1901- )

The elder of Floyd's two younger brothers. Philip is a lawyer. He lives in Schenectady, New York. He works for a big law firm in Albany. He is married to Susan and has two daughters, Cynthia and Priscilla. Floyd and he are not close and never have been. In a rare moment of brutal candor in The Darkness and the Deeps the distraught and sleepless Lady Claudia sums Philip up with a term used by her elderly English aunt Gregoria: Dry stick. Philip takes a dim view of Floyd's and Lady Claudia's "medieval" beliefs and lifestyle. On the plus side, he is a big believer in minding his own business and keeping his mouth shut whenever possible. He is said to be the apple of his mother Phyllis ' eye. He is frequently mentioned but appears in only The Darkness and the Deeps (Autumn).

BRIGHTWELL, Phyllis Diffendale (1873-)

Floyd's mother. Like her husband Jairus Brightwell, she was born in Onatonga and grew up there. Her grandfather was the founder of the Onatonga First National Bank. The Diffendales are wealthy, but not even close to the Brightwell league. It is widely believed that Phyllis never loved or liked Jairus and ruthlessly set her cap on him in order to step up in class. She is almost six feet tall. She is prim and cold. She likes but clashes with her feisty daughter Anne, cherishes her stuck-up son Philip, detests and avoids her wild son David, and has mixed feelings about her "odd" son Floyd. She is said to barely be able to stand being in the same room with Lady Claudia. There is some deep and complex resentment there. The antipathy sometimes leads her into lapses in the social propriety that ordinarily means so much to her. She appears in Less Than Kind (Spring) and The Darkness and the Deeps (Autumn).

BRIGHTWELL, Priscilla (1928- )

Floyd's niece. The younger of his brother Philip's two children (both of whom are daughters). Both girls are brats and treat both Floyd and Lady Claudia disrespectfully. Presumably they have twigged to the attitude of their parents towards them and act accordingly. But Priscilla is different from her sister Cynthia. Cynthia is the perfect little lady with blonde curls and a doll's face. Priscilla, the smarter and more gifted of the two, is odd and generally ill-behaved, and physically ill-favored. In one story she takes a shining to her Aunt Claudia because, in order to avoid a screeching melt-down, she allows her to go to bed with a lollypop still stuck in her frizzy and unkempt dirty blonde hair.

C

COFFEE QUEEN

Floyd's favorite term of endearment for Lady Claudia. A reference to the main source of her personal fortune, the Crouch and ten Horne Coffee Company.

CRECHE SETS

What Lady Claudia collects. Generally she abhors all clutter and frippery. Her favorite set, the one she puts on the table in the hallway of the Bisbee House, is an elaborate Cuban folk art set.

CUBA

The Crouch and ten Horne Coffee Company grows its product in Cuba. Lady Claudia visited that country many times with her grandfather Jan ten Horne as a child. She learned to speak Spanish with some degree of fluency there.

D

DELHI, New York

A scenic village located in Delaware County, New York, in the northwestern foothills of the Catskill mountains. Its chief claim to fame is the presence of a State College. The Bisbee House and Homestead are modeled after the Frisbee House and Homestead at the Delaware County Historical Association complex in Delhi. The Camel Creek village green is modeled after the Delhi village green. The Bisbee House has been placed where the Delhi Village Hall is. Camel Creek's golden domed church with the triple tier belltower is modeled after a church on Delhi's village green. Similarities end there. Camel Creek is smaller than Delhi.

G

GATE OF HEAVEN CEMETERY

A large cemetery in Camel Creek on the hill across the creek from the Bisbee House. Josephus Brightwell purchased 11 acres of land in 1888 with the intention of creating a spledorific Victorian memorial garden along the lines of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The statuary and landscaping have made it a showplace and a tourist attraction. Josephus is buried there with his first wife Mary and his mother Freelove Dent Brightwell Bisbee in a snow white marble neo-classical mauseleum surrounded by junipers and cypresses. Lady Claudia and Floyd are slated to be buried with them, though neither is thrilled with the idea. Most Bisbees of the Abner line shun Gate of Heaven and go to the "Bisbee Boneyard" on the hilltop behind the Bisbee Homestead barn. Josephus Brightwell bequeathed two things only to his grandson Floyd, of whom he had been especially fond: the Bisbee Farm and Gate of Heaven (and just enough money to pay taxes on both of them and to cover the upkeep of the latter).

P

PARSHALL, Elmina (1875- )

A descendent of Judge Asa Bisbee through the line of his daughter Silence. She is a forensic pathologist in the office of the coroner in Nassau County, Long Island. She is thought to be tops in her field. She appears in The Body in the Barrel and O Horrible! Most Horrible! (Winter) and Thou Man of Blood (Spring).

I came up with her later in the Lady Claudia day (2000) as an ongoing antagonist. She was conceived as a cynical Freethinker who sneers at religion, Christianity in particular, and yet has a grudging respect and affection for Lady Claudia both as a worthy adversary and as someone who has a enlightened humanistic understanding of the tears of things in this cruel world. I gave up on the original conception because it just didn't work. Why would Lady Claudia consent to have around a distant relative who was always uttering blasphemies against her Lord? I had Miss Parshall just dropping in on the Brightwells when I needed her to mix with them, and realized that this was out of her proud and refined character.

Elmina Parshall evolved into Hector Sutch, the young and progressive Harvard-educated local doctor in Camel Creek. It would make sense that Lady Claudia runs into a Camel Creek neighbor occasionally and has to put up with his Freethinker aggression.

I retained Elmina Parshall because I wanted there to be a Brightwell relative who was an educated working professional with both feet in the Real World and the great big world beyond Camel Creek and Onatonga. And her profession lent itself to appearances in Lady Claudia stories.

RANSOME, Ellen (1927-1933)

Lady Claudia's late half-sister, the daughter of her father Lord Alban Ransome, the Ninth Duke of Wallingweir, and his third wife, Laura Pruitt. In the first Lady Claudia story, Sleep in Death, she has just died at the age of six of a heart defect with which she was born. Lady Claudia had seen her at least once a year during her short lifetime and was very fond of her. She keeps a picture of her on her vanity at the Bisbee House.

RANSOME, Gregoria (1857- )

Lady Claudia's beloved great-aunt, the sister of her grandfather Edgar, the Eighth Duke of Wallingweir. Lady Claudia saw her fairly frequently as a child because of Aunt Gregoria's regular visits to the village near London where she grew up and her own regular visits with her mother to the family ancestral home in Northumberland near Hadrian's Wall and the Scottish border. Aunt Gregoria, a strict Victorian style old lady who dresses in antique black dresses, was most influential in Lady Claudia's life in the period between 1919 and 1925, when she chose to leave her father's house because of the scandal of his divorce from his second wife, the Italian femme fatale Ottaviana della Mura, the former Contessa of Monte Niera, and stay with her grandfather and great-aunt in Skylock Castle, the Ransome ancestral home. Aunt Gregoria is a devout High Anglican and an avid Bible reader. She was the first to explain to Lady Claudia what Modernism was: a famous Jesuit who had been excommunicated as a Modernist moved next door to the Castle.

The feisty and sharp-tongued but always fair and soft-hearted Aunt Gregoria has a special fondness for her niece's oddball American husband. She appears in Sleep in Death (Winter), and The Stained Glass Adventure and Rough Cradle (Summer). She does not appear in Brimstone and Marmalade , but is prominent in Lady Claudia's monologue about her traumatic childhood Modernist memories.

RANSOME, Laura Pruitt (1891- )

Lady Claudia's stepmother. She married Lord Alban Ransome in 1920, not even a year after his divorce from his second wife, the former Contessa de Monte Niera, Ottaviana della Mura.

S

SAMMS, Emma

Beautiful, classy British actress best known for her role as Fallon on the 1980s prime time soap opera Dynasty and for her work with the Starlight Foundation, a charitable organization which she founded to grant dying children their last wishes. Lady Claudia's doll-like looks and quirkily elegant voice are modeled after hers.

I first saw her in 1984 on a daytime soap opera called General Hospital. (It was on in the bar of the restaurant in which I worked.) She played a character called Holly Scorpio, who was given to wearing 1930s style attire such as hats with half-veils. It is only a coincidence that Miss Samms and Lady Claudia have the same birthday: I decided that Lady Claudia should be born on the date on which Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans (August 28th). It was later that I read that that was Miss Samms' birthday.

SEEBOLT, Anne Brightwell (1897-)

Floyd's older and only sister.

SUTCH, Hector (1899- )

Hector Sutch grew up on Creek Street in Camel Creek. He was a smart, well-behaved lad who was often teased and bullied by Lester Knapp and Bobby Bisbee, the leaders of the "wild crowd" with which Floyd ran as a youth. (Though Floyd never participated in any wildness that was unkind or immoral or seriously against the law.) Hector graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1929, worked at a Boston hospital for two years, and then set up practice in a house in his hometown next to the one in which he grew up. Hector is an outspoken Freethinker who teases Lady Claudia about God and the Bible and about her own persona as a lady of faith and strict morals. He is married and has a daughter. In his talks with Lady Claudia he makes no secret of his attraction to her. But there is a certain clinical clunkiness to his expressions of admiration, and a vaguely sat overdone quality, which are the antithesis of seductiveness. Floyd avoids him. He appears in A Shill For Jehovah, The Dead Who Are Dead (Spring), Midnight Christian and His Eyes Were As Fire (Summer).

Lady Claudia's attitude towards him? Respectful as to his profession and his dedication and talents, cold and dismissive as to his Rationalist harangues and his insolent parody of woo-pitching. As to her innermost thoughts and feelings about him... How on earth would I know a thing like that? Why would I think that any of my business? What she says and does when he is around doing his thing is always quite proper. That is all I care about.

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (V)

2008-08-22T21:59:00.009-04:00

"Our dear Anne called earlier, dear," Lady Claudia says.

Floyd, Castle, and Pop are sitting at the kitchen table eating soup. She is sitting on the little kitchen chair that is usually underneath the telephone on the other side of the room. It has been placed in front of the parlor doorway.

"She said that she would call back this evening."

"And how is our dear Anne?"

"She's fine. She was concerned about us."

Huldah is puttering about the stove and the sink and the cabinet. Floyd is in the middle chair. He cranes his neck around to speak to her.

"This is great, Cousin Huldah," he says. "It's a real treat."

"It's the cheese that makes it," Pop observes. "It's your own, I assume?"

"Of course," Huldah says.

"I like the toast," Castle says.

Pop suddenly narrows his eyes and looks mystified.

"I just realized something," he says. "Holy Hannah."

Floyd and Castle look at one another.

"What's the big revelation, Pop?" Floyd asks.

"I don't know what cheese is. I mean, I have no idea how you go about whipping it up out of milk. How do you get cheese and not butter? And how do you get Swiss cheese and not cottage cheese? And what precisely are curds? What on earth is whey?"

There is silence for a few moments.

"Well," Pop says defensively. "All I cared about and knew about when I was young was this new-fangled toy for big boys called the automobile."

"Oh, what fun we could have with this..." Huldah says. "Ever hear of a cud, Jay? Well, here's what happens..."

Floyd rubs Pop's shoulder.

"You'll just have to come down here and watch us go at it some day, Pop," he says with a smile.

"I'll do that, my boy. I'm sure I'll be fascinated."

The telephone rings. Lady Claudia stands up. She walks over to it.

"Hello?... Oh hello, David."

She puts her hand over the receiver.

"It's David," she announces in a loud whisper.

"Naturally," Huldah says.

"Yes," Lady Claudia says. "He's right here. Pop is here too..."

She listens for about ten seconds. Her face goes cold stoney. She stares at the back of Floyd's head. Floyd turns around. She smiles sweetly.

"Well then, I'll say hello for you... That's right... Uh-huh... Good-bye, dear. Thank you so much for calling."

She hangs up.

"David had to go," she says. "Wasn't that sweet of him to call? Anne called him."

"Our dear Anne," Pop says dryly. "That was a very short conversation, Claudia."

"David had to go," Lady Claudia says.

"David had to go," Floyd repeats. "Little brother..."

He stares out the window.

Huldah and Pop look at one another.

*

Huldah is washing. Lady Claudia is drying.

"It was just one of David's rude witticisms," Lady Claudia says. "It was just silly. If I had thought he would give Floyd a break today, I would have handed the phone right over."

"I think that you handled it well. You didn't fool anyone, of course. But you handled it well."

"Oh, Huldah. David isn't the little brother we want calling."

"No. We want Philip. Philip Brightwell, Esquire. I'm sure that Pop has called him. Philip tends to take his sweet time..."

The knocker at the front door sounds. Lady Claudia jumps.

"Sorry," she laughs. "I've got to live that down."

"That might take a while. It started that way with Lester Knapp last night."

Her smile fades.

"Excuse me," she says.

She takes off her apron. She drapes it over the back of the little chair. She walks through the Parlor and into the front hallway. She unbolts the door and opens it.

"Reverend Baylis," she says.

He is a slight, slender man with gray hair. He is wearing Protestant clerical garb. His vest is gray.
"Mrs. Brightwell," he says.

He seems kindly and courtly.

"Please come in, Reverend," she says, stepping aside and gesturing.

"Thank you," he says as he steps inside. "I realize that Mr. Brightwell has troubles today. I was so sorry to hear about it. Mrs. Brightwell, I'm here on behalf of Mrs. Knapp. Services for Les are going to be held at our church, we hope on Saturday. Then... Well, Mrs. Knapp is wondering if there would be any problem with Les's being interred in Gate of Heaven Cemetery. I was wondering if I might have a few words with Mr. Brightwell. I didn't want to just show up in the barn myself unannounced."

Lady Claudia looks at him blankly for a few moments. Then she glances behind her.

"Reverend Baylis," she says. "Please forgive me. I think that I'd like to speak to my husband alone first. Either he'll come by your house or I'll come by as soon as possible. Certainly we don't want to make poor Mrs. Knapp wait for an answer a second longer than necessary."

"I understand, Mrs. Brightwell," Reverend Baylis says. "I think I understand what the problem might be. But, yes. We do eagerly await an answer. Once again, please forgive the intrusion."

"Oh please, Reverend. None of that."

Lady Claudia puts her hand on the door.

"I always wonder how you manage to do porter duty here, Mrs. Brightwell," Reverend Baylis says with a shy smile. "This portal would give some football players pause."

Lady Claudia grins.

"I give myself another year or two. Then it's the side door or wait until Floyd comes in. Good afternoon, Reverend. Thanks for coming by..."

He smiles.

"Good afternoon."

He turns and walks away. She closes the door. She bolts it. She walks down the hallway. She enters the dining room. She turns right and enters the kitchen. Huldah is scrubbing a pot.

"That was the Reverend Baylis," Lady Claudia says.

"I heard."

"Everything?"

"I reckon so."

"It's the wrong church, Huldah. Good heavens. When the Knapps hear about this... The pillars of a strict Bible-believing Dutch Reformed church..."

"Having to go across the village green to the most notoriously liberal Presbyterian church in the county for the funeral of their son."

"Of their staunch atheist son. You think that the Reverend meant the widow? Louise?"

"Well, of course."

"I think he meant the mother. Cora."

"But why would she ...?"

"I would imagine that she spoke to Pastor Weiden. I would imagine that she was disappointed with what he said about funeral arrangements for Lester Knapp."

Lady Claudia just stares at Huldah.

"I could be wrong about everything," Huldah says. "But my guess is that it was not just Lester's being a known atheist and open mocker of Christian beliefs which would have driven Pastor Weiden to turn Cora down. I think that something else about Lester is making the rounds in Camel Creek. In whispers, in the corners, in the shadows. But if so, it augurs well for Floyd. Maybe."

"This is..." Lady Claudia says. "Why are we speaking only about Cora? What happened to Lester's father?"

"You've probably heard a bit about Peter Knapp. From Floyd. Here and there in the village."

"He's stern. He's strict."

"Extremely so. Too much so, some folks would say. But no one would say that he's mean. Or cruel or callous. If we can accurately say that in English callous means something worse than hard. I don't imagine that Lester's death holds too many mysteries for the Knapp family."

"I see. He would wash his hands of his own son's... Oh, Huldah."

"I know that you don't need me to remind you that our first concern is Floyd right now. Floyd and Castle too. You might need me to convince you that it's not unladylike or in bad taste to welcome indications that the heat may be turned away from Floyd and on to Lester when it comes to having a motive for shooting Lester dead. Lester was what he was and did what he did. He's responsible. It's not wrong that his memory should suffer. It's just so terribly hard on those who loved him. On Cora. On Floyd. Maybe on old Pete most of all."

Huldah suddenly wheels about.

"Buck up, girl. Things are looking up. The fire and brimstone parson wouldn't service the suicide and his old man is saying, 'Throw it in a ditch for all I care...'"

She turns back around.

"Time to get Floyd. Can't be helped. Time to get his verdict."

"Yes. Mrs. Knapp, whoever she is, should not be kept waiting."

Lady Claudia opens the door to the Mud Room. She turns around.

"What odd things for a millionaire grandfather to leave his favorite grandson as his only behests. A charming but somewhat forlorn thirty-eight acre farm and a nearby graveyard..."

*

Pop enters the parlor from the front hallway.

He is wearing a heavy overcoat and a holding a fedora hat in his hand.

Lady Claudia is sitting on the north sofa, Huldah on the south. Lady Claudia looks tense. Huldah looks watchful.

"Did you have a nice nap, Pop?" Lady Claudia asks with a wan smile.

"I think that I conked out for about ten minutes there... I dreamt that it was Christmastime when we were young, Huldah, and we were taking a sleigh rides down the graveyard lane and around the big field. Remember?"

"Sure. We could have done it last night and it's Eastertime. Today? It should be so warm on Mother's Day. Floyd just went over to the parsonage. Some Mrs. Knapp or another wants to bury Lester in Gate of Heaven. Floyd is discussing the matter with Reverend Knapp."

"So what would be the problem with that? That would seem to be the least of our troubles."

Huldah looks at the kitchen door. Pop looks at Lady Claudia. Lady Claudia looks at the folded hands that she is discreetly wringing.

"Oh," Pop says. "Oh. I see. Dispositions of angels. Pressing in on Floyd as usual like the spiked walls in Torquemada's recreation room. O tidings of comfort and joy..."

Huldah stands up.

"I'm going home to Charlie and Dad. Charlie's back has been acting up again. Will I see you later, Jay?"

Pop glances at Lady Claudia.

"We'd love to have you to supper, Pop," Lady Claudia says. "Of course, we wouldn't want Mom to get lonely."

"The things you can say with a straight face, dear. We'll see, Huldah."

"Okay," Huldah says. "Take a little walk, Claudia. Get a little fresh air."

"Maybe. It's rather muddy out there, I daresay. Squishy. See you in a bit."

Huldah nods. She brushes by Pop, goes into the hall, unbolts the door, exits, and closes it behind her.

"I don't think that Huldah much relishes it when I wise off with the Lord of Hosts," Pop says with what seems to be genuine rue.

He looks at Lady Claudia. He smiles wryly.

"I know," he says. "You don't much like it either."

"I don't think that was it, Pop."

"No. Probably not. That girl is something. She knows when to be around because she's family and just when to get lost because she's only the cousins' wife. How long has Floyd been over there?"

"About ten minutes. Pop..."

He sits on the armrest of the south sofa.

"I know," he says. "I know. It's as though Lester is still firing away and Floyd just doesn't know how to duck and there's nothing we can do but look on."

Lady Claudia looks at him. She looks at her hands.

"Oh," she says.

Her expression conveys both determination and embarrassment.

She jumps up and runs out of the parlor, through the hall, and into the Tavern. She stands in front of the table by the front window on the west side of the room and looks out towards the right. Pop comes in and stands beside her. A car is pulling up in front of the parsonage. It stops. A middle-aged woman in formal black gets out of the driver's seat. Another middle-aged woman in a a more ordinary blue outfit gets out of the front passenger's seat. The woman in black opens the driver's side back door. A middle-aged woman in black gets out.

"Good Lord," Pop says. "Cora Knapp."

"Oh, Pop. Even from here one can see. The poor thing..."

"Oh, she adored him all right. Les did that thing that a lot of sly young devils do with their doting mothers. He teased her and cajoled her and sweet talked her in an almost flirtatious way. And not always to get something out of her. I do think that he was genuinely fond of the old girl. Oh, no."

The door to the parsonage opens. Floyd steps out on the the front slabstone and closes the door. He walks down the short front walkway.

Lady Claudia takes a few steps backwards.

Floyd walks right up to Cora Knapp. He takes her hands in his. They speak for a few moments.

"That's good," Pop says. "Mamma isn't thinking that her son's blood may be on those hands. It was a terrible accident. The Schenectady strumpet did it."

"Oh, Pop. Poor Mrs. Knapp doesn't know about all that..."

"You don't think Lex MacEveny might have told them about it? But that's not the point. Forget the snow and the presumptive tire tracks and comic opera paramour. Cora knows Floyd. She knows Louise too. Louise may have started having her little adventures long before last night. And Cora may have heard something. And it just struck me. This entire village may know all about dark dirty doings atop Brick House Hill. Everyone except Floyd and you. Evil does not dare to approach your tent. Evil is afraid that between the two of you it will have its mouth washed out with soap."

"Maybe last night was the first adventure, to use that word. Huldah would have known if there was talk about Louise. My impression is that even though she doesn't gossip, people tell her things before she stops them or walks off. Just now she gave me to understand that she has never heard such talk. Either that or she was dropping hints that she had. But Huldah is not one to drop hints. Especially not when the naked ugly truth would tend to set our minds somewhat at rest."

"Huldah doesn't get out as much as she used to. All right. Okay. Good."

Floyd had let go of Cora Knapp's hands, nodded at the other two ladies, turned, and crossed the lane.

Now he is crossing the foot bridge over Camel Creek and stepping on to the village green.

"No," Pop says. "No. This isn't the time, Cora. This isn't the place."

Cora Knapp is chasing after Floyd. The two other women chase after her. She must have called his name. He stops and turns around. He has reached the circular pavement in the middle of which the war monument stands.

She seems agitated. Her companions huddle behind her.

Floyd now has his back to his house. He stretches out his arms, downwards, in the classic attitude of pleading innocence and exasperated sincerity.

"Oh, Pop, what is she saying to him?"

"Only one way to find out."

Pop keeps his eyes fixed on Floyd. Lady Claudia steps up beside him.

"This is Camel Creek, Claudia. That's your husband out there. He is dealing with an hysterical woman. That's the main point for you to consider. If that were Pete Knapp I wouldn't let you interfere. Unless things escalate stand a good ten feet behind him. Look perturbed but have a hint of a pained smile. Do not say a word."

Lady Claudia hastens over to the front door and opens it and steps out on to the slabstone.

Floyd has turned around again and is approaching her. He stops short. He looks at her. He looks mortified. It is as though he has never before laid eyes on this woman who has just come out of his house.

She steps off the slabstone.

"Floyd Brightwell!" Cora Knapp shouts. "Don't turn your back on me!"

He turns around. She strides over to him.

"Mrs. Knapp, I can't-"

"I want an assurance from you right now! I want it from your own lips! I don't want to wait for Reverend Baylis! I shouldn't have to wait!"

Floyd says something to her in a soft voice.

Lady Claudia's eyes wander over to the Dietz Feed side of the square. Four men in overalls and blue jeans and blue-striped visor caps are standing in front of the loading dock watching. She glances across the street. Three women are standing in front of Singenstraw's General Store watching.

Floyd grasps Cora Knapp's shoulders. He shakes his head. He turns around and walks towards Claudia, looking at her feet. He starts to cross Judge's Lane. Lady Claudia takes a few steps forward.

"That's not enough, Floyd," Cora Knapp says in a more normal tone of voice. "That I shouldn't even have had to ask. I want you to tell me. I have the right to know. I have the right to know what happened to my son last night."

Floyd looks at her. He shakes his head. He suddenly lunges at her. He wraps her in his arms. He starts to weep. He sways back and forth with her as though they were slow dancing.

Lady Claudia hastens over to them. She stops about six feet away. She looks at Cora Knapp's companions. They stand at the curb on the other side of the lane transfixed.

"Floyd," Cora Knapp says.

Floyd continues to weep and sway.

"Floyd!" she says.

Lady Claudia steps forward. She puts her arm out. Then she lets it fall.

"Floyd," Cora Knapp says. "That's enough. That's enough, dear. Let me go. You must let me go now."

He releases her. She steps back. She seems calm now. Floyd stands with his head bowed. Cora Knapp glances at Lady Claudia.

"Now, dear," she says to Floyd. "You just forget about everything for now. You go inside with Claudia and let her fix you a nice cup of tea and you just forget about everything for now."

He looks at her.

"Go ahead now," she says. "You go on in. I've got to see Mr. Trudley now. We have to talk about taking care of Lester and getting him ready. You were always a good friend to my son, Floyd. You were the best friend he ever had in this world. Everyone knows that. So all I want to say now is, may the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead, and with me..."

She barely got the last word out.

She wheels about, weeping. Her companions have stepped forward. She collapses between them. They grab her and shepherd her away.

Floyd also turns around weeping. Lady Claudia takes his arm. They walk slowly to the front door. Pop has it open. They go in the house. The door closes.

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (IV)

2008-08-21T03:00:00.008-04:00

Huldah comes into the kitchen from the dining room.

Lady Claudia is looking out the window of the door. She turns around. She smiles at Huldah. She sits down at the table.

Huldah walks over to the stove. She takes a lid off a pot. She picks up a spoon and stirs what is in the pot.

"That really smells wonderful," Lady Claudia says. "Floyd loves your French onion soup."

"I know. That's why I made it. You know. Today of all days."

"Oh, Huldah. What a thing to happen."

"It's a thing, all right. And it happened."

"I just saw Homer Dibble drive down the road with Lester Knapp's smashed-up car in tow. I hope that Floyd didn't see Clyde and him taking it."

"I'm sure that he did. I'd bet that Castle and he helped them. Don't you think so too?"

Lady Claudia sighs.

"Yes. I suppose that I do. Oh, Huldah..."

"They'll take care of the fence after lunch."

"I was so glad that Castle decided to switch with Walt and work here today. They have such a wonderful friendship. They may not say much..."

"But they just like being together. As they fish or hunt or milk cows or mend fences. What they're really doing is being together."

"It was nice of Tom Betts to go along with the switch."

"Very understanding of him. But Walt is getting to be as big and strong and handy as his old Uncle Castle."

"Oh, yes. Walt is wonderful. You can be very proud, Huldah."

"I? Proud? I'm just the granny who lives down the road a piece and bakes the corn muffins. I suppose Bobby can be proud in a way. Having such a wonderful son when he is... well, the kind of father he is. And Uncle Castle, who has given him his first real home. And Floyd... Well, Floyd..."

"Yes. Floyd. Oh, Huldah..."

A pause.

"Pop seemed so tired," Lady Claudia says. "He must have been up all night."

"Well, he's catching forty winks as we speak. He's lying down in the East Bedroom on top of the quilt with his overcoat and his hat on. Your father-in-law is very strange man, Claudia..."

Lady Claudia smiles.

"My father-in-law and your husband's cousin."

"Half-cousin."

"Well, the poor dear..."

"You called him first thing last night?"

"Yes. Sheriff MacEveny allowed Floyd to call here, and then I called Pop and then I went and told Wilma. I didn't want to wake up the girls."

"And then the police cars and the ambulance came and the whole village knew. We Turnpikers, anyway..."

"I should have foreseen that. I should have let you know right away. Especially since you would be seeing the police cars and the ambulance turning up Castle's road. I'm sorry about that, Huldah."

"You had other things on your mind. Not that I didn't get a nasty jolt for a few minutes there. But I knew soon enough that Castle and Floyd were all right. That was the main thing for all of us. Our neighbors, though..."

"A few drove up the hill to see what was up."

"Yes. And the State boys gave them short shrift."

"Especially if they drove on that road past the Knapp's driveway."

Huldah stirs in silence.

"It's nasty," she says.

"It will be even more so if certain things come out."

"Brick House Hill Road has a distinction among all the roads and streets and lanes in Bisbee Township. With the exception of the Turnpike, of course. Do you know what it is?"

"Certainly. It's the only road besides the Turnpike that can take you out of the Township. You can drive north on Brick House Hill Road and there's a way to keep going which gets you on your way to Merriglen. And from there to Onatonga. Brick House Hill Road is really as much of a dead end as all the other Township roads other than the Turnpike. Except that at the end of it there's this old gravel path near the railroad tracks that cuts through the woods and takes you out to Camel Creek Road... Not everyone would want to risk it. But it can be done."

"Castle was the first one to drive up or down that hill south of the Knapps' driveway after it snowed."

"Poor Lester was looking at something when he walked back down the driveway..."

"He was looking to his left. There are seven homes further north and west on Brick House Hill Road. All seven homeowners are married men whose wives, we may assume, were at home last night. We'll never know whether of not Les thought of that gravel path. It doesn't matter. Had he followed the tracks he most probably would have found himself out on Camel Creek Road. And they would have been lost amidst twenty others."

"This shouldn't matter to us, Huldah."

"It shouldn't. But it could matter a lot. The motive. You were questioned. You told the truth, I assume. Do you think that everyone told the truth when he, when he or she, was questioned last night?"

Lady Claudia ponders the question.

"I don't know. I suppose that I've just been assuming that he, he or she, would. That the facts of the matter would simply be too obvious to lie about. The evidence of the tracks-"

"What tracks? There were no tracks. Not on the Knapp property. That was the whole point. You mean the shoveling and the sweeping? Maybe she needed the exercise."

"Out on the road..."

"By the time Lex MacEveny got there it had been drizzling for twenty minutes. By the time the State police got there the snow was half melted."

"But surely there was enough-"

"Surely? Are you sure about that?"

Lady Claudia stares at Huldah.

"Castle was not asked for an opinion. Floyd was. And what did you assume Mr Knapp was so upset about? What do you think really went on here tonight? Floyd politely declined to answer these questions."

"Yes. Oh, dear. Perhaps Floyd was not helping himself there. I was assuming that the police could have figured out exactly what happened even if Floyd and Castle had left. The other pistol... Why would she have...?"

"What pistol? What is this about someone else in that house besides Lester handling pistols? What if it was put back before the police arrived? Floyd and Castle went out to the road to meet Lex."

"One of them would have noticed her going in and out..."

"Are you sure about that? You're forgetting something. Lester is dead. Castle didn't really see and hear all that much. And Floyd is his dearest friend. Claudia, don't you see? For us it would be a question of the pistol's having been put back. For the police it may be only Floyd's word that it was ever taken at all."

"Oh, Huldah. Couldn't you be doing Louise an injustice?"

"She could have spelled out the whole sordid tale to them and drawn pictures to go along. We don't know. No one is going to tell us what she said about anything. Not yet. I doubt very much that Louise told the police anything about last night except that she shoveled the driveway and then went to bed and suddenly heard this big boom and then stayed locked in her room when Floyd Brightwell hollered up the stares with the bad news because for all she knew he had just shot her dear husband. Was the pistol still on her when the police went up to her bedroom? She could say that she had heard alarming noises outside earlier in the evening. There was no absolute need for her to say, 'Officers, since I thought it likely that my husband would be trying to kill me by and by, I made it my business to be able to kill him first.'"

"The chain on the door..."

"Don't clutch at that. That doesn't even qualify as a straw. Who's to say that Lester was the one who burst in the house? And so what if he did? What is she had chained him out? She had heard those alarming noises... One never knows what goes on in a marriage and one isn't quick to cast stones. But it's hard to think in terms of doing Louise Knapp an injustice right now. The kind of woman who would be sitting up there in the dark with her baby and her husband's gun... "

"Might lie and lie and lie again. It's so bizarre. Floyd and Castle never saw her at all. They were kept outside. Huldah, when all is said and done, Castle can testify that Floyd was standing twelve feet away from Lester in that breezeway. And the man's head exploded in a certain way because the pistol was in his mouth when it was fired. Could anyone for a moment imagine...? And also, the lack of powder burns on Floyd's clothing. And not a drop of blood or a speck of brain on his clothing."

"And as far as the police are concerned, perhaps, no earthly motive for a happily married man with a year old son to have stuck a pistol in his mouth and blown his brains out."

"And Floyd's motive?"

"The monument. Long-standing rivalry on the village board. The barbed wire in the woods."

"Dear Lord. I forgot about that."

"Honest miscalculation or low-down sneakiness, Les put about half an acre of Brightwell land behind Knapp barbed wire. In these parts that's a major offense. Not quite up there with horse thieving or barn burning. But close."

"Floyd didn't do anything about it. He never mentioned it to Lester."

"Was he angry about it?"

A pause.

"Of course he was angry. But all he did in the end was joke about it. What really annoyed him was that Lester had felt it necessary to install barbed wire in the middle of the woods across a deer trail. He said that hunters all over the Township would be wondering why all their kills had bloody shins and rumps no matter where they were shot."

"Good one, Cousin Floyd. Claudia, there's another way in which he didn't help himself."

"What's that?"

"He told the police that he called Lester Knapp a son of a bitch a minute before the shot was fired."

"That was their humor. They were boyhood friends."

"He did worse. Much worse."

"What?"

"He told them that the last words Les uttered were about you. All I can think of is your lovely wife."

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (III)

2008-08-19T19:43:00.004-04:00

The morning light is bright in the kitchen of the Bisbee House.

Lady Claudia is sitting on the little chair near the telephone. Across the room Pop sits at the table, sipping coffee. They seem to have been silent for more than a few moments. Lady Claudia looks anxious. Pop looks annoyed.

Huldah appears at the window of the door. She looks down and sees Pop, whose back is towards her. She looks at Lady Claudia. She holds up her hand and makes a gesture that indicates that she will come back later. Lady Claudia shakes her head and waves her in. She opens the door.

Pop turns around as she steps in.

"Morning, Huldah."

"Jay."

Lady Claudia stands up.

"Please join us, Huldah."

She walks over to the dish cabinet. She pulls a cup off a hook and picks up a saucer. She brings them over to the table and sets them in front of Huldah, who has taken the chair opposite Pop. She pours in coffee from a pot that had been set in the middle of the table.

"Thanks," Huldah says.

She takes a sip.

Lady Claudia seems uncertain as to her next move. She walks back to the little chair and sits down. There is silence for a few moments.

"Would you care for a muffin with some orange marmalade?" Lady Claudia asks nervously.

Pop grins in spite of himself.

"All right, all right," he drawls. "Before the talk gets any smaller, Daughter and I were just discussing the tragic events of this past evening. I mentioned something I just heard about this morning. Something about bad blood between Les and Floyd over that silly monument out there in the village green. I was annoyed that I had never been told about it and I said so. I wasn't thinking. Why would I be told a thing like that? All I knew was that it was put up two weeks ago and Floyd was surprised to see it there when he got back from Long Island. That's it. Now? They're all telling me that my boy might hang because of it."

"Did you fill up at Homer Dibble's by any chance, Jay?" Huldah asks.

"I did, as a matter of fact. And yes, there was some talk down there about the tragic events. So who's going to fill me in?"

"It's really all very silly, Pop," Lady Claudia says. "There was really nothing to tell you two weeks ago. Floyd and Lester Knapp had been arguing about that monument all autumn long right here in the Tavern at village trustee meetings. Floyd was opposed to it. Les was in favor of it. Fanatically so. While we were gone for the winter he prevailed upon the board to fork over the funds and purchase it from some place in Ithaca and put it up here. Neither Floyd nor I noticed it when we arrived back on that first moonless night. The legend now is that he looked out his window at dawn the next day and said to his wife after a few speechless moments, 'Notice which part of Lady Liberty's anatomy he had them turn towards me!' He did say that, actually. But not to me. To Mr. Sprayberry of the Sprayberry Inn, when he called on him to express his chagrin over the fact that no one on the board had thought it appropriate to call him in Huntington and apprise him of Les's little scheme. It had been a way to close the book on the whole ridiculous episode. Typical Floyd Brightwell. He was frankly if belatedly registering a complaint, just for the record, but he was also showing that he is a good sport about such things and is not one to brood over them. Certainly not one to hold a grudge over them."

"Or kill over them," Pop says. "Absurd. The whole thing is absurd. That people should even be thinking such a thing."

"It's not so absurd," Huldah says softly.

There is silence for a few moments.

"Don't look at me like that, Jay. I could have used that muffin, by the way. No, the thing is that we know Floyd and we know he wouldn't stick a gun in a man's mouth and blow the back of his head off for any reason. But that's not how these things work. 'You did me dirt on that monument deal, you low-down yellow varmint, so... Bang!' Thank you, Claudia."

Lady Claudia had gotten up and taken a plate and put a biscuit from the top of the oven on it and set it down in front of Huldah.

Huldah slathers on marmalade from a little pot on the table. Lady Claudia sits back down in the little chair.

"No. What happens is that men in small towns lock horns year after year over this and that trifle and all sorts of mortal fury builds up until one day, or one snowy night, it all explodes. Maybe over a slightly indelicate remark one of the bucks makes about the other's mate. Whatever. It doesn't take much. With husbands and wives? Forget about it. A cut lip from a chipped coffee cup is more than enough."

"You really like to lay it on thick, Hull, don't you?" Pop asks. "Marmalade and that brutally no-nonsense country mouse routine."

"Huldah is right, Pop," Lady Claudia says. "It won't help Floyd if we develop a spite against the people of Camel Creek, and the NewYork State police, based on what we know about Floyd which they don't have the pleasure of knowing. But here's the problem. Right now we don't know who has said what to whom. I'm assuming that Castle talked to Wilma and to you, Huldah, about odd examinations of areas which had been oddly shoveled. And about Floyd's position right in front of the breezeway door, twelve feet away from Les, when the shot was fired inside Les's mouth. But Castle didn't see Les shoot himself. In the end, Floyd will be clear of all suspicion with the police because of the powder marks on Les's hand and the lack of the same on Floyd's hand. That was the first thing that Sheriff MacEveny looked for after he looked at the body. Floyd isn't in any legal trouble, Pop. A motive for suicide is not lacking. But, yes. When it comes to talk in the village..."

"All everyone knows by now is that Lester Knapp, 35, of Camel Creek is dead," Huldah says. "That he died of a gunshot wound to the head and that Floyd Brightwell, 33, of Camel Creek was right there when he was shot, Castle Bisbee, 29, of Camel Creek having taken both Mr. Knapp and Mr. Brightwell to Mr. Knapp's home at the old Henlick Farm on Brick House Hill Road following an accident in which Mr. Knapp crashed his automobile into Mr. Brightwell's fence, rendering it inoperable. The death is under investigation and no arrests have been made. That's all that the police will have told The Onatonga Star. That's what we'll read tomorrow. Those mysterious tracks in the snow which inconveniently melted before the State boys arrived? They exist only for Lex MacEveny and for us."

"And for one other person, I think," Pop says dryly. "The one who tried to obliterate every trace of them. And we're forgetting something. The fence. We forgot about the fence. Gentlemen farmers can get very fussy and touchy about their elegant white fences that they painted white themselves. All three hundred yards of them."

"No one thinks or is going to think that Floyd Brightwell shot Les Knapp over a fence or a war monument or a rude comment about me," Lady Claudia says. "Not the police, not the district attorney, and not even the ghoulish know-it-alls who don't know anything down at Dibble's Filling Station. "

"What about the vultures down at Estelle's Beauty Parlor?"

"They'll pick at it a little and find that they can't swallow it. They'll move on to something else. Or someone else."

"Has Wilma been instructed not to blab?" Pop asks Huldah sharply. "That's right, dear. I can be brutally frank too."

"Pop..." Lady Claudia breathes.

"It's a fair question," Huldah says. "Yes, Jay. Lex MacEveny did the honors himself. Nothing official to it, of course. He just said that it would be a sad mistake to let certain facts about Les Knapp's death be widely known in this community right now. What the Sheriff didn't say the overbearing mother-in-law said. So much for the Bisbees. How about Anne?"

"Anne, eh? Yeah, she'd be the one. Anne thinks that it's crazy to cover up a nasty little barnyard scandal for one second at the expense of a good man's good name. I agree with her. But Claudia disagrees. So the Onatonga Brightwells will go along with the Camel Creek Brightwells. For now."

"There's no question of Floyd's good name being under assault," Lady Claudia says. "He was a witness to a suicide that the police surely know to be a suicide."

"Surely?" Pop asks. "You wouldn't have said surely if it were so sure."

"That's a point, Claudia," Huldah says.

Lady Claudia sighs.

"Yes, it's a point. And maybe I'm being overconfident about the police's attitude towards Floyd. And too blase about what wagging tongues may be saying about him and that there tussle about that there war monument. It's just that I'm worried about something else where Floyd is concerned... "

"What's that, honey?" Pop asks gently.

"Did you like Lester Knapp, Pop?"

"I did. I thought he was a sharp, funny, honest kid. Hard as nails, though. Kind of nasty, I guess."

"You liked him. Yet that's the eulogy you come up with? Dear me. Huldah?"

"I pass."

"I disliked him intensely. All the yelling and sputtering and cussing were always on his side during those meetings in the Tavern. Floyd would just shake his head as he folded up the chairs afterwards and say, 'That Lester Knapp. I just don't know where he lost his way. I wish I could help him find it again...' Floyd loved him. Les was his boyhood friend. That meant his friend for life. So what we may be forgetting right now is that Floyd is grieving for a friend, not worrying about himself..."

"But probably he's blaming himself," Huldah says.

Lady Claudia looks at her.

"I don't know what to say. Floyd told me everything. He told the police everything. I haven't told you everything, Pop. Nor you, Huldah. I don't know how much Floyd would want me to say. This is all very confusing. Who knows what? Who has the right to know what? I've been thinking about some other suffering souls whom we haven't mentioned yet. Les Knapp's family. I mean, the one down on Henrietta Creek Road. Not the one up on Brick House Hill Road."

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (II)

2008-08-19T00:18:00.007-04:00

A pick-up truck pulls into a long driveway that is covered with a dusting of snow.

Ahead to the right there is a small white house. Directly ahead there are a garage and a hallway with large windows which connects the garage and the house.

"Louise is quite a girl," Floyd observes. "Coming out here in a blizzard and shoveling this whole driveway."

"Odd," Knapp says softly. "Very odd."

Knapp gets out of the truck. He hesitates. He looks about. He stands still. He seems lost in thought. He seems to notice something in front of the garage. He walks over to it. He stands looking at the open space in front of it. He just stands there.

Castle turns to Floyd.

"Floyd?"

"Louise shoveled the lawn, Cass. That's what Les is looking at. She didn't just shovel the driveway. She shoveled the lawn, too. Part of it..."

Knapp walks in front of the garage. He disappears around the bend. He returns in a few moments. He strides back down the driveway. Floyd opens his door and looks out at him. He stops when he reaches the road. He looks to his left out into the night. Floyd gets out. Knapp starts walking back down the driveway.

"Hang tight, buddy," Floyd murmurs to Castle. "Stay on your toes."

Knapp reaches him.

"Thanks for the ride," he calls into the truck. "Thanks for your help too, Floyd."

"Floyd? Who he?"

Knapp smiles.

"Brightwell. You fellows run along now. Don't make your wives worry. You know how wives worry. Take my wife. Just now she said that I should stay the night with you, Brightwell. No sense risking that perilous uphill trek on the snow-covered road."

"That's funny..." Floyd says impulsively.

"What's so funny about it?" Knapp asks sharply.

"Oh, nothing. Just that Claudia said the same thing while you were calling."

Knapp smiles. He looks at the house. None of the windows is lit.

"Doesn't seem to be a soul there," he says. "But I'd wager there is. There was one there just ten minutes ago. At least one."

He starts walking towards the connecting breezeway.

Floyd turns to Castle. He sticks out an index finger in a gesture advocating watchfulness and readiness. He follows Knapp.

Knapp opens the door to the breezeway. He switches on a light.

"I suppose you heard I went Delco too, my friend," he says. "I couldn't have my beautiful dainty bride from Schenectady living in some frontier hovel. And you know that I've always liked to keep up with you as much as I can. Which has never been that much. You really want to see this through, Brightwell? It's not too late for you to ride down the hill with good old Castle."

"Les..."

Knapp shrugs and turns around abruptly. He walks to the side door. He turns the doorknob. The door does not open.

"Now that was silly," he mutters.

He reaches into his pocket. He takes out his keys. He inserts one in the lock. He opens the door a few inches. It would seem to be held in place by a chain inside.

"Even sillier," Knapp says. "So..."

He suddenly throws all his weight against the door. It flies open.

"Les!"

Knapp turns on a light. He is standing in a hallway. He turns around.

"Shhh!" he says. "Louise and the baby must be sleeping!"

Floyd follows his inside.

"Les, whatever it is-"

"When's the last time you were here, Brightwell?"

"You want to reminisce? Let's go back to my place. I have Cuban cigars. I have brandy."

"More of which, I daresay, has found its ways into Huldah's fancier desserts than into the gullet of a certain overgrown Boy Scout I know. No thanks. I've come home for the night. Imagine what my wife would say to my running out again. You know how women are. Oh, that's right. You don't. You married the only woman on earth who never for a second has driven a man to say or think, 'Women!' When are you going to buy that poor girl an oil burner?"

Knapp turns around. He turns a corner. He turns on a light. Floyd follows. They are in the living room. Knapp is staring at a large framed photograph above the fireplace. It is a wedding photograph.

"I tried to smile," Knapp says. "Honest I did. But you know me. I don't smile. I smirk."

"You did all right, Les."

"But look at her... A vision of loveliness. Blonde loveliness. I was like you. I waited a long time for the right girl to come along."

There is silence for a few moments. Now a noisy wind is picking up.

"You know something, old pal?" Knapp asks. "I have a feeling that if I go up there I'm going to find the master bedroom door locked."

"Maybe so. Good reason to come back with us."

"Nah. Too late. Why delay the inevitable?"

"No matter what, you'll feel differently tomorrow. You'll be thinking more clearly."

"I doubt very much that I shall be doing either."

Knapp walks out into the hallway. Floyd follows. But he pauses at the bottom of the staircase. He glances upward. Then he looks at Knapp.

Knapp walks into the breezeway. Floyd follows him through it and into the garage. Knapp turns on a light. In the center there is a turn of the century automobile in pristine condition. There is a workshop to the left. On the wall to the right there is a collection of old-fashioned pistols. There is an empty space.

Knapp stares at it.

"Can you believe her?" he asks, attempting off-handedness but failing to hide the quiver in his voice and the stone in his throat. "But I guess I do love her. Funny. Would you have ever guessed that I could love anyone? I can see her up there right now. Trembling and sobbing in the dark, waiting for me to charge in... And before. I mean, she must have gone into shock. Looking out the window and seeing snow. Snow in the middle of April. She must have been making all sorts of bargains with the Heavenly Father. Sweeping and shoveling like a maniac, as though her life depended on it... Poor little thing. Makes you wonder how it was managed in March, though. Louise is a smart girl."

His knees buckle. His elbows slam down on the top of his work table and hold him up. Floyd hastens over and puts his arms under his armpits. Knapp wrests himself away violently.

"Sorry, old man. But that's never been my cup of tea. I don't even like the way that feels. See, you did all that fraternity and football stuff in college. And if you weren't a foot or two taller than your old man he would still be dandling you upon his knee. "

"I was a soldier. So were you."

"Brothers in arms, eh? Not me. Guys in the bunks above me who were sniffling at night? I used to kick them as hard as I could and roll over. Out in the field I would pray that the snivellers and the Mommy whiners got shot. Someone had to be. Why not them?"

Knapp looks again at the empty space in his pistol collection.

"Schenectady isn't exactly the big city, I reckon. She's pretty much a country girl. She knew where to look and what to do. She took the most recent model, too. Smart girl. But I've heard that your wife is a handy girl with a pistol too. Okay. Time for you to vamoose, Brightwell. You're starting to get on my nerves. You're a swell guy and all that. But what a nag. What a goody-goody. You never change."

Floyd turns around. He walks into the breezeway. He opens the door and walks outside. The wind is howling. He walks over to the driver's side of the pick-up. Castle rolls down the window.

"We should go, Floyd. There's nothing we can do. Not unless we- No. There's nothing we can do."
"I think you should go, Cass. I'm staying. I'll walk home. It's not a big deal. I think there may be something I can do."

"I'm not going."

"Come on now, Cass. Wilma is going to start worrying."

Castle lowers his eyes and ponders.

"Claudia could be worrying too. All right. I'll pull out on to the road and wait for you there. The road is public property. No one has the right to tell me I can't park there."

"Can't argue with facts, folks. Okay, buddy. You wait there. I hope I won't be long."

He turns. He steps forward and raps the hood of the pick-up lightly. Castle starts it up. He starts to back up. Through one of the big windows in the breezeway Floyd sees Lester Knapp sitting down in a chair to the left of the door to the house. Floyd opens the door and walks inside. He is standing about twelve feet away from Knapp. Knapp does not look up.

"You're losing your touch, Brightwell. You used to exercise tighter control over the village idiot."

"It won't work, Knappy."

Knapp looks up. He seems curious.

"You think you'll scare me off with one of your hokey nastier-than-thou routines?" Floyd asks. "I'm here by dint of a personal challenge."

"Challenge?"

"I want to see how much control I can exercise over the village son of a bitch."

Floyd is staring into Knapp's eyes. But every now and then his eyes drop to his left hand, which is hanging over the armrest of the chair. There is not much space between the wall and the chair. Knapp's right hand is in that space and cannot be seen.

Knapp smiles.

"Is that what I am? Yeah, I guess I am. You know, Floyd, I really do feel bad about that monument business. I didn't need to stick it to you like that. I should have had it out with you man to man and face to face. Not done it behind your back like a little sneak. I'm really sorry about that."

"Forget it. Just between us, I've gotten to like it."

"You don't say."

"When Emmet Pfaff's barn burned down."

"Sir?"

"You asked me in after it was all over. We had some lemonade. That you made. That was the only time I was ever in your house. Until tonight."

"You miscalculated, Floyd."

Floyd stares. He gulps.

"Sir?"

"Sure. By about four feet. So get that little idea right out of your head."

Floyd stares at him. A gust of wind whines loudly through a crack in a wall or window or door. Floyd starts. Knapp chuckles.

"Now this is funny," Knapp says. "At a time like this all I can think of is your lovely wife. Ah, hell. Thanks for trying. Good neighbor. Old friend..."

Knapp raises his right arm. He is holding a large, old-fashioned pistol. He sticks the barrel in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

Floyd jumps. For a moment he seems to be running in place.

LADY CLAUDIA: Thou Man of Blood (I)

2008-08-17T15:14:00.009-04:00

Thou Man of Blood

Camel Creek, New York
April 1933

Characters

Lady Claudia
Floyd
Wilbur Knapp
Huldah Bisbee
Pop
Castle Bisbee
Sheriff MacEveny
Lieutenant Ashwood
Cora Knapp
Elmina Parshall
Reverend Baylis
Wilma Bisbee
Donald Robinson
Nancy Robinson
Little Pete
Lester Knapp

*

LADY Claudia has drawn aside the white muslin curtain over the eastern side front window in her bedroom.

She is looking out.

It is night.

She lets the curtain fall back into place. She turns around. She looks at Floyd. He is sitting up in bed.

"Did you see, dear?" she asks.

"I didn't need to see. I started feeling it two hours ago."

"And Old Charlie undoubtedly started sniffing it three days ago and warned you."

"Old Charlie? Try three months ago."

"You country folk. My, my, my."

She smiles. She walks over to the chair that has been drawn up to the side of the bed. She picks up a book from the end table nearby and puts it in her lap.

"But it could be serious?"

"Sure it could be. It could wreak havoc. Let's pray that the Lord of the harvest has mercy. No plagues for Easter."

"No snow for Easter."

"It's not such a very late Easter. We've had snow on Mother's Day."

"Yes, and it's blasted the apple trees. Oh, dear..."

"No sense fretting. Back to Hell. I may be getting up an hour earlier. I need some extra help tonight. We need to up the dosage."

Lady Claudia smiles and frowns and shakes her head.

"Really, darling."

She opens the book. She seems to be searching for the page at which she left off. She seems to find it.

"The place to which we came, in order to descend the bank, was alpine, and such, from what was there besides, that every eye would shun it. As is the ruin, which struck the Adige in its flank, on this side Trent, caused by earthquake or defective prop, for from the summit of the mountain, whence it moved, to the plain, the rock shattered it so, that it might give some passage to one that were above, such of that rocky steep was the descent, and on the top of the broken cleft lay spread the infamy of Crete, which was conceived in the false cow-"

"The false what?"

"The false cow, dear. The reference is to Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, King of Crete. She fell in love with a bull and gave birth to the monstrous Minotaur, half man and half bull, who devoured seven youths and seven maidens annually."

"Well, that's not very nice of the Poet to call a lady a cow. Not very gentlemanly. These medieval eggheads are so uncouth..."

"Her sin was rather uncouth, dear. And the Poet is not playing croquet in Camel Creek village green on a Sunday afternoon in June."

Floyd sticks out his chin stubbornly.

"No excuse. Maybe he could have learned something from us. Okay. Tell me more about this so-called false cow. False cow! That's a hot one!"

"And when he saw us he gnawed himself, like one whom anger inwardly consumes."

She starts.

"Did you hear that?" she asks.

"What? I didn't hear anything."

"I thought I heard... Well, I'd say a car crashing into something. A tree. Or a fence."

She closes the book. She places it on the night stand. She stands.

"I think I'll go down and take a look."

"Good idea," Floyd says.

He starts to pull aside the blankets.

"No. No, dear."

He is already standing next to her. He has on a red flannel night shirt.

"Well, then," she sighs. "Slippers, please..."

He digs them out from under the bed with his foot and slips them on. They head to the door.

"The sound came from the hill road," Lady Claudia says as she opens it.

*

Floyd switches on the light in the kitchen. He opens the side door. The snow is swirling in the darkness beyond. They listen in silence for a few moments.

"Quiet as a grave," Floyd says. "I should go out there and check around."

"Well, no, dear," Lady Claudia says. "Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just a big branch falling on the roof of the barn."

"How big?"

"I don't know. Not that big. Come, dear. Back to bed. Back to the false cow. No. Time for some shut-eye."

Floyd looks at Lady Claudia quizzically.

"You seem nervous, Coffee Queen. You seem frightened... Is there something-?"

Floyd suddenly stops. He scrunches up his face. He puts his finger over his lips.

Someone uses the knocker at the front door. Lady Claudia gasps. The she chuckles.

"There's our accident victim," Floyd says. "That would be a safe bet, at any rate..."

They walk through the dark parlor. They enter the hallway. Floyd switches on the light. He opens the door. A man is standing there with his back to them. After a few moments he turns around.

"Lester," Floyd says. "Lester Knapp."

His inflection and his expression bespeak a guarded affability.

Lester Knapp is about thirty-five. He is dressed in workman's winter clothes. He is good-looking. He has an athletic build. He is smirking.

"I was checking to see if Lady Victory up there is still showing Sprayberry her face and you her... Good evening, Mrs. Brightwell."

"Claudia," Lady Claudia says coolly. "Good evening, Les. Did you have an accident? I thought I heard something just now."

"You heard me crashing my car into your fence down where the hill road bends sharply. I turned too fast and spun out. Sorry. I split three whole crossbeams in two. I guess you wouldn't want to let the cows out tomorrow anyway. Are you at least considering asking me to step in?"

Floyd laughs with an apologetic air and grabs Knapp by the elbow.

"Sure, old buddy. Come in out of the cold."

Knapp steps in. He looks around skeptically.

"Well, let's just say that I'll come in."

He looks at Floyd's night shirt and grins.

"Sorry to disturb your long winter's nap, Brightwell."

"You disturb me? Not a bit of it. Not unless you're going to ask me to write a Requiem Mass in the key of D minor."

"Would you mind if I called my wife?"

Floyd extends his arm in the direction of the parlor.

"Be my guest. How bad is the damage, by the way? I mean to your car. My fence we know about."

"Pretty bad. I'll need a tow to Homer's garage tomorrow morning."

"Well, we'll have a look. Then we'll go wake up Castle and get a ride in his truck."

"I don't need a ride," Knapp snaps.

He overreacted oddly. He immediately realizes it.

"I mean, thanks. But I can walk a mile and a half. Even uphill in the snow at night. No need to wake up poor Castle and Wilma. And no need to get you out of that snazzy red night shirt..."

"Pipe down, Knappy. You're all nerved up. How much do you want to bet that Castle is already out there? Claudia was a hundred yards away and she heard. He was fifty yards away."

Knapp turns to Lady Claudia.

"Does he ever take no for an answer from you?"

Lady Claudia smiles weakly.

"Floyd is just a very good neighbor, Les. And friend."

A rebuke is ever so lightly implied.

"You won't get any argument out of me there, Claudia," Knapp says softly.

Floyd starts snapping his fingers.

"The phone? The call? The wife?"

Knapp smiles. He walks through the parlor and into the kitchen.

Lady Claudia and Floyd look at one another. Suddenly Lady Claudia gasps.

"Wha-? Wha-? What?" Floyd demands, his voice strained anxiously.

He smiles sheepishly.

"Sorry," he says. "Look who's jumpy now. Jumpy as a cat. What's on your mind?"

"We didn't even ask him if he was all right."

"No. We didn't. Well, he seemed all right."

"But we didn't ask. Oh, Floyd. I don't know ... Maybe you should ask him to spend the night here. I could fix up the Mud Room..."

"I can't do that! I'm sure Louise would just love that!"

Floyd looks amused and puzzled and curious all at the same time. But then he looks serious.

And Lady Claudia looks away.

Demise of the Dalylane

2008-08-16T13:03:00.008-04:00

Some readers may recall my denunciations of a sort of two-headed theological monster which I called the Dalylane.

(This term was a take-off on the term which George Bernard Shaw coined to designate the like-minded Catholic apologists and would-be social engineers G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.)

The gentlemen to whom I was referring are an Englishman named John Daly and an Australian named John Lane. They are the founders of the Soft Sedevacantist, or Lefebvrevacantist, School of Sedevacantist Thought.

Daly had been teamed up with a fellow Englishman named Martin Gwynne throughout the 1980s and '90s. I coined the term Dalygwynne to describe their partnership. The Dalygwynne was very different from the Dalylane. As different as night is from day...

For one thing, the Dalygwynne wrote Archbishop Lefebvre off as a dangerous enemy of Catholic Truth and Catholic souls who was a schismatic hypocrite insofar as he accepted the Vatican II false popes as true popes and a schismatic hypocrite insofar as he rejected the papal authority of the Vatican II false popes whom they called true popes. It even went so far as to accuse Lefebvre of being unorthodox in the realm of Christology, suggesting that he was guilty of Nestorian tendencies and formulations.

The Dalylane, on the contrary, practically canonized Lefebvre as an outstanding hero of Faith, a golden boy of Tradition, whose ambivalent attitude towards the Vatican II top dogs could well be part and parcel of the God's truth.

Daly wrote the Soft Sedevacantist manifesto back in the late 90s. Then Lane started up a Lefebvrevacantist chat club in 2006. I was a member of it for about a month, before I realized that there was a Soft Sedevacantist party line one must toe or else.

I got kicked out after I wrote a furious post in which I defended myself from a charge of taking the Lord's name in vain. Lane and his disgustingly invertebrate sycophants had been ganging up on a genuine sedevacantist who was 33 years old, mocking him for daring to have an opinion at all at such a tender age. (Lane was in his early forties at that time.) I pointed out the absurdity of this attitude and asked what would happen in a year when the supposed whippersnapper was "older than God." Lane, who is the world's expert on how other people fail in humility, testily defended his harping on the other fellow's age and added, "Taking the Lord's Name in vain will guarantee that your stay at this forum will be a short one." (Or words to that effect.)

My response was, as already noted, furious. I pleaded not guilty to the charge of sacrilege. I charged him with dishonesty and rash judgment. I decided that it would be a mistake to weaken my rebuke to this cocky whippersnapper (I was 48) with concessions: "Well, granted that the expression I used has a worldly ring to it... Granted that if it were not clear that the writer was only referring to a vital Fact about the Lord Jesus Christ which ought to have been shown greater respect by you and your fellow bullies and mockers..." I wrote that if his thinking had really been, "He hath blasphemed!", he would not have tossed off the charge in the form of a stinging little barb of a parting shot. He would have put God Almighty first. Not his own ego and his idiotic defense of his having dismissed as too young to count a man who was at the age cited by theologians as the age at which a man is at the height of his intellectual powers.

In any case, Lane deleted my posts and his reply after a few hours. And he duly deleted me.

I showed up in his forum again. This was last year. Ever true to his own Softness, Lane was shilling for a book called Tolerance which a famous Belgian theologian by the name of Vermeersch had written early in the reign of Pius X in the spirit of Leo XIII. (Talk about not knowing what manner of spirit you are.) The book is an atrocity of Liberal laxism, the antithesis of the classic Liberalism Is a Sin, whose gospel of intolerance until the likes of Lane appeared on the scene was one of the most sacred of sacred cows amongst Traditionalists. I had been excoriating Vermeersch's book in another forum. The charitable and humble folks at Lane's site made it their business to attack me for having attacked Tolerance. They figured that I was a Home Aloner Type who, lacking the Bread of Angels, lacked Sanctifying Grace and virtue. This kind of vicious presumption seemed to be too much even for Lane. He kindly noted that some people who were so dreadful on line, were regular little lambs off line. (Talk about your back-handed Charity.)

It also must have taken some wind out of Lane's sails that his old pal Daly expressed reservations about Vermeersch's Liberal screed which ran straight along the lines of my attacks. But Daly had been popping in less and less frequently at Lane's site. Was there a rift? Was Daly having second thoughts about the monster, the slithering Soft serpent, which he had created? Of which he was the stronger half?

Lane's theologizing got more and more outrageously and desperately Absurdist throughout 2007 and 2008. He has now deduced that Paul VI was a True Pope at least until he ratified the heresies of Vatican II in December of 1965. Why? No one squawked when he canonized the Ugandan Martyrs in October of 1964. Catholics embraced those canonizations. Therefore they embraced Montini as True Pope.

He also says that it is preferable not to accept the Vatican II top dogs as Vicars of Christ because if you accept them as Vicars of Christ you'll be much more likely to pay attention to what they say than you will if you view them as heretical nobodies.

He closed shop on the Feast of Saint Ignatius.

Fitting.

The Jesuits have always embodied the very devil of Baroque Popery. They were the evil geniuses behind the Catholic Tradition of casting the lowly from the throne on which the Nazarene Rabbi and His mother placed them and raising the ecclesiastical mighty even in the teeth of the Living God. They were the first to revel in perversely pious deceit, in cynical complacency towards hierarchical iniquities masquerading as Love of Holy Mother Church and Heroic Doubt of Self.

"It is better that the faithful be led astray by their priests and bishops than that they should develop uppity Protestant attitudes: of course, God would not allow the Roman Pontiff to let the misleading authorities mislead the faithful too far."

Only a hopeless pietistic prig would object to my linking the Jesuits with the devil.

With the Father of Lies. Including pious lies. Of pious lies most of all.

I'm glad that Lane is gone. I think that he has been a horrible influence on so-called Traditionalists. It became his mission in life to exhume such prissy nonsense from the likes of Saint Robert Bellarmine as I paraphrased above, which is bad enough per se and toxic ungodliness as applied to the plight of the would-be faithful two generations after Lane's Roman Pontiff and most of the world's bishops not only led mankind into apostasy but stamped out the very memory of Jesus Christ and His Holy Way. (A cardinal archbishop can expose children to sodomitically sacrilegious pictures of that mystic Dead Man and Catholics barely blink. They have been trained by the, um, Holy Ghost to fear lack of docility towards Much Needed Change above all else. So much for the Jesuitical Bellarmine and his irresponsible and presumptuous maunderings about what God would and would not allow.)

I think that Lane, even more than his mentor Daly, invented a new way in which to be Untruthful about the Vatican II Armageddon and to propose Untruth as a Catholic Ideal.

Oh! Spiteful! Mean! Uncricket! Such unseemly gloating! Don't taunt a foe as he retreats!

I don't think so. If you don't start out with the esemplastically snippy, bitchy, catty attitude towards one's adversaries that these Traddie pundits and theologiasters have, you don't have to end up showing false humility and false charity when, for example, an organ of Untruth such as Lane's forum falters and fails. Once one of Lane's adversaries cattily and bitchily opined that he could not be a very good father to his nine children, given all the time he devotes to spreading his ideas on line and on the lecture circuit. I, of course, was one of those who protested against this unfair and quite stupid observation. Big deal. Any normal, decent man would feel the same way about hitting below the belt in that way.

I didn't have to take note of the Dalylane's on-line passing at all. But I've spoken against the Dalylane so often and with such mortal hostility that it would be phony of me not to do so for the benefit of my handful of readers who seem to have been edified by my rants in this area. There can be so much vanity and self-love in setting out specifically to take the high road.

One would like to hope that Lane had started to see reason and that his retirement was the result of appropriate misgivings about the course he was following. But Lane walked off with his head held high, assuring his sycophants that the good they did contributing to his forum (polishing his apples, that is) would be known only on Judgment Day. That's what I call tempting Providence. I mean, after all. Coming from a man who has made a theological science out of lying to the Holy Spirit...

But Lane operates in panic and despair in the belly of the Beast. That is his excuse.

What was Bellarmine's?

The faults of the Saints, not the depredations of the devil, are the true Beasts of Apocalypse. Locust, leopard, dragon and all.

LADY CLAUDIA: A Shill For Jehovah (XIV)

2008-08-12T17:27:00.006-04:00

Lady Claudia stops short.

Then she continues walking straight ahead. Andrew is sitting on a bench about fifty feet in the distance. She does not look at the old woman as she approaches her.

"Mrs. Brightwell?" the old woman says in a cultured and deferential tone, and with some sort of Eastern European accent.

Lady Claudia stops. She looks at the woman with a guarded smile.

"Madame?"

"Mrs. Leibowitz," the old woman says with a smile. "I am the mother of Madame Mazurka. I saw you and heard you by our tent before. May I have a word with you?"

Lady Claudia glances at Andrew. He looks at her. Then he looks away.

"How may I help you, Mrs. Leibowitz?" Lady Claudia asks with a somewhat labored air of courtesy.

"The young man will tell you that we had some trouble before of which you were a part."

"I doubt that I can help you, Mrs. Leibowitz. You overheard what I had to say about your daughter's business. Forgive me, but I don't think that we have anything further to discuss. I really do have to attend to an urgent matter..."

"I am the real thing, Mrs. Brightwell. A gypsy. From the dark mountains of Bulgaria. How I got here and became Mrs. Leibowitz of the Bronx... That is a long story. But then there is my daughter. She has lowered herself in recent years. She practices to speak the way I did thirty years ago and even now when I am excited. But she truly does have the gift..."

"Mrs. Leibowitz, I really can't..."

"You believe in the God of Moses. And of the Greek philosophers. You are bound to reason that if He gives the power, it must be good."

"No. That doesn't follow. That power could be no more of a good and a gift than an extra head growing out of the top of one's head. Or an extra set of arms and legs growing out of one's hips."

"Then at least one must understand what one has. One sees things. One knows things. One may say, 'No, it is not right that I see this and know that.' But one still sees. One still knows. That confuses the other people. And one could know something and fail to act on that knowledge and bring destruction to others and heartbreak to oneself."

"More likely, destruction and heartbreak come from some people's thinking that they know things that they only think."

Mrs. Leibowitz gazes at Lady Claudia and shakes her head sadly.

"Do you really think that this will be the last word on this subject in your lifetime, Mrs. Brightwell?"

"Thou shalt have no strange gods before me. That is the last word on the subject for me, Mrs. Leibowitz. The amplifications of Fathers and Doctors and Pontiffs being understood as implicit."

"May you have joy and comfort in the strait path you have chosen, my dear. Forgive my impertinence."

"I must run along, Mrs. Leibowitz. Now you really must forgive me, but I hope that Madame Mazurka finds a new line of work. Dramatic readings from the ancient classics, perhaps."

Mrs. Leibowitz smiles.

"Yes. Perhaps she could begin with the Biblical story of Balaam. Prophet neither true nor false, and his highly ambiguous dealings with the Lord God of Israel. Have you read that one lately? There's a talking ass somewhere in there too. Good evening, Lady Claudia. Think well of us. Pray for us."

She wraps her black shawl tightly around her and walks off into the deep blue dusk.

*

Andrew sticks his chin out in the direction of the lane on which Madame Mazurka's tent stands the moment Lady Claudia comes within speaking distance.

"I hope that you went easy on the old girl," he says. "Though obviously you suffered her to live. I suppose that's going all too easy from the Rock of Ages point of view."

"I take it that you've been waiting for me? Thank you, dear. I do want to hurry back to Camel Creek."

"Of course. That's quite a kettle of fish you've got bubbling away."

She looks at him.

"I've heard," he says. "A couple of your Camel Creek neighbors were so kind as to fill me in. Mrs. Seebolt had a few words to say in passing too. You haven't thought this through, Claudia. The mother and daughter may be bad enough. But the other poor unfortunate? Did it occur to you that some people might call it kidnapping?"

"It did for a moment, actually. But my conduct does not have to be discreet. Only good."

Andrew smirks. But he cannot quite hide an honest smile.

"I'm not saying that I see you strapped to the electric chair in my crystal ball. I see just the prune face of some very Yankee judge who doesn't care for rich British ladies who take their Lady Bountiful routines to buttinski extremes."

"I doubt that anyone would take much interest in my new friends. Speaking of whom..."

Andrew stands up.

"To Camel Creek, then..." he says.

They walk into the parking field. Many others are leaving. More than a few are arriving.

"These new folks must be city folk," Andrew says. "From Onatonga. Maybe even Kingston and Schenectady. And Albany itself. It's all so sinister. Chasing down vaguely demonic thrills and chills on a Sunday night. And poor old Floyd made it all possible."

They walk in silence for a few moments. They reach Andrew's big, black, expensive car.

"Dear," Lady Claudia says. "I'm rather sleepy. It's been a rough evening. I think I may need to catch forty winks from here to home. Unless you're sleepy too and need me to keep you on your toes. I could tell you all about the dead baby they fished out of Henrietta Creek in April. In West Bisbee. Premature by about two months, Dr. Sutch said. Or maybe just tiny at a full nine months. He couldn't tell how long the poor thing had been in the drink. No one recalled any Camel Creek girls who suddenly got fat and even more suddenly got thin. So Mamma must have been far upstream in the next township over. At least that's what Camel Creekers said in Singenstraw's General Store. Ah, the poor little fellow... How do you imagine things like that ever happen, Andrew?"

"Not enough drug stores? Not enough drug stores that are properly stocked for the Twentieth Century and enlightened modern people?"

Lady Claudia opens the car door.

"I am so very tired."

Andrew opens his door but stands outside looking at Lady Claudia.

"I too. Too tired for a drive back to Cambridge tonight. But maybe tomorrow morning, at the crack of dawn."

"We shouldn't be hasty. I'll be away all day and evening tomorrow. I'm sorry to be a bad hostess, but it's an emergency. You'll have the house and the fields and the woods all to yourself."

"The beauty of God's creation. So good for the soul, that. Get in. Have your little snooze. Let's get home before zee phantoms of zee night start creeping up from zee rocky creek and down from zee vooded hills."

"You know something, Andrew? It doesn't kill me not to get in the last word with you. It doesn't even bother me anymore. Maybe there's some vanity there. Maybe there's some sloth. Even some despair. I'll have to ponder that. I'll have to sleep on it. And heaven help you if I see that I'm at fault and I mend my ways..."

Andrew looks down. He looks abashed. He looks hurt.

They both get in the car. Andrew starts it up and inches his way down the dark field.

-THE END-

LADY CLAUDIA: A Shill For Jehovah (XIII)

2008-08-09T19:53:00.005-04:00

Lady Claudia is walking down the fairway, headed in the direction of the lane that the Ladies' Pavilion and the Music Pavilion are on.

She glances behind her. Myrtle is following her from afar. Lady Claudia turns around. She frowns.

She walks a few paces. Suddenly she turns on to the food lane. She hastens down to a kiosk next to the Methodist Chow House. She hands the proprietor something she has taken from a pocket on the inside of her jacket. He hands her two white paper dishes shaped like boats. She strides back to the fairway and straight up to Myrtle. She hands the startled young woman one of the little boats, which contains a big orangey lump with a wooden spoon sticking out of it.

"I hope that you like peach," Lady Claudia says, in a brisk, clipped tone. "Mr. Haynes makes it all himself the old-fashioned way. Rock salt and a bucket with a crank. You never know what he'll have from hour to hour. Once he had pumpkin walnut. That was quite delicious. Better than anything I ever had in the finest New York restaurants. Or on a luxury ocean liner."

Myrtle gazes at her with a steady intensity that might seem hostile were not her sadness and distress so palpable.

"I know all about Richie Haynes and his ice cream, Mrs. Brightwell."

"Of course you do, dear. Then you know how good it is. Take a spoonful."

Myrtle stares at her.

"Did you hear me, dear? I told you to take a spoonful. Do as I say this instant."

Myrtle's gaze becomes harder before it falters and she hangs her head. She digs out a dab of ice cream and lifts it half-way to her mouth. She drops the spoon back into the boat. She starts to weep.

"I don't know what I've done, Mrs. Brightwell," she whispers. "I don't know what I've done and I don't know what to do."

Lady Claudia looks about. No one is near.

"Walk next to me," she says softly. "Stop crying."

Lady Claudia walks. She smiles and nods at someone passing.

"As to what you did, dear," she says gaily. "You let yourself be picked up by a young man at a carnival. One who drove his own car to the carnival for no good reason. You displayed yourself to the worldly-wise of the world as a pick-up. And finally, you went with him to a place to which good small town Methodist girls do not go. This is Bisbee Township, dear. Even so, only the most incorrigibly gossipy old spinsters would have found fault if you had been sashaying about before with a boy from Bisbee Center and stopped only to shoot the little ducks. I doubt that you can understand why your companion's being a visiting Harvard man and a British aristocrat and even his wearing that dreadful white linen suit makes all the difference. Your looking as shifty-eyed as the Artful Dodger didn't help matters either. I am here to tell you that under no circumstances should a young lady walk about at a place like this with strange young men, as you did before, or unescorted, as you were just now. Have a spoonful, dear. You must."

Myrtle obeys.

"That's my girl. Good, isn't it? As to not knowing what to do, never mind that. I know what to do."

They are now in front of the Ladies' Pavilion. The lights are on. Only Miss Millie's booth is still occupied. By Miss Millie , Mrs. Kenyon, and Miss Henlick.

Myrtle stares at Lady Claudia.

"One never wants to think in terms of putting things over on people," Lady Claudia says. "One never wants to think oneself clever and count on being false in any way. That sort of thing always backfires in the long run. But every now and then one can want to achieve something good, and one may engage in a certain amount of honest artifice in order to achieve it. One may resort to creating an effect."

"Even with peach ice cream."

"Even with peach ice cream."

"Pumpkin walnut I would have spat out. Though the heavens fell and Trudie Henlick got my number and set it in stone all along the Bisbee Township Turnpike like mile markers."

"Then we were lucky this evening, weren't we? Follow me. It's not her Ladyship speaking older sisterly words to the wise to her randy little brother's would-be paramour before she gets a crack at him. It's Floyd Brightwell's wife socializing with a member of the Township's finest choir whom she knows from Memorial Day in Camel Creek. Who joined them at the dinner table in the Presbyterian Pancake House this very evening. Smile, dear."

Lady Claudia enters the Pavilion. Myrtle follows.

"If I were to smile, the jig would really be up," Myrtle says dryly.

"Heavens! Just like Mamma... "

*

"Well, I would like to stay longer, ladies," Lady Claudia says as she drops her boat into a waste paper basket. "But I really must run. My dear little brother is waiting patiently for me somewhere."

"Yes," Miss Henlick says with stony cordiality. "We heard that Floyd had to leave under the press of urgent circumstances."

"Yes," Lady Claudia says with cool affability.

Myrtle had been standing next to the nude dummy. She advances on Lady Claudia. She slips her arm under hers.

"I really have to run too," she says. "My ride must be ready to leave. Good night, ladies."

"Myrtle," Miss Henlick says.

"See you soon, honey," Miss Millie says.

Mrs. Kenyon smiles and nods.

"It was so nice meeting you, Mrs. Kenyon," Lady Claudia says. "So nice to see you again, Miss Henlick. Miss Millie."

Miss Millie holds up a brown shopping bag.

"And nice doing business with me, Mrs. Brightwell?" she asks with a broad smile that still comes off as sly.

"Very nice," Lady Claudia chuckles.

She grabs the bag.

"No need for embarrassment among friends," she says. "Anne and I had our little joke. But Cousin Bess will really love this outfit."

"For church?" Miss Millie asks mischievously.

"Maybe not for church. For the Bisbee family reunion, I should think."

Chuckles, smiles, little waves. Lady Claudia and Myrtle walk back down the center aisle.

They walk out on to the lane and turn left.

"Have you a ride, Myrtle?"

"Of course. Someone from Brightwell Spa is bound to be leaving just about now."

"If you're sure, dear."

"A subtle invitation to some sort of friendly acquaintanceship is nice. But it doesn't mean much unless there's a straightforward invitation to tea."

They walk a few paces in silence.

"One doesn't have to be Madame Mazurka," Myrtle says. "Bisbee Township has been hell for me to grow up in. I think there's been a purgatorial aspect to your stint here. Even in spite of such major compensation as being married to Floyd Brightwell."

"You're quite a girl, Myrtle."

"You are too, Mrs. Brightwell."

"I'm no longer a girl, dear."

"In that dress, and more particularly in that hat, you sure look like one."

"Hmm. Next Sunday at four, then?"

"That would be lovely."

"You may call me Claudia."

"Of course, it probably wouldn't mean much if there were not some common belief about the Father of Lights and our final rendevouz with Him Who sitteth upon the Great White Throne. But finding someone in Bisbee Township to have tea with and chats with who knows what an oxymoron is... Someone besides Trudie Henlick... Well, that has its charms too. Oh, there are the Dormanns. I'd better run to catch up. I'm sorry about things before, Claudia. And I'm eternally grateful for just now. And your brother did two things that show he's a good boy at heart. Give the poor kid a break. And I hope that all goes well for you and yours tonight and tomorrow..."

Myrtle runs ahead.

Lady Claudia walks for a few moments. She turns to her left on to the lane that faces the parking field. A big group of people who are leaving walk off into the field. Suddenly there is no one up ahead but an old woman dressed all in black from toe to collar. She is standing still in the middle of the lane. She is staring at Lady Claudia...

LADY CLAUDIA: A Shill For Jehovah (XI)

2008-08-06T22:19:00.007-04:00

A crowd of about thirty people is gathered in the lane in front of the House of Curiosities.

Lady Claudia immediately puts on the air of a great lady who graciously recognizes the presence of the common folk but certainly cannot be expected to be bothered with them further.

She turns right on the lane.

She smiles airily and avoid all eyes... This is easy to do because most of the onlookers are trying to pretend that they just happen to be taking the evening air on this spot.

One face in the crowd seems to put her off balance. The stern face of Lottie Lorsch. Lottie nods at her. She pauses and sighs and nods back. She walks on. She reaches the intersection with the fairway.

Anne is sitting between her boys at the bench nearest the lane. The boys are crying. Lady Claudia sits on the next bench.

"My goodness!" she says. "What is it, boys?"

"Don't mind them," Anne says. "I told them that Mamma might be away somewhere for a year or two breaking big rocks into little rocks with two machine guns pointed at her ..."

Lady Claudia immediately stands up. She walks over and puts her hand on Timmy's head.

"Mom's only fooling," she says. "She's just joking with you. Now why don't we switch places? I'll sit with Mom and you sit over there. It will be for only a little while."

Timmy looks at Anne.

"Do as your Aunt Claudia says. Think of a treat you'd like. We'll get it on our way out."

"Ooh boy!" John crows as he scrambles off the bench.

Anne shifts over. Lady Claudia sits next to her.

"Chain gangs?" Lady Claudia gently scolds. "Machine guns? Really, Anne."

"You didn't hear what Deputy Frazier said after you went out back. He said that he was absolutely serious about my keeping fifty feet away from Bartell and his place of business."

"But, still. I think he had a fine in mind. On the other hand..."

"Well?"

"You're lucky that Bartell didn't press charges. That was criminal assault, dear. Both times."

"Should I hang my head in shame? Turn in my library card?"

"No. But you should understand what it was you did and never do it again."

"Well, at the end of the day it was you who actually did something. Floyd and you. And that kid. That I still don't get. Why that kid? Why young Mr. Axel?"

"Just an instinct I have about the situation. I want another man in there with Floyd and the girls and Senora Gomez. One who's smart, sensitive, and strong. As you can imagine, the departure did not take place altogether smoothly. The girls really do see Bartell as a father."

"Don't get me going, Claw. So let me see if I have this straight. I was busy being upbraided as a menace to society and missed some things. Sutch is putting them up tonight?"

"Yes. He's got a room next to his office with not one but two hospital beds. But you know what we say in Camel Creek. Provided that not too many people fall ill at once, having Dr. Sutch's office is as good as having a hospital."

"Better. Better than Woolf in Onatonga, anyway. And then to New York tomorrow to start seeing specialists?"

"Yes."

"That kid you barely know is going all the way to New York with Floyd? Floyd and the ladies?"

"Axel. Yes. Monday is his day off."

"And you?"

"Oh, of course I intend to get down there. I'll probably ask Walt to drive me to Rhinecliff and I'll take the train."

"Bizarre. Not Andrew, of course. Not your brother."

She speaks the last two sentences with an air of scornful disapproval.

Lady Claudia looks away pointedly.

"Sorry," Anne says. "I know you don't like anyone to talk about him. I mean, about the way he... is. Well, you really ought to learn how to drive and have your own wheels. A great lady such as yourself waiting on the platform in Rhinecliff next to the bug-eyed Irving Doppeldorff, traveling salesman. Claudia, what if I left the boys with Huldah?"

"Oh, no. You musn't do that, dear. No. The train will be fine."

"Well, I'm glad that you'll be there. The girls responded best to you. And Floyd's Spanish isn't as good as yours. That's why you really ought to skidaddle back to Camel Creek and help them get settled in. How do you plan on getting back?"

"Andrew, I daresay."

"I think that Andrew has other driving plans for this evening."

"Andrew," Lady Claudia repeats firmly.

"If you say so. What's the prognosis? Sutch must have told you. With bluntness approaching effrontery if I know Hector Sutch."

"The first girl we saw-"

"Or the first girls we saw..."

"She -they- will not be with us much longer."

"Ah. I knew that there was nothing to be done. I didn't think that the poor little thing was a goner... And the other?"

"Dr. Sutch believes that amputations are possible."

"All four? It would really have to be all four for her to have any kind of normal life."

"He thinks all four. Of course, he's not a specialist..."

"But he's Harvard and he's a genius. Whatever can be done for both will be done. Let's leave it at that. We'll sleep better tonight."

"Maybe that's a good idea."

"Yes. Well... Come on, boys..."

Anne stands up. She immediately falls on her knees. Lady Claudia jumps up. She grabs her shoulders.

"Oh, Anne. Dear. Are you all right?"

A man and a woman approach.

"Mrs. Seebolt?" the man asks with a shy but concerned manner. "Can I help?"

"No! Thanks! No thank you, Mr. Pratt. It's so kind of you to ask. But really. I'm fine."

Mr. Pratt, who looks to be in his late thirties, looks quizzically at Lady Claudia.

"Oh, I know what you two are thinking," Anne drawls. "But she's still down on her knees..."

"The thought crossed my mind, dear," Lady Claudia says.

The boys start crying.

"Mommy!" John wails.

Lady Claudia glances at the astonished Mr. Pratt. She frowns and shakes her head for just a moment. It is a message. He gets it. He tips his straw hat and walks back to the woman. She shoots a puzzled and vaguely disapproving look at Anne. They walk away. Other passersby stop and stare.

Anne suddenly jumps to her feet.

"Ta-da!" she exclaims. "Calm down, you two. Your nutty Mamma was going to say her prayers. The forty-third psalm. No. The hundred and fifty-first. No. I was going to shift to one knee and start singing Swanee River."

Lady Claudia smiles. But she does not look amused.

"I don't know about psalms anymore," Anne muses. "God forgive me, but it's hard for me to believe in God right now."

"Sit down, Anne. You're still woozy."

"I'm still what? You do say the dearest things, my dear."

Her knees start to buckle. Lady Claudia grabs her arm.

"You're still woozy, dear. Woozy. Faint and weak and in immediate need of a seat."

She guides her back down on to the bench.

"That's it," Lady Claudia coos. "That's my girl. You've just had a bad shock and then a very disturbing scene... Naturally you need time to pull yourself together."

Anne pitches forward and puts her elbows on her knees and her forehead in her hands.

Lady Claudia scoops up John. She sits down with him in her lap. She motions to Timmy. He gets up and takes a seat next to her. She rubs the back of his head.

Anne suddenly sits up straight.

"Oh! How ridiculous! Here I am, the notorious Pocketbook Wielding Annie, and I'm the one who makes like the dainty damsel... I guess I really am shaken up by all this, Claw. I don't know. And then with Harry always being away lately..."

Lady Claudia looks down at Timmy.

"How would you like to come back to Camel Creek tonight, dear?"

Anne looks at her.

"Actually, that sounds nice just about now. What about Andrew?"

"Oh, he has his own suite downstairs. You all could use the upstairs. The West Room, the Doll Room, the Window Room... It's summertime, so every room is open to friends and kin and weary travelers..."

"Weary travelers. I reckon I am weary. As if I have the right to be weary. It's you who should be weary. But you never are. You never get tired of it all. Of understanding and forgiving and giving and not getting. Of the world and of the damned sorry lot of us. Claudia-"

"You wouldn't want to backtrack to your place. So you could just borrow one of my nighties."

"A pair of Floyd's pajamas, more like. Claudia-"

"Will it do any good for me to press on gaily in the opposite direction?"

"No."

"Then it seems that I must take the bull by the horns. We're not doing it, Anne. Not tonight, at least."

A pause.

"We're not?"

"No. Call it my prerogative. I choose to put a sweet and lightsome construction on something that happened earlier this evening. Why? Because I can honestly do so. Just this one time, of course. This one time I can honestly do so. I'm not above being taught certain lessons, Anne. There was a great saint who used to force some of his disciples who were too gloomy and pompous to show up at weddings and sing dirges for the dead."

"That sounds damned stupid to me. Selfish and cruel too."

Lady Claudia cocks her head and considers.

"Maybe there's some merely human perversity there somewhere. Be that as it may, I'm not adverse to having it pointed out to me that I have a certain effect on certain folks of which, perhaps, I should be more aware. I was trained to behave like the queen of the world by a duke's daughter. I was an actress once upon a time but not so long ago. I do count on my effect. But there's another aspect to what happened. Maybe the most important one of all."

A pause.

"Do tell, your majesty."

"It was so funny."

Anne looks surprised. Then touched. Then bemused.

"It was at that."

"Don't you see? It would only hurt me to think of a loved one's trying to hurt me. So if there were any unworthy motives or unkind impulses, they must now be forgotten. I was given food for thought and now, upon reflection, I've gotten a good laugh. And there's an end to it."

Anne stares at her.

"Do I have a piece of elephant ear stuck in my teeth?" Lady Claudia asks.

"No, dear," Anne says dryly, maintaining her stony gaze. "I was just thinking. You cast me in the role of the saint just now. Utter rubbish, of course. But you... Well, you could never be perverse. But you can be ruthless in a way..."

She jumps to her feet.

"Third time's the charm!" she crows.

John has fallen asleep. She takes him from Lady Claudia and holds him. Timmy stands up.

"Could you hand me my weapon?" Anne asks.

Lady Claudia picks her pocketbook up from the bench and puts it in her hand.

"Thanks, Claw," Anne says. "Thanks for the invitation. But not tonight. These two have seen enough of their Mamma being silly for one night. We'll sleep at our own farm in our own beds. And maybe Papa will be back for lunch. Call me tomorrow night and tell me everything."

"Of course, dear."

"And thanks for taking my crimes down a degree or two. You were really cramping my style there, you know."

"Glad to be of service anytime."

"Maybe in the winter. That's when it would be glorious. I put my boys to bed, you read to him from Ethan Frome and put your boy to bed, and then you and I put on our frumpiest red flannel nightgowns and race through the frozen rooms in our bare feet, giggling, and into the pleasantly spotty warmth of the kitchen. We raid Huldah's pantry and go on an all-night baking jag. What fun. See, I didn't have a sister growing up either..."

"But you went to school and had chums. I never even had that. I had a sister later, though. My poor little Ellen. My, that does sound like fun. Giggling and baking on a frosty midnight. Apple pandowdy. Sweet potato croquettes. If what I've heard is correct, between the two of us we could fill two tents for Mr. Bartell."

"Take a look at her, Tim. You think it's Uncle Floyd. This is the comic genius in the family. Ooh, you're awful, Claw. Just awful!"

"That's what they tell me."

"Still counting on little brother?"

"Yes."

"Well, I know that a hundred fellow Camel Creekers won't let you walk home. But you really ought to get back to Dr. Sutch's. Say goodbye to Aunt Claudia, Tim."

Timothy looks at her gravely and then moves to the other side of his mother.

Anne frowns and shrugs.

"Mom..." Tim says with a certain wheedling inflection.

"I don't believe it," Anne says. "I'm going to snap one day. And you'd better pray that your good Auntie Claudia is around..."

"Well, you said that we could have a treat. And a treat can be doing something. Not just eating something."

Anne bends over suddenly. She kisses Lady Claudia on the forehead.

"Good night, my dear, dear sister," Anne says. "Don't forget to go back for your new dress. And hat."

She turns and walks in the direction of the food lane, Tim following and glancing back once, and then once more...

Lady Claudia gazes at them until they are gone.