Sir. Mildred Cram

I confess I didn’t.”

      “Then don’t. I came up here to get some peace.”

      “Peace,” the doctor said, “isn’t likely. Not for you. A man who deliberately chooses to live the life of a public servant is grist for the mob’s mill. You should have known this when you entered politics.”

      The doctor’s voice suggested that he was smiling a reluctant Down-East smile.

      “I’ve known you since the day you were born, Edward. I slapped your bottom and swung you by your heels and started you on your way. At times I wish I hadn’t. At other times I’m glad I did. Once in a while you show signs of being the sort of timber we need.”

      “Thanks,” Edward said. He was about to add that he no longer cared what timber was used or what was built . . . if anything! The habit of reticence persisted, however, and he said instead: “Let’s keep the police out of this, shall we?”

      “Very well. If I can . . .”

      The doctor broke off. And then, embarrassed by his own profound sympathy, he said awkwardly how sorry he had been to hear of Edward’s loss. “Call me if I can be of help. Are you alone out there?”

      “Quite alone.”

      “You were right to come to Easterly. The gale is strong, but here your roots go deep. Let’s hope they’ll serve to hold you steady.”

      “Your roots go deep.” Edward thought that this might be true, although he had pulled his own roots free of Easterly easily enough when he was ready to explore the rest of the world. He thought now of the innumerable rooms along the wings, all of them kept as clean and polished as they were when the family lived here, and filled with inherited treasures . . . nothing ever to be discarded, sold, given away. To walk from room to room was like visiting a museum stocked with family treasures: relics of the early settlement, the Revolution, the Civil War and on through the Victorian to the hideous splendor of the Nineties. A Tiffany glass chandelier swung above a Chippendale dining-room table and a silver service said to have been designed by Paul Revere shared the sideboard with an array of L’Art Nouveau platters and candlesticks. Someone . . . Edward’s grandmother, perhaps . . . had had a passion for pincushions and these were still displayed in her bedroom, bristling like velvet and satin porcupines. Some member of the family had lived for a long time in Italy and had brought back a fine Venetian screen, pale silver-gold and green, and a set of Florentine chairs upholstered in worn ruby velvet. Books and paintings were everywhere. Bronzes and altar-lamps. Oriental rugs and brass fire screens and two magnificent Steinways standing back to back in the music room . . .

      All of these things reflected a way of life, now as obsolete as the vast pantries where sets of Sevres and Haviland were stored behind glass, and crystal glittered obscurely on shelves that reached to the ceiling. Edward could remember the kitchen when two cooks ruled there . . . absolute sovereigns of their own territory. He could remember dinner-parties given by his grandmother, and served with a ritualistic formality that would seem wasted nowadays . . . so much effort to create a mood as impermanent as smoke! Where were the lace covers and doilies and gigantic embroidered napkins now? Stored away in drawers, turning faintly yellow with lack of use . . . And upstairs there were closets and cupboards filled with linen sheets, blankets, cases, stack upon stack, all neatly folded and tied with satin ribbons, never to know sunlight or fresh air again . . .

      Edward had inherited all of these things; they belonged to him and not to Eithne, who had exchanged her interest in the estate for the greater security of a trust. Tax-wise, Easterly had eaten into Edward’s fortune, but for some reason . . . sentimental perhaps . . . he hadn’t sold it. He wondered, now, whether he ever would, or whether he’d settle down here “in the tradition.” The phrase made him smile in the dark. As a tradition, Easterly belonged to a past already remote. It projected a musty image in spite of its order and shine and elegance. A contemporary tradition was in the making. What would Easterly appear to be to those destined to look back at it fifty years from now? It had seemed beautiful to those who built and furnished it, and they themselves had seemed impressive, important, enviable. Would today’s cubes of steel and glass come to mean “home” to the next generation? Or would they be bulldozed out of existence before they had had time to take on the patina of this century? Edward had gone along with the modern; he was not a carper given to indiscriminate criticism of anything new. Things happening today had always stimulated him because they were unfamiliar. Why, then, had he returned to Easterly? It must have been his conviction that he could no longer cope with the pressures of his position. Too many problems. Too much responsibility. Too much expected of him. The duties and obligations had accumulated over the years until he was enmeshed in them like that trapped lion of the fables. And where was the mouse to gnaw him free? It could be Easterly, retirement, a deliberate indifference to what elder statesmen speak of as the call to duty. It could be that he must turn away from the things to be dealt with: a decline of standards, a loss of direction . . . the machine . . . war . . . the surge of violence, drink, drugs, sex . . . the mounting human tide . . . restlessness, rebellion and racial hatreds . . . He turned on his side and pounded the pillows making a hollow for his head. But he could find no comfortable spot; it was coming again, the memory he must erase from consciousness . . . it began as a physical tension in his arms, then caught at the back of his neck. He felt a throbbing weight behind his eyes. He sat up kicking off the coverlets and, clasping his knees with both arms, put his head down on them. He mustn’t remember! He mustn’t remember!

      But then he seemed to be standing beside the plane on the airfield at Charleston, and, once surrendered to the vision, had to go on with it.

      He had flown down from Washington in his twin-engined Cessna to pick up Valerie and the boys. They had been spending a fortnight with Valerie’s grandmother in her house on Legare Street, and were being driven out to the field to meet him. He saw the car, coming very fast, and with the usual leap of his heart waved a greeting. Valerie got out and ran toward him, the boys at her side. She was dressed in white, her shining hair loose. She motioned to the driver to wait, and when Edward leaned down to kiss her, pushed him away with a strong thrust of both hands.

      “We mustn’t fly,” she said, her breath coming in short gasps. “Haven’t you heard? Everyone’s been warned to stay indoors . . .”

      “I know,” Edward said quietly.

      “Listen to me!” she cried. “This is a hurricane! Or didn’t you know?”

      “I’ll fly ahead of it,” Edward interrupted. “Get in. All three of you! And hurry.”

      Valerie shook her head. She gave Edward a strange look, almost as if she hated him. He had seen that look only once before, when he lifted her veil at the altar the day of their marriage. Something in her eyes that seemed to say: “You won’t control me, now or ever. I belong to myself and always will.”

      “I’ll go with you,” she said. “The boys, no! They stay here with their grandmother.”

      “Where’s your luggage?”

      “I left it at the house.”

      She turned and gathered the boys close, her arms around them. The sky had darkened. Small spirals of wind put down, twisted, raced across the field. Two men tumbled out of a transport plane and ran toward the hangar. No one else was in sight.

      “Please trust me, Valerie,” Edward said. “It’s a lot safer to fly. Your grandmother’s house is more likely to fall apart than this plane.” He put his hand on the Cessna’s flank, as a rider might touch his mount; he felt the powerful vibrations of the metal along his arm and knew the confidence of a flier who had never cracked up . . . not in fifty wartime missions, nor since.

      He turned abruptly and signaled to the driver of the waiting car: “Go on back!” The car turned, the tires squeaking. It sped away toward the city.

      Valerie let her arms fall from her sons’ shoulders. She watched them scramble into the plane, as perhaps the mothers of the Innocents surrendered their young to the slicing swords of the assassins. Edward slapped their hard little behinds to