"Grandmother," said Madeleine. "I hope he meets with your approval. He"s everything I need, don"t you think?"
Grandmother said nothing, but her eyes continued to drill into Quentin"s soul, or so it seemed. He wanted to beg her pardon. He wanted to leave the room.
"With him beside me, I can open the box, don"t you think?"
Grandmother"s eyes slowly closed.
"Grandmother is annoyed with me," said Madeleine.
"Box?" asked Quentin.
"My inheritance. My grandfather left it for me. But by the terms of his will, I was forbidden to open it until my husband stood beside me."
The words cut him to the heart. She had never spoken of this before, never a hint that she stood to gain financially as soon as she brought a husband home.
"Oh, relax, Tin," she said. "I don"t actually care about the inheritance. Not like I did when I was a girl. It bothered me then then, of course, to see that box every day and know I couldn"t open it. I grew out of that. I would have been happy never to come back here, never to open it. But since I am am here, and here, and do do have a husband...." have a husband...."
"I knew you weren"t marrying me for my money," said Quentin. "It never occurred to me you might be marrying me for yours yours."
He said it with a smile and a laugh. But it was only barely a jest.
"It isn"t money, I"m quite sure of that. Or if it is," said Madeleine, "it isn"t much because the box isn"t all that large." She laughed and patted his hand. "Quentin, you"re taking all this too seriously. I called it my treasure box when I was little. I even made maps of the house to where it was buried, though of course it isn"t buried at all, it just sits there in the open."
"That seems a cruel temptation to a child. You might just have opened it."
"If I open it prematurely, I can"t keep what"s inside," said Madeleine. "I think Grandmother always hoped I would would open it, and lose it. That dear old temptress." Madeleine"s laugh was light and not unkind-sounding. Yet it open it, and lose it. That dear old temptress." Madeleine"s laugh was light and not unkind-sounding. Yet it was was unkind, Quentin thought. She can be unkind without even noticing it. Do I know my wife at all? unkind, Quentin thought. She can be unkind without even noticing it. Do I know my wife at all?
Madeleine leaned over and rested her head on his arm. "Quentin, I don"t like who I become when I"m here. And you don"t like me either. You would never have loved me if you had met me here. But when I go back outside with you, I"ll be myself again, you"ll see. My true self, my best self. Not this awful... whatever you think I am."
"I think you"re my dear wife," said Quentin. "But going outside sounds like a good idea. You were going to show me the river."
"You had enough breakfast?"
"Full as a tick," said Quentin.
"Grandmother, do excuse us to take a walk along the bluff."
Grandmother"s eyes followed Quentin as he rose to his feet and pulled back Madeleine"s chair so she could also rise. But she said nothing.
Simon"s voice piped up loudly. "Everyone here who is actually real, please raise your hand!"
Madeleine murmured to Quentin, "When they get to a certain age, I think they should be locked up somewhere."
Quentin laughed and shook his head. "Why, when he"s already locked up in a dream?"
"Oh, you put that so beautifully." She squeezed his arm. "I love love you." you."
The library had only the windows to link it with the outdoors. They had to cross the entry hall and go into the official dining room in order to reach a door leading out onto the back portico. It was a broad expanse of flagstones with five wide steps leading down to the snow-covered lawn. The lawn itself, interrupted only by an occasional tree that was invariably surrounded by a circular bench, flowed on to the bluff overlooking the river. The river itself was, of course, below the level of the bluff, but in the clear, weary light of a winter afternoon, they could see the dark shadows of trees against stark and shining snow on the bluffs on the opposite side of the river. Miles and miles away, it seemed, though it could hardly be that far.
"It"s a little bleak," he said.
"Imagine it with leaves," said Madeleine. "Imagine it filled with life. Imagine it when the country was still young and you might hear the tootle of a steamboat on the river below, and the sound of children laughing as they ran along the bluff."
As she spoke, the pictures she conjured in his mind delighted him, and he smiled. "All right," he said. "I"m willing to admit that winter has its own beauty, too."
"This house wasn"t always filled with strange old people, you know," said Madeleine. "It was once alive and bright."
"When you were a little girl here?"
"I was a solitary child when I lived here," said Madeleine. "And Paul-he was no company for me."
Quentin wondered again whether Paul might have molested her, or tried to.
"But Mother told me what it was like when she was young. She and Paul were little here, and even though that was well after the age of the steamboats, of course, they knew the stories-Aunt Athena told them-and they"d play steamboat captain down by the river or up in their attic playroom."
"The idylls of childhood."
"Whatever that means. Exactly."
"But Aunt Athena can"t be old enough to remember steamboats, either."
"Oh, of course not. Just a conduit for old stories. Family memories. She has to use her head for something something. Keeping the old tales alive isn"t a bad occupation for it."
"Mad, you"re so nasty nasty about them." about them."
"I"m sorry," she said. "I"m always so frightened when I come here, I"m not at my best."
"What are you afraid of?"
She didn"t answer and she didn"t answer, and then they were at the bluff and the river scene unfolded below them. Even with patches of ice along the edges of the river, it was formidably wide. Quentin remembered paintings by the Hudson River School and tried to apply those magnificent pastorals and landscapes to the scene before him. It wasn"t hard. Before the river was a highway, it was a habitat, and now that the traffic was gone, perhaps that old life was coming back. Some old docks still touched the icy river edge, but at other places the verge of the river had been given back to the woods. How many squirrels were living off stored nuts in those trees in the lee of the bluffs? How many c.o.o.ns and rabbits, field mice and weasels lived without the sight of man for months on end?
Her hand stole around his waist and she leaned into him. "Oh, Quentin, I do love this place, I do do love it. This is what brings me back, even though I hate who I become when I"m here." love it. This is what brings me back, even though I hate who I become when I"m here."
"So let"s open the treasure box and go. I can buy you another place on the river with a view just like this. Or better."
"There is is no place just like this." no place just like this."
"You don"t want me to look for another Victorian mansion?"
"Pre-Victorian, dear," said Madeleine. "Victorian is so... nouveau."
They laughed.
They walked on the path along the edge of the bluff. In a few places the drop-off was rather steep, and the path did skirt rather close. He couldn"t help remembering Uncle Paul"s jocular warning: Maddy"s a pusher. And he was walking on the side by the river. But she wasn"t pushing, she was holding him, and he loved the feel of the way their bodies moved, not quite together, but rubbing against each other, hip to hip, his arm across her shoulders, her arm around his waist. The breeze was a little chilly, but the sun was warm.
They reached the end of the family property and turned back to the house. They took a different path this time, and it led around a small stonewalled graveyard with an arched entrance. "Isn"t it kind of morbid, keeping the family dead here on the property?" asked Quentin.
"It depends on how you regard the dead," said Madeleine. "They were part of us in life. Shouldn"t they be part of us in death?"
"Will you you be buried here someday?" he asked. be buried here someday?" he asked.
"I intend never to die," she said. intend never to die," she said.
"Statistically, almost every woman who marries is signing on for widowhood at some time in her life."
"Do you you want to be buried here?" she asked teasingly. want to be buried here?" she asked teasingly.
"Not unless I"m really dead," he said. "No fair burying me while I"m still snoring."
"You admit you snore?"
"Everybody snores," said Quentin. "But they only hear the other guy"s snoring."
"And sleep through their own," said Madeleine. "Isn"t that the way it goes."
"Does my snoring annoy you?"
"I think it"s sweet," she said. "And when it keeps me awake, I pinch your nose and then you think you woke up to go to the bathroom and while you"re in there trying in vain to aim somewhere near the toilet, I fall asleep very very quickly."
"What an efficient system. By the way, I may miss sometimes, but I"ve never yet peed on my feet."
"Or if you did, it didn"t wake you," she said.
"You"re as gross as a kid," said Quentin.
"It"s one of the things you love best about me, though."
"Maybe," said Quentin. "But you have to promise to act shocked when our children talk gross. It"s no fun if your parents can match you, ick for ick."
"I promise to be shocked."
They were back at the house. The dining room was empty. So was the library, and the table had been de-leafed and turned the other way, so it didn"t take up the whole s.p.a.ce between the vast walls of books. It wasn"t as warm and inviting as the library in the grande dame"s house had been. Instead of ladders, there was a balcony around three sides of the room, with a narrow spiral staircase leading to it. It all looked cold and uncomfortable, like a high canyon that you could only scale by taking your life in your hands climbing up a rickety narrow ladder. He went to the shelves to examine the t.i.tles, but Madeleine caught his arm almost at once. "Quentin, there"s nothing nothing readable there." readable there."
"In a house this old," he said, "there are bound to be some real finds."
"There aren"t, trust me. n.o.body actually reads. When this room was remodeled into a library, they bought books by the yard."
"Oh." Quentin was disappointed. He had once held a first edition, first printing of Uncle Tom"s Cabin Uncle Tom"s Cabin. In his hands, a book that started a war and changed the world, perhaps one of the very copies that had done it. But if the library was recent instead of old... still, even books bought at estate auctions sometimes had gems.
Nevertheless, he understood that Madeleine was more eager to open her treasure box than she wanted to admit. He let her lead him out into the entry hall and then into a parlor in the northeast corner of the house. It was lighted only by the windows, which on a winter afternoon meant the room was dim indeed, especially because heavy brocade curtains were closed at the top and swagged open near the base, so they more than half covered the gla.s.s.
Everyone was gathered here, though all but Uncle Paul and Grandmother seemed to hang back as close to the walls as the furniture allowed. Grandmother stood firmly, despite her shrunken, ancient appearance, her hands atop an intricately engraved mahogany box that stood on a small table in the middle of the room. Uncle Paul hovered near her, looking down at the box and then up at Madeleine and Quentin.
"Oh, darling, do hurry," said Uncle Paul. "I"m so so eager to see what"s left for you in there." eager to see what"s left for you in there."
"I can bet you are," said Madeleine dryly. "Try to contain yourself."
Nevertheless, Paul"s hands kept darting down toward the box, though he never quite touched it.
Grandmother"s eyes stayed fixed on Quentin.
"Tin, dear," said Madeleine. "Why don"t you you open the box?" open the box?"
"Oh, it"s really not my place," said Quentin. "Your treasure, after all, and wanting to open it all these years." treasure, after all, and wanting to open it all these years."
Grandmother"s eyes bored through him.
"Tin, I know it"s silly, but now that it"s come down to it, my hands are trembling so much I-isn"t it silly? I guess this meant more to me than I thought. Won"t you please help me out?"
"Is there a key or something?"
"No key!" Uncle Paul offered.
"Do keep your helpful information to yourself, Uncle P," said Madeleine.
"Oh, I know, darling, it"s your your prize." prize."
"It is," said Madeleine. "There"s nothing in there you you can use. Count on it." can use. Count on it."
"Oh, I know," said Paul. "But we"re all just so... intrigued intrigued with it. Like Christmas-you"re dying to find out what"s in everybody"s packages, not just your own." with it. Like Christmas-you"re dying to find out what"s in everybody"s packages, not just your own."
"Quentin," said Madeleine. "Please don"t say no to me."
Quentin sighed and stepped to the box and put his hands on it. The wood was warm and smooth, the surface clean and polished. The geometric etching was intricately done, almost lacy in places. It was a beautiful box.
It was also a box with Grandmother"s hands on it. Not to block him; her fingertips touched only the back corners of it. But her eyes still drilled into him, and even though she said nothing, he couldn"t help but a.s.sume she was forbidding him to open it.
"I don"t think your grandmother wants me to open it."
"Did she say so?" asked Madeleine.
"She hasn"t been very chatty so far today," said Quentin, "but as you said, she lets people know what she wants."
"Quentin, everybody else here knows it"s my right to open it. And my husband"s right-what"s in there is as much yours as mine, isn"t it? You didn"t ask me to sign a prenup, and I didn"t ask you to sign one, either."
"You know what just occurred to me?" Quentin said, laughing. "Wouldn"t it be a kick if it turned out that the box itself was the inheritance? You know, a keepsake. Nothing in it at all, just the box itself. The magical dreams of childhood, preserved forever."
"There"s something in it, all right," said Madeleine.
"It"s just chock full of stuff," said Uncle Paul.
"Something is chock full of something, anyway," said Madeleine. "You"re not helping, Uncle Paul."
"I"m not?" said Paul. "Oh, foo. Fum. Fee fie foe."
"Tin, aren"t you going to open it for me?"
"Sure, of course," said Quentin.