I continued my walk, veering around the heap of rubble toward the rear of the property. All around me were stacks of building materials and earth-moving equipment. I noticed engineer stakes stuck in the ground, connected by string with white strips of cloth hanging from the string, and there were surveyors' stakes as well, and masonry stakes and all sorts of other things stuck in the ground like dissecting pins on the carved-up earth.
As I walked, I could see that most of the fifty or so foundations had been dug and poured, and though many of the trees had been spared, the land was irrevocably altered, suffused with water and gas pipes and cesspools, and crisscrossed with power lines and paved with blacktop and concrete. Another few hundred acres had gone from rural to suburban, from pristine to scarred, and hundreds of people from someplace or another were on their way here, though they didn't know it yet, bringing with them their worries and their future divorces, and their propane barbecue grills and their mailboxes with numbers on them, and their hopes for a new life in a nicer place than the last. The American dream, you know, constantly needs new landscapes.
Stanhope Hall's acreage is gone, too, of course, and a few of the houses there are nearly complete, wood and Thermopane contemporaries with lots of skylights and oversize garages and central air-conditioning; not too bad, I admit, but not too good either.
The big house, the former Stanhope Hall, has indeed been sold intact to a Japanese firm of some sort, but I see no sign of twitchy Nipponese businessmen strolling around the paths or doing callisthenics on the great lawn. In fact, the place looks as deserted as it has been for nearly twenty years. Local rumour at McGlade's Pub, where I spend too much time, has it that the little people are going to dismantle the mansion stone by stone and send it to Japan, though nobody at McGlade's seems to know why.
The love temple, too, has survived, and the developer of the Stanhope acreage has used a picture of it in his ads, promising the splendour and the glory of Gold Coast living to the first hundred people who can come up with the down payments and mortgages on the half-million-dollar tractor sheds he's building. The sacred grove is gone, however, as no one is interested in ten acres of dying plum trees in their backyards. But the gazebo and hedge maze are part of the great house, so they might survive, though I don't recommend the maze for strung-out Oriental businessmen.
So the Stanhope and Alhambra estates are divided like spoils in an ancient war, their walls and gates no longer useful for keeping people out, and their great structures destroyed or used for sport or for building material elsewhere. But that's not my problem anymore.
I kept walking over the hard ground until I came to where Alhambra's reflecting pool and fountain had been, or where I thought they had been, but there was an open foundation there, and an unpaved road passed through where the classical garden and imitation Roman ruins had once stood. Neptune and Mary were gone, probably having left in disgust.
I turned around and headed back toward the rubble heap, walking along the patch on which Anna had walked when she spotted me that Easter morning, and a smile came to my lips. I continued on and reached the back patio, which was still intact, though the post lights and pizza oven were gone. I walked across the patio and looked at the demolished house. Half the rubble had been carted away, but I could still identify most of the rooms, especially the central palm court, and I could actually see where Frank Bellarosa had lain dead.
To my right was the kitchen and the breakfast room where the Bellarosas had entertained us in more ways than one, and to the left was the ballroom, sometimes known as the living room, where I had done a little soft-shoe for Susan. Behind this room was the conservatory, crushed now, a pile of broken glass, plant tables, and clay pots.
I turned away from the house and picked my way around the construction debris in the failing light until I was back in front of the mansion, in the forecourt, near the broken fountain, where Susan's Jaguar had once sat and where she and I once stood, in a picture-perfect setting, like an ad for something good and expensive, and I fancied I saw Susan and me standing there waiting for someone to answer the door on that spring evening.
I walked back down the long drive hunched against the wind. Beyond the gates and across Grace Lane I saw the DePauw house, lights shining from its big colonial windows, a cheery sight unless you weren't in the mood for cheery sights. As I walked, I thought of Susan the last time I'd seen her. It was in November, in Manhattan. A hearing had been convened at Federal Court in Foley Square, at which I was present, though not as Susan's attorney or husband, but as a witness to the events surrounding the death of a federal witness, Mr Frank Bellarosa. As it turned out, I was not even asked to give testimony, and the commission took only a few hours to recommend that the case not be presented to a grand jury, finding that Susan Sutter, while not justified in her actions, was not responsible for them. This seemed a little vague to me, but there was some talk of diminished capacity and a promise from the Stanhopes to seek professional help for their daughter. I hope William and Charlotte don't think that means art lessons or pistol practice. Anyway, the government took a dive on the case, of course, and Lady Justice didn't miscarry; she had an abortion. But I don't blame the government for aborting this tricky and sensitive case, and I'm happy they did, because my wife doesn't belong in jail.
I had made a point of running into Susan on the steps of the courthouse. She was surrounded by her parents, three of her parents' lawyers, and two family-retained psychiatrists. William didn't seem awfully thrilled to see me for some reason, and Charlotte stuck her nose in the air, I mean literally, like you see in old movies. You've got to be careful when you do that walking down steps.
Anyway, Susan broke away from the Stanhope guard and came over to me on the steps. She smiled. "Hello, John."
"Hello, Susan." I had congratulated her on a successful court appearance, and she had been cheery and buoyant, which was to be expected after walking free on a murder that was witnessed by about six federal agents, who fortunately couldn't seem to recall the incident clearly.
We'd spoken briefly, mostly about our children and not about our divorce. I asked her at one point, "Are you really crazy?"
She smiled. "Just enough to get me out of that courthouse. Don't tell." I smiled in return. We agreed that we both felt bad for Anna, but that maybe she was better off, though that wasn't true, and Susan asked me if I had gone to Frank's funeral, which I had. Susan said, "I should have gone, too, of course, but it might have been awkward."
"It possibly could have been." Since you killed him. I mean, really, Susan. But maybe she had already disassociated herself from that unpleasant incident. She was looking very good, by the way, dressed in a tailored grey silk shirt and jacket, appropriate for courtroom appearances, and wearing high heels, which she probably couldn't wait to kick off.
I didn't know when or if I'd see her again, so I said to her, "I still love you, you know."
"You'd better. Forever."
"Yes, forever."
"Me, too."
Well, we parted there on the steps, she to go back to Hilton Head, and me to Long Island. I was sharing the Stanhope gatehouse with Ethel Allard, who had insisted on taking me in when Susan sold the guesthouse. Ethel and I are getting along a little better than we had in the past. I drive her to the stores and to church on Sunday, though I don't go to stores or churches much myself anymore. The arrangement seems to be working out, and I'm glad for the opportunity to help someone who needs help, and Ethel is glad she finally got a chance to take in a homeless person. Father Hunnings approves, too. The guesthouse, incidentally, where Susan and I had spent our twenty-two years of married life, and where we had raised our two children, has been bought by an intense young couple who are here on a corporate transfer from Dubuque or Duluth or someplace out there, working their way up the corporate game of chutes and ladders. They both leave for Manhattan before dawn and return after dark. They're not quite sure where they are geographically or socially, but they seem anxious that the Stanhope subdivision be completed so they can have friends and start a bowling team or something.