Oxford 4:20 Abingdon Express-40
bus/Reading train/Reading toward
Carmarthen change Newport toward Arrive
Trains Wales-Holyhead to Leominster. Will
pick up. No cabs. L’Espoir, Lyonshall, Kingston,
Herts. 44-1567-240-363
“Directions from Oxford to Leominster, in Her efordshire,” said Peggy, pronouncing it “Lemster.” “I know it’s pronounced that way because a Welshman once corrected me.”
“There’s a place in Massachusetts with the same name,” said Holliday, “They pronounce it ‘Lemon-Stir, ’ home of Foster Grant sunglasses and the original plastic pink flamingo.”
“Your brain must be a very strange place,” said Peggy, laughing.
“In my business your head tends to get clogged with a lot of irrelevancies. Take horses. Did you know Adolf Hitler had a thoroughbred named Nordlicht, or North Light, and that it died on a plantation in Louisiana in 1968? Or that George Armstrong Custer was riding a horse named Victory at the Little Big Horn, not Co manche for instance? Or the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was the only one of his Rough Riders at San Juan Hill who had a horse at all?”
“And I’ll bet you know its name,” said Peggy.
“Of course.” Holliday grinned. “It was called Little Texas. By the time they got to San Juan Hill the horse was exhausted, so Roosevelt had to dismount and lead the charge on foot.” He laughed. “Although I think it probably had more to do with public relations; didn’t look good in the papers to be the only one in the saddle.”
“That’s enough history,” said Peggy, holding up her hands in defeat. “Let’s go eat.”
“Gary’s Diner again?” Holliday said.
“Let’s try something more upscale,” suggested Peggy.
Upscale in Fredonia, New York, meant the White Inn, an outsized mid-nineteenth century clapboard farmhouse with an overdone columned portico and a wrought iron fence that made it look like an imitation of its namesake in Washington, D.C. According to Peggy they served a mean chocolate martini in the lounge and great prime rib in the dining room. Holliday let Peggy have the prime rib while he ordered the baby spinach and shrimp.
“You sure you don’t want the prime rib?” Peggy asked. “That thing on your plate looks like an appetizer.”
Holliday looked at the immense slab of meat Peggy was happily carving her way through. It looked like enough to feed a small army and came complete with a giant baked potato swimming in butter and sour cream, butter beans, and a side salad besides. She popped a forkful of meat into her mouth, then tore up a dinner roll and used it to swab up a small puddle of au jus that was wending its way dangerously close to the baked potato and its sour cream and dripping butter pat summit.
Holliday speared a shrimp.
“You’re young. I’m old. Gotta watch my figure.”
“I’m like a hummingbird,” said Peggy, scooping up some baked potato. “I have to eat my own weight every day or I fade away.” She ate some butter beans. “And you’re not old, Doc, you’re distinguished.”
Holliday looked at her fondly. In jeans and a T-shirt Peggy could probably pass for a freshman at the university. He, on the other hand, had salt-and-pepper hair that was now considerably more salt than pepper, used reading glasses, wore Dr. Scholl’s in his shoes, and occasionally felt twinges of arthritis in his joints. She was still climbing uphill in the morning of her life, and he was sliding slowly down in the early evening; a world of difference.
“Easy for you to say,” he said wistfully. Who was it who said that youth was wasted on the young?
“George Bernard Shaw,” he said.
“Huh?” Peggy asked.
“Nothing,” said Holliday.
Peggy sliced off another chunk from the slab on her plate.
“Speaking of old, what are we supposed to make of Grandpa Henry and the secretary?”
“He wasn’t always old.”
“He didn’t mention her in the will.”
“I’m not surprised. Wills are public documents, and discretion is clearly important to her,” he shrugged. “Besides, he may have already given her his bequest.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was reading a copy of Anne of Green Gables when we came into the office.”
“So?”
“It was a first edition.”
“You think Grandpa gave it to her?”
“Probably,” he nodded. “You still have that BlackBerry machine?”
“I’ll have you know it’s called a personal digital assistant,” said Peggy airily, swabbing a piece of prime rib in a generous blob of horseradish. “Or sometimes ‘CrackBerry’ for its addictive qualities.”
“You have it with you?”
“Always,” nodded Peggy. She put down her fork, rummaged around in the old denim messenger bag she used as a purse, and eventually pulled out the flat little rectangle of black plastic.
“See if you can find out what a first edition of Anne of Green Gables is worth.”
Peggy tapped away briefly, using thumbs instead of fingers. The device reminded Holliday of the all-knowing featureless black slabs in the epic space movie 2001. Except, he thought, 2001 the year was long gone, the slab fit into one hand, and this time we are the monkeys.
Peggy’s eyes widened.
“Twelve thousand five hundred dollars,” she said, awed.
“What did I tell you?” said Holliday. He ate another shrimp. “The Anne book probably isn’t the only thing he gave her.”
“That sounds like the punch line to a Marx Brothers joke.”
“I’m serious.”
“He must have cared for her,” she said. “I wonder why he never made it formal.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to get married. Maybe he liked the status quo.” Holliday shrugged. “We’ll probably never know. Children never really know their parents; that goes double for nephews and grandfathers.”
“So what do we do now? About the sword and all that, I mean?”
“I’m not sure. The sword belongs in a museum, I know that much. Or we can sell it if you want. It’ll be worth more than the Anne of Green Gables, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t need the money.”
“Neither do I,” said Holliday.
“Why don’t we donate it to a museum in Grandpa’s name?” Peggy suggested.
“Good idea,” agreed Holliday.
“And the house?”
“Selling it, you mean?”
“I’ve got a three-room apartment in New York that I’m barely ever in. You live at the Point. We’re the only heirs. I don’t have any room for half that stuff.”
“Ditto.”
“Why not an auction?”
“Sounds good to me,” said Holliday, although he hated the idea of having to sort through his uncle’s possessions; history was one thing, but personal history was a different thing altogether. He wondered if they should quietly tell Miss Branch that she was welcome to a memento from the house if she wanted it. Maybe better to let sleeping dogs lie.
“Buy me one of those chocolate martinis in the lounge for dessert, and then we’ll go back to the house and start figuring out what we want to keep and what we want to let go. How’s that?”
“Deal,” agreed Holliday. Two of the frothy, too-sweet cocktails and a long-necked Heineken later they headed back to Hart Street, a few blocks away on the other side of Canadaway Creek.
It was almost fully dark by the time they turned off Forest Place and steered into the short cul-de-sac. Lights were on in the few houses on the tree-lined street, and a soft breeze was blowing, taking some of the edge off the early-summer heat.
“I love that smell,” murmured Peggy happily as they left her rental car at the curb. “Somebody’s burning leaves.”
That wasn’t right.
“In July?” Holliday said. They reached the stone wall in front of Uncle Henry’s house and turned up the walk.
Peggy squinted ahead into the gloom.
“What’s that in…”
The concussion from the explosion lifted them both off their feet, throwing them backward onto the ground, flaming debris and broken glass blossoming into the air as they fell. Holliday rolled with it, holding his arms up across his face. He got to his hands and knees just in time to see the giant fireball swallowing up the entire front of the house in an all-consuming whirlwind. A moment later Peggy groggily began struggling to her feet.