Later in the morning Moses found Justina in the winter garden—a kind of dome-shaped greenhouse attached to one of the extremities of the castle. Many of the window lights were broken and Giacomo had repaired these by stuffing bed pillows into the frames. There seemed to have been flower beds around the walls in the past and in the center of the room were a fountain and a pool. When Moses entered the room and asked to speak with her, Justina sat down in an iron chair.
“I want to marry Melissa.”
Justina touched that façade of black hair that was like the Cartwright Block and sighed.
“Then why don’t you? Melissa is twenty-eight years old. She can do what she wants.”
“We would like your approval.”
“Melissa has no money and no expectations,” the old woman said. “She owns nothing of value but her beads. The resale value of pearls is very disappointing and they’re almost impossible to insure.”
“That wouldn’t matter.”
“You know very little about her.”
“I only know that I want to marry her.”
“I think there are some things about her past that you should know. Her parents were killed when she was seven. Mr. Scaddon and I were delighted to adopt her—she has such a sweet nature—but we’ve had our troubles. She married Ray Badger. You knew that?”
“She told me.”
“He became an alcoholic through no fault, I think, of Melissa’s. He had some very base ideas about marriage. I hope you don’t entertain any such opinions.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Mr. Scaddon and I slept in separate rooms whenever this was possible. We always slept in separate beds.”
“I see.”
“Even in Italy and France.”
“It will be some time before we can hope to travel,” Moses said, hoping to change the subject.
“I don’t think Melissa will ever be able to travel,” Justina said. “She’s not left Clear Haven since her divorce.”
“Melissa’s told me this herself.”
“It seemed a confining life for a young woman,” Justina said. “Last year I bought her a ticket to go around the world. She was agreeable, but when all her luggage had been brought aboard and we were drinking some wine in her cabin she decided that she couldn’t go. Her distress was extreme. I brought her back to Clear Haven that afternoon.” She smiled at Moses. “Her hats went around the world.”
“I see,” Moses said. “Melissa’s told me this and I would like to live here until our marriage.”
“That can be arranged. Is your father still alive?”
“Yes.”
“He must be very old. My memories of St. Botolphs are not pleasant. I left there when I was seventeen. When I married Mr. Scaddon I must have received a hundred letters from people in the village, asking for financial help. This did nothing to improve my recollections. I did try to be helpful. For several years I took some child—an artist or a pianist—and gave them an education, but none of them worked out.” She unclasped her hands and gestured sadly as if she had dropped the students from a great height. “I had to let them all go. You lived up the river, didn’t you? I remember the house. I suppose you have some heirlooms.”
“Yes.” Moses was unprepared for this and he answered hesitantly.
“Could you give me some idea of what they are?”
“Cradles, highboys, lowboys, things like that. Cut glass.”
“I wouldn’t be interested in cut glass,” Justina said. “However, I’ve never collected Early American furniture and I’ve always wanted to. Dishes?”
“My brother Coverly would know more about this than I,” Moses said.
“Ah yes,” Justina said. “Well, it does not matter to me whether you and Melissa marry. I think Mrs. Enderby is in her office now and you can ask her to set a date. She will send out the invitations. And be careful of that loose stone in the floor. You might trip and hurt yourself.” Moses found Mrs. Enderby and after he listened to some frowsty memories of her youth on the Riviera she told him that he could be married in three weeks. He looked for Melissa but the maids told him she had not come down and when he started to climb the stairs to her part of the house he heard Justina’s voice at his back. “Come down, Mr. Wapshot.”
Melissa didn’t come down until lunch and this meal, although it was not filling, was served with two kinds of wine and dragged on until three. After lunch they walked back and forth on the terrace below the towers like two figures on a dinner plate and looking for some privacy in the gardens they ran into Mrs. Enderby. At half-past five, when it was time for Moses to go and he took Melissa in his arms, a window in one of the towers flew open and Justina called down, “Melissa, Melissa, tell Mr. Wapshot that if he doesn’t hurry he’ll miss his train.”
After work on Monday Moses packed his clothing in two suitcases and a paper box, putting in among his shirts a bottle of bourbon, a box of crackers and a three-pound piece of Stilton cheese. Again he was the only passenger to leave the train at Clear Haven but Giacomo was there to meet him with the old Rolls and drive him up the hill. Melissa met him at the door and that evening followed the pattern of his first night there except that the fuses didn’t blow. Moses wheeled the general to the elevator at ten and started once more over the roofs, this time on such a clear, starlit night that he could see the airshaft that had nearly killed him. Again in the morning at dawn he climbed back to his own quarters and what could be pleasanter than to see that heavily wooded and hilly countryside at dawn from the high roofs of Clear Haven. He went to the city on the train, returned in the evening to Clear Haven, yawned purposefully during dinner and pushed the old general to the elevator at half-past nine.
Chapter Thirty
While Moses was eating these golden apples, Coverly and Betsey had settled in a rocket-launching station called Remsen Park. Coverly had only spent one day at the farm. Leander had urged him to return to his wife—and had gone to work himself at the table-silver factory a few days later. Coverly had joined Betsey in New York and, after a delay of only a few days, was transferred to this new station. This time they traveled together. Remsen Park was a community of four thousand identical houses, bounded on the west by an old army camp. The place could not be criticized as a town or city. Expedience, convenience and haste had produced it when the rocket program was accelerated; but the houses were dry in the rain and warm in the winter; they had well-equipped kitchens and fireplaces for domestic bliss and the healthy need for national self-preservation could more than excuse the fact that they were all alike. At the heart of the community there was a large shopping center with anything you might want—all of it housed in glass-walled buildings. This was Betsey’s joy. She and Coverly rented a house, furnished even to the pictures on the walls, and set up housekeeping with the blue china and the painted chairs that Sarah sent them from St. Botolphs.