Geraldine drank the water. “And you think I can stop her? I showed no capacity for that when I was younger and more vital.”
“I’m wondering if Catherine ran away to some place that was important to her and her grandfather. I desperately need to know-it may be too late already now-but-was there some private special place that you and Calvin cherished?”
Her mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. “Many special places, all by necessity private. But-I suppose-his family used to own a hunting lodge near Eagle River, up in northern Wisconsin. When the North Woods became a national forest in the thirties, the family had to give up their land, but Calvin’s father worked out an agreement where the family could keep
the lodge for private use for twentyfive years. The agreement must have expired about the time Calvin married Renee.
“The lodge is where we held the committee benefit that caused so much questioning in Congress. And it’s where Calvin and I used to go sometimes in the fall. Besides the great lodge, which would sleep thirty people, there was a cottage in the woods behind it. We were happy there, in a place where we could-be intimate without wondering who was outside the bedroom door. I think Calvin took the girl up there when she was younger.,,
It was a long shot, but it was my only shot. I got to my feet and braced myself for the long drive north.
CHAPTER 51
The Dead Speak
In Portage, fifty miles north of Madison, the rain changed to snow. I pulled over for gas and hamburgers. Geraldine woke, used the gas station toilet without comment, although it hadn’t seen soap for a few decades, and ate one of the cardboard burgers.
“I drove up here through the snow with Calvin one December,” she said. “I told Mother I was going to St. Augustine to ride; I often did that in the winter, to get away from New Solway. Even in daylight it was a difficult passage. It was still a two-lane road then, with stop signs every so often. Of course the war was on, with gas rationing and rubber rationing; only the wealthy, like Calvin and me, could afford to be driving such distances. We didn’t pass many other vehicles.”
I wondered if she would remember the route to the lodge, but I would worry about that when we got to Eagle River: right now, keeping the car on the road was taking all my energy. That, and staying awake.
“I dredged the pond out at Larchmont on Friday” I said. “I found a ring-I forgot to tell you when I saw you on Sunday. Something that looked like a beehive of diamonds with ruby and emerald chips along the base.”
She made a sound that might have been a laugh. “So it was in the pond all those years. It belonged to Mother. She actually fired one of the maids
for stealing it, although I always thought Darraugh must have taken it. It was a terribly ugly thing, that ring, but Mother prized it because her father gave it to her at her coming-out party. It disappeared soon after MacKenzie died, when Mother was in her element, holding the press at bay, publicly flaunting herself in black crepe, privately gloating. Darraugh turned on her in an almost violent way.
“He turned on me, too, but I felt I had earned it and did nothing to try to deflect his rage. Everything was gray for me then, losing Calvin, losing MacKenzie, losing Darraugh, all in one short spring. My daughter, Laura, was away at Vassar. And anyway, she shared my mother’s attitude towardme, toward her father. She held herself disapprovingly aloof from all of us and our turmoil. She’s a wonderful matron now; her grandmother would be proud of her for upholding the ancien regime.”
“Does Darraugh know that your husband wasn’t his father?” I asked.
“I never told him. Mother hinted at it, but she couldn’t have known with certainty Although of course she made burrowing into my private life her major business, bribing servants, searching my room.” Geraldine’s flutey voice wavered. I turned my eyes briefly from the slippery road to look at her: she was staring straight ahead, her hands knotted in her lap.
“Darraugh and Mother fought in an interminable, intolerable way after MacKenzie’s death. She called MacKenzie ugly names, cruel names, to my son and suggested MacKenzie could never have fathered a child. Darraugh came to me. I said of course he was MacKenzie’s son. But Darraugh didn’t believe me, and he felt Mother’s words bitterly, felt them as my betrayal of himself and of MacKenzie. He ran away from home. We hired detectives such as yourself, but couldn’t find him.