THE MOMENT ELLIS ARRIVED home and saw Harry’s message, he returned the call. The phone rang and rang. It seemed strange that no one would answer, if not Harry or Valerie, then one of the servants at least. Ellis tried later that evening but again got no reply. When he couldn’t get an answer the following day, he figured Harry had gone back to The Meadows. But the maid told him, “No, Mr. Knox. He’s not here. He sent us up last week and told us to do a little cleaning, and otherwise to consider it a little vacation…. No, as far as I know, he’s at the apartment….”
More than a little worried, Ellis put on his jacket and told his secretary, “I’m going out.”
The thought of finding Harry and Valerie in a love nest once again didn’t appeal to him. But the moment he walked into the foyer and saw the pile of papers and mail, he knew something was terribly wrong.
As he rang the bell imperatively he berated himself. He should have come over last night.
When no one answered after much ringing, he sought out the superintendent. “I need to get into the penthouse.” Ellis looked so frenzied, the superintendent didn’t even ask why. He just gave up the keys.
When Ellis strode into the room, he stopped short. A still figure lay on the sofa. For a brief, agonized moment, Ellis thought that Harry was dead. Rushing to his side, Ellis realized with a wave of relief that Harry was merely dead drunk. Still, finding him this way came as a shock. Harry had never been a heavy drinker. Ellis had rarely even seen him tipsy.
Without a word, he slung Harry over his shoulder, carried him into the bathroom, and propped him against the shower wall. He turned on the water: ice-cold and full force.
After a few insensible moments, Harry started to come to. Gasping for breath under the steady stream of water, Harry gasped, “What … what the hell is this? Ellis, get out of here—”
Ignoring him, Ellis ordered, “Get out of those clothes. Here’s a robe. I’m going to make you some coffee.”
As they sat at the kitchen table some twenty minutes later, Harry mumbled tiredly, “I’m glad to see you, Ellis.”
“Well, I’m not glad to see you. Not like this. You look like hell. Have you been holed up here drinking all week?”
Harry nodded.
“What prompted this binge? You’ve never been a drinker.”
Harry could barely speak. “I went up to see Lily the day after … the day after you dropped by. She refuses to come back to me.”
Tears streamed down Harry’s face, then he suddenly broke into sobs. “I love her so, I never wanted to hurt her. I know she blames me, but I didn’t mean to hurt Jeremy either. And I need her so, Ellis…. I’m just lost without her….” Raising his head, he cried, “I even threatened to divorce her, Ellis, but it didn’t seem to mean anything to her. Of course, I would never divorce Lily…. It was wrong of me to have an affair with Valerie, and I’m never going to go near her again. I just don’t know what to do, Ellis.”
Ellis listened in grim silence. If Harry were serious about breaking off with Valerie, if he really meant to patch it up with Lily, where would it leave him? All week in London, Ellis had been floating on cloud nine, rehearsing what he would say to Lily. “Lily, I’m not going to pretend with you. I love you and I have ever since the start … and I want you to be my wife.” God, how foolish it all seemed now.
If his heart wasn’t breaking, he might even laugh. But Ellis hardly had a chance to consider his own position. Harry, his best friend, sat before him in sorry shape. And for all of Lily’s aloofness, who could guess how she felt in her heart? Ellis knew what he’d have to do. This was the truest test of friendship he’d ever faced, and the truest test of his love for Lily.
“Harry,” he forced himself to say, “this thing will work itself out. Just knock off the booze, will you? It won’t help anything.”
But as soon as Ellis was gone, Harry thought to himself, That’s easy for you to say. It isn’t your wife who is leaving you…. He planned to drink himself into oblivion today, and tomorrow, and probably the day after that.
But if Harry was in a somber mood, Ellis was gloomier still as he drove up to see Lily at the farm the next day. He knew he couldn’t say the words he had planned. Just when he thought he’d have a chance to let Lily know how much he loved her, that chance was snatched away. But the instant he saw Lily, all his own anguish was lost in overwhelming concern for her. Since the last time he’d seen her, her physical state had visibly deteriorated.
“I just got back from London, Lily, and thought I wanted to spend a little time with you. How have you been?”
“Oh, I’m surviving.”
Ellis didn’t quite know how to proceed. For lack of anything better to say, he ventured, “Listen, why don’t we go out into the garden? It’s such a glorious day.” Ellis volunteered to make some tea for them. He told Lily to go on out.
They sipped their tea contentedly, though Ellis remained disturbed by the distant look in her eyes. Lily seemed as bereft as she had the day of Jeremy’s funeral. But Ellis sensed it was a new grief that troubled Lily: most likely Harry’s visit, and his threat of divorce. Ellis was sure she’d taken it to heart.
After they had exchanged small niceties for longer than he could bear, Ellis took the initiative, careful to be gentle at first.
“Lily, I know something’s wrong. What is it?”
“Wrong?” Lily sounded nearly hysterical. “What could be wrong, other than the fact that my son is dead? Oh, Ellis, every night I wish that I could go to sleep and never wake up! I just don’t want to live in a world without Jeremy.”
She began to shake and sob as he had never seen her in all the months since Jeremy’s death. Ellis held her close, the way he’d longed to, patting her back and saying softly, “Please don’t say that, Lily darling—don’t say that. You have so much to live for.”
Even after she regained control of herself, Ellis knew he couldn’t run the risk of leaving her alone that night. He cleared his throat and asked, “Lily, could I impose upon you just this once? It’s a long drive, and I don’t feel like going back; I’m tired.”
Lily nodded. She seemed too distracted to comprehend the degree of his concern.
Mrs. Gallagher let him know how relieved she was to have him there. “I’m sure glad you’re staying. I’ll get the room ready for you. I’ve been so worried about the missus I can’t sleep nights.”
After Lily was in bed, Ellis brought her a mug of warm milk with a healthy slug of brandy and honey, then tucked the eiderdown in about her gently. “Sleep well now.”
But it was Ellis whose sleep was restless. Keeping a lonely vigil, he strained for the sound of weeping from her room next door, and twice tiptoed in to check on her.
But miraculously Lily slept through the night. At six o’clock, hearing Mrs. Gallagher in the kitchen, he got up and dressed. “I’m going down to New York and I’ll be back in about five hours. Mrs. Kohle is sleeping right now, but could you please check on her every half-hour or so? And when she wakes up, don’t leave her alone.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Knox.”
He arrived in New York at just nine o’clock. Chatwick’s was not yet open, but he hammered on the door until they let him in.
The chefs bustled about in the kitchen, carting juicy roasts, savory pies, and newly baked bread back and forth. Ellis selected a succulent tarragon chicken, along with pâté, French bread, imported cheeses, several elegant fruit tarts, and chocolates and had them all packed in a willow hamper lined in blue-and-white-checked cloth along with cutlery, two crystal glasses, and a crisp ’49 Chablis.
With the hamper stowed in the trunk of the car, he turned the key in the ignition and drove back up to the farm. He knew that it seemed quixotic to drive five hours for a picnic basket, but if the gesture pleased Lily and helped take her mind off her sorrows, it was well worth the effort.
At eleven he was driving down the dirt road again, and the dust had barely settled before he was inside the farmhouse, calling, “Lily, get your jacket. We’re going for a drive.”
She was in the kitchen. Mrs. Gallagher had actually gotten her to help knead some dough for bread. Lily balked at the suggestion of a picnic, but Ellis was firm. He feared that if he passively accepted her refusal, she would sink still deeper into her depression.
“Get your jacket, woman. We’re going out.”
Lily was angry as they drove down the front drive. “What right do you have to do this?” she demanded. “I told you I didn’t want to go.”
“That’s too bad,” Ellis said easily. “Since I’m in the driver’s seat.”
Ellis took secret delight in her fierce reaction; even anger was preferable to apathy.
Gaze averted, she maintained a cold silence as Ellis drove down the country lanes. Of all people, she had expected him to understand. And now, suddenly he had become a stranger, at once arrogant and domineering.
He pulled off the road and parked near a grassy clearing in the midst of a grove of maple trees. The sunlight glowed as the lightest of breezes rippled over the field, but Lily did not notice or appreciate the pleasant scene.
Ellis took a steamer blanket out of the trunk and walked to Lily’s side of the car; he opened the door and offered her his hand. Lily frowned but let him lead her to the meadow and settle her on the blanket. As Ellis smoothed out the checked cloth, Lily surveyed the food in the hamper.
“Ellis,” she cried, “you didn’t go all the way to Chatwick’s for these things, did you?”
Ellis grinned.
“I wish you hadn’t. I’m really not worth all this trouble.”
“I’m a better judge of that than you, don’t you think?”
Pouring the wine, he continued. “Lily, I was terribly worried about you last night, you know.”
“Why?”
“All this talk about wanting to go to sleep and never waking up. That frightened me.”
“I’m sorry. That’s the way I feel.”
“Lily, will you please tell me what happened when I was in London?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But this time you are going to talk about it!”
“Ellis, can’t you just leave me alone?”
Taking her shoulders, he forced her to look into his eyes, and when she tried to wrench away, he held her even more tightly. He was not going to allow her to escape—not this time.
But his gentle, caring touch had an effect on her. Ellis was such a good friend. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Choking back the sobs, she told Ellis everything that weighed so heavily on her mind.
“Oh God, Ellis!” she cried. “I can’t help feeling as if Harry drove Jeremy to it. The thought tortures me, day and night. It’s terrible, it’s unfair, and I know it. But I just can’t get it out of my mind, and I feel so guilty about even having those thoughts! After all, Jeremy was Harry’s child, too, and I know in my heart that he would never have wished anything evil for him.”
And with that she lost all control. She wept violently, but as Ellis cradled her head on his shoulder once again, he knew that this was a different kind of storm.
Her tears released a flood of revelations. The truth of it was, for however much she blamed Harry, she equally blamed herself. She was Jeremy’s mother, after all. Shouldn’t she have realized how pressured he felt, how despondent he’d become? If Jeremy had died of an accident or illness, she would have gone through that normal period of bereavement, but it was the way he had died that had tormented her. She felt she had failed him, that she could have done something to prevent what he had done. Hadn’t she, in all honesty, projected her own guilt onto Harry because she couldn’t bear it? She had made him the scapegoat in hopes of alleviating her pain. Oh, not deliberately, of course. But gradually, over the time she’d spent at the farm, she came to understand what—albeit subconsciously—she had done. But deep down she knew she was to blame. Drew’s haunting indictment should have been directed at her too.
At long last, Ellis broke the silence. “You realize, don’t you,” he said quietly, “that you have a choice to make? And the only one who can make it is you. The point is, do you still love Harry? Because if you do, you have to forgive him.”
Lily knew how much she had hurt Harry by staying away. But she’d been so fearful of the words she might use against him—in anger or in grief. She had stayed away in part to preserve what remnant of their marriage was still left. But now it was time for her to take positive action. If she still loved Harry, she must.
Even Ellis sensed the change in her emotion. She was at a crossroads and knew it. Ellis hoped against hope she would tell him, “No, I don’t love Harry any longer.” But Lily turned her green eyes upon him and said, “The point is, Ellis, do you think Harry still loves me?”
With a pang, Ellis knew he would have to tell her the truth. “Yes, Lily. I’m sure of it. Now would you like me to drive you home? And I don’t mean the farm.”
Softly, she murmured, “Oh, Ellis, I always seem to be saying the same thing to you. You’re such a dear friend. What would I do without you?”