“My clothes closet, your lordship.”
“Your closet?”
“Indeed, sir. At the very rear, you shall find another door, hidden behind all my old jackets and frocks. It’s been locked for thirty years. The key will open it.”
“I’d no idea you were such a clothes-hound,” Hawke said from inside the closet. “All these linen blazers and —what? Here it is! A hidden door!”
Alex turned the key and pushed the door open. A cold musty wind brushed his cheeks as he and Vicky entered the dark room, brushing cobwebs aside.
“Oh, my God,” Alex said.
Casting the beam of the flashlight about the room, Alex saw that it was filled to the rafters with all the furnishings, toys, and objects of the first seven years of his life.
Atop a dusty leather chest, he spied a red rubber ball.
“I used to toss this ball into the sea,” he told Vicky in hushed tones. “My dog Scoundrel would plunge in and fetch it. And look here!
“This was my pram, isn’t it wonderful? Father designed it to look like a fishing dory on wheels. And here, the picture that hung above my bed. And all my armies of soldiers, and—”
“Alex, come here,” Vicky said.
“What is it?”
“A painting,” she said. “One of the loveliest paintings I’ve ever seen.”
Later that evening, with Pelham’s help, Alex managed to take down The Battle of Trafalgar, which had hung for a century or so above the fireplace. Then, mounting the tall stepladder once more, he hung the painting Vicky had uncovered in Pelham’s hidden room.
“Is it straight?” Alex asked from atop the ladder.
“Perfectly straight, darling,” Vicky said. “Come down and see!”
Alex returned to the sofa without looking back and sat beside Vicky. Then he raised his eyes to the painting.
His father and mother soon after their wedding day.
Mother was seated, wearing the beautiful white lace dress she’d made famous in The White Rose. Father stood at her side in his splendid uniform, his hand on her bare shoulder. A scarlet sash across his chest bore all of his many decorations, and he wore Marshal Ney’s famous sword at his waist.
He and Vicky sat silently, side by side, staring up at the faces of the happy couple. Alex put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer.
He kissed her warm lips, unashamed of the tears of joy and relief that finally, after all these years, he allowed to course down his cheeks.
Pelham found the two of them sleeping on the sofa wrapped in each other’s arms. He placed the fur coverlet over them, stifled a yawn, and walked out into the hall. It was half past one and he was anxious for his warm bed.
He’d no sooner mounted the first step than he heard the sound of the bell downstairs. The front door! At this hour? Madness.
He descended to the ground floor, muttering to himself about what kind of fool would be out on a night like this, especially at this hour. The bell rang once more.
He swung the wide door open.
There was a man standing there in the pouring rain. He wore a long black cloak, buttoned closely about him. His face was hidden by a large black umbrella.
“Yes?” Pelham said, not bothering to be polite.
“Is this the home of Lord Alexander Hawke?” the man asked.
“Lord Hawke has retired for the evening. Who shall I say is calling?”
“Just give him this,” the man said, and handed Pelham a small gold medallion. The old butler looked at it in the light of the carriage lamp mounted beside the door. It was a medal of some sort, a St. George’s medallion. He turned it over. On the reverse were Alex’s initials and the date of his seventh birthday.
“What do you mean by this? What is—”
“Just give it to him,” the man said. As he turned to go, Pelham caught the barest glimpse of his face. He was astounded by what he saw.
The man’s eyes had no color. No color at all.
60
“I sure am glad you were able to make it down here, Mr. Hawke,” the senator said. “Mighty glad.”
“Thank you for inviting me,” Hawke said, taking another sip of the delicious whiskey. It was more like some locally grown nectar than any whiskey he’d ever tasted. It was Maker’s Mark, the senator’s favorite, and he’d brought along a bottle as a house gift.
“Little early to be drinking fine bourbon where you come from, I suppose,” the senator said.
“Oh, I’m sure the sun is over the yardarm in some formerly far-flung outpost of the British Empire, sir.”
They were seated in a pair of old rockers out on the verandah, gazing down the long allee of pecan trees in full bloom that led all the way to the levee. There were three or four sleepy bird dogs puddled on the steps. The late-afternoon air was cool and heavily scented with the arrival of spring.
Looking over the sprig of mint in his glass, Hawke was thinking he’d never seen a more beautiful place. The sun was a thin band of bright orange and scarlet, lying just along the top of the levee. Everywhere he looked, riots of color had broken out. Redbud trees grew just beyond the faded white railing, and beyond them were azaleas bursting with clouds of coral and pink blossoms. The enormous old rhododendron bushes that rose up to the second and third floors of the house were heavy with crimson blooms.
There was the hoot of a boat, somewhere out on the river.
“You know, my dear wife didn’t care much for whiskey, Mr. Hawke,” the senator said, with a tinkle of ice cubes and looking over at Hawke with a smile.
“I think a lot of women don’t, Senator.”
“I agree,” the senator said, “but Sarah, well, she had convictions about it. None of ’em very favorable, I might add, sir.”
“Well,” Hawke said, rocking back in his chair, “I’ve got convictions about those little tiny watercress sandwiches some ladies seem to favor.”
“Now, that’s damn well said.”
They were silent for a few moments, savoring the whiskey and the companionship of the dusky hour, and then the senator again turned toward Alex with a happy grin on his face.
“You know, I used to say that trying to sneak a second whiskey past my Sarah was like trying to sneak dawn past a rooster!”
Alex laughed and raised his glass, clinking it against the senator’s.
“That’s quite good,” Alex said. “Another quotation.”
“Son…you ever seen a bona fide Parker Sweet Sixteen?”
He picked up a double-barreled shotgun that had been leaning against one of the massive fluted columns beside his rocking chair.
“No, sir, I don’t believe I—”
“Finest upland bird gun a man could ever…” The senator stopped, overcome by emotion. “Good God almighty, Mr. Hawke, I don’t want to talk about any damn guns. What I been trying to say to you, what I been meaning to do since the minute I laid eyes on you, is to thank you, sir, from the bottom of my heart, from the very bottom of my heart, for what you did.”
