Treasure Box Part 8

"What is it you think I'm doing with them?"

"They have their dream-as long as they get to accomplish that, then you get everything else your way."

He could certainly see how it might seem like that to someone with her perspective. His partners brought their dream, their drive, their expertise-but everything else was done Quentin's way, which is why he never lost much money with even the worst failures. He had control. And as soon as they weren't accomplishing his purpose, he cut them off and set them adrift. Uninjured, but they were no longer useful to him and so he had nothing more to do with them.

That's how it looked, yes, if you chose to see it that way. But that wasn't what he meant, or who he was. He wasn't using these people, he was helping them.

"Get real," said Madeleine. "n.o.body ever helps anybody except in order to help themselves. Not even you. Not even when you do your best lying to yourself about it."

"I don't like this conversation," said Quentin.

"It's your conversation, Tin. But I thought we both understood this. I haven't lied to you. I told you from the start it was power that I wanted most. You knew that's what you were signing on to when we went into partnership."

"Partnership?" The word was sour in his mouth.

"I don't mean our marriage. I mean our partnership. The candidates. We're building up a network of people we can control without their even guessing we're controlling them. Maybe only two or three times in their career will we have to make them do something, and when we do, it won't violate any of their principles because it'll have nothing to do with their pet cause. We'll just ask them to help us out on this or that, whatever it is, and they'll know that they owe us everything and so they'll do it. And never think twice, because it'll be so small, so nothing nothing. An appointment. A single vote. Locking something up in a committee. Confirming an appointee their party opposes, or opposing one they're supposed to support. As a favor to us, the ones who got them started on their wonderful career that's been so good good for their cause." for their cause."

"So we're the fat cats after all," said Quentin.

"No, not at all!" She laughed at the idea. "Tin, you've seen the fat cats, they strut around getting in petty catfights about stupid local matters that amount to nothing. They show off their jewelry and their tans at local fundraisers. They pride themselves on mingling with the common people and then pride themselves on being more 'inside' than the common people. We're not like that."

Quentin shook his head. It was as if he hadn't really known her. And yet she was the woman he loved. He had to think about this. It wasn't anything like what Wayne Read had warned him about. After all, he'd known her for months now. And maybe she was right, maybe he should have understood this att.i.tude of hers from the start. What did it matter, anyway? So she was more open about wanting power than most people, what of that? It was honesty, of a sort. Integrity.

Or else it was cynical manipulation, so deeply evil that few politicians could bring themselves to conceive of it.

He shook off that dark thought. This sweet, naive, childlike woman beside him simply had a childlike, naive view of the romance of political power. It was an outsider's vision, that's all. Just as he had found with money, she would soon find with power-that it got boring once you had enough of it, and then you had to rethink everything in order to find something worth doing with it.

Evil indeed. What dark thing dwelt in his heart, to make him think of such a word in relation to his Mad? He would say nothing to her to imply criticism. Better to treat it lightly, as a game, and then help her gain a wiser view later, as she gained more experience in the political world.

He leaned over and kissed her. "When you rule the world, Mad, do I get to be prince consort?"

She laughed. "Why do you think I married you?"

He laughed with her. He was relieved to see that she could mock herself. As long as she could see the humor in her own desires, they would never get the better of her.

The Beatles sang about how they wanted money. The other stuff, you can give it to the birds and bees. You really got a hold on me. Roll over, Beethoven. And the CD ended.

Silence filled the car for a while. Except that he could hear his own heartbeat, pounding like Ringo's relentless drum. With her head on his shoulder, could she hear it, too? His heart? Now that it belonged to her, did she hear it?

They never would have noticed the entrance to the estate if she hadn't been there to point it out. Even as it was, with her saying, "Right here, turn here, right now!" the driver overshot it and had to back up.

"Sorry," he said. "I couldn't see it till we pa.s.sed it."

"No sweat," said Quentin.

"I can see how it's easy to miss in the darkness," said Madeleine.

The lane they drove up was so overgrown that branches sc.r.a.ped both sides of the car, and sometimes limbs hung so low that it seemed the lane ended entirely.

"Tearing up the side of the car," the driver murmured.

"I paid for the insurance coverage, didn't I?" asked Quentin.

"Oh, yes sir, no problem, sir, just talking to myself."

"I suppose they've been forgetting to have the gardener come out to the lane," said Madeleine. "Or maybe it's just Grandmother's idea of privacy."

At last the lane opened up onto a large field of snow. Not a tiretrack or footprint disturbed it, even though it had been days since the last snowfall. Only a slight depression in the snow showed where the lane went.

The house emerged from the great ancient trees that surrounded it, but could never have hidden it in the daylight, for it rose five rambling stories above a sweeping front porch with a stairway surely as wide and high as a Greek temple.

"How many hundreds of people live here?" asked Quentin in awe.

"In its heyday, there were probably half a dozen families. n.o.body moved away. We were such a tightknit clan back then." She laughed. "Money requires a big house, anyway, Tin. No matter how many people actually live there. You're the only one who doesn't understand that."

A silent servant stood waiting for them, a tall thin man, the cliche of a butler. He wore only a lightweight jacket but didn't seem bothered by the cold.

"How did he know we were coming?" asked Quentin.

"I'm sure someone noticed the lights coming up the lane."

Quentin wasn't quite sure what the servant was there for, since he didn't open their car doors or help them get their luggage out of the car-the driver did all that. Quentin tipped the driver and sent him off. The tires crackled in the gravel and the engine sounded like a windstorm as the car swept away, its taillights streaking the snow with red.

"Much more Christmasy than anything in California," said Quentin.

"It doesn't feel Christmasy to me," said Madeleine. "It feels oppressive."

"Welcome home, Miss Cryer," said the servant softly.

"You see?" said Madeleine. "They know I'm Mrs. Fears now."

"Beg your pardon," said the servant. "Habit of decades."

The servant led them up the stairs. He must have come out of the house another way, since theirs were the first feet to break the crust of snow on the steps. Quentin carried his own bags; the servant was carrying Madeleine's. Was this a sign of things to come? Madeleine belonged here, and Quentin was barely tolerated? Or maybe if Quentin had simply left his bags, the servant would have come back down and picked them up later. He had no idea, really, how the whole business with servants worked. And from what Madeleine said, it might all be different here anyway. Her family followed its own rules.

Which was all the more apparent when not a soul from the household came to greet them. They were led up silent, empty stairs to a room on the third floor-a huge room, well furnished, but lighted by only two lamps with cloth cords that plugged into ancient two-p.r.o.ng outlets. "I guess n.o.body's brought this old place up to code," said Quentin.

The servant looked at him as if he were a newly noticed crack in the plaster, and then left the two of them in their oversized but ancient bedroom.

"Well, Mad, is there a bathroom attached to this room or do we wander down a hall?"

She laughed. "There's a bathroom attached to all all the rooms now-somebody went on a modernizing kick back in the 1920s. When they put in the electricity they also put in the plumbing. But you can see up on that wall how the moldings aren't exactly right. That's because the wall didn't used to be here. This is a false wall added on so they could fit in two bathrooms, ours and the one attached to the next bedroom over." She showed him in to the quaint old bathroom, with a clawfoot tub and a toilet with the tank high on the wall. And a pull chain. the rooms now-somebody went on a modernizing kick back in the 1920s. When they put in the electricity they also put in the plumbing. But you can see up on that wall how the moldings aren't exactly right. That's because the wall didn't used to be here. This is a false wall added on so they could fit in two bathrooms, ours and the one attached to the next bedroom over." She showed him in to the quaint old bathroom, with a clawfoot tub and a toilet with the tank high on the wall. And a pull chain.

"Oh, really," said Quentin. "Surely this was old-fashioned even in the twenties."

"My family cultivates an air of eccentricity."

"I feel like we've walked into the castle of the beast."

She raised an eyebrow. "I know the place smells musty, but-"

"In the story of Beauty and the Beast. How she lived there but never met a soul for the longest time."

"Oh, they're all in bed."

"It's not that late."

"I didn't say they were asleep. The house keeps Grandmother's schedule. Quiet time begins right after supper. Everybody to their bedrooms. Including arriving guests. We can go on down to the kitchen and make sandwiches, though. As long as we don't slide down the banisters or shout through the halls. Everybody will stay out of our way until tomorrow."

"Who's everybody?"

"How do I know till I've taken inventory in the morning?"

So they divided up the drawers and closet s.p.a.ce and unpacked and changed out of their traveling clothes into pajamas and bathrobes and padded downstairs in slippers to the bas.e.m.e.nt kitchen. "This must be convenient for the servants," said Quentin.

"That's what dumbwaiters are for," said Madeleine. "It's so low-cla.s.s to have the food prepared on the same floor where the family and company live." She laughed. "Oh, Tin, are you beginning to see why I didn't want to bring you here right away?"

"I remember the grande dame telling me that in the old days, everybody married for money. New money married old money. Is that what I am? New money?"

"No," said Madeleine. "You're nothing but a love machine to me."

"You have mustard on your lip." But while she was still looking for a napkin, he kissed it off. They carried their sandwiches upstairs.

7. No Place Like Home

In the morning, watching through half-open eyes as Madeleine staggered from bed to bathroom, Quentin wondered why he had been so emphatic about wanting to meet her family. Not because he actually wanted to feel this nervous, worried about whether he'd measure up to their expectations-or, worse, fit them exactly. It didn't help that Madeleine had been so maddeningly vague about what was wrong with her family. Or even, for that matter, who they were. The only one she ever mentioned specifically in connection with this house was her grandmother. Quentin's own grandmothers were so funny and loving and kind, each in her own way, that it was hard to imagine that any grandmother could be awful. What would an evil grandmother do, bake cookies without sugar? Refuse to babysit?

"Wake up, Quentin."

"Did I doze off?"

"I wasn't that that long in the bathroom. I think you're just hoping to avoid meeting my family." long in the bathroom. I think you're just hoping to avoid meeting my family."

"Maybe. Unconsciously, I a.s.sure you."

"You still haven't opened your eyes."

"Who else am I meeting today? Besides your dreaded grandmother?"

"Whoever's in residence, of course."

"I'll meet your parents, won't I?"

"I doubt it."

He felt his insides twist. "Then why are we here? Mad, I wanted to meet your parents."

"You never said that. You said you wanted to meet my family."

"And are those two separate ent.i.ties?"

"My parents don't live here. My mother had a falling out with my grandmother."

"Well, why don't we go meet your mother, then?"

"Because this is home," said Madeleine. "This is my inheritance."

"You're the only heir?"

"Tin, I think you're stalling."

"I just don't get how your family is related."

"Grandmother begat Mother, and Mother begat me. Like in the Bible."

Quentin pulled the pillow over his head. She jerked it off at once, then pulled off the covers. There was a definite chill in the room.

"Come on, it's cold."

"You should have put your jammies back on last night."

"After you went to all the trouble of pulling them off with your teeth?"

"In your dreams."

"You mean I was dreaming?"

"The gla.s.s of cold water comes next, Tin. Rise and shine."

Quentin immediately quoted: " 'Whenever I hear you saying, Rise and shine, rise and shine, it makes me think how lucky dead people are!' "

"What are you quoting?"

"Gla.s.s Menagerie. Tennessee Williams. High school English cla.s.s."

"Get. Out. Of. Bed." She began pulling on his foot. He let her drag him to the floor, then tried to pull her down on top of him. But instead she planted a foot on his chest and said, "Rise or die, Tin."

"Oh, well, if that's that's my choice." my choice."