The Woman Who Fell From Grace Read online

  It was the morning of Mavis’s funeral when Mercy knocked on my door, wearing a Mary Baldwin sweatshirt and jeans, face scrubbed, notepad in hand, composed, alert, all business. “I’ve looked into Vangie and John’s marital vows, like you asked,” she announced briskly.

  “You really didn’t have to do it now.”

  “I wanted to. It’s keeping my mind off … other things, you know? I can come back later if you’d rather.”

  “No, no. Now is fine.”

  I gave her some coffee. She sat on the love seat with it, looked around at the room. It’s entirely possible she’d never been in it before. She’d certainly never owned it before. Lulu sniffed at her, then turned her back on her and sat with a loud, disapproving grunt. Mercy watched this curiously.

  “Don’t mind her,” I said. “She’s just a little overprotective.”

  Mercy smiled. “She thinks I’m going to steal you from her?”

  “From Merilee, actually.”

  Blushing, Mercy dove into her notes. “Okay, it seems the Anglican Church was the only officially recognized faith in the Virginia Colony,” she reported. “And Anglican clergymen were the only ones empowered to perform marital vows. So I guess they would have had an Anglican wedding.”

  “Okay.”

  “What did people do who weren’t Anglicans, I wonder?”

  “Either pretend to get the faith or pretend to get married, I suppose.”

  She glanced through her notes, shaking her head. “Totally medieval. Do you know if you didn’t attend an Anglican service at least once a month you could actually be fined? And if you … you … ”

  I heard a soft, plopping sound first. The sound of her tears falling onto the page. Then she hiccoughed once and her shoulders began to shake and then she was gone. I went to her. She hurled herself into my arms, heaved great sobs, held on tight. When she was done watering my shoulder, I gave her my linen handkerchief.

  “Sorry,” she said, sniffling, wiping her swollen eyes. “Didn’t mean to … ”

  “It’s okay. Nothing to be sorry about.”

  “I’m just not ready.”

  “For what?”

  “Any of this. The estate, being in charge. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand anything.” She buried her face in my chest. “I’m so confused.”

  “You’re growing up all at once. Sorry to be the one to break it to you.”

  “I’m just not ready,” she repeated.

  “You’ll be fine. You’ve got your father, your uncles, Polk … ”

  She shook her head. “I’m breaking it off with Polk.”

  “Since when?”

  “It’s something I decided I have to do.”

  “I wouldn’t. At least not right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re under a lot of strain. It’s not a good time to make this kind of decision. Besides, he’s not such a bad guy, in his own way.”

  Her eyes shone as they searched my face. “You surprise me. I thought … I mean, I thought you’d kind of approve.” She lowered her eyes shyly. “You left someone out. You said I had Father and my uncles and Polk. There’s also you.”

  “I’m not worth much on the open market.”

  “You are. You’re so, I don’t know, sure of things.”

  “The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m not sure of anything. I’m merely good at pretending. Comes with being old.”

  “Not so old,” Mercy said softly. She raised her face to mine, her young lips parted slightly.

  I shook my head. “That’ll make things even more confusing.”

  My intentions were good. At least I think they were. Unfortunately, my timing stank. Richard stormed in just then without knocking. Finding us like that on the love seat didn’t make him too happy.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Mercy!” he roared. “I see I was looking in the wrong room! Go inside and get dressed at once! The minister is here!”

  “Yes, Father.” She gave me back my handkerchief. “Thank you, Hoagy. For everything.” Then she went out.

  Richard waited until she’d closed the door behind her before he lunged at me, grabbing me by the throat with his big hairy hands. “I don’t believe there’s a word in the language vile enough to describe you!” he spat out. “Taking advantage of a grieving girl, her mother not even in her grave yet!”

  “Believe what you want, Richard,” I gasped, sucking for air. “But you’re wrong. She needed a shoulder to cry on. She happens to be the tiniest bit upset at the moment.”

  Richard stared deeply into my eyes. Abruptly, he released me, ran his hands through his hair. He slumped wearily into the easy chair. He seemed older to me. Mavis’s death had aged him. “Sorry, lad,” he said hoarsely. “Awfully damned sorry. Didn’t mean to … Just not myself.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” I panted, fingering my throat.

  Mercy had gotten coffee. Daddy got a single malt.

  “It’s a bitch, this,” he confessed, sipping it gratefully. “An honest-to-Christ bitch. Mave was a hard, hard woman, lad. At times, I hated her more than I ever believed a man could hate a woman. But I did love her as well. I don’t believe I realized just how much until now. I’ve no one now,” he added mournfully. “No one in this world who gives a good goddamned about me.”

  “There’s Mercy.”

  “She has her own life ahead of her. Marriage, children … ”

  “There’s your brother, Kenneth,” I suggested.

  That one he left alone.

  “Too bad he can’t make it over for the funeral,” I pressed. “Being so ill, I mean.”

  He glanced at me sharply. “You know the truth, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “One of the brothers tell you?”

  That one I left alone.

  “Ah, well.” He chuckled softly to himself. “We all play a role of some kind. I’ve played mine, and damned well, I like to think. Mave’s idea from the start, you know. To impress the great unwashed. Meant a lot to her, bringing a fine English gent home to America with her, rather than a postman’s son from Derby. I refused to play along at first. Wounded my pride. But I did it — for her. Sorry I had you on before. Been playing at it so long it almost seems real. It’s certainly so to Mercy. She still doesn’t know who I really am. That’s how Mave always wanted it.”

  “She won’t hear about it from me.”

  “Thank you, lad. Damned gentlemanly of you.” He drained his whiskey. “I’m not coming into any money of my own, of course, other than whatever stipend Mercy gives me. I was having you on about that as well. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay — I didn’t entirely believe you. But I think Charlotte did.”

  He shifted uneasily in his chair. His face darkened. “Charlotte … ”

  “What are you going to do about her?”

  “I honestly don’t know, lad. What should I do?”

  I sighed inwardly. I was getting tired of being the answer man. “Tell her the truth about yourself, for starters. If you don’t, Pam will.”

  He grunted unhappily. “Dear, dear. And then?”

  “Do I really look like Mary Worth to you?”

  He stared at me, waiting.

  I stared back at him. “Do you love Charlotte?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Find out. See what happens now that you no longer have Mavis between you. See if a relationship grows.”

  He thought this over. “That’s good advice, lad.”

  “It’s true. I give excellent advice. I just don’t take any of it myself.”

  There was a tapping at the door. Charlotte. She had on a black dress, drab, for the funeral.

  “What are you doing out here, Richard?” she asked crossly. “You’re needed inside.”

  “Sorry. Was on my way in.”

  She looked down at him. “You were not,” she said gently. “You were sitting here jawing. Come along.” She held her hand out to him, like she would t
o Gordie, if she cared for Gordie.

  He reached up meekly and took it. “Yes, Charlotte.”

  Obediently, he followed her out. I watched him go. He needed this. He needed another woman to take charge of him. And Charlotte? I wondered about her. What was Charlotte capable of doing to get what she wanted? Did she figure in? How?

  Mavis was buried that afternoon in the Glaze cemetery. It was a brief affair, and private. Immediate family only. And Charlotte and Polk Four and me. I don’t know why I was invited, but I was, so I went.

  She was buried next to her mother and father, beneath a big family stone. Frederick’s and Edward’s names and birth date were inscribed on it next to hers. A blank space remained — to be filled in when they died. Neither of them took their eyes off that space once during the entire ceremony.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE OH, SHENANDOAH GOLDEN-ANNIVERSARY celebration was a truly major nonevent. Charter buses began pulling into Staunton shortly after dawn five days after the funeral, disgorging thousands of fans from all over America, most of them elderly ladies in pastel pantsuits who had seen the movie fifty times and knew every line, every detail, every morsel of gossip about the filming — or so they thought. The whole town gave itself over to the promotional frenzy. There were parades and banners and horse-drawn carriages and lots of people in Revolutionary War costumes. There were Vangie look-alike contests and movie memorabilia auctions and reenactments of battle scenes and panel discussions among self-proclaimed Oh, Shenandoah scholars. There were tours of historic homes and demonstrations of historic crafts and firearms. There were vendors selling peanuts and cotton candy. There were people, people everywhere, milling around the streets, stuffing their faces, taking pictures of each other, yelling, buying.

  The Hollywood contingent began arriving later that afternoon. Most of them were billeted at The Shenandoan, a big new conference center built up on a hill on the outskirts of town. Such noted sons and daughters of the South as Chuck Heston, Ed McMahon, Shelley Winters, Gene Kelly, Roddy McDowall, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Sonny Bono were on hand to pay tribute to Mavis Glaze’s favorite charity and to get their faces on Entertainment Tonight. A number of them were granting interviews in the lobby when I got there. Sam Goldwyn, Jr., was on hand, attending to his father’s interests. Cookie Jahr, the makeup girl who had been in the sitting room when Fern O’Baugh screamed fifty years before, was there. And so were Helene Bray and Rex Ransom, the two surviving Oh, Shenandoah cast members. Helene, the fast young actress who had played Vangie’s friend Abigail was now the seventy-three-year-old proprietor of an art gallery in Carmei, California. She had short, severe white hair and a deep tan and wore a lot of heavy, jangly jewelry. She arrived in the company of a young, blond hunk of Eurotrash named Wulf. Rex Ransom arrived alone.

  I found him lying down in his room with the shades drawn. “Stewart Hoag, Mr. Ransom,” I said to the dim shape there on the bed. “We spoke on the phone.”

  “Oh, yeah, the writer. Sorry, musta dropped off — trip kind of wore me out.” He reached over and turned on the bedside light.

  It was some kind of mistake. This wasn’t Rex Ransom. Not this bald, shriveled old man with no teeth who lay there on the bed before me with his shoes off. His color wasn’t too good — unless you consider gray good — and he’d lost some weight. The skin on his face and neck fell in loose folds, and his polo shirt was a couple of sizes too big for him. So were his slacks. His belt was cinched practically twice around. He sat up slowly, put on his glasses, and lit the stub of a cigar that had gone out in the ashtray, his hands trembling. The cigar didn’t smell too good, but it smelled better than his socks did.

  He got to his feet with a groan and offered me his cold, limp hand. He was no more than five feet four in his stocking feet. “I know, I know,” he said quickly. His voice was thin and slightly nasal. “You always thought I was a lot taller. That’s ’cause I’m big through the shoulders and chest.” He looked down at himself and frowned. “Used to be, anyways. And I wore lifts.”

  I was staring. It was so hard to imagine him as the Masked Avenger, that fearless doer of good who rode so tall and proud in the saddle. Now I knew why I hadn’t seen him in anything for so long. And why Merilee had said, I hope he doesn’t disappoint you.

  “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Ransom,” I finally said. “I carried your lunch box.”

  “One of my kids, huh?” he said with a gummy smile. “Yeah, you look about the right age.” He went into the bathroom. A moment later he returned wearing his teeth and his toupee. It was a bad rug. The hairs looked sticky and dead and didn’t match the color of his sideburns. “Made two fifty a week to do that lousy show. Low point of my career. Christ, television. Wasn’t until I had the job I found out they was gonna put me up on a goddamned horse. Damned horse hated my guts, too. Always tried to throw me. We used two different Neptunes, y’know. First one broke a leg doing some damned fool stunt, had to be put down. Nobody knows that. Go ahead and put it in your article. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

  “Actually, I’m not writing an —”

  “Hey, you got a pooch!” he exclaimed, noticing Lulu for the first time. “I love dogs. Landlady won’t lemme keep one.” He bent over and patted her. “Jeez, her breath … ”

  “Your landlady’s?”

  “No, the pooch.”

  “She has strange eating habits.”

  “It was the war, y’know,” he declared, chewing on his cigar.

  “The war?”

  “Old man Goldwyn, he was gonna make me a leading man. I was on my way up when we wrapped this picture. Then I had to go into the service. None of that public relations flyboy crap, neither. I fought hand to hand in one lousy, stinking Pacific jungle after another. Killed three men. Woulda killed three more for a decent meal. When I came back, it was all different. They wanted dark and brooding — Greg Peck, Vic Mature, Bob Mitchum. I was an old face. Nothing worse in this business. Best I could get was two-line bits. Bartenders, cops, cabbies, maybe a few weeks here and there in a horror picture. … Hey, you want a drink or something? They said I can order room service. Food, booze, anything.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  We sat in two club chairs by the window, which overlooked the tennis courts. No one was using them.

  “That lousy series, it’s all I got, y’know,” Ransom went on. “On in reruns all over the place. I dont get a nickel off residuals, but I still do the sci-fi conventions, mall openings, junior high assemblies. I put on my costume and my mask, sign a few autographs, make a few bucks. My kids still love me. And I love them. They’re my family. I got no one else.” He shook his head. “And now they won’t let me do it no more.

  “Who won’t?”

  “These sons of bitches. Same studio that’s doing this Oh, Shenandoah thing. Seems they’re making this fifty-million-dollar Masked Avenger special-effects movie with some twenty-three-year-old weight lifter playing me. They want the public to think of him as the Avenger now, not me, so they’re hassling me about making my appearances. Like I’m some kinda threat to ’em or something. All I make is a few bucks. I’m just an old man trying to get by. I got a one-bedroom apartment in Studio City, an eight-year-old car, no pension, hemorrhoids hanging from me like a handful of table grapes. And now they want to take it away from me. I tell ya, I’m so pissed off I didn’t want to come to this thing. But what the hell, they’re paying my way with a little something on top, so I can’t afford not to. What kinda story you writing, kid? What can I tell ya?”

  “I’m not a reporter, Mr. Ransom.”

  “Make it Mike. That’s what my friends call me. My real name — Mike Radachowski.”

  “I’m working for the Glazes on the sequel to Oh, Shenandoah, Mike. Right now I’m collecting anecdotes for an introduction. I wondered if we could talk about Sterling Sloan’s death.”

  “Sure,” he said easily. “Some kind of stroke, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so. And I don’t think
you do, either.”

  He examined his cigar butt. It was cold. “What makes you think I know anything about it?”

  “I have an idea you do.”

  He kept on examining his cigar. He looked worried now. “Sloan died a long, long time ago. What does it matter now?”

  “It matters.”

  “I’d like to help you, kid,” my boyhood hero said slowly. “But I really can’t say nothing about it.”

  “About what?”

  “The studio … ”

  “The studio is fucking you over.”

  “I still gotta make a living.”

  “They just said you can’t.”

  “That’s true,” he admitted. He hesitated. “I don’t know … ”

  “Why don’t you do what I do when I’m in doubt?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ask myself what the Masked Avenger would do.”

  “That was comic book stuff,” he scoffed.

  “If we kept on believing what we learned in comic books, we’d all be a lot better off.”

  He looked at me curiously. “Y’know, you’re kind of a strange young fella.”

  “Yeah, I’m what’s known in the New York Times crossword puzzle as a oner.”

  “I don’t know … ”

  “Trust me, Mike.”

  “Trust you? I don’t even know you.”

  “Yeah, you do. I’m one of your kids.”

  “Look, I hate to let you down, seeing as how you are, but … ” He thought it over. “What exactly do you want to know?”

  “What you saw and heard.”

  “You mean gossip?”

  “Okay.”

  He relaxed, relieved. “Well, hell, that’s no problem. I can tell ya right off — it was a horny set. So what else is new. Errol, he was shtupping Laurel Barrett under Sloan’s nose. Helene, Jesus, I had her, Dave Niven had her, we all had her — except for Sloan, who turned her down cold.”

  “Because of his wife?”

  “Naw, on account of he had something else going. At least, that’s what we all figured.”

  “Who with?”