Why had he gone to look for her? Why had he done that? Why had he sought her out in the very midst of all this gaiety? Why? Did he want for her to be here? And if he retreated now to some sealed-off room, presuming he could find one, would she come at his bidding? Would they sit together and talk?
At some point, he saw his father through the crowd. It was Phil, all right, that old gentleman in the tweed jacket and gray pants. How much older than Grace he looked. He was not heavy, no, and he wasn’t frail. But his face, never surgically tightened, was soft, natural, and heavily lined like that of Thibault, and his thick thatch of hair, once strawberry blond, was now almost white.
Phil was standing in the library, quite alone among the people drifting in and out, and he was looking fixedly at the big picture of the Distinguished Gentlemen over the mantelpiece.
Reuben could almost see the wheels turning in Phil’s mind as he studied the picture, and the sudden awful thought came to him: He will figure it out.
After all, wasn’t it obvious that the Felix of today was the spitting image, as everyone said, of the man in the photograph, and that the men around him, the men who should now be some twenty years or more older than they’d been when the picture was taken, were exactly the same now as they’d been then? Felix had come back as his own illegitimate son. But how to explain Sergei or Frank or Margon not having aged in the slightest during the last two decades? And what about Thibault? One might grant men in their prime another twenty years of remarkable vigor, and the young ones did appear to be men in their prime. But Thibault had looked like a man of sixty-five or perhaps seventy in the photograph and he looked exactly like that now. How was such a thing possible, that someone so advanced in years when the photo was taken should have the very same appearance now?
But maybe Phil wasn’t noticing all these things. Maybe Phil didn’t even know the date of the picture. Why would he? They’d never discussed it before, had they? Maybe Phil was studying the foliage in the photograph and thinking of mundane things, like where it might have been taken, or observing details about the men’s clothing and guns.
People interrupted Reuben—wanting to say thanks, of course, before they left.
When he finally reached the library, Phil was nowhere in sight. And who should be sitting in the window seat, on the red velvet cushion looking out over the forest, but the inimitable Elthram, his dark caramel skin and savage green eyes veritably glowing in the firelight, as if he were a demon fueled by fires no one in this room could possibly see. He didn’t even look up as Reuben drew close to him. Then finally he did turn and give Reuben a radiant confidential smile before vanishing as he had in the village, without a thought for those who might have been watching, as if such things didn’t really matter. And as Reuben glanced around at the people talking and laughing and nibbling from their plates he realized that nobody had noticed, nobody at all.
Suddenly and without a sound Elthram appeared beside him. He turned and looked into Elthram’s green eyes, as he felt the pressure of the man’s arm around his shoulder.
“There’s someone here who must speak to you,” Elthram said.
“Gladly, only tell me who,” said Reuben.
“Look there,” he said, gesturing towards the great front room. “By the fire. The little girl with the woman beside her.”
Reuben turned, fully expecting to see the woman and the young girl who’d been crying. But these were different people, indeed.
At once Reuben realized he was looking at little Susie Blakely, at her grave little face with her eyes fixed on him. And the woman beside her was Pastor Corrie George, with whom Reuben had left her at the church. Susie wore a lovely old-fashioned smock dress with short puffed sleeves and her hair was beautifully combed. There was a gold chain around her neck with a cross on it. Pastor George wore a black pantsuit with a lot of pretty white lace at the neck, and she too was staring fixedly at Reuben.
“You must be wise,” Elthram whispered. “But she needs to talk to you.”
Reuben’s face was burning. There was a throbbing in his palms. But he went directly towards them.
He bent down as he smoothed the top of Susie’s blond head.
“You’re Susie Blakely,” he said. “I’ve seen your picture in the paper. I’m Reuben Golding, I’m a reporter. You’re much much prettier than your picture, Susie.” It was true. She looked fresh, radiant, undamaged. “And your pink dress is beautiful. You look like a little girl in a storybook.”
She smiled.
His heart was racing, and he marveled at the calm sound of his voice.
“Are you having a good time?” He smiled at Pastor George. “What about you? Can I get anything for you?”
“Can I talk to you, Mr. Golding?” asked Susie. Same clear crisp little voice. “Just for a minute, if I could. It’s really really important.”
“Of course you can,” said Reuben.
“She does need to talk to you, Mr. Golding,” said Pastor George. “You must forgive us for asking you like this, but we’ve come a long way tonight, just to see you, and I promise this won’t take but a few minutes.”
Where could he visit with them in quiet? The party was as crowded as ever.
Quickly, he drew them out of the great room and down the hallway and up the oak stairs.
His room was open to all the guests, but fortunately only a couple were having some eggnog at the round table and they quickly yielded when he brought the little girl and the woman in with him.
He shut the door and locked it, and made sure the bathroom was empty.
“Sit down, please,” he said. “What can I do for you?” He gestured for them to sit at the round table.
Susie’s scalp looked as pink as her dress, and she blushed suddenly as she sat down on the straight-backed chair. Pastor George took her right hand and held it in both of hers as she sat near the child.
“Mr. Golding, I have to tell you a secret,” said Susie. “A secret I can’t tell anybody else.”
“You can tell me,” said Reuben, nodding. “I promise you, I can keep a secret. Some reporters can’t but I can.”
“I know you saw the Man Wolf,” said Susie. “You saw him in this house. And the time before that, he bit you. I heard all about it.” Her face puckered as if she was about to cry.
“Yes, Susie,” said Reuben. “I did see him. All that was true.” He wondered if he was blushing as she was blushing. His face was hot. He was hot all over. His heart went out to her. He would have done anything at this moment to make her comfortable, to help her, protect her.