The Madness Of Love | The Secret History

XVI

We walked to Commons through slush and cold rain, and when we got there the twins, Francis, and Henry were waiting for us.

The configuration struck me as significant, in some way that was not entirely clear, everyone except Bunny - "What's going on?" I said, blinking at them.
"Nothing" said Henry, tracing a pattern on the floor with the sharp ferrule of his umbrella.
"We're just going for a drive. I thought it might be fun" - he paused delicately - "if we got away from school for a while, maybe had some dinner..."

Without Bunny, that is the subtext here, I thought. Where was he? The tip of Henry's umbrella glittered. I heard Lilith's breathing next to me. Francis was looking at me with lifted eyebrows.

"What is it?" I said irritably. He exhaled with a sharp, amused sound. "Are you drunk?" he said.
They were looking at me in kind of a funny way.
"Yes." I said. It wasn't the truth, but I didn't feel much like explaining.

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The chill sky, misty with fine rain near the treetops, made even the familiar landscape around Hampden seem indifferent and remote.

Henry drove, rather fast as he always did, his right hand resting on Lilith's knee, the tires whining on the wet, black road and water spraying high on either side.

"I looked at this place about a month ago" he said, slowing as we approached a white farmhouse on a hill. "It's still for sale, but I think they want too much."

"How many acres?" asked Camilla.
"A hundred and fifty."
"What on earth would you do with that much land?" Camilla raised her hand to clear the hair from her eyes. "You wouldn't want to farm it, would you?"

"To my way of thinking" Henry said "the more land the better. I'd love to have so much land that from where I lived I couldn't see a highway or a telephone pole or anything I didn't want to see. There was another farm I saw, over the line in New York State..."

Everyone seemed unusually calm and at ease and I thought I knew why. It was because Bunny wasn't with us. They were avoiding the topic with a deliberate unconcern.

"If I bought a house anywhere I'd buy one here" said Lilith. "I've always liked the mountains better than the seashore.
"So have I" said Henry. "I suppose in that regard  my tastes are rather Hellenistic. I've never had the slightest bit of interest in the sea."

"It's because you grew up in the Midwest" Charles said.
"But if one follows that line of reasoning, then it follows that I would love flat lands, and plains. Which I don't. I've always been drawn to broken, wild terrain. The oldest tongues come from such places, and the strangest mythologies, and the oldest cities, and the most barbarous religions."

"I come from a place like that" Lilith said dreamily. It was the first time I heard her mention something about where she comes from. She's always kept it a secret, and Henry used to try to figure it out with a very admirable determination. I don't know if he ever did figure it out.

Henry glanced at her curiously, but didn't say anything and kept driving. It was dark now. This  was remote, untraveled land, rocky and thickly wooded.

Francis, who knew this territory better than we did, had said there was an inn nearby but it was hard to believe there was anything habitable around. Then we rounded a bend and saw a rusted metal sign that informed us that there was the Hoosatonic Inn, straight ahead.

The dinning room was empty, except for a few country people, all of whom looked up at us with curiosity, at our dark suits and spectacles, at Francis's monogrammed cufflinks and his Charvet tie, at Lilith's Chanel skirt-suit, at Camilla with her sleek Astrakhan coat.

When we sat down, no one came by to take our order. Dinner appeared with magic: pork roast, biscuits, turnips and corn.

The waiter lingered for a moment. Finally he said, shyly: "You folks from New York City?"
"No" said Charles. "Vermont"

He was still loitering, trying to think of something else to say, when Henry glanced up at him. "Sit down" he said unexpectedly. "Have some dinner, won't you?"

After a bit of awkward demurral, he pulled up a chair, though he refused to eat anything. His name, we discovered, was John Deacon.

Henry, who generally disliked and was disliked by hoi polloi nonetheless had a genuine knack with poor people, simple people. Though he did not treat them as equals - he didn't treat anyone as an equal, except maybe Lilith - neither did he resort to the condescending friendliness of the wealthy.

Through most of the meal, Henry and the boy talked in the most intimate and baffling terms, about the land around Hampden and Hoosatonic as the rest of us ate our dinners and listened (Lilith with a small smile on her face, time from time glancing at Henry with a strange, to me, loving look).

It was a conversation one might overhear at any rural filling station or feed store; but hearing it made me feel curiously happy, and at ease with the world.

Not proofread. Sorry for an uneventful chapter, though I don't think the next one will be more adventurous. Just bear with me x