“When you go out with him you come back awful late. Me and Jess have been talking and we don’t want you to marry some snot-clot who can’t take care of you.” The boy smiled then: not his father’s self-centered smirk but an expression of concern that was purely Colin Bennett.
O. M. Staunton was not a sensitive man. But he could take a hint. Slowly and quietly in the beginning, not enough to cause a ripple on the surface, changes had been occurring in his body long before his daughter died. He had never paid much attention to his health, assuming it would serve him as obediently as did everything else in his life. Then he began experiencing bouts of nausea. A hollow pain at the base of his throat. A pounding heartbeat that awoke him in the middle of the night to find himself bathed in sweat.
Never one to panic, in his own good time he had gone to see his doctor. His doctor sent him to a specialist who sent him to another specialist
On Sunday afternoon Staunton appeared at Bea Fontaine’s front door again.
“Miz Bea, I need to talk to you. Is anybody else here?”
“No, Jack’s out for the day and I have no idea when or even if he’ll return. You know how young men are.”
“I can’t even remember,” Staunton said hoarsely. “Can I come in?”
When they were seated in the living room Staunton refused any offer of refreshment. “Let’s make this quick; I have to. Since I was born the human life-span has lengthened dramatically; ninety is the new seventy and all that. But mine’s done all the lengthening it’s going to do.”
Shock sent pins and needles through Bea’s body. The Old Man had seemed immortal, like the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire. “You can’t mean…”
“I do mean. The medicos give me weeks, a couple of months at the most; I don’t have enough heart muscle left to use as a shoelace. I’m not a candidate for a heart transplant, my lungs and kidneys are shot too. I’ve got to make arrangements pretty smartly and I need your help. I hate to keep asking you for favors, but…”
She found herself looking at his trousered knees as he sat in the armchair. Bony knees, thrusting sharply up like mountain peaks. When did he become so thin?
“Somebody’s going to have to take over the bank while I’m still able to oversee the transition,” he went on. “My son-in-law’s off the rails. After Tricia’s funeral I urged him to come back into the bank, hoping it would steady him, but… I want to appoint you as president of the Sycamore and Staunton. You know more about this bank than anyone else and I can trust you to do what I would. It’s a poisoned chalice right now, but things are going to get better, they always do if you hang on long enough. What do you say, Miz Bea?”
Miz Bea did not say anything. To the dismay of them both, she began to cry.
She recalled that the stone face of the Old Man of the Mountain had crumbled away to nothing.
The bank of dark clouds that appeared in the morning sky had spread throughout the day, keeping the temperature unseasonably low, yet there was the faintest shimmer on the air, like heat waves rising from the earth.
Staunton stood beside Bea on her front porch, surveying the weather with a dubious eye. His familiar black car waited at the curb. “Is this supposed to be summer or winter?” he asked.
“Are you sure you’re able to drive? What about your car?”
“I’m able to do anything I want to do, I just don’t want to do much anymore. And that car’ll go where I tell it to. You still haven’t given me your answer, Miz Bea.”
She drew a deep breath, like someone on a high diving board about to jump off for the first time. “If you really want me to…”
“I do.”
“Well, then…”
“Well, then be in my office by seven in the morning, before anyone else gets there.”
He did not say thank you. Or good-bye. He got in his car and drove away.
Dwayne Nyeberger was furious. “I’ll go to the board of directors!” he shouted at Bea when she gave him the news on Tuesday morning. In his office, with the door closed, and him pounding his fist on the desk.
Bea was determined to remain calm. The Old Man expected her to be able to weather this storm, and she would. “Stauntons have chosen every member of the board since the bank was established,” she reminded Dwayne, “and it’s always rubber-stamped them. Don’t worry, your job is secure. You’ll continue on the same salary, he’s insisting on that. But—”
“No buts! I’m going to take this to the banking commission and the board of trade; I’m going to have the whole rotten deal overturned! I’ll have that old fool put away!”
“You’ll be wasting time and money,” Bea warned. “Don’t you know him by now? He has every contingency covered.” She lowered her voice to cushion the blow as she added, “He’s already filed copies of your medical records to show that you are unstable; the authorities won’t take your word over his. Be thankful for what you have, Dwayne.”
Dwayne responded with the worst temper tantrum of his life. Bea insisted that he take the rest of the day off.
As she returned to her office—with its gallery of former bank presidents watching from the walls—she became aware that the parquet floor was sticky. She stopped. Bent down. Ran her fingertips across flooring made of imitation teak laminate that was just beginning to dissolve.
Bea straightened up. The eyes of Oliver Staunton’s grandfather appeared to meet hers. The stern visage expressed mild disapproval.
Every portrait had been painted in the same style.
The Nyeberger boys were still recovering from their injuries at home; still cared for by Staunton’s housekeeper and a rotating assortment of nurses when required. Haydon Leveritt, a stocky woman with frizzy hair and deep frown lines, was doing the best she could, but her temper had worn very thin. Years ago there reputedly had been a Mr. Leveritt, but according to town gossip, “He stepped outside one day for a quick smoke and just never came back.”
Keeping house for the town’s richest banker had been the height of her ambition. Being saddled with the young Nyebergers and their problems was a step too far. When their father rampaged into the house cursing and shouting, the boys were alarmed. Haydon was terrified.
Since the disaster at RobBenn, Flub, the elder—by eight minutes—of the Nyeberger twins, had not spoken. There was no physical reason, according to their doctors. As his father’s uncontrollable outburst reached its peak Flub tugged on the housekeeper’s arm. “Daddy’s sick again. He’s always sick. I wish he’d melt.”
21
Martha Frobisher had never expected to be in a position to buy the florist’s shop where she worked. As long as Gold’s Court Florist was a going concern the owners were content to keep it in their portfolio of assets. One of the results of the Change was a decrease in the sale of luxury items such as commercially grown flowers. When the till receipts diminished enough to be worrying, the shop was put on the market while it still had some commercial value.
Martha’s only connection with the S&S had been as a repository of her salary and widow’s pension. She did not know how to go about applying for a mortgage; her home was the tiny cottage she had inherited from her late husband. It took several days to bring herself to the point of entering the bank.
She was surprised to discover that rough wooden planks had been laid across the floors of the lobby, like paths running in different directions. She was wary of stepping onto one until the receptionist got up from her desk and came toward her. “Can I help you?”
“I’d like to see an officer… a loan officer,” Martha said timidly.