Magnolia (16 page)

The answer was the most painful realization of all. It was because she wanted him, of course. She couldn't deny him anything, because she was as much a slave to her desire as he was to his own. That didn't mean that she loved him. Never once, during the long, exquisite night, had she whispered words of love. He hadn't realized how desperately he wanted to hear them, from her. His pure, innocent wife had suffered for so long, loved him unselfishly, and all she'd had for her pains was his indifference. He remembered when she'd offered her love with both hands and he'd rebuffed her because of Diane. He couldn't recall now how he'd felt about Diane in the first place, because his hunger and need and deep affection for Claire had completely overshadowed it.

It was a pity, he thought, that he never drank spirits. Right now, he could have used something to numb his mind.

He sat at his desk at the bank, weary of the emotional turmoil that seemed to be the hallmark of his life of late. Absently he thought about what Calverson had said last night about the bank, and he got up and started toward the office of the head bookkeeper.

But on his way, a loud voice arrested his movement.

“I heard there was money missing from the bank,” an old man was saying to Eli Calverson. “My friend has a hundred thousand dollars here. He tried to draw it out and he was told there were insufficient funds!”

Eli was flustered and nervous. He was actually wringing his hands. “Sir, we lend money as well as take it in,” he explained. “At times, we have to depend on our deposits to make up the difference. We have just added a huge sum to our assets—”

“You're lying!” the old man said accusingly, his cane lifted as he flared at the bank president. “You can't cover your deposits. This bank isn't solvent. I want my money! I want it all! Right now!”

Other people in the bank were looking at the elderly man, whom John recognized as one of their major depositors. He moved toward the man, just as more loud murmurs were heard and the crowd began to line up at the clerks' windows.

“I want my money, too,” a woman said firmly.

“So do I,” a younger man said. “I won't risk my life savings here!”

“Wait!” John said, holding up his hands. “You can't start a run on the bank. If you withdraw your funds, there will be an imbalance and nobody's money will be safe.”

“Did you hear him? He said it himself—there's not enough money to cover our deposits! Give us our money!” the younger man raged.

“Clear the lobby!” Calverson said harshly. “Guard, get everyone out of the bank right now!”

The guard, hired by the bank to keep watch over the lobby for potential troublemakers, pushed his coat aside to show his badge and the pistol tucked in his belt.

“Go home now, ladies and gentlemen. The bank is closed,” the guard said, motioning toward the door. “Let's go. Let's go, please. Move along now.”

They went along complacently at first. Then just as they reached the door, the old man with the cane turned on the guard and struck him across the head. The guard went down.

“Lock the door, quick!” Eli called frantically. “Good God! What do we do now? They'll break the door down! John, go out there and assure them that the bank is solvent!”

John paused by Calverson, his voice low so that it didn't carry. “I want your word that I'll be telling the truth.”

Calverson's eyes fell. That black gaze of Hawthorn's was intimidating. The man had been a soldier, used to giving orders, and he was frightening. “Of course…of course, it's solvent. I'd never lie about that,” he said, with a placating smile. He touched John's shoulder hesitantly. “Go on, now, my boy, and calm them down. Reassure them.”

John was uneasy, but he had little choice. First he'd stop the run on the bank. Then, at his first opportunity, he was going to get some answers. He didn't understand Calverson's eagerness to merge the bank with Whitfield's enterprise. But it would mean a huge injection of capital almost at once, if the merger went through, and for the first time John had to ask himself if Calverson
needed
that huge injection of capital. The only possible reason for that
would be…if money really was missing from the bank! He went to the front door with a feeling of apprehension. And it wasn't because of any fear of the crowd howling outside on the sidewalk.

JOHN WOULD HAVE BEEN EVEN MORE UNEASY
if he'd known that Claire was already acting on her plans to leave him. His harsh words that morning had rubbed her pride raw, left her with nothing to look forward to but their physical hunger for each other and their indulgence of it.

John's mother and sister had issued her an invitation to visit them, and she was going to take them up on it. In the back of her mind she knew that it would be the very last place John would think to look for her, because he didn't know they were acquainted.

In defiance of John's dictum that she not drive Uncle Will's little car, she took it to town, planning to go to the train depot and buy a ticket to Savannah. But first she had to talk to Kenny and give him her designs for the buyer from Macy's. The sketches would mean a little more private income, and she would need it now. Then she wanted to go to the bank to see John one last time.

She didn't know what she could say to him. He'd made his feelings so plain that she had little doubt of his contempt. All he could offer was lust, and it wasn't enough.

She drove up to Kenny's store and he came out, grinning, to meet her.

“I like your mode of transportation! You still can get it to run, can't you?”

“Of course I can,” she agreed, smiling as she removed her goggles, aware of stares from passersby.

“Do come in,” he invited, helping her down from the little car. “Have you something with you for Mr. Stillwell?”

“In fact I do,” she said, drawing the big portfolio from the other side of the seat. “I thought you might like to send these on to him. I can have the others done in three weeks. Well, just after Christmas, anyway.”

“I'll make sure he knows.”

She followed him in, nodding at a customer as he led her to his office in the back of the shop.

“This is Mrs. Kenner, my secretary,” he said, introducing a middle-aged woman with a kind smile. “Mrs. Kenner, this is Mrs. Hawthorn. She and her late uncle have been friends of mine for quite some years. She's the designer I told you about: Magnolia.”

“Oh, my goodness!” Mrs. Kenner exclaimed. “How glad I am to meet you at last. I've so admired your gowns in the shop window down the street. How very talented you are!”

“Thank you,” Claire said modestly, with a smile.

“Sit down, Claire, and let's go over your work. Sorry, Mrs. Kenner, but they're very confidential. These are the designs for Macy's. So could you…?”

“I'll go and make a nice pot of coffee for us. How would that be?” Mrs. Kenner asked, with a conspiratorial smile as she rose from her desk.

“That would be fine,” Kenny said. “We'll only need five minutes.”

“Very well, sir.”

Kenny looked at the elegant drawings one by one, shaking his head at their innovation and style. “Claire, you really are talented.”

She smiled. “Thank you, but do you think they'll do?”

“They're very, very good. Thank you for letting me see them. I'll make sure they're on the next train to New York, carefully packaged.”

“I appreciate all your help, Kenny—more than you know. I may need to be independent very soon,” she said miserably.

He winced. “Claire, can't you tell me what's wrong? Is there any way I can help?”

She shook her head. “I wish you could. But it's my own problem. I have to solve it. You're a dear, Kenny.” She got up. “I won't wait for the coffee. I must fly. I'm leaving town for a little while. I'll contact you as soon as I'm sure where I'll be. I won't tell you where I'm going. That way if you're asked, you won't have to lie.”

“You're worrying me,” he said.

“I'm sorry. But I did need to give you those sketches. I don't know exactly when I'll be back.”

He came forward and took her hands. “Can't you tell me where you're going? I'd never let anyone know.”

He was such a sweet man. She shook her head. “I know that. But I'm afraid I can't, Kenny, dear.”

“If you ever need me, I'll be right here,” he said firmly. He glanced over her head and frowned at what he noticed. “That's odd. There's not usually such a crowd in front of the bank at this hour.”

She turned and followed his stare, then caught her breath. That was her husband's bank. And it wasn't a crowd outside the doors so much as it was a mob.

She could see John just in front of the door. There were loud cries from the mob and a surge forward. Something was thrown.

Suddenly, flames erupted in a vacant building across the street and jumped to a wagon parked at the edge of the wooden sidewalk—and from there across to the haberdashery shop behind the bank. The mules that were hitched to the wagon panicked, broke their traces, and turned the wagon over in the middle of the street in their run to safety. The burning wagon effectively blocked the only road that led past the bank and clothing store off Peachtree Street.

“Oh, dear,” Kenny said. “If the fire brigade isn't called, there'll be a disaster.”

“Yes, but the fire is blocking the road, see? The horses won't go through that wall of flame,” she exclaimed, watching as a man in a buggy used all his strength to control his
horse. “And the telephone wire has just burned through! There will be no way for them to call all the way across town to the fire station for help.”

“Someone will have to go for help,” Kenny replied.

“I will,” Claire said, with determination. “I can drive right through the flames—fast enough so that the rubber of the tires doesn't melt—and go right to the fire station down Peachtree Street.”

“It's too dangerous!” he said, protesting.

She glanced back toward the bank where the crowd was surging forward right toward her husband. “I must! John could be killed—if not by the mob, by the fire!”

While Kenny was still protesting, she cranked the little car, jumped in under the wheel, and rattled the gears, getting it to go in her hurry. Then she pulled away from the sidewalk and aimed it at the wall of flame.

Somewhere she heard a loud, shocked exclamation, but she put her foot down and kept right on going, right into the heat, the flames. She shot through on the other side, sweating and half afraid that she'd caught the tires on fire. But aside from a faint smell of smoke, there was nothing to alarm her.

“Good boy, Chester!” she exclaimed.

She drove as quickly as she could down the street, but it seemed to take forever to get to the fire station. Finally, she reached it. She ran up the steps with her duster catching on the heel of her shoe in her haste, recovered her balance, and darted into the fire station.

“There's a fire and a riot at the Peachtree City Bank!”
she exclaimed to the first man in uniform she saw. “Oh, please! Come quickly!”

“A fire, ma'am? Where did you say?”

She told him. He thanked her and started to race toward the back of the station.

“I'll also inform the police about the mob, ma'am,” he called over his shoulder.

She nodded and went back out to her car. She cranked it and turned it back in the direction of the bank, her heart pounding as she hoped against hope that help would arrive in time to save her husband. Despite their disagreements and his lack of feeling for her, she loved him too much to turn her back on him when he was in need.

As she reached the side street where the bank was located, she saw that the flames were still shooting up from the top of the building. But the wagon had burned up, and the street was passable now. She gave a thought to the owner of the lost merchandise as she passed through the smoldering ashes and stopped beyond the bank building.

The crowd was being pushed back by uniformed policemen, who had apparently been summoned by someone else in her absence.

She moved forward, dusty and grimy, her goggles in her hand, as she pushed through the crowd far enough to see her husband.

Her heart jumped when she spotted him. His face was bruised and his immaculate jacket was torn. One sleeve was unbuttoned, the cuff link torn from it by an angry hand. He looked intimidating just the same, and no one was trying
to lay a finger on him now. A groaning man was sitting up on the sidewalk, holding his bleeding face in his hands.

“Good enough for you!” a woman said loudly. “That's what you get for trying to hit a man who can fight back, you low coward!”

“They've lost all my money!” the man replied.

“No one has lost anything!” John shouted. “The bank is only going to merge with an investment firm. This will immediately double the assets of the bank, and increase interest and pay dividends! No one will lose a penny!” He wasn't telling the whole truth; he couldn't guarantee that the merger would actually go through—especially if Whitfield suspected there was a shortfall in funds. But it might stop a riot to say so.

There were still murmurs, but not so angry now.

“Go home,” John said shortly. “This is no way for civilized people to behave. Your money is safe. You have my word on it.”

The crowd began to disperse.

“Mr. Hawthorn wouldn't lie,” one man said as he and his wife passed Claire. “His word's good enough for me.”

“Me, too,” said another.

Claire, so proud that she could have burst, moved forward, toward her husband. But before she could work her way through the crowd, Diane Calverson came up on the sidewalk and ran to John with her handkerchief out.

“Oh, my dear!” she exclaimed. “Are you all right?”

She touched his face with quick, worried hands, and Claire watched him smile gently at her. If she'd had any
last-minute doubts about their feelings for each other, that settled them. Her heart fell in her chest. Those two people loved each other. The kiss she'd witnessed in the kitchen of their apartment house had only reinforced her certainty of their feelings for each other. They couldn't help feeling as they did. And no matter how hungrily John might reach for her in the darkness, this was the woman he loved.

She went back to her car. She cranked it, got in under the wheel, and turned it toward home.

As it went noisily away, it caught John's attention. He stared after it, shocked. He hadn't noticed Claire. What was she doing driving in that thing?

Several firemen had arrived on their engine while John was settling things with that irate customer; they were already pumping water onto the blaze across the street.

One fireman passed John. “Brave woman, your wife, Mr. Hawthorn,” he said, with a grin. “The chief said she came roaring up to the fire station in that contraption to summon help. Drove right through the flames, too. You must be very proud of her. What a lady!”

He went on to do his job, leaving John quiet and worried—with Diane hanging on his arm.

“Did you see Claire as you came up?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “Darling, I never see Claire unless I have to,” she replied. “Honestly, such a plain and drab woman—”

He jerked away from Diane, but before he could speak Eli came up beside them, rubbing his damp forehead with
his handkerchief. “That was damned close. Thank you, John. I can't imagine what got into those crazy people!”

John knew something was wrong. Eli looked guilty and he wouldn't meet John's eyes. And Diane's sudden affection, the way she looked at him, as if she were turning all her allegiance from Eli to John…he wished he knew how to explain these events.

“It's all right now. The police have dispersed the crowd and it looks as though the fire is all but out,” Eli said, with a quick smile. “Go home and clean up, John, and then come back. I'll reassure our employees that they aren't going to be lynched.”

“Don't even joke about such things,” Diane said harshly. “John, shall I go with you?”

“To his home?” Eli asked angrily. “Diane!”

She glared at her husband. “If he needs me, I shall go with him.”

Eli didn't say a word. White-faced, he turned and went back into the bank.

“Never mind him,” Diane said. “He is a fool, and soon he will be in such trouble that no one can help him. My darling John,” she said sweetly. “You love me, not Claire. You always have. And I love you.” She glanced around, making sure that there was no one close enough to hear her. She moved closer. “I want you, John. I will give you anything you ask. Anything at all. Eli was a mistake; I know that now. I will leave him very soon.”

John moved away from her. “I haven't time to discuss this right now,” he said stiffly.

He hailed a passing carriage and got in, leaving Diane speechless on the sidewalk.

 

C
LAIRE WAS IN THE PARLOR
with Mrs. Dobbs, having cleaned up since her brush with the fire. She looked defeated. His Claire, defeated; it was painful to see her so.

John glanced at her as he paused in the doorway.

“Why, Mr. Hawthorn! Are you all right?” Mrs. Dobbs asked worriedly. “Claire was just telling me what happened.”

“I'm fine,” he replied. “I came home to change clothes.” He hesitated, because he didn't know how to approach her. “Claire, I should like to speak with you.”

She didn't know how to refuse. She had to go with him, or make Mrs. Dobbs even more suspicious. She got up and preceded him up the staircase.

He closed the door. “The fireman said you drove through the flames to get help.”

She lifted her chin. “Chester is a fine little automobile. I had no doubt that he'd make it through. It was only a small fire at the time.”

“It was a great risk—and required great courage, just the same.” He moved forward. “Are you all right?”

The tender concern in his deep voice made her weak. She couldn't permit that. She forced a smile. “Right as rain,” she said primly. “I trust that you weren't badly hurt?”

“A few cuts. Nothing worth mentioning.” He scowled, searching for the right words. “You didn't come to see about me…after you brought the firemen.”