My Heart Laid Bare, Page 3

  Thank you, Mr. Shaw, thank you very much, perhaps I will.

  5.

  Now all transpires swiftly as if, indeed, preordained.

  And time-locked Earth where mortals abide but a remembering-forward.

  The band ends “The Star-Spangled Banner” with a solemn military flourish; the white silk purses heavy with prize money are hung at the finish line, for the winning jockeys to seize after the race; promptly at 4:50 P.M. the bugler blows first call; and here are the horses—at last, the nine Derby horses!—trotting out of the paddock to the track, parading ceremoniously to the right, then, at the clubhouse turn, wheeling slowly around to trot to the starting post, ears erect, tails flicking with nervous excitement, the jockeys in their bright silk costumes standing in their irons, here is Shep Tatlock on the tall bay colt Stone Street, here is Bo Tenney on the beautiful chestnut-red Xalapa, here is Parmelee on Midnight Sun, horse and rider both black as pitch, here is little Jenk Webb on Glengarry, little Moses White on Sweet Thing . . . .The jockeys are told their positions, the horses are assembled at the starting line, milling, crowding, jostling one another, Stone Street visibly nervous, Midnight Sun stamping the dirt, so unruly he has to be held by his tail, Idle Hour misbehaving, tossing his head . . . .

  (Frelicht’s companions sit quietly and calmly as he. Though doubtless their hearts beat, quickened, like his. For is the race preordained? Is it written in the Heavens that an investment of $44,000 will yield some $400,000 in a scant five minutes of earthly time?)

  Sunshine harshly bright as if diamond-refracted, cold May winds from the Chautauqua Mountains north of the racecourse; a hard dry track, an ideal track; now the horses are assembled behind the elastic web barrier; now—but now Midnight Sun, prancing excitedly, breaks through the webbing and has to be led back; and all the horses quieted; and now the red flag is waved, and the webbing flies violently up, and the race has begun—

  Stone Street in his inside post position breaks away at once, Xalapa nearly beside him, Sweet Thing close behind, the others are caught briefly in a jam-up, cagey little Parmelee on Midnight Sun pushes free (has Parmelee, in a gesture so swift no one has seen, yanked at Glengarry’s saddle cloth to throw the horse off stride?), Warlock is being nudged into the rail, Jersey Belle and Meteor and Idle Hour are already lengths behind, out of the race. Now the leaders are passing the grandstand, now the clubhouse, but isn’t Stone Street being ridden strangely, isn’t he beginning to weave . . . Xalapa and Sweet Thing rapidly gaining, overtaking . . . and Midnight Sun on the outside, Parmelee using his whip, Parmelee and Sweet Thing’s rider involved in some sort of altercation. But Xalapa, at the front, is suddenly the crowd’s favorite, passing Stone Street on the inside as they come into the backstretch; and suddenly it is clear that Shep Tatlock is drugged, or drunk, or sick, pulling his horse’s head from side to side, dropping back to third place, to fourth, to fifth, weaving across the track . . .

  The race is half run, the race is three-quarters run, chestnut-red Xalapa in the lead, Glengarry a half length behind, then silky black Midnight Sun, long-legged deep-chested Midnight Sun, the white bandages on his legs flying . . . now past the starting post, now past the cheering spectators in the grandstand, Midnight Sun with a warhorse’s powerful stride . . . and then, suddenly, is it possible? . . . suddenly it seems that Xalapa has stumbled . . . yet keeps running . . . momentum keeps him running though he is clearly injured . . . while Glengarry pounds past, Midnight Sun pounds past, Parmelee hunched low over his neck, whip and spurs in use, Parmelee making his move, looping wide on the outside to avoid the falling Xalapa; to pass Glengarry, to break in a wild burst of speed away from Glengarry, to cross the finish line in the first position by a length and a half.

  Midnight Sun, Glengarry, Sweet Thing . . .

  (STONE STREET, IN the home stretch, weaves drunkenly into Meteor’s path, the two horses collide, Shep Tatlock—drugged, drunk, sick?—to be banned from the turf for the rest of his life—tumbles from the saddle onto the track and lies insensible.

  And what of the chestnut-red beauty Xalapa?—the crowd stands silent, stunned, as an announcement is made that he snapped his left foreleg above the ankle; as the horse ambulance picks him up from the track, to take him around to the dump behind the stables, where, in as brief a time as it takes to record the melancholy fact, he is destroyed—by a single bullet between the eyes.)

  6.

  We have won! We have won! We have won!

  Where so many thousands of persons are dazed with sorrow, it is unseemly to show rapturous delight; where sentiment runs so powerfully in one direction, only the ill-bred would gloat.

  Being extremely well-bred, therefore, Edgar Warwick and his sister Seraphina keep their gleeful smiles to themselves; but cannot help tugging like children at Washburn Frelicht’s arm, and whispering again and again, and yet again—

  Why, we have won!

  Frelicht smiles his composed smile, Frelicht dabs lightly at his forehead with a fresh handkerchief, Frelicht says quietly: Of course.

  7.

  The talk for weeks, for months, will be of Midnight Sun and that wild, wild ride.

  The talk will be of the beautiful Xalapa who (it was afterward reported) had had a hairline crack in his left forefoot, detected but not taken seriously by his owner.

  The talk will be of the disgraced Shep Tatlock, thirty-two years old, banned from American racing for life: drunk on the track (it was charged against him), or drugged (as he himself claimed) against his knowledge.

  And the talk—for months, for years—will be of the mysterious gambler “A. Washburn Frelicht” who won for himself and his clients a record $400,000 on 11 May 1909; and then, on the very night of the Derby victory, while celebrating in a private dining room in the Chautauqua Arms . . .

  8.

  The robber was a young black man.

  The robber was a young black man wearing a black domino mask and carrying a long-barreled pistol.

  The robber entered the room silently by way of a balcony and French doors opened to the night air.

  A sudden leap and there he was, a few yards from the table where Frelicht and the Warwicks were seated . . . slightly bent at the knees, dark skin exuding moisture, eyes showing rims of white inside the black mask: Gentlemen and lady, thank you please, you will remain where you are please, you, lady, and you, sirs, your money please, thank you for your kindness please: a low soft mocking voice, an accent suggestive of the West Indies: Only do not distress me, gentlemen and dear lady!

  A slender young black man, pistol raised calmly aloft, aimed at Dr. Frelicht’s chest. He knew precisely why he had come, knew what the sweet-scented rosewood box contained, betrayed no agitation, managed an insolent smile, a flash of gold in his left incisor, Thank you gentlemen and lady for your cooperation!

  Black domino mask, a wide-brimmed straw hat with a red polka-dot band, creamy white blazer and trousers, white starched shirt, red and white striped tie, was there ever such a colored boy in all of the Chautauqua Valley? A dapper little moustache riding his pert upper lip (as Edgar Warwick afterward recalled), a thin twisting scar in his right cheek, the mark of the Devil (as Seraphina Warwick Dove recalled), the terrible weapon held unwavering in his hand, pointed at Dr. Frelicht’s heaving chest. Now quiet! Now no alarm! Gentlemen and lady—you have my warning!

  Not five minutes before Frelicht had led the others in a toast, victory champagne, glasses held high over Seraphina’s rosewood box—“‘Thou visible god!’” Frelicht intoned in a luxuriant baritone—and now the black man in the dazzling creamy white clothes was aiming death at his heart, his poor pounding heart, and where were the words, where the breath, to protest? You sir, the robber said to Frelicht, hunching his slender shoulders in a sudden childish spasm of pleasure—you, sir, are not to arouse my ire!—but will please obey!

  Frelicht tried to speak but could not: his lips, drained of blood, were suddenly flaccid.

  Edgar E. Warwick tried to speak but could no
t: a wave of sheer animal panic rose from his bowels, and he knew he was to die.

  Poor Seraphina, more agitated than she’d been at the deathbed of Mr. Dove, tried to speak but could not: her words of angry protest broken into mere sounds, stammers, breathy sobs, for here was a young black man not a servant, not one who must obey her but one whom she must obey.

  To be robbed by a mere nigger of their prize—!

  Yet it was to be, as if ordained by the Heavens: an outrageous black man in a domino mask and cocky straw hat, $400,000 in bills deftly transferred by chocolate-brown fingers into a smart crocodile-hide suitcase as the cowering victims stared . . . the victims and three other witnesses, belonging to the hotel staff: two waiters (black) and a wine steward (of French origin, but white), none of whom dared offer resistance.

  The miraculous money—the highest recorded winnings in Chautauqua’s history—in bundles of $100 primarily though there were also some $500 and $50 bills—stolen away by an outlaw’s hand, 11 May 1909, 9:25 P.M. in the Crystal Room of the grand old Chautauqua Arms, the victims surprised in the midst of a victory feast (oysters on the half shell, pheasant au vin, truffles, French champagne), Edgar E. Warwick, sixty, lifetime resident of Chautauqua Falls, Mrs. Seraphina Warwick Dove, fifty-eight, lifetime resident of Chautauqua Falls, A. Washburn Frelicht, Ph.D., age given as forty-eight, various addresses offered to police (most recently, Mrs. Dove’s residence), Thank you gentlemen and lady, you are indeed wise to save your lives, insolent dazzling-white smile, soft mocking melodious voice, bright dark gaze showing a rim of white inside the tight-fitting mask. Now you will please to keep your places, not to stir for many minutes!—not to summon aid!—not to dare!—not to arouse my ire!—not to follow after!—not to be the temptation, to make of me, who has never yet spilled a drop of blood, a murderer!

  This speech so froze the company, all stared at the robber as if turned to stone, as he, agile as a dancer, assured as one who has had a long apprenticeship on the stage, turned, and with a final (taunting? playful?) sighting of his long-barreled pistol at Washburn Frelicht’s chest, leapt into the very night outside the window and disappeared.

  SERAPHINA FAINTED, FELL heavily forward into her melted crimson sorbet, Edgar E. tried to rise from his chair but lacked the strength, ashen-faced Dr. Frelicht, of whom more might have been expected, merely sat—like a suddenly aged, broken man—his “good” eye glassy in disbelief—staring after the unknown agent who had made off with his Zodiac prize, the culmination of his astrological speculations as, witnesses afterward surmised, it was perhaps the culmination of his life—staring at the empty window, the flung-open French doors, as if, poor fool! poor coward! he hoped for Fate to reverse itself, and his hard-won money to be returned, by the very agent who had carried it off into the night.

  9.

  Now it is all history, the improbable no less than the probable.

  Little Shep Tatlock maintained to the day of his death (soon, in 1914) that he was “poisoned” on the morning of the Derby.

  Xalapa’s beautiful corpse was shipped to his grieving owner’s farm in Aylesbury, Pennsylvania, where it was interred with great ceremony, including a five-gun salute.

  Midnight Sun, to earn a fair amount of money for his controversial owner, was never again to run quite so spirited a race; nor would his rider Parmelee enjoy so spectacular a victory.

  The Warwicks, Edgar E. and Seraphina, publicly humiliated by their Lutheran God, as punishment (so Seraphina believed, stricken with repentance) for gambling, withdrew abruptly from social intercourse. And the “astrological sportsman” A. Washburn Frelicht, a broken man, a disappointment to all the ladies, disappeared from Chautauqua Falls within a day or two, after having given testimony to police, never to be glimpsed again in American racing circles.

  What of the “Black Phantom”—as he was dubbed by excitable journalists, particularly execrated in Mr. William Randolph Hearst’s papers as a “Negro Devil”? This amazing figure apparently disappeared as well, despite enormous publicity, police efforts ranging over five states, and the vigilance of all.

  And the $400,000 was never returned to its rightful owners.

  “THE LASS OF AVIEMORE”

  1.

  It was eight days after the shock of Mr. Stirling’s death, when the house at Greenley Square was still steeped in grief, that the girl in the worn black velveteen cloak came to the front door—knocking so faintly with her small gloved fist (did the poor child know nothing of doorbells, or of the use of the wrought-iron American eagle knocker?) that the downstairs maid failed to hear her for several minutes. And what a wild gusty May morning it was, the air so agitated, the sunshine so chill, the season might well have been late winter, and not spring . . . .

  Who was she? Yet another mourner, arriving belatedly? (For the elaborate wake, the yet more elaborate funeral services and burial, the several crowded days of visitors, were just past.) Or had she nothing to do with Mr. Stirling’s passing at all? And why, being so young, surely no more than seventeen, was she alone, unaccompanied, in a city the size of Contracoeur? Strange, too, how long she hesitated before finally, and rather timorously, unlatching the front gate, to proceed up the brick walk to the front door; her face all but hidden by her loose-fitting hood, as if she feared someone might be watching her, and dreaded being known.

  As it happened, by chance someone was watching her from an upstairs window: nineteen-year-old Warren Stirling, the deceased man’s younger, romantically inclined son, who, exhausted and sluggish with grief, had fallen into the habit of staring down into the square for long minutes at a time; watching hackney cabs, motorcars and pedestrians pass by in a sporadic, monotonous stream, his thoughts, too, wayward, melancholy, tinged with the anger of loss, passing in a monotonous and ungovernable stream. Why could he not think of his father but only, obsessively, of Death? And why, trying to envision his father, whom he had respected and loved, could he recall only the shock of that ghastly wax-faced corpse, that mimicry of a living man in its false slumber amid white satin cushions and smothering banks of dead-white lilies? The wake; the funeral; the burial in the cemetery; so many mourners; so many tear-streaked faces; embraces, handshakes, faltering words of commiseration—! And now, these days of mourning: each hour capricious in its emotions, each hour perilous, for sometimes Warren Stirling contained his grief like a mature young man, and sometimes he succumbed to it weak as a child. Why had God struck his father down? Why so suddenly, so cruelly? At only fifty-two years of age, seemingly in good health; happy in his family, in his work, and in his religion. Mr. Stirling had been an uncommonly good man, loved and admired by many; yet, stricken by a heart attack, he’d died before Warren had arrived home from Williams College, summoned by his mother; this abruptness seemed to Warren God’s most wanton cruelty.

  “Before, even, I could say good-bye to Father!”—Warren spoke aloud, in an anguished young voice. “I cannot forgive God—though I know I must.”

  Away at college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Warren had fallen under the spell of certain freethinkers and Darwinists among his professors, and had been reading, of his own, such disruptive influences as Thomas Huxley, Walter Pater, Samuel Butler and the sickly versifier Algernon Charles Swinburne; he’d been morbidly excited by Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and yet more by Jude the Obscure; instead of taking exercise in the open air, he spent days sequestered in his room, brooding at the window, contemplating the cobbled street and the little park beyond, where, in his childhood long ago, he’d run in innocent delight under the watchful eye of his nursemaid. “May God strike me dead,” Warren brashly declared, “if ever again I am so unthinkingly happy.”

  Yet this morning, as if against his will, he felt his interest stirred by the mysterious presence of a young girl in the park. She was no one he recognized; not a governess or a nursemaid (for she had no children with her) or a servant girl (for no servant would be free at ten o’clock of a weekday morning), yet judging by her modest dre
ss and her hesitant manner, and the fact of her being so conspicuously alone, clearly not a young lady of his own social class. For some ten or fifteen minutes she walked slowly along the paths, steeling herself against the chill wind and glancing, shyly it seemed, in the direction of the Stirlings’ house. Did she intend to cross the street, to ring the door? Warren found himself pressed close against the windowpane, watching. Though he had but a glancing notion of women’s fashions he suspected that the girl’s long hooded cloak was no longer in style; moreover, it fitted her rather gracelessly, the hem trailing along the ground. The hand-me-down costume of a country girl, perhaps, charming in its own way, but out of place in Greenley Square. As the girl’s shy manner seemed out of place, quaint and old-fashioned. At last, she made up her mind to cross the street. Warren, excited, drew back from the window to avoid her glancing up and seeing him. His impression of her was that she was very young; very pretty; very frightened. Like one stepping to the edge of a precipice. In the ill-fitting velveteen cloak, the hood lifting in the wind, she reminded him painfully of one of his father’s favorite paintings: an oil by an eighteenth-century Scots artist that hung in his grandparents’ drawing room called “The Lass of Aviemore,” which depicted a tempestuous sky, a rocky wooded landscape, and in the foreground, in a voluminous ink-black cape, a slender young girl standing with eyes uplifted and hands clasped in passionate prayer. Exceedingly pale, even ethereal, the girl had an innocent, angelic beauty; the artist had given her eyes an unearthly glisten, and her cheeks a light feverish touch; the velvet hood had slipped from her head so that pale blond tresses streamed in the wind. In the near distance was a gray stone cross. What was the tale “The Lass of Aviemore” meant to tell?—an old legend, a ballad, a Highland tragedy?