The Girl at the End of the Line Read online

  “My sister and I would like to speak with you.”

  “By God, I’m a lucky bastard,” Richard Julian said in a smooth confident baritone, giving another playful wink. “And I should like to speak with you, too, only Gwendoline, here, and I are just getting acquainted. Aren’t we, my dear?”

  Gwendoline giggled. Apparently Lady Julian wasn’t imagining her husband’s roving eye. Molly felt almost sorry for her, but couldn’t afford to be distracted by side issues. If she was going to get this man’s attention she was going to have to be blunt.

  “We’re your granddaughters, Mr. Julian. From America.”

  “Granddaughters?” he said with a choked laugh, his eyes darting from one of them to the other. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  His accent was English, but his vowels drifted back toward the American pronunciations of his roots.

  “Our mother was the baby that you had with Margaret Gale, back when your name was Jellinek.”

  “Now see here,” said Julian, his face reddening.

  “Perhaps I should see to my tea urn,” mumbled Gwendoline, twisting out from beneath his arm. “I’ll speak with you later, Richard?”

  “Sure, love, sure.”

  Gwendoline escaped back into the serving area. Molly’s grandfather frowned as he watched her go.

  “Now what’s this all about?” he said when she was out of earshot.

  “I told you. We’re your granddaughters. My name is Molly O’Hara. This is my sister, Nell. She doesn’t talk.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a psychological problem,” said Molly, wanting to keep things between them as simple as possible. “Our mother was your baby, Evangeline. She died when we were kids.”

  Julian started to speak but then put a finger to his lips.

  “Maggie is your grandmother?” he said finally.

  “Was,” said Molly. “She died recently. That’s why we’re here. There was a lot about her life that we don’t understand. We came to England hoping to ask you some questions.”

  Julian frowned again, then suddenly his eyes lit up and his lips pressed together into a disarming smile.

  *“I think I understand,” he announced in a happier voice. “My wife put you up to this, didn’t she?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Molly.

  “Oh, come, come, my dear,” he laughed. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. I know Stacey’s jealous, but really, this is too much. If she wants to divorce and spend the rest of her life making love to Moto, I’ll bring her all the evidence she wants on a silver salver. She doesn’t have to go through this ridiculous charade.”

  “I promise you, Mr. Julian,” said Molly. “That woman didn’t put us up to anything. We’re your granddaughters. We just want to ask you some questions.”

  “Right. Yes. Ho, ho, ho.”

  “Please, Mr. Julian, we’ve come a long way.”

  “I’m sure you have, my dear,” said Julian smoothly, “And you’re very charming. So is your silent sister, which is a nice touch, it really is. But I’ll now have to take my leave, unless, of course, you can actually prove that you are who you claim you are.”

  Molly hesitated for a minute, then unbuttoned the top of her blouse, and brought out the emerald ring. There was one person who had to know about Grandma’s ring—the man who slept with her.

  Julian stared at it for a moment, then let out a long breath.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that,” he said in a subdued voice.

  “Will you talk to us, Mr. Julian?”

  “It’s all true then, about Maggie and the baby being dead?”

  “Yes.”

  Julian sighed deeply.

  “Funny,” he said in a quiet voice. “I don’t remember the baby much at all, just that it cried and cried whenever I rehearsed my songs. But I think of Maggie now and then. Your sister looks a bit like her. Not you, though.”

  “Where did the two of you grow up, you and our grandmother?” said Molly, holding her breath.

  “Hold that thought,” said Julian, raising a pink, perfectly manicured finger, his voice brightening. “I don’t have much experience with these things, but if this is to be a family reunion then it calls for at least a cup of tea. Sit down over there and I’ll be right back.”

  He gestured to a table at the side of the tent, far away from the few occupied seats. Before Molly could stop him he had crossed back over to the catering area. There he reengaged Gwendoline in jocular conversation, some of which was apparently of a professional variety, because when he returned in a few moments he was carrying a box stocked with refreshments.

  “In England we face all life’s little celebrations and dilemmas over a nice cup of tea,” he said, placing steaming paper cups in front of them. “Sugar is here. Milk is here. Help yourself to the pastries. Gwendoline promises me they are very tasty.”

  Nell already had the largest sweet roll in her mouth, and was nodding her head in agreement and licking her fingers as if she hadn’t eaten for days. The girl was a bottomless pit.

  “Cheers,” said Julian, raising his tea. The flirtatious twinkle had returned to his eye. Apparently he had already recovered completely from the news about the deaths of his daughter and ex-wife. As family Richard Julian ranked right up there with Clyde and Daddy.

  “Thank you, Mr. Julian,” said Molly, determined not to let her disappointment in him show.

  “Call me Richard. I like it when pretty young things call me Richard. Do you suppose this comes from vanity or is it merely part of the natural aging process?”

  “Where did you and Grandma. grow up?”

  “You are a rather direct person, aren’t you, my dear?” said Julian. “No small talk. No niceties. I suppose you take after Maggie in that. Didn’t she ever tell you the story of our lost youth?”

  Molly shook her head.

  “Grandma never said a word about her life before she got to Pelletreau.”

  “Pelletreau?”

  “North Carolina. That’s where she settled.”

  “Yes, of course. She had a happy life?”

  “Yes,” Molly lied. There was no point in letting him into their lives any further than she had to. “We came here to talk to you because you’re the only one left who can tell us about Grandma’s family, the Gales. Is it true they were rich?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Richard Julian, drawing out the words. “They were rich, all right.”

  “Where did they live? What were they like? We want to know all about them. And about you and Grandma.”

  “Well, it isn’t the nicest story in the world,” he said, sitting back. “But if it’s what you want, it’s what you’ll get—that’s the least I can do for my granddaughters. My granddaughters. Certainly is strange, finding those words together in one’s own mouth, isn’t it?”

  Molly didn’t say anything. Julian sighed and shook his head.

  “Well, just please stop me when you can’t stand any more,” he said. “I tend to rattle on. Old Jellinek trait. To answer your question, Maggie and I grew up on a little island in the Ashalaca River up above Montpelier, Vermont. Gale Island.”

  “The Gales owned their own island?”

  Julian nodded.

  “That’s how rich they were,” he said. “The family fortune had originally come from railroads. When I was a kid, Atherton Gale, Maggie’s dad, ruled Gale Island like he was some kind of feudal lord. He was the eldest son and had inherited control of the family interests, which he’d expanded into newspapers and radio stations. He was an incredibly nasty son of a bitch, which of course, made him all the more successful in business.”

  Julian stretched back in his chair, took a sip of his tea, and remembered.

  “Gale Island wasn’t a very big place, of course. Population was never more than about sixty people. But it was a world unto itself. The Gales lived in this honest-to-God stone castle on the island’s highest point. Gale Castle. Last time I talked to my sister she
said there were still some of them living there, though Atherton’s long dead, of course.”

  A shiver went down Molly’s spine. So there were still Gales. Molly and Nell had a family on an island in the middle of Vermont. It was almost too good to be true.

  “When Atherton’s father was alive, the whole family lived in the castle,” Julian went on happily, “but Atherton eventually chased them all away. Wouldn’t let any of them into the business, of course. He was a real control freak, the sort of guy who was always revising his will in order to keep people in line.”

  “And you lived on Gale island, too.”

  “Yes,” he said with a nod. “Like everybody else on the island, we serviced Atherton. Dad and his brother had a trucking business, running back and forth, once a week, to bring in what was needed. We were about as far beneath the Gales as you could get.”

  “How did you and Grandma meet?”

  Julian smoothed his sideburn with a finger and smiled.

  “All the island kids were bussed over to the public school in New Melford,” he said. “Atherton had wanted to send Maggie to some snooty private school, but Maggie’s mother, Felicity, didn’t want her boarded off. It was probably the only argument she ever won with Atherton. Usually he just ground Felicity into dust. Felicity Gale was a tall, pale, elegant woman—very lovely and aristocratic. She always looked so sad, and it was no mystery to anyone on the island why. Atherton was as coarse and brutish as Felicity was beautiful. I think he married her just because he enjoyed having such a classy lady to humiliate.”

  Julian shook his head sadly, then spoke again.

  “Anyway, I knew Maggie from practically the time I was born—the way a cook’s kid knows the master’s daughter, I suppose. I never paid much attention to her, though, until we were cast together in the New Melford High School play, a production of Pirates of Penzance. I was the Pirate King, of course. Maggie was Mabel. The rehearsals turned out to be the most fun either one of us had ever had. And everybody thought we were wonderful, which was a surprise since I’d just tried out as a lark. Same with Maggie, she never thought she’d get a part.”

  Molly took a sip of tea and tried to imagine Grandma as a rich man’s daughter living in a castle. It was difficult. Richard Julian took a sip of his own tea and continued.

  “We had been rehearsing for about a month when Atherton Gale got wind of what was up. Instead of being pleased, he ordered Maggie to drop out of the play, said that no daughter of his was going to display herself for a bunch of riffraff. When she tried to argue, he announced he was going to send her off to a boarding school, that he should have done so years ago.

  “Maggie called me on the telephone in tears. She had to talk with someone, but didn’t have any real friends-how could she when Atherton made it his business to keep her away from everyone? She didn’t know what to do. We met that night in the moonlight under the oak trees at the south end of Gale island. One thing led to another, and being as stupid and crazy as all seventeen-year-olds are, Maggie and I decided to get married, run off to New York together and become professional actors. Then we sealed our love with a kiss. We thought it was the most damned romantic thing that had ever happened to two people in the history of the world.”

  Molly couldn’t help but smile. It was a sweet story, and it was nice to picture Grandma as young and happy for a change after all those years of seeing her old and without hope.

  “We went back to Gale Castle,” continued Julian, “and I waited while Maggie packed a bag. Atherton had gone off to Boston on business, but Maggie’s mother had heard us come in. Maggie told her what she was going to do and begged her not to try to stop us. Felicity said to wait a moment, and disappeared. She returned with all the cash she could find in the house—two hundred and sixty dollars, a lot of money in those days—which she gave to Maggie, along with her emerald ring. She said she wanted us to sell the ring and build ourselves a life together and never look back.”

  “So you went to New York.”

  “That’s right,” said Julian. “And promptly got cast together in a Broadway musical, which just proved to us how talented we were and how right our decision had been. All our dreams were coming true. Then, the day after opening night we returned to our apartment after the show and found Atherton Gale and three detectives waiting for us. They were looking for Felicity Gale’s emerald ring and had pretty much turned the place upside down. Maggie’s father’s first words to her were, ‘You stole your mother’s ring, you little thief. I want it back.’”

  Julian said the words with a theatrical snarl. Molly could see suddenly the actor in him. He continued, all but acting out the parts.

  “‘I didn’t steal it, she gave it to me,’ said Maggie, but Atherton just started screaming at her, calling her a liar and a whore. ‘Ask mother,’ Maggie begged, but her father wouldn’t listen. He said Felicity was a liar and a traitor, too, that everyone was trying to cheat him. ‘Where is that ring?’ Atherton demanded, over and over, while the detectives restrained me, which was fortunate because I would have beaten the old boy’s brains out.”

  “But she wouldn’t give it to them,” said Molly.

  “No, of course not,” said Julian almost proudly. “Maggie had the ring around her neck on a chain, just as you do now, and they never thought to look for it there. Which was just as well because Maggie was a pretty strong girl and she would have put up a hell of a fight if they had tried. Atherton finally stormed out, but not before saying again that Maggie had stolen the ring and the proof would be when she tried to sell it. Then he would have all the evidence he needed that she was a thief, and he would prosecute—she could bet her life on that, he said. His own daughter, this was her wedding present.”

  “My God,” said Molly, touching the chain around her neck that held the ring.

  “Maggie was pretty shaken,” Julian continued, “but she was also madder than hell. She said she would never sell the ring, would never give Atherton the satisfaction. And she kept her word, even later on when things had gotten rough for us.”

  “After Without Reservations,” said Molly,

  “You know about that?” asked Julian, arching one eyebrow in surprise.

  Molly nodded.

  “I hadn’t realized how much of her identity Maggie had tied up in being an actress,” he said. “But suddenly here were all these people saying she wasn’t any kind of actress at all. But if she wasn’t an actress, then what was she? It was the only identity she had, the only thing she’d been able to build for herself outside of Atherton’s malignant influence. Maggie didn’t know what to do. She just sat around the apartment for months and months totally shattered, afraid of everything and unable to work.”

  He let out a deep sigh.

  “I continued to get shows,” he went on, “but I wasn’t playing leads yet. A chorus boy’s salary doesn’t go very far and pretty soon we needed money. Maggie was pregnant. I wanted her to sell the ring, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She kept repeating what Atherton had said about how her selling the emerald would prove that she had stolen it.”

  “Couldn’t Grandma’s mother intercede?” asked Molly.

  “Oh, I thought of that right away, but Maggie didn’t want to get Felicity into trouble with Atherton. Finally, though, she broke down and wrote her several letters, not asking for help, just for advice. None of these letters was ever answered. After Angie was born things got even tighter for us, but Maggie still wouldn’t sell the ring, though I begged her to.”

  “Is that why your marriage broke up?”

  “Oh, it was a lot of things,” said Julian absently, waving a hand. “Mainly, it was just that we had been too young to get married in the first place. It had all happened too fast, for all the wrong reasons. I certainly wasn’t ready to settle down and support a family. And all the fun went out of Maggie after Without Reservations bombed so badly. As I told you, she became a different person from the sweet gutsy girl I ran off with. Withdrawn. Morose. Bitter.”

>   “So you left her.”

  “Why do you say that?” Julian said angrily, looking up. “Do you think I would just walk out on Maggie in that condition?”

  “I … That’s what people told me.”

  “Well, people told you wrong. I didn’t leave her. Maggie was the one who decided to leave me and go back to her family. She was going to do it for the baby’s sake, she said.”

  Richard Julian paused and took a drink of his tea, then went on.

  “It made me sick, but Maggie wrote Atherton Gale a letter, telling him about his granddaughter and saying again that she didn’t steal the ring, that Felicity had given it to her. She humbled herself, told him that our marriage wasn’t working out, and asked if she could come home. He wrote and said she could come back if and only if she admitted that she had stolen the ring.

  “Maggie agonized for a few days, then wrote him that she would return the ring to him if that’s what he wanted. She didn’t steal it, she said again, Felicity gave it to her, but she had been wrong to accept it and was very sorry.”

  “It must have been very hard for her,” said Molly. “Grandma was very proud.”

  “Yes,” said Julian in a subdued voice. “It really broke what was left of her spirit. I could see her crumbling in front of my eyes. I couldn’t stand it, but there was nothing I could do.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was no immediate answer from Atherton. Then about two weeks later, Maggie got a letter from the Gale attorneys advising her to send no further correspondence. Since she refused to confess to stealing the ring, Atherton Gale had disowned her. The letter also informed Maggie of what her father hadn’t bothered to mention, that her mother had died nearly two years before.”

  “What a horrible man!” said Molly.

  “Your family, not mine,” said Julian. “Anyway, about that time I got cast in the national tour of Annie Get Your Gun. When I got back to New York, Maggie was gone. A few years later a lawyer from somewhere down South—I guess it must have been that town in North Carolina you mentioned—contacted me about a divorce.”