Authors: Christin Jensen
Farris sighed. “Thank you, John, for not thinking I’m an idiot.”
Again Pirtle chuckled. “I’ve been a father before. – I just hope you can come down and be reconciled with Clarice after she’s delivered.”
“This whole mess is all Marion’s fault, of course,” said Mrs. Myers, president of the local Women’s Club. The club board had assembled in a local restaurant for a private dinner meeting. “If she hadn’t been so uppity and so determined that poor little illegitimate daughter of hers was going to earn her a living, we wouldn’t be having all this nasty publicity and talk.”
“Marion was all ready to sell up her home and business and up sticks to Kentucky when it looked like Clarice had snared that horse-breeding billionaire,” sniffed Mrs. Stone, who was the bookkeeper for the hardware store next to the realty office. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the reason Croxton packed the girl off home. – He’d already gotten what he wanted from her, and he certainly didn’t want Marion.”
“Oh, Farris Croxton’s still carrying the torch,” contradicted Mrs. Feeney, who lived closer to Sewanee than the other ladies. “He bought Clarice that mangy looking chicken house and the worthless ground around it when our city fathers tried to pressure Professor Santana to make the girl move.”
“He’s also keeping Dan Ferrell’s private inquiry agency running,” Mrs. Myers rejoined. “No, I wouldn’t count Croxton out yet, but I do think young Clarice is a basket case.”
“That’s what Marion’s tabloid friends would have us believe,” Mrs. Stone responded. “Actually, Clarice has a good, solid business reputation locally, though of course lately that half-brother of hers, Angus Pirtle, has been shopping for her.”
“Isn’t it just a hoot that Marion’s Nashville lover has turned on her, now that his wife is dead?” Mrs. Feeney reached delicately for the salt in the middle of the table. “And the way he exposed that made-up name she put on the girl’s birth certificate! – I thought I would roll on the floor.”
“Marion’s been milking Pirtle for money all those years. - I know where she got that fancy name, though.” Mrs. Stone felt she had a gossip advantage, since she worked right next to Saxe Real Estate Brokers. “You know she keeps a lot of those artsy-fartsy ‘coffee table books’ out where her clients can see them. - My little Missy was just dying laughing. She had stepped into Marion’s office on her lunch break, and that picture Mr. Pirtle showed us was right there in one of those books!”
“It’s a shame Clarice started going to those Nashville doctors, though.” Mrs. Feeney was prominent in her local hospital auxiliary. “I can’t imagine how they plan to get her up to St. Thomas on time. First babies always come fast.”
Clarice had carefully packed a small suitcase to take to the hospital. She included several attractive gowns and a couple of nursing bras. God willing, she was going to feed her own baby. – The bras would also take care of the problem of the ‘hooters’; a girl with big breasts apparently had to put up with complicated hardware for the rest of her life after puberty.
Clarice wasn’t really scared; after all, this was a natural, normal process, and she could have an epidural if the pain got too intense. What really worried her was confronting Farris. How would he feel, after she had kept him at arm’s length all these months? He knew she needed to heal – and certainly she had to solve her own ‘Mother’ problem.
Marion Saxe was a constant, dull threat in the background. Clarice felt she’d freed herself of her mother’s presence in her own head, but she still expected unpleasant scenes at the hospital or afterward.
Clarice had hesitantly approached John Pirtle some months before with her fears about Marion’s continued solvency. John had heaved a deep sigh. “Clarice, your mother has a genius for making everybody hate her, but she’s always managed to keep going on a shoestring even when she can’t extort funds from anybody else. – I’m keeping watch her finances, and I’ll shore her up to solvency if necessary – for your sake. I also have Farris Croxton’s word that he’ll contribute to the cause for the sake of his own son. – Sometimes that’s just the easiest way to handle an impossible person.”
“Well, if my art career doesn’t stagnate, you can count on my help, too,” Clarice told him. “I just don’t want to have anything to do with her.”
“The tabloid paparazzi look tame compared to what she can do,” John agreed sourly. – “You know, she could be a decent person if she’d ever agree to therapy,” he added wistfully, “but she never will. Marion has always been out for herself, and the devil take everybody else.”
Three weeks before Clarice’s due date, Farris Croxton dreamed. In his dream, he and Clarice were in that bed in the guest house. His arm was around her shoulders; the other stroked her sweet belly. She was looking up at him with soft, brown eyes and kissing him with those gentle lips he had at first thought were too thin. The wind was blowing the pale blue curtains in the open window; it was a balmy night. As he always had, Farris felt that the whole scene must be a dream. It was simply too wonderful to be true.
Suddenly, the wind had snatched Clarice away from him and blown up her body the way it appeared in those tabloid pictures. She still reached out for him, but menacing clouds with human features he couldn’t make out continued to pull her away. He tried to stand up on the bed and follow her, but she was vanishing even as he tottered on the soft mattress. Then she was gone.
The next morning, Farris Croxton’s hands were shaking when he opened the FedEx package from Nashville. He had recognized the handwriting on the label, and it was all he could do to follow the company’s standard opening instructions.
What he eventually slid from the packet was a beautifully framed sketch under glass – the drawing of his secret face while he looked at Courier. There was a small card stuck inside the frame, and tears flooded Farris’ eyes as he read the little note. “Come to Nashville when the baby is born”.
Farris Croxton took a commercial flight to Nashville two days before his son was due to be born. Once at the local airport, he rented a car with GPS and air conditioning, a useful commodity even in May this far south. Then he checked into a cheap motel in the general area of St. Thomas Hospital to await the phone call he expected. – Farris was not picky about his accommodation, and money, after all, didn’t grow on trees.
The next morning, he received the expected call from his beloved’s natural father. (Some traits seemed to run in families, but Farris planned to make damn certain the illegitimacy business stopped with him.) Following his reliable GPS, Farris successfully navigated the hospital’s parking system and made his way by elevator to the Maternity Ward.
“The fashion nowadays is to keep the infant in a crib in the mother’s room.” Angus Pirtle, Clarice Saxe’s half-brother, peeled himself off the wall. “It was a close run thing getting to the hospital; the EMTs were just getting the baby’s head out when the ambulance pulled under the Emergency Room canopy,” he continued chattily. “Everything is an okay, though; I didn’t have to do the delivery.”
“Does Clarice’s mother know the child’s here yet?” This was Farris’ chief concern. He knew Marion Saxe would make a scene, and now it appeared the scene would be taking place right in Clarice’s room.
“I’m sure she paid the local ambulance dispatcher to call her when we got started,” Angus admitted unhappily as he led the way down the corridor, “but how fast she can get that old Caddy of hers up here from Sewanee I don’t know. Dad’s coming as fast as he can, and you can see there’s plenty of Security around. – I’ve got Clarice’s Nashville lawyer on speed dial.” Angus stopped by an open door and held out a hand for Farris to enter the room.
The first thing Farris saw was Clarice’s face. She had been sleeping, but her eyes popped open when he entered. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she greeted him. “You can help me name our baby. He can have your last name, if you like; we’ll work out all the details later.”
Farris crossed to the head of her bed and stared down at his beloved. “I would like,” he told her, “very much.” He walked over to the crib. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed in an awed voice. “The kid looks just like my baby pictures. - You couldn’t hide this one’s paternity even if you wanted to.” He kept on staring at the child, and the nervous Clarice saw tears sparkling on his eyelashes. Finally, he crossed back over to her and took her hand. “Let’s name him John Thomas Croxton, after a very distant collateral ancestor of mine.”
“That would be just fine.” Clarice’s long fingers squeezed his hand. “I don’t mind using Saxe as my professional name, but I’d hate to make our son bear the name of the prodigal Maurice de Saxe.”
“So would I.” Farris lifted her hand and kissed it. “Just make sure you list me as the father on the birth certificate. I’ll sign it myself, if that’s possible.”
A shrill whistle sounded from the hall. “The Caddy just blew in,” Angus called.
“Oh, God, my mother.” Clarice’s face contorted, and she grasped Farris’ hand in both of hers. “I’m not her slave any longer, but she’s never going to leave us completely alone.”
Marion Saxe sailed in and immediately went on the attack. “Well, Farris Croxton, have you come to claim your bastard?”
Farris responded equably. “And his mother, too, if she’ll have me. - For me, this is a package deal. Either I take a happy wife and child to Kentucky, or else Clarice raises him alone with whatever financial support she’ll allow me to give.”
“Huh!” Marion looked up at Farris.
The woman had been pretty once,
Farris thought,
almost like her daughter. But lines of perpetual discontent and greed have taken over her face; now she’s only a harridan.
“What kind of man are you,” Marian asked, raising her volume, “to be willing to give a little slut your firstborn?”
Farris drew himself up, Clarice still clinging to his hand. “I am a gentleman, Madame,” he proclaimed, “and I will never take any woman, or her child, without her freely given consent.”
“You’re too damned gone with the Wind to live.” Marion dismissed him with a wave of one diamond-glittering hand.
“Gone With the Wind!” Farris snarled back. His recent ancestral researches had sensitized him to home truths he’d never considered before. “I’ll have you know I come from a Union State. - In your Old South, I would have been considered the owner of this baby, and its mother would have no rights at all. I do not live by the Southern Code, Madame, though I admit it would please me to meet you for pistols before breakfast.”
Marion gasped. “Well, I never!” She turned to Clarice. “Boy, didn’t you pick yourself a winner – no common sense at all. – Well, you’ll always be thought of as a slut, even with a fancy wedding ring. Don’t think my nice tabloid friends will forget that the darling little baby will be present at the wedding.”
Clarice seemed to consider this. “Actually, I think it would be much simpler to hire a sitter if we decide on the wedding option. Young John Thomas has quite a yell on him, and I don’t see any need to drag him into something he won’t understand or remember.”
“Already causing trouble, Marion?” A new voice broke into the conversation as John Pirtle entered the room. “There are two Security Staff by the door, you know. This hospital believes babies and their mothers need peace and quiet.”
Tacitly acknowledging the loss of this skirmish, Marion allowed her erstwhile lover to escort her from the room.
Pirtle kept a tight grip on Marion’s upper arm as he led her to the elevator. Once they were alone, he stared at her in dislike. “Look, I know what you’re going to try next, Marion. You’re an aging woman alone, living from hand to mouth, and now deprived even of the comfort of seeing your grandchild. – Well, you can just calm down. You use the Sewanee branch of my own bank, so I keep watch over your affairs from here.”
“Yeah, you’ll watch me fall flat on my face after the way you talked about me on television,” Marion shot back venomously, shaking the arm he held so tightly. “You never used to handle me this way.”
“I never handled you at all,” Pirtle replied, “in the last twenty-seven years, except to respond to your blackmail. I won’t be making monthly payments anymore, but I will keep a watch on your finances and shore you up before the Process Server comes calling.”
“I won’t let the horse billionaire get off scot free,” Marion promised. “My friends on the tabloids still talk to me, you know. That tall drink of water who was born into the lap of luxury is going to suffer for a change.”
“Patrick Underhill’s legal office will be calling you in a couple of days.” Pirtle dropped Marion’s arm at the entrance to the giant parking garage. “His people will explain the conditions of Mr. Croxton’s proposal to insure you are not destitute in your old age.”
Meanwhile, Farris kept watch while an exhausted Clarice and his young son slept. He had placed a chair near the crib, so he could stroke the infant as he would a young foal. Soon a nurse came in on her rounds.
“You must be Mr. Croxton,” the nurse remarked. “That fine little boy was in a rush to get here, and his mother has already fed him once. Her milk is flowing nicely. We’ll wake her in about an hour so he can eat again. – You’ve got a name all picked out?”
“John Thomas Croxton,” Farris announced proudly, “and my name will show on his birth certificate whether Clarice marries me or not. How did she come through the delivery?” he asked concernedly. “I understand that labor takes a lot out of a human mother, just like it does with mares.”
“That’s right; you’re the horse breeder – a little bit better prepared than most first time fathers,” the nurse responded. “Your lady will take about a week to heal enough to meet your marital demands, and then you’ll need to be gentle.” She suddenly looked up from taking Clarice’s pulse. “In the meantime, Mr. Croxton,” she admonished, “don’t take the little one’s milk. We always have to warn new fathers about that.”
“Good God, I’m not a monster!” Farris looked shocked. “I’d never even consider such a thing! Maybe working with horses
is
an advantage.”
“Some men don’t leave enough for Baby,” the nurse responded placidly, “and of course men can suck hard enough to cause pain to a new mother. – We’re keeping a record of how well this little one eats, of course. Some doctors have to recommend various types of breast pump.”
“Breast pump!” Farris turned bright scarlet. – “Well, I’ve known it to happen in case of a stillbirth, but I had never thought about it with human women. I guess I still have a lot to learn.”
“Dr. Shaunessy will probably be around this afternoon to check on his new patients.” Having checked the infant’s vitals, the nurse turned to leave. “He’ll know more about what to tell you.”
Farris immediately accessed the internet on his iPhone.
Meanwhile, Marion was fuming as she drove home, though she made sure to obey all traffic regulations. At home in Franklin County, everybody knew her car, and passing officers would only flash their lights or hold up a warning finger.
The old-fashioned house that Marion had inherited by default had once been home to her mother, grandmother, and two maiden great-aunts, while her father spent as much time as possible at the realty office to avoid listening to their quarreling. Marion had grown up on histrionic scenes and constant quarrels. Apparently each woman remembered every personal insult within the last fifty years, and all were trotted out on every possible occasion.
The child Marion had also possessed an excellent memory, and she early used it to play off the women against each other and get her own way. Indeed, Marion became a master manipulator, and nobody seemed to notice. By the time she was 13, there was also the problem of her ‘hooters’, but Marion would publicly shame any boy who noticed them. Other children consistently avoided her, but that didn’t matter. Marion was glorying in her bullying ability.
But Marion was also smart academically and forged her way ahead on a learning track that would eventually suit her for the family real estate business. By the time she went to Nashville to earn her way into a business college, the grandmother and great-aunts, all of whom remembered the Civil War, were all unlamented dead. Marion was still in Nashville, working and extorting small sums from the susceptible John Pirtle, when her parents died one after another.
When Marion returned home with her illegitimate baby to take over her father’s business, she knew enough dirt on everyone in the area to insure that her story of a brief marriage cut tragically short by an auto accident was readily accepted.
By the time Marion’s pink Caddy nosed its way back into Franklin County, Marion was wondering sadly if she had lived too long. The world had changed, and too many people didn’t seem to understand the type of in-fighting she had gloried in during her youth.