Stuart Woods - Palindrome

"You probably appreciate it more than I. It was always there for me to see when I was growing up, and I suppose I've gotten used to it. When I was a boy, though, it was the source of many dreams about fighting at sea. I think it was the reason I joined the navy in 1917, right out of Princeton."

Liz did a quick calculation. "You finished Princeton at what, nineteen?"

"I'd been well tutored most of my life, and I was somewhat ahead of my classmates."

"Were you in the first war?"

"I served in a frigate in the North Sea. It was my greatest regret that I did not arrive there in time for the Battle of Jutland, the previous year. I was never even shot at."

Liz's grandparents were both dead, and she was enchanted with the notion of knowing someone directly connected with a past she viewed as distant history. "What did you do after the war?" she asked.

"Like a lot of well-off young men of my day, I traveled. I spent three years in Europe-Paris, Rome, Florence, Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin." He showed her to one of a pair of wing chairs and sat opposite her.

"When you finished your traveling, then what?"

"I went to law school at Duke University, but I never practiced, never even took the bar. My father thought the law would be useful in managing the estate, and he was right to an extent. My father died the summer I graduated, and from then on, I was here-with a lot of time spent in New York, London, and the Continent, of course. I stopped traveling abroad when the last war broke out, and I never wanted to again after that." He crossed his long legs and sighed. "It's a vanished world, now, but in my memory, Europe still exists as it was. He sipped his martini and gazed into the fire. "When I heard that Dresden had been destroyed, I wept."

"I plan to travel, when I've finished my book," she said. "The whole of my European experience was a guided trip to Paris when I was in college."

"See the world, all of it," he said, with vehemence. He looked at her. "You're still doing the book? After what's happened to Ray Ferguson?"

"Yes," she said.

"I was sorry to hear about Ray and Eleanor. They were decent people; they shouldn't have died like that."

"You're right," she said, and tried not to think about Baker Ramsey.

"Keir convinced me I should finish the book, although I didn't need much convincing. If you don't mind my staying on."

"Of course not. You've been seeing Keir?" he asked.

"Quite a lot," she said, and felt herself blushing.

"He's a good boy," Angus said, "they both are, but they're different."

"You're the first person who's said that. Everybody else talks about how much alike they are."

"They were always different, to me. They could fool me for a time, if they tried, but I could usually tell them apart. I sometimes wish Keir had led a more conventional life, but he seems happy, happier than Hamish in some ways, although Hamish has been more the success. I think Keir feels more than Hamish."

"I've felt that, too," Liz said. "Hamish seems, well, colder. Do you know why they… stay away from each other?"

"I don't," Angus said, "but I stopped letting it drive me crazy a long time ago. If they want to go on pretending that the other doesn't exist, well, I reckon they must have their reasons, and I respect their wishes. If I didn't, I'd never see either of them, they'd never come around. As it is, I see Hamish fairly often, but I hadn't seen Keir for three years, until recently." He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "You know, when I was younger I thought that my progeny would succeed me as I succeeded my father, that Cumberland would always be kept as it was by future generations. Then, my son, Evan, died in that airplane crash, and I thought his sons would be here. Now I know that neither of them, no matter how much they love this place, is the man to continue for me."

"What about Germaine?" Liz asked.

"Germaine has her hands full with her inn, and I believe she's content with that." James reentered the room.

"Excuse me, Mr. Angus; dinner is served." Angus escorted Liz to the table, seated her, and turned to a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice beside the table. "Krug 'fifty-three," he said, showing her the bottle. He peeled away the foil and freed the cork from its wire cage.

"I love old champagne. Not quite as fizzy as it was, I'm sure, but the color, the flavor!" He removed the cork and poured her a glass. "It's been in my cellar for thirty-five years-hasn't moved an inch in all that time."

Liz drank from her glass, and turned to report to him.

"Let me tell you," he said. "Big, yeasty, not too many bubbles. Perfect."

"You're right, of course."

She laughed. He seated himself and looked up as James entered with two covered dishes. He placed them before the diners and lifted the covers; there were a dozen fresh shellfish on each plate. "My clams, from down on the flats behind the house. Best in the world."

Liz savored the sweet flavor. "I can't disagree."

Angus watched James as he left the room. "I've been training him all afternoon to serve dinner. The maid's too clumsy, and the cook's in the kitchen. He's doing well, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is. He seems a very nice boy; did he grow up on the island?"

"Yes, he did," Angus replied, forking a clam into his mouth.

"He's my son." Liz stopped, her fork in midair. Then, for something to do instead of speaking, she ate the clam. "His mother worked on the place. She was Buck Moses's daughter, by his fourth wife. I liked her, and I'd been a widower many years. We… comforted each other. She died some years ago and Buck has raised the boy since then-Buck and now, me. Buck's getting too old." He sipped his champagne. "I've never told another soul that," he said. "Indeed, I admitted it to myself only a short while ago." He peered at her across his glass. "I wonder why I told you."

"I'm glad you did," she said. "It's flattering when someone you like tells you his closest secrets." They finished the clams, and James came and took away the dishes. Angus got up, went to a sideboard, and retrieved an empty wine bottle and a full decanter. "Do you like claret? Red Bordeaux, I mean. The British call it claret, and I think it's a nice word."

"I do. I haven't drunk all that much of it, though."

"I want you to know about this bottle, because as long as you live, you may never have another wine as good. This is Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1929, the finest red Bordeaux of this century, maybe ever." He poured a small amount in his glass, twirled it, plunged his nose deep into the glass, and inhaled. "Perfect. It's my last bottle; I wanted to drink it before I die, drink it in good company." He poured them both a glass and sat down.

Liz imitated his action with the glass, then sipped the wine. "I've never tasted anything so wonderful," she said, and she meant it.

James returned with a platter and presented two pheasant, sizzling. "I shot these myself last week with my new shotgun," he said, smiling.

Angus smiled back at him. "I've always managed to keep a good cook," Angus said when the birds had been served. "I think that's why I've lived so long." They ate in silence for a while. Finally, Liz asked, "What's going to happen to James when you die?"

"I've thought about that," Angus said. "I'd leave him to run wild on this island, if I thought he'd stay. But he won't. He wants to go to college, to see some of his country and the world. I'll see that he can do that, then I can only hope that Cumberland will draw him back the way it always draws back the people who love the place. I'll try and make it easy for him to come back."

"Do your grandchildren know they have an uncle?" Liz asked.

"I think Keir knows, but I'm not sure about Hamish and Germaine; they may have had their suspicions. I don't much give a good goddamn what anybody else thinks. Like that little weasel, Jimmy. He thinks he's going to develop Cumberland Island. He has some surprises coming!"