Page 72 of The Giver of Stars
The little library had fallen completely silent. The pastor, his mouth working up and down, regarded each of the women’s faces: Beth and Sophia stooped innocently over their work, Margery’s gaze flickering between the two of them, and Alice, her chin up, her face a blazing question.
He placed his hat on his head. ‘I – I can see you’re busy, Mrs Van Cleve. Perhaps I’ll come back another time.’
‘Oh, please do, Pastor,’ she called, as he opened the door and hurried off into the dark. ‘I do so enjoy our Bible studies!’
With that final attempt by Pastor McIntosh – a man who could not accurately be described as the soul of discretion – word had finally travelled around the county that Alice Van Cleve really had left her husband and was not coming back. It had not improved Geoffrey Van Cleve’s mood – already weighted down by those rabble-rousers at the mine – one jot. Emboldened by the anonymous letters, the same troublemakers who had tried to resurrect the unions were now rumoured to be doing so again. This time, however, they were smarter about it. This time it had been done in quiet conversations, in casual talks down at Marvin’s Bar or the Red Horse honky-tonk, and often mentioned so swiftly that by the time Van Cleve’s men had arrived all there was to see was a few Hoffman men legitimately downing a cold beer after a long week’s work and just a vague sense of disturbance in the air.
‘Word is,’ said the governor, as they sat in the hotel bar, ‘you’re losing your grip.’
‘My grip?’
‘You’ve been obsessing about that damn library and not focusing on what’s going on at your mine.’
‘Where did you hear such nonsense? I have the firmest of grips, Governor. Why, didn’t we discover a whole bunch of those troublemakers from the UMWA just two months ago and shut that down? I got Jack Morrissey and his boys to see them off. Oh, yes.’
The governor gazed into his drink.
‘I got eyes and ears all over this county. I’m keeping track of these subversive elements. But we have sent a warning, if you like. And I have friends at the sheriff’s office who are very understanding about such matters.’
The governor raised the slightest of eyebrows.
‘What?’ said Van Cleve, after a pause.
‘They say you can’t even keep control of your own home.’
Van Cleve’s neck shot to the back of his collar.
‘Is it true that your Bennett’s wife ran off to a cabin in the woods and you ain’t been able to get her home again?’
‘The young ’uns may be having a few hiccups just now. She – she asked to stay with her friend. Bennett’s letting her just till things simmer down.’ He ran a hand over his face. ‘The girl got very emotional, you know, about not being able to bear him a child …’
‘Well, I’m sad to hear that, Geoff. But I have to tell you that’s not how it’s being parlayed.’
‘What?’
‘They say the O’Hare girl’s running rings around you.’
‘Frank O’Hare’s daughter? Pfft. That little … hillbilly. She – she just hangs off Alice’s coat tails. Got some kind of fascination with her. You don’t want to listen to anythinganyone says about that girl. Hah! Last I heard, her so-called library was on its last legs anyway. Not that I’m much troubled by the library one way or another. Oh, no.’
The governor nodded. But he didn’t laugh and agree, slap Van Cleve on the back and offer him a whisky. He just nodded, finished his drink, slid off his bar stool and left.
And when Van Cleve finally got up to leave the bar, several bourbons and a whole lot of brooding later, his face was the dark purple of the upholstery.
‘You good, Mr Van Cleve?’ said the bartender.
‘Why? You got an opinion as well as everyone else around here?’ He sent the empty glass skidding and it was only the bartender’s sharp reflexes that stopped it flying off the end of the bar.
Bennett looked up as his father slammed the screen door. He had been listening to the wireless and reading a baseball magazine.
Now Van Cleve smacked it out of his hand. ‘I’m done with this. Go get your coat.’
‘What?’
‘We’re bringing Alice home. We’ll pick her up and put her in the trunk if necessary.’
‘Pop, I told you a hundred times. She says she’ll just keep leaving until we get the message.’
‘And you’re going to take that from a little girl? Your own wife? You know what this is doing to my name?’
