Stone Lake: part 45

A Star Tribune serialized novel by Richard Horberg

Chapter 15 continues

The story so far: Allen and his classes discuss provincialism vs. sophistication.

Helen Vorgt waited until nobody responded, then raised her hand. "She was a beautiful woman who loved everything. She was kind and generous to everybody. Even Fra Pandolf, the painter, comments on it — he sees her inner beauty. She reminds me of Ingrid Bergman in the movies. But the duke resents the fact that she doesn't love him exclusively. She appreciates the sunset or the cherries that one of the servants gives her as much as she does him — as much as his 900-year-old name, he says. He's very proud. He's so proud of himself that he can't stand that. So he gets rid of her."

"How does he get rid of her?"

"He has her killed."

Allen smiled. "Is that right, class? Does the duke chop off her head?"

"Then she's still alive?"

"Probably."

Allen read from the poem:

"…Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whenever I passed her; but who passed without

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive…'"

"As if alive," he repeated. "It kind of sounds as though she's dead and buried, doesn't it."

"She's probably out in the cemetery with all of his other wives," Royal said.

More laughter.

"Good question." He looked the class. "Any answers?"

Augusta Olafson raised her hand. A solid girl with a placid face, Allen had only recently discovered her ability. "He looks upon the duchess as a trophy," she said. "Just like that other trophy that he points out to the visitor in the last lines. A little statue of Neptune in bronze."

"Exactly. He collects trophies. She means no more to him than his other trophies."

"She's probably a goner before the paint on the wall is dry," Leo March said.

"But that's shocking," someone said.

There was no answer. Helen was looking at him with a smile.

"Helen?"

"When the duke says to the visitor after he's finished his story, 'Will it please you rise?' I think he's being ironic. The visitor is probably already on his feet — in shock."

He smiled. "Robert Browning himself couldn't have said it better."

Jenny looked disturbed. "Did Robert Browning hate women?" she asked.

It was not until later that he realized he was repeating to the seniors the same theme he offered his juniors: the civilized and cultured duke vs. the innocent maiden.

Lighten up, he told himself. There are other things to talk about.

***

Snowed in, chilled out, Allen wrote Mary Zane a letter disguised as a three-act play, complete with prologue and epilogue, with Mary and himself as the main characters. He wrote a letter in the form of a recipe. He wrote a letter in romantic couplets. She responded cheerfully.

When he asked her, intending to use the information in his sophomore class, to describe a nurse's life for him, together with the characteristics a good nurse needs, she filled three pages. As she had done before, she told him that she loved his letters and hoped they would continue their correspondence for a long time.

She probably was meeting lots of young men — students at the university, which her clinic served. Did she say to them, as she had to him, "I don't want you to like me too much"? Did she say when they tried to kiss her, "That's another story"? He considered asking her to come to Minneapolis for a visit in the summer. He considered driving out to see her during spring break — perhaps without even letting her know he was coming. It was a long drive. But he thought Queen Pearl could handle it.

Or what if he came home from school one afternoon to find her sitting at his desk? He wouldn't have to ask, as they did in the movies, how she got in. In Stone Lake, no door was locked.

***

A small revolution was going on at The Food Box.

Every time he ate there — always sitting at the counter — Patty Porter and her cohorts from the lower grades were in a booth behind him, talking too loud, laughing too loud and having too good a time.

Sometimes Pauline Lund was with them (an extra chair in the aisle), sometimes not. Allen assumed — he hoped, at least — that Pauline stayed home to make dinner for herself and her daughter most of the time.

One evening when they were being particularly loud, the owner, a man with a crooked back, hobbled over to their booth and told them, with a distressed look on his face, that there had been complaints from other diners that they were making too much noise. People came to The Food Box to relax and have a good meal, he said, bowing obsequiously. Please, they deserved some consideration and respect.

Patty and friends offered their apologies with straight faces, arranged their scattered silver properly at the side of their plates and sat up in mock-aristocratic manner, all the while, Allen could tell, bursting with hidden mirth. When the owner left, they amused themselves through the rest of their meal by being excessively polite to each other. 'Would you pass the foie gras, Miss Porter?" they said. "Would you like a bit of caviar, my dear?"

The following week, however, they were at it again, laughing, shouting, playing tricks on the waitress. This time the owner's wife came out, a big, fierce woman holding a knife in her hand. "You make too much noise," she told them. "You get out. Not come back."

"We're sorry," Patty said, concealing a smile. "We'll be good."

Indignant, or feigning indignation, the ladies left.