The Secret History - Donna Tartt [189]
“Wow,” said Sophie, a true Hampden girl, ever dutiful in homage to the New.
I looked over at Francis and he shrugged.
“His mom likes modern architecture,” he said.
I had never seen the man who answered the door but with a sick, dreamlike feeling I recognized him instantly. He was big and red in the face, with a heavy jaw and a full head of white hair; for a moment he stared at us, his smallish mouth fallen open into a tight, round o. Then, surprisingly boyish and quick, he sprang forward and seized Francis’s hand. “Well,” he said. “Well, well, well.” His voice was nasal, garrulous, Bunny’s voice. “If it’s not the old Carrot Top. How are you, boy?”
“Pretty good,” said Francis, and I was a little surprised at the depth and warmth with which he said it, and the strength with which he returned the handshake.
Mr. Corcoran slung a heavy arm around his neck and pulled him close. “This one’s my boy,” he said to Sophie and me, reaching up to tousle Francis’s hair. “All my brothers were redheads and out of my boys there’s not an honest-to-god redhead in the bunch. Can’t understand it. Who are you, sweetheart?” he said to Sophie, disengaging his arm and reaching for her hand.
“Hi. I’m Sophie Dearbold.”
“Well, you’re mighty pretty. Isn’t she pretty, boys. You look just like your aunt Jean, honey.”
“What?” said Sophie, after a confused pause.
“Why, your aunt, honey. Your daddy’s sister. That pretty Jean Lickfold that won the ladies’ golf tournament out at the club last year.”
“No, sir. Dearbold.
“Dearfold. Well, isn’t that strange. I don’t know of any Dearfolds around here. Now, I used to know a fellow name of Breedlow, but that must have been, oh, twenty years ago. He was in business. They say he embezzled a cool five million from his partner.”
“I’m not from around here.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her, in a manner reminiscent of Bunny. “No?” he said.
“No.”
“Not from Shady Brook?” He said it as if he could hardly believe it.
“No.”
“Then where you from, honey? Greenwich?”
“Detroit.”
“Bless your heart then. To come all this way.”
Sophie, smiling, shook her head and started to explain when, with absolutely no warning, Mr. Corcoran flung his arms around her and burst into tears.
We were frozen with horror. Sophie’s eyes, over his heaving shoulder, were round and aghast as if he’d run her through with a knife.
“Oh, darling,” he wailed, his face buried deep in her neck. “Honey, how are we going to get along without him?”
“Come on, Mr. Corcoran,” said Francis, tugging at his sleeve.
“We loved him a lot, honey,” sobbed Mr. Corcoran. “Didn’t we? He loved you, too. He would have wanted you to know that. You know that, don’t you, dear?”
“Mr. Corcoran,” said Francis, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him hard. “Mr. Corcoran.”
He turned and fell back against Francis, bellowing.
I ran around to the other side and managed to get his arm around my neck. His knees sagged; he almost pulled me down but somehow, staggering beneath his weight, Francis and I got him to his feet and together we maneuvered him inside and weaved down the hall with him (“Oh, shit,” I heard Sophie murmur, “shit.”) and got him into a chair.
He was still crying. His face was purple. When I reached down to loosen his collar he grabbed me by the wrist. “Gone,” he wailed, looking me straight in the eye. “My baby.”
His gaze—helpless, wild—hit me like a blackjack. Suddenly, and for the first time, really, I was struck by the bitter, irrevocable truth of it; the evil of what we had done. It was like running full speed into a brick wall. I let go his collar, feeling completely helpless. I wanted to die. “Oh, God,” I mumbled, “God help me, I’m sorry—”
I felt a fierce kick in my anklebone. It was Francis. His face was as white as chalk.
A shaft of light splintered painfully in my vision. I clutched the back of the chair, closed my eyes and saw luminous red as the rhythmic noise of his sobs fell over