The man was satisfactorily taken aback; his fink of a secretary as well. Ambrose squeezed my arm approvingly. But Marsha was all ears behind us, with her husband in tow. She too, she announced with saurian satisfaction, was expecting a child — with, given her relative youth, better odds than some on a normal delivery. Let us charitably suppose that Marsha had not yet heard of Peter’s death and was simply reconnoitering the effects of her Bombshell Letter. I feared for Ambrose’s temper; was tempted myself to reply that Marsha’s own track record in the delivery of normal children was not impressive. But our grief (and love) detached us; put things in right and wry perspective. You’re married, then, Ambrose remarks to the pair of them, with a great no-alimony smile. Certainly not, snaps Marsha. Well, opines Horner, in point of fact we are, though Marsha is retaining her maiden name. Shut up, Mrs H. commands him. And while their new baby is of course not his, Horner bravely persists, he hopes his wife will permit him to name it, if a boy, Joseph Morgan Horner; if a girl, Josephine. Oh, you jerk, says Marsha; I’ll Josephine you.
Ambrose expansively congratulated them and invited them to our own wedding on the Saturday next, at Fort McHenry (we had of course decided earlier to postpone it, but Magda was insisting that we proceed; this was my first and happy notice that we were going forward as scheduled). Marsha flounced and sniffed away as satisfyingly as a comeuppanced Rival at the end of a Smollett novel. Her husband shifted about, thanked us gravely for the invitation, but declined on the grounds that that date (Rosh Hashanah and birthday of Sherwood Anderson, Claudette Colbert, J. B. Priestley, Walter Reed, and Arnold Schoenberg, we might be interested to know) marked Marsha’s debut as admissions secretary at Wicomico State College, where he himself hoped soon to return to the teaching of remedial English. Hers was not normally a six-day job, we were to understand; but the coming week and weekend were busy at Wicomico, as at Marshyhope, with the orientation and registration of incoming students.
Ambrose fairly clapped him on the shoulder. Bravo, old chap, and so long! Have a good life, etc.! We were both grinning through our grief: poor bastards all! I’d not have minded a clarifying word with A. B. Cook, whom I espied in deep conversation with Todd Andrews; but we were anxious lest Marsha disturb our household with a visit to Angela. Our walk to the car took us past the Tower of Truth, the last of its scaffolding cleared and its landscaping in progress. Drew Mack, in clean blue denims, and those same three who had helped in the search for Merope Bernstein — the black girl Thelma, a good-looking Chicano or Puerto Rican boy, and a fuzzy gringo — were regarding the structure and pointing things out to one another. Drew had the good manners to offer his condolences for Peter’s death and his regrets that the rifling of Mensch Masonry’s files was being regarded in some quarters as an “inside job” to cover our legal tracks. As if the state General Services Department didn’t have copies of everything stolen! He himself thought the tower an architectural abomination, a rape of the environment, and a symbol of the American university’s corruption by the capitalist-imperialist society which sustained it. That there was literal falsehood in its construction he did not doubt; the building’s infamous flaws, with their attendant litigation, attested that. But he knew Peter Mensch to have been an honest man and an able stonemason, happier in blue collar than white.
That he was, my friend, said Ambrose. And it would have pleased him to see this thing dismantled, stone by stone.
Jane Mack was chauffeured past, somewhat grim-faced, I thought. She did not return her son’s amiable wave. They are, Drew explained, contesting his father’s will; he apologised to me that my own bequest was being delayed by that suit, and assured me that neither he nor his mother, and most certainly not the Tidewater Foundation, begrudged me my reward for “caring for” Harrison Mack. Drew’s own attorney and Mr Andrews were pressing the court to execute all such non-contested bequests forthwith.
Will you believe, sir, that I had quite forgot I was an heiress? I’d certainly never humoured and tended poor Harrison with expectation of reward, but my provision in his will is generous—$30,000, I believe. That amount would, will, decidedly bolster for a time the sagging economy of the Menschhaus and provide a bit of a nest egg for our hatchling-in-the-works. I shared the good news with Ambrose; together with the glad tidings of Marsha’s marriage, it cheered us right up, and Magda too, as we returned to our bereavement.
Harrison Mack, Joseph Morgan, and Peter Mensch, good men all: rest in peace!
We now enter our 6th, climactic week of Mutuality, Ambrose (and you) and I: what I must call, though I’ve yet to wed, our honeymoon; the “ourest” week of “our” stage, this 6th, of our romance. I write these words on Thursday evening, 11 September, just returned with my lover from a day of planning and conferring at Fort McHenry. It is, A. B. Cook has told us, the anniversary of Governor-General Prevost’s rout at Plattsburgh and Lake Champlain in 1814 (i.e., in the 1812 War), when also the British Chesapeake fleet, fresh from burning Washington, assembled at the mouth of the Patapsco for the attack on Baltimore. What’s more (Jacob Horner would have applauded to hear) it is by the Diocletian calendar New Year’s Day of Year 1686.
Our own new week had till today been spent in loving grief and vice versa at the Menschhaus, which now belongs to Magda. We have put Peter’s affairs in order (there was little to do that receivership had not already done; Angie is Ambrose’s — our — financial responsibility; with her own children independent, Magda can live adequately on her new salary and Peter’s insurance). Over her protest I have renewed my lease on 24 L Street. Magda wants us to live unabashedly with her; she hopes we will at least leave Angie there. But we are making no commitments.
We have been making love, as you will have imagined, in recapitulatory fashion: i.e., on the Monday Ambrose was scarcely potent, and I awkward and unresponsive (it was midmorning at 24 L; we were both distracted with Last Things); on the Tuesday his potency returned in spades, but I was wondering whatever happened to Bea Golden and managed no more than a partial orgasm; on the Wednesday we were chaste: Magda insisted we go forward not only with our marriage but with our wedding, and we agreed on condition that she and Angie take part in it (I spent the day drafting the preceding pages of this letter). This morning therefore Ambrose warmly reproposed marriage to me; I accepted; we sealed the compact with an “A.M. quickie” and drove up to Baltimore for a story conference.
The Baratarians were already at McHenry, minus Reg Prinz, Merope Bernstein, Jerome Bray (who however was, it seems, somehow not blitzed after all on Bloodsworth), and of course Bea Golden. Bruce, Brice, and A. B. Cook were in clear charge, the laureate commuting to the scene like ourselves but from nearer by: that house of his down near the Bay Bridge. Drew was on hand with his gang (we have learned that he and his lovely black wife are divorcing; no details). Below us in the harbour was moored the yacht Baratarian, lent us again — by Mack Enterprises? — for water shots, for ferrying gear and personnel between Baltimore and Bloodsworth Island (75 sea miles to south of us), and for limited overnight accommodation. No one was aboard except the hired skipper. Such is the power of the movie-camera lens, at which Ambrose and I still shake our heads, that the U.S. Park Service and the city of Baltimore had obligingly put the fort and the old U.S.F. Constellation (in process of being restored in the city’s inner harbour) at our limited disposal for as long as we required them.