23. 1960
Jasper found William McBride waiting for him the next day.
He would never know if Catherine had warned the other man about his imminent arrival—told him about the scene at the cabin so he could arm himself appropriately—or if William was simply wiser than Jasper had given him credit for, but when he hunted the other man down at the radar base, there was no surprise in his expression.
“Ah,” William said, turning smartly to face him. “And so we meet again.”
William was dressed in full Air Force regalia, and even though Jasper loathed the very sight of him, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the figure he cut. In another lifetime, with another family and different burdens to bear, Jasper liked to think he might have followed a similar path. His own father had served in WWII, though he’d done it as an enlisted man rather than an officer.
That, more than anything else, proved the differences between them. Jasper was and always would be what he appeared on the outside: a low-level nobody, a man for whom bodily strength was more lucrative than anything else he had to offer. William McBride, on the other hand, was a shining, gleaming ball of potential.
For the past twenty-four hours, Jasper had rehearsed in detail what he planned to say. In his head, he was a master of articulate superiority, reducing the other man to shreds with his razor-sharp wit.
You’re offering Catherine the only thing of value you have—your money and your position—because you know you have nothing else to give her, he’d spit out.
Catherine and the baby might be yours in name, but they’ll always belong to me first and foremost,he’d say.
Don’t hurt them, he’d beg. Whatever you do, whatever happens, please just make sure they’re happy.
In the end, he said none of those things. Not only was it impossible to reduce a man to shreds in the bustle and camaraderie of soldiers going about their business, but his tongue was cleaved to the roof of his mouth.
“I suppose I have to thank you,” William said when all Jasper did was open and close his mouth, unable to force his tongue to start moving. “That Edgar Allen Poe trick worked like a charm. ‘We loved with a love that was more than love.’ A little over-the-top, if you ask me, but she seemed to like it.”
“Don’t you dare quote Poe at me,” Jasper said, surprised to find that his hands were balled into fists at his sides. He’d never been a man given to violence, even though some of the guys on the logging crew seemed only to respond to brute force. “It’s not a game you’ll win. ‘Leave my loneliness unbroken.’”
“Oh, I’m no match for you, and I know it,” William confessed with a flash of a smile that grated down Jasper’s spine. “That’s the only line I memorized. Well, that and ‘Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore”’ but that one didn’t seem to fit the moment. Girls like Catherine need a touch of romance, even when they don’t have any other choice.”
That was when Jasper struck. He’d have been hard-pressed to say whether it was the smugness of the man that drove him to it, or if it was the condescending way he spoke of a woman who was so superior to him that they shouldn’t be expected to share the same planet, let alone the same home. Either way, his fist shot up and cracked against William’s jaw so fast that neither one of them saw it coming.
“Gunnhh!” William staggered back with a grunt, his whole body reeling with the sudden force of the blow. Even though Jasper was horror-struck at his own actions, he lunged again, this time to tackle William the rest of the way to the dirt. He might have done it, too, if not for the half-dozen young men who came running up to hold him back.
“Whoa, there. Take a beat, man.”
“He just hit Lieutenant McBride! Did you see that?”
“I don’t think he’s one of us, is he?”
“Someone had better get the Major.”
Of all the sudden babel of voices, it was that last one that caused Jasper to stiffen. The Major meant Catherine’s father—a man he’d only seen a handful of times, and then with a wary circumspection to be expected of a nineteen-year-old facing the father of a woman he’d recently taken to bed.
“You hit me,” William slurred, his hand clutched to his already swelling jaw. “You fucking hit me.”
“Come a little closer, and I’ll do it again,” Jasper warned.
All of a sudden, the arms that had been holding him let go. He surged forward and just managed to avoid falling flat on his face. As he regained his bearings and glanced around, he found that all the young men were standing ramrod straight, their eyes trained ahead and their expressions tamped down to give nothing away.
“Someone had better tell me what’s going on,” a cold authoritative voice announced. Jasper turned slowly, already aware of what—or rather, who—stood behind him.
Major Gene Martin looked exactly like the type of man to have Catherine for a daughter. His stature was small but determined, his expression one that challenged every living entity to even try messing with him. His clothes were neat and fit his body like he’d been born wearing them, but more than that, he crackled with the same vitality that characterized everything Catherine said and did. It was as if there was too much life to be contained within them; they were filled with something more than energy.
Catherine found her outlet in sneaking around and breaking the rules, but the Major had obviously chosen rigid discipline instead. Jasper wasn’t sure yet whether that made him more or less dangerous than Catherine, but he felt fairly certain he was about to find out.
“Lieutenant McBride, you’re making a mess of your uniform. Please go at once to the treatment facility and get yourself attended to. Unless there’s a war going on, there’s no reason to sully your uniform with blood.” The Major cast a careful look around. “As far as the rest of you go, I believe I’ve made myself clear on the rules and regulations regarding recreational fighting. Do I need to repeat these for your edification?”
The chorus of No, sirs that this question elicited might have made Jasper laugh, if he wasn’t the next to fall under that eagle-eyed stare.
“And as for you, young man, I can see that you’re not one of mine. Do you have clearance to be on the radar base?”
“No, I don’t,” Jasper said, stopping himself before adding his own sir to the end. He might have a lot to answer to for his behavior, but this man had no power over him.
His daughter, however…
“And is it your custom to show up uninvited and sow disorder among the ranks of the armed forces?”
“Not usually, no,” Jasper said. Emboldened by the thought that things literally couldn’t get any worse, he added, “But this is a special circumstance.”
The Major narrowed his eyes in a way that might, had Jasper been one of his enlisted men, have made him cower where he stood. Instead, he straightened his spine and met the man’s stare.
For some reason, this seemed to please the officer. “What’s your name?” the Major asked.
“Jasper. Jasper Holmes.”
From the way the shorter man suddenly flinched, as if a divine hand had swatted him from above, Jasper knew that he had the whole story. Also that there was about to be serious hell to pay.
But all he said was, “I see,” before turning to the man nearest to him in rank. “Captain Lindholdt, be good enough to assume command until I return. Please see that the training exercises are carried out at their usual hour. I’ll be escorting this young man home.”
“Actually, I drove myself—” Jasper began, but his protest fell on unheeding ears.
“That will be all. You’re dismissed.”
If Jasper hadn’t already been terrified, the speed with which the men dispersed would have done the trick. In a matter of seconds, he was left standing on a dusty patch of earth with only Catherine’s father to witness what happened next.
“Come along, then,” the Major said as he brushed lightly past Jasper. “I don’t have all day.”
“Uh…can I ask where we’re going?” Jasper asked. He flexed his hand involuntarily, a tight bruising already starting to take shape around his knuckles. He’d pay for that injury at work tomorrow, but he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it. “Or would that be an impertinence?”
The Major paused just long enough to cast a look over his shoulder at Jasper. “It is an impertinence, but you might as well know now. You’ll have plenty of time to repent when we get there.”
“Get where?” Jasper asked.
“To my house, obviously,” he said as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “My wife would like to have a few words.”
Jasper wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or dismayed when he stepped onto the driveway of a pristinely white two-story house to find that Catherine was nowhere in sight.
On the one hand, he quaked to think of what his lover would say if she knew what he’d done—driven up to the radar base in a blaze of impotent fury, attacked the man who was to make an honest woman of her, and confronted her father on his own turf. On the other hand, he was not good at parents. Not by any stretch of the imagination, and certainly not when he was handling them on his own.
“Come along, then,” the Major said as he closed the door of his green Chevy Bel-Air and started making his way to the front door. He didn’t even check to make sure Jasper was following. “Mrs. Martin is eager to meet you.”
“I doubt that,” Jasper muttered, but he followed anyway.
Now that he was at Catherine’s house, he found himself more interested in his surroundings than he’d have previously thought possible. It had never occurred to him before to drive by her family home or even to wonder what her life might be like outside the library and their clandestine meetings. That her parents were overbearing, he knew from their conversations. That she yearned for more than the picture-perfect cutout life of an obedient daughter and wife, he also knew.
That was what made this situation with William McBride so frustrating. Catherine didn’t want a life of safety and security, of white picket fences and military precision. She wanted to go on adventures. She wanted to squeeze the most out of every day. She wanted to explore the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, never flinching from either extreme.
He, Jasper Holmes, had taken that from her. He’d robbed her of the life she deserved. And she, in agreeing to marry William McBride, had let him.
Her house was typical of the few upper- and middle-class homes in the town. Anything that could be called “stately” around these parts had been around since the turn of the century, the historical features pristinely maintained over the decades. Unlike his own family home, which was a skinny town house squeezed between too many others along the log-jammed waterfront of the Chehalis River, everything here was picture-perfect. The couches sat at perfect right angles in the living room, a silver tea service tray already set out in expectation of this visit.
This was bad enough, but nothing could have prepared Jasper for the little signs of Catherine everywhere he looked—a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s lying facedown on a side table, a bottle of her light-pink nail polish next to it. A little notebook and a stub of a pencil for jotting down in it, probably for quotes she found meaningful in the book.
And, more damning than all the rest, an exact replica of her standing in an apron at the far end of the room. Jasper knew, from a few chance meetings around town, that this woman was Catherine’s mother, but he’d never seen her up close before. Now that he had, he wished the meeting undone. The gently wisping lines around her eyes and the slight strands of gray in her hair hinted at her older age, but the two Martin women were otherwise identical. It was like catching a glimpse into Catherine’s future—a future he would make no part of, and a future he wanted so much that it ached.
“Mrs. Martin?” he asked as he came to a halt in front of her. He brought up his hand to shake hers before realizing that his knuckles still bore the imprint of William McBride’s face. He tried shoving his hand behind his back before she noticed, but there was no point. Catherine and her mother didn’t just share features; they shared the quick, ready understanding he found so appealing.
“Oh, you poor thing,” she murmured as she clasped his hand gently between her own. “Let’s get a steak on that before it swells up. I have a lovely rib eye that should ease the sting.”
“I thought that rib eye was for supper—” the Major began, but he caught his wife’s eye and immediately clamped his lips shut. With a curt nod, he began to back out of the room. “I suppose you know your business best. I’ll wait in the car until it’s time to drive him back.”
And with that, he was gone. Jasper had thought that nothing could be more uncomfortable than the long, silent drive from the radar base, but he was wrong.
This was worse. This was so much worse.
“I suppose you had to get it out of your system, didn’t you?” Catherine’s mother said as she led Jasper to the couch and urged him to sit in it. “I don’t know why men always turn to violence in troubled times, but it’s good to know you’re just like the rest of them.”
“I’m not like them,” Jasper tried protesting, but she only chuckled and patted him gently on his uninjured hand.
“It wasn’t meant as an insult,” she said with a smile. “In fact, I expect it will make this next part a lot easier. Relax and pour yourself a cup of tea, if you’d like one. I’ll be right back with the steak.”
Jasper neither relaxed nor poured himself a cup of anything. Instead, he examined the room for signs of an exit route. There was a promising-looking window toward the back, but what would be the use? Colville was a small town. There was only so far he could run and nowhere he could hide.
“Catherine tells me you’re a long way from home,” her mother said upon her reentry. Instead of handing him the cold wrapped beef, she took care to rearrange it on top of his knuckles for him. It had been such a long time since anyone had taken such maternal care of him that he could only sit in a daze and let her. “Your people are from Aberdeen? Is that right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he found himself saying.
Her laugh rang through the air. It sounded exactly like Catherine’s. “Please don’t call me ma’am. It’s bad enough that I’m going to be a grandmother.” She gave a ladylike shudder and lowered herself to the seat opposite Jasper. “Such a strange idea, isn’t it? Me, a grandmother?”
“Please, I—” he croaked.
She stopped him with one hand. “I’m not here to yell at you. I only wanted to meet you and to…talk.”
“Talk?” he echoed blankly. “About what?”
Already, his hand was starting to feel better, the numbing creep of the expensive cut of steak doing its work. The rest of him, unfortunately, was starting to show serious signs of strain.
Mrs. Martin pursed her lips. “Well, that’s up to you, I suppose. I’m sure this all came as a shock to you. It certainly was one to the Major. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him turn that shade of purple before. Aubergine, my mother would have called it, but she always had a flair for the dramatic. All the women in my family do. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now.”
Jasper had the feeling this conversational overload was meant to subdue him, and it was working in a big way. He swallowed heavily and attempted to veer the conversation back on course.
“Does that mean it wasn’t a surprise to you?” he asked.
That laughter sounded again, a little quieter this time. “Well, no, to be honest. I know Catherine, and I know what happens in quiet, cozy towns where the only thing to do on a Saturday night is slip out the drive-in with the local bit of rough.”
“Oh,” Jasper said—just that, just oh. That single syllable said everything and nothing.
“And that’s just it, isn’t it?” she added with a cluck of her tongue. “She was bored and you were interested, and nature took care of the rest. Did you ask her to marry you?”
“Well, no,” Jasper admitted, his head spinning with the blunt rapidity of her questions. “I wanted to, but—”
“It wouldn’t have mattered if you had. She’d have turned you down.” Catherine’s mother paused and looked at Jasper then—really looked at him, her eyes kind but penetrating, her findings clear. “I’m not saying you’re a bad man, Jasper Holmes, or even that you bear any more of the responsibility for this situation than she does, but you understand my position, yes?”
He nodded, not only because words were impossible by this point, but because he did understand. These people were everything his family wasn’t—genteel and well-to-do, more concerned with the appearance of the shameful pregnancy than its actual cause.
They were also determined to see that their daughter carried on the tradition no matter what the cost—to him or to her.
As if to drive this point home, Mrs. Martin tapped a thoughtful finger in the middle of her chin. “Aberdeen… Aberdeen… I think we met a sailor from there once. Lovely young man. Tragic backstory. One of those families that fell on hard times during the Depression and never found their way back on solid ground.”
Jasper could tell where this was headed.
“I believe Catherine had a fancy for him, too. Isn’t it funny how girls her age have a certain type they come back to time and time again?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He knew that nothing more was expected—or, at this point, the least bit necessary.
“Well,” she said brightly as she folded her hands in her lap. “I can see that you’re every bit as intelligent as Catherine painted you out to be, so this next part will come as no surprise to you. The Major and I are prepared to offer you a lump sum for your troubles, provided you relinquish any and all paternal interest in the child.”
The steak fell to the floor with a wet flop. “I’m…sorry? A lump sum?”
“I know it’s unseemly to discuss these things, but I’d like to ensure that there are no misunderstandings going forward. It’s what Catherine wants.”
“What she wants?” he echoed again. He knew he sounded every bit like the oversized doddering lumberjack he appeared to be, but what else could he do? Maternal solicitude and bribery were the last two things he’d expected out of this meeting—if meeting it could be called. It was starting to feel more like an ambush.
“Yes. The Major and I were prepared to send her away and find the child a proper home, but she insisted that she’d prefer to raise her son or daughter herself. Marrying William McBride was her idea, and although I can’t say I was on board at first, it seems to be working out for the best. He’s been a brick from start to finish.”
When Jasper couldn’t find it in him to do more than goggle at this poised, soft-spoken woman, she nodded and reached for the handbag that sat next to her chair. His heart sank when he saw her extract a folded check and push it across the table at him.
“I think you’ll find that we’re prepared to be generous. Not just for your trouble, but for your discretion.”
He didn’t want to look. He tried not to pick up the slip of paper. But when she kept sitting there, smiling at him like an older, wiser, stone-cold version of Catherine, he found he had no choice.
PAY TO THE ORDER OF JASPER HOLMES, $5,000.00
Five thousand dollars.It was more money than Jasper earned in a year, more than he’d ever seen in one sitting, a veritable fortune.
He let go almost at once. The paper fluttered to the floor as if it had wings, joining the steak in its wet, congealing lump. Tsking gently, Catherine’s mother plucked it back up and wiped the stains of red around the edges.
“I really am sorry,” she said. More determined this time, she pressed the check into his hand. “I know I sound like a horrible old snob, but our daughter asked us to be generous, so we are.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said, suddenly springing to his feet, the check crushed in his fist. “Catherine wouldn’t have agreed to it. She wouldn’t do this to me.”
He saw a flash of it then—that fire that so characterized these women, the core of steel that nothing earthly could touch.
“You may be in the habit of lying and sneaking around, Mr. Holmes, but I can assure you that I am not.” She smiled then, and even though it was meant to be every bit as charming as her earlier attempts at friendliness, it chilled him to the bone. “In fact, she gave me a message for you—something she said you’d be sure to understand.”
“Please don’t,” Jasper croaked.
“I have to,” she returned, a little warmer this time. She fished in the front pocket of her apron until she pulled out a slip of paper. From his distance, Jasper could make out the sloping lines of Catherine’s painfully familiar hand. “It’s the only way. You don’t realize it now, but this is the best solution for everyone.”
And then she read the words Jasper knew were coming.
“‘I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven,’” she read in her soft, firm voice, “‘and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low I shouldn’t have thought of it.’”
Jasper flung up a hand in entreaty. To his surprise, it worked. Catherine’s mother stopped in the middle of forming the next line, her lips parted in a perfect O.
“‘It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now,’” he finished for her.
She blinked. “Why, yes. So you do know. She said you’d recognize the line, but I wasn’t sure I believed her.”
He groaned with the sudden enormity of it. Of the irony of Catherine—his Catherine—flinging the only words she knew would get him to back away. Of her quoting a passage from Wuthering Heights as though a single stupid book could contain the enormity of his love for her.
And of her obvious decision not to finish the line: He shall never know how I love him; and that not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
In the book, the love between Catherine and Heathcliff wasn’t enough to overcome the pecuniary demands of the world they inhabited. In real life, it seemed, the love between Catherine and Jasper was doomed to follow along the same lines. And just like the devastating unfolding of Emily Bront?’s classic tale, his only recourse was to stand back and watch as the love of his life destroyed him, body and soul.
“You be sure to cash that check, honey,” Mrs. Martin said as she led the way to the door. She stepped over the congealing steak, but her heel squelched into the edge. “The Major will take you back now. I trust we’ll never see or hear from you again.”
And even though his heart was breaking—a thousand china plates crashing inside a wooden box, a thousand times over again—Jasper had no choice but to follow that bright bloody trail out of the house.
Catherine had spoken. She’d made her choice.
It was over.