incoherency of the obsessed: the girl’s father, a Mr. Mooney, was an Irish immigrant, a real bog rat from County Kildare, the hand groom at the McClouds’ Middleburg farm. The girl, that’s Kate, was one of five children, all girls, and all eyesores. Except for the youngest, Kate. ‘The first time I saw her—well,
noticed
her—she was six, seven. All the Mooney kids had red hair. But
her
hair. Even all scissored up. Like a tomboy. She was a great rider. She could urge a horse into jumps that made your heart thump. And she had green eyes. Not
just
green. I can’t explain it.’
“The senior McClouds had two sons, Harry and a younger boy, Wynn. But they had always wanted a daughter, and gradually, without any resistance from the girl’s family, they had absorbed Kate into the main household. Mrs. McCloud was an educated woman, a linguist, musician, a collector. She tutored Kate in French and German and taught her piano. More importantly, she took all the ain’ts and Irish out of Kate’s vocabulary. Mrs. McCloud dressed her, and on European holidays Katetraveled with the family. ‘I’ve never loved anyone else.’ That’s what Harry said. ‘Three years ago I asked her to marry me, and she promised she would never marry anyone else. I gave her a diamond ring. I stole it from my grandmother’s jewel case. My grandmother decided she had lost it. She even claimed the insurance. Kate keeps the ring hidden in a trunk.’ ”
When the sandwiches arrived, Aces pushed his aside in favor of a cigarette. I ate half of mine and fed the rest to Mutt.
“And sure enough, four years later, Harry McCloud married this extraordinary girl, scarcely sixteen. I went to the wedding—it was at the Episcopal church in Middleburg—and the first time I saw the bride was when she came down the aisle on the arm of her little bog-rat dad. The truth is
she was some kind of freak
. The grace, the bearing, the
authority:
whatever her age, she was simply a superb actress. Are you a Raymond Chandler fan, Jones? Oh, good. Good. I think he’s a great artist. The point is, Kate Mooney reminded me of one of those mysterious enigmatic rich-girl Raymond Chandler heroines. Oh, but with a lot more class. Anyway, Chandler wrote about one of his heroines: ‘There are blondes, and then there are blondes.’ So true; but it’s even truer about redheads. There is always something wrong with redheads. The hair is kinky, or it’s the wrong color, too dark and tough, or too pale and sickly. And the skin—it rejects the elements: wind, sun, everything discolors it. A really beautiful redhead is rarer than a flawless forty-carat pigeon-blood ruby—or a flawed one, for that matter. But none of this was true of Kate. Her hair was like a winter sunset, lighted with the last of the pale afterglow. And the only redhead I’ve ever seen with a complexion to compare with hers was Pamela Churchill’s. But then, Pam is English, she grew up saturated with dewy English mists, something every dermatologist ought to bottle. And Harry McCloud was quite right about her eyes. Mostly it’s amyth. Usually they are grey, grey-blue with green inner flickerings. Once, in Brazil, I met on the beach a light-skinned colored boy with eyes as slightly slanted and green as Kate’s. Like Mrs. Grant’s emeralds.
“She was perfect. Harry worshiped her; so did his parents. But they had overlooked one small factor—she was shrewd, she could outthink any of them, and she was planning far beyond the McClouds. I recognized that at once. I belong to the same breed, though I can’t pretend to have one-tenth Kate’s intelligence.”
Aces fished in his jacket pocket for a kitchen match; snapping it against his thumbnail, he ignited another cigarette.
“No,” Aces said, responding to an unasked question. “They never had any children. Years passed, and I had cards from them every Christmas, usually a picture of Kate smartly saddled for some hunt—Harry holding the reins, bugle
noticed
her—she was six, seven. All the Mooney kids had red hair. But
her
hair. Even all scissored up. Like a tomboy. She was a great rider. She could urge a horse into jumps that made your heart thump. And she had green eyes. Not
just
green. I can’t explain it.’
“The senior McClouds had two sons, Harry and a younger boy, Wynn. But they had always wanted a daughter, and gradually, without any resistance from the girl’s family, they had absorbed Kate into the main household. Mrs. McCloud was an educated woman, a linguist, musician, a collector. She tutored Kate in French and German and taught her piano. More importantly, she took all the ain’ts and Irish out of Kate’s vocabulary. Mrs. McCloud dressed her, and on European holidays Katetraveled with the family. ‘I’ve never loved anyone else.’ That’s what Harry said. ‘Three years ago I asked her to marry me, and she promised she would never marry anyone else. I gave her a diamond ring. I stole it from my grandmother’s jewel case. My grandmother decided she had lost it. She even claimed the insurance. Kate keeps the ring hidden in a trunk.’ ”
When the sandwiches arrived, Aces pushed his aside in favor of a cigarette. I ate half of mine and fed the rest to Mutt.
“And sure enough, four years later, Harry McCloud married this extraordinary girl, scarcely sixteen. I went to the wedding—it was at the Episcopal church in Middleburg—and the first time I saw the bride was when she came down the aisle on the arm of her little bog-rat dad. The truth is
she was some kind of freak
. The grace, the bearing, the
authority:
whatever her age, she was simply a superb actress. Are you a Raymond Chandler fan, Jones? Oh, good. Good. I think he’s a great artist. The point is, Kate Mooney reminded me of one of those mysterious enigmatic rich-girl Raymond Chandler heroines. Oh, but with a lot more class. Anyway, Chandler wrote about one of his heroines: ‘There are blondes, and then there are blondes.’ So true; but it’s even truer about redheads. There is always something wrong with redheads. The hair is kinky, or it’s the wrong color, too dark and tough, or too pale and sickly. And the skin—it rejects the elements: wind, sun, everything discolors it. A really beautiful redhead is rarer than a flawless forty-carat pigeon-blood ruby—or a flawed one, for that matter. But none of this was true of Kate. Her hair was like a winter sunset, lighted with the last of the pale afterglow. And the only redhead I’ve ever seen with a complexion to compare with hers was Pamela Churchill’s. But then, Pam is English, she grew up saturated with dewy English mists, something every dermatologist ought to bottle. And Harry McCloud was quite right about her eyes. Mostly it’s amyth. Usually they are grey, grey-blue with green inner flickerings. Once, in Brazil, I met on the beach a light-skinned colored boy with eyes as slightly slanted and green as Kate’s. Like Mrs. Grant’s emeralds.
“She was perfect. Harry worshiped her; so did his parents. But they had overlooked one small factor—she was shrewd, she could outthink any of them, and she was planning far beyond the McClouds. I recognized that at once. I belong to the same breed, though I can’t pretend to have one-tenth Kate’s intelligence.”
Aces fished in his jacket pocket for a kitchen match; snapping it against his thumbnail, he ignited another cigarette.
“No,” Aces said, responding to an unasked question. “They never had any children. Years passed, and I had cards from them every Christmas, usually a picture of Kate smartly saddled for some hunt—Harry holding the reins, bugle
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