Montgomery - Eternity Part 17

"Your timing is off," Josh said. "You're getting lazy."

To Carrie's consternation, Nora's face changed from misery to a smile in an instant. "But, darling, I don't have you to rehea.r.s.e with. How can I be good without the Great Templeton beside me?"

Carrie turned to look up at Josh, but he was looking at Nora.

"I want the paper," Josh said.

Nora leaned forward, her arms propped on the table. Her gown was very low cut, not what any decent woman would wear before sundown, and it was obvious that she had no need to supplement her bosom with cotton. "I lost it, darling," she purred. "I lost it down the front of my gown."

Looking up at Josh, Carrie saw that he was looking down the front of his wife's dress as though he meant to search for the paper. Carrie got up, left the house, and went to the shed that Josh euphemistically called a barn. She was throwing a saddle on Josh's old workhorse when he entered.

"Carrie," he began.

"Don't you say a word to me. Not one single word. There is nothing you can say, darling-" She sneered the last word. "There isn't anything you can say to me. You have lied to me for the last time."

"Tem," he said softly. "Dallas."

Putting her head against the saddle for a moment, tears came to her eyes. "How dare you use the children to get what you want from me." She tried to pull the cinch on the horse, but her vision was too blurry to see.

Josh came to stand beside her, brushed her hands away, tightened the cinch, then stood to one side. "You're free to leave. I won't try to stop you. If it doesn't matter to you that I love you and that my children love you and that we've already made another child who will grow up without a father, then leave. I will make no effort to stop you."

Carrie started to mount the horse. She put her foot in the stirrup, but then, turning, she flew at Josh, hitting him on the chest with her fists. "I hate you, hate you, hate you! Do you understand me? I hate you as much as I love you."

When her first fury was past, Josh pulled her into his arms and held her while she cried.

"She's so beautiful," Carrie said. "She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

"Rather like a coral snake. Beautiful and deadly."

"You don't really think that or you wouldn't have married her."

"I was nineteen years old when I married her, how was I supposed to have any sense?"

"I'm only twenty," Carrie sobbed. "Does that make me stupid?"

"Of course not. You have the good sense to be in love with me. "

Carrie hiccuped a laugh between her tears.

"That's better. Now, I want you to come over here and sit down. I think it's time we had a talk."

"Talk? You're going to talk to me? Talk to the woman you profess to love? You couldn't be going to tell me what everyone else in the world seems to know about you, could you? Your... wife, your children, your brother, even my own brother-they all know. Don't look at me like that. For all that you seem to think that I'm stupid, I'm not. 'Ring wouldn't have taken to you last night as he did if he hadn't known something about you."

Josh pulled her to stretch out beside him on a pile of straw, his arm under her shoulders. "Where should I begin?"

"Why ask me? I don't know enough to tell you where you should begin. Besides, are you sure you have time to talk to me? Won't your adorable, mysterious, overweight wife want you to go searching for the divorce paper? Not that you'll need much encouragement. Perhaps we could tie the rope we rescued Tem with around your waist and you can go diving for the papers. All I ask is that I be allowed to tie the knots."

Josh put his hand over his mouth so she wouldn't see his smile. "Nora is busy with Eric. You didn't see him, did you? Six foot. Blond. Adoring. Ten years her junior."

"She's older than you, isn't she?" It was the happiest thought Carrie'd had since Nora had entered the bedroom.

"Much," Josh said. "Now, do you want me to tell you about myself or do you want to continue being catty about Nora?"

Carrie had to take a moment to decide. "Listen," she said.

"My parents were two-bit actors, not very good, although I think my father would have been better if he hadn't drunk half a gallon of anything with alcohol in it every day of his adult life. Anyway, I was raised in dressing rooms and in dingy hotel rooms until I was eight. Then my father died and-"

"How? How did your father die?"

"Fell off a boardwalk into the street and was run over by a beer wagon. It was the way he would have wanted to go."

Carrie could hear that there was no love in Josh's voice for his father.

"My mother was past her prime as an actress or as anything else by then-she had a heavy hand with the whisky too. She tried to make it in the theater as an actress, but she couldn't even get bit parts. So, when I was ten, she answered an ad in the newspaper and traveled to Eternity, Colorado, and married a lonely widower, Mr. Elliot Greene, who had a little house in town and a grown son."

"Hiram?"

"The one and only." Josh's mouth tightened. "Hiram was always an overbearing, pompous a.s.s, but he'd had all his father's attention for years and he resented me greatly."

Pausing, Josh smiled. "I came to love Mr. Greene. He was a kind and gentle man, and he continued to take care of me after my mother died two years after their marriage. But he died when I was sixteen and that self-important son of his inherited everything. Immediately after the funeral, Hiram told me that if I didn't obey him, he'd throw me out on my ear. I saved him the trouble. I left the house about four hours later."

"And what did you do?"

"The only thing I knew how to do: I went on the stage."

He paused as though Carrie were supposed to figure out more of the story on her own. It was then that she remembered something that Nora had said. "The Great Templeton," Carrie said.

Looking at Josh, she saw the little smile on his face. "Joshua Templeton," she said. "I've heard of you."

"Oh?" Josh said, one eyebrow raised. It was a smug look as though to say, Of course you've heard of me, the whole world has. She didn't like that look.

"An actor?" she said as she looked down her nose at him.

"A Shakespearian actor. The best actor in the world. The greatest-"

At his bragging, Carrie started to get up, but he pulled her back down beside him.

"I thought you'd be pleased," he said.

She took a deep breath. "All this time I thought you'd done something dreadful. I thought you'd been in jail for robbing people. I couldn't believe you were a murderer. And all it was, was that you're an actor." She said the last word the way she'd say, bug.

"Not just any actor." Josh sounded hurt and disbelieving. "I'm Joshua Templeton. THE Joshua Templeton."

"I am Carrie Montgomery. THE Carrie Montgomery."

Josh laughed.

"Would you mind telling me why you've felt the need to keep this from me? Why have you lied to me about your name and about what you've done in your past?"

"I thought it might make a difference."

Carrie took a moment to figure that out. "You vain peac.o.c.k. You thought that if I knew you were a famous man, I might want you for that reason. How insulting to me."

When she started to get up again, Josh pulled her back down and began kissing her. "But then I didn't know you. I've never met anyone like you. Most women are impressed by the outward trappings of a man."

"You have met a sorry lot of women."

He laughed. "That I have. A very sorry lot. But then, the sorry lot and I were happy. They got the famous man they wanted and I got-"

"Do not tell me what you got from them."

Laughing again, he rolled off of her. "Here, I want to show you something." Digging around under the straw and under some rotting horse harness, he pulled out a small black trunk with the initials JT on it. He unbuckled it, opened it, and withdrew a packet from which he pulled out papers and handed them to her. They were photographs of the world-famous Joshua Templeton in the guise of Hamlet and Oth.e.l.lo and Petruchio. There were shots of him in evening dress, and in another he was holding a sword and looking at the camera with a rakish gleam in his eye.

After looking at the photos for a few minutes, Carrie handed them back to him.

"Well?" he said eagerly. For so long now he'd wanted to tell her about himself, tell her that he wasn't a failure in his chosen profession. He wanted her to know that maybe he wasn't any good at farming, but he was very, very good at something.

"I don't like that man," Carrie said softly.

For a moment Josh couldn't speak. Women all over the world liked Joshua Templeton. Hadn't he proven that? From coast to coast in America and throughout most of Europe, he'd proven himself to be irresistible to women of every size, age, color, and marital state.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings," Carrie said politely, "but that man isn't real. You know, I remember now that Euphonia had some pictures of that man-you, I guess-in her house. All the girls swooned over him, you, but I didn't."

"You liked the sad but smiling man in the photo with his children," Josh said in wonder.

Carrie smiled at him. "That man has a soul. This man-" She pointed to the carefully posed studio pictures. "This man has no soul. There's nothing in his eyes."

At that Josh began to laugh as he hugged her to him. "I was afraid that if you found out about me, it would change your feelings for me. On the day you arrived, when I first saw you, all I thought of was your beautiful little body, but I told myself I couldn't touch you. I was sure you'd return home the moment you saw the dump where I was living." He smiled. "My experience with making women fall in love with you involves champagne and presents in black velvet boxes."

"Oh? And how long did this 'love' last?"

"Until I got her clothes off." He pulled her back into his arms when she tried to get away.

Carrie was trying to hold her body rigid, but he was kissing her neck. "It wasn't really love, was it? Tell me about her."

"Who?" Josh was moving down to her shoulder.

Carrie pushed him away. "Her! The big one in the house. The woman you stood up with in a church and swore to love and honor for the rest of your life. That one."

"Mmmmmm. Nora. Well, you can see why I fell for her." The moment he said it, he knew it was wrong, and he had to hold Carrie to him. "I had to marry her. She got pregnant."

"Got pregnant? All by her oversized self? She should watch what she drinks or get out of the way when the stork flies by."

"All right. I was eighteen when I met her. I'd had a bit of success on the stage and she was an established actress."

"Swept little you off your feet, no doubt."

Josh couldn't keep from laughing. "I was infatuated with her. I married her and Tem was born, then-"

"Tem!" Carrie said. "What is his name?"

"Joshua Templeton the Second."

"We thought you'd misspelled his name on the back of the photo. Go on, you were drooling down the front of Nora's sagging chest."

"After Tem was born, I went on the road and Nora stayed home with the baby." He paused and all laughter left his voice. "Carrie, I've done some things I'm not proud of. I was horribly unfaithful to my wife-as she was to me-but I have always loved my children. I didn't love any of the women I, well, took to bed, not even Nora, but I loved Tem from the moment I saw him. When I was traveling, I wrote him every week, even when he was an infant. When he was old enough to walk, I wrote him every day. I sent him presents, I thought about him, I-"

He stopped, embarra.s.sed by this display of real emotion. There was a great deal of difference between what he showed to an audience and what he was showing now. His voice lowered. "I never let anyone know about Tem. Oh, they knew I had a son, but they didn't know what I felt about him."

"What about Dallas?"

Josh sighed. "I knew Nora was unfaithful, but I didn't care. She's the type of woman that all you want from her is to get your hands on those-" He cleared his throat. "I had no desire to live with her. I sent her money and a.s.sumed she was taking care of Tem. I a.s.sumed she loved him as much as I did. But then I was playing in Hamlet in Dallas, and I saw her in bed with another man. I didn't think that was good for Tem and I told her I wanted a divorce."

He didn't say anything for a moment.

"I a.s.sume she talked you out of the divorce," Carrie said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

"Yes, she did. Dallas was born nine months later and given that absurd name to remind me of when and where she was conceived. I put up with Nora for two years after Dallas was born, then I realized I had to get rid of her." He smiled. "The oddest thing. When I lost my desire for Nora I realized what a really bad actress she was."

"A condemnation if ever I heard one."

"Up until then, I'd believed Nora when she said she was taking care of the children and was being a good mother to them." Josh gave a snort. "I thought it would be so easy to get a divorce. She had cause and to be divorced for infidelity certainly didn't hurt my reputation any, and I gave Nora all the money I had saved over the years-seeing the poverty my parents lived in has made me spend less than I make-and asked only for the custody of my children. Nora was more than willing to trade the kids for money. It should have been very simple. I'd already hired an excellent French governess to take care of the children while I was on the stage."

"Why wasn't it simple? Why are you living on your brother's farm and killing corn?"

Josh gave an ironic laugh. "My own towering vanity. A vanity that surpa.s.sed everything that meant anything in life to me. A vanity that nearly cost me my children."

Carrie took his hand in hers. "Tell me what happened."

"A judge gave me what I asked for." Josh gave a grim smile of remembrance. "You should have seen me that day in the courtroom when I was to plead with the judge to give me custody of my children. It was probably the most brilliant performance of my life. I planned it all very carefully. After all, I was the Great Templeton, and I was to argue my own case. How could I possibly lose? I wore a black cape lined with red satin and carried a silver-headed cane."

Josh looked up at the rafters of the shed. " 'The best laid plans,' etc. etc." He sighed. "In return for the judge giving me my children I was planning to honor him and the rest of the courtroom with a private, one-time-only performance by the great Shakespearian actor. Fool that I was, I went into the courtroom thinking I was doing them a favor."

Pausing, his voice grew soft. "I had to put on a show because I couldn't allow anyone to see how I really felt, that I was scared to my very bones of losing my children."

"What did you ask the judge for?" Carrie urged.

"I talked for over an hour. You should have seen my audience-for that's how I saw the spectators in the courtroom. I had them in the palm of my hand. I made them laugh; I made them cry. I frightened them; I soothed them. They were mine. I told them how much I loved my children, how I'd do anything in the world for them. I said that I would give up all my worldly goods in order to have them. I said I'd even go so far as to give up the stage for them. By this time I'd made them realize that if the world lost me as an actor, the world would suffer a great deal. I went on to say that I'd go so far as to farm the land like a peasant of old if I could but have my children. I think it was at this point that I flipped my satin-lined cape so the audience could try to picture me as a farmer.

"When I'd finished, I received a standing ovation from the audience and I was sure I'd won my case. The judge said he'd never heard such an eloquent plea in his life and he had but one question for me: Did I even know anyone who owned a farm. I, with a slight bow, told him that my brother was a member of that worthy profession. The judge said such a speech as mine should be rewarded, so he was going to give me exactly what I'd asked for. All my worldly goods were to be put up for sale at auction, with the exception of one suit, and all the money was to be put into trust for my children. I was to refrain from going on the stage for a period of four years, during which time I was to live on and work my brother's farm with my children. If I could make it through four years, then the children would be mine. The judge, after giving his sentence, gave me a little smile and said he thought I was going to miss my red cape, that I used it so well.

"Later my attorney informed me that the judge's wife had run off with an actor two years before and that his uncles, aunts, and cousins were farmers. I'd managed to insult the man on every level."

Josh sighed. "So that's what I did. I moved back to Eternity, took my stepfather's name in the hope that no one would recognize me, and tried to become a farmer."

"So," Carrie said, "you have to live on your brother's farm and be a normal person for four years. No applause. No footlights. No adoring young ladies begging you for your autograph. Nothing but people who love you and see you as you are, warts and all."

Josh smiled. "Lots of warts."