As I strode to the park hoping to meet my love, I reflected on my lunch with Mundy.
We had sat outside, for the day was unusually warm, beneath the emerald umbrella of a dozen elms, beside a stream whose banks grew thick with ferns in summer. Now, blue asters sparkled at the edge of the coursing water.
I had entreated Mundy to join me at The Sylvan Hollow for a stew and a pint, for there was an epistolary breach that I intended to discuss with him.
I felt content in the dappled sun among the trees that canopied the dale. We had long agreed that The Hollow — and the landlord’s hearty fare — strengthened our blood.
“So,” Mundy commanded as soon as we had ales in hand. “What moves my treasured friend to abandon self-imposed exile in favor of my company?”
I gave him news of my reception by Miss Bellefey. He was glad for me, and with more compunction than I expected, admitted to having intercepted a certain letter.
“I know, old friend, for the general told me of his wife’s letter and your response.”
“The general!” Mundy trumpeted in the tone of exaggerated anxiety we used when referring to the intimidating militarist.
Then, soberly, he said, “I assuredly owe you an apology, my friend.”
My swig of ale went down with a breath that was somewhat aghast as Mundy conferred a rare mea culpa.
He took a drink and said: “I recall the afternoon the letter arrived as vividly as if it were an hour ago. It was the day after Miss Bellefey broke your heart.
“The postman handed me the mail, and as I stood in the doorway sorting through it by the light of the summer sun — for you know how dark it is in the newsroom — the name Bellefey caught my eye on an envelope just as I glanced in your direction and noted the weight of your despair. Your posture as you sat transcribing at your desk recalled the posture of the newsboy I’d found huddled on the stoop of the breadmaker’s shop that December night when you were six and I was seven.”
Mundy looked directly into my eyes to convey the import of the latter statement.
That newsboy had been employed for a small sum per diem, which was promptly handed to the breadmaker for four rolls and the three-sided shelter of the tiled stoop’s vaulted roof.
“You’re a pest, Henry,” the breadmaker’s wife declared daily when collecting the coins that secured my tenancy — which, I ascertained much later, spanned six weeks, for the orphanage closed in November and Mundy swept me from the stoop before Christmas.
An article in the newspaper’s archives informed me as an inquiring adolescent of what I had not grasped when six: the orphanage had been financed by a philanthropist whose heir preferred to fund certain industries instead.
Of the orphanage’s thirty-two occupants, a few, such as myself, were approached by various employers. The rest — such as Vesna, the girl who loved chestnuts and who soothed me to sleep with wondrous tales — disappeared.
“That shivering boy had lost not only his family, I learned when I questioned him, but his friends, and his habitation, and when I think of the despair in his eyes — his child eyes, I consider them now — I cannot express how paramount it has always been to me to prevent further pain for you.
“In the moment when I held in my hand a letter that I thought might cause you greater suffering, I made the decision to respond to it myself.
“That night I read its request for you to visit the Bellefeys, and I replied with a plea that you not be troubled again.
“I had no idea you had hope of reuniting with Miss Bellefey. I beg you to accept my fervent apology.”
Never had I heard Mundy speak with such emotion.
He looked at his hands in discomfort at his display and said, “Forgive my fervent speech. I expect impending parentage has affected my senses.”
We chuckled, and I lit my briar.
“Your mother was ill when you found me on that stoop,“ I said. “Thus I have always felt that you knew a little of what I had experienced.“
Mundy lit his own pipe. “The slightest little,” he said, “for it was but one death, and ten years later when we were no longer tots.”
“I recognize the distinction, yet you downplay the agony of your mother, yourself, and all your family for many years.”
Mundy nodded almost imperceptibly and looked to the stream.
Then he regarded his hands again and said, “You might be irate with me, Henry. Yet you choose to empathize with me.”
Gathering my thoughts, I said nothing for the moment. We fell into quiet reflection until Tom Blessed, the landlord, roused us with hot stews and fresh pints.
“We are men now, Mundy,” I said at last. “And we choose what will make us happy despite the losses of our past. I accept your apology. And rather than be irate with a friend who intruded out of love, I simply insist that you not act on my behalf again. I appreciate the intention behind your action. And you must appreciate that it is I who opens my letters and makes my choices.”
Mundy nodded in a way that told me he apprized this assertion and was relieved to retain my fellowship. “Be assured, my friend,” he said. “I promise never to interfere with your affairs again.”
I nodded in appreciation.
Then he cleared his throat, and I knew his next words would bristle.
“While we are being expressly candid,” he said, “I must, as your near-brother, with profound regret, affirm my belief that Miss Bellefey may not come around. It seems clear that she has determined not to marry you or any man. For let us face facts, Henry. She has had a stream of other suitors — most wealthy, some even wealthy and kind. And she has accepted no one. Other than you for a short time.”
“Which is precisely why I am hopeful. She loves me, Mundy, I am certain. My larger concern is the doctor’s diagnosis.”
“Which is?”
“That she will ‘not live for long.’”
“Good God, Henry! You are eager to wed a lady who is not only resolved not to marry, but who is on her deathbed?”
He shook his head as he relit his pipe.
“She is not on her deathbed, Mundy. And the doctor is likely a quack.”
Mundy shot me a disbelieving look.
He smoked ponderously, then said: “Well my hope, as ever, is that your heart will not suffer. I beg you to interact with the Bellefeys with the awareness that you could be let down again.”
Mundy’s concern was warranted, I reflected as I made my way to the insular grove.
Indeed, I knew not whether Miss Bellefey would join me at the park.
But when I beheld the vision that awaited me, I felt my heart ascend.
And the turn of Miss Bellefey’s head confirmed my observation of the woman in white the night before.
The two shared a certain bearing, the way one can have the same smile as a sibling, or the carriage of an ancestor.
The House on the Lake 