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locked, the decanters put away, but we could pick the lock.” He filled his glass, gulped the contents, filled the glass again. “I never told you about Tommy Williber, did I?” She shook her head, and he said: “Papa had been married before, to a girl named Sally Williber. When their first baby was coming there was to be a ball—it was soon after Christmas—at a neighbor’s twenty miles away; and she and Papa set out to ride over. They were caught in a storm of wind and cold and snow, and got lost, and finally came to a negro’s cabin and took shelter there, half-frozen. Before morning she fell sick and lost her baby; and after that they never had another. She was an invalid till she died. He married Mama three years afterward.” He looked at her uncertainly. “What was I saying? Oh, yes, I set out to tell you about Tommy Williber.”
    â€œYou’re sleepy, Tony. Tell me in the morning.” But of course he would ignore the suggestion, would drink himself into a stupor here where he sat. How well she knew him; the little meannesses that were a part of him, the reasonless cruelties, the childish delight in praise and flattery, the readiness for self-pity. Their lives touched only at a tangent. He had his orbit, she had hers; and yet she knew him through and through.

    But this whining talk, this laying his secret shames open for her to see; this was something new. He seemed not to have heard her words.
    â€œYes, Tommy Williber,” he repeated, “Papa’s first wife’s nephew. My cousin. He came to visit me at Great Oak, and he seemed to Sam and me—Sam was the overseer’s son—a damned self-righteous little prig. Wouldn’t drink, wouldn’t go prowling around the quarter after dark. We hated him, he was so damned good.
    â€œOne day we went sailing. Sam had stolen a bottle of brandy, and he and I drank most of it. There was a squall coming up. Tommy wanted to turn back, but of course we refused. The squall hit us, and the next thing I remember is the field hands waking Sam and me, before day next morning. The boat had gone ashore above the landing, with us drunk and asleep.”
    He was silent till she prompted him. “Where was Tommy?”
    â€œI don’t know. No one ever saw him again.” He nodded. “Never again.” Self-pity swept him. “The worst of it was that his mother—his father was dead—his mother didn’t blame me. If she had, Papa and Mama might have taken my part, but she didn’t.”
    â€œDidn’t Sam know what had happened?”
    â€œHe ran away. No one ever saw him again.” His head drooped. “Papa died the next year. He had some trouble with his heart, took to his bed. They thought he couldn’t move without help; but one day when they left him alone he got up and climbed the attic stairs. They found him dead, in his night shirt, at the head of the stairs. Mama said his shame for me had killed him.”
    â€œWhy did he climb the stairs?”
    â€œI don’t know. Out of his head, probably. He must have been, because he had lighted the fire in his room before he went up to the attic, but it was a hot summer day.”
    â€œHis name was Anthony, too, wasn’t it?”
    â€œYes. I’m the third Anthony Currain. He was the first. He lived up north of the Rappahannock when there was no head right on the Northern Neck, so he bought land, thousands of acres. That’s Belle Vue, where Faunt lives now. Grandpa was a friend of Washington and Lafayette. After Cornwallis surrendered, he bought Great Oak, and later Chimneys. He was always buying land. Quite a man. But Papa was not much.” He laughed in ugly mirth. “Except as a stud
horse. He was forty odd when he married Mama, but they had two that died and five of us that lived. He was sixty when Faunt was born. Sam and I thought that was funny.”
    â€œI suppose you would.”
    â€œSo