My Heart Laid Bare Read Free Page B

pursed lips. Edgar E. Warwick is known for his Lutheran zeal (did he not lead a successful movement to defrock a Contracoeur minister in ’88?), Seraphina Warwick Dove is known for her litigious zeal (did she not, only the previous June, bring suit against her own newly widowed daughter-in-law, to break her son’s “disgraceful” will?) . . . How the parsimonious Warwicks became acquainted with A. Washburn Frelicht, a stranger to the Chautauqua Valley and a person of some ambiguity, no one in their social set knows; why they became disciples of a sort, fervent believers, eager to finance Dr. Frelicht in his astrological stratagems, is somewhat less mysterious: they scented profit, the greediest and most gratifying sort of profit. For it was Dr. Frelicht’s artless contention that they could not lose. His method, which was a scientific one, could not lose. The Derby winner of ’09 was as clearly inscribed in the Zodiac as were the Derby winners of past years, if one but knew how to read the celestial hieroglyphics. “For, in the heavens, ‘future’ and ‘past’ do not exist,” as Frelicht explained enthusiastically, “but all is a single essence, a continuous flowing presence. ”
    Edgar E. and Seraphina, hearing such words, exchanged a glance. A twitching of the lips meant to signify a smile. Brother-sisterly complicity. Since the Warwicks as a family strongly disapproved of gambling, they needed to be convinced that, in truth, this was not gambling; it was, however, a delicious opportunity to beat gamblers, as Dr. Frelicht said, at their own game. Could anything be more just—?
    WHERE THE WARWICKS went, in spring 1909, there the “astrological sportsman” must be invited as well. Else Seraphina in particular would have taken offense.
    Colonel Fairlie, reluctantly giving way and including Frelicht in a clubhouse dinner honoring Lord Glencairn, complained that his nerves were rubbed raw by the man’s very presence. Who was this Frelicht, what was his background, had he any decent occupation other than that of self-ordained gambler-mystic? Was he the fool he seemed? Was he simply very clever? Edgar E. and Seraphina teasingly pricked their acquaintances’ curiosity by hinting at coups Frelicht had accomplished at other racetracks, but the details were scant, for the success of Frelicht’s method depended upon its secrecy; and, being but human, brother and sister wanted to keep their find to themselves. Yet there were hints, elliptical and tantalizing, that he had once been a Shakespearean actor, perhaps a singer (hence the power and range of his voice), he had pursued a career in science (hence the Ph.D.); he might have been a seminarian in his youth; a musician; a tiller of the soil; a railroad agent; an explorer; a journalist. (Assuredly he had been a journalist. For, at Colonel Fairlie’s dinner, when the gentlemen retired for brandy and cigars, Frelicht fell to talking confidentially with old Blackburn Shaw and told him, in a sudden rush of emotion, that he had lost his eye to the “Spanish enemy” in the Maine explosion . . . .The New York Journal had commissioned him to write a series of articles on the Cuban revolution, along lines sympathetic to American interests, and, as a special friend and advisor to Captain Charles Sigsbee, he had been aboard ship when the Maine anchored in infamous Havana Harbor. Only imagine, two hundred sixty-six American lives lost! To this day, Frelicht said, he feared for his own life since certain Spanish agents had vowed to kill him.)
    Had he a wife? No. Not living.
    Had he children? No. Not living.
    And where, customarily, did he make his home?
    â€œWhere I am honored and respected,” he said, looking his interlocutor full in the eye, “and where I can be of service.”
    A bower of tropical flowers, orchids, descending from the ceiling: purple, lavender, pearly-white, black. Linen-draped