The Sisters Montclair

by Cathy Holton

  “Thank God you’ve come,” was all she said, motioning for Simon to collect Alice’s bags and put them in the car. They were both quiet on the ride home, Alice pushed into one corner of the luxurious automobile, her face turned toward the glass, and her mother pushed into the opposite corner, lost in her own thoughts. It had snowed the night before and a light dusting lay across the lawns and sidewalks, turning to slush in the streets. Children on sleds raced down the hills of the Country Club and in the distance the river was a gray fog. They turned into Riverview and the car began its slow ascent towards Ash Hill, past stately mansions with curved drives set back on wide sweeping lawns. Her father had bought the estate the year Alice went off to Sweet Briar. Ash Hill had belonged to a former governor of Tennessee and it had a swimming pool and a tennis court and ten bedrooms. It had seemed the height of folly to buy such a large estate during the middle of the Great Depression, but Roderick Montclair was a canny businessman and he’d had the cash to invest in real estate when so many did not. Ash Hill was a house Alice’s mother had always admired. As a girl she had attended Cotillions there and when it came on the market Roderick had bought it as a gift for his wife’s thirty-eighth birthday.

  The house had been decorated for Christmas and lights shone merrily from the windows as they turned into the long drive.

  “Home sweet home,” Alice said.

  Her mother sighed, pulling at the tips of her gloves. “If only it was,” she said.

  After Laura was rescued from the railroad drummer who’d tried to elope with her to Ringgold, Georgia, things had quieted down for awhile. Her parents had arrived in time; the justice of the peace’s wife had taken one look at Laura and said to her husband, “This girl is underage,” and he’d refused to go through with the ceremony. Roderick had the drummer arrested on some petty charge and secreted out of town one night, put on the train by the Sheriff and two of his stone-faced deputies who warned him not to return. Mother took Laura off for a rest cure to a sanitarium in Nashville which was rumored to be “very nice,” but the first evening Laura cried hysterically and clung to Mother’s skirt, and on the second night they had her so sedated she didn’t recognize her at all. They had dressed her in a coarse nightgown that Mother found “cheap” and when they brought Laura’s dinner in on a tray, the utensils were “dirty”, and on the third day one of the other female residents lifted her nightgown to expose her naked nether regions, and that was the end of the rest cure. Laura came home on the train with Mother and there was no more talk of sanitariums.

  Laura was quietly subdued for awhile but the family was not relieved by this. They had learned that this was the course her illness ran; periods of great excitement and impulsiveness followed by days when she could not drag herself out of bed. Mother worried over her incessantly. The flightiness came in through her side of the family, her own mother had been “high strung,” and she had an aunt who had accidentally overdosed on laudanum, leaving a husband and five small children.

  As worrisome as they were, Laura’s high-spirited moods were better tolerated by her mother than the days when she lay in a darkened bedroom with the blinds drawn and her face turned toward the wall. There was something frightening and insidious about these periods of pronounced lethargy, as if Laura might be under some kind of a strange sleeping spell from which she might never awake.

  After they returned from Nashville, Laura stayed home from school, refusing to see anyone, refusing to eat, sleeping fourteen to sixteen hours a day. And then one night, without warning, she rose and carefully dressed herself and went out to the county fair with Adeline and a group of her giggling friends. There on a dance stage strung with lights like fallen stars, she was asked to dance by a dark-haired, green-eyed man named Brendan Burke.

  And just as quickly as they had begun, Laura’s sleeping days were over.

  The house was quiet when they arrived home but there was a pleasant smell of baking bread. Distantly, Alice could hear the faint lilting sound of Laura’s laughter. Simon took Alice’s bags up to her room and her mother followed, first laying her gloved hand on Alice’s arm. “Talk to her,” she said. “But don’t let her know I’ve asked you. She is so tired of being hounded by her father and me. She won’t listen to a word we say.”

  “Have you met this boy?”

  “He’s not a boy. He’s a man,” her mother said stiffly. “And no, I haven’t met him but your father has had words with him. He has some kind of a shop. A shop where they sell gasoline and repair motorcars. You know the kind of place. He’s older than she and entirely unsuitable.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Alice said. She watched her mother slowly climb the stairs. Then turning, she followed the sound of her sister’s laughter. She found her sitting in the kitchen with Nell, who was baking yeast rolls. When she saw Alice, Laura jumped up and flung her arms around her sister.

  “You’ve come home,” she said. “Oh, look, Nell she’s come home.”

  “Are you hungry, Miss Alice? I can make you a sandwich.”

  “No thanks, Nell. I ate on the train.” She held Laura at arm’s length, studying her flushed face, her ethereal, fragile beauty. Her eyes were large and very blue.

  “Have you come home to stay?”

  Alice smiled and dropped her sister’s hands. “Would you like it if I had?”

  “Only if you wanted to be here. I wouldn’t want you to come home for any other reason.” Laura frowned and tucked a stray curl behind one ear, watching as Nell pinched off pieces of dough and rounded them into smooth shapes between her palms.

  “I thought we might take a ride,” Alice said.

  “Oh?” Laura said.

  “I have some Christmas shopping to do.”

  “But I’m helping Nell bake bread.”

  “You go on,” Nell said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Well, all right.” Laura untied her apron and folded it neatly over the back of a chair. “Let me get my coat and my pocket book.”

  “I’ll meet you in the garage,” Alice said.

  Alice drove her father’s little Willys coupe and they parked downtown in front of Goldman’s Department Store. It was the most exclusive store in town, taking up a whole city block with the bottom windows blazing with their annual Christmas display. Women in fur coats hurried in dragging excited children behind them. It was as if the Depression had never happened. Alice and Laura went inside and shopped for a dressing gown for Roderick and a pair of gloves for Mother. When they were finished they went up to the fourth floor for hot chocolate in the Ladies Tea Room.

  “So, how’ve you been?” Alice asked, looking around to see if she saw anyone she knew in the crowded room.

  Laura stirred cream into her hot chocolate. She tapped the spoon gingerly against the side of the cup. “I’ve been fine,” she said.

  “How’s school?”

  “I hate school.”

  “I did, too, at your age. That will change.”

  “I don’t think so,” Laura said.

  The waiter brought a plate of cookies and Alice got up and went over and talked to a group of girls she’d gone to school with.

  When she returned to the table, Laura was sitting with her chin on one hand, gazing out the frosted window at the busy street below.

  “Lord, these small towns,” Alice said in a low voice. “You can’t go anywhere without seeing someone you know.”

  “I hate it,” Laura said.

  “Oh, well, now it’s not so bad as that,” Alice said. She coughed delicately, opening her napkin on her lap.

  “Everyone knows everyone else’s business.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

  “I can’t wait to get away from here.”

  Alice smiled brilliantly. “I know just how you feel,” she said.

  Later, they drove down by the river and parked and watched the fog roll off the water. The sky was a gun-metal gray. A flock of starlings darted back and forth across the water like a school of fish. Laur
a sat stiffly on the seat as if suspecting that Alice had been sent to scold her, and so Alice didn’t. Instead she talked of Sweet Briar and going off to New York after graduation.

  “How wonderful,” Laura said, smiling gently and turning her face to the glass. She seemed more relaxed now. “Maybe I can visit you.”

  “I’ll say,” Alice said. “You can come anytime you like.”

  “But aren’t you going to marry Bill Whittington?”

  “What?” Alice said. Heat rose in her face. “Who told you that?”

  “Mother.”

  “Well, Mother doesn’t know everything,” Alice said sharply. A distant barge, slow and ponderous, passed on the river. They both began to giggle.

  After that, it was better between them. Alice didn’t ask about the unsuitable beau, and Laura didn’t ask about Bill Whittington. They talked for awhile about Adeline, how Father and Mother spoiled her, giving into her temper tantrums the way they never had with them. And Alice talked about the Yankee girls she had met up at Sweet Briar, how they were so outspoken and sure of themselves in the way that Southern girls never were. How they smoked cigarettes in public and went away unchaperoned for weekends with boys, and Laura, wide-eyed, shook her head and said wistfully, “Don’t you wish we could be like them?”

  Alice pulled a compact out of her purse and carefully reapplied her lip rouge. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said.

  Laura’s breath fogged the air in front of her and she turned and blew on the glass and wrote, B.B. + L.M. with a heart around it, and then wiped it clean. Alice, embarrassed, pretended not to see.

  “All my life, I’ve wanted to be someone else,” Laura said.

  “We should probably head home,” Alice said, closing the compact. “Mother will be worried.”

  “Wait,” Laura said, shyly touching Alice’s arm. “Let’s go one other place first. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Alice felt a slight tremor of dismay. There was no use stopping now; she had come this far and she might as well see it through to the end. She carefully slid the compact back into her beaded bag.

  “All right,” she said.

  They drove past the Smithson School through the Missionary Ridge Tunnel to Brainerd. Above them, the lights of the houses on Missionary Ridge twinkled merrily. Evening was coming on quickly. Alice followed Laura’s instructions and pulled up in front of a small, steep-roofed garage with a couple of gas pumps outside. The bell rang as they pulled up and the door opened and a man in a gray jumpsuit stepped out into the gathering gloom. He was smoking a cigarette, its tip glowing feebly, and he took it out of his mouth and crushed it under his toe, walking toward them with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his shoulders rounded against the cold.

  Laura rolled down her window. “Hello,” she said, and he stopped for a moment and stared, and then came on slowly, his cap pulled low on his forehead.

  “Hello,” he said. He came around to Alice’s window. “Fill her up?” he said, and she said through the glass, “Yes.”

  “Roll it down,” Laura said. Her face was pale under her cloche hat. “The window. Roll it down.”

  “It’s cold,” Alice said, but she did as her sister asked. He stuck the nozzle in the tank and then came around to clean the windshield. She could see his face now in the slanting light from the garage window. His expression was fierce, intolerant, challenging. Briefly, through the glass, their eyes met.

  Laura leaned over and said, “Brendan. This is my sister. Alice.”

  He took a rag out of his pocket and wiped his hand and held it out to her. Alice, after a slight hesitation, took it.

  “Brendan Burke,” he said.

  He seemed to be laughing at her; she sensed it in his tone.

  “How do you do,” she said coldly.

  “We’ve been Christmas shopping,” Laura said.

  “Have you?” His eyes were an unusual shade of green, pale and luminous like sun-lit water.

  “We thought we might see a picture show tonight,” Laura said, laughing. “Do you want to come?”

  Alice, shocked, looked at her sister and then said with some confusion, “Mother will be expecting us home tonight. It’s nearly Christmas.”

  The station door opened and a young man came hurrying out, pulling on his cap. “Sorry, Mr. Burke,” he called, putting his hand on the nozzle. “I didn’t hear the bell.”

  “That’s all right, Billy.”

  “Please say you’ll come,” Laura said, leaning across Alice’s lap and smiling up at him.

  “Laura!” Alice said.

  He looked at Alice. “I can’t,” he said.

  Laura pushed herself back into the corner, pouting.

  “What do I owe you?” Alice said, lifting her purse. She could feel her face burning in humiliation at her sister’s behavior. She wanted to meet his gaze but she felt herself to be at a distinct disadvantage.

  “You can pay Billy,” he said, and without another word, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets and walked off toward the station, whistling.

  “Really, Laura, how could you?” They drove swiftly through the dimly-lit streets. Alice was rigid with anger, remembering his expression through the windshield glass, the careless way he had walked off. “You practically threw yourself at him.”

  “I did throw myself at him.”

  “And you’re proud of that?” Alice turned her head and looked at her sister who sat with her forehead resting against the window glass.

  “I love him.”

  “Oh, Laura.”

  “I don’t care what Mother says, or Father. Or you.”

  “He’s not – suitable.”

  She turned her head and stared at Alice, her eyes fierce, mouth drawn up tight. “You don’t even know him.”

  “I know enough.”

  “You always said not to judge people by how much money they had.”

  “I’m not talking about money, Laura. Be reasonable.”

  “I don’t have to be reasonable,” Laura said, pulling her coat tightly around her throat. “I love him.”

  The episode colored all of Christmas. Alice went around sunk in despair, avoiding Laura when she could, pretending to be merry and unconcerned, when she couldn’t. Laura had always been so malleable, so willing to bend herself to Alice’s will, and this new streak of stubbornness was disturbing. Ash Hill, Chattanooga, the people in her life, felt suddenly removed and distant. It was as if Alice’s whole world had been turned inexplicably upside down; things she had taken for granted, small truths she had accepted without question, now felt false. She drifted, rudderless, through the holidays; attending parties and helping her parents keep a close watch on Laura.

  There was nothing they could do, short of locking her in the cellar, to prevent Laura’s escapes. There were too many windows to be climbed out of, too many doors to be opened and closed softly. These trysts never lasted long; Laura returned most evenings by midnight. Twice Alice caught her on the landing, her shoes in her hands, tiptoeing off to bed. Both times Alice stood staring, hoping to shame her, but Laura said nothing, pushing boldly past and going off to bed without a word.

  Alice could put a stop to it. She could tell her father; but Roderick was a proud man, there was no telling what he might do. She could go herself and appeal to Brendan Burke as a gentleman. But her father had already tried that. He had, no doubt, offered inducements; money, patronage, gifts. He had most likely issued threats, too, although Alice could not imagine Brendan Burke responding to those.

  She remembered his face that night under the lights, his expression of intense yet curious scrutiny, as if he were looking deep inside her to find that one thing, she wished above all else, to keep hidden.

  She did not return to Sweet Briar in January. Her mother had slipped into one of her black moods, staying in bed most days behind a closed door, and if Alice left there would have been no one to order the meals, or arrange Adeline’s busy social life, or see to it that Laura returned to school.
Alice went around to see the headmistress and together they worked out a plan whereby Laura could return to school and graduate with her class.

  In February she ran into Bill Whittington at a dance at the Country Club. He was there with Isabelle Aubrey, another of the wealthy Lookout Mountain crowd, and Alice was there with Bud Case. Bill Whittington gave her the cold shoulder at first, but later he asked her to dance, and because she obviously didn’t care to dance with him, he was smitten. He stayed close to her elbow the rest of the evening, ignoring his date and trying to impress her with his smooth talk about bogeying the back nine. It was obvious that he and most of his friends spent their days golfing and they were all proud of this fact and stood around boasting about who had had the better game. Listening to them, Alice stifled a yawn. Isabelle stood beside Bill hanging on his every word, her lips slightly parted, ready at the least provocation to break into gales of giggles. Alice imagined Isabelle and Bill’s future life together, the stately home on Lookout Mountain, the long dining table surrounded by a bevy of good-looking children, endless charity events and golf tournaments, the kind of life Alice’s mother had settled for. The kind of life Alice had decided she never wanted for herself. Bud Case was nice enough, Alice’s friend Sally had arranged for Bud to escort her, but he was a bank clerk from East Ridge and Alice could see that Bill Whittington and his wealthy friends intimidated him.

  Afterwards, they all went out to a juke joint on the river. Bud said goodnight, he had to work the next morning, so Bill offered to drive Alice home. She tried to decline but she’d had enough Singapore Slings to make her tongue-tied and light-headed, and so she smiled at Isabelle, who was giving her a cool, appraising look, and said, “Sure. Why not?” She raised her glass in a cocky salute.

  Later, when the smoke and the noise and the smell of tightly-packed, perspiring bodies became too much for her, she went to the ladies room and then stumbled out into the cool evening. She had stopped drinking some time before and the brisk night air sobered her immediately. In the distance, the river glistened in the moonlight. She followed a graveled path down to the water’s edge, past a dimly-lit bricked patio to a pair of wooden chairs facing the water. She sat for a long time watching the dark, swiftly moving river and listening to Dixie Vagabond and the rhythmic thumping of the dancers’ feet. From time to time the door would bang open and she would hear a woman’s soft laughter, or a man’s gruff voice, and then the sound of their feet on the graveled drive. Once she heard Bill Whittington calling for her. She pulled her feet up and slumped down in her chair, and he went around to the parking lot, calling her name. A moment later Isabelle came out looking for him and Alice could hear their low, angry voices in the drive. Bill said, “Oh, calm down, will you? I promised to see her home, that’s all.” They went back inside, the door banging loudly behind them. Alice sighed and put her feet down, wrapping her arms more tightly around herself.