The Sisters Montclair

by Cathy Holton

  “Have you mentioned it to the doctor?”

  “Yes. But he says I shouldn’t worry. He says I shouldn’t worry about anything.”

  “Well, he probably knows best.”

  “I suppose so.” She stared down at her lap. After a moment she glanced up at Alice, her eyes grave, questioning. “But what good is sleeping if you can’t dream?”

  There was nothing Alice could say to this. Below her, she could hear Adeline’s unruly laughter in the library, followed by the voice of their mother as she joined in.

  Laura seemed to be struggling with something, some interior motive that flickered for a moment across her face, and was gone. After a brief interval she said, “Are you still planning your escape to New York?”

  Alice shifted the book in her lap. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I’m beginning to think I might need to stay home for awhile. You know, to look after mother and father. They’re not as young as they once were. Father’s cough is no better than it was at Christmas.”

  “But Clarice is already there? She’s written to you?”

  Alice frowned, trying to remember how Laura would know this. She knew because she’d told her. Weeks ago, on a night with Brendan when she’d come home giddy with happiness, and had felt a need to share that happiness with Laura. A small confession, a consolation prize.

  “It seems childish now.” Alice ran her fingers carefully over the cover of the book, tracing the gilt lettering. “Those daydreams of running away. Something a girl might do but not a young woman.”

  Laura’s face fell. “Oh?” she said.

  “I may still go,” Alice said quickly. “When the time is right.”

  “Yes,” Laura said. “When the time is right.”

  “And of course, if I go, you’re welcome to come with me,” Alice said, placing the book carefully on the bed.

  Laura smiled. “Of course.”

  She looked so pale and forlorn that Alice leaned and put both arms around her. Beneath her sister’s unnaturally plump skin she could feel her bones, as light and hollow as a bird’s.

  “You can keep the book,” Laura said. “I don’t want it back.”

  Alice pulled away, holding Laura’s hands and staring into her averted face. The faint, sweet scent of Laura’s perfume settled over her. “Laura,” she said.

  “I want you to have it. It’s a gift.”

  “Laura.” Alice tugged at her hands, trying to get her sister to look at her. “Is something wrong?”

  Laura slowly turned her head. She gave Alice a long, searching look. “Your face is ruddy.”

  Alice let go of her. “No doubt from the fever.”

  “No doubt,” Laura said.

  The approval from Frank McGuire seemed to take longer than expected, and it wasn’t until a starry evening in early August that Brendan and Alice set out for the McGuire Farm. Alice had told her mother she was attending a house party. Unlike previous occasions, her mother had asked a lot of questions, wanting to know where the party was, and who was going to attend, and what time Alice would be home. She and Mr. Montclair were attending a dinner party that evening.

  “Be home by one o’clock,” her mother said in a mildly threatening tone. “Your father will be waiting for you.”

  Her mother’s suspicions were to be expected given Alice’s recent cavalier behavior, the fact that she spent nearly every evening out, but had not had a male escort in nearly three weeks. Or at least one that they knew about. It was only natural that Mrs. Montclair would begin to question Alice’s movements. Or maybe someone had seen her and Brendan together, and had called and reported it to her mother. This seemed the more unlikely scenario. Alice felt certain that if her parents knew she was seeing Brendan Burke, they would have immediately tried to put a stop to it.

  She didn’t care. As each week went by her desire to see him, to be seen with him, became more and more compelling. Her parents finding out about them, the violent confrontation that would most certainly follow did not frighten her now. It would be almost a relief to confess. She was as tired of sneaking around as he was.

  He had not asked her again to marry him. Not since that day at the Blue Hole. And perhaps because he hadn’t asked, she had begun to contemplate it. What was so unsuitable about him? True, he hadn’t gone to the right schools, he hadn’t been to college, and although he dressed well, there was a crude, rough edge to him, a hint of rash insecurity. But he was a capable, intelligent, hard-working young man determined to rise in the world, and many family fortunes had been built on such men. If the country club would accept him, surely her friends and family would, too. Eventually.

  And as for Laura, well, she was young. She would see that they could not help what had happened, she would forgive them both and go staunchly on with her life, no doubt falling in love with someone else before the summer was even over.

  It was around nine o’clock, a warm, sultry evening when they set out. The McGuire Farm was north of the city, set back from the road across wide rolling fields. When they reached it, Brendan pulled off the asphalt and stopped the car. In the distance, the white columns of the old house glistened in the moonlight. Brendan lit a couple of cigarettes and they sat for awhile with the windows down, smoking quietly and listening to the rhythmic chanting of insects. From this angle the house seemed smaller than Alice remembered.

  “I was out here once for a party,” Alice said. “I went to school with Ava McGuire. I don’t remember the house much but I do remember swimming in the pool.”

  Brendan said nothing, but tossed his cigarette out the window and started the car. They pulled slowly into the road and then took a left at a narrow sandy lane leading up to the house. An iron gate blocked the way and Brendan got out, leaving the car running. He unlocked the padlock, swinging the gate wide. They drove slowly through the gate and down the lane, flanked by rows of arching oaks. Insects, attracted by their headlights, swarmed the front of the car. A small, brown rabbit darted across the road. The trees ended suddenly and the house was visible again across a wide field, more impressive now that they were so close. They pulled into the graveled circular drive in front and stopped. The four white columns of the house were massive. Above the fan-lit front door, a small cantilevered balcony hung suspended from the second floor like an opera box. With the lights of the city behind them, the night sky was clearly visible. Pale clouds drifted like ghosts above the darkened house.

  “When I was a boy, I used to stand here in the moonlight and vow that one day this house would be mine.”

  She smiled, trying to imagine him as a boy.

  He tilted his head, giving her a cynical look. “The McGuires, unfortunately, are a large family and somehow I doubt they’ll ever sell the place.” She could see his features clearly in the slanting moonlight. He gazed at her, his expression fierce, proud. “I won’t have this house but I’ll have one like it.” He said this as if they’d been arguing and he was trying to make a point. Alice, sensing that she should say nothing, stayed quiet. He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, ran his hand once around its circumference. “The McGuires were thieves you know. There’s not a single prominent family that doesn’t have at least one thief or murderer in their family tree.” She said nothing and he looked at her again and went on. “This house was built originally by a Cherokee chief. The Glass. They say he had a hundred slaves and over five thousand acres of rich bottomland and a house full of china and crystal that came from England. But that didn’t stop old Andrew Jackson from forcing him West during the Indian Removal. It didn’t keep greedy adventurers like the McGuires from moving onto Cherokee lands and stealing everything they could get their hands on, including this place.”

  She finished her cigarette and tossed it out the window.

  “Same thing with all the families on Lookout Mountain. I’m talking about people like your beau, Bill Whittington. Sure they look and sound like Old Money now, but their forefathers were nothing more than carpetbaggers who came South aft
er the War trying to make a quick buck.”

  She said quickly, “The Montclairs were in this valley long before the Civil War. Although I guess you would class them with the greedy bastards who came after Indian Removal.”

  “I’m trying to make a point here.”

  “And not very subtly either.”

  She slipped her shoes off and pulled her bare feet up under her, leaning against the door. The darkened windows of the old house stared down at her, dimly reflecting the moonlight.

  He lit another cigarette and smoked for awhile in silence.

  “I’ve been rude,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Forgive me.” He put his hand out to her. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it.

  “Can we go into the house?” she said.

  “I don’t have a key to the house. Just the gate.”

  “Pity. It looks like the kind of place that might have a spirit or two lurking in the shadows.”

  He laughed. “They say it’s haunted by The Glass. He put a curse on the land when he was forced to leave, and now every generation of the McGuire family suffers from a host of mysterious and tragic deaths. It’s a good thing it’s such a large family. There’s a graveyard over there on the hill overlooking the river filled with unfortunate McGuires who died before their time.”

  “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t buy the house then.”

  He grinned and leaned to start the car, his cigarette dangling from his lips. “I guess so,” he said.

  They pulled around the house and followed a narrow drive past the swimming pool and the garden and a long weathered barn.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the caretaker’s cottage.”

  “How far is the caretaker’s cottage?” she said.

  “Maybe a quarter mile down this road. But there’s something I want to show you first.”

  He patted the seat between them and she moved over. He put his arm around her and she leaned close, nestling against his side, her feet drawn up under her.

  “Do you know the constellations?” he said.

  “I know a few.”

  The fields rolled away on either side of the car. The air was heavy with the scent of camphor weed and clover, and in the distance a stand of trees rose, black against the night sky. She was aware of the sturdy weight of his arm, the slight tensing of his muscles as he plucked at her sleeve. The cigarette glowing in the corner of his mouth gave him a mocking, rakish look.

  Ahead the road rose slightly and she could see a railroad crossing shining in the headlights. He pulled to the side of the road and parked in the tall grass.

  “Come on,” he said.

  They walked hand in hand toward the crossing, her bare feet sinking in the soft dust of the road. In the moonlight the cross buck looked odd, imposing, like a brooding Celtic cross. The crossing was paved and she could see gleaming tracks stretching away in both directions. He knelt between the tracks and pulled her down beside him.

  “What are we doing?” she said.

  “I want to show you the constellations.”

  “This seems dangerous.”

  “The next train isn’t until two o’clock.” He pushed her down on her back, kissing her hungrily. After awhile he rolled over, looking up at the sky.

  The stars shone in all their glory. Lit by the moon, the sky was gray and luminous, filled with drifting clouds.

  “There’s Scorpius,” he said pointing. “And the bright star there is Antares.”

  “This is crazy,” she said, listening for the sound of the train. Surely they would hear it over the rhythmic chant of the crickets. Or feel it in the trembling of the tracks.

  “When I was a boy my father and I used to come out here and lay on the tracks and he would show me the constellations.”

  She put one hand on the rail, feeling for the vibration of an oncoming train, but there was nothing but heat and the smooth surface of the metal.

  He said, “There are no city lights so you can see everything. And the crossing is warm and paved and gets you out of the wet grass.”

  “There must be less dangerous places to look at the constellations.”

  He put his hand up, splayed against the night sky, and dropped it back against his chest. His voice, when he spoke again, was slow, thoughtful. “You have to admit, there’s something exciting about the idea of a train bearing down on you, the possibility of death coming just around the next bend.”

  She turned her head and laid her cheek against the warm track, gazing at him. “There was a boy I knew once who was killed walking the tracks. He must have heard the train coming but he didn’t jump off in time.”

  He pointed at the sky. “Saggitarius,” he said.

  “Some thought it was a suicide but I think he was just flirting with death the way the young do, daring himself to stay on the tracks as long as he could.”

  “And there,” he said. “There’s Capricornus.”

  “I wonder if it hurt. I wonder if death was instantaneous.”

  He rolled on top of her, pinioning her beneath him. Beneath his slow kisses she began to float, filled with a peaceful contentment. After awhile he stopped, grinning down at her.

  “I get the feeling you don’t much care for constellations.”

  She put her hand up and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I have my mind on other things,” she said serenely.

  The caretaker’s cottage was a two-room cabin with a kitchen lean-to tacked onto the back. There was no electricity or plumbing, only a pump in the kitchen and several kerosene lamps in the front room. Out back, across a narrow strip of tall grass, stood an ivy-covered privy.

  “Not what you were expecting?” he said, and she could hear a faint bitterness in his tone. Moonlight flooded the room through a pair of curtainless windows. The cabin smelled of dog and tobacco. He went over to a lantern standing on a small table and struck a match, touching it to the wick. Light flared suddenly. It was a small room, sparsely furnished with two chairs, a large table and several smaller tables. A glass-fronted cabinet holding a collection of hunting and farming books hugged one wall. The walls were chinked logs, as big around as a man’s waist. The original cabin lived in by The Glass, Brendan had told her, before he built the Big House. He lit another lantern, holding it in front of him.

  “Here’s where we sleep,” he said, indicating the room next door.

  The bedroom had a mirrored dresser and an old rope bed. He set the lantern down on the dresser and then sank down on the edge of the bed, watching her carefully. She put her hand out and tentatively touched the bed post. She wondered who had last slept in the bed.

  “We don’t have to stay,” he said coldly, noting her expression.

  It was true; the cabin was nothing like she had expected. She had pictured a steep-pitched Cotswold Cottage covered in ivy. But what did it matter?

  “I want to stay,” she said.

  He stared at her, his eyes dark in the glowing lamp light. A tremor passed through her, desire flickering between them like smoke. She pulled her dress over her head and stood there in her chemise, her hair falling around her face like a curtain.

  “How many girls have you brought here?”

  “Dozens,” he said.

  “I have no trouble believing that.”

  He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it on the floor.

  “Come to bed,” he said gruffly.

  Afterwards they lay in each other’s arms in the moonlight. The lamp cast a rosy glow and outside the open window crickets chanted. Alice, drowsy from their lovemaking, lay with her back nestled against him, his arm thrown over her waist, his lips nuzzling her hair. The bedclothes were musty but smelled oddly sweet, a vaguely familiar, comforting scent.

  “Have you thought about what I asked you at the Blue Hole?” he said. There was a pleading, almost threatening tone to his voice that made her uneasy. She had thought about it incessantly but to have him mention it now seemed to open a gul
f between them.

  “I’ve thought about it.”

  A warm breeze moved listlessly about the room. Far off in the distance, a fox yipped at the moon.

  “But you won’t do it.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  He pulled his arm off her and lay back, looking at the ceiling. She stared through the window at the ghostly landscape.

  “You won’t do it because your father disapproves of me.” He was quiet for a long time. She could hear him breathing behind her. “We could elope,” he said finally.

  There was nothing she could say to this. She had always sought her father’s approval. While Laura ran around and steadfastly refused to change her wild ways, she had always been meekly obedient to her father’s wishes.

  “He would never forgive me,” she said.

  “He would. Eventually.” When she didn’t respond he rose up on one elbow, staring down at her. “What does he have against me anyway?”

  She let it hang in the air between them, unanswered.

  He said, “I’ve apologized for the unfortunate business with your sister. It can’t be that. It’s because I’m the son of a poor man. And he wants more for you. Someone with a pedigree.” He added bitterly, “Someone like Bill Whittington.”

  “He wants me to be happy.”

  “I can make you happy.”

  “I don’t want to get married,” she said, feeling a heavy sense of desperation come over her. “I want to travel.”

  “We can travel. We can go to Europe if you like.”

  “You’ll have business to attend to. Men always have business.”

  “There’ll be time for other things, too.” He didn’t say, And you’ll have a life of your own. I promise you that. He didn’t say it anymore than Bill Whittington would have said it. Because it was unexpected, and perhaps unbelievable, that Alice would want such a life, that she would be happy away from the domestic sphere of babies and housekeeping and bridge parties at the Country Club.

  “I’ll take care of you, Alice. You won’t want for anything.”

  He had never told her he loved her. This thought had never occurred to her, although it did now. Bill Whittington had never mentioned love either. Perhaps it was too old-fashioned, too sentimental to enter into the marriage contract these days. Most engaged couples she knew seemed ideally suited on some basis other than passion; family connections, school ties, social ambition.