Evergreen

by Marissa Doyle

Alice beamed. “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Boisvert! I know we’ll have a lovely time! Won’t we, Grace?”

  Mum blinked. “I didn’t say—”

  “And then won’t you let Grace come to the Adirondacks with us? Mother is taking us rooms at the Tahawus Club in August before we go to Washington. It will be awfully wholesome, and you’re definitely acquainted with Mother, aren’t you?” She smiled sweetly.

  Mum shook her head, but was smiling as she turned toward the door. “I’ll leave you two to your plotting.” She paused in the doorway and looked at Alice. “Your grandmother once said that you could sell boots to a python. I’m beginning to understand what she meant.”

  As the door clicked shut behind her, Alice began to mime a victory dance. Grace jumped up and clapped her hand over her mouth before she could start whooping. “She didn’t exactly say yes, in case you didn’t notice,” she murmured.

  Alice pushed her hand away. “Don’t worry. We’ll convince her.” She hesitated. “You do want to go, don’t you?”

  “More than anything,” Grace said fiercely.

  * * *

  After Alice left—she really had only paused to peck Mrs. Lee on the cheek before coming to Grace’s, and had to go back to properly greet her grandparents—Grace returned to the bathroom to check her hair and think about Alice’s invitation.

  Mum’s assumption that she “wasn’t ready” to go to Newport with Alice nettled her. She was so ready she could taste it. She unwrapped the towel from around her head and peered at her hairline in the mirror. Ha. No more green. So much for Grand-mère’s old-fashioned ways of—

  “Your Alice is gone?”

  Grace jumped and half turned, clutching the towel. “Grand-mère! I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Hmm. That is because I haven’t yet.” Grand-mère stepped across the threshold into the bathroom and took the towel from Grace. “You did your hair, I see.” She wore a high-necked black silk dress and a heavy gold chain looped at her waist to hold her watch. The chain was festooned with her collection of charms and fobs. Grace wished she knew how she could walk so silently with all those jangling bits of gold on her.

  “Er…yes. I didn’t want to disturb you, but it was past time to do it,” she said.

  Grand-mère took her chin between her forefinger and thumb and tilted her face left and right. “You must start doing your eyebrows as well. A few drops, diluted with water, can be brushed on when you dye your hair. Every other time will probably be sufficient.”

  “I will next time, Grand-mère.”

  She nodded, her green-brown hazel eyes still fixed on Grace’s face. “You are growing up, granddaughter.”

  Grace had never been able to figure out how to respond to statements like that. Yes, she was growing up. But she had been for a while now, in case Grand-mère hadn’t noticed. After all, her hair had been growing in green since she was fourteen.

  But Grand-mère didn’t seem to need an answer. “It will be time to send you to France soon, I am thinking.”

  “France?” Grace jerked her chin from Grand-mère’s hand.

  “But of course. It is what we have always planned. You shall go to a finishing school in Paris in the autumn to improve your French and give you a little polish, and then you will be introduced to the dryad families in society there.”

  Grace stared at her. “Mum hasn’t said anything about this!”

  “No?” Grand-mère frowned. “Hmm. Well, perhaps I should not say anything more.”

  Talking back to Grand-mère was never done. Almost never. “When was this decided? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned it to me?”

  Grand-mère’s frown grew more pronounced. “Chut! You should have known it would happen. Your dear mother is from one of the few pure-blooded families on this side of the ocean, and there are no male offspring in her family of your generation. If we are to find you a husband, it will have to be in France. In Bretagne, preferably, where you will be able to find a forest worthy of you.”

  It suddenly felt as if all the air had left the room. Grace was barely starting to think about boys as something other than playmates, and here was Grand-mère talking about sending her to Brittany to marry one come fall and to settle into her forest. She was so concerned with preserving their family’s lineage—their bloodline as she called it, which made Grace think of prize cattle.

  “Grand-mère, I don’t… I’m only seventeen! Why must I be in such a hurry? I’ve been thinking about applying to Wellesley or Radcliffe for next spring, once I’m eighteen—not getting married! And anyway, there must be other dryad families here…and in Italy and Austria and England and Germany—”

  “Do not speak to me of Germany.” Grand-mère nearly spat the word, and Grace winced. She should have known better than to mention Germany, which had humiliated France thirty years before in the Franco-Prussian War during which Grand-père had been killed. “We do not know any German families…but what is this?” Before Grace could stop her, Grand-mère had reached deftly into the pocket of her robe and extracted the bottle of Mademoiselle’s Secret. She held it up and read the label. “‘The Most Natural Tints Beyond Those Provided by Mother Nature.’ Hmm.”

  Oh, no. Could this go any more wrong? “I can explain—”

  But Grand-mère was already unstoppering the bottle. She sniffed it suspiciously, then poured a drop onto her finger and touched it to her tongue. “Ah. Black walnut extract,” she said with satisfaction. “How clever to put it in a bottle, but I am sure it was very expensive. You are better off using my dye.” She handed the bottle back to Grace. “You should get dressed. I believe your mother is having Mrs. Heath over to tea.” She kissed Grace, then sailed out of the bathroom.

  Grace looked at the bottle in her hand, then set it down on the counter with perhaps a little more force than was necessary. But she didn’t care if it broke. Black walnut extract…she should have known. There was no escaping what she was, was there? Not even the smallest attempt to be her own person—finding her own way to conceal her green hair—could succeed.

  Thousands of years ago, being a dryad had meant something. They had cared for the forests and kept them safe from both men and the stranger, nonhuman things that roamed the world. And even now, being a dryad could still be fun. Grace liked being able to talk to trees, to feel their slow thoughts and listen to their long songs and heal their illnesses. She liked that she could make plants do what she told them—it had been so tempting to make Mum’s roses grow in blue, which she thought would be much prettier than some insipid pale pink, but she certainly would have caught it from her parents and Grand-mère. She liked that she could influence the weather—it never rained when the Boisverts held a garden party—and that she never got lost because she always knew where the sun was.

  But she wondered now, at the dawn of the twentieth century, if their dryad magic mattered anymore. Why bother maintaining Grand-mère’s precious bloodlines and keeping themselves apart, in this age of telephones and automobiles? She had to escape Grand-mère and the box she was trying to put her into, had to convince Mum and Papa to let her go to Newport.

  Chapter Two

  True to Alice’s word, the letter from Mrs. Rennell arrived in the next afternoon’s post. Grace took it from Rose, their parlor maid, and brought it to her mother, who was freshening the flower arrangements in the library.

  “It’s Mrs. Rennell’s invitation, I expect. Do tell me about her, Mum.” Grace hung over the back of her mother’s chair as she sat down and pulled out a hairpin to slit open the envelope. “Have you met her?”

  “Yes, of course I have…I think. Now if you’ll let me actually read it…” Mum rustled the heavily scented paper a little crossly, then gave in and held it so that Grace could read it as well:

  My dear Mrs. Boisvert,

  Although I cannot hope that you remember the occasion with the same pleasure that I do, I trust you will recall that we were introduced at a luncheon given by my sister-in-law, Mrs. Herbert Townley, two years ago t
his last May on the opening of Lilac Week at the Botanical Gardens.

  “Ah. Yes, now I remember her,” Mum said, half to herself.

  “What was she like?”

  “Very handsomely dressed. She fidgeted a lot, though. She reminded me of a Pekinese that my cousin once had.”

  “Oh.” Grace got a mental vision of a small, nervous dog wearing a Worth gown and enormous hat. She continued reading:

  Though our acquaintance is (regrettably!) but slight, I hope that you will permit me to presume on it to invite your charming daughter to visit me in Newport. Miss Roosevelt, who will be staying with me, especially asked if Miss Boisvert might share her visit. Dear Alice would be heartbroken if her friend could not accompany her, and I should be heartbroken if dear Alice were disappointed. I quite dote upon the poor child, having known her aunt for so many years, and have longed to bring her for a nice, quiet, restful visit—

  Grace snorted. If Mrs. Rennell thought dear Alice intended to be quiet and restful in Newport, she’d better think again.

  —at my cottage. There are such splendid facilities for young people of our class to enjoy themselves here—tennis at the Casino and swimming at the beach club, not to mention concerts and dances to which it will be my pleasure to chaperone them.

  A thought struck Grace. “Does she have children?”

  “Let me see…” Mum knit her brow. “Two, as I recall. She had them rather late, so they’re still small. Younger than Dorothy by a fair amount.”

  “Then why is she asking Alice and me to visit her?”

  “The fact that Alice’s father is the vice-president of the United States might have something to do with it,” Grace’s father said, coming into the room with the newspaper. He had a tall, well-built figure; all dryads were attractive, though Papa didn’t have to worry about dyeing his hair—only female dryads’ hair grew in green as they approached maturity. Which Grace thought was completely unfair.

  “Cynic,” Mum said, smiling up at him.

  He paused to kiss both of them before sitting down in the chair on the other side of the fireplace. “No, just being a realist.”

  “Do you really think so?” Grace straightened and looked at him.

  He unfolded his paper and opened it with a shake, but glanced up at her. “I’m afraid I do. If you’re going to go to Newport—”

  “So I am going!” She grinned at him.

  “Ahem.” Mum coughed gently.

  He sent her an apologetic look, then turned his attention back to Grace. “If you’re going to Newport, you should understand how things are— Oh, good afternoon, Maman. Hullo, Sapling.”

  Grand-mère glided into the room, followed by a sulky-looking Dorothy. “I have asked for tea to be brought,” she announced, sitting on the sofa and waving Dorothy to a small, hard chair by a window. “Though I am not sure that Dorothée should be permitted to have any, since she seems to prefer to take her tea in the stable with the horses.”

  “Have you been eating oats again?” Mum asked her sternly. Papa hastily raised his newspaper, but not before Grace caught a glimpse of his twitching lips.

  “I like ’em.” Dorothy lifted her chin. “If they’re good for the horses, why aren’t they good for me? I’d rather be a horse than a tree any day!”

  Grand-mère looked horrified, but Mum laughed. “With a long face and prominent teeth and very large hindquarters? Is that what you’d really rather be? Now, stop giving your grandmother palpitations, and stop eating the horses’ oats. I’ll ask Mrs. Toole to make oatmeal for breakfast for you if you’d like, but I think you ought to beg Grand-mère’s pardon for being rude.”

  Dorothy glowered and blew through her lips, sounding exactly like Daisy, her pony. Mum shook her head, and Grand-mère glowered back at her.

  “Horses who are badly behaved tend to have riding crops applied to their backsides,” Papa said, emerging from his newspaper. He’d managed to bring his expression under control.

  “I’m sorry I was rude, Grand-mère,” Dorothy mumbled, and turned ostentatiously in her chair to gaze out the window.

  It was time to change the subject before matters escalated. “Papa, what were you going to say about Newport?” Grace slipped to the floor beside Mum’s chair and sat hugging her knees. Grand-mère sent her a disapproving look.

  “Yes, Newport.” He sighed. “It was a prominent port in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but now its chief trade is in leisure and pleasure. It’s... I don’t know. A fantasy land, where the rich summer in enormous Italian palazzi and châteaux that look like they were exported straight from the Loire valley. Those houses—they call them “cottages” without the least sense of irony—say it all, I think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re not real,” Mum said.

  Papa nodded. “Exactly. What is a French castle doing on a rocky New England island? Life in Newport is all surface. This Mrs. Rennell happens to have a connection to the daughter of the new vice-president, so she’s trotting her out to show her friends.”

  A knock on the door made him pause, and Rose came in with the tea tray, followed by the kitchen maid with a platter of cakes and bread and butter. After they’d left, Grace turned back to her father.

  “Isn’t that true about fashionable society anywhere?” she asked. “And what about us? We aren’t human, but we pretend to be. Aren’t we all surface too?”

  “We pretend because we must. There’s a difference.” He lifted his hands helplessly. “How can I make you understand? The world is not so either-or, or so black and white.”

  “I do not think it is necessary for Grace to go,” Grand-mère said, pouring tea. “Dorothée, bring this cup to your mother.”

  Mum accepted it with a wink, which removed some of the scowl from Dorothy’s brow. “No, perhaps not necessary…” she said slowly, after taking a sip.

  Grace held her breath.

  “…but perhaps advisable. It would be good practice for if Grace goes to France in the fall. After all, she’s just left off being a schoolgirl. Society in Paris, even among our own people, will be more intimidating even than Newport. Don’t you think so, dear?” she asked Papa.

  Grand-mère didn’t move, but the set of her shoulders radiated disagreement. “It is too dangerous.”

  Papa raised his eyebrows. “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”

  “No. Grace is too young to go among the humans alone. Especially the frivolous ones of Newport. What if one wants to marry her?”

  Mum shrugged. “If one does, we say no.”

  “But what if she wants to marry him, eh? No—it is best if she keeps away from human society until she is safely married. She is a lovely girl, of course, as I was”—she patted her hair smugly—“and the young men will take notice. What if it goes to her head? She is only seventeen and her judgment is not yet that of a grown dryad.”

  “How old were you when you started thinking about marrying, Grand-mère?” Dorothy asked.

  Unexpectedly, Grand-mère flushed an angry red. “I do not see that it is relevant to this discussion. If you cannot hold your tongue—”

  “Dorothy, didn’t we promise Mrs. Toole that we’d make gingerbread for dessert tonight?” Grace said, scrambling to her feet. “Please excuse us.” She jerked her head toward the door.

  Dorothy didn’t need to be asked twice. “Whew! What’d I say?” she whispered when they were safely in the hall.

  “I don’t know.” Grace tucked her shirtwaist more firmly into her waistband. Why weren’t ladies’ clothes more forgiving about sitting on the floor? “Something set Grand-mère off, though, didn’t it?”

  “She hates me,” Dorothy said gloomily.

  Grace put an arm around her shoulders and led her down the hall. “No. I think she just doesn’t understand you—us. I’ll bet things were awfully different when she was a girl—why, that was a couple of centuries ago.”

  “I suppose.” Dorothy looked up at Grace. “So do you think t
hey’ll let you go to Newport with Alice?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to corner Mum later and try to get a definite answer out of her.”

  * * *

  Cornering her mother turned out to be easier than she expected. As they finished their gingerbread with whipped cream at the end of dinner and Rose had begun to clear the table, Mum announced, to no one in particular, “It’s such a lovely evening, I think I’ll go out for a breath of air.”

  “The roses need deadheading,” Grand-mère said. “I’ll get my gardening gloves.”

  “I was rather in the mood for a game of chess, Maman.” Papa looked at Grand-mère.

  Her eyes gleamed, but she replied with careful carelessness, “As you wish.”

  Grace waited a few moments until Grand-mère had retired to the library to play chess with Papa—she was a cutthroat player and loved to win—then slipped out the scullery door to the garden to follow after Mum.

  It was a lovely night. The sky was cloudless, and the setting sun had painted it a vibrant red toward the west, fading through pink and yellow and into colorlessness in the east. A soft, fitful wind rustled the leaves. No mosquitoes marred the peace; the trees kept them at bay.

  Their house was set on several acres, with formal gardens to the front of the house; a faint hint of rose and lily drifted on the breeze from that direction. But beyond the back lawn, itself dotted with tall chestnuts, was what amounted to a miniature forest—her mother’s forest, which she was married to even more deeply than to Papa. Grace found her mother seated on one of the benches scattered under the trees there, waiting patiently with hands folded on her lap.

  “I expected you’d want to talk,” she said as Grace approached.

  Grace sat down next to her, arranging the folds of her blue silk dress around her feet. Ever since she’d turned seventeen in March, she’d had to dress for dinner every night with Mum and Papa and Grand-mère. Most of the time she liked it, though she occasionally missed eating in the nursery with Dorothy and Cushy—Mrs. Cushman, their old nurse.