The End of the Point (10 page)

“What’s in the children’s tent?” asked Janie.

“Youngest Citizens tent,” corrected Agnes. “They have stories there. And crafts.”

“Am I a young citizen?”

“Of course you are!” Agnes craned her neck. “Oh—there’s Helen and Dossy!
Helen! Girls!
”

The big girls glanced toward them, then ducked into the crowd, but Agnes ran after them, and soon they were all together, the five of them, Bea and Agnes walking side by side, Janie skipping happily between her sisters.

“We saw a gas mask thing,” Janie told her sisters. “With Smitty in it.”

Dossy began to recite:

“Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime.”

“What
is
that?” Bea stopped, hands on her belly. The words described precisely what she had just seen.

“Winifred Owen,” Dossy said.

“Who?”

“It’s Wilfred. A British poet. Has anyone seen Henry?” Helen asked.

XI

I
T WAS ON
a hot Wednesday in late July that Grandmother Porter swept up in her long black dress and sat herself down with the newspaper on the porch. Nearly all the soldiers had gone off to Fort Rodman for training, leaving the base unusually quiet. Helen was on the porch, writing Charlie a letter. Henry had dropped her quite suddenly after the dance, leaving her stung and newly obsessed with him, then irritated with herself for being obsessed.
Dear Charlie
, she wrote.
I’ve never been so bored in all my life. I almost wish a submarine would come along to stir things up.
She balled up the paper.
Dear Charlie, I’m curious about whether the soldiers there seem more or less religious than, say, a group of college boys.
For goodness’ sake, be cheerful, she could almost hear her mother saying. Light and cheerful, newsy, breezy.
Dearest Brother, I’m out to lose my virginity. Do you have any good-looking friends without diseases?
He might have had a laugh from that one; still, she shredded the paper and dropped the bits into the sewing basket where she kept stationery and pens. Nearby, Dossy was reading
Jane Eyre
for something like the fifth time. Bea was sorting shells and dropping them into jars filled with food coloring, and Janie drawing, busy little bees.

“
Supreme Court Is Called in Unprecedented Session to Hear Plea of Nazi Spies
,” Grandmother P. read from the
New York Times
. “That’s astonishing! They want to overturn the law of war! Do we really have to give a jury trial to Nazi saboteurs?”

“It’s like the Milligan case in the Civil War,” Helen said.

Her grandmother lowered the newsprint to look at her. “What?”

“I already read the story,” Helen explained. “That’s yesterday’s paper.”

“The article”—her grandmother’s finger traced down the column even as she spoke—“says this situation is
not
like the Milligan case. Kudos to you for reading the paper, Helen—it’s more than most girls your age do—but there’s nothing worse than acting like you know what you’re talking about when you don’t.”

Grandmother P. had been visiting for several days by then, disappearing down the paths with her notebook to look for flowers, returning peppy and full of reports and questions. Sometimes she took Helen and Dossy on her nature walks. Helen wrote down the names of flora in the calf-bound nature diary her grandmother had given her, then memorized them so that she could recite them back and impress her grandmother (and thus her father). When Grandmother was not talking about flowers, she liked to discuss the status of immigrants, or the pros and cons of women serving on juries (she was pro but sometimes argued the other side just for fun) and of course, the war. Or she’d invite Helen and Dossy to pull chaise longues off the porch and lie under the night sky reciting poetry, and it wouldn’t matter how old anyone was, or how late the hour, or how much poetry they remembered. The sky opened, words rose.

“Where’s your father hiding?” asked Grandmother P. now, as if he had the ability to hide.

Helen, still too stung and humiliated by her grandmother’s critique to speak, pointed toward the living room.

“He needs more fresh air, don’t you think? And where’s your mother? And Agnes? She took my handkerchiefs to mend, so kind of her.”

“I don’t know.”

Grandmother walked over to where Bea was sitting on a spread-out oilcloth with her shells and jars. “The lost tribe,” she said to no one in particular. “My, what have you got there, Betty? Some sort of science experiment?”

“No, just shells.”

“She’s
Bea
, Grandmother.” Jane looked up from her drawing. “Not Betty. Beatrice.”

“Beatrice. Of course—I knew that! Pardon me! You make shellflower crafts, don’t you? I remember from Bermuda a few years ago.”

Bea nodded.

“Your hobby, is it? Everyone should have a hobby. I tell my son that—there are so many things he could do, even from that chair, instead of slaving over insurance papers on holiday. My mother used to make shellflowers. I’ve even made a few myself, though they’re a poor substitute for nature. But to each his own. Everyone needs a diversion.”

Again, Bea nodded. Helen put down her pen to watch. Talking to the Help; it was one of her grandmother’s many projects, though she discoursed more than listened. “My mother went for natural colors and a more realistic look,” she went on. “We have some still, kept under glass—they’re quite durable, the way she made them. Have you ever considered not bothering”—she pointed at the jars of dye—“with that extra step?”

Bea, wearing rubber gardening gloves and a kitchen apron over her dress, released a shell into the red jar. “It’s no bother.”

“Real flowers have colors.” Janie got up and put a drawing at Bea’s side.

“What’s that, darling?” asked her grandmother.

“Real flowers have colors.”

“Of course, but not colors like these—I need sunshades!” Grandmother Porter laughed. “Around here, our flora is much more mixed up, shades of things. Think of Queen Anne’s lace or wild clematis—both white but with such subtle variations, or even the goldenrods—we’ve got a softer, more subtle palette here in New England, don’t you think, whether it’s in shells or flowers? Also in Scotland, except for your bluebells. Those are just splendid on Skye.”

“I like Bea’s flowers,” Janie said.

“Of course,” said Grandmother P.

Bea’s creations were in fact garish, Helen thought. She gave them out as gifts in the form of boxes and little frames. Janie’s room was full of them. Helen had several gathering dust.

“That’s a lovely drawing, Janie,” said Bea.

“It’s for you.”

Grandmother P. stood, smoothed her dress and let out a hoarse laugh. “Compliments all around! Well, then. Shall we go, Helen? Doss?
Dossy?
Hello?”

Dossy looked up dazed from her novel.

“Tea?” said her grandmother. “Remember? My invitation? I asked for sandwiches and petit-fours. I thought we could have tea on Teal Rock. Stewart said he’d bring the hamper down. It’s probably there already, drawing flies. Your book will wait. Let’s go.”

“You can go too, dearie,” Helen heard Bea say softly to Janie. “I’ll come along if you like.”

Janie shook her head. “I wasn’t invited.”

“Of course you were.” In spite of her own near daily exclusions of her sister, Helen felt her protective instinct rise. “You should come.”

“Why?” Janie shuddered. “I’m sick to death of Teal Rock.”

They all knew Teal Rock was Janie’s favorite place on Ashaunt. Its beach had more sea glass than the other beaches. In July, blueberries ripened at the top. You could look down to the other side and see the salt marsh and, often, a pair of mute swans (who were not—Helen knew from Grandmother—actually mute).

“Poor Teal Rock,” said Dos. “It’s always loved you.”

“Shut up, Dossy.”

“Tsk,” said Bea.

Grandmother Porter, who had been standing silently, spoke. “Janie, I’d have asked you too, but I thought the climbing might worry your parents, and it’s a long way in this heat. I keep forgetting how big you’ve gotten. Teal Rock is nothing to you. Join us! Please do.”

It was then, with all of them watching, that Janie dropped to the porch floor and made her legs go crazy, shaking and bumping them in front of her, heels drumming as if she’d been struck down by a fit. Then she sat up. “It
is
too far,” she said sweetly. “And in this heat. Over a mile! I can’t walk. I’ve got”—she stared into the sun—“something wrong with my legs.”

No one spoke. Janie thumped a leg, a hollow sound. Still, no one spoke. Then Bea was at Jane’s side, hauling her up by her armpits, dragging her, though Jane kept her body stiff.

“Get up, child. Now. That’s it. Enough theatricals. You’re going inside.”

Janie bucked away and thudded onto her back again on porch planks, splaying her legs; you could see the white of her underpants. “I can’t,” she whined. “I can’t get up.”

“Well.” Their grandmother stepped up and towered over Janie, the skin on her patrician nose stretched tight. “Then we’ll leave you here, little miss! We’ll buy you a chair and strap you in for days and see what kinds of jokes you’re making then.”

Janie stood, ran down the porch steps and disappeared behind the house.

“What you said”—said Helen to her grandmother before fear or decorum could stop her—“was unkind.”

“Me? Unkind? Ha! And what was her performance?”

“Unkind too.” In fact, Helen was filled with a new admiration for her sister, though she hoped their father hadn’t heard. “But she’s just a little girl.”

Grandmother turned to Bea. “Is that right, Beatrice? Is that your perspective—that children should be excused for doing terrible things, for mocking their elders and making light of suffering because of their young age, their so-called childlike innocence? Tell me, as a professional child minder, what do you think?”

“Sometimes,” Bea said softly, “she feels left out.”

“Don’t we all?” said Grandmother P.

XII

A
FEW DAYS
later, Bea came across Mrs. P. on the back porch, staring at her mother-in-law out on the lawn. The lady was turned away from them on the far, seaward slope of parched grass, peering through binoculars; the next day, she was scheduled to visit friends in Newport and then return to Katonah. She was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and long brown gown, despite the heat.

“Is she looking for birds?” Bea asked.

Mrs. P. laughed sharply. “One bird. He’s having his swim, with Stewart. She’s always convinced he’ll drown. He’s fine in the water. He’s
strong
. You’ve seen her watch him like this, haven’t you? She’s like an eagle. She can’t help herself. She does it every day.”

In fact Bea had not noticed, too busy standing watch for Janie, for Smitty, and keeping an eye on the big girls, especially Helen, in case she ran off with that soldier Henry. “A mother will worry,” she said.

“
A Mother Will Worry.
Why don’t you embroider it on a tea towel for her?” said Mrs. P., and then, “I’m sorry, Bea. That wasn’t nice. You’re right. And he’s her only one. I should be kinder, shouldn’t I?”

A streetcar in Mexico had killed Mr. P.’s father, who had been an important government official, when Mr. P. was still a boy, and he’d had a sister who died as a child. Grandmother Porter had lost another husband too, before that—a sea captain by the name of William Starr Dana, who’d died at sea, or was it war? In her first widowhood, she wrote the nature books the family was so proud of—
How to Know the Wildflowers
,
Plants and Their Children
,
According to Season
, by Mrs. William Starr Dana. An Authoress. In her second widowhood, she had focused her vision on her only child. Throughout, she busied herself in her spare time with politics—the Poor, the Rights of Women, now the War Effort, and she liked to drop the names of her famous friends. Bea wanted to find something to like in her—because she had suffered, because she was, like Bea, a woman alone, because her son was Mr. P.—but could not.

She made fun of my shellflowers, she had a sudden urge to tell Mrs. Porter. Bea’s shell hobby was not something she advertised, but still the family seized upon it, wanting to know what to get for her birthday, what to compliment her on: Bea and her flowers, Bea and her shells. In Bermuda at Christmas a few years earlier, Mr. P. had bought her a sailor’s valentine—a beautiful, expensive trinket with “Timeless Treasure” written on it in shells. Bea had wanted to appreciate the gift. He could be so thoughtful. He had a soft spot for her, and she knew he did. In fact, though, the present had upset her: Mr. P. was not her sailor, nor she his valentine, and the sailor’s valentine was better than anything she could make herself. With the money he’d spent, she could have bought enough loose tropical shells to keep her in supply for years.

“She’s leaving tomorrow, is she?” she asked Mrs. P.

“Oh yes she is!”

“Mr. P. will miss her.”

“That’s one way to put it. The girls had some sort of tiff with her, didn’t they?”

Bea nodded. What had they told their mother? The three sisters had gone to Teal Rock that day without either their grandmother or herself and come back two hours later without the picnic hamper (We forgot) just as Bea was about to send Stewart out.

“She was quite upset, she said you—” Mrs. P. began, when her mother-in-law raised her arm and waved. “Oh Lord, what do I do now, Bea? I’m absolutely running out of things to say to her. Where’s Janie?”

“Reading in her room.”

“Have her come down, in something reasonable. A dress.”

By then Grandmother Porter was nearly upon them, binoculars dangling from her neck. Mr. P. must have finished with his swim, or his mother would not turn back toward the house. Stewart would have strapped him in (the rocky beach demanded it) and begun the arduous, long work of maneuvering the wheelchair over the rocks, then the easier job of pushing it along the grassy path. Mr. P. would sit on the porch in his towel coat, rosy, dripping salt. “Nothing like the sea,” he might say. Or he’d recite the poem he’d made the children—and, by proxy, Bea—memorize two summers before, and which she recited to him now and again.
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and sky / And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.
Mrs. P. would sit beside her husband, perhaps place her hand on his hand. This, the after-swimming hour, was their best time. He would be thirsty. He would be happy.