The Sisters Montclair (37 page)

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 after 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 gulf 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.

As she listened to him plan their future, building his argument so carefully and reasonably that a small part of her could not help but feel it had been well-rehearsed, her dreams of life in New York began to fade.

What was it that she really wanted? She couldn’t say. She had built her hopes for the future on what she didn’t want, which wasn’t enough. It seemed to Alice now that she had been living a daydream, a childish fantasy brought on by – what? Her great-grandmother’s death in childbirth? Her fear that a man would love her too much, smother her, kill her with his desire? But what else was there for her except marriage? A role as a girl-about-town escort for dances and dinner parties, and later as a kindly maiden aunt who could be expected to send generous birthday presents and swoop in at Christmas with her too-wide bosom and too-exuberant greetings? Women like her did not become nurses or teachers or stenographers. At least not in Chattanooga.

Brendan was still spinning his dream of their life together, and because she had already fallen in love with him and because she wanted to believe that her life might, after all, have some degree of happiness, she let him go on. They would buy a small bungalow first, but later a big house in Riverview. Their children would be educated. They would prosper and be happy and eventually, with grandchildren, Alice’s parents would forgive them. Would welcome them back into the fold with open arms.

And desire. That sweet, smoky excitement so utterly strange to her. A lifetime of lovemaking with Brendan.

There was that to consider.

They made love again and fell asleep and when they awoke the moon was high and the bed was bathed in golden light. Alice rose with a start, aware suddenly of the late time, and the fact that her father would be waiting for her. They dressed hurriedly and drove down the sandy lane past the railroad crossing and the back of the Big House. Crossing the moonlit fields, a large owl swooped above the road. Brendan stopped and locked the main gate, and they turned and headed swiftly back to town.

The whole ride back Alice felt a pinprick of apprehension in her chest, a small glowing ember. It persisted, swelling ominously into a flickering flame as they crossed the river, the streetlamps reflecting their ghostly shapes in the water. She was sustained by Brendan’s strong presence, his wide shoulders, his firm and capable profile. He turned to her once, and took her hand and smiled, and she saw in his sleepy eyes that all would be all right. She was comforted by this.

Comfort, once acknowledged, began to establish itself in her heart. She felt sleepy, contented. A drowsy confidence, a sense of letting go and abandoning herself to the consequences of their decision filled her. Even her father’s certain condemnation no longer concerned her. As they swept up the wide avenue toward Ash Hill, the lights of the sleeping city laid out below them, she half-expected to turn the corner and find the house quiet, dark, her father gone to bed.

But turning into the main drive, she was shocked to find the house ablaze with lights, every window starkly illuminated, a long line of cars snaking ominously around the circular drive in front, and out into the quiet street.

She had seen them pass. They did not see her parked in the shadows of the moonlit crossing. She had taken the Willys coupe after her parents left for the dinner party, waiting until Simon had driven them away and then going down to the garage to retrieve the little car.

She had overheard Alice on the telephone making the assignation with Brendan. She had followed them, not because she derived pleasure from it, but because she felt drawn to him, tethered by some invisible cord that would never break no matter how hard she tried to untangle herself. She was happy to simply drift in his presence, to be where he was. The idea of separation from him was as alien to her as the idea of separation from her own heart; there was no imagining a world without Brendan Burke, a world without his presence, his scent, his touch.