The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls (17 page)

“How is Decca?” I asked.

Mr. Holmes tilted his head, as if he were trying to discern me. I lowered my head; I hadn’t been looked at so closely in such a long time.

“Are you worried, Thea? I’m sorry. I would have sent word sooner. Decca has broken her collarbone. The other injury is superficial—a cut on her hand. Her head wasn’t hit; the doctor was very grateful for that.”

The iodine had been for her hand. My eyes blurred.

“Thea?”

But I could not look up. Her head.

“Thea? Please look at me.”

His voice was firm; he was still my headmaster. And so I lifted my head and saw Mr. Holmes now held a glass in his hand. Whiskey.

“Her personality is intact,” I whispered.

He nodded, slowly.

“I left the gate open,” I said. “I was distracted.”

He set his glass down and directed me to sit, on an overstuffed armchair next to his desk. He pulled his desk chair opposite me—it looked so small in his hand, so light—and sat down.

“Thea,” he said, “Decca will be fine. Just a bit of a scare, but nothing that can’t be mended.”

“She could have been badly hurt,” I said. I thought of Rachel.

“That is true. But she was not.”

I started to speak again, but he held up his hand.

“She was not,” he repeated. “It was a series of events, Thea. Thank God they ended well, and leave it at that.”

A door closed in my brain, then, unexpectedly. My understanding of our world shifted: it was a series of events, I thought, all of it.

“And I can’t reach Beth. She’s somewhere in Alabama, but I don’t know exactly where. This day was already bad, to begin with. Our sponsors are not sponsoring. Our donors are not donating.” He smiled, and took another sip of his drink. He was less guarded than I had ever seen him; this must be how he always was with his wife. But perhaps not. Perhaps Henry Holmes was rarely so undisguised.

“And the worst of it is that I don’t blame them.” He shook his head. There was a bitter note in his voice. “Forgive me, Thea. You always strike me as older than your years.”

“Rachel?” I asked.

“Rachel,” he said, and paused. “Rachel is beside herself.”

“Are you angry with her?”

“Yes,” he said, “of course I am.”

“Don’t be.”

“But how will she learn, Thea, if I’m not?”

“She made a mistake,” I said. I leaned forward in my chair. I could feel a flush creep up my chest, across my cheeks. “A mistake!” I thought of my brother and cousin as I had last seen them. It was all a mistake. “If it is a series of events, then let her be. She’s learned her lesson.”

Mr. Holmes seemed surprised. He finished his drink and set the glass on the floor, next to his feet.

“Has she?” he asked. His speech was looser. The alcohol, combined with his wife’s absence. “I’d like to think so. But as a parent you never quite know what your child is learning.”

Mr. Holmes turned his head at the sound of a door closing. He started to stand, and I caught the edge of his sleeve. He looked at me.

“Don’t hate her.”

“You never hate your child, Thea.” He gazed down at me. I made myself meet his gaze.

He did not look away, so I did. I stood, then, and put on my coat. I realized all of a sudden how improper it was, me in front of a man I was not related to without even a robe to cover my nightgown. And yet I did not want to leave. I wanted to stay, to be with him, to go wherever he went, to be enveloped by Mr. Holmes and his books.

“I should leave,” I said, “I’m sorry to come here like this.”

He nodded and took a step forward, and he was so close I could smell him, the pomade in his hair, and it made me think about the time he had visited me in the infirmary, and told me I would grow to love Yonahlossee. He had been kind. It was only now, months later, that I was able to see how kind he had been.

“Rachel isn’t bad. She made a mistake. There is”—here he looked at the ceiling, as if deciding how to phrase it—“a difference.”

He departed then, mumbled something about checking on Decca, leaving me to quietly observe his office and all its books: neatly ordered, in bookshelves; stacked on his desk, with little slips of paper sticking out of their pages; one open, on the sofa.

I went to this book, and picked it up. I touched the pages he touched, the spine. I could see how Mr. Holmes lost himself in other worlds in here.

Dear Thea,

Did you like the coat? How was Christmas at school? Your father says we need to go away somewhere for a while but where? Here is where I want to be. I’m not lonely. Your father is working more than ever, even if everything else is changed there are always the sick and dying. And there seem to be more of them here now, the sick and dying.

I wish I could see you, Thea. I wish things were not how they are. You should have been my child longer. All three of you should have been children longer. I’ll stop with that. Does it surprise you to read a letter like this, your mother so maudlin?

I cut back all the roses, mulched all the beds, hacked away everything dead. I worked for days, perhaps did too much. Sam helped. Your brother is still your brother. There is more to say, surely, but I can’t think of it. I know you wrote to him. I know he has not written back. He is still reeling, Thea; I hope I am right in telling you this. I mean not to hurt your feelings, only to explain his.

Georgie is fine. Sam said you asked.

Bundle up in those mountains. Don’t ride too long or hard. Remember your health.

Love,

Mother

I sat in the Hall with Sissy, in our usual spot, on a threadbare red velvet sofa, and read Mother’s letter. I was exhausted. I’d been sleeping poorly since my nighttime visit to Masters, three days ago.

We weren’t supposed to have roses in Emathla, in that humid, hot climate, but Mother loved them. She worried over them, and when they bloomed in the spring they were beautiful; you would not have known they did not belong.

My feelings were hurt. She had known they would be; I felt stung, crumpled. It was one thing to think of my family separately, going about their lives; another entirely to think that an alliance had been formed against me.

Katherine Hayes started playing something cheerful on the piano. Decca’s accident had hushed Yonahlossee—girls had cried into each other’s shoulders, and sported grave expressions, and looked sadly at Masters—but only for a day. Jettie stood at an easel, painting a watercolor of the view of the mountains from the window. I could see from here that Martha Ladue, who sat next to her, was idly flipping the pages of a magazine, and that Jettie’s painting was very bad. Martha Ladue seemed to be interested in only two things: speaking French and being beautiful.

The day after I had gone to Masters, Mr. Holmes had told everyone during morning prayer that Decca had broken her collarbone, that she was recovering nicely. He seemed exhausted as he spoke to us. His eyes were tired. Since then he had appeared at most, but not all, meals. In his absence, Miss Metcalfe, the French teacher, presided. This was the first time I’d paid any attention to Miss Metcalfe. She fell into the boring category that most teachers and girls here did: plain but not ugly, nice but uninteresting. I knew she must go to Masters and speak to Mr. Holmes. I knew she must lend him her sympathetic ear.
I
wanted to do that. I wanted to bring him comfort. I felt a little like he belonged to me, now. He had let me into his office in the dead of night; he had comforted me, and I wanted more of that: more letting in, more comfort.

Henny had left with Sarabeth and Rachel yesterday, to chaperone them on the train to New Orleans to their grandmother’s house, where they would be reunited with their mother. Decca stayed behind, because of her injury. Before they left, though, both girls had eaten their meals at the head table when their father did, and though I watched carefully for signs of distress, Rachel seemed unchanged. She seemed happy, even, and I understood that her happiness was an accident: it could so easily have turned out worse. I tried to be glad for the happy Holmeses. I tried to swallow the envy that rose in my throat like tar.

I was glad Sarabeth and Rachel were gone. I knew the feeling was base, petty, but I wanted to be closer to Mr. Holmes, and their absence would make this easier. He thought that I was good. Or at the very least he did not think I was bad. And that he thought so made me wonder: perhaps I was not as bad as I had thought.

It was so easy to be here among these girls, who knew nothing of my visit to Masters, who knew nothing of the intensity of my thinking, which I could feel hurtling toward obsession.

“I’m bored,” Sissy said, and drew a stack of Boone’s letters from her schoolbag, which was what she did when she was bored.

There were a few girls who studied at the Hall—Gates, from our cabin—but most of us didn’t; our classes didn’t require it. We knew boys at boarding school received grades, which meant something in their lives, though
what
grades meant remained vague. We learned in class, were lectured to about wars and famines, ancient kings and queens, the habits of the presidents. But the lectures were cursory. We needed to know what had happened, because we were the well-bred daughters of men who could afford to educate us—but not why, or how. Not any of the stories that made the facts interesting.

We were ranked according to our equestrienne skills, but none of us would compete professionally, or do anything besides ride as a diversion once we left Yonahlossee. And many of us would go back to places where we couldn’t sit astride a horse.

The few girls here who did truly care about learning—Gates, in our cabin—were not popular. It meant you were too hungry, that you sought something unappealing and vague. It was better by ten to be charming and witty, like Sissy, than to care about books.

I watched Sissy hold the letter to her face, then draw it back again as if she were trying to trick her mind into seeing it for the first time. I wondered what she would be as an adult, whether or not she would still seem so young. Sissy’s charm, her thin wrists, her easily tangled hair, her long, awkward neck, seemed so clearly and profoundly childish to me. She was lovely, Sissy, anyone could see that. But she was lovely because she seemed harmless.

What would it feel like to be Sissy? I thought of Boone gently and urgently kneading her breasts. Sissy smiled to herself, serenely, and I saw Boone’s hands and felt a familiar sensation in my stomach. I turned my head and watched Jettie paint a disfigured mountain peak until the feeling went away.

Sissy would never have gone to see Mr. Holmes in the dead of night. The idea wouldn’t even have occurred to her. She had chosen a normal beau. Boone came from a good family; the
good
implied that his family was wealthy. Their biggest hurdle would be that they were too young, that Boone was not Southern enough, not Alabama royalty. He was from Asheville, which Sissy had told me was fine, but not wonderful. But I gathered he had enough money to smooth that particular wrinkle. All of this seemed so ridiculous, the nuances of hierarchy, the subtleties of position, and though Sissy sometimes made fun of all this fuss, with me, I could see she took it seriously.

—

O
utside, I hugged myself against the cold, my old coat too small. I squinted my eyes against the sun until I entered the woods, and then it was dark, the light dappled onto the forest floor and the effect was eerily beautiful, a pricked pattern engineered by randomness.

There was no trace that Decca had fallen. The iodine had been absorbed by the earth long ago; Bright was back in his stall, chomping hay; the felled tree had been cleared away. I lingered at Bright’s stall and he whuffed into my hand, curious. He had no memory of what had happened, no idea at all. I envied a horse’s dumbness, not for the first time in my life.

We took turns jumping the combination Mr. Albrecht had devised. I went next to last, and I watched girl after girl fail, go either too fast or too slow between the second and third jumps, then nick a rail.

“Well done, Thea,” Mr. Albrecht murmured as I passed him.

Just then I saw Mr. Holmes walking alongside the ring, toward me, and I was hot and panicked but also terribly eager.

“Hello, Thea,” he said, and smiled.

“Mr. Holmes.”

“Well,” he said, after a pause, and rested his arms on the railing in the posture that was so familiar to me, “Decca is feeling better.” He looked beyond me, at the other ring, and I knew he was in front of me only briefly, before he continued his tour of the riding rings, before he would stop and chat with other girls. Jealousy was still such an odd feeling. At home, there had been nothing to envy, nothing to want that I didn’t already have, or could get.

“Is Decca lonely?” I blurted, and then tried to speak more slowly. “I mean, does she miss her sisters?”

“I think she must. She’s the youngest. She’s never been alone before.”

“I know that feeling,” I said.

“You’re the youngest?” he asked.

“No.” I shook my head. I was relieved that he did not know as much about me as I had thought; and then also disappointed for precisely the same reason. He looked at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“I’m a twin,” I said. “Fraternal.”

“Ah,” he said. He seemed neither interested nor surprised. He must hear so many things about us girls, all the time. He took his hands from the rail, preparing to leave.

“May I visit Decca?” I said, before I lost my chance. “Sit with her?”

He paused. I could tell I had pleased him. Parents liked when you were interested in their children. I wondered if Mother and Father had felt the same pleasure when people complimented me and Sam. But no one had, except occasionally, in town.

“She would like that, Thea. Thank you.” He began to turn around, but then he stopped. “I almost forgot—I wanted to tell you that Rachel is fine. That everyone is grateful Decca was not seriously injured.”

I wondered what his memory of that night was. I had been so bold, and he did not seem to mind.

I watched him walk away, his slim, busy hands swinging by his sides, then folded behind him, then in his pockets. I knew what the feeling was, now, that had embroidered itself in my brain. Knowing made me feel less horrible. I had what so many girls had: a crush. It was as simple and harmless as that. I had never had one before. With Georgie, things had simply happened, one after the next; I’d never had any control. But this time, I had control. This was just a crush.

I turned Naari around and saw that Leona stood at the gate, watching, and I got rid of the stupid smile that had been on my face.

—

T
he Holmeses’ housekeeper met me at their door that afternoon, when everyone else was at the Hall studying, or feigning studying. I stepped into their house and unlaced my boots.

“There’s no need,” the housekeeper said. She was young, with golden-blond hair coiled into a braid. A smattering of freckles dotted her cheeks. When she spoke, I could see that her teeth were horribly crooked. Still, she was pretty. She had that Appalachian look, wan, thin. The mountain families were large, I knew, and inbred. Sissy told me that they thought nothing of marrying their cousins. But who else were they supposed to marry, I wanted to point out, isolated in hollers and valleys unreachable by automobiles and trains, places that never saw outsiders. When the only boy there for you happened to also be your cousin.

“I’ll make a mess.” I pried off my boots and handed them to her; she returned a moment later and led me up the stairs.

Decca’s room was chilly. I was glad I’d kept my scarf and jacket. I felt Sissy’s gloves in my pocket, lent to me for the winter, but to put them on would be impolite, even if I was only in the presence of a housekeeper and a child.

“Is she warm enough?” I whispered, because Decca was asleep.

The housekeeper paused a moment, as if considering whether or not to answer me.

“Hot-water bottles,” she said, finally. She left, then.

I sat by a bed in a chair clearly meant for this purpose: Mr. Holmes must sit here, too, I knew, for hours, days if the hours were added together.

Decca was swathed in pink blankets. Her long lashes rested dramatically on her pale skin. Her hair—so dark it was almost black—was shiny with oil. I wondered if Mr. Holmes knew anything about washing girls’ hair, about tending to a child of Decca’s age. I touched her soft forehead and though she stirred she did not wake.

If he came into this room while I sat here with his daughter it would be happenstance. I could not be accused of being bad. I could not be accused of being forward. It would simply be a meeting engineered by chance. I wanted to be close to him again, I wanted him to speak to me, to ask me questions, to answer mine.

I would come again tomorrow, and the next day. I drew my gloves on and rested my head on the back of the leather chair. It was big and comfortable, meant for someone larger, a man’s easy chair. The furniture in this room was the same as ours: washstand, desk, and vanity.

A homely embroidered mat hung between the beds, the Lord’s Prayer stitched in green. Mother would have hated this room. It was clean, spotless, but looked mean. I took off a glove and fingered Decca’s bedspread—made of some rough linen, with a thick border of dark red. There was a timeless quality about this room, perhaps due to its sparseness; except for the lamp, I could have been sitting in a bedroom from a hundred years ago. Was this house an accurate representation of Mrs. Holmes’s taste, or had it always stayed the same, Mrs. Holmes only changing small things, grace notes? Pictures, maybe dishes. That would undo Mother, to live somewhere that was not her own.

At the end of the hour I was taken to the front door and shown outside by the housekeeper, who managed to lead me through the house and hand me my boots while ignoring me. Decca had spent the whole visit asleep.

I looked up at the house, for some sign of Mr. Holmes. The drapes were drawn against the cold, and even if they hadn’t been, it was impossible to see through a window lit by daylight.

—

M
r. Holmes had still not appeared. I asked the housekeeper where he might be—I had come three days in a row and seen neither hide nor hair of him. She shrugged. “You’d have to ask Mr. Holmes.” I thought there was a note of challenge in her voice. Insolence. Or a note of satisfaction—of course I could not ask him, because he was gone when I came to the house. Because he was distant when we met in the dining hall—or did not meet, he made sure of that. He stayed away, it was not my imagination. And so I began to imagine that he also wanted to see me, that there was something that existed between us. I could not yet say what—I did not know. If I were a better girl according to Mother, I would stop all this, reinsert myself into Yonahlossee life, go to the Hall with Sissy instead of coming here every day. But I no longer knew what kind of girl I was.