Chapter Four #4
There was a moment of terrible silence. Anna wished she could sweep Julia into her arms and lovingly spirit her away, but Lillian already mistrusted Anna.
As a member of the Demarest household, presumably living under its strictures, Anna would look as if she were usurping her sister and brother-in-law’s authority, an authority Elizabeth seemed too paralyzed to exercise.
As usual, a word from his mother acted as an alarm clock, awakening Jerome to whatever was amiss. He looked at Elizabeth.
“What is she doing up?”
As if by way of answer, Julia flung her arms out and began to sing.
Over the water, over the lee, over the water to Charley
Charley loves good ale and wine, Charley loves good brandy
Charley loves a little girl as sweet as sugar candy
When Julia finished, she peered around from under the brim of the hat, her expression triumphant. The few seconds that followed felt like an eternity, but the silence was broken by Nora Graham.
“Brilliantly done, Julia!” Nora applauded, and the other women from Haven Point immediately joined in. Nora pulled Julia to her side, then addressed the group. “She’s been planning it for ages. She wanted to surprise everyone.”
“Well, she did that,” Jerome said, with a boozy laugh.
Rosemary appeared at the doorway, looking harassed and embarrassed. Nora looked her directly in the eye and said, “Julia was brilliant. Thank you!”
Though Rosemary could not possibly know what precipitated this comment, she seemed to understand that it fell under the category of Management of Julia’s Reputation. She nodded, smiled formally, and held out a hand to beckon Julia.
“Come along now, child.”
Julia looked around the room, as if evaluating whether she might continue to enjoy the unexpected hospitality. When her eyes reached Anna and Elizabeth, she took in their warning looks and tight smiles, sighed dramatically, then went to the door and took Rosemary’s hand.
“Good night, darling,” Elizabeth called as they exited.
Julia looked back, smiled, waved, and called out, “Good night!”
Letty Stinneford beamed around the room. “Was that not marvelous? We do like to encourage the children’s theatricals.”
Before anyone could notice the incongruity of Letty’s comment with the boring, lifeless community she and others had thus far been depicting, Serena spoke up.
“So, you gentlemen sail to Monhegan Island tomorrow?” she asked brightly.
Dear Serena, Anna thought. On some intuitive level, Serena must have known the men could not ignore her. They certainly never had.
“Heading out first thing,” Ambrose said, and the conversation turned away from Julia, and toward their planned excursion.
Anna felt a rush of warmth at the women’s performance.
Mothers here agreed that their children deserved a break from rigid rules, and with most husbands away during the week and summer staff limited, they deserved a break from enforcing them.
Under no interpretation, however, did this indulgence extend to welcoming a fugitive child to an adult party.
In any less fraught situation, it would have prompted a scold.
But with that collective and protective instinct, ancient as mankind itself, these women had sized up the circumstances and done what neither Elizabeth nor Anna could: pretended Julia’s appearance was not only permitted, but worthy of celebration.
The next morning, Anna headed to Nora’s house. As she passed the Grahams’ garden, she spotted a wide-brimmed sun hat and looked over the stone wall.
“Hello, Nora.”
Nora turned, saw Anna, then stood and waved her in. “Come have something to drink, Anna. I need a break.”
Anna had not seen Nora’s kitchen garden before. When she entered the gate, she looked around in wonder. “How do you coax so many vegetables out of such inhospitable soil?”
“Wisdom of earlier generations. My mother’s thumb was far greener than mine.” Nora shrugged, then nodded to the stone stairs. “Sit. I made some ginger punch.”
She returned with two glasses and lowered herself to sit beside Anna.
“Thank you for helping Julia after her performance last night,” Anna said. “And I was grateful for your performance, too.”
“Performance?” Nora asked, with such a poor imitation of innocence, Anna had to laugh.
“Nora Graham, you must credit me with some intelligence. You cannot pretend that you and the others were not intentionally trying to bore the Searses to tears.”
“Oh, all right,” Nora said, with a resigned sigh.
“But any deception was well-intentioned. Rhinelander and Vesta Sears assumed they would find no one interesting here, so we gave them the satisfaction of thinking they were right. And now Vesta has some ammunition, should her husband persist in his supposed interest in purchasing a lot.”
“Was Ambrose pleased, do you think?” Anna asked.
“Is it your observation that his cousin’s presence pleases Ambrose?”
Anna thought for a moment. “It actually seems to set his hackles up.”
“That is my perception as well. Far more important, of course, is how it affects Serena.”
“How so?”
“George and I always knew Ambrose and Serena were more, well … formal. That’s fine. We like them.” Nora raised her chin in feigned affectation and added, “And I always thought it spoke well of Ambrose that he is so devoted to George.”
“Well, of course.” Anna smiled. George was not an obvious member of Jerome and Ambrose’s set, and she, too, was glad their usual prejudices had not blinded them to what a fine man he was.
“We knew we’d have some grand people building grand houses on Haven Point. We hoped they would follow the example of Serena and Ambrose, who hold no one else to their social standards. But as much as I like Serena, I worry about her at times.”
“What worries you?”
“With husbands coming and going, it’s the wives who set the tone, most of us being here all summer. It’s bad enough when you get a passel of women together, being what we are. Just one woman’s poison can get into the groundwater.”
“But Serena isn’t poison!”
“Oh, no. Of course not. I was referring to women like Vesta Sears.” Nora shook her head, her brow creased, then picked up her spade and returned to her gardening before she spoke again.
“Ambrose is anxious about selling the lots, and he has a blind spot for his sort. Serena does not care for Vesta, but if he persisted in selling to them, I’m not sure she would stand up to him. ”
“So you thought you would help her along,” Anna said. “Very clever.”
Nora shrugged. “I suspect Rhinelander Sears was not that interested in the first place.”
“He mostly seems interested in provoking Ambrose, but last night was a good insurance policy,” Anna said. “I do have one question, though. Did Elizabeth know what you all planned?”
Nora paused again, thinking. “Given a choice,” she said finally, “I don’t believe we must tell people what would make them uncomfortable to know.”
Anna’s heart sank a bit, but she thanked Nora and headed back to Fourwinds.
Anna was encouraged by the recognition of the special nature of Haven Point, and the desire to preserve the community as it was.
It was dismaying, though, to learn that Nora saw that Elizabeth was unwilling to participate in a scheme, no matter how harmless, without her husband’s consent.
The other women could gather like a fleet of ships, hoist their sails, and head into battle, but Elizabeth, unfit for the task, was left behind in the harbor.
When Anna returned to Fourwinds, she found that the Radcliffe newsletter had arrived. She took it upstairs to her room. Flipping through it, she was surprised to come across her own name in the class notes: “Anna Bradley is spending the summer with her sister’s family on Haven Point, Maine.”
Hers was not the only such entry, but it caused her a terrible pang.
In college, Anna had never thought she was better than her friends, but she knew she was comparably fortunate, and everyone else knew it, too.
She arrived at Radcliffe knowing precisely what her future held: She and her father, the revered Harvard professor, were working in partnership on a great scholarly work, which would, in turn, launch Anna as a writer and thinker in her own right.
She had been envied for her certainty, and for her clear path to achievement and independence.
Now, having been abandoned by her father, Anna was years away from finishing the book. And without the book, what hope did she have of establishing her own career?
In the meantime, if Elizabeth was the boat left behind in the harbor, what did that make Anna? Just a dinghy attached to her side. Untie the knot, and she could be cut loose in an instant.