Chapter Two. Rose
CHAPTER TWO
ROSE
The first time I see the Harrow twins, they are lounging against the weathered white columns of the hotel with the midday sun glinting down on them like beautiful golden gargoyles.
Her soft pink blouse glows against her long, tanned limbs.
His collared white shirt is neatly pressed.
Her honeyed hair falls in perfect pin curls; his is charmingly tousled.
She wears red lipstick. No, what does Miss O’Malley say?
“Be more specific, Rose. The best writers are keen observers of human nature.” Scarlet lipstick stains her pretty pout.
Glasses perch on his crooked nose, like a blond Clark Kent.
They both snap to attention when they spot the Caddy rattling up the potholed drive.
Are they posted there waiting for us?
“Who are they?” Ella breathes, rapt.
Lou squirms out of the middle seat and presses her hot little face to Ella’s window.
Honestly, I’m equally rapt—captivated—but at seventeen, I’m too proud to show it.
I tuck my red T-shirt into my high-waisted, side-buttoned shorts.
This combination, with ankle-strap wedges, was the fashionable look at Miss Parker’s.
Nanny warned me that folks on the Eastern Shore might be more conservative—staid—straitlaced.
But I didn’t pay her any mind. Now I notice how the girl’s pleated skirt falls to mid-calf, and her blouse is buttoned up to her collarbones.
I eye my sister’s pink cropped top. At least the matching wrap skirt is knee-length. “Ella, are you sure you don’t want a sweater?”
“A sweater?” My sister scowls. “It’s hot as heck out here!”
I wince. “It’s just—they look like they’re wearing Sunday school clothes. We want to make a good first impression, don’t we?”
“‘Don’t we?’” Ella mimics. “You’re not the boss of me, Rose.”
Don’t I know it. She’s been testy all week, and my patience is running thin. If I were the boss of her, I’d—oh, I don’t know what. She’s far too old for a spanking, and Father’s never laid a hand on us anyhow.
I wish Nanny were here. She would know how to manage Ella.
The truth is, my sisters and I have never spent an entire summer together.
Usually, Ella and I are flitting off to camp by now.
Then I spend the latter half of July with my roommate, Clara, at her family’s place in the Poconos, and Ella spends the first half of August with her roommate at Cape May.
But not this summer. This summer, the three of us are staying put at Father’s new hotel.
Ella feels it as a punishment, and so did I till my bust-up with Clara.
Now I see it as an opportunity, a fresh start: No one knows me here.
I can be whoever I want, free of the expectations and suspicions of Miss Parker’s.
And I’m going to get to truly know my sisters. We’ll be a real family, Ella and Lou and me. I mean, good God, look at the Harrow twins: They’re like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting! By August, that could be us.
Lou yanks open Ella’s door, darts around the Caddy, and screeches to a stop in front of the twins. She sticks her forefinger in her mouth. It’s a babyish habit Nanny’s been trying to break her of, with little success.
Our driver opens the door for me. “Thank you, Milton.”
“Of course, Miss Rose.”
I catch Grace raising her eyebrows at that. I gather the Harrows don’t have household staff.
“Who are you?” Lou asks them.
“Manners, Lulu. We don’t say, ‘Who are you,’ we introduce ourselves and say, ‘How do you do,’” I remind her. But I can’t fault her for not knowing any better. She’s only five, and she hasn’t had a mother to speak of.
Ella slouches against the car, mortified. She’s fourteen, and everything mortifies her now.
“I’m Grace Harrow.” The girl has a low, throaty voice.
Every word feels like she’s telling—divulging—a delicious secret.
She holds out her hand, and Lou pumps it enthusiastically, rather like the handle of a well.
“This is my brother, Cooper. We live here. Down in the caretaker’s cottage. Since your dad bought our house.”
“Grace!” the boy hisses.
Oh. Dad told me that the previous owner and his wife were staying on as the hotel manager and chef. He mentioned that they had kids. He did not mention that they would be living on the property—or that the “kids” are my age and intimidatingly beautiful.
“Hello. Sorry about my sister.” Cooper is blushing. Imagine: a boy who blushes! He’s handsome behind those glasses, freckles splashed like cinnamon across his tanned cheeks and crooked nose. He gives us a bashful smile, and I can’t help but return it.
“How do you do. I’m Rosemary Thorpe. Rose.” They tower over me, even in my wedges. Barefoot, I’m five one. Even Ella is taller than me now. The indignity of it, being outgrown by my little sister! She hangs back, staring down at her Keds. “May I present my sisters, Eleanor—Ella—and Louisa.”
“Welcome to the White Heron. We’re so pleased to have you.” Grace’s smile is like a bite; it shows all her teeth.
I bristle—it’s our hotel—and then think better of it. We’re going to be stuck with each other all summer. Nanny always says, you catch more flies with honey.
“Thank you. We’re happy to be here.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ella mutters. I wince again, embarrassed.
“Your aunt said you’ll be spending the summer with us while your dad’s on his latest honeymoon.”
I don’t miss the word latest, or the amusement in Grace’s voice.
Clearly, my father’s reputation has preceded him.
He’s a wolf in business but an absolute meatball when it comes to love.
Ella and I haven’t met our newest stepmother, but she could hardly be worse than the last one.
Father met Lou’s mother in a dance hall.
Where she was onstage. Millie liked attention, and she didn’t want to share even a smidge of Father’s.
She packed Ella and me off to boarding school the moment she could.
When Lou came along—an accident, I overheard Millie say, as though Lou could be anything but a delight—she foisted her off on Nanny.
It still wasn’t enough. Right before Lou’s second birthday, Father caught Millie necking with her driving instructor, who was a Bolshevik, or a Communist, or at least Russian.
I was fourteen at the time and heard about it from our staff, who are a bunch of gossips.
They were glad to see the back of her, too.
I paste on a smile. “Father’s such a romantic.” A romantic dingbat. “He and Lena are in Paris now.”
“Paris! How grand.” Grace’s eyes narrow. “I hope you aren’t too disappointed to be stuck out here in the sticks with us.” Her brother elbows her.
“Not at all. It’s very pretty.” Actually, the place seems forlorn—ramshackle—desolate.
My gaze travels from the porch, with its peeling white paint and rickety floorboards, up past the second story, to the shingled gray roof and crumbling widow’s walk situated between two brick chimneys.
Wings stretch out to the north and south, sun glinting off the barred windows.
Why would they need to bar the windows?
I know that the place used to be a maternity home that housed girls as they waited to give birth and then convalesced afterward.
Did the barred windows prevent girls from escaping?
The thought that they might have been held against their will gives me the shivers.
The house is awfully isolated, squatting in the middle of flat green fields at the end of a long drive.
We passed through a town perhaps fifteen minutes ago, then took a series of winding dirt roads and rattling bridges.
Beyond the house is only the shimmering blue of the Chesapeake.
If a girl wanted to escape this house, where would she even go?
I look at my sisters. Ella is scowling. Lou’s bottom lip is quivering.
We’re all feeling anxious, though I’m determined to make the best of it.
Auntie is the wild card; she’s little more than a stranger to us.
She came around more when we were younger, but she loathed Millie—I can hardly blame her for that—and kept her distance.
Then her husband was killed in France back in ’44, and she’s been in mourning ever since.
Father says it isn’t healthy; Auntie is still a young woman.
Keeping the White Heron on track is meant to give her new purpose.
Father thinks everyone should handle grief the way he does, by keeping busy.
Normally, my sisters and I would have stayed in Washington between our camps and travels.
Father being away is nothing new. He comes home, laden with presents; then he goes away again.
But two weeks ago, Nanny—the great constant in our lives till now—tripped over Lou’s kitten, tumbled down the stairs, and broke her leg in two places.
She’ll be laid up at her sister’s all summer.
So, here we are, shipped off to Auntie. When Father gets an idea in his head, no one else has much of a say.
The door groans open and a tall, dour man emerges. He has a thin mustache and pomaded dark hair, and he looks a bit like William Powell in The Thin Man, if William Powell were an undertaker. Perhaps a little less cheerful.
That’s a good line. I’ll describe him that way in my diary later. I clutch it through the leather of my pocketbook. It’s my version of Lou’s stuffed bunny. A security blanket of sorts.
“Miss Thorpe, I presume?” The man has the unctuous tone of an undertaker, too.
“Rose.” I stick out a hand. “How do you do.”
“How do you do,” he drawls. His handshake is crushingly firm, his hands icy. “Welcome to the White Heron. I’m Joseph Harrow, hotel manager. I see you’ve already met my children.”
This is the twins’ father? They must get their looks from their mother.
I introduce my sisters. Lulu’s finger is in her mouth again.
“Mrs. Langford is meeting with the foreman. I told her you’ve arrived.” Mr. Harrow turns to Cooper. “Son, show the driver where to take their luggage.” Cooper starts toward the door, but Mr. Harrow coughs. “Don’t go empty-handed, Coop.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I protest. “Milton will get them.”
“No, no. It’s our pleasure. We’re at your service, Miss Thorpe,” Mr. Harrow insists.
I catch Grace rolling her eyes behind her father’s back.
Cooper obediently hauls some of our luggage out of the trunk.
As he and Milton go in, Aunt Joan comes out, and I nearly gasp to see her.
The Auntie who came to Easter two months ago was prim and practical in a mauve shirtwaist dress, pumps, and stockings.
This Auntie is positively transformed. She wears wide-legged, high-waisted trousers and a snug white cashmere sweater that shows off her trim figure. She is tanned and flushed and happy.
Mr. Harrow grimaces. “Mrs. Langford.”
“Girls! I’m so happy you’re here.” Auntie beams at us. “We’re going to have such fun.”
“It’s going to be the best summer,” I enthuse, letting her pull me into an embrace.
She seems genuine enough. But Millie pretended to want us at first, too.
This is a fresh start, I remind myself. I shan’t be a Negative Nellie.
Unlike some people. Ella is scowling again, or perhaps her face is stuck that way.
Lou takes my hand, her finger wet against my palm.
In the awkward silence, with the door thrown open, I can hear the rasp of saws and the pounding—pummeling—cacophony of hammers.
“Come in. I’ll show you to your rooms. You must be tired from the drive.
” Auntie is undeterred by my sisters’ lack of enthusiasm.
“Do excuse the mess. We’re behind schedule because of all the rain.
Renovation of the public spaces—the breakfast room, dining room, parlor, and library—is underway, but nothing is quite finished.
Except the family quarters and the kitchen.
Your father put a rush on those. Eddie—that’s Mr. Lloyd, the foreman—he and his team have been working night and day. ”
“It’s lovely,” I say gamely, because someone has to say something. “What a beautiful spot, right on the water. What a lucky duck you are, Grace, to grow up here!” I’m imagining clambakes on the beach, sailing regattas and swimming races.
As I step across the threshold, my stomach tips and tumbles.
The lobby has new oak floors and high ceilings and a gleaming counter that stretches beneath the double staircase.
Sunlight streams in through tall, curtainless windows and catches on the crystal chandelier. Rainbows dance along the walls.
It’s all very pleasant—that’s how I’ll describe it later in my diary—but I feel suddenly, unaccountably hot and panicky and trapped.
Heat rushes to my face. What if Auntie’s enthusiasm is all for show?
What if she doesn’t want us here? What if no one wants us here?
I glance at my sisters. We have no one to depend on but one another, stuck in this desolate place, this little hayseed town, with—Grace is watching me, frowning, as though she can read every disparaging thought—people who clearly don’t like us.
“I hope you’ll be every bit as happy here as we were.” Grace’s smile is sugary sweet, but her eyes are cold.
As I follow Auntie up the curving staircase, I glance behind me. Mr. Harrow’s oily gaze follows Ella, his thin lips pursed disapprovingly. As I watch, he claps a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. Grace tenses beneath his touch. The movement is slight, but unmistakable.
Inauspicious.
Exactly how happy were they here?