The Heroines (20 page)

T
he next day Edith had a host of chores for Mother, who straggled down to breakfast around eight, only a handful of hours after she’d returned from the prairie. Gretta was rolling out pie crust, her lips pursed, an expression that usually meant she’d been recently scolded by Edith. Anne-Marie could only imagine why.

“I want the mason jars of blueberry preserves brought up from the basement and wiped clean and stacked in the pantry,” Edith said. She poured silver cleaner on chamois cloth and rubbed a barely tarnished teapot.

“Why can’t Gretta do it?”

“Don’t fight with me, Anne-Marie.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“He had a business meeting in the city.”

“Will he be back tonight?”

“I assume so.”

Anne-Marie didn’t know it then, but Grandfather Entwhistle was in town to try to ward off foreclosures on several of his properties. He owned dozens of multi-unit buildings on the south and west sides of the city, which were being swiftly vacated by the Irish, Italian, and Greek immigrants as rural blacks moved up from the South. He just couldn’t get the same rent, and as property values plummeted, so did his net worth. Grandmother had been after him to unload the properties for years, but he was loyal to his tenants to a fault. They’d abandoned any loyalty to him when they saw their territory shrinking.

Sunlight poured through the window as Mother sipped her coffee. She picked the sleep from her eyes, wondering if her mother could sense the difference in her, that she’d been clutched by a man in the woods at night. She still felt the imprint of his hands on her upper arms, the press of his chin against her head. Everywhere she looked, she thought she saw him: passing by the window above the sink, a silhouette on the other side of the mudroom door. She sat at the table and poured cream and sugar into another cup of coffee. The crows outside seemed to be calling out his location in the woods. She imagined how he would love a cup of Gretta’s coffee, a slice of homemade bread. She chewed her toast carefully, as if he were watching.

“The storm last night absolutely destroyed the peonies.” Grandmother retied the strings of her apron and secured them with a tight bow. “I want you to cut them all! The petals look like toilet paper when they get stuck in the grass!”

“For bouquets?” Anne-Marie asked.

“God, no. We don’t need a million bouquets decaying all around the place. Bring me the healthiest—a good mix of pinks and blues and magentas. The Auxiliary Club ladies are coming for lunch tomorrow. No sense spending a fortune at the florist’s! And I want you to wear your suit.”

“The Vassar interview suit?”

“Precisely. The pink. You look perfectly darling in it.”

“I left it at home.”

Her mother snorted in disgust.

“Well, how was I supposed to know I’d need a suit up here? I’m not usually invited to the Lady Luncheons!”

“Well, the time has come for you to become a junior member.”

Mother dug her fingernails into the rind of an orange and the juice sprayed into her eyes. “Should we run to Field’s to look for something else?”

“No. You can wear something of mine.”

Her mother had never offered to share clothes with her before. Anne-Marie pulled the fibrous strings from the orange wedge. Usually her mother never missed a chance to railroad Anne-Marie into buying some fancy, conservative clothes. Hoping that the real reason for her mother’s offer wasn’t financial problems, she attributed it to the occasional goodwill she’d experienced since being accepted to Vassar. Anne-Marie had lived up to all the expectations: valedictorian (the first girl to earn the title at Lincoln Park High), Ivy League school, and, Grandmother was certain, vestal virgin. With these accomplishments, she’d been allowed to drink wine at dinner and coffee at breakfast, which she certainly needed that morning. After she’d shimmied back up the sheet and into her window the night before, she’d lain in bed for an hour, dreaming of Heathcliff between Catherine’s quiet snores. His voice resonated in her memory as she rinsed her plate and coffee cup in the sink, but her mother’s constant interruption made it impossible to fully relive the night. She wanted to be out in the garden alone with her thoughts.

“What should I do first, bring up the jars or cut the flowers?” Edith always determined the priority and timetable for Anne-Marie’s chores. Hoping the peonies would take precedence, she headed toward the back door.

“Flowers.”

Mother opened the back door, ready to rush into the fresh wet garden and let her imagination and memories have full play. She had started to close the door behind her when her mother called again.

“But be particular. Don’t bring me any of those half-wilted ones you feel sorry for. And Anne-Marie!”

Mother poked her head back in the door.

“Where’s your little English friend?”

“Sleeping. I think she’s sick.”

“I hope you two didn’t stay up all night talking. What’s wrong with her?”

“Cold, I think. Fever.”

“Gretta, bring her a tray when you’re finished with the pies. And after you’re done cutting the flowers, put a little cover-up under your eyes, Anne-Marie. You look tired.”

Blah, blah, blah,
Mother thought. She grabbed the pruning shears off a hook in the shed and walked back to the cutting garden. She was in a sleep-deprived fog, her mind able to manage just one delicious image: Heathcliff. His dark, masculine figure, his commanding grip on her arms, the scent of his spicy tobacco. She’d never felt this way about the respectable, country-club boys hand-picked by Edith and her “chums” to escort her to proms and dances. Heathcliff was nothing like those preppy, repressed boys. He was a man, with a whiff of danger about him. When she first met Catherine, Anne-Marie had been dying to raid the library and see if they had a copy of
Wuthering Heights
around. She’d read the book her junior year, so the details were a bit hazy. Now she dreaded reading anyone else’s version of Heathcliff; she wanted to relish her own. If anyone in the book said something negative about him, she wouldn’t be able to stand it. She had fallen hard, and so she thought nobody could understand him the way she did. They’d met only the night before, of course, but Mother was a romantic, a believer in instant, intuitive attraction. And having watched Heathcliff cry, she’d actually witnessed a crucial aspect of him that nobody in the book ever saw, certainly not Nelly, the narrator of the original tale.

Mother knelt in the wet grass and began cutting the peonies. The drenched blossoms dropped on the wet grass. For every dull, faded pink blossom, a vibrant one emerged. She stacked them in two piles, discards and keepers. The back of her neck itched, and she looked over the hedge at the trees in the distant woods, wondering where Heathcliff might be. It irritated her that she was stuck doing chores while he was out there, lurking and waiting. Where and how did he sleep? What was he eating? And what about Catherine? Was she still sleeping or was she up there tearing out her hair in a feverish frenzy? Anne-Marie dreaded talking to her. She wasn’t sure what to tell her about the meeting with Heathcliff. Anne-Marie was beginning to believe that Catherine should be contented with Edgar, who was clearly devoted to her. And wasn’t that what Emily Brontë had intended? It wasn’t simply that Mother had her own designs on Heathcliff. Her vague romantic notions went no further than hugging and kissing. She honestly believed she was helping by bringing Catherine peace, by not disrupting the narrative. So she found a way to rationalize having lied to Heathcliff about Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar and not him. It was inevitable, right? That’s how the story went. Still, she had no idea how to manage Catherine, whose cyclical lethargy and mania were sure to irritate Edith. She had to find a way to stabilize her. Mother didn’t want her to return to her story yet, as Heathcliff was sure to vanish too.

“Anne-Marie!” Gretta’s head popped up above the hedge. “What that crazy girl doing now? You have to stop her!”

Anne-Marie looked up to see Catherine, a cloud of blond hair around her head, lowering the sheet rope out the porch window. She hiked up her yellow dress and extended a pale leg over the window ledge. Anne-Marie dropped her pruning shears and leapt to her feet.

“I’ll go around the side. Meet me upstairs!” She walked swiftly across the lawn, arms swinging faster than her legs. After she cruised past the kitchen windows, she took off, heading straight for the wisteria trellis. She heard the kitchen door slam as Gretta reentered the house.

Underneath the porch, Anne-Marie looked up through the vines at the swaying sheet rope. Catherine sat on the window ledge, one leg dangling over, unsure of how to proceed. Mother cried in her loudest whisper, “Catherine, don’t come down this way.”

“Anne-Marie! You’ve been gone for hours! What word have you from Heathcliff?”

“I’ll tell you everything. Just go back inside! I’ll be right up.”

She ran like a demon and quietly slipped through the front door. She scampered up the steps on tiptoe, but with every step she fought to regain her composure, to be the young woman who’d met Heathcliff in the woods and not the regressing and resentful rivalrous girl. She loved to imagine that he was watching her every move.

When she got to her room, she found Gretta chasing Catherine back into the wingback chair by flicking at her arms and legs with a dishtowel. “What you thinking, sneaking out the window?”

Anne-Marie slammed the door behind her with one violent flick of her hand.

“Leave me be, old hag!” Catherine darted around Gretta and ran to grasp Anne-Marie’s wrists. She fell to her knees and looked up at Anne-Marie with a wretched expression. “Tell me! Before I go mad. Did you see Heathcliff last night?”

“You! You better not see that Gypsy man!” Gretta yelled.

“He’s not a Gypsy!” Catherine climbed to her feet, shaking a fist at Gretta.

“Please, Gretta. Leave Catherine and me alone.”

“Oh, now you Miss High and Mighty!”

“Do as you’re told, hag!” Catherine yelled.

Gretta threw her hands into the air. “I no can take it more! No more!” She stormed toward the door.

Mother felt a pang of guilt, and she shuddered as the door slammed behind Gretta’s broad back. Catherine spoke to Gretta more severely than even Edith did. But Mother saw that though the treatment was cruel, it was effective. They were finally alone. She looked around the room; the bedspread had slumped to the floor, the lampshade was tilted, and the English girl was looking at her with the eyes of a wildcat.

“Sit down,” Anne-Marie said. “I’ll tell you everything that happened.”

A
nother thunderstorm struck that night, and it was well past midnight when the rain finally let up and Catherine and Anne-Marie entered the woods. Mother led Catherine to the spot where she’d met Heathcliff the night before. “Heathcliff!” she called.

Nothing. The wind shook the trees and rained a mini-shower on their heads. Anne-Marie called for Heathcliff again. Nothing. She leaned on a split-rail fence and peered into the darkness between the tree trunks, stunned. Heathcliff had insisted so forcefully the previous night that he must see Catherine, and now where was he?

“Maybe he went deeper into the woods,” she said, “for shelter.” As they walked a muddy path between arching oaks, Anne-Marie’s guilt sharpened into a stomachache. Perhaps her revelation about Catherine’s decision had scared Heathcliff away. The wind rustled the trees, loosening twigs and raindrops. Anne-Marie looked back at Catherine, who was calling Heathcliff’s name, looking up into the sky as if he might descend on a thunderhead riding an apocalyptic horse. The desperate
O
of Catherine’s rounded mouth and her pale, sweaty face unnerved Anne-Marie. Fear crept over her. Maybe Heathcliff was lying in wait to hurt them. She tried to shake off the feeling. Heathcliff wasn’t a murderer—exactly. He was passionate, but these were
her
woods. She’d wandered them fearlessly a million times. But still. The sound of Catherine’s voice raised the hairs on Mother’s arms.

“Heathcliff!” Catherine called, her voice growing hoarse. She lifted her drooping arms toward the sky and called to the trees.

Mother feared that Catherine might lose her voice
and
her mind, might pull an Ophelia and hurl herself into the pond. “I guess he’s not here tonight,” she said. “Maybe he went to sleep. Because we were late.”

“Are you sure he said it was this night he wanted to see me?”

“Of course. I just don’t know why he’s—”

“What did you say to him? Why isn’t he here?”

“I didn’t say anything.” Mother turned her back on Catherine and started toward the prairie, hoping she’d follow.

“Rubbish!” Catherine grabbed Mother’s arm. “I can tell! You’re in love with him, are you not? You’ve schemed against me!”

“I would never do that! You’re sick! You need to get back in the house.”

“I’ll roam these woods till death takes me!” she screamed.

“I can’t let that happen!” Mother had a vision of the fresh hell of ambulances and cops and Edith’s fury flashing before her. “I swear. I’m sure he’ll be here tomorrow!”

“You think you know something about him! You know not how cruel he can be! This is his usual trickery. How dare you try to stop me?” She lunged at Anne-Marie with clawed hands. Her fury was strong, but her body was weak, and Anne-Marie quickly twisted her arms behind her back and grasped her neck in a half nelson. Catherine collapsed, dropping to her knees on the wet ground.

“Forgive me, Anne-Marie. I know you are good.”

“Please come back to the house,” Mother said. “You need to rest.”

“I am doomed,” Catherine said. “Why should I go on?”

Mother helped Catherine to her feet and let her lean against her. “You have to go on. I know there are happier days ahead for you,” she lied. She had no idea if Catherine would survive this. For now all she could do was get Catherine home and tucked into a warm bed.

The next day Edith stormed into Anne-Marie’s bedroom at seven, trailing a plastic bag containing a powder-blue suit. She opened the closet and hung up the suit, then ran over to snap the shades, which spun on their reels. Sunlight flooded the room and pierced Anne-Marie’s eyes.

“Rise and shine!” Edith yelled. “I need both of you to help me today! There are a thousand things to do before the luncheon!”

With her back to the girls, Edith pushed open the drapes and tied the satin sashes into fat neat bows. Mother looked at Catherine, who rolled over and draped an arm across her face. She suddenly rose to her elbows and pressed her fist to her mouth. Mother leapt from the bed. She grabbed the pitcher by the bathroom door and ran to Catherine’s bedside. Catherine heaved into the vessel and the pot turned warm in Mother’s hands.

“What’s this?” Edith said. “Sick first thing in the morning?”

“She’s had the flu all night,” Anne-Marie said.

“Flu in the summer?”

“It’s the worst kind, you always say.” Anne-Marie ran to the bathroom and poured the stinking vomit into the toilet, gagging at the chunks that splashed onto the toilet seat. She plugged her nose as she wiped the seat and flushed. When she returned to the bedroom, Catherine was lying back on her pillows.

“I was hoping she’d help finish polishing the silver.” Edith pressed her hand against Catherine’s forehead. “There are a thousand things to do!”

“I can do it. Besides, she’d get everyone else sick,” Anne-Marie said.

Catherine moaned and turned on her side, slipping out from under Edith’s hand. “I’ll die,” she said.

“She’s a little delirious,” Anne-Marie said.

“What a shame! An English girl would have added some color at the luncheon.” Edith waved her hand toward the door. “I’ll send Gretta up with some aspirin for her. Come have your breakfast, Anne-Marie. Bathe after your chores are finished. My blue suit will work fine. There are a thousand things to do!”

Edith spent the rest of the morning on a rampage of party preparations. She snapped nonstop orders at Gretta and Anne-Marie. Mother polished the silver, a task that required little finesse, while Gretta folded linen napkins into swans, filled water glasses, and decorated the sponge cake with candied orange slices and creamy flowers.

With only four hours of sleep, Anne-Marie stared blankly out the kitchen window, massaging a tarnished spoon with a soft cloth. She was worried. Where could Heathcliff be? How long would this go on? She didn’t know how she could possibly make it through the long day. The smell of the polish repelled her, and she looked down at the spoon in her hand. The scoop was brilliant, but the filigreed stem was black. Turning the spoon around, she rubbed the other end, silently repeating,
He’ll be there tonight, he’ll be there tonight.

The phone rang and Anne-Marie heard her mother storm across the dining room floor. At first she didn’t hear much, but then her mother’s voice rose.

“I knew we should have sold two years ago! You never listen to me, Henry!”

Anne-Marie hated when her mother yelled at her father; she’d rather get the brunt of the rage herself. Money had always been the last concern in the Entwhistle household. Using garden peonies as centerpieces shouldn’t feel like a big thing, but it did. Usually the florist’s truck arrived on Lady Luncheon morning with giant arrangements of roses and exotics. These concessions killed her mother, she knew, and she wondered what other sacrifices would be in order. There was a trust for her education, but she couldn’t imagine packing for Vassar while her family’s fortunes dwindled.

“Well, what about your own family? We’ll be the next ones on the street!”

Mother quickened her pace, rubbing the spoon so hard she felt the filigree beneath the cloth. As if an array of gleaming utensils could rescue her family. She lay the final spoon in its velvet compartment and lifted the mahogany box. As Anne-Marie walked toward the dining room balancing the box on her forearms, her mother’s voice chilled her to the bone.

“Useless! Absolutely useless is what you are!”

For a moment, Anne-Marie thought
she
was the useless one. She looked into the crystal chandelier with tear-filled eyes. The pendulum in the Seth Thomas grandfather clock ticked back and forth. She was so tired. Then she realized the insult was directed at her father, and a rage started to boil in her veins. Her fatigue, her frustration with Catherine, her longing for Heathcliff, and most of all her anger at her mother electrified her. She was sick of trying to be good and perfect when chaos was obviously swelling around her. She understood for the first time that the perfection that ruled her home had a name: tyranny. Yes, her mother had always been difficult, but now that her luxurious life was threatened, she’d become abusive. Anne-Marie dropped the box on the dining room table hard, and all the silver rattled.

Her mother turned abruptly and shot her a dirty look. “I have to go, Henry. We’ll finish this discussion later.” She set the phone in its cradle and turned toward Anne-Marie. “I don’t need this right now, Anne-Marie.”

“Why are you so mean to him?”

“Mean? Your father and I were having a discussion.”

“You talk to him like he’s stupid.”

“I should be running that business! Your father doesn’t have the sense to—”

“Stop saying bad things about him!”

“Lower your voice.”

“He’s my father!”

Edith clucked. She pulled a cigarette from a silver holder on the buffet and tapped it against her palm. “How sweet. Taking his side. You’re the one who should worry. Your trust’s in his name till you turn twenty-one.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m looking out for you. Do you think you’ll meet the right sort of man if you’re stuck at some state school?”

“I don’t care about that!”

“You think you don’t. But you’ll wise up. Reduced circumstances have derailed the dreams of many a girl. I won’t let that happen to you. Call me the bad guy, if you must.”

“Are you saying I might not be able to go to Vassar?”

“Leave that to me. Just go upstairs, Anne-Marie, and quit being melodramatic. Cool your head in the shower.”

“I hate you.”

“I suppose you do. But someday you’ll understand.” She pointed her cigarette at the swinging pendulum of the grandfather clock. “The ladies will be here in forty-two minutes.”

Edith turned and walked in the opposite direction, toward the parlor. “Get control of yourself.” Her chin was lifted as she walked away, her heels clicking on the hardwood, but Anne-Marie saw that the fingers pinching her cigarette were trembling.

When the doorbell rang and the first guest alighted on the doorstep, Edith was all smiles and graciousness. The ladies oohed and aahed over the table setting, the pies, the cucumber and egg-salad finger sandwiches, the punch bowl with foamy sherbet. Anne-Marie, dressed in her mother’s linen suit, felt like a fraud as she recited her college plans a dozen times. One gloved and lipsticked matron nodded with approval as Anne-Marie listed her fall class schedule. She had a sinking feeling that she wouldn’t attend a single class, especially if her parents were going broke. Another lady said that Vassar girls had their pick of the Ivy League boys. Anne-Marie replaced the image of argyle-vested boys with one of Heathcliff’s face. If she was going to be stuck here, nothing could keep her from him. Clean-cut boys didn’t interest her; anything that might please her mother didn’t interest her. She wouldn’t let money rule her decisions. As the women took their seats, Anne-Marie quickly chugged down another glass of the spiked punch.

She picked at her lunch, then found an easy escape by helping Gretta in the kitchen. She had a feeling Gretta had heard the fight with her mother, because as she handed her a scraped plate she said, “Your mother under lot of pressure these days.”

“I’m so sick of her!”

“That’s normal. All girls want to get away from their parents.”

“I think my dad’s going broke.”

“He smart man. He figure out way to make things right.”

“I hope so.” Mother scraped another plate of sandwich crusts and smeared mayonnaise into the garbage.

“What about Katerina? How long she planning to stay?”

“I’m sorry she’s so mean to you.”

“She not scare me.”

“I wish she’d just go back to wherever she came from. But I don’t even know what to do. I just want her to stay calm.”

“Maybe we give her little sleeping potion. Keep her in her room.”

“That would be great!” Mother was determined to look for Heathcliff by herself that night. She rushed over and wrapped her arms around Gretta’s waist. “Thank you!”

That night, Mother tried to keep Catherine calm until Gretta finally came into Mother’s bedroom with her sleeping potion—hot tea and whiskey. Catherine, still in her nightgown, looked at Gretta scornfully. She’d spent the day in and out of feverish dreams, moaning and perching on the edge of the wingback chair, then collapsing on the bed. Mother had never in her life seen such a pale complexion—bluish and porcelain, but her lips were dark blue-red.