The Passions of Emma (7 page)
It had been summer then, though. One of those rare sun-baked
days when it was so hot the leaves of the birches curled and crackled in the heat.
days when it was so hot the leaves of the birches curled and crackled in the heat.
She remembered she’d been barefoot and how marvelous that had felt—to be able to wriggle her toes on the smooth painted boards of the piazza. They were wearing their bathing costumes that day because they had just been swimming in the bay, and the yards of black wet flannel covered them from wishbone to ankle and clung to their sweating skin, making it itch. They had been so very young—well, she and Maddie had been. The Alcott brothers, at seventeen and fifteen, had already been edging up to being men.
Somehow the subject of weddings came up, and Stu had claimed he was going to marry a hootchy-kootchy girl. Maddie had laughed and laughed as if that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard, although she’d been only seven at the time and couldn’t have had the vaguest notion of what a hootchy-kootchy girl was.
Emma, not to be outdone, had said she was going to run away to live in Paris in a garret with a man who wore a beret and smoked cigarettes and practiced free love, although at ten she’d had only the vaguest notion of what
that
meant.
that
meant.
And that was when Geoffrey had said, “What a stupid little snot-nosed brat you are, Emma Tremayne. You are going to marry me.”
Emma had tried to punch him on the nose for calling her a snot-nosed brat. Only he’d ducked, and she’d hit the veranda post instead and cut her hand so badly on a carved wooden pineapple that she had needed three stitches.
And now here she was—engaged to marry Geoffrey Alcott. It had been inevitable, Emma thought, and she felt a strange, slow tearing down her chest, a rip of fear. It had been inevitable and now it was indissoluble. It was too late to change things, even if she wanted to.
But with her brother dead, and her sister as she was, Emma was the only one left to marry, to have children and carry on the family traditions and bloodline. If only Willie . . . But she had no right
to think of Willie, to think that if he had lived he might have set her free.
to think of Willie, to think that if he had lived he might have set her free.
Maddie had been quiet for some time now. Emma leaned over a little, enough to see where a tear had dried, leaving a salty trail on her sister’s cheek. She felt ashamed of herself for decrying all of her many blessings when here was poor Maddie mourning those things she would never have.
Suddenly Emma wished desperately that she could speak to her sister of Willie. Of the truth about how he had died and the hole he’d left behind in their lives.
We’ll never speak of it again.
Willie, Emma remembered, had also been with them that hot summer’s day, sitting so quietly as was his way on one of the old twig rockers. He had laughed at Maddie for laughing over the hootchy-kootchy girl, and he had been the one to wrap his handkerchief around Emma’s bleeding hand. But he hadn’t said much that day. Of them all, Willie had been best at guarding the secrets of his heart.
The wind lashed through the birches, and the gray sky spat rain. Behind her, Emma heard a boy’s gentle laughter and the creak of the old twig rocker.
Yet when she turned around it was empty.
T
he Carter sisters were the first to come calling that day.
he Carter sisters were the first to come calling that day.
They entered The Birches through its enormous scrolled wrought-iron gates in an ancient landau, pulled by a pair of matching chestnut horses decked with plumes of red, white, and blue.
They passed through the black and white marble foyer in a sweet cloud of dusting powder and violet sachet, wearing flounces and feathered bonnets that dated from before the war. The Carter sisters were the wealthy, unmarried daughters of a Providence beer baron, and time, for them, had stopped thirty years ago.
Miss Liluth, the younger sister, was what the Great Folk politely called a “little tetched,” although it was generally acknowledged that she had not been born that way. But the man she’d been engaged to marry had been killed at Antietam and she’d never gotten over his death. He’d left on the Tuesday afternoon train to Providence, and somehow Miss Liluth had gotten it into her head that the same train that had taken him away from her would bring him home. And so she had spent every Tuesday afternoon since the war’s end at the Franklin Street Depot, waiting for him.
“I declare, I must somehow have dreamed you ladies were coming today,” Bethel said, as she saw the sisters settled into a pair of brocaded armchairs, “for I had our chef bake your favorite lace cookies just this morning, Liluth. And for you, Annabelle dear, some of
those delicious custard cream cakes I know you so adore. And don’t you dare tell me you won’t have any. Why, you’ve gotten skinny as a spindle lately.”
those delicious custard cream cakes I know you so adore. And don’t you dare tell me you won’t have any. Why, you’ve gotten skinny as a spindle lately.”
Emma winced to herself at her mother’s sly cruelty, for the elder Miss Carter was what the Great Folk politely termed a “fleshy woman.” She was also wretchedly homely, with small, squinty, pumpkin-seed eyes and a faint birthmark like a water stain on her cheek.
What’s more, everyone knew she had fallen into a violent and unrequited love with William Tremayne when she was sixteen, and had stayed in love with him through his marriage to another woman and the birth of his three children.
“As for myself, I surely can’t allow a bite to pass my lips,” Bethel was saying, “for I confess that I have been on a fast that would wring tears from a Chinese peasant. But whenever I feel my resolve waver, I remind myself that one of the first things my William noticed about me was my slender figure.”
She waved a hand at the blue and white Canton china tea service that sat waiting on a silver cart. “Emma, dear, why don’t you pour this afternoon?”
The purpose of her pouring, Emma knew, was to show off her betrothal ring. For while a young lady should never brag about her good fortune, a little subtle flaunting was allowed.
The Carter sisters wouldn’t be able to miss the ring, for it flashed like blue fire even in the dull light of a gray day. The ring was a huge sapphire encircled by a dozen diamonds, and he had slipped it on her finger only yesterday. Afterward he had turned her hand over and kissed her palm and then the inside of her wrist, and then at last, at last, he had kissed her mouth.
She had been startled by how his mouth had felt on hers, so strange and sweet and urgent. And afterward, when he’d let her mouth go, her own lips had felt thick and hot. She’d touched them with her tongue and tasted him.
The ring was duly exclaimed over and admired by the two elderly
ladies. Emma smiled shyly at Miss Liluth as she handed her a cup of tea with no milk and two sugars. Liluth Carter had been an acknowledged beauty in her day and she was pretty still, with cornsilk hair, pale and fine, and violet eyes.
ladies. Emma smiled shyly at Miss Liluth as she handed her a cup of tea with no milk and two sugars. Liluth Carter had been an acknowledged beauty in her day and she was pretty still, with cornsilk hair, pale and fine, and violet eyes.
Emma wondered if Miss Liluth had been kissed by her young man before he had gone off to die in the war. Perhaps they had even made love the night before he left. Emma found the thought of committing such a delicious sin with the man you loved terribly exciting—like sailing before a squall. And dangerous as well, fraught as it was with discovery and scandal. She liked to imagine herself doing it, although she doubted in her heart she would ever find the courage. Certainly she couldn’t imagine Geoffrey ever suggesting it.
But in all these years that she had known Miss Liluth, Emma had never spoken with the woman about the man she had loved and so tragically lost. Powerful feelings drove Liluth Carter to that train station every Tuesday to wait for a man who would never return. Yet no one ever acknowledged those feelings aloud, and so they did not exist.
Emma knew she would never learn the secrets that lived inside Miss Liluth’s heart. She would spend the next hour in her company, just as they had spent hundreds of hours before this, and the conversation probably wouldn’t progress much beyond the weather.
A lady was required at all times to have an ample supply of small talk at her tongue’s end, most of it about the weather. Emma had often wondered, though, why they should all care so much about the elements when they so rarely went out in them. The ladies of Bristol fretted more over the weather than did the fishermen.
“The weather,” Miss Annabelle Carter said as if on cue, “has been most variable lately.”
“It never settles this time of year,” Bethel chimed in. She sounded sorely aggrieved, as if it behaved so just to vex her. “At least winter and summer are settled seasons. One knows what to expect.”
Emma caught her sister’s eye, and they shared a bemused smile. “I
find this unsettled weather most unsettling,” she said. “Don’t you, Maddie?”
find this unsettled weather most unsettling,” she said. “Don’t you, Maddie?”
Her sister’s face lightened with quiet laughter. “Indeed. But then I’ve discovered that with the weather in particular, one must keep one’s opinions flexible.”
“It was raining the day my Charles went off to the war,” Miss Liluth said. “I always feel so sad on rainy days. Perhaps tomorrow it will be fair.”
Bethel leaned over and patted the woman’s arm. “I’m sure it will be, my dear.”
Emma swallowed around an ache in her throat that felt strangely like tears. There sat Miss Liluth, waiting for a man dead nearly thirty years. And her sister, who came week after week, year after year, to the house of a love who had married another woman. And Emma’s own poor mama, abandoned by that same man, starving and strangling herself with whalebone, and behaving as if she would see him that very night across the supper table.
But it was against every rule in their world that they should even hint at what was truly in their thoughts and in their hearts. Emma wondered what would happen if for once someone spoke the unspeakable.
“A bobbin boy was killed in the mill last week,” Emma said.
Her words fell into the room like stones down a dry well, clattering and echoing into nothingness.
Then Miss Liluth sighed loudly and rattled her teacup in its saucer. “Oh, dear.”
Her sister sniffed so hard her nose quivered. “They say that Irish woman brought him to the last hunt of the season, of all places. It’s unsettling to think of.”
“Like the weather,” Emma said.
Miss Liluth plucked at the lace jabot around her throat. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”
This time her sister was the one to pat her arm. “Now, now, Liluth, don’t upset yourself. I was saying as much just this morning,
wasn’t I? That the middling and lower orders can no longer be depended upon to know their place.”
wasn’t I? That the middling and lower orders can no longer be depended upon to know their place.”
Bethel clucked her tongue, shaking her head. “Society is disintegrating before our very eyes.”
“‘Disintegrating.’ What a clever turn of phrase, Mama.” Emma could hear the rising hysteria in her voice, but she couldn’t seem to stop it. “The child had his scalp and one of his arms torn off. He bled to death.”
The face Bethel turned to her daughter was empty, but a frown darkened her deep blue eyes. “To be sure, dear. But one doesn’t speak of unpleasant things over tea.”
Bethel then turned a smiling face to their guests and said, “Now you all must surely have heard the latest news. Young Stuart Alcott has at last come slinking home, impoverished no doubt, and most certainly in disgrace.”
Maddie’s gaze jerked over to Emma and then away again, and two bright spots of color blossomed on her cheeks. Her hand shook so hard the cup rattled in its saucer, and tea slopped onto the lap rug that lay across her legs.
Bethel reached for the silver bell on the tea cart just as more callers arrived. A trio of Great Folk matrons, who exclaimed over the beautiful sapphire engagement ring on Emma’s finger and pretended not to notice Maddie’s white face and trembling hands. They spoke no more of dead bobbin boys and scapegrace young men, but of the weather and a wedding that was two whole years in the future.
Their callers all left promptly at five o’clock, as was the rule. A heavy silence settled over the drawing room, and Emma thought she could almost see her mother’s anger, like a stain on the air. She knew she would pay dearly now for discussing unpleasant things over tea.
But it was Maddie on whom their mother bent her fury.
“You are a disgrace, Madeleine Tremayne,” Bethel said, her drawl soft and yet somehow cutting deep. And though she was a small woman, she seemed to tower over the wheelchair, so that with each word Maddie shriveled deeper and deeper into the cane seat. “Here
our friends come to see our Emma, and you make a spectacle of yourself—worse than a dime-show freak, you are. Since you can’t seem to manage yourself in polite company, I can no longer allow you to be there.”
our friends come to see our Emma, and you make a spectacle of yourself—worse than a dime-show freak, you are. Since you can’t seem to manage yourself in polite company, I can no longer allow you to be there.”
“They are
my
betrothal calls, Mama,” Emma said, and although she tried, she couldn’t keep the shaking out of her voice. “I want Maddie with me.”
my
betrothal calls, Mama,” Emma said, and although she tried, she couldn’t keep the shaking out of her voice. “I want Maddie with me.”
“It won’t do, Emma. She makes herself conspicuous, sitting there in that . . . that obscene contraption, unable to partake properly of the refreshments,
spilling
her tea. Her very presence makes our guests uncomfortable. It will not do.”
spilling
her tea. Her very presence makes our guests uncomfortable. It will not do.”
“But, Mama—”
Her mother gripped Emma’s chin hard with her fingers, turning her head to the light of the window. “And you are not to go out on the veranda again on those afternoons when we’re at home. The wind flushes your cheeks most unbecomingly. I’ll not have people thinking I allow you to wear rouge like some Thames Street harpy.”
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