“Maybe,” she said, and looked at her plate. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“That’s fine, it’s better not to have. I was told when I went to college to find out who the great professors were and to take their courses no matter what the subject.”
“I read a book,” Nan said. “I was in the book.”
I made a little book for her, about her saving us from an angry moose. She enjoys these stories of her bravery.
“You are a heroine,” Virgil said, and met my gaze.
CHAPTER 29 Agnes, Leeward Cottage, July 1961
Dear Elspeth,
Summer is in full swing here. I know—not an original remark. I am settling down, settling in.
First of all—Polly is here! Life is a thousand times better being able to see her every day. Yes, we giggle, because we are both happy. Nan is back on her feet and mingling with the other children, always watched over by Robert Circumstance. It’s moving to see the care he takes of her, and how he explains to her that he’ll be back when he has to leave her out. One only has to watch the games to see that he is the one who works out higher systems of play. He also knows about the plants beyond their labels and teaches the children to respect them. His intelligence is palpable. He will go beyond this place, no matter what his mother wants, and I must open the door for him.
Oh, you’re curious about Virgil? No, I don’t mind you asking, not at all! We are together every day, talking about books, especially his, and talking about everything else you can imagine. He is endlessly solicitous toward me, sometimes to the point where I wonder how he sees me. I remind him I am still young by running and being silly. He’s very affectionate, always holding my hand and walking with his arm around me. He kisses me on the lips, but it isn’t a passionate kiss. It hurts to even write that down, but I have to. I have to tell you the truth, Elspeth. It puzzles me, though. He seems, if I may say so, interested. So what is he waiting for?
The other day Polly and I were sitting out on the lawn, and Virgil walked by in the distance. He looks so free now, and so in his element. His hair is longer but brushed. His shirt untucked but stylish rather than vagrant. I suppose my feelings are hard to hide.
“Look at you smile,” Polly said.
“What?” My defensive posture, developed courtesy of our mother’s contempt.
Polly knows this. “It’s me, Nessie.” She poked me with her elbow. “You think I haven’t seen every look on your face since you were a baby?”
I blushed. “Is it that obvious?”
“To me it is.”
I ran my hands over the meadow grass in search of a particular size and shape of blade. When I’d found it I wet it on my tongue, threaded it between my thumbs, and blew. Polly smiled knowingly.
“Has anything happened?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how to answer that. It feels like everything has happened, but what you mean—no.”
I saw how this must look and sound from the outside. But Polly, good old Polly, said, “Tell me about the everything.”
I tried, but it’s hard to describe the texture of feeling that passes between two people when they are alone and excited and looking into each other’s eyes for the deeper meaning of the words they are speaking.
“Give it time, Nessie. He is writing a book about a woman who died. He may need to be loyal to her to stay in the mood.”
Her words embarrassed me, because I hadn’t thought of anything as simply obvious. Once again Polly’s intelligence about everyday life put my brilliance to shame.
“Good point,” I managed. Elspeth, it’s a sin what a know-it-all I am.
“Be patient, Nessie. It’s not your way, we all know that. But do it now.”
“I suppose I don’t have a choice.”
There was a pause. “And be honest with yourself about the extent of his feelings for you.” She laid a hand on my arm. Was that meant to rub away the sting of her words?
“You talk like I’m a girl.”
“Isn’t that the case in this situation? I don’t want you to confuse admiration for attraction. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Thank you. Though I don’t know that getting hurt is the worst thing.” I gripped her hand and changed the subject. “And why are you smiling this morning?” She was. She usually did, but I detected something else, something I hoped for. I was leaving it to her to tell me, though.
“You see? We know each other very well.” She placed her right hand over her abdomen. “It’s three months now. She’s due at Christmas.”
“Oh, Polly, that’s so wonderful.”
She beamed. “It is. It really is. I haven’t told anyone, though. I want her to be mine alone until I can’t hide her any longer.”
“Dick?”
“I haven’t told Dick.”
“That’s not like you.”
“I’m forty-one, Nessie, same as you. I think this is a moment when we need to take the opportunity to be unlike who we were as girls and young women. So it is like me now.”
“I like that, Pol. And of course I’ll keep your secret.”
“That’s why I told you.”
What will my life be by Christmas?
CHAPTER 30 Agnes, Leeward Cottage, September 1961
Sister,
I was already upstairs in my room. The day was over. Nan was asleep down the hallway, Virgil had gone back to the Chalet, Karen was long gone. I was reading and daydreaming, feeling content and drowsy, so it startled me when Star barked. The sound rattled me and I swatted the air in his direction. He gave me his look that meant he wasn’t buying into my blame.
I had dropped my book onto my abdomen and I picked it back up. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark. An aside—I have gotten a laugh out of it. What a brilliant way to write about fascism. According to Spark’s standards I am in my prime. She doesn’t make much of a case for that being a good thing.
I began to read again but was distracted by Star’s low growl.
The walls creaked. Such is Leeward Cottage. I was not frightened or worried—I never am here. I probably should be in this old spooky house and no one for miles—but I’m not, in spite of Karen’s lurid descriptions of murders and peculiar deaths in Maine that she’s been reading about in the old histories in the library. Cabin fever. Skirmishes with Indians. What would it have been like to settle here but know nothing and get very little news?
Did I hear footsteps? Yes, no, yes, no, yes. I lay the book aside and sat up.
I have heard his footfalls for months now. Sometimes light, now very heavy, they always expressed the grace in his body—as if gravity were pulling him upward rather than down.
Should I stay where I was or get up? I had no time to make a decision. He knocked and came in before I had time to worry about how I looked. Oh, I don’t really worry, not around him—what can I do anyway? I am who I am. I wear what I wear. I had on a pair of Daddy’s flannel pajamas.
Virgil entered, wafting the mineral scent of a cool night. In his right hand he gripped a piece of paper, and as I leaned toward him he brandished it as if he might swing it like a cutlass and whack off my head. His anger was palpable.
“It’s a disaster!” he shouted.