Everlasting (12 page)

“Let me tell ya, honey, nobody likes to get old, not the poor, not the rich, not the powerful; nothing helps when you’re getting old and facing the big blackout.”

Today, when Catherine came out of the kitchenette carrying the vase of ruby-red roses, Helen pointed at the gowns tossed around the room and said, “Take one. Find one you think you could use, and keep it. I’ve gotta make some room in my closets.”

“Oh,” Catherine said, “I don’t think”—she stopped to think of how to phrase it politely—“um, that I’ll ever have anyplace to go in a gown like those.”

“Nonsense!” Helen said. “Don’t be so pessimistic, doll. You never know what will happen in life. You’re not a bad-looking girl, and you’re young, why, some nice young wealthy kid might come walking into your flower shop and see you and
bam
! True love, just like that! It happens every day. Then he’ll want to take you dancing at El Morocco and you’ll be all set. Go on, choose one!”

It was clear that Catherine couldn’t leave without taking one of the flashy dresses unless she wanted to insult Helen. Privately Catherine thought Helen was a little bored with her life of clandestine luxury. Certainly she always welcomed the occasion to talk with Catherine, although she had never once spoken her friend’s name aloud. Catherine searched through the glamorous gowns, with Helen providing a running account of where she’d bought each one, how much it had cost, and where she’d worn it and how many times. Finally Catherine found a fairly conservative emerald satin she could actually imagine herself wearing, although it took a stretch of imagination to consider ever dancing again in her life.

“I’d like this one,” Catherine said. “If you’re sure—”

“Oh, doll, you’re doing me a favor, believe me. I’ve gotta get some new things, you know a man gets bored easily. Want some coffee?” She stuffed the shimmering gown into a Saks bag.

“No, really, I can’t, I’ve got more deliveries to make,” Catherine lied.

Back on the street, Catherine half wished she had stayed. She had no place else to go, no one to see. Helen would understand the furies that played beneath her skin, she thought. Helen would understand the grief that flashed high inside her whenever she thought of Kit Bemish.

Catherine could imagine Helen saying, “Aw, kid, the old, old story. I could have told you, never trust a man.”

It was after five now, but the August brightness made the day seem still young and full of promise. Catherine walked down Sixty-second and turned up Park Avenue in the direction of Leslie’s apartment, her shoulder bag on one arm and the rustling Saks bag with the gown on her other.

“Catherine!”

Catherine turned. Ann, fourteen beautiful years old, ran down the sidewalk to her sister, her blond ponytail bouncing from side to side. “I’ve been waiting outside your apartment for you and then I saw you coming down the street and I’ve been yelling your name for about two hours now, have you gone deaf?”

“I’m sorry, Annie,” Catherine said, hugging her. “What in the world are you doing in New York?”

“Oh, Cathy, I’m so miserable!” Ann’s enormous blue eyes filled with tears.

Catherine put her arm around her sister and pulled her against her as they walked. “Come on. Let’s go get an ice cream. That will stop any misery for a while.”

“Okay. I’m so glad to see you—I miss you so much! Mom and Dad are skunks. What’s in that bag?”

“A used dress a friend gave me,” Catherine said.

At an ice-cream parlor on Lexington they settled into a pink-and-white-striped booth and ordered hot-fudge sundaes.

“Now. Why aren’t you on the Vineyard?” Catherine asked.

“I came into New York with Dad. He’s got some appointments. I wanted to see you.” Ann paused until the waitress had gone away. “Cathy, I can’t stand it out there with Mom and Dad anymore. All they do is drink. And fight. They’re driving me crazy.”

“Well, get out of the house. Where are all your friends?”

“At camp. That’s another thing. Mother won’t send me to riding camp or tennis camp or anywhere this summer; she said they can’t
afford
it this year, if you can
believe
she said that. I can’t believe they expect me to just hang around the Vineyard the whole summer doing nothing.”

“What’s Shelly doing?”

“Drinking.” Ann spooned a giant glob of syrup into her mouth.

“What?”

“Drinking. I’m serious. He’s just like Mom and Dad, he goes out at night with his friends and comes home about dawn, puking all over the front porch and the bathroom floor. He sleeps all day. You really should come stay with us a few days, you wouldn’t believe it. It smells like biology lab.”

“Where’s Genene?”

“Oh, she’s still there. She’s as crazy as the rest of them. Every day she cooks up these meals, Catherine, roast beef and mashed potatoes for lunch, lobster for dinner, corn on the cob, and she sets the table like the queen’s coming, but no one ever eats the stuff. She’s got roast beef on the table at noon while everyone in the house is stumbling around in a robe clutching a glass of Alka-Seltzer or a cup of coffee. I don’t know why she does it, it’s like she’s been put on automatic and doesn’t want to admit she sees what’s going on.” Ann spooned some ice cream into her mouth. “But she’s so quiet, and she never talks to me, just ‘Yes, miss,’ ‘No, miss’—I really hate that crap, you know—”

“It’s not Genene’s fault. Mother makes her say it.”

“I know. Still. She’s a spook. Catherine, I can’t stay there anymore. I’ll go crazy.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I want to live with you.”

Catherine, who had been toying with her sundae, stopped and looked at her sister. “Annie, you can’t live with me. Mom and Dad wouldn’t let you. Besides, you’d hate New York in the summer. It gets so hot here, and it’s so boring. Where are Berry and Sandy? Aren’t they on the island this summer?”

“Yes.”

“Well, can’t you enjoy being with them? You can swim and play tennis and go sailing. You’ll have more fun there than you possibly could here. Mother and Dad will come out of it, they always do. It’ll get better.”

Ann put her spoon down next to the glass tulip sundae dish and bent her head. Tears shimmered in her eyes.

“I have an idea,” Catherine said. “Tomorrow and Monday are my days off. Let’s go out to Everly and visit Grandmother.”

“Whoopee.” Ann looked glum.

“Oh, Annie, don’t be that way. At least it will be cooler out there.”

* * *

T
he first Sunday in August, Catherine sat with her grandmother by the lily pond at Everly. Ann was lying on her stomach by the pond, pulling a stick through the water, watching the ripples and curls. It was a perfectly beautiful day. Birds flitted in and out of the fruit trees, iridescent dragonflies and damselflies skimmed the blue water of the pond. If Catherine closed her eyes slightly, the bank of purple-flowered rhododendrons and fuchsia azaleas, blue delphinium and pink geraniums, blurred into an Impressionist painting. The sun beat warmly onto her skin.

Kathryn was pouring tea. China cups, silver spoons, and the fat china pot were arranged on the white wicker table with plates of cake and cookies.

“Would you like some tea, Catherine?” her grandmother asked.

“Not now, thank you.”

“It might do you good. You’re looking peaked. So is Ann, for that matter.”

Catherine was quiet. Always before, when she had tried to confide in her grandmother, Kathryn had reacted with boredom and even impatience. Finally she said, “Ann is having a hard time with Mother and Father. They’re drinking.”

“Yes. I can sympathize. My brother drank. My husband drank. Poor Ann.”

Warmed by her grandmother’s sympathy, Catherine felt bold enough to say, “And I’ve had a bad summer, too. I fell in love with someone. I thought it was serious. But he, ah, well, dumped me.” She tried to keep her words and her voice from being too maudlin. Grandmother bored quickly of self-pity.

Kathryn didn’t respond. Catherine quickly looked at her grandmother. Kathryn was idly stirring her tea but looking off into the distance. Her marvelous blue eyes were untroubled, as if she were gazing at mountains. I’ve lost her, Catherine thought.

“I think I should take you two to Everly,” Kathryn said. “I haven’t been back there for a long time. You girls have never seen it. It might be just the thing to cheer you up.”

“Oh, Grandmother!” Catherine cried. “I’d love to go to Everly! I’d love to go to England! I know the Vandervelds will let me go if I don’t ask for pay! And Ann will love it!” She jumped from her chair and flew to hug her grandmother.

“Careful, Catherine,” Kathryn said, shoulders stiff. “You’ll spill my tea.”

* * *

A
t first, to their surprise, Catherine and Ann hated the British Everly.

It was so formal. Their first sight of the house was in a taxi from Heathrow through a curtain of rain that chilled the air and drained all color from the landscape. They were sleepy from the flight and dozed during the hour’s drive, to be awakened by Kathryn as they approached the estate.

“Girls,” she said. The quality of reverence in her voice was enough to jolt them awake.

There it stood, a stern stone-and-brick Georgian giant, rising up out of the fog. Its massive bland symmetry was in sharp contrast to the whimsical, rambling hodgepodge of Kathryn’s Victorian Everly. The taxi pulled to a stop on the circle drive, and the girls were hastened under umbrellas up the wide urn-bordered steps and into the main hall.

“Kathryn, my dear!”

“Madeline.”

Catherine and Ann watched as their grandmother warmly embraced Madeline Boxworthy, Everly’s new owner. Madeline was a beautiful woman, tall, with an erect, soldierly carriage, blazing blue eyes, and thick white hair swooped up off her forehead and face in a sort of Gibson-girl twist. She had that famous British skin, creamy and translucent as Haviland china. Her eyes, when she turned them on the Eliot girls, were coolly appraising.

“You must be Catherine. The florist. We’ll have so much to talk about. And you’re Ann. I know you must be tired, Kathryn, so I thought we’d wait until later to have your granddaughters meet my children. We will have to wait until this annoying rain stops to look at the garden.”

“We
are
tired, Madeline. I think we all will need a little rest before tea. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to show the girls a bit of the house before we go to our rooms.”

“Of course. Feel free to go anywhere downstairs. Upstairs, you know, are the guest bedrooms. We’re full this week. I was lucky to be able to fit you in. I’ll have your luggage taken to your rooms. When you’re ready to go up, you’ll find me in the kitchen.”

“Thank you,” Kathryn said. Putting a hand on each girl’s shoulder, she steered them into the library. “Aah,” she breathed, her voice filled with content. “It’s still here.” She led her granddaughters across the wide Turkish carpet and parquet floor to the one wall that wasn’t covered with bookshelves. An ornate wood-and-glass display case of war medals stood against the wall, but what their grandmother wanted them to see was the photograph hanging above it.

“I was born in this house in 1897,” Kathryn said. “I was christened Kathryn Patterson Paxton. Life was very different then. England was still England. My parents were alive, and young, and Clifford was at that first rather glamorous stage of alcoholism. Here we all are, just as I remember it.”

Catherine and Ann stood in dutiful silence, peering at their grandmother and great-grandparents. They knew this photograph was slightly famous, reproduced in history books and books on English country houses, because it served to show the strict formal class structure of English society at the turn of the century. It was taken in 1914, in front of the massive building, where Kathryn’s mother and father and their staff had organized on the front lawn to serve tea to the British troops stationed nearby. Twelve long tables were arranged in a long rectangle on the grass, covered with white damask tablecloths and silver, laden with pastries and crumpets and sliced hams and marmalades. The housemaids, gardeners, butlers, even the two gamekeepers, had been brought in to serve and also to be photographed for posterity. Kathryn’s parents stood in front of the table, stiff, stony-faced, dignified to petrification. Kathryn’s mother wore a long black dress and a hat with a shockingly frivolous plume. At a respectful distance behind them stood the ladies’ maid, steward, and head housekeeper.

Adolescent Kathryn and her older brother, Clifford, stood between their parents, formally dressed, wooden-faced.

“My brother Clifford eventually inherited Everly,” Kathryn told them. “Though by the time he reached majority it was obvious that he had no talent for anything except gambling, drinking, and partying in the fine old tradition of wealthy sons. Fortunately I met your grandfather, Andrew Eliot, three years after this picture was taken. I was twenty and he was twenty-five—a major in the American troops stationed at Everly. He was absolutely dashing. I married him and went to live with him in the United States. And thence came your father.”

“Why didn’t Clifford have any children?” Ann asked.

“Ah. He drank himself into impotency, childlessness, and despondency. He died of a liver disease in the early fifties. Not, unfortunately, before enduring the disgrace of having to sell Everly. It had been in the Paxton family for eight generations.” Kathryn sighed deeply. “A shame. A terrible shame.”

More to release her grandmother from painful memories than out of true curiosity, Catherine asked, “Was it the Boxworthys who bought Everly from your brother?”

“No. It was the Thorpes. A good family, but unfortunately they found it too expensive to keep as a private home. They sold it to the Boxworthys in the early sixties. Mr. Boxworthy had been a surgeon, much loved and overworked. He died much too young, in his fifties, leaving Madeline to shoulder the financial burden of Everly herself. That’s how Everly became a bed-and-breakfast, although I must say under Madeline’s care it has more the atmosphere of a private club.”

Kathryn’s voice weakened then, and she sagged. “I’m tired, girls. I think we should go and sleep off some of this jet lag.”