“Her father bought a house there ten years ago,” said Topsy, “but they wouldn’t admit him to the club, so his family couldn’t so much as dip a finger in the lake. If they ever heard them splashing around down there, someone would call the police.”
“Tell her about the wedding.”
“They had a wedding last summer, and all the kids in Tuxedo Park went and turned the signs around, so none of the guests could find their house. Completely ruined the ceremony.” She smiled. “The problem is when people think that just because they have money . . .”
Jeannie nodded. The horses were brought out. They were sorrels, smaller chested and longer legged than cow horses.
“I had them put my sister’s saddle on this one,” said Corkie. She handed the reins over. “You’re about her height.” The saddle was simple, without a pommel or high cantle, and when Jeannie climbed up, the stirrups felt short and awkward, as if they had been set for a child.
The horse was tall and long legged, near sixteen hands; it looked like a fast horse but it did not look nearly as fast as it really was. It was so much more powerful than a cow horse that it felt closer to an automobile. With a cow horse (quarter horse, these girls called it) there was a negotiation, there were times you let the animal have its way, but this horse was both fast and anxious to please; giving it its head just confused it, like letting go of the steering wheel of a car. It seemed—like everything else in these girls’ lives—to have been created just to serve them.
She found she barely needed the reins; the horse responded if she even tensed her legs; he was so responsive, in fact, that he was difficult to ride at first. She wondered if she was a sloppier rider than she thought. She was uncomfortable in the saddle and when they hit a gallop she had a hard time maintaining her seat. They were going fast down a groomed path and there were a series of hurdles ahead; Corkie went over the first one and Jeannie got a bad feeling but followed anyway. There was nothing to worry about. The horse cleared the gate without any input from her at all.
After an hour the rest of the girls were tired and decided to return to the stables. She put her heels in and brushed through a small gap between Topsy and Bootsie, hoping to spook them, then passed Corkie as well. The horse was enjoying itself, so she did a hot lap of the corral (arena, she corrected herself), which was nearly a half mile in circumference. It was a good horse; it did not want to stop and she was overcome with sadness, for the life it lived in this corral and these few miles of manicured trail, ridden by these girls who spent longer getting dressed than they did in the saddle. A pointless existence.
By the time she’d cooled the animal down and walked back to the stable, the other girls were waiting and their horses were already being curried by the groom and his children.
Bootsie was saying: “She does ride like a cowboy, doesn’t she?”
“Does it feel strange, not having a handle to hold?”
“You don’t touch the saddle horn,” said Jeannie. She knew she’d looked awkward at first, but she thought she’d recovered well. It was plain she was a better rider than any of them, perhaps even Corkie. It was equally plain that none of them would admit it. Or they would find some way to turn it into an insult. She had an impulse to get back on the horse, gallop into the woods, and begin her long journey back to Texas. Certainly no harder than anything the Colonel had done. Her father would pay for the horse.
“Then why is it there?” said Bootsie, still talking about the saddle horn.
“It’s for holding your tools. Tying your rope to and such.”
“Well, you looked uncomfortable. I’m sure you’ll get used to it.”
“I’m a better rider than all of you,” she said. She felt her face get hot; she had been pressed into saying something she wasn’t sure of. “Except Corkie,” she added.
“Still,” said Bootsie. “You looked strange.”
“That was nothing compared to what we do at home.”
“Because it’s bigger down there, I’m sure.”
“Because we’re roping big animals and trying not to get gored by their horns.”
“I believe she said we’d be gored,” said Topsy.
“She meant bored. To actual death.”
“I’m going inside,” said Corkie. She was standing against the stall door, looking tired. “Dinner will be ready soon.”
THAT NIGHT, SHE couldn’t sleep, and after a good deal of wandering down dark hallways, she found her way to the kitchen for a glass of milk. She had just gone into the icebox when she heard someone behind her.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” said a voice. It was one of the maids.
“I’m sorry.”
The woman’s face softened. “You just ask, sweetie. We’ll bring you whatever you need.”
After drinking her milk she decided to go outside. It was dark, but there was a light on at the stable and she made her way down the hill in the wet grass—wet, everything here was wet—she was not sure what she had in mind. To talk to her horse, sneak him out for a night ride, to ride away and never come back. As she approached the stable she saw the light was coming from an upper window, in what she had presumed was the hayloft. There was a person moving behind a thin curtain, the faint sound of music. She was close enough to smell the stalls. The person passed behind the curtain again and she realized it was the groom. He lived with his family above the horses. She watched as he sat down in an armchair and appeared to close his eyes, listening quietly to the radio. She could not believe it. Even the lowest hands, who did nothing but stretch fence all day, slept in the bunkhouse. They did not live with animals.
She felt very tired and turned to go back to the house, her legs cold and damp from the dew. It was only September, it was just the beginning. Things will get better, she told herself. She thought of the Colonel being held by the Indians; if he had survived that, she could survive this, but even that did not feel true, it was just words, it was a different time.
Back in the main house, she heard a noise and saw a light at the end of a corridor and made her way toward it. It was a library or study of some sort; a fire was going and there was a person sitting in a leather chair, smoking a pipe. She approached and when she got close enough the man looked up at her.
“Excuse me,” she said.
It was Corkie’s father. He looked almost like a boy in the dim light; he must have been very young when his children were born. He was very handsome. Much more so than his daughter. He took off his reading classes and she saw his eyes were wet, as if he was upset about something. He rubbed them and said, “You’re the gal from Texas, right?”
She nodded.
“How are you finding it here?”
“It’s green. The grass is nice.” It was all she could think of and then she was afraid to say anything else.
“Ah, the lawn,” he said. “Yes, thank you.” He added: “My great-grandfather spent some time in your state before it was admitted to the Union. In fact he was instrumental in that process. But then we had the Civil War, so back he came. I’ve always wanted to go and see it myself.”
“You should.”
“Yes, one of these days. It seems to be where everyone goes to make money now. I suppose I should see it.”
She was quiet.
“Well.” He nodded. “I ought to get back to work.” He put his spectacles on. “Good night.”
THE NEXT MORNING, after breakfast, Corkie whispered that she ought not talk to her father while he was working in the library.
“He’s finishing his novel,” she said. “He’s been writing it a long time and he can’t be disturbed.”
She nodded and apologized. She was trying to recall if she’d ever seen her own father crying. She hadn’t.
THE NEXT WEEKEND she took the train to see Jonas at Princeton. The ride was pleasant and she felt very grown-up, in a strange land traveling by herself. She did not think she could ever get used to how green everything was. And yet everywhere you stopped, there was
a faint odor of mold, of decay, as if no matter what you did, the trees would come back, the vines would grow over, your work would be covered up and you would rot into the moist earth, no different from anyone who had come before you. It had once been like Texas, but now it was just people, endless people; there was no room for anything new.
Jonas met her in the train station and she hugged him for a long time. She was wearing her pearls and a nice dress.
“How are you doing up there?”
“Oh, fine.”
He fingered the pearls, was on the verge of commenting, then decided against it.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said. “It’s better that you’re here than being stuck in McCullough or Carrizo. You’re not going to learn anything down there.”
“The people are cold.”
“They can be.”
“I sat on the train with two men and neither of them even said hello to me. It was like that for a whole hour.”
“It’s different here,” he said.
Later they spent time with Jonas’s friends: Chip, Nelson, and Bundy. It was only two in the afternoon, but they had all been drinking. Chip burst out laughing when he heard Jeannie’s accent. He was soft around the middle, not exactly fat, just soft everywhere, with a deep sunburn and a confidence out of proportion to his appearance.
“Goddamn, McCulloughs. You two are from Texas. For a while we didn’t believe you—this one hides it so well.” He pointed at Jonas. Then he cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, assessing Jeannie. “Bundy, this one doesn’t appear to have a drop of the tar baby, either. We must be sitting with the only pure-blood southerners who ever lived.”
She reddened and Bundy touched her shoulder. “Don’t worry about him. We’re all so inbred we don’t know how to act when someone new comes in.”
Chip was not through with her: “What are your opinions on this war, Mizz McCullough? Should we send in the Marines or wait?”
She must have had a blank look.
“The one Hitler started? Last week?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“My God, McCullough. What the hell are they teaching you at Greenfield, anyway?”
“The blessed M-R-S,” said Nelson.
“Dump that bunch of slags and go to Porter’s.” He waved his hand. “We’ll get it arranged. You are not going to learn a goddamn thing at Greenfield.”
It had gone on like that for hours. She knew nothing the older boys hadn’t heard before, nothing they hadn’t already considered. Finally she and Jonas went for a walk around campus.
“They’re just kidding around, Jeannie.”
“I hate them,” she said. “I hate everyone I’ve met here.”
She had thought they would spend the evening together but Jonas had work to do. Next time, he said, she could stay in his room and meet more of his friends. They were good people to know—it would be nothing to get her into Barnard when the time came. But for now he was exhausted and behind in his studies. Because you have been drinking all afternoon with your friends, she thought.
She considered mentioning that she had spent three hours on the train coming to see him, and would now have to spend three hours going back to Greenfield, but she was too angry to say anything. When she got to New York it was already dark and the train to Connecticut did not leave for some time. She walked around outside the station, looking in the pawnshop windows, getting bumped by all the people walking, men staring at her in ways that would have gotten them shot or at least held for questioning in Texas. The newspapers were all screaming about the war, the Germans had taken Poland. As miserable as she’d been at Greenfield, she’d only faintly registered the war’s existence, and, even now, it seemed more important that she make her train.
She did not get back to Greenfield until just before lights-out and as she’d forgotten to eat, she had to go to bed hungry. The next morning Corkie let her know they’d announced the fall dance. She would need to invite a date, preferably several. Even Corkie, who did not care about those things, had already drawn up a list of two dozen young men, intending to write invitations to all of them. Jeannie excused herself, then went to the library and spent the day there.
It would be a disaster. Not only did she have no one to invite—the only boys she’d met here were Jonas’s friends—but the previous weekend, when the girls had gotten into Corkie’s parents’ wine and danced afterward, she had not known any of the steps. Charleston, hat dance, waltz, box step. She had not known any of it. Corkie had tried to show her, but it was pointless, utterly pointless; it would take years, years to learn these things, it would be utter humiliation. Even riding with these girls—the one thing she had nearly mastered—had been somehow degrading.
Meanwhile, the rest of them were already talking about the dances they would attend later, the big ones around Christmas; at fourteen they were now old enough. She realized that her classmates had spent their entire lives preparing for this moment; while she had been off visiting Jonas, they had spent the day shopping for dresses with their mothers. And of course they all knew dozens of eligible boys, who would all have to come several hours from other schools.
That Saturday she packed a small overnight bag, telling Corkie she was going to visit Jonas again. She took the train into New York and went looking for a bank—she did not have enough money to make the trip she wanted to make—but it turned out that banks were closed on weekends. All of them? Yes. Finally she walked into one of the pawnshops near the train station. The man inside was in his fifties, looked as if he didn’t eat much or see the sunlight, and spoke in a heavy foreign accent. She had never seen a Jew like him. She handed over her grandmother’s pearls.
“Are they real?”
“Of course,” she said. He looked past her, to the street outside, to see if anyone was waiting for her. Then he put the pearls in his mouth as if he planned to eat them. Instead he rubbed each one against a front tooth. Afterward, he looked them over with a magnifier.
“Did a policeman send you in here?”
“No,” she said.
“I am interested in why you brought these here.”
“I saw the window.” She shrugged.
“They’re yours to sell.”
“Yes.”
He looked at her, but he didn’t say anything.
“What sort of hat is that?” she asked, trying to be polite.
He said something that sounded like hichpah. “I’m Jewish. Unfortunately a bad one, working on the Sabbath. Don’t worry, I won’t eat you. But I can’t buy your pearls, either.”
“I don’t have any money. I went to the banks but they’re closed and I have to get home to my family.”
“I’m sorry.”
They stood looking at each other and finally he told her: “I’ll go wake up my brother. But he is just going to tell you the same thing.”
Another man, much more nicely dressed, came in from the back. He looked over the pearls, and ran them over the edge of his teeth, then looked at them with another loupe, then under a very bright light, and then under what appeared to be a microscope.
“Obviously these are worth several thousand dollars . . .”
“They are worth twenty,” she said.
“They are worth eight,” he said. “On a good day, to the perfect buyer.”
“That would be fine.”
He smiled. “I can’t buy them from you. You’re too young. I’m sorry.”
She felt her eyes get wet. She wanted to take the pearls back and run out into the street, but instead she made herself stand there so they could see that she was crying.
“You’re too young,” he repeated.
“I don’t care. I’m not leaving.”
The two of them looked at each other and began to discuss things in a foreign language. Finally the better-dressed one said: “We can give you five hundred dollars. I’d like to offer more, but I can’t.”
Through her tears she said: “I will take a thousand.”
r /> THAT NIGHT SHE was on a train to Baltimore. Four days later, when her grandmother picked her up in San Antonio, she told her the pearls had been stolen.
IT WAS NOT a story she had told many people and even Hank had never grasped its significance. It had been the turning point of her life, in some sense its most important moment; she had seen the world and retreated, while Jonas, for all his other failings, had not. There were times she imagined how she might have turned out had she stayed in the North. Like Jonas, she knew, settled and comfortable, she would have been someone’s wife. And that was not who she had wanted to be.
And yet Jonas had four children who adored him, a dozen grandchildren. Her houses, all three of them, were empty. Pointless monuments. Her life’s work would pass to a grandson she barely knew—who would likely crumble under its weight. It is not fair, she thought. She wanted to weep.
She looked around her. She was certain now. There was a smell in the room, it was gas.
Chapter Eighteen
Diaries of Peter McCullough
NOVEMBER 1, 1915
Phineas came down from Austin. We are the darlings of the capital for killing nineteen of our neighbors and getting two family members shot in the process. Phineas talking about a run for lieutenant governor.
Glenn is home, but still sick. He and my brother talked for a long time. The boys have always liked Phineas; to them he is a younger version of the Colonel, the pinnacle of manly attainment. Of course I do not dare tell them what I suspect, though I am not sure he would extend me the same courtesy, were the situation reversed—he would probably take me out to a pasture and shoot me.
HOW TWO MEN from the same stock might be so different . . . my father likely reckons my mother snuck off for congress with some poet, scrivener, or other nearsighted sniveling half-man. I have always seen myself as two people: the one before my mother died, fearless as his brothers, and the one after, like an owl on some dark branch, watching the rest move about in the sunlight.