Tidings of Great Boys Page 6

  “Wouldn’t want them making fools of themselves,” she agreed. “That’s nice of you.”

  I shrugged. “Just playing hostess. Have to think of everything.”

  She took my elbow and pulled me closer to the door. “Just remember tae think of your old friends once in awhile, too.”

  “Carrie, this isn’t a competition. I really want you all to meet each other. You’ll like them, I’m sure.”

  Which I wasn’t. I couldn’t imagine anyone more different from Lissa, for instance, than Carrie, with her black-ringed eyes, micromini leather skirt, and torn stockings. And I could only imagine what Gillian would say when she got an eyeful of Gordon’s piercings. But that was all surface stuff. Under it all, they were my friends. My history. They knew my secrets, and I knew theirs.

  Nothing was going to change that. Friends were friends, no matter what.

  Right?

  To: caragon@spenceracad.edu

  From: artistalicia@comcast.net

  Date: December 23, 2009

  Re: Feliz Navidad

  Carolina, I hope you are well and managing all right over there in Scotland.

  Me, I am not managing so well. I am sitting here in Santa Fe using Richard’s laptop and trying not to think of the wedding I was to have. Tonight would have been the rehearsal dinner, with tamales and toasts and great cupfuls of happiness.

  Would have been, you say? Yes. I have canceled my wedding. Richard says it is merely postponed until all my family can be here, as well as his, but he is only being kind.

  I hope you are satisfied that your punishment for my departure two years ago is now complete. I am now more unhappy than you could ever be. I will never, never forgive you.

  Mama

  chapter 7

  I WAS THE FIRST ONE up the next morning. It had been lights-out when I arrived home, so there had been no late-night chat that I’d been involved in, at least. I have no doubt the girls had had plenty to say about my ditching them.

  They would just have to understand. I felt torn between two sets of friends, with responsibilities toward both. Maybe that was why I’d gotten up before anyone else. My plan was to put together a nice breakfast for them all, to show them I really did care and I was glad they were all here.

  When I got downstairs, I found Dad sitting at the ancient table in the kitchen with a cup of tea in front of him. The big Aga range made the room cozy—a stark contrast to my room. I pulled down a stoneware mug and felt the teapot. Still hot.

  Two teaspoons of sugar, a dollop of milk, and hot tea. It just wasn’t the same in the States. I sipped slowly and waited.

  “Find everyone all right?” Dad asked.

  I nodded. “All just the same. Gordon had two more rings put in his eyebrow since I was home last.”

  “And I suppose the news about Bert and Ellie is all over three counties.”

  “It’s a bit sordid, really. Who cares?”

  “Their spouses might care quite a bit, I imagine.” I shrugged. Dad went on, “I had a nice chat with the girls over a bite. Lucky job Mrs. Gillie left a lot of meat pies behind the last time she was here.”

  “She always looks after us, Dad. Of course she made sure there’d be enough for everyone.”

  “I would have thought that would be your job.”

  Ah. Here it was. “I’m sorry. But the gang was getting together and I couldn’t very well miss my own welcome-home party.”

  “You might have invited the girls along.”

  “I did. Lissa, at least. But everyone was exhausted.”

  He just looked at me. I hate that look. Every time I’m cheeky to him or forget to do something he’s specifically asked me to, he gives me that look and I feel every bit as horrible as he thinks I am.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “They’ve come a long way to be with you. You might think about that next time.”

  “I know.”

  “It must be difficult, straddling two worlds like this.”

  Exactly what I’d just been thinking, but I wasn’t about to let him know that. “I’m a popular girl.”

  “I don’t think it’s about popularity. I see it as more a bridge between the past and the future. Are you planning to take your final two terms in America?”

  “St. Cecelia’s says not. Two exchange terms max. But don’t tell the girls that. They don’t know I’m not supposed to come back with them.”

  “Mummy and I can negotiate another term for you.”

  “You can?”

  “If your A-levels come in.”

  “What about uni?”

  “That would be up to you. I took a gap year and never regretted it.”

  “Shani’s boyfriend is doing that. Only he’s going off on some missionary thing to somewhere where there’s no running water.”

  He chuckled. “To each his own. I see you applied to a couple of American universities. St. Cecelia’s called me saying your transcripts had been requested and asked if I was aware of that.”

  “Thorough, aren’t they?” I buried my nose in my mug.

  “You could go to good old Edinburgh, you know. They have one of the best medical programs in the UK.”

  “Dad, we’ve talked about this before. I don’t know what I want to do yet, besides live a little and hang out here with you.”

  “Those sound like opposites to me.”

  “After living it up, a person needs this place to come home to.”

  “I don’t know for how much longer.”

  “What?”

  But at that moment the girls straggled in, more or less dressed. I peered at Lissa. “Are you wearing two jumpers—er, sweaters?”

  She looked down at herself. “Don’t they match?”

  “If it’s that cold in your room, turn up the fire,” Dad suggested. “I can’t have my guests freezing to death.”

  “She’s a fragile flower,” Gillian said. “In New York, we know how to bundle up.”

  “The Upper East Side isn’t that cold,” Shani said. “And you’re wearing long johns under that tunic sweater. I thought those went out with the Depression.”

  “Excuse me, I wear them skiing,” Gillian told her with dignity. “And they’re silk, so there.”

  “Any chance of a cup of coffee?” Lissa asked, her tone pathetic.

  “None,” Dad said. “But I can offer you a very strong English Breakfast tea.”

  “As long as it’s hot.”

  I got up and chucked some toast in the toaster, then sliced oranges and found some grapes. “Anyone for porridge?”

  Everyone groaned in a big chorus, except Carly, who said, “Yes, please.”

  “You are so weird,” Shani informed her.

  Then she looked at Carly more closely. So did I. Had she been crying? If so, I needed to find a moment alone with her to ask what was going on. Surely she couldn’t be missing Brett that much already.

  “She isn’t weird at all,” Dad said. “A girl after my own heart.” He got up, but I waved him into his seat again. “I’ll do it. I won’t eat the stuff, but I certainly haven’t forgotten how to make it.”

  So far no one appeared to be in any shape to make any comments about my behavior from last night. And after breakfast, during the tour of the house, they were so distracted by everything that I think they forgot.

  “There are bedrooms in this tower! I’d love to sleep in a round room.”

  “You wouldn’t survive the cold, girlfriend.”

  “Look. They used to shoot arrows out of these little windows. That’s why they call them ‘lancets.’”

  “Why do the stairs go counterclockwise?”

  “So you can hold your sword in your right hand and it has room to swing. Honestly, don’t you pay any attention in Medieval History?”

  “There are angels on the ceiling. Guess you wouldn’t get far if you tried to sneak a guy into your room. Guilt much?”

  “You’d know, Lissa.”

  “Wow. ‘Long Gallery’ doesn’t quite do this
justice. Five hundred people could dance in here. How many are we inviting for New Year’s Eve?”

  “Not that many. And we’ll be in the ballroom, not up here.”

  “There’s a ballroom?”

  “Are these portraits all your relatives?”

  “I don’t think I know that many people, much less be related to them all.”

  Outside, one or another kept stumbling because she’d turn and gawk up at the looming mass of the tower walls. Finally, I steered my little tour group round the Eithne tower (“Yes, they’re all named after the first earl’s daughters”) and into the relative warmth of the south side.

  A century ago the lady of the house had had a kitchen garden in the square formed by the south wing and the orchard wall, but in the sixties and seventies it wasn’t much more than a place to chuck old furniture and trash.

  Then my mother had come to the castle, and new life flowed in the wake of her money. The kitchen garden had been her special project, and while the box maze was now leggy and overgrown, and tall grass and weeds ran riot between clumps of briars and the stalks of delphinium, I could still see the bones of careful organization. I could also see a hill with what looked like rotting pumpkins in front of the henhouse.

  Dad sat in a plastic chair on a clear space in front of it. “Hullo, ladies. Finish the tour?” The half-dozen Buff Orpington hens surrounded him, their necks craned toward him with keen-eyed expectation until he scattered the handful of seed he carried. When they’d finished cleaning up the bigger bits, he whistled, a five-note stave.

  “Why is your dad whistling the theme from Close Encounters?” Lissa wanted to know.

  I half expected birds to come descending from the sky, but no. One moment the briar thicket that had been Mummy’s roses was bare of anything but thorns. I blinked, and the next moment the canes had sprouted brown balls of fluff. Twittering in happy disarray, a flock of sparrows, juncos, and titmice fluttered to the ground and began cleaning up behind the hens.

  “How did you do that?” Carly said on an awed breath. “My abuela has chickens, but she’s not a hen whisperer. Are you some kind of St. Francis?”

  Dad shook his head, and a junco hopped over his boot as though it were nothing more than a stone or a molehill.

  “Are they, like, trained?” Lissa asked. “They have people who do that for movie crews, you know.”

  “How do you get them to come to you?” Gillian asked.

  “Trust,” Dad said simply.

  Gillian stepped out of the doorway and the birds fluttered onto the branches above her head. She froze, and Dad whistled again. The brown brigade resumed its foraging as though nothing had happened, though one or two kept a close eye on Gillian, just in case she tried something fishy.

  “They watch me feeding the hens and holding them,” Dad explained quietly. “I suppose, with avian logic, they believe that if the hens don’t fear me, they shouldn’t either.”

  “Or it’s just that you have the food.” Talk about logic. Gillian never failed. “Someone who feeds them isn’t going to eat them.”

  “Perhaps. But it’s rather amazing, isn’t it? That something so small can give you its trust.”

  The girls nodded, and then something caught Lissa’s eye in the orchard, and they headed off down the garden to investigate. I followed more slowly.

  Dad sat in his chair in the sun, murmuring to the chooks and stroking their creamy gold feathers.

  He hadn’t looked at me once.

  TRUST.

  Well, if you can’t trust your friends with what upsets you, who can you trust? As the girls wandered between the apple trees, I caught up to Carly.

  “Hey. Is everything all right? You looked upset at breakfast.”

  She leaned on a trunk and reached up to tug on one last, wrinkly holdout apple from its branch. “Do you ever get guilt attacks, Mac?”

  I took a second to regroup. “Sure.” Daily. “Why? Is someone guilting you?”

  “My mom.”

  Oh. Not good. “I didn’t think you could be missing Brett so much, so soon. Do you want to talk about it?”

  She tried to smile, but tears glittered in her eyes. She used the heel of her hand to wipe them away. “She sent me a really nasty e-mail this morning. They postponed the wedding because of me, and she says she’s never going to forgive me.”

  “Ach, that’s terrible.” I pulled her close for a hug and felt her whole body heave as she tried not to cry. “Let it out, Carly. Just let it go.”

  As though distress were a signal, on the far side of the orchard Shani turned to look at us. She grabbed Gillian’s and Lissa’s arms and, as quick as the birds in the rose canes, surrounded Carly and me. Lissa fished a crumpled tissue out of her pocket, and Carly took it gratefully. I put them in the picture with a quick summary.

  “That’s so not fair,” Lissa said. “I can’t believe she’d lay that on you.”

  “That’s my mom,” Carly said on a sigh. “Why blame yourself when there are so many other people to blame?”

  “It’s not like her marriage depends on you,” Gillian agreed. “Why doesn’t she just go ahead with it?”

  “I don’t know. For some reason having my buy-in matters to her. All I want is for her to get on with her life so Papa can get on with his. I hate having to choose sides.”

  “This trip was supposed to take you out of the choice,” Shani put in. “If you’re here, you can’t be there. It doesn’t make sense that she’d cancel and then blame you for it.”

  “Since when did parents ever make any sense?” Gillian wanted to know.

  “Good point.” I had my own set of parents to prove that one. “But the thing is, you don’t have to take the blame. What she does is her own business.”

  “I’m a mean person to force her to cancel.”

  I couldn’t stand the misery in a face meant to dimple with happiness. “No, you’re not. You’re trying to be a neutral party.” I looked to the others for confirmation. “Right? She’s trying not to choose and it isn’t fair for her mom to make her.”

  “That’s right,” Lissa said. “She can throw gobs of guilt, but you don’t need to catch it. It does nobody any good and it just leaves you standing there with gunk all over you.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Shani said wryly. “I so want that image in my head all day.”

  Carly huffed something that might have been a laugh. “But what do I do?”

  “Don’t answer that e-mail,” I said. “It was probably just a bomb, anyway. Made to be dropped, not answered.”

  “We can pray,” Shani said softly, almost hesitantly, which is unusual for her. “Right here under this tree. Can’t we?”

  Gillian nodded. “You’re right. We can’t do anything about this situation. But God can do something about Carly’s feelings. And maybe her mom’s, too.”

  “That would be good,” Carly said. “I think that is what I really need, anyway.”

  So, right there in the orchard, standing in the frosty grass, they prayed for her, one after the other. I didn’t. For one thing, I had no idea what to say. And for another, there was such a big lump in my throat, I couldn’t have gotten a word past it.

  In the end, I did the only thing I could. I squeezed Carly’s hand. And when she squeezed back, I knew that at least she understood there were times when a person just didn’t have the words.

  WE MADE MINI PIZZAS for lunch and, when everyone was done, I found a piece of paper and a pen in Dad’s office and returned to the kitchen table. “All right, here’s what we need to do. Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve and Lissa’s parents will be coming in the morning. So just a small family party tomorrow night, with maybe a few of the neighbors in. Dr. Kelso, the Crombies, Dad’s friends from the village and any of the tenants who want to stop by for a wee dram.”

  “They still have to be fed,” Carly reminded me.

  “Hors d’oeuvres only. I e-mailed Mrs. Gillie a list, so we can make them when she brings the ingredients. Just simple things. Fo
r now, we need to go up to the storage rooms and get down all the decorating clobber. Some people—” I raised my voice so that Dad, who had come in and gone into the estate office down the kitchen corridor, would hear me “—forgot there’s such a thing as Christmas spirit.”

  “Bah, humbug,” came his voice, filled with good humor.

  Even I was puffing by the time we climbed the staircases to the fourth floor, where the Victorian nurseries had been turned into a game room and the governess’s and nurse’s rooms into storage rooms. “The attics are up above here,” I explained, “but there’s nothing up there but ancient gardening tools and boxes of moldy books. And mice. And maybe bats.”

  “What about clothes?” Carly asked. “They’re not up there with the mice, are they?”

  I nodded toward a closed door down at the end. “There are bags of things in there, if you like yellowing tennis dresses from the twenties and vile woolly swimming costumes. But we need to focus on—”

  Too late. Carly had already taken off at a run.

  Gillian grinned at me. “You know that’s why she’s really here. She’s convinced there’s some titled lady’s court gown buried in there that she can analyze for design.”

  “And maybe wear,” Lissa said.

  “And maybe take home,” Shani added.

  “There might be. I’ve never actually looked, except when I was little and we’d play dress-up when it was raining. If she finds something she likes, she’s welcome to it. I’d certainly never put the ratty things on.”

  I hoped she found what she was looking for. Or at least a place to be alone. If it were me, I’d want to process things like mothers and prayers and responsibilities and give myself some time to sort them out in my mind.

  I led the way into one of the storerooms, where the boxes were sensibly marked Wrapping Paper and Lights and Crèche. “Here we are. When Mum was here, she’d have the sitting room and the music room decorated with candles and cedar garlands. We’d put—”

  “Music room?” Gillian interrupted. “We didn’t see that on the tour, did we?”

  “No. Sorry. Of course you’d be interested in that.”