Half Moon Lake

by Kirsten Alexander

  Added to his complicated feelings was the fact he hadn’t seen the Davenports since they’d returned to Opelousas with the boy. Tom understood that Mary needed to focus on her children. She received no visitors. And John Henry must have thought it wise, for now, to distance himself from reporters as he’d done back in the early days after Sonny had gone missing. Tom tried to view all this analytically. But he’d consoled Mary at her lowest time, and had searched the South with John Henry. He was invested, he’d been pulled out of the pack to be a part of their story, he was their friend. Tom assured himself that John Henry had a plan, and would, at the right time, beckon him. Tom needed to be patient. And to push his doubts and wandering thoughts out of his mind.

  Clara touched his arm. ‘Ask me to dance, will you?’

  The next day at the Clarion office, Eddie took Tom aside.

  ‘I’ve got something for you.’ He gave Tom a photograph. ‘Know who that is?’

  Tom held the picture by its edges. ‘It’s me. Where’d you take it?’

  ‘It’s you all right, you on the Mobile train staring down at Mary Davenport. You want to know why I took it? So you could see what I see – you’re starry-eyed for her.’ Eddie slapped the photo with the back of one hand. ‘Didn’t even notice when I took a picture of you.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’ Tom held the photo out for Eddie to take back.

  ‘I don’t want it. I want you to take a good look at it before you leave the house in the morning, to remind yourself you’re supposed to be a newsman – an engaged one at that – not some love-struck kid.’

  ‘I’m no such thing.’

  Eddie held his arms up as if to surrender. ‘Camera doesn’t lie.’

  As Tom turned his back he heard Eddie sing, ‘I love, I love, I love my wife – but oh! You kid!’

  Who was he fooling? Tom thought. If even Eddie could spell out what Tom wasn’t willing to admit to himself, it was time to quit playing the chump. Mary Davenport was a married woman, a mother – and a news story.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Mr Gould opened the front door of his city house himself and greeted Mary with a huff. This had been one of the constant sounds of her childhood, accompanied then, as now, with a wry smile and slow shake of the head. Mr Gould’s smile wasn’t one of amusement but a sneer of superiority, smugness and melancholy. People failed him in predictable ways; Mary hadn’t meant to be late, but she was.

  Mary had nudged the three boys out of the car in front of her, telling them to walk sensibly up the stairs to greet their grandfather. She hoped the children, as peppy and eager as released animals after the long drive, would encourage her father into a better mood. But he was still stern-faced by the time Mary had gathered her skirt about her, spoken to the driver, pointed to this and that bag to explain something to Nanny Pru or Sula, and made her way up to the door.

  ‘Cook isn’t happy,’ he said.

  Mary followed her father into the cool, spare entryway. ‘Mrs Croft, how nice to see you again. Oh yes, we’re very pleased to have him back home, thank you.’ Mary removed her coat. ‘Follow Mrs Croft and Nanny upstairs, you three.’ Her father huffed once more at what she knew he would consider excessive prattling. She could see this wasn’t the time to reacquaint the boys with their grandfather. ‘Sula, lay out my tea and evening dresses, please. I’ll be in for the night.’

  ‘And on time for dinner.’ Her father was not ready to let her lateness go. ‘Lunch is cold now, but you’ll have to make do.’

  ‘I’m sure that will be fine for us. I’m truly sorry, Father, to have kept you from your lunch.’

  ‘You didn’t. Lunch is at one o’clock, and that is when I ate. Now come into the living room so I can sit down. Mrs Croft will let us know when this second lunch can be served.’

  Mary followed her father into his living room, noting the freshly oiled potted palms in brass pots, the dark wood, Persian rugs, the scent of tobacco, the absence of female frippery. This stiff beginning, even with the added issue of her tardiness, was altogether normal. Mary and her father had never been effusive or warm with one another. She’d long felt as though she was a pet or purchase her father was forever deciding whether to keep. It was an impossible goal to gain his approval. The parts of her that pleased him were the parts that mirrored him; he liked to hear his opinions, his choices, his tastes recited back, with feminine delicacy and humility. She’d tried, of course, for years, and had occasional success, but to be all things to all people (because it wasn’t only her father she had to strive to please) – no, to reflect each individual person’s favourite aspects of themselves, in a demure and natural way, and with authenticity … impossible. She failed, over and over.

  But whenever Mary felt her anxiety rise in her father’s presence she reminded herself that she had given him grandsons, and about that, at least, he must be pleased.

  At the dining table that evening, Mary knew three nights at her father’s house would be too many. Servants ferried soup, duck, roast lamb and peas, and removed plates and filled glasses, but their activities granted only brief respite from the stilted conversation between father and daughter. She wished he’d made an exception and let the children eat with them.

  Throughout the meal, Mary racked her brains for something to say. It was difficult to force down food into a seized stomach and keep the conversation flowing. She glanced at the black hairs on her father’s fingers, his hand firm on his knife, and wished she’d listened properly to John Henry’s updates about the European War.

  ‘You must be as glad as we are that Sonny is returned?’ Mary asked. She sipped the syrupy German wine her father liked. ‘It’s a great relief to have him home.’

  ‘Yes, and I hope you’ll take care not to lose him again. George is, of course, the chief beneficiary to everything I have, but three grandsons is a firmer guarantee of continuing our line than two.’

  Mary felt blood heat her cheeks. ‘I don’t consider Paul and Sonny as spares in the event that –’

  ‘There’s no need to take that tone. I’m fond of all my grandsons. Which is why I have no wish to lose any one of them because of a daydreaming daughter.’

  ‘You know exactly what happened at Half Moon Lake, Father. And with every fact at your disposal, you still hold me responsible?’

  ‘Who, then?’ Mr Gould asked, with a fiery glare. ‘If not the child’s mother?’

  ‘John gave the boys his permission to explore the –’

  ‘You’re not going to blame your husband.’

  ‘Of course not. I was saying that when John told them –’

  Mr Gould held up his hand to silence his daughter.

  ‘The children had never gone so far alone and –’

  ‘Enough, Mary.’

  ‘It’s true I gave the nanny the day off. But the rest –’

  ‘Enough.’ Mr Gould pushed his chair back from the dining table and stood up. ‘There’s nothing to be gained from going over this again. You’ve had a great deal of time to reassess your choices. I’m confident my grandsons will be more carefully watched from now on.’

  Mary stared at the silver candlestick in front of her. Oh, to be home.

  After dinner, Mary complained of a headache and went up to her room. She wished they were at Arlington Grove. There, the boys would have space to run, more servants to tend to them, horses and a swing. She sat on the edge of the bed with her eyes closed and recalled her childhood home.

  The plantation hadn’t only revolved around her mother’s confinements and frenzies. Mary’s days had been full of her own concerns: French, grammar, script, elocution, Bible studies, needlepoint, etiquette and drawing – and mathematics, at her father’s insistence. Her piano teacher came three days a week, and on the days he wasn’t standing behind her making various sounds of disapproval she’d practised for one hour while her governess sat in a chair in the corner listening. In spite of the adults’ attempts at making music a chore, she’d loved to play, loved the pleasing sounds she c
ould invite from the instrument, the smooth sinking of a key under her fingerpad, the feeling of the music travelling up through her body.

  She’d filled her discretionary time by exploring the house, swinging on the porch seat to make music of the squeaking chain and her leather boots tapping and dragging on the wooden boards, or watching the gardeners in the vegetable patch. She didn’t go into the cane fields, the long lines of swishing green that filled a large swathe of her family’s land. Her father forbade her, so she contented herself with sitting on the clipped grass at the top of the slope, watching the Negroes work. She liked it when they sang, as much as she recognised it as singing. It was more a conversation in harmonics, with words repeated and overlapping. The Negroes sang about water and running and sundown and being free.

  Mary had sketched the fields, the apple tree that scratched her upstairs bedroom window, and arrangements of fruit that Cook let her make when she sat at the kitchen table early in the mornings. Once, Cook let her touch a plucked chicken. Mary made it sit up, nude and pimply, then Cook moved its scrawny arms so it danced to the tune she sang in French. Afterwards, Cook kneaded dough for the week’s bread, rolled out pastry for sweet-potato pie, and Mary drew, the two of them falling into giggles whenever their eyes met.

  Cook had died years ago and been replaced by another. Mary had no idea who was downstairs in the kitchen now.

  When her father had written that he was staying at his city house, Mary had wanted to retract her proposal, to suggest they’d visit him another time. But he’d written that he wanted to see the boys, and as soon as possible, so here they were. What a mistake. He’d gone a whole afternoon and evening without asking to see them.

  Her bedroom was pleasant enough, though minimal. Solid, expensive furniture. A bed with thick turned legs, two red velvet armchairs, a rosewood dressing table on which Sula had laid out Mary’s hairbrush, clips, ribbons and toiletries. A painting of a bloody fox hunt. No flowers. It had been a masculine house even when her mother had been alive.

  She had few memories of her mother being here; Arlington Grove suited her better. Mary had come alone with her father to this house. How odd that she’d forgotten that.

  ‘Nothing lives forever,’ her father had said on the night Mary’s mother died. Not that she’d expected him to comfort her. Lately, Mary had thought that her mother might have played a part in her own death. Not physically, but by deciding life was simply too much, that Heaven had to be easier.

  In her own home, Mary had had Esmeralda put out vases of yellow chrysanthemums, a nod to the coming Halloween. The boys had, under Cook’s supervision, cut jack-o’-lanterns for the front porch. John Henry had banned them, however, from walking the streets like poor children; Paul, of course, still lobbied daily to change this. Mary had decided she didn’t have the energy to attend the Starry Lake costume party – a Black Cat theme this year – though this had made John Henry cross. She imagined what he might be doing right now. Reading, probably. Or dining with the judge.

  Large wide-paned windows provided a view to the street. Mary parted the drapes so she could see outside. The glass was fogged so she knelt on the floor, on the thick carpet, and pushed the window up so she could be in the night without obstruction.

  With her left hand resting on the sill, Mary used her right forefinger to draw a line along the tops of the buildings across the street, up and down, across. She imagined peeling back the traced skyline and pulling it inside, like a flattened train attached to a gossamer thread, where it could sit upright on the floor in front of her, a diorama. She’d watch the people pass by their windows, close drapes, lift their cats indoors, the lights pulsing, blood beating. With the streetscape safely sized, she’d be able to make sense of it all. And offer the sky uninterrupted space to breathe and glow.

  The halos of the street lamps below blurred in mist, yellow light shone out from other homes, and the occasional car whooshed by, swinging its headlights around the bend. Even with this much earthly illumination, when Mary looked upwards, she saw stars, so many more than she’d expected to see. Millions of stars in a boundless slate-grey sky. Millions. She sat up straighter. Rather than twinkling, they seemed to be moving. What if they were coming closer, were malevolent pinpricks that would become angry fireballs? She felt overwhelmed by the vast sky. She imagined the stars speeding down to Earth, like splinters of glass, plummeting, skewering.

  Mary yanked her head in, shut the window and let the drapes swing back into place. She turned to face the room, the enormous bed with its tucked-tight bedspread, the empty Grecian vase on the marble mantle. Then rushed out into the hall, to her boys.

  Early the next morning, Nanny Pru came to Mary’s bedroom to say that Mr Gould had asked for the boys to come to his library, so she’d dressed them and taken them there. He’d dismissed her, and Pru was uncertain if the boys should be alone with the master. Sonny’s silence might annoy him, and Paul could be so mouthy. Would Mrs Davenport like to join them? Pru asked.

  Mary considered. ‘It might do my father good to spend time alone with his grandsons. Yes.’ He had no idea how much she’d suffered. What was one awkward moment for him?

  She rang the bell for Sula. She would dress and go downstairs, take a stroll along the street, to the park. If Paul forgot to say ‘sir’ and Sonny ignored instruction, so be it.

  That had been her plan. But as Mary neared the front door, her father called her back. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but that boy doesn’t hold one drop of Gould blood. He’ll never see a penny of mine.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The war in Europe grew more terrible by the day. In September, on the Western Front, Britain used poisonous chlorine gas for the first time, in a scrappy and ill-considered offensive against the Germans. In October, Bulgaria declared war on Serbia, and France, Britain, Russia and Italy declared war on Bulgaria. In November, 67,000 Allied soldiers died in a third Austro–Hungarian attack against Italy in the Isonzo.

  America, while refusing to send troops to any of these far-flung places, helped entrepreneurially. American bankers, brought together by J.P. Morgan, loaned $500 million to the Allied governments. ‘Pacifist, my foot,’ Mr Collins said to Tom. ‘Wall Street will make a mint out of this dogfight.’

  Tom was interested, of course. The war’s latest bloody battle was front-page news in every paper, every day, with the main question being how long President Wilson could hold to neutrality. Almost every country except America was involved now, and the public was increasingly swayed by politicians who urged military support.

  But after leaving the Clarion office, Tom’s thoughts turned to more local alliances. He’d decided to stop wasting time thinking about the Davenports, blocking unsavoury thoughts about Mary and fighting against the idea that John Henry would contact him. Instead, Tom made plans for his own life.

  At dusk, he walked down Main Street with Clara to the Opelousas Picture Theater, where, as they did most Fridays, the pair sat in the third row from the front, to watch the latest releases. Tonight, though, they were in for a rerun of a Pearl White picture.

  ‘Pauline’s Unending Perils,’ Tom mumbled. ‘How many times do we have to sit through these?’

  ‘Shush. It’s starting.’

  ‘You’ve got to admit, she’s survived years of perils. She should consider staying at home.’

  ‘She’s an adventurer. Adventurers don’t stay home.’ Clara turned to Tom in the dim light. ‘Some of them even travel.’

  Tom slumped in his seat. ‘Yeah, yeah.’ The one good thing the war had done was to temporarily put Paris on the shelf. But Clara had found other places to long for: Cairo by steamboat; New York by train.

  Tom didn’t mind watching movies with Clara. But the ones she loved so much told the same story every time and starred the same people. And occasionally, he read something in the papers to make him think movie stars were as bad a fascination for Clara to have as Paris; her favourite actors were prone to die of alcohol poison
ing, too much cocaine or heroin – not the medicinal kind – or syphilis. They weren’t good role models. The movies made her happy, though. Tom watched Clara as the images cast a flicker then a glow over her face.

  On screen, Pauline smacked her hands to her cheeks as she realised her hot air balloon had come loose from its anchor and she was floating high above the ground, alone. Who’d seen that coming, Tom thought. He knew he could give Clara a real surprise, right then and there. He leaned over and whispered in her ear, ‘How about April? I hear spring weddings are the rage.’

  Less than a week later, John Henry invited Tom to visit him at home, ‘in the evening, when Mary and the boys will be asleep’. Tom hadn’t been sure what to make of the invitation. He wasn’t being offered inclusion at a family gathering, a meal, or the chance to speak with the woman with whom he’d spent so many hours alone. John Henry wasn’t granting access to the boy or an opportunity to talk to George and Paul. He was initiating a very belated man-to-man conversation, without Tom knowing what had prompted it.

  As he strode the wet sidewalk in the dark, rugged up against the wind, he considered the relatively few possibilities: John Henry wanted to discuss what had happened at the Birds’ house; he was interested in Tom’s take on Gideon Wolf; or he wished to discuss one of Tom’s recent articles about the case.

  He was surprised when Esmeralda, not Mason, answered the door.

  ‘Mrs Somerset, I’ve missed you.’

  She peered behind him.

  ‘Walter’s at home, I’m afraid.’ Tom cupped his hands together and blew warm air into them to remind her he was out in the cold.

  ‘You know I missed him more than you. Y’all know that.’