* * *
Alone in the kitchen the following morning, Maren felt a jolt of nerves when she heard soft footsteps on the staircase. While Oliver’s mother was obviously not the alarming aristocrat of her imaginings, she wondered if this might be worse. How would she react to Maren having witnessed her in such a horrible condition? Would it make her angry somehow?
Mrs. Demarest entered the room with an expression so vague and innocuous, Maren’s fears dissipated. Maren detected a hint of unsteadiness, and the ankles and wrists that peeked out from her pink shirtwaist dress looked like they could snap like twigs. Still, she moved with a certain grace, like a young ballerina.
And she seemed perfectly delighted to meet her daughter-in-law.
“Hello, dear Maren!” she said in a thin, silvery tone. She embraced Maren feebly then held her at arms’ length, which was not very far away. “I know we have spoken on the phone, but to see you in person! Oliver said you were pretty, and so you are. Welcome to Haven Point. I am so glad to finally meet you. Will your parents come to Maine someday? I wish you will please call me Pauline.…”
She went on in this way. Though her individual utterances would be cogent standing alone, they were thrown together in such a disjointed fashion, Maren felt like she had conversational whiplash. She did her best to answer politely where she could.
“I am so sorry I wasn’t able to see you last night,” Pauline finally said, her face the picture of innocence. “You must have come in late!”
Maren was dumbfounded. How did Pauline think she had gotten to bed?
“Well, it is a pleasure to finally meet you,” Maren managed, just as Oliver entered.
“Hello, Mother,” he said as he bent to kiss her formally on the cheek. True to his word, he pretended nothing had happened. His mother, who seemed beyond the ability to pick up small cues, did not seem to notice the distance in his manner.
“Hello, dear. Look at you. You’re so thin! Are they working you to the bone? I’ve been having a nice chat with your beautiful wife.” She turned and smiled at Maren.
At least she’s nice. Pauline was miles from the formidable character of Caroline Sturgeon’s description, the one who supposedly had such high marital aspirations for her son. She was sweet, if a little fuzzy around the edges, and seemed inclined to like anyone Oliver brought around.
Oliver bolted down toast and coffee while they talked, then took Maren’s hand and led her to the kitchen door.
“Mother, I’m going to show Maren around the point,” Oliver said. “We’ll be back later.”
“All right, dear,” Pauline responded, busying herself straightening items on the counter.
Oliver led Maren outside. She disliked leaving so soon after meeting her mother-in-law, no matter how bad off she’d been the previous afternoon, but she knew better than to protest. Fortunately, Pauline had not seemed offended.
They took a dirt path that ran along the cliff. Short stretches of fence had been erected in front of spots where the cliff was steepest, though they hardly looked strong enough to prevent calamity. Scraggy bayberry and sea rose bushes grew in abundance, their ambition to obtrude onto the path, Oliver explained, blunted by the dogged efforts of the Ladies Auxiliary.
The view from the very edge of the cliff was even more magnificent than the one on the lawn where they had stood the previous day. Maren marveled that this spectacular prospect was for the pleasure of fewer than a hundred families. It seemed such an extraordinary privilege, yet they didn’t pass a soul as they walked.
“Where is everyone?”
“Most of the men aren’t up for the weekend yet. I expect many of the women are squeezing in their tennis games today. The tournament tomorrow will keep the courts busy.”
“But when they are here, do people often walk this path?”
“Honestly, they don’t,” Oliver answered. He had the decency to look sheepish. “I suppose we get inured to the view.”
I will not let that happen to me, Maren promised herself.
They followed the path to the beach, signed in at a desk at the beach club entrance, then walked past rows of faded yellow cabanas to the wooden staircase that led down to the sand. They slipped off their shoes at the top, placing them among the dozens of other pairs scattered around, and descended the stairs.
After so much time in the antiseptic environment of the hospital, the fresh air was a rare pleasure. They had meant to walk the length of Haven Point Beach, but when Oliver was swarmed by friends, Maren realized they would have to abandon that plan.
Oliver fetched chairs from the Demarest cabana, and they spent the next hour and a half in conversation with an unending line of people. She understood their interest in Oliver and eagerness to welcome him home. Maren had not expected a red carpet. However, as the afternoon wore on, she could not help noticing that Oliver’s friends treated her civilly, but without warmth. Several looked her up and down conspicuously.
The few questions directed to her were repetitions of what people already knew. “You work as a nurse at Walter Reed?” “You were married in December?” “You’re from Minnesota?” This last statement-masked-as-question was usually accompanied by raised eyebrows, as if her home state was an outlandish place, difficult to locate on a map.
The question she heard most often was “What do you think of Haven Point?” Maren thought they might as well have asked, “What do you think of us?” Beyond this, there was a complete lack of curiosity.
Maren tended to like everyone, and with the odd exception of a Caroline Sturgeon or two, the feeling was usually mutual. But she sensed she had found herself among people who were not inclined to like her, or to even try. She suspected there wasn’t a woman outside of Haven Point whom this little world would think fine enough for its favorite son.
Oliver had spent all his boyhood summers here. As they trudged back up the hill, she wondered if he assumed his children would, too.
“I hope that wasn’t too boring for you,” Oliver said.
“Not at all,” Maren replied, forcing a smile. “I gather I’ve married the prince of Haven Point.”
“Oh no.” Oliver sounded as if he truly believed this wasn’t true. “I just haven’t seen them in ages. Some were at Daniel’s memorial, but I was there such a short time.”
Oliver had indeed raced back to Washington after the service. He used work as the excuse, but the instant he returned, he had found Maren at Delano Hall. Maren recalled how he took her face in his hands and looked at her hungrily, as if he’d been gone a year.
When they returned to Fourwinds, they went out to the porch, where Pauline had settled in with some needlework. The house protected them from a stiff west wind. Except for the occasional gust attempting a skirmish from the east, the air was still.
Maren’s disquiet at the reception she’d been given by Oliver’s friends began to ease. The sound of the ocean crashing against the rocks pacified her. Oliver sat beside her on a wicker love seat, reading a medical journal, while she chatted with Pauline, whose vague responses suited her own lethargy.
Pauline had said Oliver was the Audubon of the family, so she interrupted him occasionally to inquire about birds that swooped and perched before them.
“What’s that one, stretched out on the rocks, Oliver?”
He looked up briefly.
“A cormorant,” he said, his eyes already back on his reading material. It was evidently commonplace. “Double crested. That’s how they dry their wings.”
A while later, a delicate white bird with a slim black bill and long black legs alit on the rocks. The wispy plumes on its head, breast, and back looked more like tufts of fine curled hair, its yellow feet like gloves. It was pretty and slight, so unlike all the oversize creatures Maren had seen, incongruous with the rugged coast.
The Pauline of birds, Maren thought.
“What about that one, Oliver?”
Oliver looked up, lazily at first, but then he sat up straighter and put his reading aside. “Well, will you l
ook at that? That’s a snowy egret! Mother, do you see it?”
Pauline looked up, too, more attentive than Maren had yet seen her. “Oh, it is.” She clasped her hands together.
“Are they very rare?” Maren asked.
“They shouldn’t be, but they were nearly hunted out of existence for their feathers. You ladies and your hats!” Oliver said. “An ounce of their plumes was once worth more than an ounce of gold. Fashions changed and they passed some laws to protect them, just in time to prevent complete extinction. Right, Mother?”
“That’s right.”
“Mother took an interest in the snowy egrets,” Oliver explained.
“I’ll get the binoculars,” Maren said, and went inside to fetch them from a table by the door.
When she returned, however, the egret was gone, and two women were approaching down the long porch. One appeared close to Oliver’s age. The other, bounded by black Labs on three sides, was obviously the first woman’s mother. There was a masculine quality to the way they moved, certain and strong.
“Georgie! Maude!” Oliver said, getting up. He petted the dogs and gave both women a hug and kiss. Pauline smiled and murmured some unheard welcome from her seat.
“I want you to meet my wife, Maren. Maren, this is Georgina Franklin, and her mother, Mrs. Franklin.” Maren returned their firm handshakes. Oliver had mentioned the Franklins. They had a house on Haven Point and lived in Portland the rest of the year. Oliver and Georgie had grown up together, and he’d told Maren Georgie’s mother was like an aunt to him.
“Georgina will have your head if you call her anything but Georgie. And call me Maude. That’s what Oliver and his brother always called me,” she said in a tone of gruff, good-natured resignation.
“Dogs, down,” Maude said. The dogs looked at the tip of their master’s pointed finger and moved to the appointed spot, as if trying to follow her instructions with maximum precision.
Georgie’s straight, thick brown hair was parted in the middle and pulled back with barrettes. Other than small pearl earrings, she wore no adornments. Her brown eyes turned downward at the edges, giving her a slightly blasé appearance. She wore a brown cardigan, khaki-colored trousers, and a pair of saddle shoes that hinted at a golf game in the offing.
Her mother looked like a preview of Georgina in a quarter century, with the same face, just more lived-in; the same hair, only gray. They exuded health and vitality. “Good stock,” Maren’s father would call them.
“How are you, Pauline?” Maude said as she sat on a wicker ottoman next to Pauline’s chair. She took Pauline’s hand in hers, in a gentle and familiar manner Maren found affecting.
“Hello, Maude,” Pauline said comfortably. Maren, Oliver, and Georgie pulled chairs to form a circle.
“So, welcome to Haven Point, Maren,” Maude said, sitting up a little straighter, like a reporter about to commence an interview. “I understand you are a nurse at Walter Reed?”
“I am. I came to Walter Reed as a cadet nurse.”
“And you’re from Minnesota?” she asked. Maren sighed inwardly. The conversation was taking a familiar turn.
“Yes. A small town called Ada near the North Dakota border,” Maren replied. “My father is a farmer.”
Maren never hesitated to share this information. She was proud of her family, and if anyone was inclined to judge her, she figured they could go ahead and begin doing so immediately.
“The Grahams, my family, have farmed in Maine for hundreds of years,” Maude replied.
Maude was not precisely warm, but Maren, who was ready for table scraps at this point, began to relax. At least she had tried to make some connection, rather than treating her like a zoo animal.
“We all have the Grahams to thank for Haven Point,” Oliver said. “Maude’s father once owned this entire peninsula.”
“Sentimental old fool could have sold it off to a speculator to build a hotel, and we’d have been sitting pretty,” Maude said. She shook her head and sighed, but a hint of a smile again suggested good-humored resignation. “As it is, here we are.”
“So, tell us about the wedding,” Maude asked after they finished exchanging the basics. Maren saw something in Maude’s expression, an intensity that hadn’t been there before. Georgie stopped petting one of the dogs and looked up, as if to listen more carefully.
She felt a resurgence of the concern she had harbored, that their whirlwind courtship and marriage had been a bone of contention here. While the rest of the world might accept speedy wartime weddings, perhaps Haven Point was more hidebound. Did they feel Maren and Oliver had snubbed his parents, or maybe everyone there?
“Bettina was at the wedding!” Pauline piped up, smiling.
Maude and Georgie both looked at Pauline, eyes filled with solicitous interest.
“Was she, Pauline?” Maude said, with a sweetness Maren suspected she reserved for a select few. “Well, of course, that makes sense. She lives not far from Washington.”
“Yes, Bettina was there,” Oliver said. He also had a smile on his face, but it was for Maren alone. Oliver’s second cousin Bettina turned out to be the mysterious brunette Caroline had seen with him at the diner, the one over whom Maren had spent so many restless nights. Caroline had evidently not been at her strategic best, because she had failed to notice Bettina’s wedding ring.
At this point, Maude and Georgie seemed to soften toward Maren. It seemed confirmation of Maren’s suspicion: They had indeed been troubled by the fact that Oliver and Maren had married without his parents in attendance. However, if Pauline was comfortable with it, they would be, too. They stayed another twenty minutes, peppering her with questions, friendlier ones now, and occasionally directing some comment or kindness toward Pauline.
“See you tomorrow night for your big debut,” Georgie said as they rose to leave. She glanced at Oliver, and Maren saw something in her eyes: a flash of pity, or perhaps commiseration.
There had been talk of a party in honor of Oliver and Maren, but the packed Haven Point social schedule made it impossible. Oliver’s father was playing in the forty-and-over doubles championship the following day, which would be followed by a cocktail party.
Maren did not know what was behind the look Georgie gave Oliver, but she had enough anxiety without borrowing more. She took comfort in Maude’s and Georgie’s kindness and appreciated that they seemed protective of Pauline.
Maren knew her mother-in-law was helpless, perhaps even feckless, but she had quickly developed tender feelings toward her. Pauline seemed in need of friends and defenders from any quarter. She had obviously been a trial for Oliver, but it was jarring to witness the disdain with which he had treated her. She hoped his father had a little more forbearance.
A few hours later, she discovered he had far less.
CHAPTER EIGHT
From the moment Gideon brought William Demarest from the train, the balance of the household tilted unpleasantly in his direction.
When Oliver introduced Maren, his response was a chilly “How do you do.” He looked her over, brusquely answered her polite inquiry about his journey, told her to call him William, then moved on to other subjects. But William’s rudeness to Maren was nothing compared to his behavior toward Pauline, whom he treated more like an irritating child than a spouse.
Maren had helped with dinner and was pleased to note Pauline’s competence in the kitchen. Though she knew it was probably force of habit and rote memory, it was heartening to see her do anything well. When they sat down at the long dining room table, she hoped Pauline might earn some praise or gratitude. Perhaps the family would rally for mealtime, as some did.
Not the Demarests. They picked up their forks, the eating interrupted only occasionally by wooden conversation. Maren ventured a few questions, but William’s answers were abrupt and Oliver said almost nothing, so she stopped asking.
When Pauline asked her husband who his partner would be in the tennis tournament the following day, he looked at her as if she
was a perfect idiot.
“Bull Trumbull, for Chrissakes. The same doubles partner I’ve had for two years!”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Pauline replied mildly, seeming oblivious to William’s tone.
Or maybe she doesn’t care, Maren hoped. More than once that day she had wondered whether her mother-in-law was cleverer than she seemed.
Maren was stabbed by a rare pang of homesickness. Her father was taciturn, but he had none of William’s anger. At the Larsen table, meals began with a prayer then quickly devolved into noise and chatter and movement. Her mother was in and out of the kitchen, buzzing and bustling and asking whether everyone had what they needed.
Even when Maren’s high spirits landed her in trouble, as they sometimes had, the dinner table was a sanctuary. Maren couldn’t be sure what sins were being punished here at the Demarest table, but there was clearly no granting of mealtime asylum.
She came away from dinner with two distinct impressions about her father-in-law. First, disagreeing with him on any subject would be a ridiculous waste of time. Second, while he was willing to like her well enough, he wasn’t accepting applications for new loved ones, thank you very much. She had been eager to make a good impression. Now she found she hardly cared.
When she and Oliver retired that night, she did not expect him to speak of the shadow of ill feeling cast by his father’s arrival. In fact, he had been so remote all evening, she was surprised when he took her into his arms. But she welcomed him, eager to find some warmth in a house that had grown much colder.
* * *
The next morning, Maren followed Oliver out the kitchen door to their ramshackle garage. The heavy barn doors squeaked noisily. Great patches of light shone through holes in the roof, revealing a riot of cobwebs, life preservers, and cans of gasoline. (Rations be damned!) Tools and garden implements were piled in a corner, though Maren knew from Gideon Douglas that gardening and repairs were outsourced. Demarest men, in her short experience, were fit and healthy, but not at all handy.
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