by Jane Toombs
The twins were not yet permitted to join the adults for dinner and they could hardly stand it that Johanna got to. They were waiting to ambush Samara as soon as dinner was over. She took all three children to her room.
"We got a new teacher," Naomi told her. "A lady."
"She went home for Christmas," Katrina announced.
"Her name's Corinne Olstead," Johanna said. "Only we have to call her Miss Olmstead."
"She's pretty," Naomi said. "She's got red hair."
"But not as pretty as you," Johanna insisted.
Samara was pleased that Johanna seemed to be speaking without a stammer. Vera had told her that when the three girls had been sent to a private day school after Mark's defection, Johanna's speech had regressed so badly, they'd decided a private tutor was a necessity. Apparently Corinne Olmstead was doing a good job.
"I'm glad you like Miss Olmstead," she told the girls. "I liked Mark better," Johanna said. "Even if he did turn out to be a spy."
Would she ever stop reacting to his name? Samara asked herself as she felt the unwelcome knot in her stomach. Forcing enthusiasm into her voice, she said, "Shall we go riding tomorrow morning? Frances told me Naomi and Katrina have ponies now."
The twins agreed, jumping up and down excitedly.
"Sal isn't here anymore," Johanna said. "Rosita isn't, either. She left when Sal did."
"Who helps with the horses now?" Samara asked.
"Pedro. But he's old. I miss Sal. He wrote me a letter, though."
He wrote me a letter, too, Samara thought. One I didn't answer. It'd been a casual account of what he was doing at Davis and at work and he'd asked how she was. But, somehow, Sal was a reminder of Mark and the time she'd rather forget.
When the girls had gone to bed, Samara paced around her room, unable to settle down. Finally she got into her pajamas, robe and slippers and curled on up the bed to read. Vera had sent her a copy of Kitty Foyle by Christopher Morley for her birthday, along with a set of cashmere sweaters she had yet to wear.
Samara identified with the heroine immediately, but being back in Hallow House made her too uneasy to get lost in the book. She closed it and stood up, trying to identify what was wrong with her. Hadn't Mark's ghost yet been put to rest?
Not until I go up to the towers, she told herself. She hadn't been there since the last time she was with him and she was none too sure she could make herself climb those stairs now. Still, if she ever wanted to be rid of him, she had no choice.
Chapter 27
In her room, Samara slid off the bed, took a deep breath, then opened her door and headed for the stairs to the third floor. She tried to blank her mind as she climbed to the landing and entered the north tower. It had been cleared of any trace of Mark's paintings, his excuse for frequenting the third floor.
The south tower was empty except for the window seats. Once she'd thought of it as her hideaway but now it didn't feel like a place where she belonged. Last of all she stood before the black door and forced herself to try the knob. Locked, as she expected it to be.
There was nothing up here for her. As she turned away, she saw the door at the bottom of the stairs open and someone start up. Even though she knew it could be neither Sergei nor Mark, a trace of fear trickled through her. The light was still on in south tower and she edged back into the room. After a moment she recognized Marie and chided herself for her foolishness.
"I haven't had a chance to talk to you," Marie said.
The past year hadn't been kind to Marie. Although her hair was neat and she wore makeup, she'd gained enough weight so her clothes didn't fit quite right.
"How have you been?" she asked Marie as they both sat on the window seats.
"I've been here too long. God knows I should have had the gumption to stay away when I left before. Maybe this time I will."
"You're planning to leave?"
"That's why I want to talk to you. You've been working in Palo Alto so you have some idea of what the world is like. Do you think I could get a job?"
Taken aback, Samara tried to think of what to say.
"Oh, I know what you're thinking," Marie told her. "What can she do?"
"I was just surprised," Samara said.
"If you must know, I can't do much. But I've been reading in the San Francisco papers that there'll be a demand for women to work in all sorts of jobs because of the war and that they'll be trained to do things women have never been hired to do before. I'm not stupid, I could learn."
"I'm sure you could. But why are you leaving?"
Marie turned and stared out the window into the darkness. "You won't be here. And Vincent is going. Maybe it's time I left, too, and tried to do something useful for a change."
Samara remembered that Marie had been in love with Vincent when they both were younger and that Delores had spoiled it for them--or for Marie, at least. Did she still care for Vincent? Is that what had kept her here?
"There's another reason," Marie went on. "I should have been brave enough to acknowledge--" She paused and shook her head, "No, I've said enough. I am what I am." She shrugged.
"Do you need money?" Samara asked.
"Actually, no. I need something to do with myself. I hope to God I can find that."
The Christmas holidays proved to be happy despite Samara's misgivings. The joy of the children spread to the adults and, for this time, at least, the past receded into unimportance.
Immediately after the holidays the Navy sent Samara her "Report to" letter. "I'm going to be stationed at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego," she told the family.
"Sounds like a good assignment," Vincent said. "Better than Texas, where I'll be training pilots. Watch that you don't get ahead too fast--I wouldn't want my niece to outrank me."
"I'm glad you'll both be in this country," Vera said.
Just before Samara left in January, they heard over the news that Manila had fallen to the Japanese.
"Oh, John, where we spent our honeymoon," Vera cried. "I don't understand why there has to be war."
Vera's words seemed an echo of Samara's own feelings of two years ago. But she felt differently now. "We have to fight," she said. "We have to defeat Germany, all the Axis powers."
Vincent slanted her a look that made Samara wonder if he thought she felt this way only because of Mark. To be honest, it was part of the reason. He'd given her the need to have a personal hand in seeing America win the war, to blot out forever the memory of his Always a German first.
Four years later, Samara drove her yellow Buick up the winding hills toward Hallow House. The car had been in storage for much of the war years and she was glad to be behind the wheel again. But her homecoming on this cold, overcast November day was far different one this time.
The car had been new then and she'd been young and carefree, believing the world was full of delights to come. With the end of 1945 in sight, she no longer expected much of the future.
On that other homecoming, Uncle Vince had been waiting with the rest of the family to greet her. She blinked back tears. Her laughing, cynical uncle was dead, a war casualty. He'd been shot down in a bombing raid over Germany and his body never recovered.
"I hope you're dead, too, Mark Schroeder," she muttered. "I wish you'd never lived."
Then she shook her head. The past was past--danger lay in revisiting it. Her time in the Navy had taught her to live in the present. She forced her thoughts ahead. Johanna would be ten years old, the twins eight. She hadn't seen them for over a year, and then only briefly. It'd be good to be home.
When she pulled into the driveway she half-expected a rerun of that other homecoming, the girls spilling out of the house, running to meet her. But they didn't. No one met her. She let herself in through the front door and found her father in the library.
He sprang to his feet, kissed her, then held her away to look at her. "You grow prettier every time I see you, he said. "I'm glad you're home."
She hugged him and stood back. "Where is eve
ryone?"
He took a deep breath and sighed. "You may have noticed I'm having my pre-prandial a little early."
She glanced at her watch. Two o'clock. Unheard of for her father to drink his before-dinner cocktail this early. "Marie came back to us late this morning," he said. "I'm afraid I've left Vera to cope with the complications. They're upstairs."
Samara frowned. "Complications?"
"Marie didn't arrive alone. She brought a nine-year-old boy with her--claims he's hers and Vincent's, out of wedlock."
"What!"
"His name is Brian. Marie says Vincent has paid for the boy's keep all this time, even though he wouldn't marry her."
"But Marie was living in Hallow House with us. How can the boy be nine?" Samara asked.
"She wasn't living here in June of '36 when she claims Brian was born. She says she left him with foster parents for a time, then collected him when she left here in '41. He lived with her, then. Now that Vincent's dead, she feels the boy belongs here."
"Poor Marie," Samara said.
"I think the child probably is Vincent's," her father said. "For one thing, he has the Gregory look."
"Marie was in love with Vincent for a long time."
John stared into the fire and Samara moved closer to the flames as if seeking to warm the bleakness of her thoughts. Vincent, dead, could no longer be blamed for his actions, but she had trouble understanding how he could not have wanted his son with him, no matter how he felt about Marie.
"Where are Marie and the boy?" she asked
"I believe Vera showed Marie up to her old room and Brian was borne off by the three girls as though he was a prize they'd captured."
"What do you intend to do?"
Her father kept his gaze on the fire. "Make a provision for the boy, of course. I'd willingly allot him Vincent's share if our father hadn't tied up so much of that in trusts." John shook his head. "Vincent was careless with money, but I've often thought in these later years that if he'd had the money due him straight out, to live on or to lose. he'd have been different. Naturally both Marie and Brian are welcome to live at Hallow House."
"Does Marie call him Brian Gregory?"
"No. He's Brian Naughton. Since Vincent wouldn't marry her, she wouldn't give the boy his name." He gave her a tired smile. "I'm glad you're here to take some of the burden from Vera. She hasn't been too well lately. I worry about her."
"I'm happy to be home, too Daddy. I'll go up and see what's going on."
Marie's door was open and Samara could hear her voice before she got to the room.
"...my own business," she was saying, the words mushy. Listening, Samara couldn't help wondering if she was drinking again.
"If you won't consider your own health," Vera said in a firm tone, "think of Brian's. Do you think it's right for him to see you like this?"
"Got him here all right, didn't I? You and that damn horse-faced nurse can take care of him now. John's got the money, always had the money. Poor Vincent..." Marie's voice trailed away and when Samara entered the room she saw Marie was crying.
She was shocked at the change in Marie, whose bloated body was slumped on the bed. She looked twice her age.
"Lie down and rest for a while," Vera said, lifting Marie's feet onto the bed. She pulled off her shoes and laid a coverlet over her. She turned and saw Samara and her worried frown changed to a smile.
It was obviously no time to try to greet Marie, so Samara returned to the hall and waited for Vera to come out. She'd already noticed how pale her stepmother was and now she saw Vera was trembling.
Concerned, she asked, "Are you all right?"
"Your room is ready for you," Vera said. "I'm just a bit upset about Marie."
Samara put an arm around Vera's shoulders. "You can sit down and rest in my room."
When they entered, Samara saw it had been newly wall-papered above the wainscoting, in a pale blue with tiny yellow roses. "What a nice surprise," she said.
Vera sat down heavily on the bed.
"You need to rest more than Marie does," Samara scolded, urging her stepmother to lie back among the pillows. "Daddy said you haven't been feeling well. Now that I'm home, you must let me help you."
Vera's smile was a pale copy of her usual one. "Are you going to stay long?"
"As long as I can see you need me, anyway." Samara kept her voice light, but her heart sank as she spoke. She'd been hoping to find work in her special field of speech therapy as an excuse to leave home..
"I don't know why I haven't got my energy back," Vera said. "I had another miscarriage but it was over a month ago."
Samara knew what caused the sadness in her face. Vera wanted so badly to give John a son. To replace Sergei? It hurt her to think Vera might still blame herself for Sergei's death.
"Well, what do you think of our other surprise?" Vera asked.
"You mean Brian?"
Vera nodded. "He's a handsome boy. Quite like--quite like a Gregory."
Had she been going to say like Sergei?
"How could Marie live him with strangers for five years?" Vera said. Vincent must have agreed. How could they do such a thing to their own child?"
"I'm afraid Marie is not very maternal. She did say, though, that Vincent told her he'd not pay a cent of support for Brian if she brought him here. 'Let the boy grow up untainted,' is how she quotes Vincent." Vera sat up. "I really feel much better. And I must consult with Irma about dinner."
"I'll help you to your room," Samara said. "Then I'll carry your message to Irma."
"You'll spoil me," Vera told her, but she let herself be led to her own bed, where she stretched out with a sigh, saying, "Don't tell Frances. She hardly lets me do anything as it is."
On her way to the stairs, Samara heard Johanna's voice saying, "You can sleep in my room, Brian."
"Okay with me," another voice said.
Samara poked her head through the partly open door of what used to be the schoolroom and saw a boy with curly dark hair facing her. She caught her breath, then let it out slowly when his eyes met hers. Blue. Otherwise he was Sergei, exactly as Samara remembered him from childhood.
"Samara!" Johanna exclaimed, running to her. "You're home."
The twins called her name in unison and converged on her, too, Naomi reaching her a fraction of a second before Katrina, as usual.
After all the hugs were exchanged, Johanna said, "You ought to hug Brian, too, 'cause he's our new cousin."
"Brian might like to shake hands instead, because he doesn't know me very well, yet," Samara said, strangely reluctant to touch the boy.
Brian immediately held out his hand and she shook it. "Hello, Samara," he said.
He had good manners, despite his odd upbringing, she thought.
The twins looked like Brian's sisters with their dark, curly hair, making Johanna stand out with her straight fair hair and gray eyes. Johanna, the changeling who never felt loved enough. Maybe Brian would be good for her.
"I have a new friend," Johanna confided. "He's nice. He takes care of Aunt Adele and he lets me call him Kevin even if Mama gets mad."
"He's a doctor," Naomi said. "You don't call doctors Kevin. You say Dr. Cannon like Mama and Daddy do."
Samara remembered Vera had written about old Dr. Whitten's death. This Dr. Cannon must be his replacement. "I'm glad you have a new friend," she told Johanna.
"I've got two new friends, now," Johanna said, "'cause Brian's going to be my friend, too."
He nodded. "I like Hallow House. I'm sure glad Marie brought me here."
"Brian calls his mother Marie 'cause she wants him to," Johanna said. "Do you think Mama wants me to call her Vera, like you do?"
Samara shook her head.
"I'm supposed to give you a message from Aunt Adele," Johanna added. "She says to come and see her." She turned away and took Brian's hand. "I'll show you where my room is."
Realizing Johanna took it for granted the boy was going to share her room, Samara said, "You can
show him your room, but Brian will have his own room to sleep in."
"Why? The twins get to share a room."
"Brian is a boy, Johanna. Girls and boys don't share rooms."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
Johanna thrust her lower lip out. "Darn it anyway."
"You can still show me your room," Brian said and Johanna's face brightened.