“All right,” I said after a long pause. “Wildoak it is. But may I ask a favor? Do you think you could stake me to my first good horse?”
She thought for a while—or pretended to. “Yes. Ian might consider it. For your twenty-first birthday, perhaps.”
“And in the meanwhile, before I go. I’m not forbidden to see Sabrina?”
“Of course not, sweet.”
That too was a clever maneuver. To forbid would have made me even more determined. Mother would put no obstacles in my path. She was still hoping, I suppose, that I would get over my adolescent love. What she did not realize was that each separation only deepened it.
A half hour later, when the tea things had been removed and Mother had gone to instruct the cook about dinner, I let myself out of the side door. Running across the garden, I vaulted the low fence, dropping onto the Falconer’s back lawn. I cut across the tennis court and took a cobbled path around to the front entrance. Miles had built his house on Nob Hill a little before the railroad kings had erected their huge many-roomed domiciles, which he had scathingly described as “fake-marbled, turret sprouting, and colonnaded monstrosities.” Though the Falconer house was many-roomed also and had an entry hall that rose three stories to an amber domed skylight, the outer lines were fairly simple and unadorned. In some ways—its red brick and white shutters— reminded me of Wildoak but on a larger scale.
I paused before I rang the bell, brushing back my hair (I had forgotten a hat in my haste) and tugging at my cravat.
A Chinese manservant answered my ring. Yes, “Missy S’alina” was at home.
She came down the stairs in that elegant way of hers, the slender curve of her body sheathed in rifle-green silk, moving with a poise that never failed to melt my heart.
“Page!” I would have gladly traveled a thousand miles to see the surprised look, the welcome smile. “What brings you here at this hour?” she inquired. “Have you had tea?”
“Yes. Could I speak to you for a few minutes?”
“It’s not bad news?” She scanned my face.
“Not very,” I said enigmatically.
She took me into the library, a large room shelved with books that, unlike those in many fine San Francisco houses, were actually read.
“What is it?” she asked, holding my hands, preventing me from embracing her.
“My parents are going to Scotland.”
I could see by the lack of surprise in her face that she already knew. “So I’ve heard. Mama and Papa are planning to visit them there in the spring.”
“Are they? I didn’t know. Mother said nothing about it. Will you be going?”
“Yes. And you?”
“I was thinking of returning to Wildoak. I . . .” Her eyes were looking up at me, half smiling, half expectant. “Yes, yes! I’ll be there, of course.”
“Oh, what fun. Page!”
She let me take her in my arms. I hugged and squeezed her, felt the ribs of that cruel encasing armor called a corset, and longed—irreverently—to relieve her of it. I kissed her cheek and then her mouth. It was soft under mine, compliant. My hands came up and held her face, the thumbs brushing her cheeks as my mouth grew more insistent.
She pulled away with a little gasp. “Page! If someone should come.” She gave a quick glance at the door.
“No one will come.” I brought her back, found her mouth again, moving mine back and forth until her lips parted. I felt her body relax, go limp, and I held her tighter, my one hand traveling down the sweet curve of her back, slowly coming forward until at last the small silk-clad breast rested deliciously in my cupped fingers.
She pushed me abruptly away. There was a wild, shocked look in her eyes, a tremor to her lips. I sensed it was due not so much to what I had done but to her own surprised—and not unpleasant—response.
“I’m sorry, Sabrina. I shouldn’t have . . . Please, don’t look at me that way.”
“No, it wasn’t your fault. It’s mine, for letting you. What must you think . . . ?”
We both heard the rattle of the door at the same time. Sabrina quickly moved away, adjusting her bodice, patting her hair.
Uncle Miles came into the room. He darted a sharp look at Sabrina, then at me. He would have been blind not to notice our flushed faces or sense the pent-up emotion in the room. But when he spoke he did so in a cool, courteous voice. “Page, I did not know you were here.”
“I came to tell Sabrina that I might be returning to Wildoak.”
“A splendid idea, now that you’ve finished your schooling.”
I said nothing about Scotland and neither did Sabrina. I was afraid if I mentioned it he might change his mind about going, and I think Sabrina felt the same. (It was one of the bonds between us, thinking alike in certain situations, almost as if there were some sort of silent communication between us.)
“You’ll stay for supper?” Uncle Miles asked politely. It was not a warm invitation.
“No, thank you, I’m expected at home.” He nodded, and I said, “Well, then, I’ll be getting on. Good-bye, Sabrina, Uncle.”
I was at the door when he said, “Oh, Page, I understand you and Sabrina are playing lawn tennis at the Sharons’ tomorrow afternoon. I wonder if you would mind taking Christian and Arthur with you?”
I did mind. I minded very much. I had hoped to hold Sabrina’s hand on the way over in the carriage, perhaps steal a kiss or two. With the younger brothers all eyes, and missing nothing, I would never have the chance.
“Of course. We’ll be happy to have them.”
Uncle Miles suspected that Sabrina and I had been kissing. Or he knew. No, he couldn’t know, I speculated as I let myself out the front door. If he was sure that I had taken liberties with Sabrina, he would have forbidden me the house.
Why did he dislike me so? Aunt Carmella, thank goodness, did not share his antipathy, although in all honesty, I do not think she would have approved my kissing and fondling (well, it was fondling) Sabrina either.
Mother showed no surprise when I told her I had changed my mind about Scotland.
“For a short visit,” I said, “before I return to Wildoak. I’ve never been abroad, and I’d like to see something of a foreign country.”
Her eyes narrowed skeptically.
“What’s more,” I went on, annoyed, “you knew all along the Falconers were going over. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t want you getting too fond of Sabrina. There are other girls in this world.”
“Not for me,” I said emphatically.
“Rot! That’s what all green, young idiots believe.”
“If loving Sabrina makes me an idiot, then so be it.”
She looked at me, her eyes suddenly serious. “You know that I love you and that I would do anything to shield you from disappointment and pain.”
“Why do you say that? Is there something you’re hiding from me? Some dark secret about Sabrina? Me?”
“Of course not, foolish boy.” She pulled my hair playfully, grinning. “No secrets at all.”
A few days before we were to leave for Scotland we received a letter from Alfred Gan telling us that Lavinia had suddenly taken ill. Alfred also sent word to Miles, but neither letter specified the nature or the gravity of Lavinia’s malady. Mother wanted to make a detour to Wildoak. She did not like the sound of things and felt obliged to go. But it would have entailed a complicated rearrangement of plans, taking Jamie and Trevor with her, and Ian forbade it, citing her condition.
I offered to go. I was fond of the Gans, and since the Falconers were not expected at Invernean for several months, I had no objection to catching a later boat across the Atlantic. Then Miles, who had not been back to Wildoak in years, decided to accompany me.
I hoped that on the long train trip across a continent he and I would get to know one another better; perhaps he might even come to like me. But Miles Falconer was a hard man to reach. Reserved, courteous, not given to bursts of confidence, he kept his distance. As we
chugged and puffed our way up the Sierras, I asked him if he had taken part in the ’49 gold rush. No, he said, though he had been one of the first at the Comstock silver strike. Was it true, I asked, that Aunt Carmella’s father had been killed by a man who had tried to jump his claim?
“Yes,” he said.
“No.” “Yes.” Nothing else.
Yet he would freely discuss politics, the state of the country’s economy, the cities, which already festered with slums. Any topic that did not touch on a personal note. Sometimes when I felt him verging on the brink of warmth he would suddenly pull back. It was as if he had deliberately put up a bar against our friendship.
We arrived at Wildoak to find a house filled to overflowing. Lavinia’s twin sons had been called to her beside by Alfred and had brought their wives and children, a noisy lot who seemed oblivious to their grandmother’s condition. She was quite ill: cancer, the doctor suspected. She looked dreadful. As long as I had known her she had been a fleshy woman, but now she was wasted away to a pitiful skeleton of her former self. The doctor was keeping her under morphia, because of the pain, and I don’t think she knew who I was when she saw me.
It was Alfred I felt mostly sorry for. He seemed like a lost soul. Ignored by Lavinia’s family, he wandered the downstairs rooms or sat in the empty parlor over an untouched glass of port, gazing sadly out of the window. I had never realized he was that fond of Lavinia. She was so much his inferior, a rather empty-headed woman, I thought. But apparently Alfred did not see her that way.
“She was good-hearted, Page,” he told me one evening as I sat with him in the gathering dusk. “So intuitive. She could guess what I wanted, what I needed. She was a companion to me. Was ...” He shuddered. “I’m already saying ‘was.’ ”
How does one console another person? I said all the right things. I’m sure, none of which meant much to him. He wanted a cure for Lavinia, and no one could give him that.
One of Lavinia’s visiting grandchildren was a girl a year or two younger than I, named Amanda. She might have been pretty, with her pale golden hair and green tigerish eyes, had her mouth not been set in a small but rather artificial pout, which she probably thought alluring. She took an immediate fancy to me. I hadn’t been at Wildoak a half hour before she asked if I would care to go riding. And the invitation in those uptilted eyes hinted at more than a trot along the riverbank. My refusal didn’t seem to discourage her. In the days that followed she lost few opportunities to pursue me, seating herself at my side during meals, asking me my opinion on irrelevant subjects, popping up in places I least expected to find her. Bold as brass, she put me off.
One late night after several hours spent commiserating with Alfred, and in the process drinking more port than I realized, I said good-night and went down the hall to my room. Because the accomodations upstairs were all taken, I had been bedding down in a little spare room at the back of the house. Even before I got to the door, I saw the band of light under it. Wildoak was still using oil lamps, which were considered a fire hazard, and I was always careful to douse my light when I left the room. Annoyed with myself, because I had obviously forgotten, I opened the door.
Surprise froze me on the threshold.
Amanda sat on a chair, dressed in a wrapper, her blond hair fanning over her shoulders, her feet shockingly bare.
“What in heaven’s name . . . ?”
She touched her finger to her lips. “Hush! Do you want to wake them?’’
I stepped in and shut the door. “Why are you here?’’
“I came to say good night, Page. Is there anything wrong in that?’’ She got up and drew her wrapper tightly around her. “You’ve been avoiding me lately. Are you angry?’’
“No. I’m not angry. But you shouldn’t be here. If your father ...”
“Tish! He’s sound asleep. He won’t know—unless you tell him.’’
“I’d be happier if you left.’’
“Oh, don’t be such a prude!’’
She came up to me, standing very close. The sweet fragrance of lilies of the valley wafted pleasantly under my nose. “Why don’t you like me, Cousin Page?’’
“I don’t dislike you. It’s just that—that you sometimes make me uncomfortable.”
“Because I’m not all prissy and demure?” Green fire flashed from her eyes. “Fiddlesticks! I don’t see why if I’m fond of someone I can’t tell him.”
I inched away, groping for the doorknob behind me. “You’ll have to go, Amanda.”
As I fumbled for the knob, she managed to squeeze in front of me, leaning her back against the door.
“I’ll go without a fuss if you kiss me. That—or I’ll start screaming rape.”
I had half a mind to tell her to start screaming; I was that angry. But I knew, despite the lingering port fumes in my brain, what a scandal that would cause. And with Uncle Miles in the house . . .
I gave her a quick peck on the cheek, but before I could withdraw, she linked her arms about my neck and glued her lips to mine. I tugged at her arms, and her wrapper fell open. She was naked underneath and the press of her bare breasts against my chest gave me a shock. A not unpleasant one.
I pulled myself away. She stood there, panting slightly through her half-opened rosebud mouth. She did not bother to draw her wrapper together.
“You liked that! You like me. Take a good look and see if you can’t like me much better.” She slipped out of the sleeves, and the wrapper fell to the floor with what seemed to me a sinister hiss.
She had a beautiful body, white as alabaster, the breasts high, pink-buttoned, the waist slender, the belly slightly rounded, the hips and that mysterious patch of dark gold hair . . .
To my disgust I felt a stirring in my loins.
I picked up the wrapper and flung it at her. “Get out!” She smiled, amusement in her green almond-shaped eyes. “You don’t want me to go.” She let her wrapper fall again. Stepping across it, she wound her arms about my waist, pulling me toward her, rubbing her breasts against my chest like a cat. “No one will know,” she purred. “I’ll be gone long before dawn. Not a soul will be the wiser.”
“Perhaps not now, but you might ...”
“Get pregnant?” she finished. “Don’t be afraid, I know how to take care of myself. I’m not a virgin,” she added.
I could believe that.
She lifted my hand and kissed it, then placed it on her naked breast. The swollen mound so satiny to the touch roused me. It had been a long time since my last bout with a woman and the feel of that warm sensuous skin, the pressure of her naked limbs against my burgeoning manhood, dulled my will the way the port had failed to do.
My arms went around her and slid down her back. Grasping a buttock in each hand I pressed her into my aching loins. To part that patch of hair and enter the honeyed wonders beyond. “No one will know.’’ No one. She put her head on my shoulder, twisting her face, kissing my neck. My arms gripped her tighter, and then suddenly deep in her throat I heard a small, triumphant laugh.
It brought me to my senses with a jolt. I wrenched myself away. Without speaking, I pulled her wrapper out from under her feet, nearly upsetting her in the process. I forced her arms into it.
“Page! Don’t—you can’t!” she spluttered. “Just when—”
“Shut up!” I ordered. “You’re a slut. Go ahead, scream. I don’t give a damn!”
I opened the door. Shrugging, she went out. “And don’t try that again,” I added in a low, angry voice. I stepped over the threshold to make sure she left, and just as I did, I saw Miles at the foot of the stairs. He was looking toward me. I couldn’t see his face, but with a half-clad Amanda emerging from my room, I could well imagine what he was thinking.
What had been an unpleasant incident suddenly took on the proportions of a calamity.
Chapter 17
I spent a bad night and awoke in the morning with a rehearsed explanation in readiness for Miles.
As it turned out, I did not have to
use it. Sometime before dawn Lavinia died, and her going overshadowed everything else. Preoccupied with helping to make funeral arrangements, Miles did not have the opportunity to reprimand or lecture me, even if he’d wished to do so.
He was also concerned about Alfred. Never robust, the distraught widower now seemed even more shrunken. He looked pitifully old and feeble. One of the sons offered to take him home to Annapolis, but Alfred said he preferred staying on at Wildoak.
“If that’s all right with you, Miles.”
“Of course,” Miles said. “You needn’t ask.”
All that afternoon and evening a steady stream of friends and neighbors came to pay their respects. Miles and I were never alone. I avoided Amanda and she, thank God, made no effort to speak to me. Following a service at the cathedral in Richmond, we buried Lavinia in Hollywood Cemetery, laying her to rest next to her first husband, who had been killed in the war. The Bainbridges invited the mourners, including me, to a post-funerary repast. But I declined. I had brought my luggage with the intent of going straight to the depot.
Perhaps it was cowardly of me, seeking to escape an uncomfortable encounter—Amanda, Miles’s stern, noncommittal face. But I hadn’t done anything, and I didn’t see where my continuing presence would be of any use to Alfred.
Miles did not shake my hand, though he wished me a safe journey, in a cool voice. Of what he was thinking I had no idea.
When I finally reached Scotland, it was early March, still winter and bitterly cold. Yet despite its frozen rivers and craggy, snow-powdered tors, the landscape had a magnificent grandeur about it. As the train hitched and snorted its way up hills dotted with gaunt sheep and rumbled across the stubbled fields, I caught an occasional glimpse of a spired kirk, the low, dark slate roofs of huddled cottages, a lone chimneyed farmhouse nestled beneath a rise. The few towns we passed went quickly by, giving way to rolling vistas that merged into the distant hills.
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