The Uncertain Season

by Ann Howard Creel

  Stung, I said, “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m not feeling well. There’s a pounding in my temples I can’t rid myself of.”

  But her dark eyes were dancing, as though she enjoyed giving me this news. Her voice was as brittle as ice, and her chin was slightly lifted.

  Perhaps I deserved such treatment. I supposed an apology wasn’t always accepted. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. We’ll miss you but will hope for your speedy recovery.”

  “Thank you,” said Etta and turned to leave.

  But I didn’t want the conversation to end so quickly. “Shall I make my apologies to the guests? Or would you be able to see them, even briefly?”

  Etta smiled in a halfhearted manner. “I’m not planning to dress for guests tonight. I’m certain you can handle anything that needs doing, Grace.”

  “Very well,” I said, stung once again.

  “But you may give my best to Wallace,” Etta said in a lilting voice. And then she gave me a knowing little nod, her eyes certainly dancing now in light of this revelation.

  “Wallace. Really?” I asked, so pleased that she had in some small way confided in me.

  She didn’t answer, but not answering seemed like a confirmation. Wallace indeed. Etta said only, “Do have a nice evening.”

  “Do take care and get well.”

  Etta smiled and left my room.

  Over dinner, Etta’s place at the dining table, which had already been set by the servants, remained empty, a glaring constant reminder of her absence. But my closest friends were as entertaining as ever, and I’d missed them. Jonathan was his usual charming self, and he directed the conversation, taking over what should have been my duty.

  Wallace, the student of architecture, was speaking about his ideas for more brick houses on the island. “Buildings made of stronger materials fared better during the storm. And I find it ridiculous—ludicrous, truly—that so many flimsily constructed buildings and homes are to be lifted and then set back down in their original condition during the grade-raising.” He shook his head. “Why not take this opportunity for improvements?”

  And no one, not even Viola, who often had an opinion on everything, could offer a reasonable explanation. Wallace shrugged it off, and I admired his relaxed manner.

  Until Etta’s name was mentioned.

  Over our fruit dish before dinner was served, Viola said, “I see that Etta has been unable to join us.”

  “She isn’t feeling well.”

  “Ah,” said Viola with skepticism in her eyes, and Wallace had stopped eating. His face had paled. Clearly he was infatuated with Etta and didn’t want us to see it. But he was ever so obvious, the poor boy.

  “She suffers from headaches,” I said. “But she sends her best.” And I tried to single out Wallace with my gaze. Maybe that would make him feel better.

  “I see,” said Viola, who looked around at the others. “Perhaps we aren’t interesting enough. I get the impression that Etta is easily disengaged.”

  Larke giggled, as she always did.

  Then Jonathan touched the pox scar on his cheek and said, “Perhaps it isn’t boredom but intimidation. She’s still new here.”

  How kind of Jonathan to say so. It was the sort of thing he would say even if he weren’t so taken with my cousin. And how fond I was of these traits in my dear friends, whom I’d almost forgotten. A little ache entered my chest.

  Viola said, “Come now.” There was strength in that unfortunate pointed chin of hers. “I doubt that Etta is ever intimidated by anything.”

  “I agree,” said Larke. “And besides, she’s probably exhausted. She ran the wall again today. Have you heard?”

  I stopped eating.

  Jonathan answered, “Yes, it was the talk of the town once again. Miss Girl ran the wall and eluded the boys—all of us, in fact.”

  Larke picked at the fruit. “It must be tiring.”

  Viola harrumphed.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, confused. “What are you saying about Etta and the so-called Miss Girl?”

  Larke pushed aside her fruit dish and tossed back her long curls. “Why, they are one and the same, didn’t you know? Everyone believes it’s your cousin, although she never altogether admits it. I think she likes to keep us guessing.”

  “Naturally,” said Viola.

  “But Etta is not Miss Girl,” I said before I’d thought it through.

  Everyone had stopped eating now. Perhaps this assumption had been a part of Etta’s continued allure, and I immediately wished I hadn’t said it. But now their interest was piqued.

  “Why do you say this, Grace?” asked Jonathan.

  “What do you know?” asked Larke, and Viola and Wallace were both holding still, listening.

  I sat back and silently put my fruit spoon down. How easily I had almost revealed the real Miss Girl. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Let people believe as they want.”

  “Of course it matters,” insisted Viola, who had never trusted Etta anyway.

  “Tell us, Grace,” said Wallace, finally joining in.

  How was I to get out of this without saying too much? “I can’t tell you who the real girl is, but I know her from my work in the alleys. I know for certain who it is because she wears a yellow dress I gave her, one that used to be mine. It isn’t Etta, but the real Miss Girl doesn’t want to be revealed, so let’s let the matter drop. What harm could come from Etta allowing others to believe she’s the one?”

  Viola made a snorting sound. “I would have predicted no less of Etta.”

  Larke laughed, and then I looked up to see disappointment in Jonathan’s eyes. Here I had said yet another thing about Etta that I shouldn’t have. If only I had kept the information to myself.

  The only person to whom I could talk about it was Ira. “I saw her again,” I told him the next morning in our office.

  “Did you?” he said.

  But I couldn’t return his smile.

  “She ran on the seawall again, and just as before, there was much commotion and excitement. She eluded everyone and ran this way, into the alleys. I had already taken the children back and sent them home. So I was able to follow her this time.”

  I remembered how she had disappeared down the crowded alleys, weaving soundlessly through all the wagons, horses, and running children, how she moved with ease like a fish in water. My body had seemed large and cumbersome compared to hers as I struggled to keep up.

  But the worst shock had come when I finally caught up with her and saw the look on her face. Even in remembering it, I experienced the sensation again, of being stabbed, my breath hard to find. “She looked angry with me. She didn’t want to see me. I fear I’ve done something wrong again.”

  “Grace,” he said and studied my face. “I’m remembering the boy I tried so hard to help. His name was Quinn.”

  “But it isn’t the same situation. This is different. It will turn out well.”

  “It’s worrisome, the fierceness with which she is resisting. Perhaps you should heed her wishes, Grace. But you made a fine effort. That’s what matters.”

  “It matters to me that I do more.”

  “But perhaps you’ve done all you can.”

  I glanced away. There was something there, something special in what I felt for the girl. But could I be doing her wrong? Ira had cautioned me to be cautious, advice I had not heeded. I experienced something like a premonition then, a sense of foreboding.

  “I was wondering . . .” said Ira.

  I looked his way, not really hearing, until he said, “Do you know anyone who might wish to join us here in this work?”

  I gulped, taken aback, completely unprepared for such a request. I’d had no idea he meant to add to our numbers.

  “There are so many needs, as you know,” he said. “And perhaps one of your lady friends would be interested in assisting me, too.”

  “Of course,” I said automatically. Of course, and why hadn’t I thought of it myself? Viola came
instantly to mind. Viola, with her sensible nature and wisdom, would be perfect. But I didn’t want to share this experience; I didn’t want to share Ira. But he was suggesting just the opposite, seeming to hint that we not spend our time alone anymore. And why wouldn’t he? I was engaged, and things had transpired between us that shouldn’t have.

  Viola was not attractive, but her lack of beauty wouldn’t discourage a man such as Ira. He would recognize her fine qualities. But the walls were crumbling around me. Everything was being reduced to rubble, and I saw myself standing in the center of it, empty-handed and alone.

  The evening before, after our guests had left, I had mentioned to Jonathan that Wallace McKay was finally Etta’s choice, that perhaps she hadn’t joined us because she was toying with him a bit. He wouldn’t look at me. He didn’t respond. We were sitting on the front portico, and after I told him I thought they would enter a courtship, he stared bluntly ahead. He was crushed by my news.

  I had never doubted Etta’s appeal. But I hadn’t expected the pure pain on Jonathan’s face when he learned that she had finally accepted another young man’s advances or was preparing to do so. Jonathan had fallen even more deeply under the spell of her charms than I had imagined. His obvious care for Etta was piercing, humbling. I sat back and said in a whisper, “You’re in love with her, too.”

  He shook his head, and I watched him fight off his feelings. “No, you’re mistaken. I’m not in love with her, but perhaps I should tell you something. Recently my mind has played some tricks on me.”

  I sat still. “What do you mean by tricks? Unexpected feelings?” I, after all, knew only too well about such tricks.

  Jonathan didn’t answer me directly. “This summer, spending so much time at the wall, under my father’s direction for these long months—well, it has made me feel helpless. I feel as if I’m being pushed backward instead of forward.”

  “Etta won’t settle. Nor should you.”

  His voice broke as he whispered, “What do you mean?”

  “Etta most likely wants money and love, and you could provide her with both.”

  The loud chack of a mockingbird called out in the night. “She doesn’t love me. And besides”—he turned to look at me now, much of the hurt on his face already forced away—“I love you. I always have.”

  He wasn’t exactly cold, but I couldn’t say that his words struck me as warm and truly loving, either. He leaned forward to kiss me, but even that moment of tenderness felt forced.

  When the kiss was over, I asked him, “What if we were not engaged?”

  He looked away and wouldn’t answer.

  “What if we’ve made a mistake? What if we’ve mistaken friendship for more than that?”

  Staring ahead again, he shook his head. “I can’t even consider it.”

  I wondered what truly mattered to Jonathan; probably the same things that mattered to all the young men we knew—pleasing his parents, graduation, then settling down and becoming successful. Maybe those things were more important to him than true love. “Perhaps we should reconsider.”

  He shook his head again. “I’ve failed at other things, but not this.”

  “Loving or not loving a person should not be viewed as failing or not failing.”

  Jonathan sighed. “We made promises to each other.”

  The night was as dark as the sea depths. All shade and definition were gone. I said softly, “But promises sometimes need to be broken.”

  I touched his hand. We sat without talking, and when he left me, he didn’t kiss me again. He asked me to promise that I would attend a dinner upcoming on Saturday, hosted by friends of his parents, the most pretentious people, who had invited a group over to hear about their latest jaunt to North Africa. It seemed to mean a great deal to Jonathan that I go with him, so I would accept my invitation when it arrived.

  “What is it, Grace?” Ira was now asking me in such a quiet voice I almost didn’t hear him. Sunlight was pouring into the window and spotlighting a large rectangle on the floor. I couldn’t take my gaze off it.

  Finally I looked his way. “What? Oh, nothing.” I shrugged. “At least, nothing that won’t work itself out.”

  His eyes clouded over, and he forced a tone of levity. “Darkness on this bright island?”

  My smile quickly faded. Ira and I were lost, too. “You of all people know there is.”

  He paused. “Of course. I meant within you.”

  “Some darkness is inevitable.”

  “Perhaps.”

  I wished I could talk to him, but once we spoke of it, there would be no stopping. I couldn’t even hold his gaze for long. I couldn’t face his eyes, couldn’t face these feelings that could launch me into his arms. I could slip with one word.

  Outside, low clouds were moving in, and a distant boom of thunder rattled the windows. Clearly it was a good thing that Jonathan and I had had another year to decide if we were right for each other. I had not gone looking for uncertainty, but it had crept up on me with the cunning of a cougar and then ensnared me in its claws.

  Chapter Thirty

  ETTA

  Tilly and Matthias Christiansen lived in an enormous Victorian house on Fourteenth Street, complete with filigree trim and several octagonal windows, where they were hosting a dinner party. When Etta accepted her invitation, she sent a note to Tilly asking to be seated next to Wallace at dinner. She planned to use the opportunity to regain his interest, and that task, in turn, would help break the monotony of hearing about the Christiansens’ North African journey.

  Tilly wore a bun like a knitting ball and a preposterous hat topped with papery fruit that seemed half the size of her torso. Despite her finery, she managed to float the scent of something musty in her wake.

  Matthias was much easier to swallow, with his large head, quiet methodical movements, and dark pomaded hair striped with silvery bands. But his hands were gnarled from arthritis into odd nutlike formations that Etta was strangely drawn to studying.

  The evening began with champagne and finger sandwiches on the back terrace, where the guests had a chance to look through the Christiansens’ photographs and treasures brought back from abroad. Before the group moved inside for dinner, Tilly had already begun to describe the weeklong trip across the Atlantic aboard the Celtic, with its splendid meals and informative lectures.

  In the dining hall, Etta noted that Tilly had obliged her request. Etta was seated next to Wallace, and on this evening he looked particularly dapper. His hair had recently been trimmed, and Etta had the strange urge to touch the newly revealed white skin behind his ears. In the warm light given off by the candles, his skin appeared particularly supple.

  While Tilly went on to describe the first stop on their journey, Funchal, the capital of Madeira, an island off the African coast, the salads were served. Grace and Jonathan had both attended this little gathering, an unusual outing. They sat across the table, only a few chairs down on her right.

  Tilly was raving about Funchal’s clean stone streets and the Catholic cathedral where it was rumored that Christopher Columbus had married. Next, she said, they went onward to Gibraltar, Algiers, and Malta. Tilly paused to eat her salad before moving on to talk about what she said were her favorite spots: Athens and Egypt.

  Etta finally had a chance to converse with Wallace. “Do you enjoy going overseas?” she asked him.

  Wallace was dressed in what appeared to be a new suit tailored just so, and that, combined with the effects of the new haircut, made him look perhaps even a bit handsome. “With friends, yes. With my family, no.”

  “Why not with your family?”

  “They move too slowly for me. My father wants to linger for days in one museum, and my mother will stare for hours at a single painting, whereas I want to see it all, everything a new city or a new place has to offer.”

  Etta smiled and leaned closer. “I prefer your way. I think I would enjoy traveling with you.”

  He barely glanced at her as he lifted the
fork to his mouth, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed. He said rather flatly, “You flatter me.”

  “Not at all,” said Etta. “If I had to choose a companion for a jaunt overseas, I would want it to be you.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Oh, but I do.” Etta lowered her voice and said, “Perhaps just the two of us.”

  Wallace put down his fork, and his face colored. “Your aunt would never allow you to go without a chaperone.”

  Etta cocked her head to one side and moved closer. “But I’m speaking of wishes, dear Wallace, of desires that have little to do with what my aunt would want for me.”

  Wallace kept his eyes averted, and Etta realized something that startled her off her game. Acting the temptress was not working. She watched Wallace gulp and sensed him pulling away. Something had changed between them. She had been too harsh that day at the Garten Verein. Now he was acting politely and nothing more.

  So, this would be more work than she had anticipated. A sharp edge of panic entered her chest, and she drank her champagne with determination to dispel it. Then she whispered near his ear, “Tell me something no one knows, Wallace.”

  He let out a short laugh.

  She made her voice breathy. “Tell me of your desires.”

  He grimaced. “You toy with me.”

  “I want to know.”

  “No. You must have heard about Jewel Ann.”

  Etta’s breath caught in her chest, and she sat back. “Jewel Ann Jones? I’ve heard nothing about her and you.”

  “We are on our way to courting, one could say.”

  A shiver rode up her arms, and her heart hammered in a frenzy of panic and fear. If she could lose Wallace, she could lose everything. Her appeal, her aunt’s admiration, and even her life here. She could never go back to mediocrity. Never!

  “Why, Wallace, didn’t your affections make quite the sharp turn? Wasn’t it only a week or two ago that you were showing feelings for another? Namely me?”

  “Ah yes, but I don’t take rebuff so well, I’m afraid. And the girl caught my fancy before I knew what was happening to me. The turns of the heart can be ever so fickle.”