The Major's Daughter

by J. P. Francis

  At this, August turned the envelope over and looked for dates. The date his mother had written at the top of the letter said 7 February 1944. The letter was nine, no, ten months old. That meant Frederick had been sent to the front in November or December of the year before. His brother had spent at least a year fighting if he was still alive or not captured.

  August went back and read the rest. Given the news it might have brought, it was reasonably positive. Food and water and the pleasant features of their life had been eradicated, but at least no one had died. Not as of February, August noted. His mother closed with a prayer for his safety and with a mention of his father’s blessing. She said again she was sorry about their little dog, Kettle. She asked him to promise to come home safely. They had not given up hope that one day they would all be reunited. That, she said, gave her reason to go on. Write, she pleaded. Send word. He could not tell if she had received any of the letters he had written; the time lag was too great, the distance impossible to cross.

  He slipped the letter back into its hiding place, then wiped his eyes and hurried to join the others for dinner. He must eat, he knew. Day by day, that was the only way to approach it. He pulled his collar close around his neck as he ran across the boardwalk toward the dining hall. A guard braced him and asked what he was doing coming late to dinner, and August answered he had needed the latrine, an excuse, he knew, no one ever challenged.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Estelle had been correct about one thing, certainly, Collie thought. Christmas and the wedding festivities blended together in delicious ways, forming even the snow—the snow that fell steadily, like confetti to greet a great parade—into celebratory buntings and waves of interesting contours. Everywhere Collie saw pine swags and wreaths, the green pines dappled with white and pale gray ice, so that one looked several times to see the arrangement, the play of pattern and design, before passing on to the next vision. At times like these, riding through the streets in an old-fashioned sledge drawn by a pair of gray Belgians, she felt she had entered a fairy tale. It was all gay, all laughter, and she enjoyed the men, their heavy coats and deep voices, the silly, mad things they shouted to one another. Even George, Eternal George, as Estelle called him, seemed lighter and more interesting in the blanketed cockpit of a sledge. The men wore top hats for a laugh, and they had all placed sprigs of pine in their hatbands, and the women had made the drivers stop so that they could demand their own pine sprigs. A crazed scramble followed, with the men dashing about to pull pieces of pine boughs from the selected trees, with the women directing them and sending them back for better specimens. It felt vaguely bacchanalian, and innocent at the same time, and when they arrived at Porters, the enormous steak house reserved for the groom’s dinner, one nearly wished to remain outside in the comfort of the carriage, the night flowing like a shaken snow globe all around.

  Estelle’s father, really, proved to be the ringmaster. He rode in the lead sledge with George’s parents, but he kept standing and yelling back to the party, blowing a ridiculous slide whistle, and that, bit by bit, became the theme of the evening. The whistle went from hand to hand until even the promise of its first note became hilarious; Estelle had the opportunity to blow it, and she stood and played her part, her face luminous, her sprig of pine slipping precariously across her forehead. Cheers greeted the whistle, and by the time they poured into Porters—a thick-beamed castle with white stucco walls and cement floors and waiters in red boiled-wool jackets—everyone felt the merry glow of the outdoors enhanced by the fragrance and warmth of the old restaurant.

  A magical evening, Collie thought. The waiters scuttled them inside to an enormous table set with a white cloth. The weighty chairs scraped and grinded on the floor, but somehow that fitted the occasion. No one bothered with seating cards or any of the usual stuffiness that Collie associated with wedding parties. The men demanded cocktails immediately, and the waiters, when they delivered drinks, were met by the slide whistle giving their motions a comic sound track. Collie tried to trace the source of the good feelings, but they seemed genuine and without visible origins, so that her glances at Estelle reassured her that her earlier misgivings about George had been mistaken. Estelle glowed. She seemed to be everywhere, nesting among her female friends one moment, then joking with the men in the next, her eyes shiny with laughter. She was getting married!

  “Now, now, now,” Mr. Emhoff said, holding up his hand once everyone received a glass of sparkling wine. “Now, careful, careful . . . ,” he said when he spotted the slide whistle raised to give him the business. “Easy, boys. It’s probably not my turn to speak, this is the groom’s party after all, but I wanted to say . . .”

  Collie smiled and scarcely listened. What a picture they all made in that instant! Everyone wore fine evening clothes and the waiters ducking in and out were picturesque. She imagined a photograph taken at that moment, perhaps from above them all, the frame including the dewy bride and the handsome groom—yes, he was handsome in a subtle, understated way, Collie decided—and the grand fireplace sending out flickers of light that made everything positively medieval. It was life, precious life, and as Mr. Emhoff teetered closer to the end of his remarks, Collie sent her eyes down the table, past the jolly groomsmen, past Mrs. Emhoff and George’s mother, until her eyes met Estelle’s. And there, suddenly, Collie saw her friend’s great sadness. It stole like a phantom across Estelle’s eyes; she was clearly not conscious of it; her sight went out in a dull beam.

  She must have believed no one watched, because anyone seeing it would have concluded the same thing. Estelle was not happy! The sure knowledge pierced Collie and made her draw back physically, almost as if from a blow, and she looked away out of guilt. But then she leaned forward again to get a better look, and the expression on Estelle’s face slowly dissolved, broke apart as she sensed her father’s speech drawing to an end. She is putting on a mask, Collie thought, and in the wake of that single impression everything else fell into place. Estelle’s unhappiness was a restive note, the single element of the night’s gaiety that did not fit the communal picture. Collie looked rapidly to see if George had any inkling, but his face looked up in bland amusement at Mr. Emhoff, his thick fingers on a glass ready to raise it for the inevitable toast.

  Then the evening resumed; the look on Estelle’s face had been like a turtle slipping slowly under the still surface of a lake. It was gone and barely a ripple marked its passing. Someone blew the slide whistle as Mr. Emhoff raised his glass. Everyone stood except George and Estelle. Happiness and prosperity, long days, rich years, then the glasses lifted, the light refracted in the sparkling wine, and George raised both their hands in acknowledgment, Estelle’s face locked in a smile, the slide whistle undermining even this small moment.

  Collie forced herself to rejoin the hilarity of the table as she resumed her seat. She glanced repeatedly at Estelle, but she did not catch her friend in anything but the merriest guise. No one would know a thing by watching her, Collie realized. A few people began to clink their glasses—encouragement to kiss—and the guests, Collie saw, beamed their pleasure at the awkward predicament. They must kiss; Collie joined in, her smile fixed and immobile, her thoughts passing for an instant to Marie, how she would have loved this evening, how she would have burned the brightest of them all. She watched as George wiggled his eyebrows at the crowd, received the slide whistle in answer, then saw him bend in and kiss Estelle. She curled away slightly, pretending shyness, Collie observed, but what had been a secret at the beginning of the evening bloomed and became obvious at this point. Estelle did not love George. Estelle had been masterful at covering it, and she had fooled nearly everyone in the party, Collie guessed, but now, after their stares had met during Mr. Emhoff’s toast, Collie saw the anguish in her friend’s eyes.

  Estelle kissed George in return, but it was a quick, duckish peck, her lips a bill to keep him at a distance. People laughed. A man at the low end of the table made a rude
comment about the wedding night. That brought out a happy roar and George blushed and shrugged his shoulders, and George’s father rose and started his own toast. Collie watched him and waited for the beam of her friend’s eyes to pass her way again, only Estelle’s look had submerged beneath the surface of the social niceties. She played her part, and when George’s father concluded and called for raised glasses, Estelle smiled and kissed her fiancé with better feeling, and the slide whistle undercut the seriousness of the moment, and the red-jacketed waiters rushed in like dance partners on a Virginia reel closing together to clear the first course.

  • • •

  Estelle watched George vomit on the side of the road and decided that he was revolting. Not merely for the evening, she realized, but in general. It was an oddly liberating thought to hold so close to one’s wedding. It took the pressure off, she decided. She did not have to be perfect; she did not have to make his house overly pleasant, or manage his meals with anything but average competency. To have a revolting husband, she saw now, might have certain advantages. It made her smile to think of it. Meanwhile, he retched again and she smelled the sickening stench of illness and alcohol. The horses shied at his sounds.

  “Well, George is off to the races,” someone said from the other side of the sledge.

  Off to the races was a euphemism, Estelle knew, for becoming sick from alcohol.

  “Yes, indeed,” someone else said.

  They were in the last sledge; the rest of the company had gone on at least an hour before. George had closed the party, toasting with his friends and groomsmen. Even the waiters, Estelle had seen, had become tired of the festivities. At a moment—when exactly, she couldn’t say—the party had changed from something lighthearted and happy to something determined and dark. George drank too much. She did not know him intimately enough to know if the problem was chronic or merely a manifestation that came into view at parties, but she suspected the former. She had seen the change in his eyes when he began drinking with a proficiency that surprised her. He was a good drinker until he was not.

  “Well, one way or the other, we only rent the booze we drink,” George said, mopping his mouth with a white handkerchief when he returned to the side of the sledge.

  “Off to the races, Georgie,” someone said.

  “Not the first time, won’t be the last,” George said, climbing back into the sledge. “Mighty cold out there, though.”

  Estelle wished she had gone ahead with Collie and with the rest of the bride’s party. She could imagine linked nights like this one, always returning last, always waiting on a final drink. It exhausted her to think of it. George, meantime, slumped against her, cuddling a little for warmth. He flounced the blanket around her.

  “You stink of vomit,” she whispered to him.

  “Sorry.”

  “Just lean away.”

  He did as he was told, which was another good feature of George, she decided. Eternal George. The driver cracked a whip and the horses moved on. The earlier snow had stopped now and the stars had come out in bright splendor. George took deep breaths beside her. The driver kept to the back roads so that he could be sure of a coating of snow on the macadam. In minutes they arrived at the back of the house.

  “I’ll see my own way in,” Estelle said, trying her best to lighten her voice, “take care of my fiancé.”

  “I should come in,” George said, but he made no move to rise.

  “Good night, good night,” the others called.

  Estelle waved them off. Their sleigh bells made a merry sound, and she heard them laugh at something. George’s laugh boomed loudest of all. Then the slide whistle gave a final rasp and the sledge finally disappeared around the corner of Thurston Street. Estelle stood on the curb and looked up at the sky. She stood looking up for what seemed a long time. The air felt fine on her face. It was a welcome moment of silence. She was marrying the following day. She repeated that to herself twice, before she took one last look at the stars and went inside.

  Collie sat at the kitchen table enjoying a cup of cocoa. She had changed into a flannel nightgown. She appeared youthful sitting in the quiet kitchen. Estelle felt a moment of tenderness toward Collie that was particularly sharp. How sweet she was, how pure somehow. Collie would never make the kind of bargain that she herself had made; she would not marry out of convention or for social standing. Those things did not matter to her.

  “I’m glad you’re still awake,” Estelle whispered. “I could use a cup of cocoa.”

  “I waited up for you, hoping you wouldn’t be long,” Collie said. “Take your things off and I’ll fix you a cup. It’s very late.”

  “Not so late for the city,” Estelle said, suddenly feeling happier than she had most of the evening. “You’re simply an old country mouse, Collie. But I would love a cup if there’s any left. I’ll just take off my things.”

  In two shakes she sat beside her friend with a cup of cocoa steaming before her. She took a deep breath and blew softly on the surface of the chocolate. She wondered, absently, how her life had become so complicated. It could be this simple, she realized, this wonderfully mundane. She had deliberately confused things; she had set her own house on fire and she had no one else to blame. But those were thoughts for later, she decided, not now.

  “It was a lovely party,” Collie said. “I enjoyed your father especially, Estelle. I had no idea he could liven things up as he did.”

  “Yes, he likes a good time. That’s one of his best traits. And that horrible slide whistle.”

  “It was just mad,” Collie said. “It’s going to be a lovely wedding. The caterers have been in. . . . The living room is done. I looked at it with your mother when we came back. It’s quite beautiful.”

  “Oh, it will come off all right, I’m sure. This time tomorrow I’ll be a married woman.”

  “On your lune de miel. Where will you stay in Chicago?”

  “At the Biltmore. George had been there on business, and he likes it very much. They know him there. They know George everywhere he goes.”

  “It’s very exciting,” Collie said.

  “Do you think so?” Estelle asked, genuinely curious and bemused. “I suppose it is. Life with George might be very exciting.”

  Suddenly she felt on the verge of tears. She put her face in her hands. Collie instantly moved to put an arm over her shoulders. Estelle could no longer control her emotions. She broke down into small pieces, sobbing quietly, while Collie held her and whispered reassurances. The weight of the silent house seemed to bear down on them, Estelle realized. Everything waited. Tomorrow the guests arrived, along with great mounds of food, and flowers, and presents, and the house would gain immense gravity until it would sink lower and lower into the ground. They would all move more slowly, bound by the glue of their own expectations, and the thought was horrible, simply horrible, and she cried harder knowing that nothing could prevent the day’s arrival.

  “I’m pregnant,” Estelle whispered into Collie’s ear. “Pregnant by George. It was so stupid. So stupid and so utterly damning.”

  “Shhhhh.”

  “You must have guessed. I’m beginning to show. Mother has her doubts, but she hasn’t said anything. It’s the reason we are hurrying along. No one gets married at Christmas! Oh, it’s all spoiled, everything is spoiled.”

  “What is spoiled?” Collie asked, patting her. “Nothing is spoiled. It will be all right. I didn’t know. I had no idea. You’re not the first. Not even among our friends. . . .”

  “I let him . . . ,” Estelle said, then fell into a deep series of sobs.

  “What is it? Tell me,” Collie said.

  “I let George . . . he was my vaccination, you see?” Estelle said, recovering her breath at last. “My inoculation against Mr. Kamal. I had too many feelings. . . . I told myself that George was more my sort, safe and knowable, while Mr. Kamal . . .�
��

  “Yes, I see. Of course. It makes sense when you explain it.”

  “And so I let him. To bind him to me. To bind George and to keep Mr. Kamal at a distance . . .”

  “I understand. I do. I see it now.”

  “No one else knows. I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’ve thrown away my life and I knew I was doing it as I did it. Can you imagine what that feels like? It’s a form of suicide, you know? It’s despicable. I look down at George, I do, but I am the one who is deplorable. He at least is acting on honest feeling. He loves me. I haven’t told him that I carry his child, but he wouldn’t care. . . . It would make him love me more, you see? I don’t even deserve his love.”

  “It’s going to be okay. It will be all right. George will be a good husband. You can see that, surely. And tonight . . . you can have that kind of joy and pleasure . . . that kind of evening. People around you love you. Your parents love you.”

  “You’re being kind,” Estelle said, then moved slightly away so that she could clear her head. “And you, Collie . . . I was just thinking that you could never strike the bargain I made. It’s not in your character. But mine . . . that’s the most painful part. I have had to look at what I truly am, and it is a sad portrait, I assure you. I am a quick purchase. I see that now. The opinion I had of myself . . . that’s all plowed under now. That’s the most disturbing part. I was deluded before. I believed myself to be a person of character, or principle, and now I see my true nature. . . .”

  “You can’t think that way. Don’t even let such thoughts into your head. I know you, Estelle, and I know what you are capable of. You are not a cheap purchase, as you say. You’re not. The war has thrown everything upside down. I see it every day. But maybe you’re underestimating yourself . . . and underestimating George. He will be a good father, and he will dote on you. I’m not deaf to what you’re saying, but all in the fullness of time . . .”