The Major's Daughter

by J. P. Francis

“You must promise me you won’t let yourself forget your feelings for August,” Estelle said, feeling suddenly it was the most important thing in the world. “You mustn’t tell yourself it isn’t real or that it is unimportant. Do you promise? I couldn’t stand it if you follow my example.”

  “I’m not even sure. . . .”

  “Promise me. Learn from my mistake. At least then my ridiculous behavior will have some benefit to someone. I have compromised. That’s the kindest interpretation you can put on it. Tell me you promise to allow him into your heart if it is inclined that way. Don’t put up obstacles. Don’t tell yourself it’s impossible. You see how impossible things are for me? You don’t want that. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “I’ve seen how you look at him,” Estelle said with feeling. “It’s how I felt about Mr. Kamal. But I was too frightened, too mindful of opinion.”

  “You may have made the right decision. You can’t know everything yet. August is an Austrian soldier, a prisoner. None of us can know what will happen.”

  “Can’t I? I suppose not. What did they say in our introduction to philosophy class? I am presupposing. Oh, I’m just talking through my hat, Collie. It’s late and we should get to bed. I’m sorry if I’ve put too much on you. I had to tell someone. Forgive me. I’m emotional right now.”

  “You never have to ask my forgiveness. There’s nothing to forgive.”

  “Do you love August? Tell me honestly.”

  “I don’t know him well enough to say. I know I feel light-headed to be near him. I feel that we’re meant to be together somehow, but my common sense tells me otherwise.”

  “Don’t give in to that. Not to that. Common sense is precisely the enemy, Collie. You’ve said you’ve gone out a few times with Henry, isn’t that so? What did you feel? Was it the same feeling you had when you’ve been in the presence of August?”

  “No, but I wanted to talk to you about Henry. He’s not as bad as we had first thought.”

  “I won’t soon forget Amos,” Estelle said, her voice choking slightly as she said his name. “Oh, I know it can be confusing. How can we know what our hearts want? But if you love August, if you think he’s what you need, then find a way. Find a way to be with him, promise me?”

  “I will.”

  Estelle felt herself gathered in a fierce hug. Collie nearly fell from the chair in her determination to comfort her. “Take the long view,” Collie whispered. It will be all right in the end. And Estelle, to her astonishment, half believed her friend.

  • • •

  Like candles, Collie thought from her position on the staircase, the guests spread out below her, their faces looking up. Like bright, beautiful candles.

  That’s how the bride’s party appeared to her. The gowns fit exquisitely. And the short veils on their headpieces, a pale cream, seemed the shadow one forms by cupping a hand close to the flame. Estelle’s taste, as usual, had been exquisite. The gowns, fitted taffeta with a stiff bodice and a softer skirt, flowed down in superb proportion. Tally’s of Chicago had done the gowns, and what had initially seemed an unconscionable extravagance now seemed the wisest sort of expenditure. Even in war one had to dress, Collie realized, and one only married once. She had talked the subject to death with Estelle, but now, seeing them lined up and ready, their bouquets of lilies of the valley trembling in their nervous hands, Collie saw the reason for the cost. You could not fake such dresses.

  She heard the low purr of an organ; the organ had been carried in this morning with great huffing and puffing, and Estelle’s mother had despaired over the amount of floor space it consumed, but it earned its keep in these final moments. Collie turned to see if Estelle had come up on the landing yet. Estelle’s father stood at the top step, his smoking jacket dark and definite among the candles of the bride’s party. He smiled benevolently down at everyone.

  Then the people on the landing near Estelle’s father grew quiet, and suddenly Estelle herself appeared. Collie’s eyes moistened at the sight of her friend reaching out to take her father’s proffered arm. Someone down below must have reported Estelle’s arrival to the crowd, because an expectant stiffness went through the people gathered, and the organ, as if clearing its throat, threw away its earlier musings and began Mendelssohn’s stirring “Wedding March.” The first notes silenced everyone, and Collie felt the streets outdoors grow quiet, the late-afternoon light become solemn and pale, and then her cue came to advance down the stairs.

  She experienced a moment of dislocation: she walked down the stairs comprehending, perhaps for the first time, what it would be like to descend as a bride. Yes, naturally people looked to see Estelle, but Collie came down the stairs carefully, her eyes bright with tears, her free hand sliding on the pinecone banister. She felt her emotions quivering inside her. She imagined herself descending some future staircase toward August. That was a foolish, girlish thought more appropriate to Marie, sweet Marie, than for a young woman Collie’s age, but she couldn’t help it. She pictured him standing below, his handsome face turned up to see her, his smile broadening as she approached. Was he really the one for her? It was his face she pictured, not Henry’s, but had the war thrown them together and made them more attracted than they might have been otherwise? Or did fate simply seal what they could not escape? Their stars aligned, she understood, and in the ten or more steps she took toward the ground floor she promised herself to no longer resist but to give in to her feelings—as Estelle had made her pledge—and to cease combating what sought to bloom with August.

  Then the music and the people around her canceled any thoughts except for Estelle. Collie met her groomsman—a man named Neil who had remained indefinite in her mind, a friend of George’s, a blustering, vest-popping man who demonstrated his disappointment several times already that he had been matched with this girl from New Hampshire—and took his arm. The music swelled and filled every corner of the room. A number of women held handkerchiefs to their eyes, and just ahead, looking back and smiling, was Estelle’s mother. Collie exchanged a smile with her, a small nod, then she had to turn left, separating from Neil, so that they might form a semicircle around the wedding couple, men on the right, women on the left. George stood on the right, his hands folded calmly together at his belt buckle.

  Estelle! How lovely she looked, Collie saw with satisfaction as she turned and took her position. Estelle was perfect. Every bride is perfect in her own way, Collie observed, but Estelle had outdone any bride she had ever seen. Her dress, full but not absurdly so, floated down the floor like a fairy broom. Her bare shoulders spread back—Estelle’s posture had always been impeccable—but the veil flowed down and covered everything in a gentle modesty. Collie smiled. Here was Estelle, a Smith girl only moments before in cardigans and plaid skirts, in saddle shoes and white socks, who now glimmered like the brightest candle of all. Her confession of the night before . . . what did it matter in the final analysis? Collie knew her friend would try, would be a good wife, and George, Eternal George, might surprise them all. Life was a silly, silly game with impossible rules and unanticipated turns that defied all logic or expectation. Collie understood that now and she vowed to remember it.

  Then handing the bride over. A kiss from her father, a warm smile at her mother, and then Estelle’s girlhood ended. George stepped forward and held out his arm, and Estelle, not pausing, not faltering, took his arm and smiled at him. Collie nearly wept at the quiet bravery demonstrated by her friend. The minister—an ancient-looking man who resembled a turtle, Estelle had promised, with a pale neck protruding from a black suit, and slow-blinking eyes—raised his voice, and the organ subsided. He lifted his hand and asked the guests to be seated. The afternoon light from the windows bathed everything in honey.

  Collie told herself to listen to the ceremony, but her mind drifted restlessly. She could not concentrate, though she tuned in to hear the classic questions and replies: Do you accep
t, forsaking all others, from this day forward, till death do you part? but the light carried her away. She pictured the late-afternoon light back in New Hampshire, the trees passing it slowly toward the hills, the deer-quiet momentary pause before evening. At this moment, she knew, the birds stopped calling and the light grew faint and only the river remained. Sometimes a late car passed over the covered bridge, giving the tires an echo that raised in pitch and then released once the car gained solid earth again. Mrs. Hammond would be readying dinner and the fire would crackle and snap, and the chairs might scrape as they pulled out for the boarders. At the center of it all August waited, his intelligent hands prepared to play the piano, his lovely smile warm and friendly. Go to him, she told herself. And then she raised her hands to clap at the first married kiss of George and Estelle’s young lives.

  • • •

  She was married, Estelle realized.

  It was not a line one crossed, it was not anything, but as she clung to George’s arm, people crowded around them both, she comprehended something had changed. Now and then she caught sight of the gold band George had slipped onto her finger; yes, that had happened, too, and as she accepted congratulations, kissed cheeks, she heard George’s booming voice beside her. This was it, then. This was how they would go through life, and she took in details of the moment, the dying sunlight, the music purling and bubbling out of the organ—like a skating party, she could not prevent herself from thinking—and the giddy confusion of the event overwhelmed her. She felt her mother press near, warmly exchange a kiss, then her father and then aunts and uncles, near-strangers, her father’s medical colleagues. Everyone, she imagined, looked relieved, doubtless to have the ceremony finished and drinks being served. A few boisterous laughs rang out from near the stairs, and she saw the outline of several men who had already slipped out to the front porch to smoke cigars. She smelled the cigars and the delicious odor of food from the kitchen, and George discovered a line he liked and repeated: “Well, she nearly got away, but I roped her.” The line always brought hearty laughs, and a pat on the shoulder, then they went on, wading through the crowd. Where were they going? She didn’t know; in all the frenzied planning, she could not recall a single discussion about what to do after the ceremony. At some point they were to do a portrait, but that could not be now, at this moment, and she looked for her mother to give her guidance.

  The three-piece band her mother had engaged began playing. The organ had been replaced and Estelle knew her mother had plans—like a military maneuver, she had envisioned—to cart the organ out through the French doors to make more floor space. She had already recruited the men necessary to do it, and the rental truck waited in the backyard out of sight, and Estelle imagined her mother standing by like General Eisenhower, supervising everything.

  Someone handed her a glass of champagne. George, too. He looked at her quickly and raised his glass, smiling, and she did not hate him in that moment. He was not to blame, after all. He was simply George, and she had known what she was doing, and so she lifted her glass and clinked it against his. A few people cheered. She took a good swallow and the champagne hardly bothered her. It felt like water, bright, oxygenated water, and she tossed off the remainder of the glass in a second swallow. Immediately the champagne entered her bloodstream and she remembered she had hardly eaten all day, but that thought passed quickly away. She accepted a second glass of champagne, a lovely tall flute, and she grabbed only a sip before it was taken away and she was turned and the music brightened and George took her in his arms.

  They played “A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening” by the Ink Spots. It was their song, Estelle recalled, though where or when it had gained such a valence she couldn’t say. George hummed the melody in her ear, keeping time with a measured tap at her waist.

  “We’re married,” she said to him, appraising him frankly. “Does that strike you as strange?”

  “Well, it will take a little getting used to, I’m sure.”

  “We’re now a social entity. A wedded couple.”

  “Say, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just that things happen so quickly sometimes.”

  “From my end I’ve been angling for years to win you.”

  “Have you, George? That may be the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “I thought you knew it. I was crazy about you all along. Didn’t you know?”

  “I suppose I never looked at it that way. It always seemed as though we were playing at something . . . and now here we are, married.”

  “You’ve got a peculiar turn of mind going on right now, Estelle. No more champagne for you.”

  “Oh, I want quite a lot of champagne. Gallons of it. I’m pregnant, George. This is a big day for surprises, so there you are. I’m pregnant.”

  It was a horrible, horrible time to tell him such a thing, and she waited, studying his expression, marveling at her capacity for cruelty. He smiled at someone off to his left, then turned and smiled down at her. This ability to carry on in the face of difficult news would make him a success in business. She saw that clearly. His eyes grew slightly tighter, but then he shrugged and pulled her closer.

  “It was going to happen sooner or later,” he said, philosophically, she thought. “We want a family.”

  “Yes, I imagine we do.”

  “Well then, it doesn’t much matter when it happened. It’s nobody’s business but ours.”

  “People will calculate the time.”

  “They can go fry an egg,” he said, and spun her. “I’m busting to tell people, but I guess we better not.”

  “I should say not!”

  Was he joking? She leaned back and took another look of appraisal. He had his abilities, it was true. Before she could come to any conclusions, she heard the crowd make a small guffaw, and then her father—he must have mimed a little skit behind George’s back, she realized—cut in for a father-daughter dance. George spun off to find his mother.

  “Hello, Cupcake,” her father said, his breath smelling faintly of bourbon. “You look beautiful today.”

  “Thank you, Papa.”

  “Are you happy?”

  “Very happy.”

  “I remember marrying your mother and wondering what in the Sam Hill had happened. But you’ll get used to it.”

  “It feels a little strange right now.”

  “Of course it does. Why wouldn’t it? I’m not stepping on your gown, am I?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Your mother would kill me. She should have been a director. In the theater, I mean. She likes putting on a show.”

  “Do you like George, Daddy?”

  Now it was her father’s turn to lean away and appraise her. He pulled her closer after a moment.

  “Sure I like George. Who wouldn’t? He’s a nice young man with a future.”

  “But do you like him?”

  He danced her a few steps around the floor before he answered.

  “I know what you’re driving at, Cupcake. He’s not Cary Grant. I see that. And maybe you always thought you required Cary Grant. We brought you up to think that, I suppose. George isn’t Cary Grant, but he will be a good husband, I guess. He’ll make his way in the world. And he’ll be as kind to you as you are to him, so you’re well matched. Not everything is oatmeal and raisins, Cupcake. But you two will do just fine.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Then the music stopped and people clapped and the noise of so many hands highlighted a large laugh out on the porch. Someone nearby said it had begun to snow. Collie swept in and took both of Estelle’s hands. Collie smiled her warm, friendly smile, and Estelle felt better about everything.

  “Hello, Mrs. Samuels!” Collie said, her voice cutting through the crowd. “What a gorgeous, gorgeous bride you are!”

  “Thank you. Yes
, the dress worked better than I thought it might. And you all look lovely, too.”

  “Doesn’t George look handsome? He looks rather dashing.”

  “I told George,” Estelle said, bending close and whispering in her friend’s ear, “about everything.”

  “When?”

  “Just now. Right on the dance floor.”

  “Oh, gracious.”

  “He didn’t bat an eye. Not my George. I give him credit for that.”

  “Why did you tell him now?”

  “To hurt him, I suppose. Isn’t that the lowest thing you’ve ever heard? I didn’t want him to have a pretty picture in his head that didn’t match reality. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want me for a friend.”

  “Nonsense,” Collie said. “We’re going to get you something to eat, and then your mother wants you for pictures. She wants everyone in the library. The photographer may take one out on the porch in the snow. It’s begun to snow, you know? That’s a good omen. Have you met the photographer? He’s a funny man with side whiskers. . . . He looks like photographs of General Lee. . . .”

  Estelle let herself be led. Then Collie produced a plate of finger food. Everywhere, at every breath, people swung by to congratulate her, to say how beautiful she looked. Over their shoulders she saw the organ carried away; a blast of cold air from the French doors spilled through the room.

  “There goes the organ!” Estelle said and couldn’t suppress a laugh.

  The efficiency of the operation, the sight of the organ—like a dead hippopotamus surrounded by African porters—scuttling off, struck her funny bone. She was certain it was merely the strain of the day, the nervous energy she could not quite conquer, but she laughed harder and harder at the absurdity of it. What difference did the organ make? They were all inside, they had managed, and now they cast the organ out like an unwelcome guest! She wanted to call it back, apologize, but instead she laughed. Her head felt detached from her body, a fanciful balloon drifting above her shoulders, swayed by the wind and mesmerized by everything around her. How peculiar she felt!