Shorecliff

by Ursula Deyoung

  “I—I could go get them…” I faltered.

  “Nonsense.” She waved a hand. “They wouldn’t come. The point is I’m pleased you came even if it doesn’t mean anything. Your cousins, Richard, are a disgraceful pack of hooligans engaged in worse activities than you know how to imagine. But I have sense enough not to lump you in with them. I’ve always thought your mother was the best of us. Rose is too domineering—she has been all her life. Harold was a featherbrain—you never met him, so you don’t know. Loretta—well, no need to say what went wrong with her. Margery is a big pushover, though she pretends to be a strict mother. Kurt is too secretive for his own good. But your mother, Richard, she got the best of the Hatfield qualities. A little quiet, maybe, and she married a hard man, but in spite of that Caroline has what it takes. I know that when I look at you.”

  After this pronouncement she was silent and looked out the window. She seemed embarrassed at having made a compassionate speech, shadowed though it had been with her usual bitterness. I didn’t know what to think of it. I was proud of what she had said about me and my mother, but half the things she had said about her other siblings seemed untrue. I never stopped to consider whether my virtues were as questionable as their vices.

  “All right, run along now,” she said, turning back to me. “Go to your filthy cousins. After the way they carried on yesterday, I’m not surprised they don’t dare show their faces. It’s horrifying to find that the younger generation is rotten through and through, but we have to face it. There’s no use being an ostrich. God knows how the summer will end, but I predicted it. Don’t forget that, Richard—I predicted this from the start. No good can come of locking up boys and girls together. Not with the wickedness of young people being what it is!”

  I fled. Whenever she started making doomsday predictions about the evils of youth, I felt as if she were turning into the witch who tried to eat Hansel and Gretel.

  Tom and Yvette never apologized to her for ruining her birthday, and Uncle Eberhardt never even considered apologizing to any of us. No doubt he viewed the evening as a good night’s work on his part, though he was as shocked as the other adults by the fight between Tom and Yvette, so shocked that for the rest of the summer he eschewed all contact with us. He now spent almost all of his time at Condor’s cottage, and whenever he encountered one of the cousins he would look as if a loathsome insect had crossed his path.

  The aunts, as far as I could tell, were utterly dismayed. The incident on Aunt Edie’s birthday scandalized them far more than it upset us children. The shock we felt stemmed from the fact that we knew how much the shouted words would upset the adults. Even I, with my vague knowledge of what “sleep with” meant (I pictured Tom and Lorelei writhing in a field), was more concerned with the inevitable repercussions from such a public display than with the implications of the fight itself. After all, we cousins had already known about Tom’s visits to Lorelei and the tension between him and Yvette. The violence of their confrontation scared me, but in spite of Yvette’s horrendous behavior, I felt some small sympathy for her. Tom was so magnetic that it was hard not to feel possessive about him—I did myself sometimes, when I saw him disappearing from our games to go off with Lorelei. He was one of those people you can’t bear to lose, even if it’s only for an afternoon.

  Nevertheless, Uncle Eberhardt’s harangue had upset us. Delia Robierre had begun to cry when Francesca left the table, and Isabella joined her for moral support. The noise of their sobs was part of what had made the fight between Tom and Yvette so horrible. Pamela and Fisher kept their eyes locked on their sister during her tirade, wearing such horrified faces that I never dared to ask them afterward what they thought of Yvette’s behavior. Charlie bowed his head, unmoving. As for the Ybarra children, Eberhardt’s comments about Aunt Loretta and Francesca renewed their misery over their mother’s position. I doubt if they even paid attention to Yvette’s outburst. Philip stared straight ahead through the entire fiasco with a stony expression. Isabella tried to say something to him at one point, but he shook her off. Cordelia too remained silent. None of the three Ybarras spoke much during the last two weeks at Shorecliff. It became unthinkable that Philip even owned any jazz records, and all inclination to dance seemed to have left Francesca’s body.

  There was one memorable occasion after Aunt Edie’s birthday, however, when the cousins—or most of them, anyway—forgot their troubles and had fun again for one fleeting evening. It came about through a suggestion from me, which was only fitting since at the end of the night the fun died through my treachery. It was the day the uncles were expected home from their extended hunting trip, the last day in the long, dull week after Aunt Edie’s birthday. Tom and Yvette had been confined to the house for seven days and were both, in their separate rooms, on the point of hysteria. The fact that they refused to speak to each other and thus could not even keep each other company compounded the torment. Perversely the weather had been beautiful that week, and I spent many agonized moments imagining their frustration as they looked out their bedroom windows onto gleaming sunshine and bright waves.

  Lorelei made no appearance during the week, knowing that she had become an enemy in the aunts’ eyes. Rose made many comments, which I resented wholeheartedly and did not consider disputing, about Lorelei’s dishonest nature and promiscuous ways. I suspected that my mother and Margery secretly sympathized with Tom and Lorelei, but not one of the aunts was willing to condone unmarried sex at such a young age. Even more shocking, as far as they were concerned, was Tom’s deceitfulness. “After all,” Aunt Margery said, “if that’s been going on, who knows what else has been happening in our own house all these months?”

  Though I was desperate to know, I never had the courage to ask Tom what he felt about Lorelei being effectively banned from the Shorecliff property. Years later I discovered that he had sent Philip and Fisher on a secret mission to the Stephenson farm to explain his absence and apologize for the scene at the birthday dinner. At the time, though, the mission was so well protected—its agents were the two most discreet cousins among us—that I had no idea it was being carried out.

  I spent most of every day with Pamela. The events of the past week brought us even closer together, though I don’t remember discussing them with her. We accompanied Delia and Delia on their expeditions to visit Barnavelt and trailed after small packs of cousins going to the shore, gathering seashells in silence on the beach. Pamela liked to search for hours for polished sea glass, which was not common on that portion of the Maine coast. She was equally fond of searching for rare mushrooms in the woods. On those occasions when we actually did find a piece of sea glass or some form of fungal growth, she would beam with delight—they were among the few times when I have seen her look unreservedly happy.

  In spite of these peaceful walks with Pamela, however, I was depressed knowing that so many of us were feeling miserable. This was why I suggested that we play a night game.

  Our night games had been a tradition from the beginning of the summer. They did not take place in the small hours—that was when our secret expeditions out of the house would begin—but rather between nine and midnight, when the adults were in their rooms preparing to go to bed. The aunts and uncles tolerated our night games as long as we didn’t come into their rooms. They even allowed us to turn off all the lights in the house, which both Hide and Seek and Sardines required.

  We also played a game not well known nowadays, though in my opinion it is far superior, called Piggy Wants a Signal. The game is simple: one player is the farmer while the other players are runaway pigs. The farmer tries to capture the pigs, and when he catches sight of one and sings out, “I see So-and-So,” that pig must go to the designated pigpen—usually a room with several entrances—and wait until another pig rescues him. This is where the name of the game comes from, for the captured pigs call, “Piggy wants a signal!” When they receive any kind of signal from a free pig—a shout, a hand wave, a blinking light—they are free to escape f
rom the pigpen.

  Because there were so many of us, it was almost impossible for the farmer to win by catching every pig and securing them all in the pen, but winning, in this game, is irrelevant. To be enjoyable, Piggy requires simply a devoted farmer willing to dash up and down staircases and lurk in corners for unsuspecting pigs. With a string of such farmers, the game can provide hours of entertainment. Luckily for us, most of the cousins became deeply committed to our night games. Tom used to claim that it was fun to have Yvette, who did not believe in running, act as farmer, but in truth a sleepy farmer resulted in bored pigs and the end of the game.

  The two best farmers were Fisher and Tom, and indeed they were the most talented players in all our night games—Fisher because he was skilled at moving in total silence and patient enough to sit for long minutes behind a door or in a cupboard, and Tom because his dedication to the game bordered on the fanatical. When he was a pig he would instruct his fellow pigs with military discipline, ordering everyone into “position” and advocating “undercover tactics.” At one point he even tried to elicit Uncle Kurt’s advice on the best way to creep through the house undetected, but Uncle Kurt laughed and said he was sure Tom knew how to do it better than he did.

  The game we played on the night of my great betrayal, the night the uncles came back from their hunting trip, was Piggy Wants a Signal. But games that involved running around were not the only type of night game we played. Equally beloved were the marathon card games held in Isabella’s room. Most of the older cousins were good at cards, but the two older Ybarras were almost unbeatable—Philip could bluff anyone in poker, and Francesca never seemed more like a hunting cat than when she played spoons. There were too many of us for everyone to take part, but for me it was enough to loll on Isabella’s pillow and watch them play on the floor between the two beds, Tom resting his chin on one knee, curled into a ball, Charlie sprawled out with his legs disappearing under the spare bed, Francesca cross-legged, Isabella crouching on her feet, too excited to sit down.

  Isabella and Tom used to make each other laugh, often so hard that the game had to be put on hold while they fell over the cards. Tom could never resist making faces at her at crucial moments. It drove Philip crazy—some of his best bluffs were ruined by the inopportune raising of Tom’s eyebrows. Fisher was unexpectedly an adept card player, eager to predict the probabilities of winning tricks and picking up valuable cards. Yvette also played well and ruthlessly. Pamela would usually sit out the games with me, and the Delias would gossip on the spare bed. Sometimes Isabella would call me down and say I could be her partner, which always thrilled me, though I never gave her any help.

  Afterward I remembered those evenings with a painful pleasure. They held none of the sun-washed brightness of Shorecliff’s days, none of the excitement of setting out for Condor’s cottage or swimming at the beach, but they captured the coziness of living in a house with ten other children, and that closeness was one of the things I treasured most about our summer at Shorecliff. I never felt it anywhere else or with any other people. My cousins alone created this warm world, to which I undeniably belonged, privy even to the splendor of poker until midnight.

  The number of night games declined dramatically after my father’s visit, since the Ybarras were the predominant driving force behind them, and they stopped altogether after Aunt Edie’s birthday. For five or six nights we filed gloomily into our respective bedrooms without any evening entertainment at all, so I was surprised when my suggestion of a game of Piggy met with enthusiasm.

  “Why not?” said Tom, hurling himself onto Isabella’s bed. “There’s nothing else to do in this godforsaken place.” He mused for a moment and then added, “Let’s make this the best game of Piggy we’ve ever played. Are you up for it?” He looked at Isabella.

  Francesca was absent, and Yvette, of course, was not welcome in any room that held Tom. But the rest of us were there, and we agreed to his challenge. Charlie was chosen as a reliable if uninspired farmer. Tom and Fisher were always so excited at the prospect of being pigs that they refused to be the first farmer. As for me, I was such an incompetent farmer that I was never called upon to be anything but a pig—infrequently caught, I’m proud to say, but only because I was often forgotten in the pursuit of a more exciting quarry.

  Isabella and I ran downstairs to inform the adults that a Piggy game was about to commence. They were surprised, considering the recent upheaval, but it was clear from their faces that they were pleased; Piggy was a safely innocent activity. We then scurried through the house, turning off lights, and returned to Isabella’s bedroom. Before going up the last flight of stairs, I hesitated outside Francesca’s door and finally knocked.

  “Who is it?” she said. I could barely make out the words.

  “Richard,” I called back after a moment. I poked my head in.

  She was reading in bed. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “We’re playing Piggy. Do you want to play?”

  “Oh. No, thanks.”

  “Okay.” I closed the door and leaned against it for a moment. Speaking with Francesca gave me a horrible sense of inadequacy. I felt as if I were so far from being able to please her that the mere sight of me filled her with disappointment.

  On returning to Isabella’s room, I regained my anticipation for the coming game. Tom was giving the pigs a brief lecture before we dispersed. Charlie was sitting on the spare bed pretending not to listen. Finally he counted down from ten, and the house was filled with silent pigs scampering to their favorite hiding places. The kitchen served as our pigpen. Because Shorecliff had no back staircase, restricting the pigs’ movement considerably, we were allowed to use the kitchen’s screen door as an escape route, provided we immediately circled around to the front door and came back into the house.

  The life of a pig, if you were not in full stealth mode, was often boring. It was tempting, indeed wise, to remain in one well-​considered hiding place and while away the time. I frequently wedged myself into a corner only to discover half an hour later that I had been daydreaming and forgotten the game completely. To forestall this piggy ennui, Tom encouraged each pig to pick a destination and try to reach it without getting caught. It was a pointless exercise as far as the aim of the game was concerned, but it kept the pigs entertained.

  That night, however, I wanted some time to gloat over the success of my suggestion. To the sound of Charlie’s voice counting down from ten, I raced down the stairs and crawled noisily into the closet where we had found the bocce balls at the beginning of the summer. There I settled myself on a pile of moldy tennis rackets and replayed the last quarter hour to myself. Within five minutes Charlie found me. I went to the kitchen and was surprised to find that I had not been Charlie’s first victim: Isabella was already there. We bellowed, “Piggy wants a signal!” a few times, and Isabella added, “Piggy needs a signal!” for good measure. Then we sat down to wait. A few minutes later Pamela appeared at one of the kitchen windows and turned a flashlight on and off while waving. Isabella and I scooted through the screen door, and while she ran around the corner of the house to parley with Pamela, I circled to the front door and reentered the game.

  An hour later I was racing down the stairs, narrowly avoiding my fourth capture of the evening. The farmer was close by, so I flung myself into the phone booth. The booth was such an obvious hiding place that it had no long-term value, but it was useful as a temporary shelter if the farmer was running by in search of another pig. I liked it because if you sat on the ground and leaned against the bench inside, it felt as if you were shut up in an underground burrow, cut off from the rest of the house. Only the top half of the booth was glassed in—the bottom half and the ornate framework had been constructed out of cherry wood, and the result was an attractive fixture in the hall, as well as a convenient way station for pigs.

  Lying half underneath the bench, I made sure the door was fastened and then allowed myself to relax and catch my breath. Soft footfalls padded into
the hall, and through the booth’s glass windows I watched the shadow of a lone pig as it traveled across the moonlit wall. Then all was quiet. I settled in to wait until Tom, the present farmer, found me.

  As it turned out, however, Tom was occupied in a battle of near misses with Isabella on the top floor, and for a long time I lay undisturbed. I was still in the booth when the uncles arrived home. Nearly asleep, I heard the latch of the front door open and saw a splash of moonlight washing over the hall ceiling. At first I thought it was a pig escaping from the pen, but then I heard the thud of heavy footsteps and a subdued male chuckle, and I realized who it was. Uncle Cedric, Uncle Frank, and Uncle Kurt crowded into the front hall, weighed down by their hunting gear. The moment passed when I could innocently present myself, and I remained in the phone booth, listening with growing apprehension to their talk, not allowing myself to breathe.

  “Damn it, that was a devil of a walk,” Uncle Cedric said. His words were muffled by the clanking of boots and guns as they dropped their bags onto the floor. “Kurt, you have to stop getting in so late. These evening hikes from town are too much for me.”

  “I’m sorry, Cedric,” Kurt replied. My heart thrilled when I heard his voice. I had felt starved for stories in his absence. “You know I try as hard as I can to make the early train, but waking up at five in the morning is hell. I wish there were a midday train, but there isn’t.”

  That was when I first sensed something was wrong. As far as we knew, trains played no part in the uncles’ hunting trips. It sounded, moreover, as if Uncle Kurt had taken a train by himself. I tensed up, as listeners do when they hear something unexpected, and checked to make sure the phone booth’s door was fastened.