Driving home, the late-afternoon sun turning the fields a deep gold, everyone in the car kept singing "In the Good Old Summertime." Celeste, at the wheel, considered Louise's musical disobedience. How hard it must have been for Louise to cross Carlotta, she thought. She must have loved Aimes Rankin very much and she must love her mother. Otherwise she would have gone through the ceremony trying to ignore Brutus's presence. Courage is an odd quality. It can crop up when you least expect it, at the most absurd moment, in someone you barely thought capable of it. Celeste thought of justice, or more precisely, the lack of it. The law allows what honor forbids.
Yes, Spotty used to say that. Singing, driving home, Celeste decided to do something about honor. She'd have to bide her time, but the time would come.
September 14, 1919
A hairy little paw reached up when Julia Ellen wasn't looking and hooked her sandwich right off the plate.. Madame de Stael ate the ham out and left the bread all over the floor. Juts, immersed in her bridge game, didn't notice. Celeste and her cronies had taught Juts and Ev Most to play this, as well as poker, to fill in when any of the four got sick or bored. Juts, a whiz with mechanical and mathematical matters, could remember every card played.
Fannie Jump, remarkably sober, shrewdly watched Celeste and Julia bid. Fairy picked at her sandwich.
"Is Louise seeing Paul Trumbull?" Celeste asked Juts. She knew the answer but she hoped to throw Fannie off the track.
"Her and Orrie swoon over anything in spats."
"Is that a fact?" Fannie remarked.
"Mrs. Creighton, it's enough to gag a maggot, the way that girl carries on. She and Orrie swap clothes for their big dates. Between them they have one outfit. If they're ever asked out on the same night it'll be the end of the friendship."
"Thick as thieves, those two," Ev said, sitting behind Julia to study her hand. Ev wasn't as quick as Juts.
"Is Louise still swinging a mean pair of rosary beads?" Celeste's eyebrow arched.
"Every now and then she suffers an attack of goodness," Julia drawled.
"I say, Celeste, did you throw down that spade?" Fannie asked.
"Yes. Any objections?"
"No. Fairy, will you wake up over there? Miss Chalfonte threw down a goddamned spade."
Fairy took no notice. Fannie said, a little louder, "Fairy Thatcher, yoo-hoo."
"What?"
"Celeste threw down a spade."
"Oh."
"Will you pay attention. It's your turn."
"Pipe down, Fannie.. I think I hear someone in the driveway." Fairy got up and went over to the window. "Celeste, Carlotta and two nuns are driving onto the grounds."
Light as a cat, Celeste was at the window. "Papists in the driveway!"
"That's rich," Fannie called out.
"Might as well go outside and see what La Sermonetta wants." Celeste opened the door and greeted Carlotta as she was stepping out of her Daimler.
"What are they doing out there, Fairy?"
Fannie remained the only one seated. Juts and Ev peeped around the curtains, too.
"Carlotta is gesturing," Fairy answered.
"Miss Chalfonte's got her arms folded across her chest. Whatever Mrs. Van Dusen is spouting, she don't want to hear it much," Juts observed.
"Salvation on the installment plan," Fannie muttered, and picked up the other players' hands when all were glued to the window.
"Celeste is telling her to go to hell!" Juts exclaimed.
"No doubt so she can invest in property and sell it at a higher value. Everyone's heading in that direction, you know." Fannie amused herself.
"Fannie, you are missing a good one. Sister Mary Margaret is making the sign of the cross. Celeste's language must be waxing exotic." Fairy had her ear to the window, straining for a few heated syllables.
"Carlotta still hasn't forgiven her for wrecking graduation." By now Fannie hovered at the window with the rest of them.
"If there's a way to get even she will, that pious hypocrite." Fairy's eyes narrowed.
"Asking Brutus to be the commencement speaker was insult enough, I think." Fannie looked at her.
"Carlotta traded him her family name for some money. She wasn't looking to burn Celeste," Juts wisely noted..
"Julia, you amaze me." Fannie smiled.
"He gets fatter and fatter, like a tick!" Juts spat.
"Fannie, when you consider it, how does he manage? The whole town hates him. Our people have nothing to do with him."
"When the tide's in, all the boats rise." Fannie pulled the curtain back farther. "We aren't dependent on him, but more and more of the town is. If they don't work in his factories, then they need his workers to buy goods in their stores. Look at the damned Martha Circle, now I ask you. Those storekeepers' wives mix with Ruby, Rachel and Rose whether they like it or not."
"Yes . . . God, Celeste pushed her back in the car on her ass." Fairy whispered from excitement.
"Quick, back to the table. Here she comes." Fannie raced for the cards.
Celeste slammed the door and took her place back at the table.
"Well?" Fannie demanded.
"Well what, goddammit!"
"What did Our Lady of the Cash Register want?"
"She said Brutus Rife approached her, as a Chalfonte, mind you, and asked would she allow him to place a war memorial on the munitions factory lawn— a memorial to Sports."
"You can't be serious!" Fannie exploded.
"Quite." Celeste's mouth pressed together.
"What are you going to do?" Fairy's voice hit the high register.
"Wait until Curtis and Ramelle return and discuss it with them." "Clever, how he bargains with the old families."
Fannie got up and fixed herself a drink. She'd waited long enough.
"When do you expect Curtis and Ramelle back?" Fairy asked.
"In an hour." Celeste picked up her card hand.
While Fannie played better than anyone remembered, Celeste thought over Carlotta's other bombshell —that Ramelle and Curtis were having an affair. She had it on good authority, Carlotta oozed, that they rented a room in Hanover for shameless purposes. Ever since Curtis's return six weeks ago, he lingered. Celeste was in no hurry to see him on his way to California. The loss of Sports was too close to the surface for all of them. Curtis came home sporting a mustache, looking like his brother. The Chalfontes strongly resembled one another. The war had aged him. It had also increased his appetite for life. Before, he hung back. So perhaps he did finally go after Ramelle. More power to him, Celeste thought. Who could resist her? I can't. But can she resist him? I— Damn, Fannie took another trick. Yes, of course they're lovers. I know it in my bones. She loves me, though. I know she loves me. The gall of my sister. Brutus, Brutus Rife.
She uttered out loud, "Klotzen, nicht Klechern."
"What's that, Celeste?" Fannie leaned forward.
"Oh, I was just thinking that Brutus must come here or call to discuss this memorial sacrilege."
"You said something in German." Fairy picked up the thread.
"Don't feel with the fingers but strike with the fist." Celeste tossed out another card. "That's what I said."
Curtis and Ramelle made love all afternoon. At thirty-five, his black hair carried a few streaks of gray. A flesh wound in his left arm still shone an ugly red. Well muscled, he was a fine-looking man. Ramelle liked to run her hands over his chest, for he was covered with fine black hair, soft like the fuzz on a baby chicken. As for Ramelle, she dazzled him. He'd loved her from the moment she came into his sister's house. Spotts warned him to keep his distance. Celeste was a formidable opponent How long ago all that seemed.
"I must return to California, you know that."
She propped herself up on one arm. "I know, darling."
"Ramelle, please come with me." Curtis's voice was low and his mouth felt dry as cotton.
She kissed him. "No."
"Forgive me. What I mean to say is will you marry me? I'd be happy, honor
ed, if you'd be my wife." The man lay motionless.
Ramelle stroked his hair. "Curtis, I can't. You know I can't and you know why."
If he did know why, he nonetheless wanted to hear it. "Celeste?"
"Celeste. I love her. I will always love her."
"Odd having a sister for a rival. I—I can see how you would love her, but God, I wish you'd marry me. I love you." He surprised himself.
"I love you, too. I love you both." She took a deep breath. "When I used to look at you when you'd visit us, I wondered how it would be to make love with you. At Spotts' big party, when you surprised us all, I knew if you came back I'd love you, if you'd have me."
"Have you? I'd fight the war all over again if I knew you were at the end of it." Curtis kissed her again. He held her tight. He was afraid to let her go.
Tm glad we're lovers. If you lived here I'd never stop." He started to say something, but Ramelle continued. "No, don't even think it. You've made a life out there in that new place. No matter how much you love me, I'm no exchange for that."
"Don't say that."
"That's one thing your sister taught me. Place. Place and the life of the mind."
"You must love her very much."
"Yes."
"Do you—" He halted, embarrassed.
"Yes. Yes, we do, and I love her for that, too.
Strange, it's all so strange. I don't feel guilty. I don't feel I've betrayed her, I feel it's the most natural thing in the world to love you. Loving you makes me love her more and loving her makes me love you. Do you think it's possible that love multiplies? We're taught to think it divides. There's only so much to go around, like diamonds. It multiplies."
"I hope so." Curtis touched her cheek, ran his finger along her perfect mouth and thought he would burst from all the emotion within him.
That afternoon when Ramelle and Curtis returned, Celeste told them of Brutus's visit to Carlotta. They all agreed there was no way in hell they'd let Brutus get away with the sly implication that he trafficked with Chalfontes. They'd erect their own memorial to Sports as well as all the other Runnymede boys. Putting the Daughters of the Confederacy in competition with the Sisters of Gettysburg would raise money fast. Besides, both Curtis and Celeste would kick in a bundle.
That night Celeste sat up in bed reading, as usual. She was slugging through Das Kapital in German, but damned if she'd let Fairy Thatcher know. Celeste was forty-one; she'd be forty-two in late November, She remained beautiful, radiant even. Every morning she rode as she had done since childhood. Her body stayed tight and smooth. Ramelle, snuggling up next to her, wondered if comparing Curtis's beauty to his sister's wasn't an impossible task and a silly one at that. Let each simply be.
"Darling, do you know that Juts is becoming a razor-sharp cardplayer?" Celeste put her arm around Ramelle.
"Good. Next time I'll get her for my partner. Where was Cora today?"
"I sent her down to the theater. Gloria Swanson is in Male and Female. Cora's never seen a picture, you know."
"What did she say?"
"Said it gave her a headache. She'd rather listen to Idabelle on the accordion. That way she can hear and see colors." Celeste laughed.
"Is that any good, darling?" Ramelle had noticed the title.
"It may have roused Russia but it isn't rousing me. It's hard to imagine Fairy reading this."
"She's such a birdlike creature."
"Ramelle, there's something else Carlotta said that I didn't tell you tonight."
"What?" She sat up.
"She, after careful hints and judicious indiscretions, announced that you and Curtis were on intimate terms." Celeste closed her book and put it on the night table. She looked directly at Ramelle.
Ramelle didn't falter. "We are."
"I thought so. Did he ask you to marry him?"
"Yes. Your brother is an honorable man."
"He's a good man. I don't know him as well as I knew Spotty—he was just that much younger as we were growing up—but I do know he is a good man."
"Celeste, I'm not going to marry your brother."
"My brother's not good enough for you?" Celeste's defense, her humor, covered her enormous relief. Ramelle knew her too well to be fooled.
"Curtis is good enough for me, good enough for any woman, but he is not you."
"Do you love him?"
"Yes—and I love you."
She hugged her. "I do love you, Ramelle, I do. I know I'm distant—often, too much. So much of my life is in my head, solitary. If you want him go to him. It will be an easier life in some respects."
"Oh, Celeste, I don't want an easier life. I want you. We've lived together for fourteen years. I was twenty-one when I came to you. Our lives are woven together like a braid. If I left I'd unravel everything that was dear to me, including myself."
"I wouldn't be worth much without you."
"Dearest, without me you'd be Celeste Chalfonte. You're like some element, incorruptible. You are complete in and of yourself. It's one of the reasons I love you so much."
Celeste kissed her. "I knew about you and Curtis. Ramelle, you're so beautiful and so kind I wonder that men haven't shot me to have at you."
"You know?"
"Of course. A lover always knows those things."
"Why didn't you say something?"
"It was none of my business. You belong to yourself." She looked at those marvelous eyes. "I hope you haven't hurt him. He is my brother and I love him." Her eyes filled with tears.
"What, darling?"
Celeste put her head on Ramelle's shoulder and cried. "I never told Spotts that I loved him."
Rocking her, Ramelle whispered, "Honey, he knew."
"I wish I had said it. God, it's hell to think of these things when it's too late."
"It's not too late for Curtis."
Celeste lifted her head. "No, it isn't. It isn't. You'd think telling your brother you love him would be the easiest thing in the world. I have trouble telling you."
"I know. But tell him, Celeste. Love multiplies."
Celeste turned out the light and rolled over on top of Ramelle. She kissed her and held her, then curled up behind her to sleep.
"Ramelle?"
"Mmm."
"I'm not jealous. Somehow it makes perfect sense that you love my brother. Love does multiply. I'm glad you told me."
"Me, too."
"Anyway, the advantage of telling the truth is you don't have to remember what you said."
"You!" Ramelle turned around and bit her on the neck. They laughed and fell asleep.
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