The Beaufort Sisters

by Jon Cleary

  ‘I’m not stupid. Mother would have a fit. What are you going to do?’

  ‘What am I? What the heck do you think I’m going to do? I don’t believe it, for one thing. And even if it were true, which I doubt very much – ’ Am I arguing too hard? ‘ – it’s none of my business. It may be just a phase she’s passing through.’

  ‘Did you go through a phase like that when you were her age?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. But I had crushes – ’

  ‘Not on girls, I’ll bet. You had a crush on Tim – ’ Prue looked up at her, an angel with braces on her teeth. She’s too artless, Margaret thought. And looked for horns among the blonde curls. ‘But then we all did. Even Sally.’

  ‘Well – ’ She was at a loss. She did not want to interfere with Sally; that would be too much like their father’s attitude. Yet she had to protect her parents from discovering Sally’s … Sally’s what? Indiscretion, aberration, perversion? She couldn’t bring herself to put a name to it. ‘Well, I’ll have a talk with Sally. But you stop spying on her.’

  Prue was indignant. ‘I wasn’t spying! It was an accident I saw them. Sally’s bedroom door was open – ’

  ‘All right, all right! Just let’s keep it quiet. You could be all wrong about what you saw – I hope you are. Now let’s go in and feed the children.’

  After lunch Margaret saw Sally and Cindy driving out of the park in Sally’s MG. They looked exactly as she had thought of them up till a couple of hours ago: two attractive girls in whom any boy would have been interested. But it occurred to her now that since Sally and Cindy had arrived home on Thursday night, no boys had come near the place. She wondered if the same thought had occurred to her mother.

  She spent the afternoon with the children. She loved being with them, a fact that sometimes surprised her; till she had become pregnant with Martha she had never shown the slightest interest in children, had, indeed, been bored by them. Now she was fascinated by them, even the baby Emma; and she loved them both. She did not have to pretend to herself on that: she loved Frank’s child as much as she did Tim’s. She still thought of Frank, sometimes with regret, more often with guilt, never with love. She also thought of Tim, less frequently but still with yearning.

  That evening Lucas and Edith went to the Kansas City Country Club for supper. Prue had gone to spend the night with her friend Sue Harrap, her co-admirer of Henry Miller. Margaret knew that Sue’s mother, Helen, would not make a big thing of her daughter’s reading Tropic of Capricorn; Helen was one of the new breed of progressive-minded mothers, a philosophy that Edith thought was only a synonym for dereliction of a mother’s duty. Margaret would not be surprised if Helen Harrap, her daughter and Prue were right now sitting grouped together discussing Mr Miller.

  It was nine o’clock in the evening when Margaret decided she was bored. The children had been asleep two hours, she had had her supper, she had watched television: she had to get out of the house. She went out, crossed the lawns, was entering the back door of the main house before she admitted to herself that she was not bored, that all day she had been trying to put her mind against talking with Sally. Yet now she came into the house slyly, like a spy.

  She heard the soft laughter in Sally’s room as she came quietly up the stairs. Faintly from the servants’ quarters there came the sound of other laughter, canned: someone was making a fool of himself on television. Sweating a little, afraid of what she was going to find, she knocked gently on Sally’s door. She knocked gently because she knew she did not want to be heard. Then she opened the door.

  Sally and Cindy, both nude, were in bed together, arms round each other. Margaret stood unable to move; all at once she wanted to retreat but couldn’t. She had wanted to spy on them, and now she was shocked and ashamed. Sally turned her face away from Cindy’s and looked at her. Later Margaret would recall that there was no defiance in Sally’s expression. She looked surprisingly and incongruously sad.

  Margaret started to close the door, backing out. ‘Don’t go, Meg,’ said Sally.

  She sat up, reached for a robe and slipped into it as she got out of bed. She didn’t look at Cindy, who had rolled on to her back, pulled the sheets up to her chin and lay staring at the ceiling. Margaret, suddenly wishing she had stayed in her own house, came into the room and closed the door.

  ‘Now you know.’ This was a Sally Margaret had never known: quiet, adult, nothing of the hoyden she had always been. ‘I’m sorry you had to find out, Meg.’

  ‘You haven’t made much effort to hide it.’ She did not mean to sound sharp, but she was ill at ease. All day she had been thinking of talking with Sally, putting it off but knowing she would eventually have to do it. And now she had no reasoned argument to put and consequently was awkward and abrupt. ‘Even Prue knows. Or suspects.’

  Sally sighed worriedly, looked at Cindy. ‘Better go back to your own room, Cindy.’

  Cindy slid out of bed, pulled on a robe and looked at Margaret. ‘I don’t know how Sally feels, but I’m not ashamed. I love her.’

  Margaret had had no experience in this sort of love, not even as an observer. There had been girls who had been suspected lovers at college, but the girls and the subject had always been avoided. Lesbianism was something that only girls who couldn’t get a man went in for, a last resort for love.

  Margaret said nothing and her silence seemed to upset Cindy, who looked at Sally, then put her hand to her face and ran out of the room. Margaret waited for Sally to say something, since for the moment she had nothing herself to say.

  ‘I suppose you think I’m a pervert?’

  Margaret went to sit down on the bed, the side where Cindy had lain; then she changed her mind and sat in a chair. She had the feeling she was backing off from everything and was annoyed at her cowardice. Nobody had pressed her to come here, she had come of her own accord to interfere. But with the best of intentions, she told herself.

  ‘I’m shocked, Sally – I admit that. But I’ve never thought of what you’ve been doing as a perversion – maybe it is with some girls, but not all. It’s not with you, is it? I mean, you’re not doing it for the thrill?’

  Sally looked for a moment as if she was going to be angry; then she sat down on the bed and once more looked sadly at her sister. ‘I’m not like that, Meg. I mean the thrill bit. I saw you looking at the bed – what were you looking for? A dildo, something like that? You’re like a man – they all think we have to use those things.’

  ‘I wasn’t looking for anything,’ Margaret said. ‘How did you get – involved like this?’

  ‘I don’t know why I got into it, if that’s what you’re asking. It just sort of happened.’

  ‘Is Cindy the first?’

  Sally nodded. ‘She started it. Made the first advances, is that how they say it? I’m not blaming her. I didn’t hold off. I think I welcomed it. Not the sex bit, but just someone loving me for myself.’

  ‘Oh God – how can you say that? We’ve always loved you!’

  Sally shook her head almost fiercely. ‘You all thought you did. But I was always the odd one out. Daddy was always only concerned for Nina. Mother was always fussing over you.’

  ‘What about Prue?’

  ‘She’s self-contained, even at her age. I’m not – ’ Suddenly she began to cry, tears streaming down her face.

  Margaret got up, went quickly round the bed and took her in her arms. She held Sally to her, stroking her hair and back while Sally drained herself of tears. Part of her mind wondered if Cindy had done this, and she began to understand. Whatever else they had done did not matter. It could not have been any worse than the deceitful sex she had given Frank.

  At last Sally sat back and dried her eyes on the sheet. ‘Thanks. I mean for being so understanding – ’

  ‘Cindy has to go home. I’m afraid that Mother and Daddy will catch on if she doesn’t.’

  ‘You won’t tell them? No, I shouldn’t have said that. I can see you won’t. What about Prue? You said she suspe
cted – ’

  ‘She’s a shrewd little devil. But she’s not a mischief-maker. Don’t discuss it with her, just let it ride. If she brings it up with me again, I’ll say we, she and I, were mistaken. You and Cindy just liked each other.’ She looked carefully at her sister. ‘Cindy says she loves you. Do you love her?’

  Sally didn’t reply at once, then she said, ‘No. I could never tell her, but there are times when I get bored with her. I still like boys … Do you think I’m – what do they call it? – double-gaited?’

  Margaret suddenly laughed: she had never heard the expression. ‘You sound like a trotting horse!’

  Sally also laughed; or rather, smiled. She was still quiet, nothing like the girl who in the past would have let out a gust of laughter. Margaret wondered how much of that laughter had been forced. ‘You know what I mean. Maybe there’s some hope …’

  ‘Of course there is! For God’s sake – ’ Margaret squeezed her sister’s hand; it was hard to believe that Sally thought no one had loved her. ‘Look, tell Cindy to go home. She can tell Mother that she got a phone call tonight about some crisis at home. Then when she’s gone, you can start working things out for yourself.’

  ‘She’s still going to be there – at Vassar, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, that won’t help. But it will only be for another semester. You can’t leave Vassar now – that would cause too many complications with Mother and Daddy. And Prue might start asking questions. You never were a very good liar … Look, I’m going to Rome in the summer to stay with Nina. Come with me and the children.’

  It was a moment or two before Sally said, ‘You’re not doing this because you’re sorry for me?’

  Margaret leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m doing it because I love you.’

  2

  Cindy Drake went home next morning without any fuss, but to the regret of Edith. ‘She’s such a nice girl. You must have her again.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Sally.

  At the end of June, when Sally came home from Vassar, Margaret asked her, ‘How did it work out with Cindy?’

  ‘She left. She’s transferring to Bennington next semester.’

  ‘Are you glad it’s over?’

  ‘I’m glad it’s over. But I’m not sorry it happened. At least it brought you and me closer together.’

  Prue had proved no problem. Margaret had told her that she had been mistaken, that there was no lesbian relationship between Sally and Cindy. ‘I suppose they were just fooling around when you saw them kissing.’

  ‘Some fooling! Any girl kisses me like that she’s going to get kicked in her what’s-it.’

  Margaret was afraid to ask what a what’s-it was. ‘Well, we have nothing to worry about with Sally. So forget it.’

  ‘I wasn’t making a big thing of it,’ said Prue airily. ‘It’s life, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh God. What are you reading now?’

  When Margaret announced that she was going to Rome and taking the children with her, Lucas erupted with some of his old bombast. ‘You don’t appreciate what you have here! Nina’s over there, lonely and unhappy among all those foreigners – ’

  ‘How do you know she’s lonely and unhappy?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then I’m doing the right thing going over there. I’ll help relieve her loneliness and unhappiness. You should be glad. If you were a loving father, you’d be coming over, too – ’

  ‘I am a loving father! But there are things to do here – ’

  ‘Like electing General Eisenhower,’ said Sally, but only Margaret noticed the acid note in her voice. ‘I’m going to Rome, too. For the summer, anyway.’

  ‘Darling,’ said Edith, ‘you sound as if you’re thinking of staying over there.’

  ‘I may,’ said Sally with polite defiance: she did not want to fight with her mother. ‘I just think it will be nice for the three of us to be together.’

  ‘What about me?’ said Prue.

  ‘You be the sensible one and stay with us,’ said Lucas, as if he had to reason with an eleven-year-old daughter who wanted to go tearing off to Europe.

  ‘For the life of me I can’t see why you all want to run away from home,’ said Edith, trying not to sound hurt.

  ‘You’ll all be glad to come back some day,’ said Lucas. ‘This is the heart of America. The country’s crumbling all around the edges, but not here. We’ve got stability here. Standards and principles. Some day you and all the ones like you will appreciate that the Middle West is the heart and soul of this country. You’ll come back.’

  ‘We’re not going forever,’ said Margaret in exasperation. ‘We are just – just broadening our horizons, I suppose. Broadening our perspective,’ she said, looking at her mother.

  ‘There are limits,’ said Edith, who had become like her husband, more isolationist. The broader world had not treated her or her two eldest daughters kindly at all. They might still be happy if they had married their own kind. ‘Just be careful in Rome, that’s all I ask. Those Italians – sorry, darling.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mother,’ said Margaret. ‘I don’t think Frank ever thought of himself as an Italian Italian.’

  The day before she left for Italy Margaret went to dinner with Magnus McKea. He took her to a small French restaurant where the proprietor, a French-Canadian, had hopes that the natives might consider something besides a T-bone or rib roast. He was also aberrant enough to refuse to serve any pre-dinner drink but an aperitif, contending that diners at his establishment should not shrivel their taste buds before eating his food. He was the spiritual descendant of those traders who had passed through here over a hundred years before hoping to sell soap to the buffalo hunters. Magnus was one of his favourite customers, a man of enlightened tastes.

  ‘Henri has hopes for us,’ Magnus said. ‘Having you dine here will give him a boost. Your name will be in next week’s Independent.’

  ‘It won’t be much of a boost for him when they also read that I’ve just left town. Will you look after things for me while I’m gone, Magnus?’

  ‘I’m taking care of Nina, why not you? Did you hear from your friends up in Chicago after Frank’s death?’

  ‘Just a condolence card from Philip Gentleman – that’s the old man’s son. Perhaps his father got him to send it.’

  ‘Did you write and thank him? No? Good girl. Write all of that off to experience. I mean meeting them. I don’t mean Frank.’

  ‘I’ve written him off to experience, too. Does that sound callous?’

  ‘Yes. I know you don’t mean it that way, but I shouldn’t repeat it to anyone else.’

  ‘If you proposed to me, Magnus, I think I might marry you.’

  Henri came to the table, a dark-haired plump advertisement for his own food. He showed Magnus a bottle of wine. ‘A Pommard 1947, m’sieu. A very, very good year.’

  ‘The lady is suggesting champagne.’ Margaret was surprised at Magnus’s light touch.

  Henri shook his head. ‘Too soon, madame. Later.’

  He poured the red wine and went away. Magnus said. ‘There’s your answer. Too soon. You’d be marrying me on the rebound or out of gratitude, Meg. You should never do that.’

  Don’t tell me: I know. ‘I think you’re afraid of marriage. What do you do – I mean, for women?’

  ‘You mean for sex, don’t you? I’m a gentleman – or I try to be. I have my little affairs. Not here, but in other places. I don’t go to St Louis and Tulsa and Omaha just on business. There are plenty of women of my age, widows and divorcees, who are willing to share their bed with a gentleman. A discreet one, such as I am.’

  She laughed softly, shaking her head at him. ‘You make it sound like a legal service. The lawyer with the bedside manner.’

  ‘None of the women has complained.’

  They had champagne with their dessert and by the time they left the restaurant they were both merry. And Margaret was also a little sad.

  ‘I’m going to miss you, M
agnus.’

  ‘Don’t stay away too long. For your own sake.’

  ‘I’m going to miss Kansas City, too.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You don’t really know KC. All you know is the country club district and that’s not this town. You haven’t a clue about how the people live out on Wornall Road or down in Little Italy or the Mexicans over on the West Side. Or the blue-collar workers over in the North East. You’re an over-protected rich girl whose family made a fortune out of this town. When did you ever go down to the pit at the Board of Trade and watch the bidding for wheat or corn or barley? Or down to the stockyards? The only time you ever see beef on the hoof is at the American Royal show every November and I doubt very much if you pay much attention to it even then.’

  ‘Magnus, you are starting to sound like Daddy.’

  ‘Sorry. But I’m sold on this town and you annoy me when you say you’re going to miss it, because I know you’re not. All you’re going to miss is Beaufort Park and what lies between it and Country Club Plaza. I guess I’d feel the same way about the café-society lot who say the same thing about New York City but never move off Park or Madison Avenues. Kansas City is in my blood, but I don’t think it’s in yours. But that’s probably more your parents’ fault.’

  ‘Well, it’s a little late now. But when I come back …’

  ‘That’s the important thing. To keep coming back.’

  He drove her home, in past the security guard (where did the guard live? she wondered. Out on Wornall Road?) and pulled the car up outside her house. He switched off the engine, reached across and kissed her on the mouth, no lawyer’s kiss.

  ‘You should have taken me back to your place,’ she said. ‘Showed me how the other half lives.’

  ‘I know that. It took a great deal of willpower to get the car on to the Ward Parkway. One of us might have regretted it tomorrow morning if I hadn’t brought you home.’

  ‘Which one of us? You or me?’

  He didn’t answer, just kissed her again and squeezed her breast. She kissed him in return, putting her arms round his neck and pulling him into her. She felt a cheat: she wanted to be made love to, but she knew he was right. One of them in the morning would regret it.