Her throat tightened, as if it had been coated with cold grease. She took deep breaths so she wouldn’t do something foolish like burst into loud sobs she couldn’t control. Her hand covered her mouth as she watched the men continue walking down a tree-lined path toward the broad green lawns beyond.
Deep inside her chest, her heart just seemed to die. Her world, her foolish little wish-filled world, the one that didn’t really exist, had again suddenly come to an end.
Because it was William’s voice she had heard, claiming he deserved a medal. So she watched him from behind as he stood in the middle of his group of cruel friends. He was still as tall as he’d always been. He still looked as strong standing there in the sunlight.
She had thought he was the man who would slay her dragons. But as she raised her chin and swallowed the thick lump in her throat that felt as if it were her heart, she saw the truth: it was her William who was laughing the loudest.
Chapter Three
Life is like pudding.
It takes both the salt
And the sugar
To make a good one.
— Old New England proverb
There were holes in the upholstery. Georgina Bayard grabbed an embroidered pillow that had once belonged to Marie Antoinette and shoved it onto the sofa so it covered the worn spots. Across the room, a tall clock chimed the hour. She spun around and stared at the clock. Nine more hours. She snatched a honey bun from the breakfast table and ate it while she paced in front of the large French doors that led out to the gardens.
She swallowed the last bite and looked out at the horizon where today the sky met a calm Atlantic sea. But Georgina knew the sea was as mercurial as her brother’s luck. One day the waters were flat and calm, unmoving, as if the ocean could never roar and spit and crash so hard against the rocky Maine coastline that the local fishermen called howlers.
They crept up on one, those howling storms, right after days like this, perfect days. Idle days. Days that lulled one into a sense of well-being and peace, as if all were right with the world and could never be any different. But those who knew the coast, who had spent as much time in Maine as she had, knew the end of summer like any other season could be fickle.
If there was one thing Georgina Bayard understood, it was that life was fickle. Only fools believed in fate and luck. Her brother had been the biggest fool of all, chasing his dreams only to end up dead and broke, leaving her nothing but a trail of bad investments, a business with stacks of debts, a mansion in Boston, and a summer home she loved, both with huge mortgages that she couldn’t pay.
She finished off three more sweet buns, nervously biting and chewing, biting and chewing, and not tasting anything. Disgusted, she plopped down in a nearby chair and stared out the window where the vista was marred by that ugly gray clump of an island, the place the locals said was run-over with ghosts of mad Scots who had been driven from their homes.
Mad Scots... oh, certainly. She laughed. As if anyone could believe that tripe. But as she sat there, she realized that she did have something in common with those “mad Scots.” She was about to lose her home.
She lay her head back to ease the tightness in her neck. Her grandmother had always done that, slung her head back for a few minutes when she was sitting in this chair, the same chair from which she would say, “Georgina, you should have been a boy. That brother of yours is nothing but a spineless wastrel. There are only clouds in his head and a new scheme to dream. He’ll come to no good. You’ll see. He’s weak, but you’re the strong one—stubborn, hard, and cold. You’re like your grandfather and his father, a true Bayard. A survivor.”
Her grandmother had been right. Her brother Albert never thought about the consequences of anything he wanted to do. He just did it. He was only a year older than her, but in the eyes of their parents he was years ahead of her; he was important because he was the son.
One Sunday afternoon when she was six, they had all climbed into the family vis-à-vis and driven to a park, where there was to be a concert, confectionery booths, and a special puppet show to entertain children. But before long Albert had dragged her off to chase a pond frog, then to feed the pigeons that he swore would eat nuts right from the palm of her hand. The next thing she knew they were lost in a mad crush of very tall people who were all in such a hurry to hear the concert that they never noticed the small girl who looked lost.
It had seemed like hours before her parents found them, sitting on a bench near the duck pond. Their mother ran to coddle Albert, who was crying. Georgina just sat there with her hands knotted in her lap to stop them from shaking. She was so terribly frightened she couldn’t even find any tears to cry. Her father and grandmother mistook that paralyzing fear as strength, and for the very first time her family spoke her name with approval and with pride; they had claimed she was the strong Bayard.
One hot summer day when they were a few years older, Albert had lured her out to swim in the too-deep waters of the bay. It had been Georgina who had fought the undertow and brought them both back to shore. While she’d sat in the eel grass on a sand dune trying to cough out all the burning seawater from her throat, her hysterical mother had grabbed Albert, sobbing that they had almost lost their son.
Her parents swept her brother back up to the house. Since Georgina was the strong one, she didn’t need them like Albert did, so she was left behind. Later, when her brother was tucked into warmed sheets and fed hot whipped chocolate and creamy chowder, Georgina got a pat on the head because she was so strong and levelheaded, then she was left alone again to put herself to bed.
When her brother cried out at night because he was frightened of the dark, her mother ran to him. But Georgina, the strong one, didn’t cry out in spite of what horrible things she thought might be hiding in that dark room with her.
In time, she had trained herself to ignore the things that came from her imagination: dreams and hopes and other such fanciful emotions. Those emotions were only monsters that hid in the dark, things that didn’t really exist in life.
Life was not thinking about things that were, or could have been, or those things that even might be. Life was becoming what everyone thought you were. Life was living each day trying to be what you are not. Because you were so terribly afraid. What would happen if they found out that deep inside you were not that strong person they thought you were?
Georgina learned at a young age to be what they wanted her to be. She learned to hide her fears behind a facade of sheer will. Over the years, whenever her world began to crumble around her, like when her mother was dying and only said goodbye to Albert, or when her father died and left the entire Bayard estate to her brother alone, Georgina became stronger and fought harder to hang on the same way she had fought those many years ago to hang on to Albert when the sea had tried to push and pull them under.
And now, for weeks she’d been quietly fighting again. Tonight she would know if she had won her latest battle. She stood up abruptly, as if by sitting down for those few minutes she had done the unforgivable and had given up. She turned, then paused at the glass doors and watched a crew of fifteen men working in the gardens, pruning back the overgrowth so the stone benches were clear of wild branches and sucker shoots, shaping the bushes and spruce hedges until they were perfectly symmetrical, cleaning up crushed lilacs and roses, and the fallen leaves from the flagstone walks and marble fountains. Lanterns were being strung from the top-floor balcony, high enough to softly light the grounds below yet not shine on the mansion’s cracked wood and scattered patches of peeling white paint.
For the last day and a half, the brick-paved drive had clattered with the constant sounds of delivery wagons filled with crates of live lobster, prime cuts of beef, sweet hothouse fruits, exotic flowers, beluga caviar, and case after case of Veuve Clicquot champagne. Georgina had spent the last of the Bayard fortune on tonight’s gala, a Bayard tradition.
Every summer, for as long as anyone could remember, the Bayard gala closed the summer season in Maine. Men pomaded their hair and wore jeweled studs in their silk shirts. Women laced up China silk dancing slippers and saved a Worth gown for this annual farewell night, when French champagne flowed endlessly from a heavy silver fountain, when delicate pieces of sweet lobster were wrapped in buttery pastry and served with wonderfully exotic bananas glazed in honey and hazelnuts, and when Russian caviar speckled the creamy platters of new potatoes. There would be lively music and dancing in the Bayard gardens; and though there always were lanterns hanging to light the way, the gardens never ceased to glow under a traditional August moon.
Anticipation ran high among the attendees, for it was well known that there had been more sealed engagements, more merging of wealthy families at the Bayard gala than at any event ever. Ladies dreamt of a long look, a long kiss, a short question, and an impressive four-carat diamond set in precious platinum. Young men practiced love lines on bended knees, and in their sweaty palms they held celluloid ring boxes lined with blue velvet to protect the jewels that were hidden inside. Tonight could change the life of at least ten couples.
