Leeway Cottage (9 page)

There was a small tree in one corner with ribbons and carved and painted decorations. There were candles everywhere;
The Messiah
was playing on the record player, and something very warming and delightful was in the punch. This was Sydney's dream of a party, with everyone jammed together, and no servants passing things or washing up in the kitchen. There were many small presents under the tree and pinned to the tree itself. Someone arrived with a homemade
bûche de Noël,
and someone else with caviar. Someone put out a Stilton cheese and Gudrun's husband, Eric, appeared from the kitchen with a huge pot of meatballs he had been cooking since morning. Soon a cloud of dishes emerged from the tiny kitchen and spread out to cover the dining table, like a swarm of bees that looks so much bigger than the hive it came from as it fans out against the sky. People circled the table, filling their plates, and then sat, if they could find a seat, and if not stood eating with their bottles and glasses balanced on a mantelpiece or bookshelf nearby. An immensely tall redheaded Scotsman began to flirt with Sydney, especially after the
bûche de Noël
had been served, and champagne poured, and someone called for Christmas carols. A plump girl named Myrna played the piano; everyone sang. Often during the evening, Sydney felt Laurus watching her, happy that she was enjoying herself. He himself, easy and merry, was in his element.

A few couples said their good-nights, as they were going on to other parties. One or two had to get home to relieve a babysitter and one had a toddler with them who had fallen asleep on top of the coats. When the group was of a size to fit into the dining room, Gudrun emerged from the kitchen with a charlotte mold upside down on a plate. When she lifted the mold, she revealed a tightly packed cake made of dry flour. As everyone crowded around the dining room table, Gudrun carefully set her wedding ring on the center of the cake. The attentive Scotsman took a seat beside Sydney and explained the game to her.

“It's like musical chairs,” said the Scotsman. “We go in turn around the table, cutting away the flour. You can take as much or as little as you like, but the person who makes the ring fall has to pick it up with his lips.”

Myrna began with a bold slice. The flour cake stood firm, revealing only a slightly crumbled surface like a wall of shale. Imre cut a whisper of flour. Then Gudrun, and so on, with much teasing and calling to each other. Sydney was terrified she'd destroy the thing when it came to her, but she didn't. The Scotsman, showing off, took rather a large cut. Myrna declared she was going to make Eric go into the flour but Eric survived. People began to undercut the remaining pillar holding up the ring, and Laurus teased the Scotsman that he was going to have flour all through his beard. When it was Sydney's turn she took the tiniest sliver and for a trembling moment it seemed sure that Laurus was right—the Scotsman was done for. Then, as a cry went up from the table, the pillar collapsed. Sydney's eyes widened, and her cheeks turned red. But after only a second's hesitation she put her hands behind her back and went snout down into the plate of flour. When she came up laughing with the ring between her lips, with flour all over her face, even in her eyebrows, Laurus looked across the table at her elated and comical face, and saw something he thought he recognized, that filled him with delight. And he fell in love.

“H
ow do you do, Mr. Moss?”

“Very well, thank you, Mrs. Brant,” said Laurus cheerfully.

“You could call him Laurus, Mother,” said Sydney. Considering that she'd given her mother plenty of reason to guess that they'd come home to announce to her their engagement.

Candace said serenely, “Thank you, dear,” and ignored the suggestion.

They were standing in the reception hall at The Elms. It was August of 1939, the first time Candace and Sydney had been face-to-face since the previous June, and if Sydney had had any hopes that her absence had made her mother fonder of her, she was over it by the time she and Laurus had tramped across the room to where Candace stood in full regalia, including a silk morning dress and a pair of large gray pearl earrings.

What Candace saw: her daughter, dressed in some, she supposed, Bohemian getup, a long skirt and sandals, with her dark hair uncut and worn in a bun. She had dimly hoped that a year in New York would have taught “Sydney” something about style, but ...no. It had rather, apparently, encouraged those qualities in her daughter she found least attractive. Exactly as she had told Bernard it would.

And here on her daughter's arm, or at her side anyway, was her idea of a beau, a Jew from Europe who played the piano for a living.

At least he didn't look Jewish. Trim brown hair, blue eyes, smallish nose, very tidily dressed, and speaking English.

“Wait till you see Elise Maitland” (pause …)
“Sydney.
She's come back from Paris dressed in Mainbocher. Really marvelous.” (She pronounced it
man-bo-shay,
as if it were French. Laurus happened to know that it was German, and pronounced
mane-bocker,
but felt he shouldn't mind if Herr Mainbocher didn't.)

“How nice for her. Where would you like us to go, Mother?”

She meant what rooms. They were still standing in their traveling clothes, after a very long trip by train to Union and a rather hot drive out to the coast. She was ashamed of this welcome.

“You're in the room next to mine, upstairs, and your friend is out in the, you know, in poor Aunt Louisa's wing.”

In the nursery.
Quelle surprise.
In the nanny's room? Or her old bedroom with the folklorica dolls? In any case, virtually in a separate building.

“I'm in the blue room?”

“The—what we called the blue room, yes. And your old room is all done over. Mr. Moss will be perfectly comfortable. I'll get Ralph to show him.”

“I'll show him,” said Sydney. She left her suitcase by the door and led Laurus out.

As they walked together along the swept path, fragrant with pine needles and lined with blooming white
Rosa rugosa
bushes, Sydney felt like Gretel leading Hansel toward the cottage of the witch. Since the first night Laurus kissed her on Christmas Eve, she had feared this moment, which would follow if their happiness together continued to bloom as it had so suddenly and thrillingly. She had been secretly frantic to guess what exactly he saw in her. She had adopted the ways of the other music students, wearing what they wore, eating where they ate, buying standing-room tickets at the symphony and opera, dreading the moment Laurus would learn she was rich and either be horrified or entirely too pleased.

She watched him from the corner of her eye as they walked, waiting to learn what would change now.

The answer was, nothing. If the house was grand, he didn't seem to notice. He merely looked at her with a slightly wicked smile and said, “Very handsome, the formidable Mama.”

When they came to the door of Poor Auntie Louisa's wing, he put his valise and raincoat down and walked past it down the lawn to where he could see an open sweep of the inner harbor, with the high August sky arching and fishing boats and sailboats bobbing on their moorings.

“Isn't it beautiful?”

“It's so like home!” he said, turning to her.

“Really?”

“I didn't know anything in America looked like this. Whose boat is that?”

“Mine.”

“Can we go sailing?”

“Right now?”

“Yes, I want to see everything. All at the same time.”

 

They hurried back to the house, Sydney humming with relief and happiness. So that was that. There were all kinds of wealth in this world, and Laurus's was his talent and his merry spirit, and she never saw any sign in his long life that he envied anybody a material thing, or made distinctions among people based on anything but their moral grace. This, she was beginning to realize, was one very unusual man.

Laurus was installed in Sydney's childhood room, which had been “all redone” in the sense of repainted, and was now yellow instead of pink. The dolls were still where they'd always been. The bedside light was still a painted bunny holding a painted egg. Her stuffed animals were piled on her canopy bed.

“In case you forgot to bring your own teddy bear,” said Sydney. Really, it was masterful. Would Candace put Mr. Christie in this room?

Laurus said, “This was your room? I am so glad. When I go to sleep I will have your dreams.”

“I hope the Doll League of Nations doesn't give you nightmares.”

He looked up at them. The German doll was very cheery and blond and Bavarian.

“Is there a Czech one?” he asked.

“I don't think so. Why, were you going to hide it from Brunhilde up there?”

“Yes. One does what one can.”

He turned to a picture in a painted frame, of a plump little girl in a very short dress, her sash practically at her armpits, her hair caught back in barrettes in a way Sydney always hated. She was wearing Mary Janes and little white socks and had an enormous scab on her knee. The nurse had taken this picture with her box Brownie, one day when Sydney—Annabee—had been dressed up for a birthday party.

“Is this you?” He turned to her, smiling.

“You can see why ‘The Ugly Duckling' was my favorite story.”

Laurus laughed. “It's everyone's favorite story. But not all of us turn out to be swans.”

Sydney blushed.

 

Sydney herself was installed in the room next to her mother's, but there was certainly no point in calling it the “blue room.” It was starkly black and white lacquer with a lot of aluminum tubing to the furniture, the last word in moderne.

Sydney changed into shorts and a blouse and went down to tell her mother they were going sailing.

“How do you like your room?” Candace asked.

“Lovely,” said Sydney, who detested it. “What happened in here?” They were in her father's den, but the walls of mahogany bookshelves were gone, and something terrible had happened to the remaining woodwork.

“Isn't it charming? I had the wood pickled.”

“Oh. Good. Well, we'll see you later.”

“Fine,” said Candace.

When they came in from sailing, Candace was sitting in the Great Hall with a laden teatable before her.

“There you are, lovey. Bring Mr. Moss in for a cup of tea, won't you?”

Sydney glanced at him sideways. She had been hoping they could slip out to the kitchen and make some coffee for themselves. But Laurus marched right over, wished Candace good afternoon, and took a chair next to her.

“Cream or lemon?”

“Lemon, two sugars, please.”

“Sydney?”

“Just plain. Strong.”

“Did you have a nice sail, Mr. Moss?”

“Blissful. It reminds me so much of home.”

“And I hope you'll have a sugar cookie. It's Velma's specialty. Perhaps you won't like them, you're used to such elaborate pastries at home, are you not?” Candace offered the silver-rimmed plate, piled with paper-thin cookies on a doily.

Sydney saw the yawning pit open up between her mother and Laurus and prayed that he would see it and avoid it. But Laurus said, “Yes, but isn't it funny, the whole world calls them Danish pastries, while we call them Vienna bread.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure. My father's father was a baker.”

Crash. There he went, headfirst into the trap. Now he was at the bottom of a pit with Candace towering over it, looking down.

“Really!”

“Yes, he made an almond bread you could not get anywhere else in Copenhagen. I miss it terribly. But these are delicious, he would have loved them.”

“Have another.”

“Thank you.”

“Your grandfather was a baker.” Candace pronounced this casually but it accompanied a steady gaze at Sydney, a look that said, Oh, of course, a
baker.
We entertain tradesmen all the time here at The Elms, by all means bring home a butcher or candlestick maker next. “And your father…is a teacher, I believe?”

“Yes, he teaches history and geography at
gymnasium.
You would say ‘high school.'” Sydney was grateful that he had no way of knowing that her mother would not esteem this calling very much higher than baking. One might know a college professor, but schoolteachers were more like domestic servants.

“And your mother is a—hausfrau? Is that what you call it?”

“Husmoder,
we would say. She keeps the house also but she's a musician. A beautiful pianist.”

“Ah. More tea, Sydney?”

Sydney shook her head. She didn't know how to tell Laurus this whole meal was a trap, that they were in as much danger as the children in
Hansel and Gretel
who ate the magic food and were turned into gingerbread. How soon could they get out of here?

Laurus took more tea and Candace added hot water to her own cup as she said, “And you play the piano, too.”

“Yes.”

“And what kind of music do you play?”

“Do you like classical music?” he asked, smiling.

“Not very much,” she said, returning the smile.

“Then,” he said with great sweetness, “you wouldn't like it.”

 

When they rose to leave her, Candace said airily, “Oh, and I've invited a few people in to dinner to meet Mr. Moss.”

Sydney was dismayed.
“Tonight …?”

“Everyone is so eager to meet your…friend.”

“You might have asked me.”

“It will be very simple. The McClintocks, the Brittons, the Maitlands, and old Mrs. Smith Beedle. You'll like her, Mr. Moss, she's artistic too. Elise is coming, Sydney.”

Oh, good. In her Man-bo-shay clothes, no doubt. “Are Gladdy and Tom?”

“No, they're not here. Just a family party, Mr. Moss. Don't dress.”

 

Sydney had suffered torments of anxiety and stage fright before her recital in May, but what she suffered as she took her bath and dressed for dinner that night was not a great deal less. Laurus would be humiliated and want nothing more to do with her. There had been no way to tell him that when her mother said, “Don't dress,” what she meant was “Black tie, not white.” Sydney had no idea what clothes Laurus had with him but except when he was onstage, the only suit she'd seen him in was the one he'd worn on Christmas Eve and that was heavy wool. This would be a nightmare, he would blame her for it. He would leave. Her mother had planned this, to demonstrate how entirely ridiculous it was to expect refined people to socialize with foreign Jewish bakers' families.

They shouldn't have come. She should have just stayed away from Dundee until Candace died. But there was no way to explain to Laurus why, and besides, she was such a moron she kept hoping one day something would change and she'd have a mother after all, so here they were.

 

When she came downstairs at quarter to eight, she saw it was worse than she'd expected. Her mother was wearing her tiara.

Sydney was wearing a long black silk skirt and a white silk blouse, the clothes in which she'd given her recital. She and her mother looked dressed for different parties. For different epochs, really. (The rest of Candace's costume was lilac charmeuse, very soignée, and not at all appropriate for a matron's figure.) Sydney indicated the tiara. “Is that what you mean by not dressing?”

“Oh, you look fine, dear. No one will notice.”

Before Sydney could answer, the Brittons arrived, and right behind them the Maitlands and the McClintocks came in together.

“Don't you look lovely,” said Bess Maitland to Candace, barely having looked at her. She turned to Sydney and folded her in an embrace. “Darling girl! We've missed you! You haven't been to see us in months!”

Elise, who did indeed look very stylish, came to hug her next.

“Bonsoir, chérie, mais comme tu es belle!”

“Really?”

“You are
blooming.
Can you come to lunch tomorrow? I have ten million things to ask and tell.”

“You know I have a…friend…with me?”

“Of course, I want both of you.”

But Sydney's eyes were on the door. Here was Laurus, having had a nap, with his hair still wet from the shower…perfectly turned out in a dinner jacket and black tie. Sydney felt a wave of astonishment. Was he some sort of magician? That he was at home in any situation? She watched as he came straight to his hostess and greeted her, and it seemed to Sydney that her mother was nonplussed. Bakers' children who traveled with proper dinner clothes? Rather well tailored at that?

Before she could say anything, Bess Maitland went to him. She took his hand in both of hers and said, “But aren't you Laurus Moss?”

He smiled and gave a small bow.

“We heard you play this winter in New York! Gordon, look, it's Laurus Moss! Sydney, dear, is
this
the friend you've brought us? What an amazing girl you are.” Now Gordon Maitland was shaking his hand and mentioning the Grieg concerto and Elise had joined them. Bess had taken her houseguest right away from Candace and was telling the McClintocks what luck it was to have him here, when Mrs. Amelia Smith Beedle arrived.