Chapter 14 insert-B
CHRISTMAS
We were invited to spend Christmas with the Hudsons. When the idea was first presented to him, Malcolm was opposed.
"We have our own traditions. We always take the boys to see the lights. It's already been arranged with Lucas."
"We will do that the night before we go, Malcolm."
"Do you still want to see a film this evening?"
"Of course, but don't think you'll distract me from this conversation." I said.
"What about the Christmas party?"
"Surely, we can forego a party, this year. It is a lot of work, planning a dinner for one hundred people; I'd be glad to let someone else perform the duties of hostess."
I didn't like to admit that was because I'd had my fill, for the moment, of decorating and planning. My most recent project, undertaken in the autumn, had been to outfit the boys' new rooms in the north wing. Their rooms never contained the pianos I'd outrageously demanded Malcolm buy-though I could have pressed him to do so, perhaps. One piano in the parlor was sufficient, and the boys liked their new, larger rooms, which would be suitable for when they grew older, as well.
"Hire temporary help." he suggested.
"I'd like to go to Richmond. Malcolm, we have no other family-neither you nor I. Why can't we spend Christmas with your cousin's family? It would be a change, and good for the children. They would enjoy it."
"I'll consider it."
"Well, consider quickly. I should give Frances an answer by Friday. It was kind of them to ask. We really ought to go."
There was always something exciting about deep winter, the snow and the dark peace of being insulated by it. It spoke to me of things hidden, of transitions and silence and hope, bringing a quiet, inner peace that had nothing to do with external circumstances. Perhaps it was nothing more than unconscious memories of childhood, the eagerness of awaiting Christmas, of feeling loved and safe. I wished that quiet peace for my children; I wanted to diminish the isolation of life at Foxworth, if only for a short while.
"I never recall buying new decorations, yet there seem to be more ornaments, each year." said I, the next day, as Mal carried another box from an east wing cupboard into the foyer.
"That's impossible, Mother."-Mal, eager to seem grown up, and following the example of one of his little friends, had recently taken to calling me "Mother." to my ear, it sounded unnatural. "There are the same number as last year."
"Ah, yes, of course," I said, smiling.
Mal pulled a glass bell from one of the boxes.
"Be sure you put that one on a higher branch, so Corinne can't reach it." I reminded him. "And please, keep an eye on her until I finish this."
Corinne, in a new dress and pinafore in holiday colors, babbled happily as she watched all the festive preparations. She followed her brothers about, and running here and there in aimless excitement, she suddenly paused before the tree.
"No, no!" she scolded, pointing at the balsam fir. Clearly, she had misunderstood Mal's repeated warnings, meant to teach her not to grab for the ornaments.
The boys burst into laughter.
"I want the angel on the top, Mommy." said Joel.
"No, the star." insisted Mal, whose voice and will was more boisterous, even in minor matters such as this.
"I think we put up the star last year, Mal." I said.
Malcolm, who had been in his office all afternoon since lunch, emerged from a door beneath the stairway.
"Father likes the star best." Mal said, triumphantly.
"Olivia?"
"Up here." I said.
He looked up, his hand on the beveled rail of the rosewood balustrade, as though he were the one affected by vertigo, as was I, glancing downward from such a height. I wrapped the last bit of garland around the newel post, and descended the stairs.
"It's snowing!" announced Mal as he peered out a window, to be joined there by Joel. "Will it snow on my birthday?"
"It usually does."
"Do you know what we saw yesterday?" Mal asked Malcolm, bored with the view and letting the folds of the curtain fall back into place against the icy glass.
"How could I?"
"A talking bird!" His enthusiasm was indefatigable. "A real bird that spoke."
"A parrot."
"Yes, a parrot. It's even older than you. It said hello, and old chap, and some other things. Joel talked to it."
"Where was this?"
"At the Millersons'." I said. "You remember-the people who bought the Camden place. They have a son Mal's age."
The grandfather clock announced the hour with its mellow two-note chime.
"Mal, run along and ask Minnie to put the kettle on, please." I said, since the decorating was nearly finished.
"Can we have some pumpkin bread?"
"One piece, no more." I said.
"Can we open one present now?" pleaded Joel.
"Just ONE? Please?" chimed in Mal.
"Better now than to have to take them all to Richmond." said Malcolm.
I smiled, immensely pleased that he had finally assented.
"I suppose, since we won't be here on Christmas Eve," I said slowly. "You may open one present tonight."
"Oh boy, oh boy!"
Naturally, Mal reached immediately for the largest box.
"Not that one." I said. "I shall choose the one."
"Aw, that's NOT fair! You'll pick the most boring one."
"Mal." Malcolm's tone was reprimand, though half-hearted.
I passed out gifts.
"Well, I know her tricks." muttered Mal.
Within seconds, the parlor was strewn with discarded tissue paper and bright ribbons, in which Corinne delightetly played, until one of us helped her to open a gift of her own.
"Does Corinne think it's her birthday again?" asked Mal.
"Probably so."
Malcolm opened the most valuable of any of his gifts for that year-a very old Chinese abacus with ivory bars and translucent jade beads. It was more of an item for his collection, rather than something for practical use. I'd gone to considerable lengths to obtain it. He was quietly pleased.
"What can you do with it?" asked Mal, temporarily diverted from the joys of his new Auto Build kit, a toy I'd known he would love; it allowed him to build five different automobiles from one set of parts.
Mal didn't believe that the strange object had any practical use. Malcolm showed the boys how to use the abacus, and, clustered together, they were absorbed for a while, Mal giving him outrageous sums to solve.
We set out for Richmond two days later. We planned to spend a week there, so I had to pack the children's Christmas presents, as well as those for Victoria and Megan.
"Why are they getting heaps of presents?" demanded Mal. "Heaps and heaps."
"It isn't fair." added Joel, mumbling, as was his way lately.
"Speak distinctly." I said. "And I'm sure you'll all find the same number of gifts beneath the tree. Besides, how many makes one heap?"
Mal looked stumped; he was always so literal-minded that one couldn't resist teasing him.
Of course Malcolm, too, balked when he saw my choices.
"We can't very well arrive empty-handed, Malcolm."
"And we shan't be leaving that way, either." he said, continuing to grumble for ten minutes about the money wasted on toys which would not be appreciated.
To our chagrin, on Christmas morning when the girls opened their gifts, they were admonished by Mal-who knew the exact price of each item-to show proper gratitude.
Everett's home was neither as grand or as large as ours, but it had a more inviting atmosphere than Foxworth Hall.
The girls were good about entertaining Corinne and trying to include her, and the older children played harmoniously together at first, but the peace lasted only a short while. Victoria was bossy and unbiddable, Megan cried, and ran to her mother with tales over every perceived unfairness, and Mal began his usual chicanery, almost as soon as we arrived. Malcolm was constantly reprimanding him.
The Hudsons had only one spare bedroom, and so my children slept in Megan's room. The first night, Mal refused to go to bed because the frilly pink room was a supreme affront to him.
"Sleep on the floor, then." snapped Malcolm, after overhearing a few minutes of Mal's whining complaints.
"Mulligrubs." Mal muttered querulously.
"What did you say?" growled Malcolm.
"I said-"
"I'll hear none of your back talk."
"Yes sir." mumbled Mal, who knew better than to push the teasing very far.
"You'll sleep on the floor, and I don't want to hear another word from you, do you understand?"
"Malcolm, he'll catch cold!" I objected.
"Then he'll learn a lesson, won't he?" retorted Malcolm. The solution was acceptable to Mal-who had never in his life slept on a floor and found doing so a novelty. He found different things of which to cavil.
After a few days, Malcolm and I grew restless, as well. Being guests began to pall. Only so many visits with Frances could be made to ladies in the neighborhood, only so many cups of egg-nog, claret punch or apple cider consumed while listening to conversations in which I scarcely took part, before boredom set in.
If neither Everett nor Frances were near enough to overhear, Malcolm would ask how these afternoon visits had gone. Apparently, my responses were a source of entertainment for him. Putting aside his book, ("Reminiscences of a Stock Operator") he listened to my descriptions with his usual smirk.
I pitched my voice higher, mimicking the slow drawl of one or the other of Frances' friends.
"What a cunning capelet. My dear, wherever did you find that charming little hat? I absolutely must have the recipe for this butter pie from your housekeeper."
"Remember that this trip was your idea." he reminded me, unnecessarily. "Whether from want of mental training, or from impatience, to society women, there is nothing so unendurable as dissertations on current news events."
"So it would seem." I agreed. "The passion these women throw into...into nothing, is enough to drive anyone mad."
Although, I thought to myself, everyone was polite and interested, and it was pleasant, even restful to be among people who did not know us, or anyone from Charlottesville, who didn't endlessly discuss the same tidbits of well-known local gossip.
Frances and I taught the four children card games. I read to them from "The Wind Boy," (Megan's and Joel's choice) and a few chapters from a book Mal had unearthed from a box in our attic over the Thanksgiving weekend. "The Master Key" surpassed even the Tom Swift books, becoming his new favorite, and he went about for weeks, incorporating dialogue from the story into his own speech.
"I shall go by electric propulsion!" he would announce, as he rushed off to create some new mischief, and he excelled at creating mischief! His charm wore thin, even with the little girls, and I believe Frances was quite happy to see us leave, at the end of the week.
To pass the time one afternoon, I baked and decorated cookies with Meg and Victoria. But for trying to pilfer dough-laden spoons, the boys had little interest in anything but the finished product. Mal kept wandering in and out of the kitchen, but I took little notice of him until a frightful wail came from Joel.
"What have you done?" I demanded, detaining Mal as he tried to slip out of the kitchen.
"Why do you always say I did something?"
"Mal, I'm waiting for an answer."
"I dared him to eat pepper."
"Pepper?"
"He's such a lunkhead, I didn't think he would."
"Pepper?"
"You'll come to a bad end," said Victoria. "a very bad end."
"You first." retorted Mal.
"That's enough." I said, trying to stifle a laugh, "Mal, go find your father and tell him what you've done."
"Couldn't-couldn't you tell him?"
"I could, but I won't." I said.
He looked out the window.
"Mal, I am still speaking to you."
"Yes ma'am." he said solemnly, then went off, too easily, too gleefully, and I remembered that Malcolm wasn't there. He and Everett had gone out somewhere that afternoon.
"Oh, that child." I muttered to myself.
"Yes, he is a child." piped up Victoria, haughtily, folding her thin arms across her chest.
"It so happens that he is older than you, Miss Priss." I said. The girl really did remind me of myself at that age, and I was fond of her. "Come, help me do the washing up."
On Christmas Eve, the two older children went with Everett and Malcolm to look at a house Everett hoped to buy. Frances was glad to have them out of the way, while preparations for the evening's upcoming party were under way.
I took myself to our room and out of the way, glad to have a chance to lie down, before the party.
At eight o'clock, the children were put to bed, in spite of much protesting from the girls, who wanted to stay up and watch the guests arrive. Then we hurriedly got ready.
I wore my hair knotted in a chignon, and applied a few drops of a lavender perfume. A lustrous pearl choker complemented the silk chiffon midnight-blue dress Millicent had made especially for this party. It was the only time during the year I commissioned anything so extravagant. I'd wanted to have something new for this party, as I liked to wear something special every year-a dress that made me feel beautiful.
Our pictures were always taken, and mentions of us were commonly in the society pages. Each year's round of parties had to be more lavish than the ones before, and everything must reflect that.
Fashion was one of the things most talked about, and although I had little interest in it, I would never again feel as if I didn't measure up, in that regard. Some of the dresses Millicent made for me over the years were truly works of art, particularly the formal ones, and this one was no exception. When I went for the final fitting, Millicent had said:
"With your light complexion, blues and greens work so well for you. It'll have a wide collar. What do you think?"
She made me look at my reflection in one of the full-length mirrors.
"I think you should add some lace." I said.
"And lower the neckline, Millicent," instructed Miss Bertram, as she passed through the room. She had a disconcerting way of staring. "You can carry it off." she said to me. "Accentuate what you have."
"Hmm. Your opals would be stunning with this, Olivia."
"I don't have any opals."
"You will have." Millicent said, laughing. "When I saw Malcolm in Cosgrove's shop and at a complete loss, I dropped a hint. So when you do get them for Christmas or your birthday, they're from me. Oh, and you would have loved to have seen the look on his face when he saw my hair."
Millicent had recently had her hair bobbed. I think she relished the surprise expressed, and I could only imagine what Malcolm's judgment would be.
I didn't think her new style quite suited her, but I didn't say so.
She stepped back to survey her work again.
"I do like it. Very much. Thank you." I said.
"Malcolm won't be able to contain himself."
"Oh, Millicent, really!"
"Really."
"I'm fairly certain he'll be able to keep his wits about him." I said dryly.
"At least until after the party, eh?" said Isabel.
"At least until he gets your bill." I quipped, smiling a little, for I had been in high spirits that day, anticipating the trip to Richmond.
I knew I was looking my best, and I wanted to savor the moment. Not surprisingly, Malcolm barely glanced at me, as we made our way downstairs.
When we entered the front hall, a tall, middle-aged woman-resplendent in floor-length black velvet-beckoned to us. Malcolm drew me forward to introduce me to Everett's mother, Adelaide.
"Malcolm," she exclaimed. For such a fragile-looking woman, she had a startlingly robust voice. "Where have you been keeping yourself? How are you?"
"Very well, thank you." He turned to me. "Adelaide, this is my wife-"
"Yes, Olivia. Everett's told me all about her-from up north, somewhere."
"That's right. Connecticut."
"Why haven't you two come for a visit, before now?"
"I'm very glad to meet you now, Mrs. Hudson." I said.
"Do call me Adelaide." she insisted. "I understand there are children?"
"We have three."
"I should like to see them tomorrow. Are they very much like you, Malcolm?"
"I really couldn't say," Malcolm replied, disconcerted.
"Well, why ever not?"
"Mal is, rather." I granted, answering her questions about the children, until Everett joined us.
"He's a bit of a live wire, Mother. You'll like Mal." said Everett.
"Over dinner, he and Victoria had a heated debate as to whether all the stars are worlds, like our planet, or just a few of them, as Victoria contended. He told her that she couldn't really know, as she's only a girl. I'm afraid Malcolm told Mal that it's sometimes best to just let her think she's right." laughed Frances.
"He's going to be impossible, now." I said.
"No more than usual." Malcolm commented.
"You should know by now that he takes what you say seriously."
We moved on to mingle with the Hudsons guests, and surely, no one invited to the party went away disappointed with the entertainment. The refreshments were served buffet style, and the table decorations of White narcissi and pink carnations were nicely arranged.
Later, I heard Adelaide remark to Everett how undignified she thought Frances's dress, which was of a black silk tulle, with purple beaded orchids with hints of yellow and green, a bow at the hip and diagonal beaded hemline. I was glad Frances was not near enough to overhear the criticism. Her dress was similar to many of the other gowns I saw, although Frances did not wear the Egyptian-inspired jewelry that had become so popular. Really, the women didn't need jewelry, with the glittering array of sequins and beads that adorned most gowns.
"Malcolm, you wouldn't let your wife go about in such a costume, would you?" Adelaide asked.
Malcolm didn't reply. She had an amusing way of rendering him speechless.
"Just as well, dear." she said to me. "The current waistless fashions would not suit you. It's quite unflattering to a woman to dress like a girl."
She broke off to greet a group of people who had just arrived.
Everett should have gone to greet them as well, but for a moment, his gaze rested on me. His stare made me uncomfortable. Everett had a forceful personality. Even when he said nothing, one was conscious of him, and when he moved his sienna eyes you were induced to move yours to learn what had caught his attention.
Frances, leaving her husband's side, wandered over, bringing with her the mingled scents of Turkish cigarettes and Cuir de Russie perfume. She smoked one cigarette after another. She claimed she could never eat at her own parties, but she seemed to be enjoying herself, once she saw that her guests were having a good time.
Taking a chair in a corner after half an hour, I hoped to remain inconspicuous. I held a full glass; it seemed to be the only protection available against continued offers of more drinks, and the occasional invitation to dance. I didn't remain alone long, and so had to listen to Adelaide Foxworth Hudson, as she nibbled a crabmeat croquette, expound upon all the ills of modern society, and her own family.
During the course of the evening, she must have found my company acceptable. She seemed to relish regaling me with unsolicited opinions, and stores of gossip. I didn't mind. It saved me from having to struggle to make conversation with the foppish strangers at the party, and force smiles, feigning interest in the women's chatter, which mainly pertained to films I hadn't yet seen.
Adelaide talked, but rarely gave me a chance to respond. Indeed, she seemed not to require responses to most of her monologues. She just assumed I concurred with her opinions, and so I was only half listening to her, as well as eavesdropping upon fragments of conversation from a group of men, nearby, who were talking of golf, then of the Teapot Dome indictments.
"It was a disgrace!" said Adelaide, in her emphatic way. " I can't imagine why my brother married that girl, Eliza."
"Alicia." I corrected.
"Alicia." she repeated, grimacing as if she'd just heard a disagreeable fact. "No one had ever heard of her family. We knew nothing about her background. What happened to her, do you know?"
"She went to her family-a mother or sister, I believe. That's all I know. Here, in Richmond." I said, with an inward shiver of shock, for I hadn't thought at all of Alicia's whereabouts. I refrained from adding that I did not think much of Alicia's father for not making adequate provisions, and the true disgrace was that Garland continued to keep her absolutely dependent.
"I'm glad to see that Malcolm has better sense than his father. Garland never did have good judgment,, concerning women."
"Oh? Did you know Garland's first wife?"
"My dear, I had to live under the same roof as that butterfly for an entire year."
I began to be interested.
"She was no lady, for that you can take my word. Ill-bred and ill-mannered, and no education worth speaking of." opined Adelaide. " My brother had a penchant for very young girls from disreputable families. He fancied rescuing them, pampering them. He didn't need to adhere to convention with them, you see."
"I don't understand." I said.
"Garland visited Richmond frequently that summer. There was some fiction about the exact date of the wedding, as I recall. Garland and Corinne were still away when Malcolm was born, that next March."
"Away?"
"They stayed in Richmond for a year, and I do believe," Adelaide lowered her voice, "that Garland felt that Corinne may have already been enceinte when he met her."
"But there's no question but that Malcolm is Garland's son. They look so alike. You must be mistaken."
"Oh, there's no doubt now, of course. But she did give Garland cause to doubt."
This was no great secret, and while I had no positive feeling toward Corinne myself, I disliked Adelaide's pointless gossip. It might be increasingly difficult to show her the respect one's elders deserved, the respect my mother had instilled in me from my earliest days.
"Adelaide, there's something I've wondered about."
"What's that, dear?"
"Did Garland know why she left?"
"I doubt it. He wasn't given to considering a woman's thoughts. He only cared that he was part of them, and Corinne was obviously not thinking of Garland when she left."
"Did Garland ever try to find her?"
"Find her!" she exclaimed with a derisive sniff. "Garland loved her. Love is an escape in the beginning, and habit later on. Those two should never have married; neither had the temperament to make a success of it. He wouldn't have wanted to force her to stay with him against her will. My brother was not that kind of man."
"I just thought-"
"No, dear," she said, in a more subdued, reasonable way. "It was for Malcolm's sake. Garland believed it would be best for Malcolm if Corinne was forgotten.
She made her choice."
"I suppose." I said, unconvinced. During the years when I'd known Garland, where the subject of Corinne was concerned, he had been quite insensitive to Malcolm's feelings, albeit in a good-natured way.
"Everett's father-" Adelaide always referred to her husband in this way, as if he had no name, no other function, and no purpose beyond that parental role. Strangely, no one spoke of Calvin Hudson, and he seemed never to be present at times when one would expect to see him. I was suddenly aware that, during Malcolm's formative years, these people had given him the only good example of what a family should be. "Everett's father and I undertook half the job of raising Malcolm." she claimed, with an air of martyrdom.
I knew this claim to be an exaggeration. Malcolm had spent a few holidays with his aunt and uncle, but Adelaide could hardly call that "raising" him. She was, generally, given to exaggeration of all kinds, in her anecdotes, even in her manner of speaking.
"Managing the two of them would have been... but you probably don't know about that."
"Pardon?"
"Malcolm was a twin. There was a girl, too. Melinda Nell was her name. Just the loveliest little girl. She was the quiet one."
Unlike Malcolm, I thought. She had been the easier child to love, no doubt, and that had to have affected him in some way.
"Malcolm has never mentioned this."
I envisioned a baby very much like my Corinne-but a docile version of her, and thought that was what Malcolm's sister would have been like.
"He may not remember." she said.
"He claims to remember quite a lot." I contradicted. "Corinne must have taken the girl with her. He would remember something like that, surely."
"In those days," Adelaide continued, "there were a number of us living at Foxworth. You have the whole place to yourselves now, I hear."
"Yes."
"Well, Garland and Corinne lived in the north wing, before he had that ridiculous, frilly room put together for her. In the middle of the summer, Melinda fell out of one of those low windows. She died. It was Corinne's maid who found her."
"How sad." I said. Then another terrible thought occurred to me. "Malcolm didn't see it happen, did he?"
"That, I don't know."
I had a dozen questions, but I thought it best not to ask them. This wasn't merely a topic for gossip to Adelaide. I sensed that the little lost niece had occupied a special place in her affections. During the time she was talking about, in 1892, Adelaide would have been at an impressionable age, at most,
twenty-one years old. The death of Melinda Nell may well have been her first encounter with the grim reality of life-the other side of love, when she was just embarking on her own venture into marriage and motherhood.
"They were only a year old, so Malcolm would have no memory of the incident, and it wasn't talked about. After that, Garland hired nannies-probably the best thing he ever did. Corinne had no notion of how to raise a child. Such a one she was for parties, and fancy clothes, but little else."
"So I've gathered." I said, still reeling from this new information.
"Frances does have superb taste. In that respect, she reminds me of Corinne." Adelaide was saying, when Malcolm suddenly appeared.
"You needn't hover about, Malcolm. Bring Olivia a fresh drink. This is a very good spiced wine."
"Later, perhaps." I murmured. I'd already had two glasses, and the room glowed and swam as Malcolm propelled me away to dance.
"You're a little unsteady." he said into my ear. "Had a bit too much."
"A bit." I admitted, enjoying the warming effect of the mulled wine.
"I thought you might have had enough of listening to Adelaide."
"You don't like her."
"She is my father's sister. That becomes more apparent with each passing year." he said wryly. "Whatever she's been telling you, don't take it seriously. She can go on so, and what she doesn't know, she invents."
"Is that true?"
"Unfortunately, it is. The summer she was fifteen, she was committed to a colony for the feeble-minded. My father told me."
I was shocked.
"She is the youngest of my father's siblings." continued Malcolm. "They had an older brother, Jonathan, who drowned in the lake the year before Adelaide was born. Adelaide claimed to... see him."
"See him?"
"And to hear voices-Jonathan's voice, specifically. As a child, she was very taken with the story of him."
Malcolm had once alluded to some cousins who had been an embarrassment to the Foxworths, and I wondered if the reference had, instead, been to this aunt.
"Children are often drawn to such tales, Malcolm. That can't have been such a cause for concern."
Shrugging, he changed the subject. But I believed the things she told me were true, even if colored a little by her own negative opinions.
At twelve-thirty, the party still gave every indication of lasting for hours. Most of the guests were laughing and obnoxiously inebriated, by that time. Malcolm and I did not indulge ourselves in this way often, and as the noise escalated and the jokes became more ribald, we surreptitiously slipped away from the crowd and into the vestibule.
"You know we'll have to go back."
"No one will notice our absence." he said. "Are you tired?"
"Not really."
"Then go up and put on warmer clothes. I'll get our coats. I want to get some air."
Ten minutes later, we were walking across the snow-covered lawn. Malcolm walked as though he had a purpose in mind, then he stopped abruptly.
"Where are we going?"
"Wait." he said, and went toward the darkened side of the house. His back was to me, and I heard his voice, but not his words. I waited. Snowflakes floated down onto my skin and melted in tiny rivulets down my cheeks. I was growing impatient with the unexplained delay, when I saw him reach up to help the sturdy form of Mal over the windowsill, and then the two of them were with me.
"What are you doing out of bed at this hour?"
"I can't go to sleep." Mal said happily, full of energy and the thrill of being allowed out of doors, past his bedtime.
"You didn't wake your brother, did you?"
"No." he said, scornfully. "He went to sleep in the middle of a story I was telling."
"Did you plan this, Malcolm?" I asked, knowing he didn't.
"Olivia, he was hanging over the window ledge. I went to tell him to go to bed, and-"
"I saw you leaving. Can't I go with you?" asked Mal.
"Oh, all right," I was reluctant, but he looked as eager as we were to escape the house. "Did you put on your mittens?"
"He has them." Malcolm said, as we began to walk.
"I'll show you where Everett and I used to go sledding." Malcolm said to me as Mal ran on ahead, kicking up the powdery snow. "I thought I'd bring the kids out here tomorrow."
It was a beautiful night. I felt invigorated by the bracing cold and being away from the party. That walk was the highlight of the trip for me. I couldn't remember when last we had done anything or gone anywhere together-just the three of us.
Mal scooped up handfuls of snow,formed it into a ball and paused in indecision before launching it toward me. I pretended not to have seen it coming and tossed one back at him. Malcolm stood by, watching, until I stepped aside at the last second, and the freezing mass of snow Mal had sent hurtling in my direction found Malcolm instead. I followed it with one of my own, and Mal did the same, and Malcolm had no choice but to join our game.
"Tell me about yourself." Adelaide said to Mal, the following afternoon. He looked at her as if he couldn't parse this request.
"I got skates for Christmas." he finally said.
"And where will you skate?"
"Outside, because Mother says not in the foyer. But we can't skate until it stops snowing. Do you know where I live?"
"I do. I used to live at Foxworth Hall." she said.
"I don't remember." said Mal, with a skeptical look.
"It was a long time before you were born."
"We have three motorcars, now." he said proudly, and described his favorite to her, in minute detail.
"Perhaps you ought to be getting into one of them now." said Malcolm, as he passed by carrying a suitcase. "You heard what I said. We are leaving in ten minutes."