—
I trudged back to the village with my hat pulled down, my collar turned up, and my hands stuck deep in my pockets. I kept my eyes on the road in front of me, watching the raindrops hit and join others before running off the pavement in rivulets.
I tried various ways of analyzing what I’d just heard, twisting the phrasing in the hope that I might have misinterpreted, and finally concluded that I understood perfectly. I’d been won in a coin toss.
As outrageous as it seemed, when I thought back over our history, there was nothing to contradict it.
We’d all met the summer I left Miss Porter’s, when I still hoped to go to college myself. Many of my former classmates were headed for Sarah Lawrence or Bryn Mawr, and while I wanted to be among them, I didn’t have a clue how to go about it. I knew better than to expect help from my father, who hadn’t even tried to get me into the Assembly Ball, and who had apparently forgotten I was coming home for the summer. A few days after I returned, he left for Cuba, where he spent the summer deep-sea fishing.
Left to my own devices, I packed up and went to Bar Harbor, slipping into the tide of Philadelphians going to their summer houses. My father hadn’t opened ours since my mother’s grand scandale, and going, especially on my own, made me excited and nervous in equal parts. I’d essentially been kept in purdah since I was twelve, and this was my first chance to connect with my hometown peers. I hoped they would accept me, regardless of what their parents might whisper. The girls at Miss Porter’s certainly hadn’t.
I needn’t have worried, because Hank, Ellis, and Freddie took me under their collective wings immediately. They didn’t give a hoot about my family’s checkered history—indeed, Ellis and Hank had somewhat checkered histories themselves. While they all referred to themselves as Harvard men, Freddie was the only one who’d left with a degree. Ellis was what was euphemistically referred to as a “Christmas graduate”—he flunked out in the middle of his freshman year—and Hank was expelled shortly thereafter for trying to pass off as his own a paper written by John Maynard Keynes. And then, of course, there was Hank’s kitchen maid.
Hank was the clear ringleader, a virtual doppelgänger of Clark Gable with a dangerous streak girls found irresistible. Neither the rumors about the kitchen maid nor the plagiarism deterred hopeful debutantes or their parents, because Hank was the sole heir of his bachelor uncle, a Wanamaker who was the current president of the Pot and Kettle Club.
If Hank was Clark Gable, then Ellis was a towheaded, clean-shaven Errol Flynn. He had been on the rowing team during his time at Harvard, and his physique reflected this. His chest was like chiseled marble. He also had a quirky sense of humor I found hilarious—a trait that he, in turn, found adorable.
And Freddie—poor Freddie. Although the men in his lineage had married exclusively beautiful women for generations, he was proof that such planning couldn’t guarantee an outcome. His features were asymmetrical enough to be off-putting, and the hair on his crown was already thin. He sported frightful sunburns, and, because of his asthma, was constantly sucking on his Rybar inhaler. I was never quite sure how he ended up being so thick with Hank and Ellis, but he was very kind and he doted on me.
I quickly became their confidante, little sister, and partner in crime, although I was aware that a large part of my appeal was novelty. I was the only girl around who hadn’t been paraded under their noses at cotillions, tea parties, and clubs for the last decade, and they agreed unanimously that I was refreshing and modern precisely because my natural spirit hadn’t been ruined by grooming for presentation. They toasted my father for neglecting to have me finished, as well as for having the good manners to be otherwise occupied in Cuba.
We spent our days playing tennis, sailing, and dreaming up increasingly outrageous practical jokes. At night we went to parties, built bonfires, and drank ourselves silly.
It was at a beach party, while we were lying on our backs in the sand watching fireworks, that Freddie suddenly popped the question. I was caught completely off guard—I had never even considered him as a romantic possibility—and thought he was joking. When I laughed, his face crumbled and I realized what I’d done. I tried to apologize, but it was too late.
Not a week later, Ellis asked me to marry him. He said that Freddie’s proposal had made him realize how much he loved me, and while he didn’t want to seem hasty, he couldn’t risk another close call. I hadn’t realized we were in love, but it made sense. I’d never felt more comfortable with anyone in my entire life—we could talk about anything—and it certainly explained his indifference toward other girls.
The instant I said yes, Hank spirited us away to Elkton, Maryland, the quickie wedding capital of the East Coast, but because of a newly instated waiting period, Ellis’s mother managed to track us down. She turned up at the chapel wearing a purple mourning dress, crying hysterically. When she finally realized she couldn’t prevent the ceremony from happening, she inexplicably pulled the diamond comb from her own hair and pressed it into my hand, curling my fingers around it.
While this drama was playing out, Hank snickered and Ellis rolled his eyes. They were dressed identically in tuxedos—even the roses in their lapels were indistinguishable—and I remember thinking that either one of them could have been the groom. How right I was.
I’d been won in a coin toss. There had been no duel, no joust. No ships had been launched, no gauntlets thrown. There were no passionate declarations, challenges, or displays about winning my hand—just the toss of a coin.
No wonder the physical side of my marriage was virtually nonexistent, and no wonder Hank was always around. When they’d realized there were Freddies in the world who might actually be serious about me, they’d decided one of them had to marry me just to keep things as they were.
A coin toss, for Christ’s sake.
—
I was soaked through and shaking violently by the time I reached the Fraser Arms.
Anna was sitting at a table with a row of lamps in front of her, cleaning the glass globes with a rag.
“Back so soon?” she said, glancing up.
“Yes,” I said.
I closed the door and went straight to the fire. My teeth were chattering, my very bones chilled.
Anna’s brow furrowed. “On your own?”
“Yes.”
I was aware of Anna watching and girded myself. It was the first time I’d been alone with her since Ellis and Hank returned from Inverness, and I thought I might be in for another tongue-lashing. Instead, she came over and threw another of the mysterious logs onto the fire.
“Get yourself closer,” she said. “Your knees are knocking. I’ll fetch a cup of tea.”
I hadn’t realized how cold my fingers were until I held them toward the flame and the feeling began to come back. It was like being jabbed with a thousand needles.
Anna brought a cup of strong, milky tea. I took it, but realized immediately that I was shaking too hard to hold it and put it down. She watched me a few moments longer, then went behind the bar and returned with a small glass of whiskey.
“Get that down you,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said, taking a sip. The warming sensation was immediate.
We were silent for about a minute before she spoke again. “And they left you to walk back on your own, did they?”
After a pause, I nodded.
She tsked. “It’s not my business and I’m usually not one for the blather, but it’s weighing on me and I’m going to say it anyway. When your husband and that Boyd fellow went to Inverness, they never asked Angus if you could stay. I wasn’t going to say anything, but then he lied straight to your face, and I thought you should know.”
I sat in silence, absorbing this. They’d wagered that Mr. Ross wouldn’t throw me out if I was on my own, and no thanks to them, they were right. I wasn’t just their plaything, their pretty, fake wife. I was their unwitting pawn, theirs to strategically play.
There would be no second telegram.