THE DUCK HUNTING
Ambrose was in the bathroom gargling water and bicarbonate of soda when his brother appeared in the doorway. Ambrose startled, swallowed half, and choked on the other.
“Not expecting me?” Ethan asked.
Ambrose braced both hands on the pedestal sink as he sputtered and coughed, clearing his throat. “You’re silent,” he said.
“Are you ill?” Ethan asked, with genuine interest.
“A bug, I think.” Ambrose shouldered past Ethan, feeling seedy and horrifically guilty, which made him annoyed and angry. The twisted bed linen and general odor of a distillery gave away the true nature of his illness.
“Shall I ring for another egg yolk?” Ethan asked, glancing out of the side of his eye.
Dinner with O’Brennan last night had been a tense affair, lightened only temporarily by Arabella’s arrival. But Ambrose had watched as she sailed in on silk and pearls and slowly deflated as she sat at a table that became as leaden as the gluey attempt at Vichyssoise Glacée the cook sent out for the first course.
The atmosphere at the table set May on edge. Ambrose could see it. O’Brennan tried to engage her in society gossip. But she was distracted, stepping on the buzzer set in the floor to send back the soup and asking the maid to fill the already full water glasses.
Loulou arrived late and sat down as they were clearing the soup. Her excuses were both weak and flustered, as if she’d been summoned at the last minute.
Ambrose couldn’t get what May had said in the field out of his mind. She couldn’t resist him. He’d felt elated, then abashed, next angry, and finally bewildered, wondering how this entire scenario had actually happened, him eating at May and Ethan’s table as a guest. Ambrose tried to keep up his side of the conversation, but nearly everything that came out of his mouth was flat. O’Brennan couldn’t engage any of them, not for lack of trying, as he lit up a volley of failed topics that flared over the silver candlesticks and then flamed out. Loulou faded into the walls with her watchful, silent air. Even Arabella was quiet, no doubt feeling the tension eddying around the table.
As a result Ambrose drank quite a bit more than usual. By the time May excused herself before dessert was served, claiming a headache, he was quite drunk.
The moment she left the room, Ethan and O’Brennan rose, saying they’d have rye in the gunroom. Both O’Brennan and Ethan had avoided any mention of what they’d been talking about that afternoon. Ambrose thought it was Ethan’s good manners—no business at the table—but it dawned on him that this censoriousness was in deference to May.
When Ambrose followed them, Ethan stopped him at the door.
“You’re being rude. Go talk to Arabella.” Ethan’s unscarred hand pushed at Ambrose’s chest with finality, and then he shut the gunroom door in Ambrose’s face.
How expertly his brother had maneuvered things. Ambrose would have to knock on the door like a pitiable outsider to gain entrance, and Ambrose refused to beg.
He’d had to draw himself up before heading into the living room where Arabella and Loulou sat in superficial conversation, trying to skim over the disaster of the dinner with small talk about Arabella’s new dogs.
Arabella rose when she saw him and told him she’d be leaving with a knowing little pat on his arm. She’d managed a conspiratorial eye roll toward the closed gunroom door on her way out, which made him feel better. But his initial spark of anger flared when he came back in the room and saw Loulou sitting up straight, as if she had news to deliver.
“You have to stop,” she said.
“You’re right. I probably should.” He put down the half-full decanter he’d brought into the room.
“I don’t mean that,” she said nodding her head. “But it’s a good idea, too. I meant you have to stop this whole charade.”
Ambrose was quiet, both relieved and on the defensive to be caught out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She sighed. “I hate this pretending. We both know what you’re doing. You’re pretending you’re back here to, I don’t know, be brothers. Anyone who sat at that dinner table tonight knows what you’re doing.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Yet.” Loulou got up then and went straight for the decanter, where she poured a generous dram but only managed a small sip and a grimace.
“I love you,” she said. “You’re my brother, but so is he. It’s killing me watching you two. This isn’t our family. This isn’t how we do things.”
“What do you know about how this family does things?” Such sentiments always raised Ambrose’s ire.
“I saw you,” Loulou says. “I saw you and May head down to the pond at your going-away party. You think I’m still some na?ve little girl, but I know those feelings don’t just disappear. And really, how could they?” She abandoned her drink next to the decanter. “I understand. I really do. But you made your choice. Now it’s time to live with it.” She turned to face him. “I think you should leave.”
“Father’s house is not going to help me. I know that much.”
“Leave town,” she said. “Leave the state. I know how you can be, and you’re just going to cause heartache.”
“Gee, thanks, Lou.” He was trying for levity.
Loulou was in earnest. “It was better when you weren’t there. For everyone.”
Ambrose picked up the decanter, pondering the heavy lead crystal stopper, thinking how satisfying it would be to throw it through the window. Loulou turning against him, pushing him away, stung.
But he turned for the stairs instead and Loulou’s silence as she watched him, not calling him back, not trying to reassure him, made his spirits sink deeper. He’d paused at the top of the stairs. Listening for what, he didn’t know exactly. Loulou to call him back and apologize, to tell him they would all be okay. If he’d heard May, he would have gone to her, but still silence greeted him, and he turned for his room.
Now, in the morning light, Ambrose turned his back on his brother, picked up his trousers off the floor, and buttoned them on. “What can I do for you?” he asked, tensed for a confrontation, but doubting one all the same. Ethan wasn’t like Loulou. He was rarely direct.
Ethan perched on the foot of a chaise longue, the only place in the room not covered with clothes, books open and breaking the spines, and brimming ashtrays. He was staring at Ambrose’s bare chest, his arms, and then he looked away. “You’ve made yourself a little nest up here.” He picked up a shoehorn and slapped it against his thigh.
“You’ve been kind.”
His brother inclined his head in acknowledgment. “You should build out here. Calvin Van Alstyne has a pretty parcel he wants to sell.”