“Perhaps in the lobby, now,” said Gerry.
“No,” said Eugenia.
Gerry studied her. Margaret began to search through her bag for some unknown item. “Things have been a bit of a blur,” he said, “and I haven’t handled myself or my business well, but the time has come to have a heart-to-heart with Uncle Errol about our investments.”
Eugenia sipped her wine. “You know he’s fragile, dear. Didn’t he address your questions in his last letter?”
“I can’t recall what questions I asked, in all honesty. I intend to visit him. He would be my uncle, my blood. You only married the man!”
He laughed, and though Dulcy did think he made a point, it was a horrible sound. They all watched Eugenia reach for the glass again.
“I can’t allow you to exhaust him, Gerald. I’ll see him soon, and I can pass on your concerns.”
“Maybe we should visit him together, Aunty.”
Dulcy had some insight into the look that Eugenia and Gerry exchanged: they wanted each other dead. Vinca rose and said she felt unwell, really had to go. Eugenia and Gerry didn’t notice—he reached down for Eugenia’s wineglass, twirled it, smelled it, put it down hard enough to splash.
Eugenia pushed away from the table, not a very ladylike gesture. “I will not be humiliated by you in public, and I will not let you bully an unwell man. What would your mother say about you foisting yourself in this way on her little brother? Perhaps you’d like to discuss breaking the partnership. It would be easier to do this before Errol buys the next property. We’d rather have the hotel to ourselves.”
“I have no fucking intention of giving you anything you want.”
“Gerald, perhaps you should simply drink. Not drinking isn’t making you any happier.”
“You’d like me to kill myself.”
“I’d like you to be at ease. I hope that you can achieve some happy balance.”
Gerry stared at her, probably wondering what it all meant. Not good things for him, thought Dulcy, getting to her feet to leave while Margaret did the same. Did Eugenia have his trust, or just his money? Had it been both, and now might it not be either?
???
The beginning of summer, over three occasions:
They were all invited to a garden party down in the valley, thrown by a man who Grover hoped would invest in his movies. Grover wanted Lewis to go, because he could “vouch for me professionally,” and Lewis wanted to go because he was thinking about writing a piece about the humorous ways wretched excess—serious Eastern money—played out on a frontier landscape. Their host had six thousand acres, a spring creek, a mile of river, and a house that had employed most of the region during construction the year before. The owner, Mr. Bartle, had bought boats for guests, and brought in five hundred pheasants and the newest targets. The river was still muddy, and the pheasants were presumably nesting, but a target-shooting picnic and spring-creek fishing would be a fine time. Samuel was excited, Rex was excited, Dulcy and Margaret planned to be snobby about the house.
That morning Lewis left early for the hotel, hoping for a telegram about his last article. When she saw him a few hours later, waiting for their buggies outside the Elite, he looked ill and angry.
“What’s wrong?”
He looked away. “Nothing. I’ll tell you later.”
They ended up riding with Grover’s wife, Clara. She had chestnut curls and a moppet voice and a fitting nickname: Bubbles. She was beyond happiness to be reunited with Grovy. “Love him,” she said. “Love him, the silly man. We hug and hug.”
Maria Nash had limited experience, but hug wasn’t the word that came to mind when she thought of lovers’ reunions. Nevertheless, she smiled along with all the other women and tried to not dwell on how much Clara Dewberry, amazed and happy at every little thing, sounded like a pet monkey. Dulcy made herself deaf, and she looked out at the world through the buggy fringe as if she were looking at a stage, the screen of a moving picture, a window on a changing museum.
The house was new, ungainly and brick, a Victorian pile set ostentatiously on a bleak Mongolian plain instead of the lush river bottom. Their host, Mr. Bartle, was extravagantly friendly, gratingly intelligent; his wife wore a plank of turquoise silk that ended midway down her concave shins, and she staggered on nail-thin heels as she led them down the stone path to the gardens and through the bland, velveted main rooms of the house. Rex ran around calling drinks, drinks, just as he had at his mother’s house, and the host asked questions: should they test the boats today, or wait? Should they play badminton, or shoot a few birds after all?
Someone sane pointed out the mud in the river, the wind in the air, and the fact that the spring creek had sprung a temporary leak. A second and third round of drinks was served, and they milled, waiting for the lunch bell—“a cowboy bell!” according to their ever-enthused host. Samuel kept moving away from Clara, and Clara kept following him. His aversion was palpable, and she seemed to be attached by a string. Grover ignored both of them. Dulcy watched this from the center of the lawn as she listened to their hostess tell plump Margaret about her new diet—only dairy—while Margaret munched on creamed crab toasts with a half smile. They were on Dulcy’s right, and Grover and Lewis were on her left. She heard Lewis say quietly, “Take care of the people who love you, Grover. Don’t be a shit.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass, Lewis. Read your own lecture.”
The food was good: crayfish bisque, asparagus, chicken potpie. Dulcy let herself drift in and out of overheard conversations. She watched Lewis—she always loved to watch Lewis, but she tried not to be obvious about it—and wondered about his mood. Grover was wooing his host with information about the film company he thought they should invest in, perhaps take over, at the very least ally with. It was revolutionary, bent on telling full stories, whole plays—
“What kind of stories?” asked Lewis.
“Arthurian legends,” said Grover primly. “This company—Globe, isn’t that perfect?—had an unrelated loss, and the timing would be ideal for an investment.”
Bartle, alerted by the word loss , made a grinding, inquiring sound in his throat. “Human vagaries,” said Grover. “An insane engineer lost the money. I’m not quite straight on this, but Mr. Maslingen made a killing on mines after the Boer problem, and then the profit went missing, and then they had to sell a newspaper—”
Dulcy felt the kind of cold-lipped dizziness that came with a faint or stomach flu. She felt so sick she couldn’t find any pleasure in the idea of throwing up on Clara, who was so fascinated by the conversation that her chin was almost hooked on Dulcy’s left shoulder. Grover rolled on. “And then the engineer’s daughter, a crazy girl, jumped out a train window. She put them through hell . The man’s engaged again now, but still.”