Lila had, in her mind, no images of Baffin Island other than its long unbroken tree line that looked exactly like the long unbroken tree lines of a thousand other islands. She had only ever glanced at it from a boat. Catta would be cold, hungry, possibly wet. She imagined him shivering; he would believe or understand that, somehow, she too had done this to him. Her mother used to say the only thing she truly feared was the lucidity of her own children.
Lila was grateful for the sounds and smells of dinnertime, the clatter and warmth, a counterpoint to the accusation of everything else. These were the wages of sin: to sit in a warm kitchen awaiting a lovely dinner where she would be expected to soothe, flatter, and charm a set of guests, including Billy Quick, whose set of predatory indiscretions—exposing her to Kallenbach in January, apparently exposing her to Cyrus this morning, exposing her to God only knew who or what else—had now led them all into danger. No, Lila thought, we have been lied to all along about sin. The true wages of sin are to have no options, to be forced to smile while the punishment is given. Even if she chose to make an opera of her motherhood, to paddle a canoe to Baffin—then what? How would she find him? And if she did find him through some miracle, how would it seem to Catta? It would put him in an impossible position, forced to choose between parents, between competing ideas of order. She decided Jim was fundamentally right; there was nothing she could do. He had checkmated her, although she had made it easy for him. And now she had guests.
Martha asked if she should announce the soup, and Lila looked at the clock. How was it so late, so catastrophically late? The New House people would already be there—but who would welcome them? Diana? They would all be clumped in little groups, talking about the weather, while Diana Hillsinger lay down on the couch. Lila stood up. She had guests.
She crossed the kitchen just as Susan came back in, holding carrots pulled fresh from the garden. Tonight, Lila thought, there was something different about this girl. Susan was often distracted, even surly, but right now, despite the press of activity in the kitchen, she had an unusual stillness, even a glow—very much, Lila thought, like someone in love. And why not? She was pretty enough. Susan should have an admirer, or a lover, even—who knew what happened here once the families went to bed? In the last year alone, she knew of two untimely pregnancies among the staff.
“Mrs. Hillsinger,” Martha said, “Do you mind if I give Mr. Quick rosemary instead of carrots for garnish? He don’t like carrots.”
“Of course, Martha,” Lila said.
Martha had a natural tact, Lila thought, a delicacy that all the Park Avenue ladies could profit from. And then Lila deliberately said something that made no sense, since Billy’s brother rarely came up and his father had been dead for years.
“Martha, we are talking about Billy Quick, aren’t we? His brother isn’t up?”
Susan’s head had turned, ever so slightly, when Lila said his name. It was him, Lila thought—Billy Quick was Susan’s phantom lover.
“Yes, Billy,” Martha said. “He has three couples up with him now—Kipps, Templetons, Van Colls.”
That he was irresponsible or opportunistic—that Billy abused his position on the island or interfered with the staff, as her mother would have said—was not at all surprising. If she had thought about it, she would have assumed as much.
“Of course!” Lila said to Martha. “You told me all of that just yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
And then her rage at Billy Quick brought about a minor clairvoyance—an answer to the riddle of how Cyrus had found her out last night. Lila pictured him roaming the New House late at night, finding her asleep on top of the covers in Hannah’s room. He would have complimented himself on Lila’s inability to stay away, and of course he had told someone—most likely Cyrus or one of the other staff, retailing it as an oddity, because he couldn’t bear for it not to be known. And then, for obscure reasons of his own, Cyrus had told Jim. Otherwise, the coincidence of Jim’s piecing so much together so quickly was too overwhelming. Was that also, she wondered, how it had worked with Kallenbach—was that why he showed up, with presents, on the exact day she visited? Billy had simply been unable to control himself.
She opened the swinging door that led to the butler’s pantry, and then the outer rooms.
“Thank you, Martha,” Lila said.
“For what, Mrs. Hillsinger?”
42
The wind rose as Catta approached the open sea. If he had been a bird, or if Sisters Island were not blocking the view to his left, then he could have seen the Long Beach on Seven while he walked. North Island was up ahead, around a few more headlands. Spain lay somewhere in that direction, too, across the ocean. The seaweed was slick; he had to take little steps. He was sure that this time he would break through, into the Baffin interior. Catta turned and walked inland yet again.
He was immediately pinned in place, stopped by a wall of branches five yards past the tree line, with one leg draped over a low limb and his front arm against what seemed like holly bushes grown into the shape of a net. He was stabbed from every direction, somehow everything here had spikes on it. With immense difficulty, he backed out the way he had come in.
He knelt down by the ocean and rubbed salt water on the scratches covering his arms and legs and torso. The dusk was long this time of year and there was enough light left to try one more new entry point farther around the island. Choose well, he told himself, because the next one is where you suffer and do not stop.