The Evidence Against Her (25 page)

And by the time he was eleven years old, it wasn’t the stories that held Edson in thrall; it was his mother’s telling of them that mesmerized him. She invented these little tales on the fly, eager for his company as she had never been before over such a sustained length of time. It was his mother who charmed him completely, so that he forbore her occasional furies, her incessant questions and brooding. His mother’s little spells of dissatisfaction were brief and forgivable, and for the first time in his life Edson lived from moment to moment, from day to day, and finally from week to week without the burden of dread. Naturally he wasn’t able to name it to himself, but he was entirely content. He drifted along through that loveliest of seasons without any consideration at all. He merely existed through one day and then another, and his relief was so acute that it was equal to joy.

W
HEN THEY RETURNED from their wedding trip, Warren and Agnes took up residence at Scofields, where the third floor of Warren’s parents’ house was given over to them, with the idea of eventually establishing a nursery in what was now a small unused room at the top of the stairs. Agnes did the best she could not to disrupt her mother-in-law’s household. She was shy around Mrs. Scofield, whom she admired, although Agnes didn’t give the impression of shyness but instead seemed to Lillian Scofield to be a bit aloof. And Agnes had no way of knowing that simply because of her presence the formality of the household increased markedly. Agnes earnestly attempted to decipher and appear accustomed to each new nicety of the Scofields’ habits that she discovered, and she had no idea of the strain caused by her blithe acceptance of the careful courtesy extended to her by Warren’s mother.

Of course, Lillian Scofield did her best to make it appear as though her household ticked along effortlessly, and it never entered Agnes’s mind to offer to take on some of the responsibility; she didn’t want to overstep her position. But Lillian Scofield was exhausted by her own success. She said one day to her sister that she was beginning to feel that she ran a very high-toned tearoom. “Audra, you’d feel as if you were at the Eola Arms!”

Other than doing her best not to offend her, however, Agnes was scarcely aware of Warren’s mother one way or another, and only a little more conscious of Warren’s father, because he bore watching; he was less predictable in his behavior toward her. Sometimes he treated her with an overwrought but unimpeachable courtesy that put her on the alert, and other times he would speak to her with a kind of inclusive irony, as though what he was saying to her at that moment stemmed from some previous, private understanding from an earlier conversation. Agnes had no idea that generally John Scofield had had too much to drink, because his wife and his son instinctively knew not to offer him up to the judgment of a non-Scofield, the judgment of someone who might not understand the situation. And besides, he had been in much better shape since Lillian had finally returned, and since the newlyweds moved in.

But Agnes probably wouldn’t even have been much interested, much less would she have been critical. She was entranced by the whole of Scofields, by the efficient running of the household, and by the reassuring pattern of each day, each week, and, apparently, each year. Meals were served at the same time every day and to everyone in the house, and each person sat in his or her accustomed place at the table. The bedclothes and towels were changed on Tuesdays, and after breakfast every morning except Sunday, Evelyn Harvey arrived, put on her long apron, and swept the house from top to bottom. Her husband, Mason, oversaw various concerns at Scofields and also at the Methodist church and the rectory and two other houses farther along on Church Street. On chilly mornings he arrived sometime between five and seven and went down-cellar to clinker the firebox and stoke the furnace, and within a half hour Agnes could stand barefoot on the grate in the upstairs hall and be warmed by the rush of heated air.

There was nothing about Lillian Scofield’s house that was erratic or ever filled with urgency. But the very quality of domestic regularity and serenity that Agnes so admired made Warren impatient. One day Warren and Agnes passed by the dining room, where Evelyn Harvey was listening reluctantly to Warren’s mother’s idea of a new way of doing some chore.

“I’m determined about this, Evelyn,” Mrs. Scofield was saying. “We’re doing it differently this year. I want them all taken down in the bedrooms
this
week. Washed and ironed and put back up.
Before
we get to the spring cleaning. I want the
upstairs
done now. Then, when we have to deal with the downstairs draperies this spring . . . I just want things done more efficiently. I don’t like that bare look the house takes on . . . .”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Scofield. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that. And here it’s already started to get chilly at night.” Agnes noticed with surprise that her mother-in-law was near tears in the face of Evelyn Harvey’s recalcitrance.

When Agnes and Warren were out of earshot, Warren gave way to exasperation. “Imagine living your life like that, Agnes! Imagine it! My own mother . . . Never
thinking.
The whole world going by! She won’t even pay any attention about the war . . . . Well, of course that’s not exactly right. Naturally she worries about Robert. About anyone she knows. She’s a kind person. She’s a
good
person. But she’s only interested in such a
little bit
of the whole world. She doesn’t pay any attention to anything much outside of Washburn. Or, really, outside of Scofields. Lily can’t even get her interested in all the business about the women’s vote. And Aunt Audra is just the same. It drives Lily wild. My mother’s not a stupid woman, Agnes.”

“Of
course
not, Warren!” Agnes was surprised to realize she felt insulted on her mother-in-law’s account. She flinched at the underlying pity implied by Warren’s complaint. Agnes hadn’t thought much about the war or the women’s vote, herself.

“To
care
as much as she does about such . . .
unimportant
things,” Warren said. “What difference does any of it make? Whether the silver is polished the first Monday of the month? The rugs taken up for the summer? The heavy draperies cleaned for the winter! Or summer!
Whatever
she’s always doing about the draperies.”

But Agnes knew that it made all the difference in the world: It was a wonder, his mother’s graceful ability to stave off chaos. Agnes could have told Warren that it was vitally important; she knew too well how fast the charm of spontaneity became exhausting, and she admired mightily the determination Lillian Scofield brought to bear on the organization of her large household. But Agnes didn’t advise Warren of this, because—on her side—that would have entailed betraying her own family to the judgment of non-Claytors—a judgment made merely on the face of things, with no mitigating factors being taken into consideration.

And besides, Agnes was still in a fever of sensuality. She didn’t even realize that Warren’s mother was unnerved in her company, and even more so if Agnes and Warren were together. It had been hard on Lillian Scofield ever since the couple had arrived at the comfortable old farmhouse in Maine.

Lillian and Audra Scofield and Lily Butler had been surprised upon their own arrival in early June to find the Maine spring so late, but it had been a leisurely treat to watch it unfold along the stony coast. The afternoon Warren and his bride disembarked from the Boston packet in Port Clyde, the lilacs all over Port Clyde and Tenants Harbor were just then bursting into flower, and their drifting, soft, peppery scent was everywhere. Just after Warren and Agnes had finally arrived at the house, had been given a late lunch, and had gone upstairs to unpack and rest a bit before dinner, Lillian had cut an armful of white lilacs from the front hedge. She arranged them with their lovely, bright green, heart-shaped leaves in a blue pitcher and was taking them up to Warren and Agnes’s room, just rounding the corner of the landing, when she heard her son speaking in a peculiar voice that she had never heard before.

“I’ll tell you,” he was saying. “Look at
you!
There you are without even knowing . . .” And Agnes and Warren both spoke softly. Lillian didn’t hear exactly what they said, she only caught jumbled phrases.

“Oh, Warren, I really . . . shouldn’t be teasing . . .”

“. . . and the figure of some showgirl.”

Lillian stopped where she was, embarrassed, and she heard Warren give a soft, knowing sort of laugh. “You do,” he said, “exactly like a showgirl.”

Agnes said something—made some soft sound of demurral, and then Lillian could make out her words. “ . . . where have
you
been seeing all these showgirls?” And then there was a little bustle of conspiratorial muttering and laughter, and Lillian turned right around and went downstairs, where she stood for a long moment at the window, holding the blue pitcher full of lilacs and staring out at the ocean in the distance, feeling something between embarrassment and shock. She was almost fifty-four years old, and in her day it would have been inconceivable to her to indulge in that sort of behavior in the middle of the day under anyone else’s roof. She didn’t know what to think about it. She felt injured and betrayed in some way that she couldn’t quite pin down.

But it was Lily Butler who had been most tormented by Warren and Agnes’s long stay in Maine, where they shared the upstairs with her, so that she was separated from the two of them only by a wall. She really did like Agnes Claytor. In fact, it had been she—when the wire from Warren announcing his intention to get married reached them in Charleston—who had been Agnes’s great champion.

“This Claytor girl,” Lily’s mother said. “Now how in the world . . . Isn’t she still at Linus Gilchrest?” They had been sitting at breakfast on the terrace with Amelia Marshal Robinson, who was Audra and Lillian Scofield’s aunt, but who had moved to Charleston after her marriage and lived there still, in a handsome old house on Society Street. As she observed her nieces’ discomfiture, however, she tactfully excused herself and left them to sort it out. And Warren’s mother had turned to Lily, too.

“What can have happened?” Lily’s aunt Lillian asked plaintively. “How . . . ? I always thought that Estella Eckard or one of the Drummond sisters. The older girl . . . Celeste? Cecily? Tall. A pretty girl.”

But Lily had clapped her hands together as she looked over her mother’s shoulder to read the telegram, and she was smiling with satisfaction and real pleasure. “Oh, no, Mama! Aunt Lillian! Agnes Claytor is an awfully sweet girl. Oh, I never thought of it either. But Agnes and Warren will be just right! I couldn’t
be
more pleased!”

Lily had in mind a young girl in her navy blue middy blouse and pleated skirt, her hair scraped back and pinned and clasped in a school-regulation bow. She had imagined Agnes sitting in the garden with them—with Robert and Warren and herself. A kind of mascot, really. A thoroughly nice girl who would be pleasant company.

But Lily had been astounded when she met the packet boat and there was Agnes with her arm through Warren’s—Agnes’s dark, wide, round eyes, her luxuriant hair just barely restrained with soft, dark curls straying across her face in the sea breeze. Agnes laughed and tried to brush her hair out of the way and waved at Lily from the deck, but Lily was so taken aback by the sight of Warren and Agnes leaning together over the railing that she didn’t realize she hadn’t waved back. Warren shouted to her, and Lily finally raised her hand in greeting, but her expression was utterly blank. Because there was Agnes—not looking anything at all like a young girl just out of the schoolroom.

In the cool spring mornings Agnes and Warren and Lily— and generally Marjorie Hockett as well—fell into the habit of taking long walks along the path above the rocks. Lily would stroll along with Marjorie, just ahead of Warren and Agnes, and turn back often, reaching out fondly to rest her hand on Warren’s sleeve to draw his attention. She would remind him of one thing or another, raising her voice to be heard over the waves. “. . . when Marjorie had to show us how to get in without turning the thing over! The expression on her face . . .”

“Well,” Marjorie had said in her own defense, “I’d never in the world seen anyone so green!”

And Warren might laugh. “But you were downright
disgusted
with us . . . couldn’t imagine how we had gotten so old not knowing anything important!”

Marjorie would laugh a little in acknowledgment, but Agnes could only smile, since these little remembrances—trickled out day after day—were never fully explained or disclosed. Agnes knew she was unreasonably resentful, and Lily, in one small corner of her mind, knew exactly how mean her behavior was. But she couldn’t help herself.

In the midafternoon of the days in Maine, all the company, and any guests, gathered under the trees in back of the house, where there was a weathered table and assorted chairs set out with a fine view of the ocean and the sailing sloops and Matinicus Island in the distance. Marjorie was often there, and various other friends of Lily and Marjorie’s from Mount Holyoke arrived now and then. There would be cake set out, or cookies, or some of the local yellow cheese and apples. A pitcher of milk or lemonade covered with a draped napkin to keep away gnats. Warren and Marjorie had teased Lily one afternoon about the wonderful fried chicken she had made for them on her own honeymoon. They had gone on and on about her unparalleled lemon pie.

“Marjorie, do you remember that meringue?” Warren asked, his mood exuberant. “Why, never in my life . . .”

“Of
course
I remember it! I’ve never seen anything like it before or since,” Marjorie said. And both Warren and Marjorie aimed fondly inclusive smiles Lily’s way. Lily laughed and bowed exaggeratedly to the left and right. “Thank you! Thank you all,” she said, pretending to acknowledge a large crowd. “It’s a talent that simply came to me the very moment I stood there in my wedding dress and opened my mouth to say ‘I do.’” Marjorie and Warren laughed, but Marjorie’s mother was chatting with Lillian and Audra, and the rest of the company hadn’t really been paying attention.

The next day, though, Agnes decided not to join Lily and Marjorie on a long walk to the lighthouse at Marshall’s Point, but she urged Warren to go with them. Lillian and Audra Scofield invited her to come along to Port Clyde to visit the Hocketts, but Agnes said that if they didn’t mind she would take a short walk and then perhaps a nap. But as soon as the house was empty, she made her way to the kitchen and set about making a replica of that wondrous pie of Lily Scofield Butler’s. Agnes had learned a lot about cooking from Mrs. Longacre, and she was delighted with this idea of hers.

Agnes was ashamed of being a bad sport in the company of Marjorie Hockett and Lily and Warren when they began to reminisce about the good times they had before she had even known Warren, and she did her best to conceal her feelings. She couldn’t help it, though; she begrudged all of them the fun they had had without her. And to hear them talk about it made her feel embarrassingly young and unworldly—Warren had turned to her at one point and remarked that the last time he had been in Maine, Agnes must have been no more than fourteen years old. He had laughed. “You were probably one of those schoolgirls I passed every morning, all of you bobbing along in navy blue as cheerful as robins.” He had smiled and shaken his head ruefully. But both Lily and Agnes had looked at him and been struck through with despair. Each woman felt that the reminder of Agnes’s youth was somehow humiliating to herself.