Watchlist (12 page)

He sighs. He's confused. Exhausted. Something falls from his hand. I pick it up. A photo. On the back is written #1. It's a Polaroid of a chalked word on a blackboard:

C
ALIFORNIA

I rise and hand it to him. He nods thanks. For a minute we stand there together. Looking at the photo, then around us, at everything. “What is this?” the host asks softly.

“All this time I thought you'd know,” I admit.

We stare out. It's dark but we know what's out in the darkness. The valleys below us. The seas. Hills and roads. People. Silence. Trees. I'm pretty sure we can hear waves crashing in the bay.

We did not understand how she came to be alone. We wished to know more, the more that she alone could tell us. It was well understood in our village that Adela was a beauty, albeit a beauty past her heyday. But this was of little consequence to us, no?
²

We came not to spy and discover if indeed her bloom had faded; we came because Mother did not nod to Adela in the street when so rarely she passed, under a parasol despite there being no sun; we came because we knew that on occasion Adela had a guest of queer character who alighted in her courtyard well past the witching hour; we came because Father fumbled to attention when we dared mention “Adela” at supper, piping her syllables into the linen of our diminutive napkins; and finally, we came because Adela alone welcomed us: we, the unconsidered, the uninvited, the under five feet high.

Uncountable afternoons that year, after we had gotten our gruel
³
—some of us trammeled up with the governess, others, the tutor—we raced en bloc to the back of beyond, letting ourselves into the bedimmed foyer of Adela's ivy-shrouded, crumbling house. She who was alone could not wish to be, yet she alone had made it so, and we altogether wished to know why. Fittingly, we slid in our tender, immature fingers to try and pry Adela open. Perchance she felt this to be a merciless naïveté; as if we, Edenic formlings, did not yet have the knowledge of our collective strength.

What is it, the youngest of us ventured to ask, that has caused you to cloister yourself all through your youth? A thwarted wish to be a nun or a monk?

It was child's play for us to envision Adela pacing down a windowless hall, needlework dragging over stone, her nun's habit askew.

Her stockinged toes working their way into the topmost corner of the divan, Adela fluttered in her crinoline. She pressed the back of her hand to a crimson'd cheek, laughing, Oh dearest children, why it has been years since I have blushed! I suppose I must confess that it was as lamentable a story as any of you could wish . . .

One with pirates, we asked, one of dead Love and dashed Hope? Then we all at once paused, for her eyes summoned a darkling look as if she had drifted somewhere parlous, somewhere damned.

Pirates? Adela? Pirates?

No, she cried with a toss of her head. The lamp dimmed and the window rattled, lashed by a burst of sudden rain.

Adela, we did chorus, Adela?

Her silhouette bolted upright. Children? The lamplight returned restoring Adela's dusky radiance. You curious cherubs, why it's a foolish tale of romantic woe. I was in love and my love turned out to be quite mad, and well we know, no candle can compare to fire. And so I have chosen to remain alone. Mystery solved.

But for us the mystery had only begun. Who was this Unnamed Love? Was he of our acquaintance? Had he wed another? Was his corpse buried in the village graveyard? Was he locked in a madhouse wherein he paced the floors, dribbling “Adela” into the folds of his bloodstained cravat? We wished to know and demanded that she tell us.

Oh, he is quite alive, murmured Adela languidly, pouring herself a glass of Madeira,
meio doce
, to the brim, stirring, spilling it with her little finger, passing the glass around when we begged for a driblet.

Is he married? we asked, our lips stained with wine.

He is not. Though I have heard it said that he is betrothed . . . to a lovely heiress of a small but respectable estate in North Carolina.

We choked on our commutual sip. Won't you stop him if indeed you love him? You will, won't you? Tell us you will, Adela, do!

No indeed. I wish them happy, she said with a deep violet tongue.

We did not think she could mean what she did say. We pressed her as we refilled her glass, Do you love him still? Was it not a lasting attachment?

Oh yes. I'll love him forever. But what of it? she asked.

How was it possible, we mulled aloud, that Love did not rescue the day? Was this not what she had read to us from these very volumes by which we were surrounded? What of
The Mysteries of Udolpho
? Lord Byron's
Beppo
?

Adela nodded in affirmation yet was quick to forewarn, Do not forget the lessons of
Glenarvon
!
⁴

But should not Love and Truth strive against aught else, ergo it is better to Perish Alone in Exile? Adela, you must be mistaken, we assured her, the oldest patting the top of her bejeweled hand, for if your Love knew you loved him in perpetuum, he would return and return in a pig's whisper!

That would be ill-judged, nor would I permit such a thing, she snapped. As I said, he is quite mad and impossible to abide. Please, let us not speak of it, it was all too too long ago.

Adela, we wheedled, won't you at least tell us the name of your lost love? Don't you trust us, Adela? Why there is nothing you do not know of us! Nothing we have not gotten down on our knees to confess! You know that we borrowed Father's gun and we shot it; that we broke Mother's vase and we buried it; that we contemplated our governess and tutor in the long grass giving off strange grunts and divers groans till their caterwauling ceased in a cascade of competing whimpers.

Now hush! Didn't I tell you not to speak of that? Very well. His name is Percival Rutherford, she yawned, entreating us to close the blinds.

*

I
T WAS A
bad plan. A wicked plan. We did not know if it came from us or the Devil so full was it of deceit. At home, milling in the library, in perusal of our aim, we selected a volume of Shake
speare's Comedies since they all ended in marriage and marriage was by and large our end. The Bard, we suspected, had a number of strategies upon the matter.

We set about with quill and ink and put our nib to paper. Sitting cross-legged on the dais of a desk whilst we huddled below in consternation, the oldest clapped us to attention to declaim, feather aloft:

∼ Dressing as boys or the boys of us dressing as girls!

We were uncertain as to what this would achieve and thus struck it off.

∼ Dressing Adela in disguise so that she can visit Percival and get high-bellied!

We were equally uncertain as to whether Adela was past the fecundating age.

∼ Have Adela rescue her love from a lioness thereby making him everlastingly indebted to her!

While there was no doubt in our collective hearts that Adela could, if put to the test, best a lion—was she not the owner of a mighty sword that hung on her wall belonging to her long-deceased father?—we did doubt we could procure a lioness in this part of the country. The second oldest elbowed their way up to the desk, chastising the oldest for bothering to scribble down a strategy that was so abominably foolhardy. The oldest sneered back that the second was the one with no veritable sense of Byronic ideals. To which the second scoffed, Airmonger! But the oldest merely chose to employ a snub and concluded:

∼ Fake Adela's death and give Percival report of it? Or! Send a false missive to each, swearing that one loves the other!

Enough, barked the second oldest, crossly claiming that no
remedy to our ails could be hit upon in the Comedies. Thus, we began undividedly to search elsewhere in the Canon and quickly fell upon our consensual favorite,
Othello
.
⁵
We conferred, then confirmed by a show of hands: we must find Adela a beau to make her lost love jealous; Percival, in turn, would wrestle with the arrogance of his tortured soul until goaded into a violent show of love which would cure him of his madness, whereupon they would be wed, us serving as the bridal party.

Our unanimous impetus was thus: one day, someday, one by one, we would leave this village and behind us, Adela: a tawny, companionless outcast. This we found insupportable.

I
T HAD COME
to our attention that the ladies of the village were increasingly fond of the new architect, Mr. Quilby, who had taken a lodging above the apothecary. Our aunts were made prostrate admiring his finely wrought neckties and excellent leg. He is not quite Brummell,
⁶
the second oldest of us had quipped, not thoroughly convinced of Quilby's suitability let alone his foil status. However, the oldest had been quick to counter that Adela was a spinster by most everyone's calculations—though no lamb dressed in ewe's clothes, with a countenance that was beyond pleasing to the eye—still most of the unattached gentlemen would think her a Tabby. However, Mr. Quilby, the oldest had gone on to expostulate, has streaks of silver in his sideburns plainly visible. A man of his years will be less concerned by Adela's being a Thornback.
⁷

T
HE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON
we tromped through the fields and into the village square where we found Mr. Quilby at his drafting table, his sleeves rolled high. Under our arms we had baskets of fresh-baked bread and preserves, for we knew how to be satisfactorily winning children, to lisp and wreath smiles when such a display was demanded.

Mr. Quilby was intrigued by our description of the enchanting recluse with whom all men dangled and yet no man had ever snared. He quizzed us as to why we thought him the one to win such an elusive prize? Though Quilby admitted he well understood that as the village's newest bachelor, matchmaking mamas would be upon him, he owned he was surprised to find that they would recruit their children to employ such endeavors.

We said in one breath that we believed Adela to be lonely and thought perhaps it would cheer her to have a worthy friend near to her age in whom she could confide. Quilby, breaking off a chunk of bread said, betwixt his chews, that he was not averse to such a meeting. The second oldest of us deplored the profusion of Quilby's crumbs, hissing that Quilby was not capable of being the understudy's understudy let alone the rival. But Quilby, unmindful of this sally, inquired, How do you think you could lure such a confirmed hermit?

But we were there well before him. The next evening, the youngest of us was meant to take part in a glee at the chapel, a recital to which Adela had long been promised to attend. In this fashion was Quilby gulled and the first act of our accursed cabal complete.

O
N THE DAY
in question, we were trembling in our boots and slippers, shaking in our corsets and caps, when at long last Adela slipped in at the back of the church. She was a trifle hagged, but we conjectured that if our star was noticeably dimmed, Quilby would only be made less shy on his approach. In the final applause, the oldest of us mimed to Quilby that he should come make her acquaintance, which Quilby did with a genteel air, bowing and being so courtly as to bestow a light kiss atop Adela's hand. The second of us was obliged to yield an approving nod. That blush which we ourselves had beheld only the other day returned and we pursued it down Adela's throat and across her breasts. Bobbing a sketch of a curtsey, Adela made to turn, fretful for her carriage, but Quilby was quick to inquire, Ma'am, is it you that lives in the old Nelson place?

Why yes, sir, I am a Nelson. My father passed it on to me when he died.

Ah, I am an architect. I had thought it quite a rare specimen of local architecture.

Very likely, sir, she mumbled.

Ma'am, I do wonder if I might take it upon myself to intrude upon you, and pay a visit to view the interior?

Feeling the weight of the eyes of the village bearing down upon her, Adela flung out her consent and fled.

Mother appeared at our sides, peeved we'd been seen speaking to Adela, though she would not show her displeasure before Mr.
Quilby, with whom she became something of a coquette.
⁸

But we, with the newly acquired address of Percival Rutherford in our combined grasp, sent our hero an invitation for Adela's forthcoming, fictive nuptials to Quilby, thus setting the stage for a disastrous second act.

H
E WAS NOT
what we expected. No, he, who burst into Adela's parlor inarticulate and unannounced, in a mode of dress which was slightly outmoded. He, who had not even donned a white, frilled poet's shirt to our thronged disappointment. On first perusal, his chin flapped, his considerable belly paunched and his forehead accordioned. It was a Rum go,
⁹
his hasty shuffling to the pianoforte, where moments before we had been in concert, ranging from soprano to falsetto, the boys of us having dropped neither balls nor voices, while Adela played and Quilby turned pages with gusto.

Adela got to her feet, crying out in wonderment, Percy? But this, too, was a disappointment: an unsatisfactory sobriquet. It would have been better had he been named Orlando or Ferdinand or Rhett, even calling him Rutherford we thought would have more than sufficed.

I apologize for coming without so much as sending my card, but I find I must speak with you, his breaking voice inviting despite the want of delicacy in his manner.

Adela flushed, confirming that we had made no synchronized misstep. Pray Percy, this is—you, sir, are unexpected. I have guests.