The Uncertain Season Read online

  Now my mother kept alive a multigenerational snobbery I had been forced to endure all of my life. Not only was Etta’s father not of our English heritage, he wasn’t even an islander but was instead a Houstonian, considered a lesser breed altogether. And on top of all that, he and Aunt Junie had had the audacity to leave Galveston.

  Therefore the sudden correspondence between my mother and her older sister was most curious, as was the announcement that my cousin was coming to stay with us for an unspecified period of time and for reasons I was not privy to, all of this occurring during the summer of my engagement, while Galvestonians were also preparing to have their homes, everything in them and around them, including the pecans and magnolias and even the outbuildings and graveyards, lifted while the grade engineering project raised the level of the city right under our very feet.

  For my journey to the depot, I donned a navy-blue street suit with a narrowly pleated long skirt and a large hat to shade my face, my hair pinned up except for a few ringlets I’d curled with irons heated and brought to me by my maid, Dolly. I left Mother in Clorinda’s care and set off down the main staircase, prepared to face the unconscionable summer heat outside alone.

  After crossing the front lawn to the street, I settled myself into the back of the carriage, Seamus cracked the reins, and we headed off toward the station. Our street was lined with the most elegant homes on the island, some of them designed by the renowned architect Nicholas Clayton in the fashionable Italianate design, complete with columns, cornice work, brick, and ironwork. The esplanade running down the center of Broadway made room for old oaks, oleanders, and palms. The greenery was one of the things that made our island so lovely, but much of it was doomed to be ruined during the grade-raising project.

  Seamus drew the carriage to a halt before the depot and assisted me out. Seamus’s hair and skin were light brown, making those who knew him wonder about his parentage. Some intermingling of the races had obviously taken place in the past, but we didn’t discuss these things. What mattered was that he was my mother’s favorite. The most private and quiet of the servants, rarely speaking except when spoken to, Seamus was Mother’s choice to accompany me on this day.

  At the four-story Union Depot building, I waited for my cousin’s train on the platform under the shade of a portico and tried to contain my frustration about every aspect of my current circumstances, including lady’s fashions that required us to wear corsets and long skirts and cover ourselves almost entirely, with only our faces open to fresh air, even while the heat was so heavy it undulated beneath the ever-present, white-hot sun. A complete lack of wind allowed me to hear the bayside docks—a steam whistle, the rumble of drays, clanging locomotives, and freight cars whacking as they switched from one long pier to another. If I had to be outside in the heat, I’d have much preferred to be near the gulf, where one could at least count on a breeze.

  I fanned myself and gazed about. How would Etta view Galveston? How had it changed since her last visit, and how would she see it as an adult? Despite the effects of the storm, rebuilding was reestablishing our island much as it had been before. The deepwater port, protected by jetties that ran over five miles out to sea, was still a major gateway to America.

  We hosted a steady stream of foreigners—Russians in their fur hats, the Swiss in their knee breeches, Scots carrying bagpipes, and always the women and children burdened with knapsacks, pots, and pans. Galveston was a great place to depart from, too, and in my lifetime I’d already traveled widely. I’d seen the white sand of Florida, the pink sand of Bermuda, the black sand of the Hawaiian Islands, formed from volcanic rock, but the silver-tan sands of this island were always the sweetest to me.

  I did not recognize Etta. After the train arrived and the passengers disembarked, I stood, waiting for her, before realizing with a start that she was already standing before me, eye to eye.

  I found her a most striking young woman, with her dark hair dressed up in a cascade of curls and a hat that tilted off to one side. She had high-arched eyebrows, rouged cheeks, red lips, dark eyes, and a jawline that, although not too large, was dominant and determined, giving her an overwhelming impression of vigor, despite the fact that she was petite in stature. The clumsy girl I’d known before had been transformed by womanhood. She possessed a disquieting beauty, different from my own, which was often described as soft and muted, blond and delicate. I was like a greenhouse orchid, whereas Etta was more striking, her looks akin to an Indian paintbrush growing wild along the roadway.

  I could scarcely believe this was the same awkward cousin I’d pulled from the water and played with in the sand dunes ten years earlier. Had I changed as drastically?

  “Cousin Etta? I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you.”

  She peered at me appraisingly and held my gaze with razor-sharp scrutiny. “I would’ve recognized you anywhere.” Her voice was bold, a bit husky, like air exhaled through a deeply toned musical instrument.

  I said, “What an amazing memory you must have . . . It has been quite a while, after all.”

  “Please don’t worry if you don’t remember me. I’m not offended.”

  We began walking down the platform toward the carriage, while Seamus went to collect Etta’s trunk. A pleasant sense of relief came over me. Perhaps I might truly enjoy Etta. It also occurred to me that I’d been given a chance to start anew with my cousin. Etta didn’t know me any better than I knew her. We could have a fresh start. She didn’t know how often I was described by my acquaintances as only, alone, and lonely. I was an only child; my father died and left us alone; Grace looks so lonely. She had no idea of my life, just as I had no idea of hers. Etta didn’t know that when I removed all the layers—the society that surrounded me, my mother’s focus, all the exquisite gowns and dresses, and farther still, under my skin, past muscle and bone and into my core—there it lay: something left empty and longing.

  I said, “Mother wanted to come, but she’s having a bad spell today.”

  “She’s not ill, I hope.”

  “It’s simply the heat. She truly regrets not meeting your train.”

  Etta waved a hand in the air dismissively, and I led her to the carriage. She walked faster than I did, with clipped steps and a longish stride, her parasol at her side, swinging. Several well-heeled businessmen dressed in nice worsteds and cheviots glanced her way as we passed them.

  I said, “Welcome to Galveston, by the way.”

  And she said, “Thank you.”

  On the ride to the house, Etta sat next to me in the rear of the carriage. I imagined what I might do with her as the horse’s hooves clacked on the cobbled pavement. Over the next few days, I surmised, we could take a short tour of the city, visit the Texas Heroes Monument, The Strand, the opera house, Colonel Walter Gresham’s turreted mansion, Woollam’s Lake, and of course we could go peek at the ocean over the new seawall under construction. But for now I thought it best to take her straight home and let her get settled. Mother would want to see that she’d arrived safely before we took any excursions.

  “How was the train?” I asked.

  “Comfortable. I most enjoyed the journey by bridge over the bay. It seemed we were traveling over water forever.”

  I nodded and held on to the edge of the seat as Seamus made a turn. “When I was younger, crossing that bridge made me think we’d never reach land again. I imagined falling off the Earth.”

  Etta said, “As the early explorers did. I saw a painting once that depicted such a scene. A tall ship with square white sails was tipping over the edge of a flat world, and at the same time the sea was pouring over the lip into nothingness.”

  “Well, have no fear. Our island is safe now.”

  “I must tell you, however, if any hurricane flags are flown, I plan to leave at once.” Her face was calm and indiscernible. I couldn’t tell if she was masking real nervousness or was relaxed enough to simply make a joke.

  “Hurricane season isn’t quite upon us yet.”

 
; “Favor me with a request, then. Let me know when it arrives.”

  Back on Broadway, the streetcars, filled with singing and laughing islanders and visitors, clanged as they ran back and forth along the avenue. Residents strolled out onto their porticos, holding glasses of iced tea or lemonade in their hands. Everyone was in search of a cooling breeze, as by now it was midafternoon and the hottest hour of the day.

  We had almost arrived. Etta’s eyes looked me up and down, and I could almost hear her thoughts, heavy thoughts.

  She said it simply: “It was a man.”

  I wasn’t certain I’d heard her correctly. “Pardon?”

  “It was a man,” she said again and lifted her chin, her dark eyes full of a fiery light that I could see despite the shade of the carriage top. “Surely you’re curious to know why I’m here.”

  I turned, staring straight ahead, and peered over the withers of the horses. My throat had dried. I supposed I could have asked her anything at that moment, but I swallowed my questions, torn between feigning indifference and using the opportunity to learn more. I made my voice light. “Isn’t it always a man?”

  “I don’t know,” she said and cleared her throat into her gloved hand. As was typical, dust had worked its way into our compartment. “I’ve never been involved with a man before. I’ve also never been disowned before.”

  I hadn’t seen her in ten years, and yet here she was, speaking so candidly. “Are you disowned or simply banished?”

  Etta shrugged and half smiled. “My mother needed to do two things—teach me a lesson and get rid of him. Sending me here is supposed to accomplish both.”

  I almost laughed. “Will it work?”

  Etta finally gave me a full smile, which showed off a band of radiant white teeth. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  I became aware of Seamus in front of us and lowered my voice. Seamus was quiet natured, but the biggest gossipers were the house servants. Most of the secrets and stories, both true and untrue, which circulated among our friends from household to household, were spread by them. “Why didn’t your mother approve? Did he have warts on his face? Lice in his hair? No teeth?”

  “Worse than that,” said Etta. “He had no money.”

  I tried not to laugh, but my cousin was so surprising. “Oh dear,” I said. “It is required that we make them proud, isn’t it? That we marry better than they did.”

  “And he worked for the circus.”

  I coughed into my hand and looked at her hard. “You’re jesting me.”

  “No. He was a flying trapeze artist.”

  I tried to keep a straight face. “Pardon me, Cousin, but it’s no wonder that Aunt Junie disapproved and has sent you our way. We’ll be sure to set you back on a better course.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  “How much time do we have to redeem you?”

  “My mother won’t take me back until I’ve proven myself contrite and cry daily into my soup for her forgiveness.”

  Laughter erupted out of me, and Seamus’s head jerked up.

  I controlled myself and then whispered, “So, you didn’t come willingly?”

  But even then I sensed that Etta probably did nothing completely against her will, and I was already admiring her cool collectedness and wishing I could absorb some of it.

  Etta tugged off her gloves. Even such simple movements of hers had a quality about them, something I couldn’t name: a smoothness, a premeditation that made her appear casual but astute, or scheming at every moment.

  “I wasn’t chained and dragged to the station.” She gazed out of the window and then back at me. “I’m considering this stay a vacation, a respite from home and all of its complications.”

  I had never expected Etta to seem so much older. The gulf between nineteen and twenty-one had never seemed so large. I’d always viewed maturity in terms of worldliness. Now I saw my logic as flawed, and I felt less practiced and mature, and still I couldn’t help liking Etta.

  Her fingers were long and narrow and unadorned with rings. Only then did I notice that she wore absolutely no jewelry, and the lack of baubles and gems suited her. “Did you love him?”

  “Ah, love,” she said and gave me a devilish half smile. Then, just as suddenly, she adopted a sober tone. “I’m not sure it was love of the orthodox variety. He made me uneasy, I’ll say that.”

  “Will you see him again?”

  Perhaps now I was prying, but Etta seemed unbothered. “I doubt it.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I suppose I don’t know.”

  I studied her. “What can I do to help you adjust to Galveston?”

  Etta gave a short one-shouldered shrug. “Keep me company.”

  “Of course I will. We’ll find much to do. What are your interests?”

  “I don’t want to be a nuisance. I’ll do whatever you do.”

  “There are so many activities here. Do tell me something of your likes and dislikes.”

  She paused and laid her gloves in her lap. “Well, let me see. I don’t care for books or embroidery or sewing or cooking or, God forbid, prayer.”

  I spurted out another irrepressible laugh. “Etta!” After composing myself once again, I lowered my voice. “Don’t let the driver hear you.” And then, “So, what do you enjoy?”

  She seemed to consider her response. “Let’s just say that I enjoy enjoyment itself.”

  “Do you like games? Bicycling, croquet, lawn bowling?”

  “They can be amusing. But I meant enjoyment of people.”

  I sat with her answer, so odd an answer.

  And then she laughed aloud, a most contagious, throaty laugh.

  When Seamus pulled the carriage to a halt before the house, I took the opportunity to ask one last question. Soon the house would swallow us, my mother’s presence would overpower us, and close proximity to the other servants would prevent such open talk. “Was he handsome?”

  Etta checked her attire in a most casual manner, one hand smoothing down the front of her dress, the other at her waistline. She met my eyes, and for the first time I saw in the corners of her eyes a touch of the sadness this episode must have caused her. “He was the most handsome man I’ve ever met.”

  I touched her hand. “I’m so glad you’ve come. I’m certain to enjoy you.”

  “Thank you.”

  My mother would have been so pleased. In less than an hour’s time, Etta had captivated my most ardent attention.

  After Etta assured me that she wasn’t in need of rest yet, I changed my mind about entering the house so soon and said to her, “Allow me to show you around town a bit.” It would irk my mother, but I asked Seamus to take us to the ocean. He drove to the beach, while Etta and I chatted longer, making up for much lost time. I told her about Jonathan, informed her that we were recently engaged, and removed my glove to show her my ring. Then, as my mother had instructed, I also told her that we had readied our finest guest room and hoped she would find it satisfactory.

  We stepped out of the carriage near Murdoch’s Bathhouse, rebuilt after the storm, and then we walked its long pier. The ocean swirled underneath us, the smell of salt and seaweed swept into our nostrils, and an onshore wind pushed against our faces and whipped our skirts around our legs. Our parasols were difficult to manage in the ocean wind.

  At the end of the pier, clouds spotted the sea with shadows. Over this deeper water, I searched for any trepidation in Etta, but she maintained the same expression of calm concentration she’d displayed ever since her arrival, and I found myself uncharacteristically chatty. I told Etta that despite the wind and waves she should never fear the Gulf of Mexico waters and assured her they were as warm as bathwater, and the slope of sand made a gentle declivity, almost flat, ideal for surf bathing and wading in our swimming costumes. I told her about sand falls in the ocean, that they were similar to waterfalls, but instead of water pouring off the rims of canyons, these underwater rivers were composed of sand that silently poured off
undersea cliffs into deeper water.

  She said, “I’ve never heard of a sand fall.”

  “As you may have surmised, I love the sea.” I then told Etta about the different colors of the gulf—sometimes black, blue, brown, silver, green, or white—and its different moods: sometimes still and silky, other times rolling and swelling, and still other times crashing and exploding.

  “Like the human mind,” said Etta.

  Looking her way, I fought the wind, pulling at strands of hair whipping across my face. “The human mind?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re capable of anything, don’t you think? Every mood, every act, both good and bad.”

  I had to let that thought swim around in my mind for a moment. “Etta, you have beguiled me. What interesting ideas you have.”

  A faint smile formed on her lips.

  Turning to face the water again, I inhaled the sea wind. “Yet our minds are not as big as the sea. Human lives are small by comparison.”

  Etta gazed out, too. “Sometimes my life feels this big.”

  We stood together then, in silence that was, on my part, full of pleasure and contentedness. How wonderfully our first day was proceeding. How brilliant that secrecy and discord, the banes of our mothers’ generation, would not interfere with our relationship.

  And so we stood together, two hopeful young women staring at the sea, the sun at our backs and the wind in our faces. In that instant, in that one glittering moment of renewal and new beginning, I imagined Etta and me as marvelous friends, full of potential, free as the birds above, flying beyond the old confines.

  Chapter Three

  ETTA

  She remembered Galveston. She remembered a hot wind and a sun like a huge white hole cut out of the sky. She remembered greenish seawater and layers of waves that looked like lace, and then being hit by a wall of water.

  Her feet had vanished, the sun and sky disappeared, and she couldn’t move. She was lost within a terrifying other realm, where the wall now ran over her face and sucked along her sides. There was little light and no air, and for those long terrifying moments she was paralyzed by shock, surprise, and the sheer speed of it all. It’s a bad dream, she told herself.