Quiet Dell: A Novel by Jayne Anne Phillips Read Free Book Online Page B

while Hart was told which dessert plates to take from the good china. The Cambridge glass with the gold rims, yes, would look best with the bright tarts, while the bûche de Noël elicited sighs. No sooner had Charles sliced the chocolate, giving a meringue mushroom to each child, than he brought out the surprise: swans that were cream puff pastries, their flaky wings dusted in powdered sugar, their long regal necks and proud heads a perfect first bite. Everyone cheered. Only Annabel placed her swan before her like a prize and said she would keep it always. Her mother told her it would spoil, but she maintained she would freeze it in a block of ice and keep it in the snow.
    •   •   •
    Finally, all was in readiness.
    Annabel insisted Charles draw the heavy drapes across the windows, for snow had ceased falling and the afternoon light had gone brighter. The candles were lit on the Christmas tree behind the players, and the luminaria arranged in front like half-circle footlights. The setting was a forest glade on the last night of the year.
    Asta settled herself. Charles looked at her, raising an eyebrow as he and Annabel stood back-to-back, each holding an edge of red curtain. Presenting, a Play for Christmas, Annabel announced, as she and Charles revealed the scene. Scattered straw softened the bare floor, and the twilit space before the tree did look a bitlike a glade. Hart stood in place, looking off to the right. He was barefoot and bare legged, though his cloak, white damask embroidered in metallic gold thread, hung nearly to the floor. Jingling bells sounded softly as Grethe entered from the left. She looked quite lovely in her white velvet chorister’s robe. Where had Lavinia gotten such a thing?
    Annabel’s play had to do with cold and snow and a wandering pilgrim on New Year’s Eve. The angelic traveler had saved some unfortunate birds from a fox, thanks to her brave dog. Mrs. Pomeroy’s toy high chair sat midstage, heaped about with straw. Hart worked in a few tricks for Duty, who performed rather well, and Annabel intoned offstage as Grethe struck her poses. Asta followed her every movement and quiet expression; Grethe was so practiced and comfortable in Annabel’s tableaus.
    Her sweet, quiet girl. Grethe puzzled at what her younger siblings understood so quickly. She didn’t laugh at jokes and avoided children her own age, for which Asta was grateful. Grethe had attained her willowy height by age eleven, and her open face and guileless eyes prompted the wrong interest. Asta remembered her relief when Charles came to them, replacing those young men who’d rented rooms before him. Asta had caught one of them, Grethe close beside him on the sofa, showing her an art book featuring Rodin’s marble sculptures.
    Now Grethe produced Mrs. Pomeroy from beneath her cloak. Hart remarked on the Grandmother’s small stature; the swaddled doll, a white veil covering her yarn hair, sat attentively in her chair. Asta took Charles’ arm, aware that Annabel could see her, and laughed politely when Duty exceeded direction, knocking Mrs. Pomeroy on her face. She heard Lavinia’s expressions in the lines, and her thoughts drifted anxiously to Grethe.
    “Don’t warn that child off men,” Lavinia had hissed, “don’t frighten her. How can we expect to find her a husband if you turn her from what she might enjoy?”
    Lavinia had no inkling. Her physical relations with Heinrich’s father had been genteel and infrequent, while he exercised his passionselsewhere; Heinrich had spoken of music tutors and tennis coaches, minor royalty and society men. The bedroom was truly a private chamber into which no mother gazed. Who would be kind to childlike Grethe, whose mind was that of the average eight-year-old? A religious vocation might be best; it would shelter and protect Grethe, allow her to be of service in some simple way. She loved ceremony, and knowing the order of events before they happened.
    Confusingly,