In the Shadow of Lakecrest(57)
“This might be just the push Mr. Foster needs,” she said. “Once I’m no longer under his roof, he’ll stop taking me for granted. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re married by Christmas.”
Poor old Ma, still hoping a man would rescue her, too. We stood, and she gave me a fierce hug. “The next time I see you, I’ll be a grandmother!”
I thought with a pang of everything Ma had done, raising me on her own. I’d have nurses tending to my baby day and night. I’d never have to feed my own child or wash out a filthy diaper or worry where the next dollar was coming from. Ma had done her best, and I found—to my surprise—that I was going to miss her. Her matter-of-factness and common sense had been an antidote to all my vague suspicions.
Which isn’t to say a certain weight wasn’t lifted from my shoulders as Hank drove me back to the house. I’d spent days on edge, bracing myself for Ma to make a crude joke or otherwise embarrass me. Now, it felt as if I’d been set free. It was May, four months until the baby was due. Four glorious months I’d be excused from boring social obligations, and I intended to enjoy them.
The Lemonts were always saying Lakecrest was at its best come summer, and finally I understood why. Outside, the landscape beckoned: the blue of the lake, the plush green of the lawn, a rainbow’s worth of flowers blooming across the estate. Sure, I slowed down as my belly filled out; I got tired more easily and took to lounging on the terrace rather than walking along the lakefront path. But my fears about spooky old Lakecrest seemed like a distant memory, especially with Hannah bending over backward to keep me happy.
Hannah and I never talked about my escape to Eva’s, just as Marjorie and I never talked about what I’d seen beneath the library. Hannah’s unorthodox cure appeared to have worked; Marjorie seemed calm and good-humored, and she only rarely poured drinks from the silver flasks she had stashed around the house. She spent most mornings at the East Ridge Tennis Club (“The pro’s a real looker,” she told me with a grin) and afternoons at one private beach or another with what she referred to as “the usual crowd.” Though Hannah was always telling her to wear a hat, Marjorie’s face soon had a burnished glow that made her hair look even more golden in contrast.
There were tiny warnings that life at Lakecrest wasn’t as idyllic as it seemed, things that formed an ominous pattern only when I examined them later. Marjorie whispering intently to Matthew on the yacht when she thought I was below deck. Telegrams Hannah would read with a concerned frown and immediately rip into pieces. Matthew’s evasions when I asked to take a Sunday drive to look at houses for sale.
“Plenty of time for that later,” he’d say, or, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
I didn’t push. As the pregnancy soothed me into a state of contented lethargy, I slept late, took afternoon naps, and browsed through books I couldn’t seem to finish. What little energy I had was focused on the summer fête at the end of July. This was the event the Lemonts were known for, and I decided to embrace a public role in it, despite my condition and Hannah’s objections. I insisted my name be added to the invitations as cohostess, spent hours sketching designs for a new dress, discussed the menu with Edna, and memorized the family tree of every Chicago socialite on the guest list. When I’d come to the party last summer, I’d been a nobody, underestimated and ignored. This time would be different.
I remembered Ma’s stories of the boat trip from Ireland when she was a girl, how she believed that in America people could create their own destinies. I thought of Blanche, a small-town girl putting all her hopes in big-city dreams. Of Hannah, a doctor’s daughter who married one of the richest men in town. They’d all invented new versions of themselves—why couldn’t I? The Lemonts’ fête would be the debut of a new, sophisticated version of Kate Lemont, the kind of wife no one would look down on.
I was nervous on the day itself, of course, and self-conscious about my size and whether I looked ridiculous in my lilac cotton dress. But it wasn’t long before I was showered with unexpected—but very welcome—expressions of goodwill. Guests smiled at my round belly and gave me congratulatory hugs. Elderly neighbors cooed over me, Matthew’s friends joked about whether I trusted him to hold a newborn, and elegant young mothers commiserated about swollen feet and backaches. “Poor thing,” I heard one of Marjorie’s friends whisper as I walked past, but she said it with an air of kindly concern rather than disdain. A vast improvement on how I’d been treated before.
“Will you be having the baby at home?” Eva asked as I mingled on the terrace. “I imagine the Lemonts are very traditional that way.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Lake Forest Hospital.”
“Thank goodness!” Eva’s sister Violet—tiny, reddish blonde, peppy—was visiting from New York. Her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “I don’t know what I would have done without ether when I had my Gracie.”
“Make sure you have a modern doctor,” urged another woman. Lois? Yes, that was it. The wife of one of Matthew’s friends from Yale. “Some of the older ones still think childbirth is supposed to be painful. Our punishment for Eve’s original sin and all that.”
“As if we don’t endure enough as it is!” Violet said. “It took Eva nearly two days with Tommy, isn’t that right?”