Iron Cast(27)

It was hard to focus on anything with her mother rattling on, and finally Corinne pushed her anxious thoughts aside. She would tell Johnny tomorrow about the incident. He would know what to do.

Her father had driven the Mercedes, and Corinne rode in the backseat, popping three aspirin when her parents weren’t watching and trying not to grimace. The taxi and the train station were bad enough without having to ride in the family’s metal deathtrap all the way to their estate in the countryside. Perry and Constance Wells lived close enough to society to be involved, but distant enough to still seem important. Corinne had asked her mother once where the money came from, since her father’s job as a banker didn’t seem lucrative enough for their style of living. Her mother had said it wasn’t polite to ask about finances, though Corinne later overheard phrases like “family money” and “old blood.” She didn’t care enough to ask more, which was something her brother, Phillip, found disgraceful.

“Our name means something around here,” he’d told her once. “You should be grateful to be a part of it.”

The Wells name didn’t mean anything around the Cast Iron or the other clubs—other than the reputation Corinne herself had built. That was all that mattered to her anymore. These holidays at the family estate were just bumps in the road.

Her mother had lunch served promptly at half past one, and Corinne sat down with her parents in the sunroom for sandwiches, fresh tomatoes from the hothouse, and a cucumber drink that she actually quite liked. The Latin competition was not mentioned again, to her relief.

“Where’s Phillip?” she asked, once she felt recovered enough to actually engage in her mother’s one-sided conversation.

“He’s with Angela and her family today,” Mrs. Wells said. “I was just saying in the car that he’ll be driving back tomorrow morning.”

“Sorry, I must have been distracted.” At least she would be gone when he returned. She loved her brother, as a sister ought, but that was the only feeling she could conjure. “Like” was not something she’d felt toward him in years.

“I expect you’ll give a speech at the rehearsal dinner on Tuesday,” her father said. “You’ve always been good at that sort of thing, Corinne.”

Corinne nodded absently before dropping her fork. Rehearsal dinner.

“His wedding is next week,” Corinne said.

Her parents exchanged a glance.

“Of course it is, darling,” her mother said.

“Don’t tell me you forgot,” said Mr. Wells. “What sort of environment is that school, if you’re too busy to remember your own brother’s wedding?”

“I didn’t forget,” Corinne said, though of course she had. “It just . . . sneaked up on me.”

“Me too,” said her mother. “Just yesterday I was remembering that no one has even bothered to ask the caterers if they can come early, because of course we can’t expect the florists to set up at the same time, and Phillip is absolutely useless, but he doesn’t want Angela being bothered with the arrangements.”

Her mother kept talking, but Corinne shared a look with her father and gleaned from his glazed expression that it was all right to tune her out. The rest of the afternoon passed in a dreary, familiar monotony. Corinne refused to let the maid help her unpack, because then her mother would find out that the entirety of her suitcase was a hairbrush and a brick wrapped in a blanket to add weight. She’d sold all her school possessions after moving to the Cast Iron. There were always a few dresses in her closet at her parents’ estate to tide her over.

She took a walk with her mother through the rose garden, but after half an hour the winter chill forced them inside. Fortunately her mother was too preoccupied with the wedding to insist on more quality time. Her father had already sequestered himself away in his office, so Corinne had free rein of the house. She headed straight for the study in the oldest part of the house, where most of the construction was wood and brick. It had been her grandfather’s when he was alive. He was her mother’s father and had come to live with them after his wife had died.

As a child, Corinne would sneak in while he worked and finger the knickknacks on the shelves. Sometimes, when he wasn’t busy, he would tell her where they came from. There were wine corks from France, a dagger from Spain, and a crimson quill from the village where Shakespeare was born. Then there was the brass pocket watch from nowhere special, with its simple engraving: Love, Alice. Corinne never knew why it captured her imagination as it did, but she would spend hours sitting at his desk, watching him clean it, learning how to wind it, trying to convince him to tell her who Alice was. Her grandmother’s name had been Dolores.

Her grandfather told her many times who Alice was, but every time she was someone different. Sometimes she was a lion tamer he’d met at a circus in Romania, or a fearsome pirate who had boarded his ship in the Adriatic Sea, or an opera singer in Venice who could shatter glass with only her voice. Corinne had never particularly cared to hear the truth. What she loved best were the stories.

All her grandfather’s possessions were gone now, packed away or given to relatives. The study was kept furnished but empty. After his funeral, Corinne’s visits to her parents’ home had dwindled to only holidays and very special occasions. She didn’t see the point in coming more often than that, not when he was gone.