Instantly she wished she hadn’t admitted it, that she, Mona Mayfair, had been spooked in the great house.
But Ryan was off on the track of duty and organization and simply continued to explain that Granny Mayfair, down at Fontevrault, was being cared for by the little boy from Napoleonville, and that this was a good opportunity to persuade Mary Jane to get out of that ruin, and to move to town.
“This girl needs the family. But she doesn’t need any more of this grief and misery just now. Her first real visit has for obvious reasons been a disaster. She’s in shell shock from the accident. You know she saw the entire accident. I want to get her out of here-”
“Well, sure, but she’ll feel closer to everybody afterwards,” said Mona with a shrug. She took a big, wet, crunchy bite of the apple. God, was she hungry. “Ryan, have you ever heard of the name Morrigan?”
“I don’t think so.”
“There’s never been a Morrigan Mayfair?”
“Not that I remember. It’s an old English name, isn’t it?”
“Hmmm. Think it’s pretty?”
“But what if the baby is a boy, Mona?”
“It’s not, I know,” she said. And then caught herself. How in the world could she know? It was the dream, wasn’t it, and it also must have been wishful thinking, the desire to have a girl child and bring her up free and strong, the way girls were almost never brought up.
Ryan promised to be there within ten minutes.
Mona sat against the pillows, looking out again at the Resurrection ferns and the bits and pieces of blue sky beyond. The house was silent all around her, Eugenia having disappeared. She crossed her bare legs, the shirt easily covering her knees with its thick lace hem. The sleeves were horribly rumpled, true, but so what? They were sleeves fit for a pirate. Who could keep anything like that neat? Did pirates? Pirates must have gone about rumpled. And Beatrice had bought so many of these things! It was supposed to be “youthful,” Mona suspected. Well, it was pretty. Even had pearl buttons. Made her feel like a … a little mother!
She laughed. Boy, this apple was good.
Mary Jane Mayfair. In a way, this was the only person in the family that Mona could possibly get excited about seeing, and on the other hand, what if Mary Jane started saying all kinds of wild and witchy things? What if she started running off at the mouth irresponsibly? Mona wouldn’t be able to handle it.
She took another bite of the apple. This will help with vitamin deficiencies, she thought, but she needed the supplements Annelle Salter had prescribed for her. She drank the rest of the milk in one Olympian gulp.
“What about ‘Ophelia’?” she said aloud. Would that be right, to name a girl child after poor mad Ophelia, who had drowned herself after Hamlet’s rejection? Probably not. Ophelia’s my secret name, she thought, and you’re going to be called Morrigan.
A great sense of well-being came over her. Morrigan. She closed her eyes and smelled the water, heard the waves crashing on the rocks.
A sound woke her, abruptly. She’d been asleep and she didn’t know how long. Ryan was standing beside the bed, and Mary Jane Mayfair was with him.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Mona, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and coming round to greet them. Ryan was already backing out of the room.
“I presume you know,” he said, “that Michael and Rowan are in London. Michael said he would call you.” Then he was off, headed down the stairs.
Here stood Mary Jane.
What a change from the afternoon she’d come sprouting diagnoses of Rowan. But one had to remember, thought Mona, that those diagnoses had been correct.
Mary Jane’s yellow hair was hanging loose and splendid, like flax, over her shoulders, and her big breasts were poking against the tight fit of a white lace dress. There was a little mud, from the cemetery, probably, on her beige high-heeled shoes. She had a tiny, mythical Southern waist.
“Hey there, Mona, I hope this doesn’t hang you up, my being here,” she said, immediately grabbing Mona’s right hand and pumping it furiously, her blue eyes glittering as she looked down at Mona from her seemingly lofty height of about five foot eight inches in the heels. “listen, I can cut out of here any time you don’t want me. I’m no stranger to hitchhiking, I can tell you. I’ll get to Fontevrault just fine. Hey, lookie, we’re both wearing white lace, and don’t you have on the most darlin’ little smock? Hey, that’s just adorable, you look like a white lace bell with red hair. Hey, can I go out there on the front porch?”
“Yeah, sure, I’m glad to have you here,” said Mona. Her hand had been sticky from the apple, but Mary Jane hadn’t noticed.
Mary Jane was walking past her.
“You have to push up that window,” said Mona, “then duck. But this is really not a dress, it’s some kind of shirt or something.” She liked the way it floated around her. And she loved the way that Mary Jane’s skirts flared from that tiny waist.
Well, this was no time to be thinking about waists, was it?
She followed Mary Jane outside. Fresh air. River breeze.
“Later on, I can show you my computer and my stock-market picks. I’ve got a mutual fund I’ve been managing for six months, and it’s making millions. Too bad I couldn’t afford to actually buy any of the picks.”
“I hear you, darlin’,” said Mary Jane. She put her hands on the front porch railing and looked down into the street. “This is some mansion,” she said. “Yeah, it sure is.”
“Uncle Ryan points out that it is not a mansion, it is a town house, actually,” said Mona.
“Well, it’s some town house.”
“Yeah, and some town.”
Mary Jane laughed, bending her whole body backwards, and then she turned to look at Mona, who had barely stepped out on the porch.
She looked Mona up and down suddenly, as if something had made an impression on her, and then she froze, looking into Mona’s eyes.
“What is it?” asked Mona.
“You’re pregnant,” said Mary Jane.
“Oh, you’re just saying that because of this shirt or smock or whatever.”
“No, you’re pregnant.”
“Well, yeah,” said Mona. “Sure am.” This girl’s country voice was infectious. Mona cleared her throat. “I mean, everybody knows. Didn’t they tell you? It’s going to be a girl.”
“You think so?” Something was making Mary Jane extremely uneasy. By all rights, she should have enjoyed descending upon Mona and making all kinds of predictions about the baby. Isn’t that what self-proclaimed witches did?
“You get your test results back?” asked Mona. “You have the giant helix?” It was lovely up here in the treetops. Made her want to go down into the garden.
Mary Jane was actually squinting at her, and then her face relaxed a little, the tan skin without a single blemish and the yellow hair resting on her shoulders, full but sleek.
“Yeah, I have the genes all right,” said Mary Jane. “You do too, don’t you?”
Mona nodded. “Did they tell you anything else?”
“That it probably wouldn’t matter, I’d have healthy children, everybody always did in the family, ’cept for one incident about which nobody is willing to talk.”
“Hmmmmm,” said Mona. “I’m still hungry. Let’s go downstairs.”
“Yeah, well, I could eat a tree!”
Mary Jane seemed normal enough by the time they reached the kitchen, chattering about every picture and every item of furniture she saw. Seemed she’d never been in the house before.
“How unspeakably rude that we didn’t invite you,” said Mona. “No, I mean it. We weren’t thinking. Everybody was worried about Rowan that afternoon.”
“I don’t expect fancy invitations from anybody,” said Mary Jane. “But this place is beautiful! Look at these paintings on the walls.”