Read Online Evergreen by Belva Plain - Free Book Online

surely.
    From the yards below where the clotheslines ran from fence to fence came a wild, lonely cry, the wail of a lost child. Anna started. But then she thought,
It’s only cats
and turning out the light, smiled into the darkness and fell asleep.

8

    In the morning Mrs. Monaghan said, “Company tonight, you know. My niece Agnes will be coming to help. Just a family dinner, the madam says, but sounds fancy to me. Turtle soup, lobster mousse, lamb. She wants you to go up with her now to set the table.”
    The dining room glittered with crystal, lace and silver. Silver platters and candelabra. Silver bowls for the chocolates and the roses.
    “Some of these pieces are almost two hundred years old,” Mrs. Werner explained. “This coffeepot belonged to my great-great-grandmother Mendoza. See, here’s the M.”
    “They brought all this from Europe?”
    “No, this is American silver. My people came here from Portugal a hundred years before this was made.”
    “So different from me,” Anna said.
    “Not really, Anna. Just an accidental turn of history, that’s all. People are the same everywhere.” Mrs. Werner’s rare smile softened her cool face.
    There’s something about her that’s like Mama, Anna thought. I never noticed it before. Something dependable and strong. I would like to put my arms around her. It would be good to have a mother again. I wonder whether she knows anything?
    Mrs. Werner was handsome in dark red silk. She had wonderful white shoulders for an old woman, over forty.The guests at the table looked like a family: parents, a grandmother and two sisters about Anna’s age. They had fair, freckled skin; their prominent, arched noses made their faces proud.
    “I’d much rather go to Europe,” one of the sisters said. She wore blue lawn and her long pearl earrings moved like little tassels.
    “Still, a month in the White Mountains is so lovely, don’t you think?” the grandmother remarked. “I always come back utterly exhausted from Europe.”
    Anna moved around the table, passing and repassing the silver platters, pouring ice water out of the silver pitcher. Be careful not to spill. That’s Valenciennes lace on the grandmother’s collar. Mrs. Monaghan told me about Valenciennes. I’m glad he’s not looking at me. Shall I see him later?
    Talk circled the table with Anna. Flashes of it sparked in her ears.
    “The Kaiser is a madman, I don’t care what they say—”
    “I hear they’ve sold their place in Rumson—”
    “This outrageous income tax, Wilson’s a radical—”
    “—bought the most magnificent brocade at Milgrim’s.”
    “Ask Mrs. Monaghan and Agnes to come in, will you please, Anna?” Mr. Werner whispered.
    She was not sure she had understood and he repeated it. “Then bring the champagne,” he added.
    He poured three extra glasses and handed them to Agnes, Mrs. Monaghan and Anna. Then he raised his own glass, and everyone waited.
    “I don’t know how to tell you how happy we are. So I’ll just ask everyone to drink to the joy of this wonderful day in all our lives. To the future of our son Paul and to Marian, who will soon be our daughter.”
    The wine goblets touched, making chimes. Mr. Werner got up and kissed the cheeks of the girl in pale blue. The girl said something, very sweetly, very calmly, and made the others laugh. The laughter popped like champagne corks.
    Mrs. Werner said, “Now I can confess that this is what we’ve been hoping for ever since you two were children.”
    Someone else said, “What a wonderful thing for our two families!”
    And Mrs. Monaghan said, “The saints bless us, another wedding in this house!”
    Only
he
had said nothing. He must have said something, though, something she hadn’t heard. But it was all swimming, blurred and faint and far away—
    Back in the pantry, Mrs. Monaghan whispered, “Anna! Go pass the cake for second helpings!”
    Anna leaned against the cupboard. “The cake?”
    “The walnut cake on the