“Well—thank God!—you are here—”
“—safely—here—”
“Welcome, Clare—”
“Come inside, dear. You must be—”
“—exhausted!”
“—famished!—I was about to say, dear, when this rude person interrupted me—”
“She interrupts me all the time, Clare—nobody is ruder than she is.”
“—famished after that long drive—”
“—and exhausted—”
“—come inside, dear—”
“—it is Clare, isn’t it?—”
“—have been waiting for—”
“—for you. For—”
“—years.”
Amid the flurry of greetings Clare is feeling light-headed. The women are plucking at her eagerly. She is hugged, and hugged again. And again hugged by surprisingly strong, thin arms, the breath squeezed from her rib cage.
“—like him! Your daddy—”
“—your poor, poor daddy—”
Brushing at their eyes. Brushing at their cheeks, where tears sparkle. The taller exudes a sweetly stale talcum-powdery fragrance, the shorter a gingery-medicinal smell of aged skin.
“My dear, I am Elspeth—”
“I am Morag—”
“—Maude’s younger sister—”
“—Maude’s younger younger sister—”
“We spoke on the phone, dear—”
“She grabbed at the receiver before I could lift it, and then—”
“Shall I take your suitcase, dear—”
“—she didn’t let me so much as say hello to you.” Morag, the shorter of the two, is especially vehement, reproachful. “She never does.”
Clare allows herself to be led into the house by the great-aunts, Elspeth and Morag, into a foyer with a stained marble floor. The odor of leaf mold and damp earth mingles now with the sharper fragrance of the elderly women and the airless air of the old house. Like soft-feathered birds, the women—the great-aunts—crowd against Clare. She could not have said which was Elspeth, which Morag (impressive Scots names!). One of them tugs Clare’s suitcase from her fingers, but the suitcase falls at once to the floor, striking Clare’s foot—the suitcase is too heavy for the elderly woman to lift.
“Oh—you! What have you done!”
“Not a thing! I was just trying to—”
“Always interfering and spoiling things. The poor girl has not been here five minutes and you are dropping her suitcase on her foot. Let me take it, Clare—I will not drop it, I promise.”
“Excuse me! I am perfectly capable of carrying her suitcase—”
“No! You’ve demonstrated that you are not—”
Clare stammers that she can carry her suitcase upstairs herself. It isn’t heavy, it’s no trouble at all . . .
“Why, we wouldn’t hear of it, dear Clare—”
“You have journeyed so far, you are our guest—”
“If only Maude were here—”
“—except, if Maude were here, there’d be no—will . . . And no Clare.”
“Oh! That is not a hospitable thing to say to our guest. Shame on you.”
“Shame on you!—for even thinking such a thing.”
Clare smiles awkwardly. She has had little experience with being so fussed over by “relatives” who are (in fact) strangers to her but are not behaving with the conventional restraint of strangers.
Trying not to think that this might be a mistake, agreeing to stay with these great-aunts.
In fact, why had she said yes to the invitation? How much simpler it would be to stay in a hotel nearby.
Enticed by the idea of family. These elderly women are the only blood relatives Clare has encountered since her adoption, and she can’t remember her adoption.
Is the taller and more animated of the two women, Elspeth, addressing Clare warmly? Or is that Morag?
Both great-aunts are staring at her avidly. Hungrily.
Both women are shorter than Clare, who is of moderate height at five feet seven; the shorter of the sisters is considerably shorter, with a seemingly misshapen spine. The taller and presumably younger sister has an ivory-pale, scarcely lined face upon which a “glamorous” cosmetic mask has been rouged, drawn, and powdered—arched eyebrows, blushing cheeks, a rosebud mouth; her bouffant hair is an unnatural tangerine color, of the airy texture of cotton candy. The shorter, presumably older sister with the twisted spine has a pushed-in pug face, a low forehead, pasty-pale skin, scanty eyebrows, and no eyelashes. Her mouth is thin-lipped but broad.
Elspeth, the taller, is festively attired in an electric-blue satin dress, a black lace shawl over her thin shoulders; Morag, as squat-bodied as a fireplug, wears what appears to be male clothing—shapeless dark pants of some soft fabric like jersey, not very clean, and a cable-knit pullover sweater with a stretched neck. Her hair is not dyed, like her sister’s, but a mixture of stone-gray and chalky-white, somewhat coarse, though thin enough that Clare can see the pale, vulnerable scalp beneath. The taller, more stylish Elspeth wears silver-framed glasses; Morag’s are chunky black with plastic rims.
Clare has a vague, unnerving sense of someone standing in the background, or at the periphery of her vision, looking on. Another great-aunt?
But when she turns, there is no one. A dim-lighted hallway leads back from the foyer into the somber interior of the house.
The great-aunts are standing very close to Clare, as if guarding her. They insist that she have tea with them. “It will restore your color. You are looking pale as a ghost.”
“As if she has ever seen a ghost.” The other sister laughs scornfully.
“It’s a manner of speaking. You wouldn’t know.”
“I know this: you are the only silly person who has ever seen a ghost and brags about it.”
“I do not—brag!”
“Well, if Clare sees a ghost, it will be your fault—for putting the idea in her head.”
“You don’t know everything.”
Clare isn’t sure if she should laugh at the sisters’ bickering or try to ignore it. She understands that the brusque exchanges are for her benefit, and she doesn’t want to make a blunder, to offend by laughing with one of her great-aunts at the expense of the other.