“O’Hare,” said Van Cleve, shaking his head.

“She said she wanted to do some shopping, Pop,” Bennett said wearily.

“Does that look like Christmas shopping to you? She’s being corrupted by the O’Hare girl! Didn’t I tell you she was made of the same stuff as her no-good daddy? Goodness knows what she’s encouraging Alice to get up to. Take the pins out, Arthur. We’ll fetch her home.”

“No,” said Bennett.

Van Cleve’s head swiveled. “What? Your wife’s been drinking in a goddamn honky-tonk! You have to start taking control of the situation, son!”

“Just leave her.”

“Has that girl ripped the damn balls off you?” Van Cleve bellowed into the silent shop.

Bennett flashed a look at the tailor, whose expression betrayed the kind of nothing that would be discussed feverishly among his colleagues afterward. “I’ll talk to her. Let’s just . . . go home.”

“That girl is causing chaos. You think it does this family’s standing any good for her to be dragging your wife into a low-life bar? She needs sorting out, and if you won’t do it, Bennett, I will.”

 

* * *

 

• • •

Alice lay on the daybed in the dressing room, staring up at the ceiling, as Annie prepared the evening meal downstairs. She had long since given up offering to help, as whatever she had done—peeling, chopping, frying—had been met with barely concealed disapproval, and she was weary of Annie’s sly comments.

Alice no longer cared that Annie knew she was sleeping in the dressing room and had no doubt told half of Baileyville, too. She no longer cared that it was obvious she still had her monthlies. What was the point in trying to pretend? Outside the library there were few people she cared about impressing anyway. She heard the sound of the men returning, the exuberant roar of Mr. Van Cleve’s Ford as it ground to a halt in the gravel drive, the slamming of the screen door that he plainly felt unable to close quietly, and she let out a quiet sigh. She closed her eyes for a moment. Then she raised herself, and walked into the bathroom ready to make herself look nice for the evening meal.

 

* * *

 

• • •

They were already seated when Alice came downstairs, the two men opposite each other at the dining table, their plates and cutlery laid neatly in front of them. Small bursts of steam escaped through the swinging door, and inside the kitchen Annie’s clattering pan lids suggested the imminence of food. Both men looked up as Alice entered the room, and the thought occurred to her that it might be because she had made a little extra effort: she was wearing the same dress she had worn when Bennett had proposed to her, her hair neatly brushed and pinned back. But their expressions were unfriendly.

“Is it true?”

“Is what true?” Her mind raced with all the things she might have got wrong today. Drinking in bars. Talking to strange men. Discussing the Married Love book with Margery O’Hare. Writing to her mother to ask if she might come home.

“Where is Miss Christina?”

She blinked. “Miss who?”

“Miss Christina!”

She looked at Bennett and back again at his father. “I—I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Mr. Van Cleve shook his head, as if she were mentally deficient. “Miss Christina. And Miss Evangeline. My wife’s dolls. Annie says they’re missing.”

Alice relaxed. She pulled out a seat, as nobody else was going to, and sat down at the table. “Oh. Those. I . . . took them.”

“What do you mean you ‘took’ them? Where’d you take them?”

“There are two sweet little girls on my rounds who lost their mother not long back. They didn’t have any gifts coming at Christmas and I knew that passing them on would make them happier than you can imagine.”

“Passing them on?” Van Cleve’s eyes bulged. “You gave away my dolls? To . . . hillbillies?”

Alice laid the napkin neatly on her lap. She glanced at Bennett, who was staring at his plate. “Only two. I didn’t think anyone would mind. They were just sitting there doing nothing and there are plenty of dolls left. I didn’t think you’d even notice, to be honest.” She tried to raise a smile. “You are grown men after all.”

“They were Dolores’s dolls! My darling Dolores! She’d had Miss Christina since she was a child!”

“Then I’m sorry. I really didn’t think it would matter.”

“What has gotten into you, Alice?”

Alice let her gaze fix on a point of the tablecloth just past her spoon. Her voice, when it emerged, was tight. “I was being charitable. Like you always tell me Mrs. Van Cleve was. What were you going to do with two dolls, Mr. Van Cleve? You’re a man. You don’t care about dolls any more than you care about half the trinkets in this place. They’re dead things! Meaningless!”

“They were heirlooms! They were for Bennett’s children!”

Her mouth opened before she could stop it. “Well, Bennett isn’t having any children, is he?”

She looked up and saw Annie in the doorway, her eyes wide with delight at this turn of events.

“What did you just say?”

“Bennett isn’t going to have any wretched children. Because . . . we are not involved in that way.”

“If you’re not involved in that way, girl, it’s because of your disgusting notions.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Annie began to put the plates down. Her ears had gone quite pink.

Van Cleve leaned forward over the table, his jaw jutting. “Bennett told me.”

“Pa—” Bennett’s voice held a warning.

“Oh, yes. He’s told me about your filthy book and the depraved things you tried to do to him.”

Annie’s plate dropped in front of Alice with a clatter. She skittered back to the kitchen.

Alice blanched. She turned to look at Bennett. “You talked to your father about what goes on in our bed?”

Bennett rubbed at his cheek. “You . . . I didn’t know what to do, Alice. You . . . kinda shocked me.”

Mr. Van Cleve threw his chair back from the table and stomped round to where Alice was sitting. She flinched involuntarily as he towered over her, spraying saliva as he spoke. “Oh, yes, I know all about that book and your so-called library. You know that book has been banned in this country? That’s how degraded it is!”

“Yes, and I know that a federal judge overturned that same ban. I know just as much as you do, Mr. Van Cleve. I read the facts.”