Part 6
Margaret felt the moment asking to be corrected.
She should have done it.
Instead, pain tightened suddenly through her hip, and she placed more weight on the cane. Her face must have changed, because Julian started toward her from across the courtyard.
Before he reached them, the photographer called him back to answer a question about the terrace angle.
Margaret said, “The flowers will continue gathering unless you account for the current.”
Camille gave a small breath that might have been laughter. “Thank you, Margaret. We have it under control.”
“You do not.”
“It is a floral arrangement.”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps we can avoid turning it into an engineering review.”
Mrs. Bellweather looked down at her place card.
The museum director became absorbed in the ice inside his water glass.
Margaret saw the familiar retreat of witnesses.
“I was trying to help,” she said.
“And I am asking you not to.”
Camille’s voice remained gentle. Anyone hearing only the tone might have thought she was calming a difficult child.
Margaret nodded once. “Then I will leave it.”
She turned.
The rubber tip of her cane caught briefly against the leg of a chair. Camille reached for it.
“I will move that for you,” she said.
Margaret expected her to shift the chair.
Instead, Camille took the cane from her hand.
The action was so smooth that Margaret did not resist in time.
“Please give that back,” she said.
Camille stepped around the chair and laid the cane beneath it.
“You will be seated in a moment.”
“I am not seated now.”
“There is a chair directly behind you.”
“I asked for my cane.”
Several guests looked over.
Camille’s face changed at the attention. The pleasant control held, but only just.
“I am trying to prevent you from knocking something into the pool,” she said.
“The cane has not knocked anything.”
“It caught the chair.”
“The chair was in the way.”
Camille’s friend Celeste approached, concern arranged carefully across her face. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” Camille said. “Margaret is upset because I moved her cane.”
“You took it.”
“I placed it somewhere safe.”
“Give it back.”
The words came out sharper than Margaret intended.
A few conversations stopped.
Camille glanced toward Julian. He was speaking with the photographer and the architect near the terrace doors. Lena had been called into the kitchen because a refrigeration unit had failed. For the first time that morning, Camille and Margaret stood without anyone between them who understood the whole mistake.
Camille leaned closer.
“You are making people uncomfortable,” she said quietly.
“Then return my property.”
“I will, after the photographs.”
“You will return it now.”
The smile vanished from Camille’s eyes.
“This is my engagement luncheon.”
“And that is my cane.”
“You have been wandering through every room, correcting staff, moving things, interrupting photographs—”
“I moved nothing.”
“You moved flowers.”
“I touched one.”
“You embarrassed the florist.”
“The florist knows me.”
“So does everyone, apparently.” Camille’s voice lowered further. “No one will tell me why.”
Margaret looked at her.
There it was at last—not authority, but fear.
Camille stood in a room where everyone seemed to share information she did not possess. Her family had lived for years inside that kind of danger. Creditors knew before neighbors did. Lawyers knew before friends did. Her mother had smiled through dinners while waiting to learn which person at the table had heard they were selling the summer house.
Not knowing had become, for Camille, another form of being powerless.
Margaret recognized the wound.
She also recognized that Camille had chosen to place the wound beneath someone else’s foot.
“You could ask me,” Margaret said.
“I did.”
“You asked what category I belonged to.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you asked whether I had permission to be here before you asked who I was.”
Camille glanced around. Two guests had begun listening openly now.
Color rose along her collarbones.
“This is not the time,” she said.
“It became the time when you took the cane.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” The words escaped before she could soften them. “You are not helpless.”
“No.”
“Then stop behaving as if I have injured you.”
Margaret’s fingers trembled.
She closed them into her palm.
The trembling was not fear. It came when she stood too long, especially after the hip began to fatigue. Camille saw it and mistook it for emotional weakness.
Her expression eased with the confidence of someone who believed she had identified the limit of the threat.
“I am sorry you misunderstood,” she said.
Margaret almost laughed.
It was the apology of committees and insurance companies, polished until no responsibility remained.
“I did not misunderstand,” Margaret said.
Camille bent, picked up the cane, and for one hopeful second Margaret thought she had reconsidered.
Instead, she carried it three steps farther and laid it beside a low service table.
“You can have it after the photographs.”
Margaret stared at her.
Camille turned toward the guests. “I apologize, everyone. We are slightly behind.”
Conversations resumed with unnatural speed.
Celeste touched Camille’s arm. “Do you want me to get Julian?”
“No.”
“I think perhaps—”
“No.” Camille’s smile returned. “It is handled.”
Margaret should have stayed where she was.
She knew that.
A chair stood behind her. She could have sat down and waited for Julian or Lena. She could have called to any of the guests who knew her. She could have said her surname loudly enough to end everything.
But the cane lay beside the pool.
Between her and it stretched perhaps twelve feet of smooth stone.
Twelve feet had not once required calculation before Boston.
Now every step included questions. Was the surface dry? Was there something to hold? Would the hip bear weight if it shifted? Would someone notice if she hesitated?
She hated the questions.
She hated Camille for forcing them into public view.
She hated herself more for caring who saw.
Mrs. Bellweather approached. “Margaret, let me—”
May you like
“I am fine.”
The answer came too quickly.
