Free Unfinished Desires by Gail Godwin

darted about the parlor, as though looking for a way out. “Ashley’s father is the new assistant headmaster at Pisgah Prep—the private school for boys. Ashley will be riding in with the Dutch contingent from Enka Village. It’s so convenient, as we’re right on their route.”
    Later, Mother Malloy asked Mother Ravenel if Mrs. Nettle was British. “No, she just gives herself airs,” replied the headmistress. “That Ashley will certainly need some work. I wish she were boarding with us, but at least she’ll be riding with the Dutch girls from the Enka rayon plant. They’ll be a good influence. They’re relaxed and friendly and speak better English than she does.”
    Maud Norton, a tall, handsome, physically developed girl, and her mother, Lily Norton. “We’re old-timers in Mountain City, Mother. My mother was a Sluder, one of the pioneer families here. Mother and I run the Pine Cone Lodge. What is your accent? Boston! I thought so! I worked for a while up in Cape May, New Jersey, that’s where I met my husband, Mr. Norton. When I came back to Mountain City, everyone swore I had a ‘northern’ accent, but I don’t think so, do you? Mr. Norton and I are no longer married, but it was a very amicable parting. Maud spent this summer in Palm Beach with her father and his present wife. They both fell head over heels in love with her.”
    Maud, who had been staring almost rudely at her new teacher, blushed from the neck up and rolled her eyes.
    “Was it a good summer for you in Florida, Maud?” the nun asked.
    “Everything was wonderful, Mother, but I’m glad to be back in school.”
    “Maud loves her schoolwork,” Lily Norton chimed in, “and of course she missed her best friend, Tildy Stratton, didn’t you, hon? Those two have been hand in glove since third grade. They—”
    “Tildy and I corresponded regularly,” said Maud coolly, cutting her mother off.
    Mother Malloy had not realized how depleting the long day of continuous interviews had been until she looked up and saw Henry Vick escorting a slight girl with a pronounced chin and a dark fringe of bangs. Their entrance made the parlor, which had grown smaller and more oppressive in the afternoon heat, suddenly feel airier. Mother Malloy felt lighter of spirit and surer of her ground. Here was the kind man she had first encountered smoking his pipe on the marble ledge of the unfinished sculpture of the Red Nun. On whose cool ledge she had rested after her breathlessness, or whatever it was, while he stood close by and conversed with her in his easy way, saying much without seeming to. And this would be Chloe, another orphan like herself. Though Chloe had known her parents. And Kate Malloy had not been blessed with an uncle like Mr. Vick.
    “It’s good to see you again, Mother Malloy. This is my niece, Chloe Starnes.”
    “How do you do, Chloe. I hope you’ll soon feel at home with us at Mount St. Gabriel’s.”
    “I expect I will, Mother. My mother, Agnes Vick, went here from first grade through high school. She told me all about how things are at Mount St. Gabriel’s.”
    “In that case, you can be a great help to me.” Mother Malloy felt herself smiling without trying to. “I’ve been here less than a week and have almost everything to learn about how things are.”
    It was rare for someone Chloe’s age to look you in the eye without defenses and let herself be looked back at. Perhaps you had to have suffered a great loss first.
    Mary Tilden (“Tildy”) Stratton was accompanied by her older sister, Madeline, a beauty with the gift of gab. “Our mama sends her apologies, Mother Malloy, but she’s backed up on her darkroom work down at the studio—she had a bunch of weddings in August. So I’m being mother to Tildy today. I’m an old Mount St. Gabriel’s girl myself, until I got uninvited back at the end of my freshman year. Though things have turned out well enough for me at Mountain City High.”
    “Do you go by your full name,