In time -- seven more years, to be precise -- she knew her place in this odd new family, the Wilkinson family. Her nearest sibling, in age, anyway, was a boisterous jock named Elizabeth. Liz rode horses and rowed crew, an unheard of predisposition in 1919, and she was big-boned and coarse-humored, too. Liz had started college the year before, at Penn, and snuck home so Claire could help with her homework.
Her oldest sibling, her brother Charles, had been something of an adonis to her. Chuck was tall and possessed a fierce intellect, and he was scrupulously fair-minded, yet even at seven years old, when she first set eyes on him, she thought him special. Chuck was completely unlike Rupert in every way, so much so she wondered if Rupert had been the boy's father, but in time Chuck became Claire's protector -- both at home and when he picked her up at school. When the war broke out in Europe, in 1914, he'd wanted to enlist, but Rupert had prevailed on him... "Finish college first! Who knows, maybe we won't be sucked into this war..."
That was not to be, however.
By the time America formally entered the war, in 1917, Chuck was in the Navy, an officer, and he already had his eye on a career in politics. Rupert was devastated.
The fly in Claire's ointment was her sister Amanda. Amanda was a devious, manipulative creature who enjoyed breaking things -- then blaming the latest calamity on someone else, but usually on Claire. This might have been a serious issue had both Rupert and Chuck not seen through the Amanda's actions -- and intentions, but it seemed to Claire that there was something seriously wrong with Amanda. Who's unjust causes were not in any way hampered by her looks. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, Amanda was regarded as one of the brightest lights in Mainline Society, and would-be suitors came calling for her on a nauseatingly regular basis -- which bothered Claire not at all, but which, in the end, crushed Elizabeth. Amanda was a year younger than Chuck and so was away at college and blissfully out of the picture by this point in time, yet when she drifted by on weekends discord followed in her wake as naturally as winds precede a coming summer's storm. So, when Claire felt the coming of Amanda's treacherous laughter, she generally kept out of the rain by losing herself among the books in their father's library.
Which was the safest place in her world, in this place called Philadelphia.
Rupert's promise to move to Chartres had been as empty as all his other promises. In short, his words were exigent entreaties designed to forestall meaningful conversations about consequences, and Claire had read enough to understand the man's various comings and goings. He was a type of con-man, affable and generous to a fault, but a con-man, yet The Law was his stock in trade. Anyone could tell he was addicted to making money, scads and scads of money, but he seemed to have little inclination to happiness. He read little else than the latest financial news, and had no interest in Claire's accomplishments on the piano, though by the time Claire turned twelve he seemed to develop an unhealthy interest in Claire's body.
Yet oddly enough, Emily, her mother, saw through these machinations and kept him away after the sun went down, and in time Claire learned that Rupert had visited his unseemly appetites on Amanda often enough to be of some concern socially. A hasty trip to Sweden had been arranged to take care of that problem, and all the attendant complications that came with such an undesired event.
Rupert was one of those men. His appetite severe, his sense of propriety impaired by proximity -- and bourbon -- he could have had affairs with any number of available women, yet he chose, often enough, to take out his lust on Amanda. And soon enough Claire saw through her sister's actions and intentions, understood where her grief came from, yet the distance between Rupert and Amanda remained insurmountable. In time Claire learned, as well, that one of the complications of her sister's Swedish misadventure was that she was barren: Amanda would never have children -- and this was considered a Dark Family Secret. Perhaps the Darkest.
1919 saw the winding down of the war, and Chuck's return from the North Atlantic became a cause for celebration -- if only for a short time. He had two more years left of his commitment to the Navy, and as he did not want his father to intervene he planned to finish his stint then gather his wits about him and move on to graduate school -- before running for congress. That was the plan, anyway.
Yet he was home for Christmas, and that was miracle enough for them all. The future would, so it seemed, have to wait for the present.
+++++
The dream came for her that year, on the night before Christmas.
She was on the boat deck and her father was lifting her up off the deck, placing her in the lifeboat; then there came an explosion and one of the great red funnels collapsed inwards on itself -- and moments later everyone was in the water. A vice of pinpricks held her firm and she wanted to struggle and break free of the icy water but she felt a hand grasping her ankle, pulling her down. She stuck her head beneath the waves and saw her father trying to pull himself back to the surface and she knew if she didn't kick free of him he would pull her down too...
So...she did...
And she watched his limpid, questioning eyes as he slipped into the yawning darkness, falling away, fading into the night...
Then she bolted upright in bed, drenched in sea water.
When Chuck heard her screams he ran to her room; Rupert and Emily were not far behind.
+++++
Everyone first assumed Amanda had poured buckets of seawater on Claire while she slept, but Amanda wasn't in her room. She wasn't, as it happened, even in the house. She had slipped out with an old boyfriend and was, at the time, in a nearby stable and most passionately involved. When she tried to sneak back into the house before dawn she was met by her family, all but Claire and Emily, anyway, and they angrily demanded to know why she had done such a thing...
"Done what?" Amanda cried, as she too wanted to know.
"You poured buckets full of seawater on your sister Claire!" Rupert fairly shouted.
"I did no such thing!" Amanda countered. "I was with Langston all night!"
"You were what?" Chuck seethed, and too late Amanda realized what she'd just admitted. Her father stormed from the kitchen, leaving Chuck standing there aghast. "What have you done now, you trollop!?"
But Amanda held her ground. "I am not a child, and I did no such thing!"
"Claire's bed is awash in sea water. Go to her room, you can smell the sea yourself! If you didn't do this, can you explain to me what happened?"
"Show me!" Amanda almost shouted, and Chuck led her up the back stairway to Claire's room. Marie and Edith were just now stripping the bed and Amanda could see that easily two or three gallons of seawater had been deposited on her sister's bed. Worse still, her room, indeed, the hallway outside Claire's room smelled just like the seashore, and she walked into the room, held the sheets to her face. "It IS seawater..." she whispered.
"I told you it is, didn't I?" Chuck grumbled. "Where did you find it this time of year?"
"What?"
"Did you drive to the shore?"
"No! I told you I had nothing to do with this!"
"Amanda, this is no longer funny. You simply must own up to these pranks of yours."
"I'm telling you, Charles, for the last time -- I had nothing to do with this...!"
