“I think something's wrong, Brad.” Teddy looked at him with concern after dinner as they walked quietly into the library behind the rest of the family.
“I'll say there is. Greg is plastered out of his mind, Pattie is all caught up in playing Scarlett O'Hara, you look like you've just been to a funeral, and Mother's so busy running the show that Dad can't get a word in.” Brad looked discouraged by his first night back home.
“You mean you remembered it different?” Teddy tried to look amused. “Or were you hoping it had changed in your absence?”
“Maybe a little of both.”
“Don't hold your breath. It can only get worse over the years.” As he said it he glanced at Greg and Pattie. “Has she said anything to you at all?”
“Only thank you when I congratulated her and Greg.” And then, as he knit his brows, “She didn't say a single goddamn word to Serena at dinner, and neither did Mother.”
“I didn't expect Pattie to, but Mother …” Teddy looked troubled and then touched his brother's arm. “Brad, something was wrong with Serena at dinner. I don't know if she just wasn't feeling well because of the baby or what, but she was awfully quiet.”
“Do you think it was Mother?” The two brothers exchanged a glance.
“you'd better ask her. Did you see her after she was with Mother before dinner?”
“No. I didn't see her until we were all at table.”
Teddy nodded thoughtfully, with a worried look in his eyes. “I don't think I like it.”
But Brad smiled at the look on his younger brother's face. “Come on, old man, you worry more than all of us put together. Why don't you have a drink and relax for a change?”
“Like Greg?” Teddy looked at him pointedly in annoyance.
“How long has he been doing this number?”
‘Two or three years now.” Teddy spoke in an undervoice and his older brother looked shocked.
“Are you kidding?”
“Nope. Not a bit. He started drinking when he went in the army. Dad says it's boredom. Mother says he needs a more challenging job now, like something in politics maybe. And Pattie is pushing him to go to work for her father.”
Brad looked chagrined, and then met his wife's eyes and forgot what his little brother was saying. “I'll be back in a minute, Ted. I want to make sure Serena is all right.” He was standing beside her a moment later, and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You feeling okay, sweetheart?”
“Fine.” She smiled up at him, but it was not the usual dazzling smile that left him aching to kiss her and almost breathless. There was something very subdued about her tonight and he knew that his brother was right. Something was wrong with Serena. “I'm just tired.” She knew that he didn't believe her. But what could she tell him? The truth? She had promised herself that she wouldn't do that, as soon as she had left his mother's room. She wanted to forget what the woman had told her, and shown her, the check, the paper, the unkind words, the accusations, all of it. For a moment, as she had left the boudoir, she had felt like a tramp, just from the assumptions that had been made. Now she wanted to forget it and put it behind her.
“Do you want to go upstairs?” he whispered to her, still with the same worried forwn.
“Whenever you're ready,” she whispered back. In truth, it had been a very depressing evening. Mr. Fullerton was precisely as Brad had described. Weak—a man with no spine. She had been literally unable to look at his mother, Pattie had filled her with terror as she had chirped and flirted her way through the evening, and Serena had been frightened that she would create a scene and call her some of the things she had called her from the terrace in Rome. Greg had been pathetic, drunk before the first course, Brad had been seated too far away to be of much help, and only Teddy had helped her get through the evening. Suddenly she had to admit that she felt drained, and for a moment as she sat there in her chair in the library, looking out over the park, she felt as though she might faint, or burst into tears. She had been through too much in the past three hours and she suddenly felt it.
“I'm taking you upstairs.” Brad had seen it too, and standing close enough to overhear