This historical novel is about the influence of Isadora Duncan, who never kept anything secret, on a suburban family that tried to keep many secrets.

The House Where Isadora Danced

By J. O. Jeppson

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 J. O. Jeppson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-3093-3

Chapter One

By 1898, Casselda Carver had lived all her life in a small wooden farmhouse on the outskirts of the village of Powetville. She'd never seen a dancer. She did not want to perform on a stage, but she had secret dreams about living in big beautiful houses made of stone.

She knew the one she wanted, for it was in a collection of picture postcards that Aunt Bettine had sent to the Carvers when Cass was seven. She had instantly claimed the collection as her own.

Most of the postcards were of European castles, but some were of great houses of the American rich. Cass had fallen in love with the smallest of those famous American houses, a stone mansion in a village much closer to Powetville than Newport or New York City. On the back of the postcard was printed "Vannlin House, Elmgrove, New York."

"Why do you like stone houses?" Will had asked, the first and only time she talked with him about the postcards.

"Stone won't burn the way the barn did," she'd said.

"I didn't know that fire in the barn bothered you so much. Nobody died and Pa got all the cows out. Gee, Cassie, you were only six."

"I remember."

Now she was sixteen, and graduating from high school, which meant that Aunt Bettine would arrive to see her niece give the valedictorian speech.

Cass read the speech once more to herself. It was the best she could do. Will had liked it, and that made it ok.

He stuck his head into the cubbyhole Cass called her bedroom. "Are you ready? Aunt Bettine is due and we ought to get to the school."

"Oh, Will, Aunt Bettine will look down her nose at me. I'm too tall, too gawky, and I can't do a thing right with this blasted red hair."

"You look fine. Come on, Cassie."

"And I wasn't meant to be valedictorian. Toby Zale should have been ..."

Will grunted. "No point in being upset about that. It's not your fault he quit school, enlisted in the Marines, and died during the invasion of Guantanamo Bay. You are smarter than he was, anyway."

Cass smiled, for she could always count on Will to try to make her feel better. He was seventeen and had been valedictorian the previous year, much deserved. Not quite as tall as Cass, Will had straight brown hair like his father's, a broad open face, and a limp.

"And Cassie, stop worrying about your speech. I think it's important to say that the Spanish board of inquiry might have been right. Maybe the Maine did blow up by accident, and the war was a mistake."

Cass nodded and picked up her speech to take it to the school. She was relieved that Aunt Bettine was not downstairs. Hetty said Bettine would meet them at the school, where Cass had time only for a quick, nervous "Hello" before she had to join her graduating class.

She surprised herself by feeling quite calm when she gave her speech. As she spoke the most controversial part, that if women had the vote there wouldn't have been a war, she saw Aunt Bettine nod and smile, while poor Hetty and Dan-shamed-slumped in their seats.

Evan scowled, for at five years older than Cass, he believed in the intrinsic superiority of the male gender, from bulls to men, as did most of the Powetville audience, rural farmers and shopkeepers all.

After the graduation ceremony, with Cass clutching her diploma, the family went back to the farmhouse and Hetty put out what was, for the Carvers, a lavish lunch, saying it was a treat for the graduate.

Cass was sure the lunch was meant to show Aunt Bettine that the farm was doing well, which it wasn't-but the cows did give good milk and cream, the eggs were fresh, the just-picked lettuce crisp, and Evan's new wife Marnie had made her special muffins studded with early strawberries.

Evan and Marnie lived with the family. Everyone knew that someday, when Dan died, the farm went to Evan. This didn't bother Will because he was going to be a doctor but Cass wondered how she'd manage living there if she never got married. Marnie couldn't understand girls who read books and didn't want to marry the well-to-do farmer next door. And it had always been hard to get to know Evan-he was far ahead in school, said very little at home, did his work, ate his food, and now spent his spare time in his bedroom with Marnie, working at starting a family.

Cass noticed that Hetty and Dan were obviously tense, sitting at opposite ends of the farm table, trying to be nice to a their only rich relative. Dan seemed more gray and stooped than usual, while Hetty's hand shook slightly on the coffee cup, and her frizzy red hair was thin and shot with silver.

At fifty, Hetty Browning Carver at least had living children, even if they all lived in a small, downtrodden farmhouse with no indoor plumbing.

Hetty's sister Bettine Browning Green Larke, five years older, had once been the belle of Powetville and had married the potential mayor, only to lose him and her twin babies to diphtheria. Then she had escaped to New York, where she worked-nobody was quite sure at what-and had preserved her elegant figure and vibrant red hair.

Cass wondered if maybe the hair was touched up. And what it had been like for that rather secretive New York widow to end up marrying an elderly British peer. During the years Bettine lived in England, she hadn't visited the farm, but now Lord Larke was dead and she had announced this visit.

Cass knew that Dan and Hetty got several checks from Bettine during the year, and always had. Nobody-not the Carvers, not Bettine-ever actually mentioned the family poverty, but Cass felt it was always on everyone's mind.

"And now," said Bettine, "it's time to discuss the future of your latest valedictorian. I have plans for her. She is to live with me in New York City, spend the summer at cultural events, and then go to college."

"Cultural events?" asked Cass, who had never been to anything but Powetville's spring festival.

"You'll see. Since becoming a widow, I have resumed my work ..."

Cass saw Dan gulp, presumably because he'd always worried that Bettine's work might, just might be something scandalous.

"... My second husband left me quite well-off, but I enjoy writing for various magazines. I've also published a book called Larke's Guide to Better Fashion. I am now considered an authority, which pays well. I write not only about fashion but also about the cultural events which the most fashionable people attend. I am particularly fond of music and dance, and in Europe I saw and heard the best."

"Dancers?" Marnie asked. Cass was sure that Marnie, and probably everyone else, thought dancers were not quite respectable. "Oh, yes. Of course, I did not see Taglione dance in her father's creation, La Sylphide, but I saw her pupils. When dancers can no longer dance, they teach, and Taglione taught almost up to the time of her death."

Cass saw that Dan and Hetty seemed puzzled as to how their farm daughter would fit into all that. Evan yawned and left the table with Marnie.

Will stayed and asked, "Aunt Bettine, did you mean it that you'd send Cassie to college?"

"Yes, dear nephew, but after she has been exposed to fine culture and important people. Casselda, in a few weeks I will take you to one of the older and more exclusive suburbs of New York, called Elmgrove. A new young dancer named Duncan is to perform at Vannlin House, the home of the most prominent Elmgrove family."

"Vannlin House." Cass repeated the magic words as if they were...