Mount Terminus Read Online Free Page A

fascinate her. She began to imagine, to speak of ways in which she could challenge the limits of propriety, and soon thereafter she started to embrace her mother’s vision of her. While Rachel studied or painted, Leah dressed provocatively for evenings out with young men; she returned late in the evening. When this didn’t provoke the desired reaction, she extended her stay out until the early morning. When Alexandra continued to show her indifference, Leah didn’t return for days at a time; and then, not long after she turned sixteen, she fulfilled her mother’s expectations of her, and didn’t return at all. Rachel lost her sister to the city streets. Her own image of herself, the sound and smell of herself, her own flesh, disappeared into the shadows; the most intimate and integral part of her had become estranged. And this absence weighed upon her, she told Jacob, expressing itself in darker and darker visions of the world.
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    Jacob promised Rachel he would find Leah, and when he did, he would set things right and care for them both. Rachel’s shame, however, was too great to immediately agree to this course of action. She feared facing Leah again. She was unaware of it at the time, but was now convinced she had played a part in alienating her sister from the small, precious world they had entered together. She could have spoken her mind, but chose not to. She could have defied Alexandra, but didn’t. She could have fought more obstinately against her self-interest, but she didn’t want to lose her favored position in her mother’s heart, or, for that matter, put at risk the comforts of her mother’s home. It was evident to her now in hindsight, the many ways she had betrayed her sister. She had spent a great deal of time trying to imagine the life Leah had been leading, and she wasn’t convinced she wanted to become acquainted with its details. If I were Leah, she said to Jacob, I would be unforgiving, perhaps even vengeful.
    Despite Rachel’s reservations, Jacob felt obligated to discover what had become of Leah. He had the means to look after her, and, if she were willing, he intended to extend his hand. On the bench in the museum, he and Rachel had fallen in love. He wanted to marry her, and she wanted to marry him, and Jacob, who for so many years had missed both sisters equally, couldn’t imagine a wedding without Leah. Wouldn’t she feel greater shame, he asked Rachel, if they didn’t search for her, to tell her of their plans, to have her present on the day they were joined? If they didn’t make the effort to search her out, wouldn’t it then be impossible to reconcile with her? To this, Rachel reluctantly agreed. Jacob hired an investigator, who instructed them some weeks later to visit the Freed Music Hall and take in an evening performance. On a Friday night, they sat together at the foot of the orchestra, and from there watched descend from the rafters on the seat of a swing whose ropes were twined in vines, Leah, singing the role of the ingénue, Eloise, a sylph whose songs were composed with melodies sweet and light, with lyrics laden with double meanings that left the gruffest men in the audience rapt with celestial and indelicate thoughts of streams and meadows, and Eloise, as she had been billed: dressed in white linen, her red lips spread in a girlish smile, golden locks curled over the nape of her neck, her bust bulging forth against the constraint of a corset, her pink fingers pulling up a silken slip to her naked thigh.
    The reunion that evening was more pleasant than Jacob and Rachel anticipated. It appeared all of Rachel’s fears were unfounded. Leah warmly embraced her. She shed tears over the time lost between them, but over a meal in a nearby tavern, she insisted she had no regrets. She assured them she was content. In fact, she couldn’t have been more enthusiastic when speaking of the life