Burden of Memory by Vicki Delany

“This property belongs to my wife as much as to you, and the occupation of the island is of considerable concern to her.”
    “Then she may speak to me of it at another time. Not that I’ll do anything, of course. They’re my guests and welcome here as long as I say so.”
    “You tell him, Auntie.” Phoebe grinned broadly. “Poor old Grandpa never could stand up to Auntie Moira,” she whispered, “but he keeps on trying.”
    “What are they arguing about?” Elaine asked.
    “In reality, they’re arguing over the pecking order in this family. As the eldest surviving male, although only by marriage, Grandpa thinks he is the head of the family. As the oldest surviving child of the Madisons, Auntie Moira knows that she is. But tonight, they’re fighting about the people Auntie is letting camp over on the island.”
    “You must see sense, Moira,” Charles said, his sculpted face erupting into undignified red splotches. “This can’t continue.” He held up one arm and jabbed a finger in the air to make his point. The old woman calmly raised her brace and smacked him on the side of his hand.
    “That is quite enough.” Maeve, the redheaded sister, pushed her way between them. “We do not discuss our family differences in front of outsiders.”
    Phoebe giggled. “That means you,” she said to Elaine. “The servants don’t matter.”
    “Dinner is served,” Lizzie announced from the doorway, her voice resounding with the spirit of centuries of staff speaking those same words. But she couldn’t quite pull it off and she sounded more like a bad actor in a third rate amateur production of an English farce.
    Lizzie’s words had broken the tension and the company filed out for dinner. “Let me help you, Auntie.” Phoebe rushed to help Moira to her feet. Ruth brought the wheelchair and Phoebe guided her great-aunt into it.
    “Do walk with us, Elaine,” Moira said, summoning her with a wave of one frail hand. “Have you met Phoebe? Good. You may take me in, dear.”
    Extensions had been placed in the table so that it ran the length of the dining room. An impressive array of starched white linen, sparkling silverware, fine leaded crystal, pale blue and white china, and silver chargers glowed under the light of candles resting in highly polished silver candelabra.
    But it was the pictures that attracted Elaine every time she came into this room. The wall above the heavy antique sideboard was covered with a mass of photographs of the family throughout the years. There were pictures of swimmers in one-shouldered men’s bathing suits or gruesome ruffled caps. Of boating parties, dressed in tweed jackets and ties, or corseted dresses and ornate hats. Of serious-faced picnickers sitting on blankets, the men wearing cloth caps and in shirt sleeves, but still sporting the ubiquitous dark tie, the women in stiff summer dresses and stiffer hair and hideously ugly, clunky black shoes. Picture after picture of somber elders and laughing children.
    While everyone took their places at the table, Elaine stepped closer to admire one sepia photograph of a large group just disembarked from the lake steamer. She recognized the location of the dock and the lake beyond, but the people were from another world. The men were dressed in suits and hats, ties knotted tightly, many sporting enormous black moustaches. The women’s dresses, ornately festooned in flurries of ribbons and bows, skimmed their ankles, and their heads were topped by straw hats the size of umbrellas. Even the children wore either miniature suit and tie or frilly dress. A massive pile of luggage was assembled on the dock, and in the background the steamer pulled away. Two maids in black dresses and stiffly starched white aprons and caps struggled under the weight of suitcases and hat bags, frozen permanently in time as they stared uncomfortably at the camera. A large man, enormous cigar stuffed into his mouth, waistcoat stretching over ample stomach, filled the