Fox Hollow

Malcolm had come into Dorothy's life again only a few weeks ago. For the second time, she was in love with him; the first affair had been twelve years earlier and in this very house. Fox Hollow, as an estate, was not at all pretentious. How well it had suited Aunt Patty and Uncle Arthur when they had lived here! Uncle Arthur, her father's only brother, was ten years his senior and was a quiet and unassuming man. The acquisition of money had never changed his personality. Dorothy's father had earned a comfortable living as a professional architect, but most of his energy had been diverted to the maintenance of his family. Uncle Arthur, on the other hand, had never had children. Because they had no descendants, he and Patty had left their fortune acquired from the shipping industry to Dorothy's father. Inside the house, the halls were as wide as rooms in most houses, From the front hall, one turned right into the double living room, a front parlor and a back parlor was separated by glass doors. Leaded glass windows were on three sides. To the left was a dining room with an enormous, but rather plain, glass chandelier and a built-in china closet in the corner. The room was functional rather than elegant. The floors were oak and were kept bare. For some reason, Aunt Patty didn't like rugs. A massive staircase, also not carpeted, opened into the front hall. The stairs were neither graceful nor winding but turned into almost a square with three landings. The upstairs hall was also a rectangle and overlooked the downstairs stairwell on three sides. Mahogany-stained oak had been used for the staircase. It had once taken Dorothy an hour to dust all the banisters for her aunt. At the back of the house was the kitchen. A second staircase, cramped and winding and painted apple green, came from the upstairs hall into the pantry which adjoined the kitchen. It was here that Malcolm encountered Dorothy the summer she was fifteen. Catching her on the back stairs and pushing her against the cupboard, he had said, "You and I are kissing cousins." From that time on, Dorothy could not approach the pantry or back staircase without simultaneously dreading and hoping that Malcolm would be there.