Three Margarets
One summer at Fernley House on Long Island, three first cousins arrive who are all named Margaret Montfort, each holding a word-for-word identical invitation from an uncle none of them has ever met. Margaret is seventeen, bookish and lately orphaned. Peggy grew up with nine brothers and sisters on a Western farm and has no use for parlor manners. Rita comes from Havana, proud of her Spanish mother and fierce about Cuba Libre, where her brother is fighting. The three dislike each other on sight, and Richards lets that stand until a peat bog nearly swallows one of them and the least polished cousin goes out flat on her face to drag her back. Old family papers, a ghost the house is supposed to have, and a midnight plan to reach Cuba fill the rest of the season.
