March knew it was jealousy that drove her brother. When Henry Murray introduced Hollis as his son, Alan always turned pale. Alan had never gotten along with his father, and had disappointed him in every way, and now he’d been replaced by someone who hadn’t known what shampoo was and still didn’t have the faintest idea of how to behave in company. At dinner parties or on holidays, Hollis would sit there reading from one of those miserable law texts, and he wouldn’t answer when spoken to; the only people he paid any attention to were Henry Murray and March.

“Why don’t you go someplace where you’re wanted?” Alan asked Hollis.

“Why don’t you shut up?” Hollis said right back, and he didn’t even bother to look at Alan, who was eight years older and a full-grown man, despite his foolish ways.

Alan took every opportunity to humiliate Hollis. In public, he treated Hollis as though he were a servant; at home he made certain the boy knew he was an outcast. Often, Alan would sneak into Hollis’s room, where he’d do as much damage as possible. He poured calves’ blood into Hollis’s bureau drawers, ruining Hollis’s limited wardrobe, knowing full well Hollis would rather wear the same clothes every day than admit defeat. He left a pile of cow manure in the closet, and by the time Hollis figured out where the stench was coming from, everything Henry Murray had given him, the books and the lamps and the blankets, had been contaminated by the smell.

The kinder Henry Murray was to Hollis, the more bitter Alan grew. During that first winter when Hollis was with them, Henry Murray came home from a conference in New York with gifts for all. He presented March with a thin gold necklace and both boys with beautiful pocketknives, made of steel and mother-of-pearl. Alan had botched his classes at the law school, and now the fact that he and this creature he’d had foisted upon him were being treated equally, like brothers in fact, sent him sulking. By the time they sat down for dinner that night, Alan was steaming with rage.