Crestmont (34 page)

“Stay with her,” Mrs. Woods said, trying to calm her down when Gracie phoned her on Monday. “Tell me what you need and I’ll bring the shopping to you at noon.” She was putting away groceries and heating up a casserole that had been sent over when Dr. Webber arrived.

“Ah, Mrs. Woods,” he said, setting down his doctor bag, then handing her his coat, hat and gloves at the front door. “I see you have full use of your arm now. How long has it been, over a year now?”

“My arm is fine, thank you.” She handed him his black doctor’s bag. “Mrs. Cunningham is upstairs.”

“I’d like to examine the patient alone, please,” he said. Mrs. Sturdy and Gracie went downstairs to join Mrs. Woods.

“She had a little cold at Christmas, that’s all.” Gracie rubbed the heel of her hand back and forth over her forehead, her head bent over a teacup.

“Eric said she seemed fine when he came here for dinner. It’s just a catarrh. Older folks need a little more time to recuperate.” Mrs. Sturdy said.

“How wonderful of you to arrange for people to send over dinners, Mrs. Sturdy,” said Margaret. “I’d like to help too. How ironic that I was resentful when the people from my church did this for me. Pride is so silly.”

The doctor came into the kitchen, sighed, and set his doctor bag on the table. “Well, she certainly is cranky.”

“Never mind about that. How is she?” Gracie insisted. Dr. Webber said she had a slight fever. The catarrh had progressed into Mrs. Cunningham’s ears and chest. He prescribed aspirin, fluids, and said he would send over a vaporizer to help her breathe. “Check her temperature regularly and if it goes up, telephone me.”

****

She started refusing solid food. Within a week her temperature was up and her cough relentless. Dr. Webber let Gracie stay in the room when he examined Mrs. Cunningham this time. Shaking his head, he eased the stethoscope out of his ears. “We can keep her comfortable, but I hear a lot of crackling in her lungs and she’s very weak. There’s a vaccine I could give her, but it might make her worse. I don’t want to chance it. Broth and barley water, as much as she’ll take. Keep her warm. Call me if there is any change.” He packed up his doctor bag and left.

By the end of February Gracie, Mrs. Sturdy, and Mrs. Woods alternated shifts. One cared for Mrs. Cunningham; one did household chores while the third slept. They left the front door unlocked so the doorbell would not disturb. Anonymous angels left chicken soup, beef broth, and Mr.
Glaubner’s
famous healing ginger soup. Peg telephoned every day, held the Woods’ household together and sent a pineapple upside down cake for the caretakers. Rev. Sturdy came over often to read the Bible and pray at the woman’s bedside. Eleanor braved the relentless cold to walk down every day after school with her reading books.

One afternoon Mrs. Sturdy sang hymns to their patient in her soft alto voice. Some of the words trickled down to the kitchen where Gracie strained the barley water into a cup. How there could be any nutrition left in three quarts of water after boiling one cup of barley for three hours was mystifying to her, but she did what Dr. Webber said. When it was cool, she took it upstairs to relieve Mrs. Sturdy.

When she saw Mrs. Cunningham’s ashen face, Gracie crumbled. “I should have done more when she first got sick.”

Mrs. Sturdy put her arms around her and said into her ear, “People get sick, Gracie. There’s nothing else you could have done.” Then she went home to sleep.

“Grace, is that you?” Mrs. Cunningham whispered after she sipped barley water from the spoon Gracie touched to her lips. She sat on the bed and held a cool cloth on the old woman’s forehead.

“Yes.”

“Thank you, dear.” She shifted in bed, winced, and fell asleep.

****

“I’m not sure she can hear you when you read, Eleanor, but go ahead and try.” Her mother kissed the top of her head.

“I’m going to read you some of the
Bobbsey
Twins stories today, Mrs. Cunningham. They are a funny, mischievous pair. This will cheer you right up.”

Margaret sat listening, proud of her daughter for being so attentive and nurturing. Eleanor’s voice eventually lulled her to sleep. The child crept over to sit on Mrs. Cunningham’s bed so she could read without disturbing her mother. The old woman’s eyes were closed, but Eleanor read anyway.

Eleanor shook her mother awake from a dream. “Mama, wake up. She looks funny.”

Margaret got up and put her ear to the old woman’s chest as she had done with her father so many years ago. “Go wake Gracie, Eleanor, and then do your homework in the living room.”

Gracie asked Mrs. Woods to pull the sheet over Mrs. Cunningham’s face. They stood at the foot of the bed with their arms intertwined for a long time. Then Gracie broke the silence. “I’ll wire Madeleine in the morning.”

The response came quickly. “Postpone funeral until I return in May. STOP. May stay in house until then. STOP.”

****

Mrs. Woods was uncomfortable with Gracie staying alone in Mrs. Cunningham’s house and insisted that Peg move down with her or that she move back into the Woodshed. Gracie declined, saying she needed time to sort things out. She walked the house idly for days, watching the last snowfall of the season and listening to the radio without hearing the broadcasts. One day, she went upstairs to Madeleine’s room. Removing her clothes from the closet, she carried them to Mrs. Cunningham’s, made a small pocket between her dear friend’s clothes and hung her own in the middle so they would touch.

Woodshed on
Crestmont
Hill

May 1927

Margaret Woods sat at the kitchen table with four pairs of
shoes, polish and brush laid out before her on yesterday’s newspaper.

“It’s my turn, my dear.” William said, pushing the shoe-shining paraphernalia to the other side of the table.

“But you did it last time.”

“Why keep track? It makes me happy to do little labors of love for you when I can. Besides,” William dramatically unfolded the brochure he had toiled over for a month. “I’ve been dying to show this to you. Here is our first aerial photo, Margaret.”

His finger sprang off the page after pointing to the caption. “See how the inn embraces
Crestmont
Hill from its commanding location 2200 feet above sea level with a view of twelve counties. A vast and inspiring panorama spreads before you from our cool guest rooms and breezy porches, rivaling the scenery found elsewhere in our country.”

He tapped the photo of the new tennis courts. “I took this shot as soon as they painted the lines in.” He placed the brochure in her hands as if it were an old document of inestimable worth. Attempting to entertain her, he flung out his arms ostentatiously and quoted, “State-of-the-art red clay tennis courts invite not only each guest, but also professional players from all over the country. Spectators can enjoy the game from conveniently placed bleachers. Join us for the 1
^st
Annual
Crestmont
Tennis Tournament in August 1927.”

Margaret gave the brochure a perfunctory look and set it down, stopping him flat.

Here it was again. She was always in another world on the anniversary of her father’s death despite any attempts he made to alleviate her yearly brooding. Boat rides, motoring to the
Sonestown
Hotel for dinner, taking the family for a picnic at World’s
End
State Park
—nothing helped. He felt incapable of consoling her, but he never stopped trying. Frustrated, William continued with the brochure, hoping to cheer her up.

“Peg wants to add canoe tilting and underwater rope races to the Water Carnival activities. I predict it will reach a new level this year.” He tried to show Margaret the caption Peg had written in contribution.

“Both of our girls amaze me, William.” Margaret laced her fingers together as a signal for quiet. William waited. Finally she spoke. “It’s been sixteen years since Daddy died. Every May…it feels like…an ambush.”

William hesitated, wondering if he should say aloud what he had believed for years. “Margaret, do you think it is possible that you hold onto your grief so you can feel closer to your father?”

She answered with cold silence.

“I do not mean you do it intentionally, Margaret,” he said gently. “People react to loss in odd ways.”

Cutting him off, she got up and restacked a jumbled pile of papers, smacking them hard on the pine kitchen table. “I will be myself by the time the season starts.”

“You always are, my love,” he said, resigned.

Eleanor and Peg came home from school and their mother sent them abruptly to their rooms to do homework. William dipped his rag into the black shoe polish, assuming the conversation was over.

Margaret filled a pot with water and set it on the table along with the potato peeler. Pushing a potato down onto the prongs, she turned the crank. “Gracie, on the other hand, certainly seems to have gotten over Mrs. Cunningham’s death easily,” she said bitterly. “I will never understand how she was able to sing at that funeral. I could hardly breathe. She seems to have an inexhaustible supply of resilience.”

Thankful for a different topic, he said offhandedly, “Gracie has the energy of youth and replenishes herself with her music, her clothes, her books…”

“And her hair! Remember when she insisted I try that hairdresser, Zelda, one week after the funeral? ‘Research for my guest services room,’ she called it.” Irritated, Margaret plopped a potato in the pot, sending water splashing.

William was appalled at the derision in his wife’s tone. Mopping the table before her papers got wet he said, “Gracie leads a simpler life than you do. She does not spend her summers concerning herself with the needs and desires of umpteen guests and she is not a middle-aged mother caring for two daughters.” He laid his other hand on her shoulder. “Gracie did not lose a parent, Margaret.”

Ignoring him, Margaret announced that she had altered the roommate assignments because of the bunk beds they had added in some rooms to accommodate additional staff in the Evergreen Lodge. “Gracie will have to waitress this year because we are down one in the dining room. Mae won’t be staying in the dorm anymore, so I have moved Bessie into Dorothy and Gracie’s room.”

William said nothing, but cocked his head to the side, waiting.

“As we have said, she is resilient, so she will be fine,” Margaret said with finality.

The
Crestmont
Inn

Summer 1927

I

Yellow finches, bluebirds and chickadees sang along while Zeke
played a wistful ballad on his harmonica. At the conclusion, he dropped the harmonica from his mouth and sought approval in his bride’s eyes. “I now pronounce you man and wife,” the minister said after Zeke finished. A few guests staying at the big house leaned forward on their chairs, quietly watching from the front porch, as the birds twittered their blessing over the union. One woman rocked a perambulator back and forth to keep her baby quiet.

“Thank you for such a beautiful song,” Mae whispered in her new husband’s ear after he lifted her veil to kiss her. Plump bride and curly black-haired groom stood under an arbor decorated with ribbons and flowers, both sets of blue eyes beaming into the camera. The morning sun wove strands of gold and red into Mae’s auburn hair and she held a bouquet of white and purple lilacs. William sang “Amazing Grace” while the newlyweds, best man Isaiah and Mae’s sister as maid-of-honor, processed between the rows of folding chairs. Mae’s parents followed. Zeke was too dizzy with happiness to care that his brothers had stayed home, unloading their huge ice house to make their pre-season delivery to all the hotels in town.

“Whew, glad that’s over,” Isaiah said, pumping Zeke’s hand after the wedding. “Never had to keep track of a wedding ring before. Thanks for asking me to be best man. Now that you’ve found a woman to make you settle down, you take care of her, boy. She needs a special kind of love, what with the little one on the way and all.” Zeke shushed him.

“You might want to hang onto this. It might come in handy after those inevitable lovers’ spats.” Isaiah handed him the harmonica he had dropped. “Glad Olivia and I could make it.
Temple
finished their spring semester just in time. That the suit Mr. Woods loaned you?” He pinched some loose material in the back of the jacket. “A little big, but not bad. Nice of him, though. I told Sam he was going to have to handle the reception food because I couldn’t possibly be best man and cook too. Man, smell that chicken. I’m starved.” He slapped Zeke on the back and headed toward the food table where Olivia was ladling punch.

Much of the staff had not yet arrived for the season, but the Woods,
Magdalena
and her new husband Julius, Sid Fox and his wife, Hank, Otto, Rev. and Mrs. Sturdy, Gracie and some of Zeke’s Eagles Mere friends milled around the newlyweds, extending congratulations. Fried chicken, potato salad, baked beans, biscuits, pickles, salted peanuts, peppermints and punch bowl were laid out. The star of the table, however, was a thirty-inch wooden salad bowl Sam had found in the garage, cleaned up and loaded with chunks of cantaloupe, green grapes and strawberries, topped with marshmallows. Eleanor hovered near the table, stole a strawberry, popped it into her mouth and held it there whole while she wiped her fingers on the back of her dress.

It was June 5
^th
, a week before the official opening of the
Crestmont
. As a wedding present, the Woods gave Zeke and Mae a two-week stay in the Grandchildren Cottage, so named due to its size rather than the age of the occupants. A quarter of a mile down the hill from the big house, the tiny cottage was accessible only by a short walk on a footpath. After the honeymoon, Zeke would resume his duties as head bellhop and Mae would help with setting up the dining room, but would not actually waitress due to her delicate condition.