Francesca of Lost Nation (13 page)

Dear Mother and sweet Sarah,

This has been the finest and best time of my life. I only wish you two could be here with me to make the experience complete. You should see the shoes I bought. Red, red, red! And I purchased a petticoat to match. Won't Lost Nation melt with envy?
 

 
Love and kisses to you and Aunt Maude and Uncle Harry. 

Rachael.

“Chance of a lifetime, that's what it was,” remarked Harry.

Francesca took his hand in hers and patted it. Then, she got up and kissed her sister on the cheek.

“They couldn't have gone except for your generosity. Don't forget that.”

I was getting a little more used to this hugging and kissing stuff. But it still seemed odd to see Francesca act this way.

Matthew had been silent most of the afternoon, which wasn’t unusual. The letter seemed to spark some life into him as he suddenly became downright chatty.

“Fran and I thought we’d cook dinner together tonight. We’ve been saving some quail in the freezer just for your visit. And,” he said, turning to me and winking, “we thought we’d play some cards later.

“I love bridge!” said Maude enthusiastically.

“Well, actually,” answered Matt, drawing out the phrase in a purely
Oklahoma style, “we're kinda partial to poker.”

“Haven't got enough players for a competitive game,” Harry broke in.

“Oh, yes, we do, Harry, my man. Sarah makes five.”

Maude's jaw dropped.

“You can't play poker with a child!”

“We only bet pennies, nickels and dimes. Most you lose is a dollar. Besides, it teaches the girl arithmetic,” Matthew explained as he rooted around the hall closet for a deck of cards.

Maude snorted. “Does her mother know about this?”

“Her mother,” said Francesca, “is in Paris, France wearing red shoes and red petticoats and drinking champagne from the bottle. I can't see how even Rachael could object to a friendly card game.”

“How could that child afford to lose a whole dollar?” Maude couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment.

“Who says she'll lose?” asked Matt.

“But it's gambling!” said Maude.
 

“With the devil as dealer,” said Francesca with a laugh.

After dinner, which was the best meal I ever ate at Main House cooked by a man, I ran up to my bedroom to get “the stash,” which was nothing more than a piggy bank Grandpap had made me. It was huge and had four different-sized slots for coins that led down into four separate compartments. I'd saved enough money over the years to have started my very own savings account the Christmas of 1943.

Buy-in for the game was a dollar. White chips were pennies, red chips were nickels, and blues were dimes. I took out two dollars’ worth of quarters and jangled them around in my pocket as I ran back down to the kitchen.

“Best quail I ever ate,” said Harry, patting his stomach. “Can't imagine myself ever whipping up something that gourmet. Quite impressive, Matthew.”

“They were almost sweet,” added Maude, who dried each dish until the pattern was almost worn off. “What did you use, Matt?”

“Triple Sec,” he answered, counting out the chips. Ten whites, six reds and six blues for each person. I could hardly breathe, I was so excited.

“I never heard of that,” said Maude. “Whatever is it?”

“A liqueur, my dear,” said Harry. “Matthew, what do you say to a drop of pretty good brandy?
  I brought some with me.”

“You twisted my arm, Harry.”

“Here's my money, Matt,” I said.

“Good girl. Fast pay makes fast friends.”

Maude started up again. “Frances, this is wrong. I just can't sit here and ... ”

“Maude, shut up.” That was the grandmother I knew. Still, Maude sat back in her chair with her mouth hanging open in surprise.

“You heard her, Maudie,” Uncle Harry said lightly. “Shut up.”

Maude had the grace to smile back. “Why are you all ganging up on me?”

“No ganging up … Let's just leave any future disputes to the wisdom of Mr. Hoyle,” Francesca said as she set a large bowl of black cherries down on the table next to Matt.

Edmond Hoyle was a writer best known for his works on the rules and play of card games and a favorite of Francesca’s, who quoted him accurately and often.

Over the course of our evening, Matt and Harry began partaking of the brandy at a freer rate. The more they drank, the looser their tongues. Also, the worse they played.

“Count your money on your own time, Sarah,” Matt growled the third time he bought in for more chips.

Matthew and Harry were getting along like two fraternity brothers, an alliance that seemed to provoke Francesca, who was downing hard cider.

Her cheeks grew flushed as her repartee grew pithy. The more she flung her humor around the room, the more Harry and Matt roared with delight.
 

Francesca was a good card player who happened to like wild games. Baseball was her favorite, with threes, sevens and nines wild and fours bringing you another down card. You had to pay a nickel for the threes and the fours, which caused a lot of moaning and shrieking around the table. You don't even think of staying in the fray with less than four of a kind.

Some of the conversation and most of the strategy seemed to bounce right over Maude's head. She'd been awfully sheltered during her life, considering she was a married woman and lived in a good-sized city. She looked like she couldn't decide what to make of the whole experience. Then, she took a couple of nips of the cider and bluffed us all out of a pot with an ace-high nothing of a hand. The more sips she took, the better her game. She even introduced us to Black Mariah.

“High spade in the hole and high hand splits the pot,” Maude explained with a newfound confidence.

“Maude!” Harry bellowed. “Where the hell did you ever learn such a thing?”

“Mind your own beeswax, darling. You don't know everything about me.”

We all hooted and hollered indignantly over how she'd taken us in, especially Uncle Harry. “Maude! I'd hate to think you've been sitting there all evening, taking advantage of us!”

Maude smiled wickedly ... and promptly won another pot.

I couldn't remember the last time the Main House had been so full of raucous fun. Probably before Grandpap died. He had always been the instigator of madcap. Strings of cherry bombs under the back porch awoke you on the Fourth of July; short sheets on your bed greeted you on your birthday; toothpaste sandwiches showed up in your lunch box.
 

He was a terror, especially when he was young. Once, as a little boy attending a red one-room school house, he'd lassoed the outhouse and dragged it clear off its mark with the teacher still inside.

By the time midnight rolled around, we were settling up.

“Everyone, count up your chips in groups of fifty cents. The odd ones go into the pot for showdown,” Matt announced with authority. “Five-card, high-only, all cards face-up,” he added, rifling the cards expertly.

“I wish I knew how in the hell he does that. I just spew the cards all over the floor.”

“Here, here!” I sputtered. “No buttering up the dealer. Okay, now. Read 'em and weep.”

Matt began laying the cards out, face-up, one at a time in rotation around the table: seven, a two, king and another king.

The dealer got an ace. He dealt another round: a six, a nine and a king.

Maude had a pair of kings and began to giggle. Matt dealt two more cards, both tens.

No one could beat my straight with a five high. I raked in the money: four dollars and sixty-seven cents.

“How are you going to spend your loot, Moneybags?” Uncle Harry asked.

“There's not a whole lot I can do with four dollars, Uncle Harry.”

“What an odd child you are, Sarah,” Maude broke in. “You're not like any child I've ever known. How much money is a lot of money, then?”

“Well ... five hundred thousand dollars sounds right to me,” I answered, carefully gathering the cards and the poker chips and storing them in the cupboard by the fireplace.

My ill-gotten gains went straight into my piggy bank.

Chapter 17

The Scarecrow

B

abe must have jostled me. It was nearly three in the morning, according to my clock. I was startled but not afraid, because she often woke up in the middle of the night. She had excellent hearing and obviously felt duty-bound to investigate every significant noise.

Babe and I made our way slowly and oh-so-quietly down the back stairs. With my exquisitely honed spying skills, I could have snuck up on a tribe of Chippewa across a field of balled-up wax paper. Still, I had to be careful, because getting caught would have meant missing the action. Ahhh, it was Francesca and Maude. After what Grandmother had shared with me about the two of them, I was salivating to hear what they were … discussing. I use that term as a politeness , because although their voices never rose above a whisper, the sisters were having a real blowout.

“I don’t think it’s any of your business, dear.” Francesca said, emphasizing the words “business”
and “dear.”

Maude came right back with “I'm making it my business. I want to know exactly what's going on in this house. And I want to know now!”

“Why, whatever could you possibly be insinuating, Maude? And don’t think for a moment I owe you any explanations!”

“You know exactly ... exactly what I mean,
Frances.

This ... this person ... this man …”

“Correction! You mean this fascinating and attractive man, Matthew Mosley. Let me tell you about him so as there are no unfounded perceptions. He makes his living as a pilot, a little barnstorming here, a little crop dusting there.”

“You know damn well what I mean
Francesca. He is living here.”

“Yes,” Francesca answered. “He’s here because of the arsonist. You remember the arsonist, don't you? Or do you think I conjured up a crazy person — not to mention real fires — out of thin air?” I heard her snap her fingers for emphasis. “Huh! Should the arsonist ever meet with you, it’s
he who would need rescuing.”

“What a convenient explanation for this pilot person. Now, stop beating around the bush! You know precisely what I mean.” Maude took a breath and continued, “I have always hated your games. They aggravate me so.”

Francesca’s tone grew more sarcastic. “Maude, have you considered some mental gymnastics to loosen your mind? It seems to have gotten stuck somewhere in the Middle Ages.”

“You have a single man ...” Maude let the accusation hang in the air.

“How very perceptive of you, dear. Would you rather he be married?”

“You're impossible!”

“You're a prig,” Francesca hissed.

Someone slammed a glass down on the table.

“Maude,” Francesca began again more calmly, “have some more cider.”

“Don't you dare try to intoxicate me!” Maude snapped back.

Someone pounded the table; it was surely getting a beating through all this. Francesca must have been gathering her thoughts, because then, it was quiet for a moment.

“Maude, we can take it outside and come to shouting over this. Frankly, at the moment, there's nothing I'd like better. Or ... we can communicate like two reasonably mature adults. God knows, if we aren't mature adults by now, we never will be.”

Another silence. I could picture Maude mulling over her options — her face working this way and that. Then, to my utter astonishment, she capitulated. “Oh, all right. But you must know this whole business is sordid. Sordid!”

“I’ll make a note of that. Let’s see s-o-r-d-i-d, sordid.”

The two exchanged more pithy comments before mutually deciding a question-and-answer session might work best.

“Mature questions, that is. I will endeavor to answer in kind, or I may choose to remain silent. To protect the innocent, of course. But beware! Don’t ask a question if you aren’t fully prepared to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” Francesca cautioned.

“I’m not sure I want to know anything, much less everything,” Maude broke in, “but I feel it’s my duty. Well … to protect Sarah.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Uh-oh.

“I thought you said I was going to ask the questions,
Frances.”

“Ask away,” Francesca said and slapped the table with the palm of her hand. It was a gesture I'd often seen her use to punctuate an uncomfortable moment.

There was a shuffling sound. Someone was shifting position. Literally and figuratively.

“You and Mr. Mosley have a relationship; is that right?” Maude began.

“Right as rain,” Francesca shot back.

“What kind of a relationship is it exactly?”

This was the moment I should have slipped quietly back to bed.  

“He's a good friend.”

Maude snorted. 

“Yes, he’s a lovely man who brought me something precious in my dotage.”

They were calmer now.

“Maude, you can't possibly know how lucky you are,” Francesca said with real feeling. “I know how happy you and Harry have been. How well-suited the two of you are.”

I could hear someone's fingernails tapping on the table top.

“Don't misunderstand,” she continued. “Cox and I had a good life. But I see now that you and Harry had the kind of marriage you both needed. Maude, I could never have given Harry the fulfillment you have given him. Let’s face it — I'm just not that kind of woman.”

Silence. I wondered if Maude was feeling as uncomfortable as I was. I could hear the large German grandfather clock ticking from the parlor.

“That's ... good of you to say ...” Maude answered after a while. “No ... listen. I feel a ... a change in you after all these years. It makes me happy to feel like I have my sister back. I have you back, haven't I? It's not my imagination?”

Francesca acknowledged she had changed. “Meeting Mathew Mosley has stirred something inside of me … I’m in love,” she admitted quietly.

Harry had been Francesca’s first love, there was no doubt of that, but she had felt betrayed by him. Grandpap was gone. Now, Matthew was here, and he was so vital; he cared so much.

Maude started to cry.

Francesca went on quietly. She thought she had settled for second-best by marrying Harry’s brother, Cox, thinking it would ease the pain of a broken engagement.

“I realize now that you can’t love your way out of pain. You have to grieve properly before you can get on. I was so young — and rash.” I heard Francesca sigh. “Cox was a good man. He was fun and easygoing and so full of the devil. At the time I married him, he was the right choice for me, a sound choice. Don’t forget, he allowed me to be myself. I'm not sure too many men would have done the same.”

Harry would have never allowed it.

“So my loss was really my gain. I still had some wild ways in those days.” 

“Then ... you're over Harry? The hurt, I mean?” my aunt asked. She was still sniffling. No one spoke for so long a time I almost nodded off against the banister.

“It’s time to get over him, wouldn’t you agree?” Francesca said at last.

“And Matthew?” Maude asked gently.

“I’m in love with him. Wow, I can’t believe I am saying that out loud. But I am fiercely, proudly and softly in love with him. I haven’t felt these things in my heart for decades, if I ever felt them at all.”

The conversation took a turn. Maude’s voice sounded more co-conspiratorial. I could actually hear the sparkle between the two that comes when women share intimacies.

Matthew’s features were explored. The women marveled about his calloused hands and how strong and graceful they were. His swashbuckling looks gave him sex appeal. But how did he feel about Francesca?

“He says he loves me. He acts as though he does care about me. But he’s a gypsy, a wanderer, someone always looking for the next adventure. God knows I understand those longings. If I’d been a man, maybe I wouldn’t have stayed here at Home Farm.”

She said she realized that Matthew was still healing and that once he fully recovered from his plane crash injuries, he could well be leaving. “In some ways, I don’t care. He’s given me so much life in such a short time. Maybe that will be enough to last me the rest of my days.”

More silence.

This time, Babe and I snuck back upstairs. It was weird to think of my aunt and Francesca as friends. As I snuggled against Babe, I wondered if Matthew would really leave. That meant I would have Francesca to myself again, something I thought would have made me content.

It didn’t. In fact, the idea made me feel sad.

*     *     *     *     *

It was a hot and humid morning. The sun was high in a cloud-filled filled sky when I ambled down the back stairs to start a new day. No one was around, so I made my own breakfast:
orange juice and oatmeal cookies. Babe carefully placed her forelegs onto my lap to kiss me and do some serious begging.

I distracted her.
“Where's Francesca? Go find Francesca.”

First, Babe ran around the entire house, but no grandmother. Next, she ran out the back door and within moments, ran back in again. I understood she wanted me to follow her and was about to do just that when the front doorbell rang. Babe tore into the parlor, barking wildly.

“Be quiet! Babe, stop that!”

She sat.

When I opened the door, there was a thin, grizzle-haired man standing on our front steps. He looked like a human scarecrow.

“May I help you?” I asked politely, wishing I hadn’t opened the door.

Babe’s growling drew the stranger’s eyes to my feet, where she sat bristling, hair on end.

“That's my dog,” the man rasped after a long moment.