Sea Glass Summer (3 page)

The olive-green armoire came in first, to be positioned against the living-room wall facing the fireplace. It was followed by the sofa and two armchairs – stripped of their slipcovers for the move. Feeling like a traffic cop, Sarah beckoned them on. Forty minutes later her natural pine harvest table and dark bentwood chairs were in place. The brown leather recliners went into the den. All boxes not designated for upstairs would go in there too. Sarah had assumed she'd have to set up her queen-sized bed with its iron headboard, but a peek round the door showed it waiting to be readied for the night. Last in were the washer and dryer. Again the men went above and beyond in getting them hooked up for her in the mud room.

She headed upstairs to get cash from her wallet to give them each a generous tip, then stood waving goodbye from the front step as they climbed aboard the truck. They had been there just over three hours. The house was already to beginning to look like home. A few weeks and lots of paint would pay maximum dividends. Her former mother-in-law had given her a hand-blown glass vase that she was now ready to put back out on the half-moon foyer table. Iris Colefax was a lovely woman. Sarah missed their relationship.

She was finally hungry and had just finished a hasty meal of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich when she heard a cat meowing plaintively somewhere outside. As she was peering through the rain-streaked panes of the French doors, the bell rang.

‘Who can that be?' She stood, momentarily flummoxed, before making for the front door. She opened it to see a sturdily-built older woman wearing a sensible coat along with bright orange Crocks standing on the steps. Her plump face was a maze of fine wrinkles, but her bobbed dark hair was only sparingly threaded with gray, and her posture was upright, making the stick in her right hand look like a prop. Tucked under her left arm was a plastic-wrapped loaf of something.

‘I'm Nellie Armitage from across the road,' she announced cheerfully. ‘Your official nosy neighbor. They don't just exist in books, you know.' Sarah knew those who would have kept a stranger on the step, but she hadn't been brought up that way.

‘Hi, I'm Sarah Draycott. Please come in,' she encouraged.

‘Just for a moment.' The woman entered nippily, confirming Sarah's thought that the stick was mainly for show. ‘I hear you're from Chicago!' The dark eyes twinkled. ‘Word gets around on winged feet here. I've brought you a loaf of banana bread.' She poked at the Saran-wrapped oblong.

‘Oh, that is nice.'

The round face broke into a beaming smile. ‘It's been in the freezer for months if not years. I'm not much of a sweet eater. Just a blatant excuse to get my foot in the door. But you look too nice a girl to hoodwink with trumped-up offerings.'

‘Thank you.' Sarah took the bread and set it on the table by the staircase. ‘I'm sure I'll enjoy it.'

Coat and cane deposited in the foyer, Nellie Armitage followed Sarah into the living room. ‘My, you've already got your furniture in place. Looks right comfy.'

The room did look inviting, even with the sofa and chairs lacking their slipcovers. A fire would have made a nice contrast against the rain streaming down the windows. Sarah hadn't yet decided between gas logs and wood burning. She wished she could have offered sherry, although she doubted alcohol was ever needed to bump up her visitor's obvious zest for life. Nellie closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

‘Good aura. No restless spirits here, so far as I can tell.'

‘That's nice to know,' said Sarah; she'd just as soon not see Nan Fielding floating down the stairs. ‘Are you a medium?'

‘Can't make that boast,' Nellie replied with beaming honesty, ‘but I do attend the spiritualist church out by Dobbs Mill. Wouldn't call myself devout, though. Take anything too serious and it stops being fun. That's the way I look at it.'

Sarah bit back a smile. Her Aunt Beth would not think speaking of religion as a recreational activity amusing. ‘How about a cup of coffee?' she suggested when her guest was seated on the sofa.

‘Just had one. You sit yourself down; I'll guess your feet need resting after a busy morning.'

Very hospitable, thought Sarah. Increasingly amused, she settled herself in one of the armchairs.

‘Glad to have you in the neighborhood.'

‘I'm really looking forward to living here.'

‘Mind if I call you Sarah?'

‘I'd like that.'

‘How old do you think I am?' Nellie fired the question as if sure of a winner.

This was tricky. Sarah had learned from her grandparents and their friends that the older people got the more eager they were to admit to their true ages, even to the point of boasting of the number of years under their belts. Best to go with the honest answer.

‘Seventy-five?'

‘Ninety,' Nellie shot back smugly. Sarah tried and failed to smother a laugh. Given the bubbling echo from the sofa no offence was taken. Her visitor was fully aware of her entertainment value.

‘Well, you certainly don't look it.'

‘I was the youngest of seven, the only one left now. Never married and can't say it worried me any.' She went on to talk about Reggie, her devoted great-nephew living only a few miles away in Ferry Landing with his nice wife Mandy and nine-year-old son, Brian. ‘Reggie will be coming to collect me at five. Always spend Friday nights with him and the family. Now tell me about you. Did your job bring you up here?' Nellie leaned forward as if hanging on the answer. Sarah could see the irrepressible little girl peering from those sparkling brown eyes, awaiting further revelations.

‘No, I'm lucky in having work I can do anywhere. Being single I don't have any ties. I design patterns for knitting magazines.'

‘What a fun-sounding job!' Sarah could read the unspoken question in the revealing eyes. Did it pay well? The answer would have been
very nicely
. ‘But aren't you rather young not to want to be out in the hustle and bustle?'

‘I'm thirty-four.'

‘You don't look close to that, and such a pretty girl. My mother would have described you as bonnie.'

‘Thank you.'

Nellie looked around the room. ‘Would you believe I haven't been in this house since Nan Fielding moved in? She was a teacher. Taught high school English, did you know that?'

‘Yes, the realtor told me. What was she like?'

‘Kept to her lonesome. Didn't let the conversation go beyond the weather and an occasional mention of her garden if I saw her outside.'

Sarah considered this from Nan Fielding's vantage point. She could reasonably have sized Nellie up as the sort who, once having got a foot in the door, would be constantly showing up when least wanted and increasingly hard to budge.

The brown eyes met hers with a knowing twinkle. ‘I can guess what you're thinking, but Nan was just the same with everyone else – kept them all at a distance. I sure will enjoy having you for a neighbor.' Nellie nodded decisively. ‘A good number of people on this road are summer people, only here from June through September. Oh, sometimes they begin trickling back in May, but not this year. It's been too cold and wet.'

‘Does it seem a little flat when they go?'

Nellie gave the question its due deliberation. ‘I miss the children. My great-nephew's boy Brian always enjoys the excitement they bring. This is a great place for family vacations. The parents like being able to let the older ones go off and enjoy themselves in the good old-fashioned way without constantly worrying something dreadful could happen to them. There's so little crime here, you see. Most people round here don't bother locking their doors. The only person I ever knew to have an alarm ringy dingy put in was Nan Fielding.'

‘There's not one here now. I'd have noticed.'

‘Taken out. I saw the van pull in and spoke to the driver. Said the real estate agency didn't think it was a good selling feature.' Nellie preened, then sobered. ‘You have to ask yourself what happened in Nan's life before coming here to make her feel in need of home protection.'

Sarah looked doubtful. She had some curiosity about the former tenant but it wasn't overwhelming. ‘Can we assume something bad happened? The majority of people I know have them.'

‘That's Chicago.'

‘Gangsterville.' Sarah laughed. ‘Where did Nan come from?'

‘Boston. Can't tell you more than that.' Clearly this was disappointing. Nellie's interpretation of only staying for a moment was an unusual one, but Sarah couldn't get annoyed – she was old and very likely lonely. And it did feel good to just sit.

‘So you don't get many break-ins around here?'

‘They're a rarity and I never heard of one turning violent. The last I heard of anyone letting himself in where he'd no business going uninvited was Willie Watkins. He's a sad drunk and you can't blame his daughter, who's past her own prime and has a leaky roof and bad knees to worry about, for kicking him out when he gets to singing all night. Not that he has a bad voice,' Nellie conceded in the manner of giving the devil his due. ‘And it was winter – this past January, so you can't rightly blame the old cockroach for getting under cover.'

‘No, I suppose not.' Sarah pictured the red nose, stubbly-gray chin and knitted gloves with most of the fingers gone. ‘Did he wake the householders up?'

‘Two things you have to know about Willie: he's a coward and canny as a fox, even when swaying like a tree in the wind. What he did was hole up in the cellar of the Cully Mansion. Everyone called it that; its name used to be Fair Winds. It's been empty since old Emily Cully died way back at the start of this century. She was the granddaughter of a man whose statue is on the common.'

‘I've seen it.' Sarah instantly felt more alert. She found the Cullys far more interesting than poor Nan Fielding.

‘I like to kid myself the reason I never married was because no living man could compare to Nathaniel Cully . . . caring for the sick, rescuing those sailors.'

‘Did you know his granddaughter?'

‘Not as a friend. Emily didn't have friends. Too conscious of her family's status dating back to the first settlers. Proud as a peacock that an ancestress of hers named the village. Her one true pal was her parrot. Luckily it died before she did. That bird had the foulest mouth I've ever heard. But Emily didn't shut herself off as complete as Nan Fielding did. When the mood suited she'd entertain by way of what she called her soirees. Dried up tidbits, served on plates with spider web cracks. Once or twice I got included as part of a group. Emily had polio as a child; left her embittered. Have to feel sorry for her, but wouldn't think her housekeeper had the treat of a lifetime working for her.'

‘What did you think of the house?' Sarah was remembering her reaction that morning on glimpsing it through the overgrown garden.

‘Couldn't turn for bumping into Victorian bric-a-brac. Items Willie Watkins could have turned to account if he'd got to them. All I ever saw of the place – with the exception of the powder room with its red flock wallpaper, thick with dust – was the living room; shadowy as a cave. Contained her bed at one end, a great four-poster with tapestry hangings. That room was where she spent all her time, boasting that she had never been in the kitchen for fifty years, let alone up to the second or third floors. And in all likelihood she'd never been down in that cellar in her life, not with her being crippled like she was. So no need for Willie Watkins to fear bumping into her ghost when settling in for what turned out to be a three-week stay.'

‘Was his daughter worried about him?'

‘Well, he wasn't what you'd call missing,' Nellie explained reasonably. ‘He was seen around in the daytime, showing up at the soup kitchen and going after soft touches for money. I expect the poor woman was glad of a break.'

‘How was his hiding place discovered?'

‘A policeman followed him back one night, with the result that he's been installed ever since at Pleasant Meadows, a nursing home between Sea Glass and Ferry Landing.'

‘No charges issued against him?'

‘Waste of time and money to keep him in jail. Wasn't like he could have stolen anything. The door at the top of the cellar stairs was locked; doubt anyone has a clue where the key went. Of course, the police notified the current owners of the house – that would be Gerard Cully and his wife, Elizabeth – and she did come down to look the place over, the first Sea Glass had the privilege of seeing her. That was the last of it so far as Willie's brush with the law.'

Sarah was glad the man had got off lightly. ‘I heard Emily Cully left the house to a distant cousin.' Fully alert now, she was eager to learn more than she had from the volunteer at the museum.

‘He also came in for all the contents, excluding the scrimshaws; those went to the historical society. That cousin was Gerard Cully's father and, you may also have heard, he didn't outlast her long. Don't know that she'd ever met him, but blood counted with Emily.'

‘From the way you describe the place it sounds like an albatross. I wonder why the son hasn't sold it.'

‘That's rich people for you,' said Nellie smugly, ‘won't let go of a half-eaten sandwich.' She shifted as if about to get up, and then hovered indecisively. ‘This has been very nice, Sarah, but now it has to be getting on time for me to be going. Reggie, my great-nephew, will be along soon to pick me up.'

Sarah looked at her watch. ‘It's four thirty.'

‘Time enough then to fill you in a bit more on the Cully family.' Nellie sank comfortably back into position.

‘I'm interested.' Sarah thought impishly that she'd soon know enough to become a volunteer at the historical society museum.

‘It's this way.' Nellie's face clouded for the first time during her visit. ‘The cousin that inherited had two sons – Gerard and his younger brother Max. There'd been a falling out between Max and his parents because he'd married a girl named Clare Andrews from Ferry Landing and they didn't think her good enough to fit in with their grand friends. You can never get through to snobs. Clare was a great girl, lovely inside and out, the only child of a decent, hardworking, loving couple. Grew up just a few houses down from where Reggie and his family live. Seems Max came out here the summer before his last year of college. Curious about the family roots. Had to have been shortly before Emily Cully died. Whether he got to see her or not I don't know. By that time who he was probably wouldn't have registered anyway; she'd been failing mentally as well as physically for a good long time come the end.'