An Unexpected Suitor

by Anna Schmidt

  Nola’s first thought was that there was more between Harry and the actress than simple friendship. “Oh, Harry,” Eleanore crooned in that light musical voice of hers, “it’s been too long, darling. And what a wonder Miss Burns is,” she gushed, widening the circle to include Nola. “Why, she has made us all feel so welcome and at home and we’ve barely just arrived. I have to believe that it’s her innate sense of hospitality that has made her so successful in business.”

  “So I’ve heard,” he said, a half grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “I’d like to add my appreciation for your kindness, Miss Nola.” He stepped toward her and instinctively Nola moved a step away, her back coming up against the frame of the open parlor door.

  This was a mistake, she thought. This entire idea of having them stay here and work for her. Up to now it had been Nola versus Starbuck, but she could see that she had played right into his hands. How could she possibly ever explain her reasoning to Minnie and Rose and the others? Perhaps Rachel Williams could pull off something so bold in Nantucket, but this was ’Sconset and things were different here.

  The sound of Judy’s high-pitched laugh rolled down the hall from the kitchen and behind it came the voices of the two young male actors. The unmistakable sounds of pots clanging and the fragrant scent of Judy’s cinnamon bread fresh from the oven accompanied their chatter.

  “Oh, Mrs. Lang, that’s lovely,” Nola heard one of the men exclaim.

  “Oh, Billy,” Judy mocked with a laugh, “don’t be charming me now. That pot needs more scrubbing.”

  Nola recalled the interview with the young men. They certainly had experience working in restaurant kitchens and Judy was clearly in need of some immediate help she could count on. The exchange from the kitchen had caught everyone’s attention—except Harry’s. He was watching her. The reality was she needed these people to work the kitchen and tearoom if she had any hope of staying in business at the prime opening of the summer season. She glared up at Harry and it had the expected effect of making him retreat half a step.

  “You have lip rouge on your face,” she said as she opened the console where she kept a fresh supply of folded linen napkins and handed one to him. Before he could react she moved back into the parlor where Olga and the Kowalski sisters were waiting and deftly slid closed the doors.

  Chapter Five

  As soon as Nola shut the door, Harry turned to Eleanore, his eyes wide with confusion. Eleanore was no help at all. She practically had her fist crammed into her mouth as she tried to stem what he realized was laughter.

  “What?” he barked irritably as he scrubbed at his face with the napkin.

  “Oh, darling, I do believe that we’ve gotten off to a poor beginning with Miss Nola.” She glanced at her reflection in the mirror next to the hall tree and checked her hair. “Perhaps I should try and smooth things over,” she said, stepping to the door prepared to knock.

  But from behind the closed doors they heard Olga’s raised voice. “I do not do menial tasks,” she declared.

  Nola’s more modulated reply was difficult to hear without actually pressing closer to the door. There was no sound from the twins.

  Harry sighed. “The countess is overacting as usual,” he muttered. At auditions he had sized up the potential for each of the actors to add to the success of the season or be a problem. Olga would be a problem, but she was perfect for the role of the matriarch.

  At the audition she had been introduced as Olga Romanoff—an introduction she had quickly corrected to Countess Olga Romanoff.

  “Ah, Countess,” Harry had said almost reverently as he bent over her hand and kissed it lightly. “It is always a delight to have royalty on the bill.”

  Now Harry couldn’t help wondering if he’d made a mistake hiring the temperamental actress.

  “Perhaps Olga would be happier in the role of hostess,” Eleanore mused, turning his attention back to the situation at hand.

  “Perhaps,” he replied. “She does bring a certain mystique to her performances and what is serving the public but another performance?”

  Behind them the doors opened and Nola emerged with Olga and the twins. “Ladies,” she said, “if you would all be so kind as to see Judy in the kitchen. She can supply each of you with an apron and give you the tour of the pantry and cupboards. We open in half an hour.”

  Harry saw that Olga was about to protest but Eleanore took her firmly by the arm and ushered everyone down the hall to the kitchen.

  “You’re still here,” Nola said, her eyes settling on Harry.

  “Just leaving,” he assured her. He took his hat from the hall tree and clamped it onto his head at the usual jaunty angle. “Could I ask a question?” he asked.

  As usual Nola blanched as if he’d insulted her but she gave him her full attention.

  “Just what was it you thought you saw when you opened those doors and saw me with Eleanore?”

  Nola looked down. “Your relationship with Mrs. Chambliss is none of my business as long as it does not affect her work—or her stay here.”

  Harry sighed. “Look, I realize I don’t owe you an explanation, but Ellie and I are old friends. Her late husband was a gifted actor. Ever since he died unexpectedly, she’s had a difficult time of it and it was just so nice to see…”

  “As you said, you do not owe me an explanation,” Nola interrupted. “At least not about your relationships with the female population.”

  He saw her wrestle with the facts he had given her. She wanted to believe him but something prevented her from fully giving her trust. Could it be that Nola Burns’s hard exterior was no more than a facade behind which she hid the truth—that she was every bit as afraid, unsure and insecure of herself as the next person?

  Harry took a step closer and placed his hand lightly on her shoulder as she stood with her arms crossed protectively over her chest. “Nola, I’ve never been anything but forthright when it comes to my intentions. I would like to buy you out, but that doesn’t mean we have to be adversaries. You can trust me.”

  The look that flashed across her dark eyes mixed weariness with resignation. “It hardly matters at this point, does it? Your actors are here and that was completely my doing. As one of your fellow playwrights once noted, ‘The die is cast.’”

  Ah, Nola, don’t give up so easily. I haven’t won yet. He felt the urge to tighten his grip on her, to reassure her. But instinct told him that she would either take the gesture as too forward or worse, as pity, and she would not allow him to view her as weak.

  She pulled free of him and all trace of defeat evaporated with a flash of her eyes. “If there’s nothing more?”

  “Going now,” he said with a grin as he fumbled for the doorknob and made his escape.

  Nola forced herself to take a long steadying breath. When Starbuck had touched her shoulder she’d suddenly remembered another encounter they’d shared the summer when she’d been sixteen. As usual her brothers had abandoned their chores in favor of fishing. It wasn’t unusual for them to disappear like that on a summer’s evening. The fish in Tom Nevers Pond held far more appeal for them than scrubbing baking pans in the hot kitchen of the tearoom did. But on this night Mama had become dizzy and almost fainted. Nola had persuaded her to lie down while she went to find help.

  As she approached the pond, she’d heard laughter and the splash of the water. The merriment had only served to make her more annoyed with her brothers. But the first person she’d run into that evening was Harry. He’d been laughing and calling back some insult to his friends as he strode up the path from the pond.

  “Nola?” He had touched her then, his hand damp on her wrist. “Are you all right?” He had not waited for an answer. Instead he had shouted for her brothers and they had come running. What happened after that was hazy. Nola knew that she and her brothers had hurried back home to attend their mother while Harry ran to get the doctor. But the only clear memory was of his hand, gentle and concerned, touching her lightly as he assured her
everything would be all right.

  He was wrong. Her mother had died a few weeks later.

  Did he remember?

  Of course he doesn’t remember. By that time he’d been off to the mainland to seek his fortune. Stop this foolishness, she mentally ordered herself. She rarely indulged in such romantic nonsense, but now realized that ever since Harry Starbuck had first stepped onto her front porch just two weeks earlier, something had changed.

  It’s only because he’s—what? Suddenly where you are so often? Or is it because someone like him is beyond attainable for someone like you? Nola glanced toward the mirror and her image shocked her. The woman in the mirror looked wistful, almost sad.

  She pressed her hands over the starched bodice of her shirtwaist. You’re pathetic, she thought and turned resolutely away from the mirror.

  “Judy, it’s time,” she called as she stepped outside to post the sign proclaiming the tearoom open for business.

  When she returned to the foyer, she was pleasantly surprised when the Kowalski twins presented themselves promptly for duty, their crisp white aprons properly tied. More to the point, the bibbed aprons went a long way toward downplaying a bit of the actresses’ natural flare for overstatement especially when it came to their hair and makeup. When Nola asked why the countess had not put on an apron, Eleanore explained that, if Nola agreed, Olga would be greeting the guests while the Kowalski sisters waited tables and the two young actors helped Judy in the kitchen.

  “And you?” Nola asked.

  The actress smiled and gave a small bow. “I am here to serve at your pleasure wherever I may be needed,” she said. “However, I did have a thought.” She cast her gaze toward the piano that filled one corner of the large room. “What would you say to a bit of the light classics—background music?”

  For years now the piano had just sat there in the corner of the tearoom, a relic of the future she’d once imagined for herself. Nola immediately saw the potential in Eleanore’s suggestion and wondered why she’d never thought of it herself. On the other hand, she was reluctant to give the actress too much control over things. “We could try it,” she said. “Business won’t really pick up until next week. So if our current guests find the music intrusive or annoying…”

  “Exactly,” Eleanore agreed. “Thank you, Miss Burns, for everything.”

  “You’re welcome, and you may call me Nola.” She could give the woman that, at least. No need to let Eleanore think she was a complete stick-in-the-mud.

  The actress’s smile was radiant. “And I am Ellie. Eleanor-a is so pretentious, don’t you think?” She placed the back of her hand to her forehead and struck a melodramatic pose, then shrugged and giggled. “But then, that’s the point of stage names,” she explained. “I’ll just run up to my room and get some music.”

  “Ellie?”

  The actress paused on the third stair.

  “Mr. Starbuck mentioned the passing of your husband—I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Ellie’s lovely face flushed as she fought against her grief. “Thank you, Nola. I think the summer here may help. Performing always takes me back to the happier days before Phillip became so ill.”

  “You performed together?”

  Ellie nodded. “It’s how we first met and from that day until he died we were never apart. Have you lost someone dear to you, Nola?”

  Nola thought of her mother and father and nodded.

  “Then it’s no wonder you are so understanding,” Ellie said and hurried on up the stairs.

  Not really, Nola thought. She’d never known that kind of loss. That kind of love.

  “Miss Nola?”

  Nola turned to face the countess, who was actually smiling. “Yes?”

  “I hate to raise the matter, but the room I’m to share with the Misses Kowalski is quite—cozy. Forgive me, but I could not help but notice a more spacious room just across the hall.”

  “You would prefer the larger room?”

  “Not at all,” Olga replied quickly. “I was thinking that it would be more comfortable for the girls. I would happily remain in the smaller room.”

  “And share the bath?”

  Olga’s smile cracked slightly but she recovered by lowering her lashes. “If it would suit you,” she said.

  Why not? It’s not as if you plan on renting the rooms to others. And it may well make for smoother sailing with the countess.

  Nola gave the actress a warm smile. “I think the idea is quite a good one,” she said. “Have the Kowalski sisters ask Judy for linens for the beds.”

  Olga dipped into a curtsy worthy of greeting a queen. “Thank you,” she whispered huskily. Nola was relieved when the tinkle of the bell above the front door announced the arrival of customers. Olga glided forward. “Good afternoon and welcome, ladies,” she said. “We have a lovely table by the window if you’ll follow me.”

  Nola knew from the expression on Rose Gillenwater’s face that she and her constant companions, Lucille Dobbs and Dorothy Bosworth, had not come for tea. Rose ignored Olga as she stepped forward and mouthed to Nola, “A word in private?”

  Nola indicated the parlor and waited for the three stalwarts of the church to sail through the doors. “Please don’t hesitate to interrupt should there be anything you cannot handle alone,” she told Olga.

  The countess seemed offended. “There is little that could occur that I would not be able to ‘handle,’ as you so quaintly put it,” she said.

  Just then Ellie came down the stairs, a music book clutched in one arm. She glanced from Olga to Nola and said, “Shall I just begin playing or introduce the music?”

  “It’s background,” Nola reminded her, and Ellie nodded.

  “Right. Just strike up the band, then,” she said and headed for the piano.

  Now it was Olga’s turn to give Nola her full attention. “She is to perform?” Clearly she was offended by this change in assignments.

  “Yes, well, the job of greeting our guests was taken—and I must admit you are doing it beautifully, Countess,” she added hurriedly and realized it was exactly what Harry Starbuck would have said to soothe the actress’s ruffled ego. “Ellie—Eleanore—is simply going to provide a bit of soft classical music to further enhance the mood you have already begun to set for our patrons.”

  She saw Olga process this information even as Nola heard the impatient tapping of Rose Gillenwater’s leather shoe on the bare wood floor behind her. “Carry on, then,” she said with a weak smile at Olga as she once again closed the doors to her inner sanctum and turned to face yet another problem.

  “Actors, my dear?” Rose said the moment they were behind closed doors. She clicked her tongue against her teeth and shook her head slowly. “I can possibly understand employing such people since you are admittedly in a bind regarding keeping your tearoom in operation. But putting them up in your home? Has it come to this?”

  As the wife of Alistair Gillenwater, Starbuck’s business partner and a successful attorney as well as ’Sconset’s self-appointed keeper of the standard for decorum, Rose Gillenwater had a well-defined and equally well-known code of conduct she expected others to follow. Those who did not risked not only her disapproval but her considerable influence in the community to impact the individual’s social standing, and in Nola’s case, her business.

  But from the moment news of her father’s death at sea had reached them, Nola’s mother had drummed one lesson into her children’s heads—survival. “Whatever it takes as long as no one is harmed and you aren’t breaking the law,” she had lectured.

  And now as Nola faced Rose and her cohorts, she couldn’t help thinking that these women had never once had to even consider what they might do under adverse conditions. The greatest problem any one of them had ever had to face to Nola’s knowledge was whether or not the fabric they had ordered for a new gown had arrived.

  She remembered what Harry had told her about Ellie’s devastating loss and felt sympathy for the actress. The truth was tha
t, in spite of her concern about the theater people coming to ’Sconset, more than once she had questioned the underlying prejudice with which many had treated the resident actors. And suddenly she had to fight her inclination to tell Mrs. Gillenwater that who she chose to hire—and house—was no one’s business but hers. Instead she drew in a breath and smiled. “Ladies, please,” she said, “let’s sit for a moment. Shall I ask Mrs. Lang to bring us some tea and a plate of her delicious cucumber sandwiches?”

  “We won’t be staying,” Rose replied haughtily even as the other two women nodded eagerly at the prospect of tea and treats. “Imagine my surprise earlier when I was calling on poor Mrs. Hogan down the lane and we observed this little band of minstrels approach your door. Well, I was quite certain that I would soon see them on their way to Ina Matthews’s boardinghouse. I never imagined…”

  “They have fallen on some difficulties that are not of their own making,” Nola explained. She mentioned the damaged cottages and the delay in getting materials. Encouraged by the sympathetic expressions on the faces of Mrs. Dobbs and Mrs. Bosworth, she continued. “And then, as you know the help I had hired for the season became unavailable.”

  Rose glared at her, unmoved. “I would remind you, Nola, that the Devil often waits for just such coincidence. It is a form of pure temptation, putting you in circumstances of distress and then seeming to offer the perfect solution when in fact you are putting not only your position in the community but perhaps your very soul in peril.”

  The other two women rearranged their features to support this position, frowning at Nola as they nodded in agreement with their leader’s point of view.

  Nola was well aware that Mrs. Gillenwater believed every word of her sermon. This was hardly the first time she had felt compelled to deliver similar warnings. But outside the closed parlor doors, Nola could hear the sounds of sterling on fine china, accompanied by quiet conversation and the soft underpinnings of a Viennese waltz. Experience told her the tearoom was filled for the first time in months and she believed she knew why. Rose and her companions were not the only ones who were curious about Nola’s decision to staff the tearoom with traveling entertainers. If she stepped across the hall she suspected she would see her tables filled with locals.