An Unexpected Suitor

by Anna Schmidt

  “And this?” she said defiantly as she touched her lips.

  To her surprise he chuckled. “Okay, this was pure impulse.” He stroked her cheek with his fingers. “Look, Nola, I don’t know what’s happening here any more than you do, so don’t go giving me credit for plotting and planning when it comes to you. All I know is that with everything that’s happened, this has become a lot more complicated than my wanting to make you an offer for your property.”

  Nola took a moment to allow her racing heart to calm itself. “I know. Sometimes I have to wonder about God’s true purpose in everything that’s happening. I mean, perhaps He meant for us to become friends.”

  “Exactly. So I was thinking that maybe we could spend some time together—time not dueling with each other.”

  “A kind of truce?”

  He nodded. “I’ve liked the suggestions you’ve been making to Ellie about the play. And I can’t get that fugue you were working on out of my head. I think it might be perfect for the closing number in Act One.”

  “I have no professional training, Harry.”

  “You have something better.” He tugged at her ear. “That natural ear for music. So, how about it? Could we start fresh—common ground, so to speak?”

  “I did have some thoughts about the opening,” she admitted.

  He leaned closer. “I’d love to hear those thoughts.”

  Nola took a step back. “Very well. I could spare an hour tomorrow morning.”

  “Afraid not,” Harry replied. “I’ve got to meet with the carpenters tomorrow about installing the lighting for the stage. How about tomorrow evening?”

  “Four-thirty—just after closing,” she bargained.

  “And while Mrs. Lang is still around cleaning up,” he guessed.

  “Precisely.” Nola offered him a handshake. And she could not help but be delighted when he took her hand and kissed it with a courtly bow.

  “Good night, Miss Nola,” he whispered.

  “Good night, Starbuck.”

  Now that Nola had hired the Huff sisters and relieved the actors of any further duty in the tearoom, town locals focused their concern on the fact that Nola was now openly working with Harry on his play. Nola seemed to think nothing of stopping by Harry’s office to leave some piece of classical or religious music she’d discovered with a note about its potential use in the operetta. Nola chose to ignore reports from Judy that tongues were wagging all over town whenever Harry dashed into the tearoom in the middle of the afternoon rush to drop off his latest rewrite of the lyrics.

  But Nola was thrilled with this opportunity to collaborate on the operetta. At first she was reluctant to question Harry’s classical selections, but by week’s end she’d become so exasperated with his attempts to make a Viennese waltz work as the background for the play’s love song that she had thrown up her hands in frustration. “It’s all wrong, Harry.”

  Harry was taken aback at her outburst. “Well, it needs work, but…”

  “No. It won’t work at all. That’s the point. We need something else.”

  Harry smiled. “We?”

  “You…It needs something more tender. Something sweet and…”

  “Then write something that will work.”

  “I couldn’t,” she whispered.

  Harry placed his hand on hers. “Try. I have to check on something at the cabaret. Work on that melody that I would guess is already playing in your head and we’ll start fresh tomorrow.”

  In spite of her doubts, Nola found the work of composing for his lyrics thrilling. When he liked the melody she came up with for the love ballad, he asked her to see what she could come up with for the closing number. It was as if she’d been preparing for this moment all her life. Melodies she had created in her youth and not thought of in years now seemed the perfect complement to the words and mood of Harry’s operetta. Hour after hour she sat at the piano setting down the music that had only played in her head until now. She was more certain than ever that her inspiration came from God and that this was what He had intended for her life.

  And although she had missed the company of the others, and especially her late-night chats with Ellie, now that music filled the house, Nola seldom felt surrounded by emptiness as she had in the past. The truth was that she barely had enough hours in the day to manage the tearoom, plan the next ice cream social and create more original melodies for Harry to consider. One night she had gotten so caught up in the project that she hadn’t gotten to bed at all and Judy had found her the next morning, sound asleep with her head cradled in her folded arms while still seated at the piano.

  “That man is working you too hard,” she groused.

  “Harry has nothing to do with this, Judy.” Nola yawned and stretched. “It’s me. Oh, Judy, what if you were right? What if God is driving me to do this. It just feels so…”

  “And what happens once you’ve finished? It’s bound to be a letdown not to have some project to work on.”

  “But I will always have this, Judy. That’s the gift of it. For the rest of my life, I will carry with me the memory of this summer—of composing music for a play that could inspire audiences I’ll never see. I don’t need more than that. I never thought I would have this,” Nola said. “And it’s all thanks to Harry,” she added.

  “Humph,” Judy grumbled. “Seems to me there was a time not too long ago when you wouldn’t have trusted that man any further than from here to there.” She held her hands six inches apart. “Now all of a sudden it’s Harry this and Harry that. You need to watch yourself, my girl. It’s not just the composing that’s got you all worked up. It’s Harrison Starbuck. He’s a heartbreaker, that one. Not intentionally, I’ll give you, but a heartbreaker nonetheless.”

  “Oh, Judy, give me some credit for knowing what’s what,” Nola said as she grabbed the startled woman and hugged her. “Harry and I respect each other’s talents just as we have always grudgingly respected the other’s business acumen. The difference is that through our collaboration we have become friends. That’s all there is to it and all there ever will be. Now how can that end in tragedy?”

  “And what about this place? You don’t think he’s just suddenly dropped the whole idea of buying you out, do you?”

  “No, but…”

  “You need to see the whole picture, Nola. You and Harry are having some fun now and that’s nice. But he’s not in this alone. He has people who expect him to come up with this place in the end.”

  “I know that,” Nola said, unable to suppress her irritation with Judy’s lecture. The truth was that she had indeed lost sight of that. But now all her doubts about Harry’s true motivations came flooding back. What if this entire thing were no more than his latest ploy to distract her while her business continued to suffer?

  Judy put down her rolling pin and dusted the flour off her hands as she reached out to enfold Nola in her arms. “Ah, sweet child, you think it doesn’t do my heart good to see you so happy? To see you all sunshine and laughter these last several days? All I’m saying is be careful.”

  “Do you really believe that Harry would hurt me?”

  “Not intentionally,” Judy agreed. “But you of all people should understand that when it comes to business, sometimes people with the best intentions have to make hard decisions. Just don’t forget that. Now go lie down. The Huff girls and I can handle things for one afternoon.”

  “No, you’re right. It’s high time I paid attention to my business. After all, in just a few weeks the gala will have come and gone—as will Harry and the others. But we will still have this tearoom to run. I’m going for the mail and then I’m going to contact every inn and hotel on the island until I find you some extra help.”

  “The Huff girls are doing their best,” Judy said.

  “The Huff girls are two inexperienced teens trying to do work that was handled by six mature adults. We need more help, Judy.”

  Not a quarter of an hour later she was back. She entered the kitchen in
a rush, allowing the back screen door to slam behind her and startling Judy. She held one envelope and dropped the rest of the mail on the kitchen table, then paced over to the kitchen door.

  “You’re back awfully quick,” Judy ventured.

  “Yes.” Nola chewed her lower lip as she tapped the envelope against her skirt.

  Judy returned to kneading dough.

  “The Cabbage Inn in New Bedford is closing.”

  That got Judy’s attention. “Now? With the season already half-gone?”

  Nola nodded. “Alice Rowling was quite ill all spring. Her son tried his hand at keeping the place open, but apparently he’s decided to close the doors.”

  “I’m real sorry to hear about that,” Judy replied, watching Nola carefully.

  “They have a staff of five hired for the season. We could hire them here. Then the Huff sisters could take on the ice cream socials. They’d rather wait on young people anyway, I’m sure.”

  “These folks from New Bedford are willing to come here for the remainder of this summer?”

  “I don’t know,” Nola said, pulling out the letter and scanning it quickly. “He doesn’t say. Maybe he wants to know there’s a place for them before he brings it up. Oh, Judy, this could be an answer to our prayers.”

  “Well, this would certainly clear up any notion that you’ve given up on keeping this place up and running.”

  Nola wheeled around. “Of course, I haven’t. Why would anyone think differently?”

  Judy shrugged. “There are those who are speculating that with the work you’re doing on Harry’s play, maybe you’re planning to sell and head off to New York yourself.”

  “Oh, Judy, please tell me you don’t believe such nonsense.”

  Her answer came in the almost imperceptible lift of the older woman’s shoulders and her silence other than the occasional slamming of the dough onto the breadboard.

  “Judy, nothing has changed,” Nola assured her. “At least not about my intention to maintain my home and business right here in ’Sconset.”

  “So you’ll consider hiring these folks from the Cabbage Inn?” Judy glanced up at her.

  “I’ll send Mr. Rowling a telegram offering his employees jobs as soon as he can spare them.”

  Judy Lang’s smile of pure relief was all the assurance Nola needed that she was making the right decision. She returned to the post office and wrote out the message she wanted to send to the owner of the Cabbage Inn.

  “Bad news?” Essie Crusenberry asked as she came from behind her desk.

  “The Cabbage Inn is closing. Alice Rowling has been ill for some time. Her son thought he could manage but his heart’s not in it.”

  “Poor soul,” Essie murmured. “But you’ve been looking for help. It would give you the chance to finally cut free of those theater people once and for all.”

  “As I have told you before, Essie, ‘those theater people’ are good people and they’ve done a wonderful job helping out at the tearoom. And not once have they complained.”

  “And why should they? When they got here, you put them up and fed them and let them keep whatever tips might have come their way.” Essie shook her head. “Besides, I know you don’t like hearing this, Nola, but you’ve got bigger problems than that. Now even some of the summer folks are beginning to wag their tongues over how much time you and Harry Starbuck are spending together these days. After those rumors about Alistair Gillenwater and that Russian woman—”

  “Unfounded rumors,” Nola reminded the postmistress.

  “All the same, talk is that there are some who think having their young people hanging around your place might expose them to the wrong element.”

  This wasn’t news to Nola. The Gillenwaters had captured local attention for a moment but Alistair had, of course, declared his innocence. He had dismissed what his sons had observed as nothing more than a casual conversation in a public place and had assured Rose that his abrupt trip to Boston had been purely business related. That, along with the diamond brooch he had brought her, seemed to have gained him a reprieve of sorts.

  Nola took a moment to form her response to Essie’s question with care. “There will always be a few people who misinterpret an innocent friendship or business association, Essie. And frankly, I am so grateful for friends like you who certainly understand that,” Nola said as she handed Essie the script for the telegram. “If there’s a reply before I come for my mail tomorrow, please ask one of the Gillenwater boys to deliver the message to the tearoom.”

  Essie followed her out to the street. Her raised eyebrows and smirk of a smile said more than any flood of words ever could. “I thought that Chambliss woman played the piano. Why isn’t she the one working on compositions with him?”

  “She plays for the rehearsals. She is not a composer.” Oh, why am I forever trying to explain myself to people who have already made up their minds?

  Essie placed a hand on Nola’s sleeve. “Look, it’s nobody’s business, but when you’re a female and on your own and trying to earn a living, these things matter. Some people don’t like it that you got mixed up with that acting crowd. It’s not personal, Nola. Everyone has your best interests at heart.”

  Three tourists sidled past them, their voices loud with the excitement common to those on holiday. Nola took advantage of the interruption to leave before she said something that she would surely regret.

  “Whoa! Where’s the fire?” Harry came around the corner just as Nola quickened her step to escape the postmistress. He caught her by the shoulders to keep her from plowing into him. His voice was teasing but his eyes were filled with concern. “Nola?”

  “Please excuse me, Harry, I…”

  Just as she prepared to dart around him, they both turned at the sound of her name being called. Judy Lang was half running, half walking toward them, her breath coming in short harsh gasps. Starbuck hurried to catch up as Nola ran to meet the red-faced woman.

  Judy waved a sheet of heavy blue stationery in front of Nola. “There’s been another note,” she managed.

  Before Harry could read over her shoulder and take in the full message, Nola had read through the contents and shoved the note into her pocket. But he had seen enough.

  Miss Nola, you will rue the day

  You took up with him who likes to play;

  Your mother’s memory you disgrace

  Repent before more wrath you face.

  A friend

  “We’ll talk about this at home,” Nola said as she put her arm around the older woman’s waist and started back toward the tearoom.

  Harry fell into step beside her. “There’s been more than this one note?” he asked.

  Judy nodded. “The first was several weeks ago. Essie handed it to Nola with the morning mail. The second came right after Nola’s accident and now this.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Nola?”

  “Please don’t concern yourself, Harry,” Nola said with a forced lightness. She even gave a little laugh. “You know how young people like to play pranks. It’s nothing and the best way to deal with it is to ignore it, right, Judy?”

  Judy did not appear to agree. She glanced up at Harry. “What do you think?”

  Nola shot Harry a look of pleading over Judy’s head. His mouth tightened slightly but he smiled. “Now, Miz Lang, as I recall when I was a boy here on Nantucket, this was just the sort of thing I might have dreamed up. Getting folks all stirred up over some perceived threat and then sitting back and watching it all play out.”

  “Yes,” Nola added. “That’s probably how Mr. Starbuck got his start in the theater. These sorts of things are so feigned,” she said. “In fact they are so histrionic that they can’t possibly be taken seriously.”

  Judy glanced from one to the other. “I suppose. Still…”

  Harry narrowed his eyes. “What was in the other notes?”

  Nola shrugged. “More childish pranks. Nothing of importance.”

  Judy, Nola and Harry had reache
d the side gate of the tearoom. Harry held the gate for the ladies but made no move to come inside. “You’re sure you’re all right?” he asked softly once Judy had started up the back porch steps.

  Nola gathered strength from his concern. “Perfectly,” she assured him. “Now, I’m sure we both have business we need to attend. Good day to you,” she called, as much for the benefit of Mrs. McAllister who was coming down the street from the opposite direction and craning to catch whatever might be going on between Nola and Harry.

  “I’ll see you later this afternoon,” Harry called.

  Nola hesitated for just an instant before she glanced back over her shoulder and gave him a smile and a wave that she prayed would reassure him and send him on his way.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Harry was fairly certain that the motive behind the notes went beyond a simple prank. In the first place it had taken a lot of patience to go to such lengths—making up rhymes, cutting out just the right letters and such. Then there was the expensive stationery. There was something familiar about the color, the thickness of the lined envelope that Judy had waved about. In spite of his reassurance to Mrs. Lang, the one line of the note that he’d seen worried Harry.

  ...took up with him who likes to play.

  The writer of the note was speaking of Harry, warning Nola about her association with him. He was well aware of the gossip currently making the rounds, but gossip had never bothered him before. Of course, Nola was a different matter. She would hate being the topic of gossip. Prepared to retrace his steps and confront Nola so that together they could get to the bottom of this, Harry remembered where he had seen that notepaper before.

  In the days when Rose Gillenwater was trying to foster a romance between Violet and Harry, there had been constant invitations to join the family for Sunday dinner or an afternoon carriage ride or to go sailing. And the invitation always came on heavy blue notepaper.