Sea Glass Summer

by Dorothy Cannell

  ‘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.’

  ‘And that’s when he met Clare?’

  ‘At the July Lobster Fest here in Sea Glass. Must have been interested in learning about the family history. Seems to me, if I remember the timing right, Emily would’ve been past seeing him by then, but I do recall her saying at one of those gatherings of hers that she’d exchanged letters with one of the cousin’s boys. Love at first sight is how her father, Frank, described Clare and Max to Reggie. Seems Max had already been accepted at one of the big law schools – could have been Harvard. But his parents told him he could bark financial help from them till he bust after he refused to back down from marrying Clare. So what does he do but go to work for the Ferry Landing Bank. According to Reggie, they thought highly of him there and he might likely have moved up fast.’ Nellie sighed like a gusty wind. ‘Good to think those two young people knew true happiness in their short time together; the crowning joy had to have been the birth of their son. Named him Oliver after Clare’s mother.’

  ‘Olivia?’

  ‘Olive. Give praise to the Almighty she and her husband Frank had their grandson to live for after the plane crash took their daughter and son-in-law. Heard about that?’

  ‘Yes, but not about the little boy.’ Nellie’s telling made him touchingly, almost painfully, real.

  ‘Reggie’s son and Oliver are best pals. See why I take the story so much to heart? Poor little guy wasn’t much more than a toddler when it happened. One of those stupid little planes. Clare and Max were flying back from Mexico, having left the child with Olive and Frank, when it happened. Bitter as it sounds, seeing as the senior Cullys got killed as well, I lay the tragedy square at their door. They’d arranged the trip, supposed to be an attempt at reconciliation, but more likely a try at breaking them up is what I think.’ Rain no longer pattered against the windows. Momentarily silence lay upon the room.

  ‘Any others on that flight?’

  ‘Only the pilot. Shame about him, of course. It’ll be seven years now. And Olive Andrews’ dead as well; been a while for her too. I’d have to ask Reggie just how long it’s been since she passed. What I do have clear is that Gerard Cully and that wife of his haven’t bothered one lick about Oliver. Not so much as a short visit when she came in about the Willie Watkins business. That’s my grudge against the two of them. Frank’s carried on marvelous with the boy, who takes after him in looks something remarkable – sandy hair and freckles, sturdy build. What’s going to happen to him now is the question.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Sounds like Frank will very soon have to go into a nursing home. Probably Pleasant Meadows, seeing as it’s closest. He’s been battling Parkinson’s and is sadly now getting beyond the care of the nurse, who’s been living-in for the past couple of years. Looks to be a
mighty good woman, does Twyla. Met her a few times when she’s come to fetch Oliver home from playing with Brian.’

  ‘Maybe Frank Andrews will give her guardianship.’ Sarah got to her feet, as Nellie was doing.

  ‘That’s what I’ve been hoping. She and Oliver have got mighty close since she came. Of course there’s always nasty-minded people that wouldn’t see it working because of her . . .’ Nellie cut herself off upon looking at her watch. ‘Have to be going; Reggie’ll be on his way. What a grand afternoon this has been, Sarah! Must do it again at my place, two doors down across the road. Got that?’ She was already scooting for the foyer, where she grabbed up her stick and would have been out the door without her raincoat if Sarah hadn’t grabbed it off the banister knob and helped her into it.

  She was halfway down the path with Sarah close behind her when she turned back. ‘Blame my age for talking your ear off.’

  ‘I enjoyed every minute. And you were anything but nosy.’

  ‘Think not? I found out everything I wanted to know.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘That you’re a very nice young woman.’ Nellie was off again before Sarah got the words ‘thank you’ out of her mouth. So far the stick hadn’t touched the ground.

  Even though the rain had ceased, the sky remained heavy, creating a swarthy cast of shadow suggestive of a later evening hour, and making it unthinkable to turn back before seeing the old lady safely across the road. Nellie was on the sidewalk, about to step into the road, when a pickup truck came around the corner from Salt Marsh Road. And Sarah had just got hold of her arm and drawn her back when it slid to a halt in front of them. A man got out, a thin, balding man in his late thirties to early forties, his mouth lifting in a crinkling smile.

  ‘What you up to, Aunt Nellie?’

  ‘Reggie.’ His great aunt needlessly identified him to Sarah. Having made the introductions, she rather grandly allowed herself to be helped aboard. The vehicle moved cautiously off to turn into the driveway of a house two down on the opposite side of the road, reverse, and go back the way it had come.

  Sarah was returning to the house when she heard a faint meowing. She stood listening, waiting for a repeat; there had been something desperate in the sound. She wasn’t sure where it came from, only that it was close. There it came again from her right and close to the picket fence. It took her a couple of moments of searching under the shrubbery before she spotted the bedraggled tabby. Was it the one she’d heard just before Nellie arrived?

  ‘It’s OK, sweetie,’ she murmured, afraid it would flee before she could pick it up, but it allowed her to do so. Fear apparently giving way to need. She continued to whisper soothingly. ‘It’s going to be all right. No need to be scared.’ The ears that had been drawn back relaxed.

  She would take it inside and try to get it to lap a small amount of lukewarm chicken noodle soup. She had read somewhere that you shouldn’t allow a starving animal to eat too much too soon. And if this poor little creature were a stray it would fit that category. So far it hadn’t so much as flinched, causing her to hope she could start moving without startling it into wriggling an escape. Softly, smoothly . . . she hadn’t thought about having a cat as well as a dog. Now that possibility was in her arms. But not for many seconds longer.

  The roar of an approaching vehicle sent the cat clawing up onto her shoulder, and then it was gone. Sarah did not see where it went. She did not look. She had eyes only for the car driven at breakneck speed down the steep incline of Ridge Farm Rise. It wasn’t going to cross Wild Rose Way. Her house was on the corner, and the car was swerving toward it. She stood frozen, paralyzed into resignation. The realtor had said some people didn’t like a corner house. Another thought unreeled in slow motion. How ironic that this day, with all its promise of a new beginning, might be her last.

  Two

  But for the soft spattering of rain on the long, narrow windows, the early nineteenth-century house on Ridge Farm Rise was steeped in silence. It might have been not only empty but unoccupied by human presence for a very long time. A house at rest. A house so deeply asleep even dreams of days gone by did not intrude. Mid-afternoon masquerading as night.

  Seventy-eight-year-old Gwen stood at the foot of the stairs. To the right was a long-case round-faced black Pennsylvania Dutch clock with faded detailing of once brightly colored birds and flowers. She was a slim, silver-haired woman of five foot seven, wearing a violet jersey knit dress that heightened the blue of her eyes. Elegant even in flat black shoes, she had the bone structure and clarity of skin that allowed it to be said she was still a very pretty woman and must once have been lovely. Gwen would have responded that it was her sister Rowena, two years her senior, who had been the beauty.

  Hearing nothing, she returned to a room lined with floor-to-ceiling walnut bookshelves. She did not regret that the first two weeks of May had rarely, and then only briefly, seen a clear sky. Sunlight these days seemed to strike too harshly, shedding its cruel spotlight on inescapable reality. Rain was kinder. It blurred not only the windows but the endless present. It had been a particularly difficult day up until half an hour ago, when she’d followed him upstairs to his room and settled him into bed.

  During the rare moments of fragile respite from her worst anxiety, Gwen strove to open her heart to the gift of the ordinary. A cup of Earl Grey tea with her two-year-old brindled bull mastiff Jumbo stretched out by the fireplace. The opportunity to pick up the beloved, much-read copy of Barchester Towers conveniently to hand on the small pie-crust table. From the beginning she had recognized the necessity of doing everything possible to shore up her physical and mental resources.

  So much depended on his moods. They veered from apathy to anger. There were times when he seemed fully cognizant of what was going on around him, sharply so, bringing out the paranoia at its worst. Gwen endeavored to meet well-meaning advice from people with all the answers with an appreciative response. She should be patient; one had to be. It was true that Pleasant Meadows, just eight miles away in Ferry Landing, had an excellent reputation, and for many in her position it would be the right choice. Sometime in the future it would come to that – a nursing home. But not now, not when he still drew comfort and some happiness from being in known surroundings and her presence.

  The cause of his agitation today had sprung from overhearing her telling Madge Baldwin on the phone that morning that she needed to renew her driver’s license, but wasn’t sure if the place would be open on a Saturday. There had been a distressing scene a few months back when she’d found Charles in the driver’s seat trying to get the car out of the garage. On that occasion it had taken an exhausting ten minutes to get the car keys away from him. Since then she had kept them hidden. Mercifully, he had said nothing more about driving until coming upon her, on the phone with Madge Baldwin.

  This neighbor had called Gwen, hoping she could borrow her car for the day while her own was being worked on. Hearing him behind her, Gwen had quickly acquiesced, saying her own plans were always flexible. She’d hung up, sensing the impending tirade. Why should she get her license renewed? Why not him? She was keeping him a prisoner. It was a plot. She was wicked. The rage she could handle. He had never threatened her physically. It was when he had started to cry that the anguish came close to being unbearable.

  Gwen continued to hover within a couple of feet of the doorway. No sound but the dulcet patter of the rain. No blundering footsteps overhead, no slamming of doors, no agonizingly agitated voice to send her hurrying up the stairs.

  Jumbo, having woken from a nap, crossed the room to nudge companionably up against her. Gwen bent to stroke his broad head. What a comfort he was to her. No well-intentioned advice from this quarter; his offering was twenty-four hours of unstinting devotion. More than any other living being he kept her going these days. But had her love for him become a selfish indulgence? How unfair to him was the situation? What had once been twice daily walks of forty-five minutes to an hour had dwindled to one at best
. Even those were slow-paced and of short duration. It was impossible for her to take Jumbo out on her own anymore, which was what the dog would have preferred. He had begun avoiding the man who had once been his friend. The fenced back garden, while fairly large, could not provide anything approaching sufficient exercise for a young and powerful dog.

  Gwen also missed the outings for her own sake. Never good at sports as a girl or young woman, she had relished lengthy walks in all but the most frigid weather. Another nudge from Jumbo brought her back to her senses. Sleep had hopefully granted temporary oblivion to the other inhabitant of the house. The duration was uncertain but whether counted in minutes or hours it must not be wasted in straining to hear sounds of renewed activity. The dimly-lighted book room offered the sort of ambience that would have welcomed Paul Revere to relax after his long ride. The dusky green velvet sofa that matched the drapes invited her to sit, but Gwen read the look in Jumbo’s eyes. Not the moment for either of them to dawdle, was his kindly if not unbiased opinion.

  For the past couple of hours he had been inhaling the enticing aroma of split pea soup creeping up from the stockpot on the stove. Patient he might be, but the awareness of a ham bone in his immediate future was becoming salivatingly acute. There was no prancing as he followed Gwen down the hall into the comfortably-sized kitchen with its glazed brick floor, dark blue cabinets and cream appliances. Prancing was as alien to Jumbo’s nature as it would have been to a country gentleman grounded in Greek and Latin and supremely content with his wainscoted library with its well-worn leather chair, elderly slippers and after-dinner glass of port. Excepting, of course, for extensive walks across hill and dale or along a rugged shoreline . . . Never unrestrained ebullience from Jumbo. But at that moment, a decided lift to the tail.

  ‘First things first, my dear.’ Gwen opened the door from the mud room into the garden for him then went to stir the richly thick soup before removing the bone to the farmhouse sink for rinsing under cold water. This done she placed it on a paper towel, all the time alert to a break in the silence. None came. She had to get past this edginess. That it had been a particularly bad day suggested the respite might be as much as a couple of hours. A block of time in which to either rest or get something accomplished. Again she checked the soup, replaced the lid, and readmitted Jumbo to the kitchen.