Still, Ruth Chapman had a critical eye, and she took her time, feeling the painted boards for bumps or air pockets, scrutinizing the slats of the shutters, peering up at the eaves. Finally, she lit a cigarette.
“Splendid.”
Ben quietly let out his breath, which he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding.
“You’ve done a grand job fixing up this place.”
“Thanks. There’s still a bit more to do inside.”
“Yes. I’d like you to revarnish the kitchen cabinets next. But I think this house is ready for a party.”
A party? This was the first she’d mentioned it. Since arriving four weeks ago, Ruth Chapman had pretty much kept to herself, playing her piano, taking the boat out, reading. She didn’t seem to need company, at least any more than she got from Ben, which wasn’t much, since he was working and anyway never really had much to say. Her music lessons — if that’s what putting on a record and talking about the composer and the work amounted to — made up most of her daily conversation, though it was conversation Ben enjoyed.
“Yes, it’s definitely time for a party,” she repeated. “I’ve invited some friends up from New York, and the Bagnalls over at Beaumaris will be coming. Drinks and dinner Saturday night. Can you lend me a hand?”
“Sure. But —”
“But what?”
“I don’t know anything about …” He shrugged helplessly. There’d never been a party at the Landing. Around Christmas the neighbors — though the nearest of them was half a mile away — would come over for tea and Christmas treats that his mom always baked, but that was about as much excitement as they ever had, and as much excitement as Henry would tolerate.
“You can help me with the meal and serving drinks. And you should bring your violin over and play something for us.”
“Oh, I don’t …” Ben shook his head.
“Well, we’ll see. In the meantime, I’m going to need supplies. Can you go into town?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll make a list. I sent in an order awhile ago, when the Cherokee stopped by with the mail, so much of it you’ll just be picking up.”
Half an hour later he was back at the Landing, where Henry and his mother were silently eating lunch.
“I need to take the boat into town. Mrs. Chapman has given us an extra three dollars to do it.” He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice, or even explain to himself why he felt so excited.
Henry frowned. “What for?”
“To get groceries and things. She’s having a party on Saturday, and she wants me to help.” He couldn’t help saying it like he was proud.
“What kind of help?” Henry asked, not trying to hide his suspicion.
“I’m going to help her in the kitchen and serve drinks and food and maybe play the violin.”
“Well!” Ben’s mom leaned back in her chair. “Imagine that.”
“What do you know about helping in the kitchen?” Henry retorted. “The most you’ve ever done around here is peel potatoes, when we could make you.”
“Oh, Henry,” his mother protested. But it was true, and Ben knew it. He hadn’t told Ruth Chapman, but he really didn’t know anything about how to cook. He had no idea why she thought he would be of any use.
“It doesn’t matter. You’ll be a big help, no matter what you do.” Ben was a bit surprised. His mom seemed as excited about this as he was. It was just a party, after all, just another job. But another part of him was thinking that he would be around rich people who’d be acting like rich people and partying like rich people, just like they talked about in the magazines his mom sometimes brought home when she’d been to town. It was all so … sophisticated.
“I’m going into town with you,” Ben’s mom got up from the table. “Come on, help me with these dishes.”
“What are you going for?” Henry grabbed the remnant of his sandwich as Ben whisked his plate away from him. “And who’s going to mind the place?”
“You can. You said you were going to be around all afternoon.”
“That was before. I may have to go over to Acton Island now.”
“No, you don’t. You’re going to stay here, while I go into town with Ben.”
It was like that between Henry and Ben’s mother. He ordered and complained and made demands, and she cooked and cleaned and listened when she had to and ignored him when she could. But when she made up her mind about something, that was final, and Henry knew it, and knew he had to go along.
“I still don’t see why you have to go into town with him,” he muttered, defeated.
“I’m going to make sure he gets the right groceries, and he’s going to get a new shirt and pants.”
“We’re not going to throw away the money he’s earned on foolishness!”
“He’s going to be dressed right, and that’s all there is to it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with his old church clothes.”
“That’s all there is to it.” Henry acknowledged his defeat and registered his protest by slamming the screen door on the way out.
They didn’t speak much as the old launch chugged down the lake toward the Narrows, but his mom was clearly pondering, looking out over the water and the islands, but seeing something else.
“This Mrs. Chapman really seems to like you,” she said finally.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“No, you really seem to impress her. I’m proud of you.” Pause. “I’ll bet you’d impress a lot of people, if you were given half a chance.”
“I dunno.”
Compliments are always embarrassing. Compliments from a mother are the worst.
“Well, she’s been all around the world, and she has money, and she knows everyone, and she likes you.”
“I’m just helping out.”
“I know. But people are going to notice you.”
“So what?”
“I don’t know so what. But things can happen.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing, and they were silent the rest of the way into town.
“We’re going to get you a haircut,” she pronounced as they walked up from the bay to the main street.
“I already had one.”
“That was six weeks ago.” Which should mean he was at the halfway mark. But his mother’s mind was made up, and this was a day for letting her have her way.
“Thank the Lord,” she muttered under her breath as they stepped into the barbershop and there was Jed. Claude, slouched in his chair, gave Ben’s mom a beseeching look, then turned away in despair.
“Now, Mary, is there something special you want?” Jed asked when Ben took his place in the chair.
“Just … well, whatever you think, Jed, but he needs to look his best.”
“Then his best is how he’ll look.” And Jed went to work, shaping and snipping. When he was done, even Ben was impressed. The blond lick that usually fell over his face or stood nearly on end when he swept it away impatiently now rested in a comfortable wave across the top of his forehead. If only it would stay that way.
“Thank you so much, Jed.” His mom gave him an extra fifty cents, which was quite a tip.
“You take care now, Mary.” He offered his sad, gentle smile.
From there it was straight to McJannet’s for a new white shirt and a pair of gray wool pants. He’d be hot in the pants in the summer, but they were practical because he could use them for church or when he was playing in public.
Then came the grocery shopping. “Do you know what she’s making?” Ben’s mom frowned as she scanned the list.
“It’s called boeuf bourguignon.” He tried to remember how she’d pronounced it.
“What’s that?”
“I think it’s stew.”
Mostly they just went from store to store, pi
cking up orders that had already been prepared. Ruth Chapman must have been planning the party for awhile, because some of the ingredients had come all the way from Toronto by special order.
“Garlic.” Maude Fielding shook her head as she handed it over. “Can’t stand the stuff.”
Not only garlic, but capers and tiny pearl onions, something Ben had never seen before, and mushrooms and real tomatoes that must have been grown in greenhouses because it was weeks before the ones in their own garden would be readyand four pounds of stewing beef that Passmore’s had specially chopped and trimmed for the occasion. And roses — long-stemmed red ones — that had come up that very morning on the train. “Can you imagine such a thing?” Mrs. Montgomery asked in wonder at the station, when they picked up the order.
It took both of them to get everything down to the boat, and Ben’s arms ached from the eight full bags of groceries and supplies he had carried all that way. His mom looked as if she needed a rest, too, and they hardly talked at all on the trip back. Ben dropped his mom off at the Landing and then carried on to Pine Island, where Ruth Chapman was waiting for him.
“There you are. Now, let’s take a look at that beef.”
By the time he reached the kitchen, weighed down with bags of groceries, she was already throwing bones from the butcher into a large pot of boiling water.
“That’s a fine butcher you have in town,” she declared while he put things away. “Now listen. Do you know how to open a bottle of wine?”
Ben shook his head.
“And I’ll bet you can’t mix a Scotch and soda very well, either. Never mind. You’ll learn in no time.” And she grabbed a bottle of red wine from a case beside the icebox.
“This is a corkscrew. You use this part to cut the foil, like so … now you centre the corkscrew and turn, and turn … now you take this part and prop it against the edge, like so, and you lever it until … Voila!” And she poured herself a glass of wine.
It went on like that for more than an hour: “Remember, you always pour the wine from the guest’s right side, and you only fill it two-thirds full … use a shot glass, but don’t worry if you go over the line, just never go under it … what do you mean you’ve never seen a lime before? The British Empire was built on limes. Prevents scurvy. Well, here’s how you cut them … So, three parts tonic water to one part gin, same with Scotch and soda or rye and water …” And Ruth Chapman instructed Ben in the arts of bartending while she chopped and threw vegetables and herbs into the pot of simmering beef stock and prepared a marinade for the beef and smoked and drank and listened to Schubert. Schubert seemed to Ben like Mozart, only with backbone.
He returned the next morning right at eight to find that she already had a list of things that needed doing, including washing all the sheets on the beds in a tub with P and G soap and a washboard — the hardest job known to man or, usually, woman — and hanging them to dry on a clothesline, after he’d rigged the clothesline. Then she brought him into the kitchen and put him to work helping her wash the china and crystal and polish the silver that made no sense at a cottage.
“I’ll go anywhere on earth but not without my crystal,” she replied to the question he hadn’t asked, as she carefully ironed a damp linen tablecloth.
In the middle of the afternoon she sent him back to the Landing to get cleaned up. His mother had hot water waiting for a bath.
“I’m just going to jump in the lake.”
“No, you’re not. You’re taking a proper bath.”
“You’re going to make him take a bath?” Henry was astonished. “It’s eighty-five degrees outside.”
“Henry!”
“I never heard of such a thing,” Henry snorted in disgust, and for once Ben agreed with him. But it was better to bathe than argue, and though he only shaved once a month, and then mostly for encouragement, he shaved anyway and put on the new clothes that his mother had laid out for him, carefully pressed. She combed his hair, while he squirmed in protest, until she had it in a fair imitation of Jed’s masterpiece, and then — finally! — stepped back and inspected him.
“Don’t you look handsome,” she smiled.
“Mom …” he protested, and headed for the door.
“Don’t forget your violin.”
“I guess.”
He had been debating whether to take it. After all their talk about music, he was nervous at the thought of playing in front of Ruth Chapman, not to mention her guests, and he’d pretty much decided to forget to bring the thing. But his mother insisted.
“Take it with you. And play something nice.”
“I dunno. Maybe.”
She stood in front of him and put her hands on his shoulders.
“Now you listen to me. I want you on your best behavior tonight.”
“Okay.” Frankly, the whole thing was starting to terrify him.
“Ben.” She looked at him. “Tonight is important. Maybe … who knows? Just do what Mrs. Chapman asks, and don’t speak out of turn, and play your violin if they ask, and … and make a good impression, that’s all.”
“Sure.”
She sighed as he bolted out the door.
— — —
“Well.” Ruth Chapman looked Ben over as he stood before her awkwardly in the kitchen. “You dress up right fine. Please pass on my compliments to your mother.”
“Sure.”
She smiled. “And I’m glad to see you brought your violin. So, let’s lay out the table.”
And he learned how to fold napkins, and where the dessert fork went, and why some wineglasses had long stems and some had short.
“They’re here.”
The Cherokee, with two deep blasts on her whistle, approached the island. Ben and Ruth went down to meet it, and Ben held the rope while the boat gingerly edged up to the end of the dock, where two hands lowered a small gangplank.
A thin man of about Ben’s height, in his forties, with thick glasses and a sharp, creased face. Beside him a woman, thin and bony, but pretty, too, with soft brown hair and a warm smile. Behind them, two men, both in their twenties, both with blond hair, both in pale linen shirts and cotton pants, both squinting against the sun.
“Perry!” Ruth Chapman threw open her arms and embraced the thin man, who scowled.
“Lovely to see you, too, Ruth, but, my God, they had no booze on that boat.”
“Or on the train,” the man’s companion smiled. “He’s been impossible since lunch.”
“Helen.” Ruth and the woman gave each other quick, affectionate hugs. “It’s so good to see you again. And Chester! How lovely.”
“Hello, Aunt Ruth. Thanks for asking us. This is my friend Tad.”
“Lovely to meet you, Tad.”
Ben was trying to grab hold of as many of the dozen suitcases as he could. Each one weighed a ton.
“Would you boys give Ben a hand? Ben, this is my nephew Chester, and his friend Tad. And this is Perry Larchworth and Helen Turnbull. Perry is the best reporter at the New York Times.”
“Oh, Ruth …”
But Ben was confused. Larchworth was lightly touching the woman’s arm, but she wasn’t his wife, yet they’d traveled together …
Oh. Sophisticated.
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“Here, we can carry those.”
“Where’s my drink?”
Ruth Chapman led them — Ben and Chester and his friend straining under the weight of the suitcases — up the stone steps to the cottage and gave her guests the full tour, while Ben took the drink orders, with Larchworth first.
“Martini. Make it a double. Hold the vermouth. Hold the olive.”
“So, just a glass of gin?”
“You got it, son.”
He mixed the drinks and brought them to the guests as they took chairs on the veranda. He was n
ervous, even though she’d made him practice (she drank the experiments) and had left written instructions on the counter. Ben had never been around alcohol — when Henry used to drink, he did it in his room because he was ashamed — and didn’t know its rituals and assumptions. But no one winced as they sipped their gins and Scotches and talked and chatted and laughed — mostly at what Larchworth was saying.
“So I’m standing there in the doorway, and this girl is falling off the mayor’s lap, and he’s beet red, and he shouts at me, ‘You don’t understand — she’s underprivileged!’ Hey, I could use another drink.”
Did everyone in New York drink this much? Ben wondered. But it wasn’t his job to wonder, or even listen. Ben got Larchworth another drink and then went back to the kitchen, where he cleaned and peeled potatoes and carrots for seven, and prepared the lettuce for the salad, and sliced the cheeses and pâtés that had come all the way from Toronto via Fielding’s grocery, and placed them on trays, and went out to refill glasses, while Ruth Chapman came inside and rearranged all the trays, reminding him of the need for biscuits with pâté and cheese. She grinned when he blushed, and then took the trays outside. He only slipped up once, mixing a drink wrong, so that Larchworth’s friend Helen winced when she tasted it. “Let me take that.” Ruth Chapman whisked away the glass and led Ben back to the kitchen. She gave the drink a sniff. “Gin and tonic is God’s gift to summer. Gin and soda is an abomination.” But she didn’t sound angry as she watched him prepare a fresh drink. “You’re doing fine,” she smiled before returning to her guests, taking the new drink with her.
Ben heard a boat pulling up to the dock and ran down to help the Bagnalls. Bruce Bagnall was a big man with huge shoulders who might have played football a couple of decades ago, though most of the pounds now weren’t muscle. Violet Bagnall was way too thin and way too blond, and her dress was way too red and clingy for a cottage.
“Everybody, this is Bruce and Violet Bagnall.” Ruth made the introductions. Larchworth looked at the husband skeptically.
“Ruth says you’re the richest man on this lake.”
“Well, I don’t know about that …”
“She says I’m the best reporter at the New York Times, and I am, so you must be the richest man on the lake.”
The Landing Page 6