Shadows of a Down East Summer

by Lea Wait

  “I’ll figure out something. She’s family, Maggie. You take care of family.”

  Maggie just sat, silent. Families didn’t always take care of each other. She wondered for a moment where Joe was. Joe, her brother who’d left home when she was six. She’d only seen him once or twice since then. Was he married? Did he have children? He was all the family she had, and she didn’t know anything about him. She knew more about Will and Aunt Nettie than she knew about Joe.

  Her parents had died in an accident eleven years ago. She’d thought about the responsibilities of having a child, but she hadn’t considered the responsibilities Will felt now for someone at the other end of life.

  “Carolyn said her Aunt Susan had a home health aide; someone to help her during the past year,” she said.

  “I should find out about that sort of thing,” Will thought out loud. “Even if I move here, I’d have to settle my place in Buffalo. Put it on the market, and put my stuff in storage, or move it here. There are things to take care of.” He kept pacing. “There’s so much to think about.”

  Maggie glanced at her watch. “I have to go; I promised Betsy I’d be at her house for tea at four o’clock. I left your new clothes at the motel.”

  “Right. Of course. You’d better get going. Call me when you’re through at Betsy’s?” He held her for a long minute. “I’m so glad you’re here, Maggie. What would I do without you?”

  Outside, Maggie sat in her van. She didn’t have to leave for the Thompsons quite this quickly. She’d just wanted to get away.

  She’d felt entangled. She needed to feel calm; in control. To get her mind off what was happening. She reached for her red bag. She’d read a little more of Anna May Pratt’s journal.

  Chapter 25

  Mirage. Lithograph of men on camels, crossing a desert, seeing a lake filled with sailing vessels upside down in the clouds ahead of them. Animal bones litter the sandy foreground. By G. Hathaway from The Aerial World, a book on meteorology (1874). Background color: shades of tan, white border; sky pale blue-green. 5.5 x 8.5 inches. Price: $50.

  June 18, 1890

  Although I do miss seeing Mr. Micah Wright, it is convenient that Mr. Homer planned to spend this week completing “studies begun in Florida last winter,” for he had no need of Jessie or me, and there has been plenty to occupy me here in Waymouth.

  Yesterday’s ship launching drew most of the town’s residents. My sister Sarah and I went with Mother and watched with others in the crowd as the Lisa was pulled over logs down to the shore by the men at Colby’s Boatyard and then slid into the Madoc River at high tide with great hurrahs from the crowd. Jessie stood with her parents, but near to Orin Colby, clearly in a place of honor on the grandstand.

  “Mr. Colby has made his regard for your friend Jessie very public,” my mother said, nudging me. I nodded, knowing well that while Mother might not approve the public display, she did approve the admiration, and indeed, would wish such for me.

  After the ceremony Jessie managed to slip away from Orin and pass me an envelope, which I quickly hid within the pocket of my skirt before anyone, even Sarah, who was standing nearby, could see.

  “It was an exciting launch, wasn’t it?” Jessie asked. She then whispered, “Mr. Colby has said that ‘Jessie’ would be an elegant name for the next ship out of his yard.”

  I looked at her closely. Was she perhaps beginning to find Orin Colby and the life he could offer her attractive?

  “I told him I believed a vessel should be named by its owner, not its builder,” she continued. “How better could I have told him my affections cannot be bought with a ship?”

  “No better,” I assured her, although I wondered if perhaps Orin Colby suspected she was merely flirting. Mother has advised me many times that some men who feel they have much to offer cannot conceive of any young woman’s rejecting their advances, and indeed, might take gentle rebuffs as teasing. Orin Colby must feel well satisfied as to the future, having won the respect and acceptance of Jessie’s parents. Jessie may have pledged her heart to Luke, but her parents have clearly pledged her hand to Orin. I can only hope, for my sake, that is true.

  “When will you take care of...my package?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow, for certain,” I assured her. “I will deliver it tomorrow.”

  June 19, 1890

  Last night I kept my lamp burning late, long after Sarah and my parents had gone to sleep, as I wrote my letter to Luke Trask.

  I wrote it several times, for I knew to be careful in the wording. I am not so naïve as to believe he might not show the letter to someone else, perhaps in disbelief, if he is confirmed in his love for Jessie. I finally decided to write merely as Jessie’s and his dear friend, in concern at his long absence. Although I did point out that he needn’t worry Jessie was languishing on his behalf. Indeed, her need for companionship was being attended to quite well by Mr. Orin Colby, whose attentions were particularly obvious to all of the citizens of Waymouth during the launch of the fishing sloop Lisa just this week, and to whose captain I entrusted this missive.

  I also mentioned, quite poignantly, I believe, how much I, too, missed Jessie’s company, and wished Luke would return soon so that we all could talk and be friends again as we had since we were children.

  I debated some time as to how to sign it, but decided “Your sincere friend, Anna May Pratt” would do for now. The purpose of this note is to alert Luke to his competition for Jessie’s affections, and to my friendship for him.

  Any more direct interest could wait for another time. This morning I delivered both letters to the captain of the Lisa, who added them to an already-bulging canvas bag of letters and packages he had readied in his cabin for Nova Scotians and Grand Banks fishermen. He told me he is well-pleased with his new sloop, his crew and supplies are ready, and he plans to make sail at the end of the week.

  Chapter 26

  A Distinguished Fisherman Enjoying His Well-Earned Vacation. August 1884 wood engraving from Harper’s Weekly, unsigned. Distinguished gentleman dressed in formal fishing attire (wearing tie) in chair, with rod and reel, in rowboat, accompanied by rustic, bearded, and “dressed down” guide, holding a net in anticipation of a fish being caught. A humorous view of late nineteenth-century “rusticators,” city people who vacationed in rural areas and hired guides to take them hunting or fishing. 11 x 16 inches. Price: $70.

  Maggie kept thinking of Anna May Pratt’s words as she drove toward the Thompsons’ estate.

  Many of her students at Somerset County Community College were the same age as Anna May and Jessie. Was Anna May a bitchy young woman trying to steal her best friend’s boyfriend, or was she desperately playing for the high stakes of respectability in a small town that placed value on women only when they were married?

  Or was she truly in love with Luke?

  The descriptions of Winslow Homer’s studio home and of those who surrounded him there in 1890 were priceless. Art historian Philip Beam had written an excellent biography of Homer that focused on his years in Maine, but he’d had to rely on secondary sources and interviews with those who remembered Homer and his family. The artist had granted few interviews during his lifetime, and even after his death his family had rarely spoken with media representatives or biographers. Primary sources related to Winslow Homer’s personal life were rare.

  She was carrying one in her canvas bag.

  It was tempting to think that, as the one to inherit the journal, and whatever other papers were in Susan Newall’s trunk, she’d be in a position to publish the journal either as it was, or footnoted and with a detailed introduction placing the information in it within the context of Winslow Homer’s work and life. A university press would certainly be interested. Possibly even a trade publisher.

  Maggie realized she was almost at her destination. She glanced at the directions she’d written to the Thompsons’ home, and slowed up, just in time. Within twenty feet a small, faded wooden sign nailed precariously to a tree marke
d a narrow drive. MIRAGE, Homer Thompson’s art colony.

  Betsy Thompson’s father-in-law must not have been looking to advertise his retreat for artists. At least not the way Betsy was trying to publicize his work, and that of his son, today.

  Betsy had implied an elegant home, but the dirt drive didn’t encourage that expectation. Winter frosts, spring thaws, and flooding had taken their toll, and Maggie’s van jounced more than she liked, despite being heavily loaded with prints, stands, portable walls and tables, and all the other supplies necessary to set up at an antiques show.

  As she continued down the narrow road, worrying about her shock absorbers, the top of the van scraped some low-hanging branches that looked as though they’d been bent by the heavy ice of winter storms.

  The Thompsons need a gardener, Maggie cussed silently. Or at least a saw.

  Negotiating this driveway in winter ice or deep snow would be close to impossible. She swerved, missing a deep-looking pool of water left from yesterday’s rain. They lived here all year round. They must have heavy vehicles with four-wheel drive. And a generator and snow plow.

  Maybe Will wouldn’t mind living in Maine year-round. He was used to Buffalo winters.

  New Jersey didn’t look like a postcard, but at least roads and driveways were paved.

  Finally the dark aisle of scrub pines and firs and bushes opened into a wider drive that circled somewhat unevenly around what might once have been a lawn.

  Or not, Maggie thought. After all, this was Maine. Perhaps it had always been a field of waist-high grasses, goldenrod, and Queen Anne’s lace. Like the field she and her friend Amy had pushed their way through a year ago, looking for Rachel’s missing daughter.

  Maggie repressed thoughts of that week. This was another field; another year. Another situation.

  Betsy had said to pass the camps, and go on to the cottage. Maggie knew enough about Maine to understand that a “cottage” was a large home, usually built for summer use. Although Aunt Nettie had said the Thompsons lived here year-round, she’d also said that originally the house was a summer place. So, in Maine parlance, it was probably still a cottage, although over the years the Thompsons must have winterized it.

  “Camps” were small, casual vacation homes; what those born in places other than Maine would probably call cottages. The camps here were probably the residences or studios used by the visiting artists.

  As she continued around the several-acre field Maggie passed half a dozen log cabin-style buildings nestled among the pines. One or two had worn paths to their doors. Several looked vacant. Ahead of her, as she reached the far side of the field, was a large weather-grayed barn-shaped building, with glass panels in the roof and wide windows around the sides. Winslow Thompson’s studio, Maggie decided, slowing down to look.

  After a densely wooded area on her right the drive widened again, making space for the cars, trucks, and Jeeps parked in front of a sprawling rustic house, its brown roof spreading out to meet the branches of the maple trees surrounding it.

  Maggie parked her van between a black Jeep and a faded green Ford pickup.

  Like an aging dowager, the house was clearly past its prime. Many stained wooden shingles were missing. The shutters, originally painted, were now faded, and slats were missing. Several of the small balconies outside rooms on the second floor were listing precariously.

  At least two dozen Adirondack chairs sat unattended on the wide porch that circled the first floor, like guests who had stayed too long. Maggie half expected someone in elegant attire, as in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, to open one of the French doors and walk out onto the porch, sit down, and call for a gin and tonic.

  Maggie looked up toward the attic, wondering if it held any interesting old furniture. Or prints. Or ghosts. More than anything, she wished Betsy Thompson would offer to give her a tour of the building.

  What a shame the house had not been kept up. It had once been a beauty. Maybe it could still be an inn, or a bed-and-breakfast. In today’s world, large houses had to support themselves. How many rooms were there? Perhaps fifteen bedrooms? From the outside it was hard to tell. The heating bill must be incredible.

  She walked up the steps, across the wide porch, and turned the old-fashioned round-handled doorbell. Its strident ring reverberated through the house. For a moment Maggie wondered whether the rooms were empty.

  Then the door opened, and Betsy Thompson stood in front of her.

  Maggie’s L.L.Bean twill skirt and beige blouse, while appropriate for ninety-eight percent of Maine afternoon engagements, were clearly not what was expected of a guest for tea at Mirage.

  Betsy’s hair was piled high. She wore a long black skirt with a white lace sleeveless top, and a half dozen chunky gold necklaces. The effect was made even more dramatic by the embroidered Japanese black-and-gold shawl over her shoulders and her high-heeled gold sandals.

  “Maggie, I’m so glad to see you,” Betsy said, peeking beyond her. “Your friend Will wasn’t able to come?”

  “No; he’s sorry, but he had another commitment,” Maggie semi-fibbed. If Betsy was the only person in Waymouth who didn’t know what had happened to Aunt Nettie, then she wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. Perhaps living this far from town kept her from hearing the latest gossip.

  “We’ll miss him, but you were the one I wanted to talk with, in any case,” said Betsy dismissively, guiding Maggie through the wide center hallway of the house, past the staircase that led to the second floor and the open second-floor balcony and into the sitting room to the right of the front door.

  The room reminded Maggie of castles in England that had been owned by generations of one family. In the earliest days they’d hung tapestries on the walls, for decoration and to keep drafts and chill winter winds out of unheated rooms. In later years their descendants replaced the tapestries with oil paintings. The paintings were often marks of the family’s heritage (portraits), importance to the kingdom (historical scenes), friends (portraits of and with famous people), wealth (homes, lands, hunting preserves), and then, after the Grand Tour of Europe became the style, scenes of Europe by fashionable and classical artists bought “on the Continent,” to show their erudition and artistic sense.

  To hang all of those varying facets of an entire family, for generations, took a great deal of wall space.

  In this room the number of paintings hung from floor to ceiling monopolized and numbed the mind. There were windows in the room to be sure, a number of dowdily comfortable chairs, and at least two couches. But Maggie couldn’t focus on what Betsy was saying, or on anything else in the room.

  “The paintings and drawings,” she managed to say, as she walked around the room. “Who did them?”

  “Our guests,” said Betsy, clearly proud of the impression the room had made on Maggie. “When Mirage was a famous art colony the custom was for every artist who stayed here, whether for a night or a summer, to leave one piece of artwork as a thank-you. They were all hung here.”

  Maggie looked closer. Many of the pieces of art were signed “To Mirage” or “To Homer” or “To the Thompsons.” Most of them were dated in the 1930s.

  Maine scenes of lighthouses and rocks and surf were popular themes, as were autumn colors and several scenes she could identify as Waymouth landmarks. Two she was sure were Pemaquid, and several were most likely Monhegan Harbor. Every artist who’d ever crossed the border from New Hampshire into Maine seemed to have made a pilgrimage to Monhegan. There were also abstracts that Maggie could not identify as having any particular subject or emotion. A few were most likely portraits.

  “It’s like a museum, isn’t it,” Betsy said softly, as she followed Maggie’s journey around the room. “There’s nothing else like it anywhere in Maine.”

  “I believe you’re right,” agreed Maggie. All she could think of, as her eyes raced from one horrendous, amateurish, insipid, hackneyed, incompetent, crude work to another, was how amazing it was that this many people had been here who ha
d thought they could paint, and that not one had been successful. The very best she could think of to say of any of these paintings was that they were pretentious. That they had actually been framed and memorialized was, in its own way, absolutely amazing.

  “At one time I actually considering selling them,” Betsy was confiding. “Win isn’t awfully good about money, and we were having some rough times, and I thought, maybe...so I called two different auctioneers to look at them.”

  “What did they say?” Maggie asked, tearing herself away from looking at the walls and curious to hear how a professional would have delivered the bad news.

  “They both said the same thing. That the value of these works lies in keeping them right here, with this house. They’re a part of this house’s history. Away from this house, they wouldn’t be worth nearly as much as they are right where they are now.”

  Maggie silently tipped her hat to the sensitivity of the auctioneers, whoever they were. “That makes sense,” she agreed. “There’s no doubt they captured my attention immediately.”

  “I’m so glad!” said Betsy. “Now, why don’t we have the tea I promised, and then I’ll show you some of Win’s paintings, and his father’s, too.” She picked up a small mahogany-handled silver bell on the low table near one of the couches and rang it. “After seeing all these pictures, though, I hope you won’t be disappointed. The Thompson family paintings aren’t anything like these.”

  Maggie sat where Betsy indicated, on a chair next to what she now assumed would be the tea table, and waited to see what would happen next. Betsy arranged herself in the center of the couch, carefully ensuring that her shawl fell artfully.

  A few moments later Kevin Bradman appeared through a door in the far end of the room. Contrary to expectations Maggie had of graduate students at any school, he was wearing a navy blue suit, and carrying a late-nineteenth-century mahogany tray with brass handles.

  Seeing the tray, Maggie expected it to hold porcelain teacups and scones. Instead, it held a teapot and the sort of tiny Japanese pottery cups used for tea in American Chinese restaurants, a small pitcher, and a silver bowl full of potato sticks.