Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse

by Faith Sullivan

  Elvira watched him wander from the room, turning toward the back parlor, where men disappeared to smoke. The strains of “Annie Laurie” and the rumbling-tumbling words floating past were the same sounds she’d been hearing in her head for weeks. She felt a little faint.

  Later, Elvira sat visiting with Cora. It was nearly one in the morning, and several guests had already said good night.

  “I should leave, too. Nell will be waiting up to hear the gossip,” Elvira told her friend.

  “George will drive you,” Cora said.

  “No need.”

  “At this hour? Don’t be silly. What kind of friend would I be?”

  “You and Nell are the best friends anyone ever had,” Elvira said, grasping Cora’s hand. “And you will dance by next Christmas. I say so.”

  Cora looked away. “We’ll see.”

  A few minutes later, George arranged a fur robe over Elvira’s lap and around her legs, then climbed into the buggy and snapped the whip over the black mare.

  The girl leaned back against the seat. “Thank you for the party. It was . . . splendid.”

  “You were the belle of the ball. To quote father, ‘The girl’s a treasure.’ How many times did he dance you around?”

  Elvira laughed. “Three or four.”

  “Mother says you’ve got him wrapped around your little finger.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “She did.”

  “I’m straw masquerading as hay.”

  George laughed, a sound rare and affecting.

  Halting the buggy in front of Rabel’s, George saw Elvira up the outside stairs. In the parlor the lamp was burning and Nell sat dozing in the rocker, but started up when the two opened the door. “I fell asleep!” She set aside The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as George said good-bye.

  When the two women were alone, Nell headed for the kitchen and lit the lamp over the table. “I’ll toss another bit of wood in the fire so we can each warm our brick for bed. Put on your nightgown and bring me your brick.”

  Elvira did and, returning, said, “It’s 1:30. We’ll have to go to barmaid’s Mass.”

  Nell adjusted the flue and left open the door on the stove. Elvira huddled beside her in front of the little blaze.

  “So, the party—how was it?” Nell asked. When Elvira didn’t answer, Nell saw that the girl was wiping her eyes. “You didn’t have a good time.”

  Elvira averted her face. “I had a wonderful time,” she countered.

  “Then what on earth is wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Shaking her head in seeming perplexity, Elvira said, “I do not know.”

  Nell wasn’t sure she believed that. They were both silent, then Nell asked, “Should I make hot chocolate?”

  “Not for me, thank you.”

  Minutes later, Elvira said good night.

  Though Nell was tired, she wasn’t yet sleepy. She made a cup of hot chocolate, carrying it with the Mark Twain to the bedroom. Even before the party, Elvira had been overwrought, restless, and preoccupied. Now, there were tears. Was she frightened? Angry? Sad? Well, yes, she’d said she was sad. But about what?

  chapter thirteen

  IN EARLY JUNE OF 1904, George and Cora sailed to England, taking one-year-old Laurence with them—as well as Lizzie Jessup. Once again Elvira stewed. “That lump! And in England! She’s got the grace of a plowhorse, and she picks her nose. I’ve seen her do it. What if that poor little boy becomes a bumpkin like her when he grows up?”

  But when George and Cora had settled into a small house in Surrey, postcards began arriving for Elvira. And finally, a fat letter. Here, then, was recompense for having to stay at home.

  Dear Elvira,

  I wish you could see our cottage and this village that looks torn from a children’s picture book. Such flowers! Such vistas of lush rolling green in every direction. What would I give to run across those fields!

  Blessed George takes me for a drive every afternoon, and we’ve been invited twice for croquet and whist at “friends of friends.” Since croquet isn’t possible, I’m polishing my whist and becoming a cardsharp. The ladies are shocked, I believe.

  Next week we’re taking the train to London so I can visit doctors and dressmakers. I have more faith in the dressmakers than the doctors. While we’re in the city, I will shop for a little London remembrance for you. You would lose your senses there, with so much to do and see. Theater and music and museums. Far more than Boston even. And so much history. Sadness, too—I mean, sadness in the history.

  My great failing these days, Elvira, is that I get blue. I don’t think it’s my nature. I used to be a flibbertigibbet, always looking for fun. This awful seriousness has come on since the wheelchair. I try not to let George see; being blue is so unattractive. And George is the kindest, most loving husband—he deserves everything good and golden.

  Forgive me, Elvira, for unpacking my blue laundry this way. I had not intended to. When I’ve posted this, I’ll be sorry and embarrassed, I’m sure, but I need your kind ear, and I trust you. Lizzie Jessup is a good girl and loves the baby, but I wish you were here, with your jolly enthusiasm.

  Despite what I’ve written, I implore you not to worry. I have plenty of sunshine, notwithstanding the English climate. And if I learn to be a good person—a loving, generous, blithesome person—I can be a good wife and mother and friend. Isn’t that so?

  Until later, Elvira.

  With affection,

  Cora Lundeen

  P.S. George asks to be remembered.

  Because Nell could keep secrets, Elvira felt no disloyalty in sharing the letter with her.

  “Poor little girl,” Nell said when she’d read it.

  “That business about having more faith in the dressmakers than the doctors—that worries me. How can I buck her up?” Elvira asked.

  Nell pulled a darning needle through the heel of a stocking. “Tell her about the runaway horse on Main Street.” She knotted the thread and set the needle aside. “And try to reassure her without being obvious. If she’s embarrassed at letting down her hair, she won’t want to be reminded.”

  For three days, Elvira spent her spare moments writing and rewriting the letter to Cora. Leaf after leaf of cheap lined paper went into the kitchen stove. At length she handed Nell the latest draft and, with a few teacherly corrections, Nell pronounced it fine.

  Dear Cora,

  Thank you for your letter. I was so happy to receive it. In the post office I let out a squeal as if somebody had stuck me with a hatpin. Everybody turned around to see if I’d been stabbed. I had to explain that it was my first letter from a foreign country.

  Even now, just holding the letter in my hands and thinking of the miles and miles it has come, across a whole ocean, makes me want to jump up and down. The stamp is beautiful, and the London postmark sends a shiver right down my back.

  Also, the paper, which is the nicest I’ve seen—crisp like a dry leaf—was touched and written on by you, so in a way it’s as if you took my hand to talk to me. See how much pleasure you have given me?

  Things are going along smoothly at the store. Four more businesses have ordered telephones and two or three houses also. Anna says if the switchboard gets any busier, she’ll have to grow another arm. But she is tickled. That switchboard makes her feel important. The other day she said, “Someday the whole world is going to be connected by telephone, and here I am, in at the start.”

  I wonder. Do you think the whole world should be connected? I can’t make up my mind. I mean, we do have a transatlantic cable, and I suppose that’s handy, but personally I believe people already know too much about each other’s business.

  A good example of this is Aunt Martha Stillman. I hope that woman never gets a telephone, because she will be a menace. She was in town shopping last Saturday and she came into the store. I hate to see her coming as she always has a nasty something or other to say about someone.

  I was ringing up a box of handkerchiefs and she start
ed telling me about Lucy Shellam, who is the country teacher in Aunt Martha’s township. According to Aunt Martha, Lucy Shellam was seen with a man at a dance in St. Bridget. Not only that, but alcohol was served!

  A. M. said she was going to bring the matter to the school board and have Lucy “dispatched.”

  “Was Miss Shellam drinking alcohol?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t know,” A. M. said.

  “If she wasn’t drinking alcohol, I can’t see how she was doing anything wrong.”

  “It isn’t what she did. It’s what she might have done and what people will think she did.”

  Are you able to follow that, Cora? I had a hard time.

  “Your argument won’t hold up in a court of law,” I told her, “and Lucy’s gentleman will have you in court, you can bet on it. Probably for defamation or something.” I’m not sure what that is exactly, but it sounded scary.

  Aunt Martha gave me an evil look, but I could see that she was going to think twice about “dispatching” Lucy Shellam.

  I am not Aunt Martha’s favorite relation, but she’s the kind of person whose favorite relation you don’t want to be. (Cora, I couldn’t have gotten myself out of that last sentence without Nell’s help, just in case you’re thinking I’ve been to college since you left.)

  I have babbled so much, you’ll have eyestrain if you get to the end of this. To save your poor eyes, I will close, but first I have to tell you that everybody here misses you. You are all the things you said you wanted to be—good, loving, generous, and blithesome, which Nell tells me means cheerful.

  With affection,

  Elvira Stillman

  P.S. Please remember me to George.

  chapter fourteen

  CORA WAS STILL IN HER WHEELCHAIR when the young Lundeens returned in late August. Her girlish lightness had fled. Without being self-pitying, she was older, more sober.

  “She’s still an invalid. How could she be the same?” Nell pointed out when Aunt Martha spoke of Cora’s “comedown.”

  “She’s furnished the Methodist sunday school with expensive toys and books and I don’t know what all.” Martha commenced to fan herself. “Meanwhile, we have to count our pennies to buy a new carpet for the parlor.”

  Nell’s patience was thin. “She and Juliet Lundeen have also contributed a beautiful bookcase for the lobby of the new Water and Power Company.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “So folks can leave books and magazines for others to borrow. I call that bighearted. I’ve already been over there taking advantage.”

  Martha set the fan aside and rose with much wheezing and importance. “If you have to buy people’s affection, what’s it worth?”

  “Has Cora Lundeen offended you?”

  “I don’t approve of people flaunting their money. If I were rich, I wouldn’t throw mine around.”

  Nell waited until Martha was down the stairs before she started laughing.

  Hilly wouldn’t start school for another year, so Elvira had begun taking him for walks to “build up his stamina.” It was her opinion that school required a good deal of stamina—and that Hilly, because he lived in an apartment, needed his improved.

  Besides, the walks fit in with her plan to “buck Cora up.”

  One mild late-September day, as she and Hilly marched around the schoolhouse block and then around the park, Elvira said to the boy, “And while we’re at it, we’ll stop at Cora’s to see if she’d like to take the air.” “Take the air” was a phrase Elvira had picked up from one of the English novels she’d grown devoted to.

  “I’d love to go,” Cora told her. “We’re going to the park, Lizzie. Get my shawl and Laurence’s sweater. Also the little package on the buffet.”

  George had ordered a ramp built onto the porte cochere so that Cora could come and go. Now, while Cora held Laurence on her lap, Lizzie guided the wheelchair down the ramp.

  In the park, Cora released Laurence and he tottered away, following Hilly, who was headed toward swings hanging from a pair of maples. On the swing, Hilly held the baby in his lap with one hand and clasped the rope with the other, pushing off gently with his foot. When finally the boys tired of this, Hilly called to Elvira, “Can Laurence come on the teeter-totter?”

  “He’s not big enough,” Elvira told him.

  “I’ll go with him,” Lizzie said. She showed Laurence how to cling to the grip, then she applied her weight to his end of the teeter-totter, forcing it up and down.

  “She’s very willing,” Cora said to Elvira’s silence. She smiled and handed the “little package” to Elvira.

  “It’s too pretty to unwrap,” Elvira said, but pulled on the satin ribbons. “Oh, my,” she gasped, lifting the lid and then the contents, a cameo brooch. “Oh, my. I’ve never had anything so beautiful. You shouldn’t have. But I love it!” Tearful, she embraced Cora. “Thank you, thank you. You are so good to me.”

  “It is you who are good to me,” Cora said. Then, indicating the face on the brooch, “The silhouette is Queen Victoria. Thank heaven, it’s the young Victoria.”

  Pinning the cameo to her breast, Elvira said, “It’ll soon be time to plan the Christmas party.”

  Cora shifted in the chair and gazed toward the back of the schoolhouse. “I’ve been thinking, though . . . maybe it’s time to have it at Mother Lundeen’s.”

  Recalling Cora’s earlier hope that she’d be dancing this Christmas, Elvira changed the subject. “Do you have plans for the fall?”

  “I’m scouting furnishings for the kindergarten.”

  “Kindergarten?”

  “For young children. Next fall. The school board’s adding one. It’s a shame Hilly will miss out this year.”

  “What do they do in kindergarten?”

  “It’s a new idea from Germany,” Cora said, leaning toward Elvira. “They learn their ABCs and simple numbers and they color pictures with crayons and cut shapes out of paper. And there’ll be a sandbox. And the teacher will read the children stories.”

  Elvira was pleased that her question had lit a spark of animation.

  “They’ll play games, of course,” Cora went on. “I want to find beautiful books for them and colorful pictures for the walls. Four more years and Laurence will march off to kindergarten.”

  Then Cora grew quiet, perhaps imagining Lizzie marching Laurence to his first day of school.

  When Nell arrived home the following day, Elvira told her, “I have shopping to do.” In Lundeen’s, the young woman gathered up a pair of children’s scissors, a thick pad of cheap paper, and a wooden box of crayons.

  George Lundeen himself rang up the sale. “What’s this all about?”

  “It’s about Hilly and kindergarten. I don’t want him to miss out on all that.” Elvira smiled. “I sound like a mother hen.”

  Wrapping the items in brown paper and tying them with string, George said, “Hilly’s a lucky boy.” Like Cora, George was moving into that pale landscape where the sun shines dimly through a scrim of vanished possibilities. Elvira wished she could lay a comforting hand on his.

  Outside, Elvira stood pensive for a moment, then plunged on toward the Water and Power Company to scour the shelves for children’s books. Like the post office, this building was golden brick, and the broad interior lobby boasted a terrazzo floor. Elvira thought it hinted at a promising future for Harvester. Entering, she squared her shoulders and hoped that she looked a tiny bit soigné, a word newly acquired from Cora.

  Shuffling through the bookshelves, Elvira found a little primer, nearly lost among the larger books. Seeing its quaintly illustrated alphabet, she tucked it into her satchel.

  “What’s kindy garden?” Hilly asked, later, when Elvira showed him her purchases.

  She repeated what Cora had told her. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

  He nodded. “I kin do those things?”

  “Most of them. We can’t have a sandbox, but we can learn the ABCs and numbers and do coloring and play games.�
�

  “You’re a lucky boy,” Nell told him, echoing George Lundeen. “What do you say to Elvira for being so good to you?”

  “I love you, Elvira.”

  Elvira lifted him, hugging him. “Someday I want a little boy just like you.” Setting him down, she added, “But I don’t know how to manage that without a husband.”

  “You could go to Boston and get a baby,” said Hilly. “Mrs. Lundeen got one there.”

  An autumn Saturday morning, flaxen and mild. Nell sat at the kitchen table, drawing up lesson plans. Hilly had descended the stairs, promising not to wander off. “I’ll play by the pump,” he told his mother.

  On one side of the vacant lot behind Rabel’s, a three-hole outhouse squatted; on the other sat one of the village pumps where, winter and summer, Nell and Elvira drew water.

  The vacant lot was now drifted with leaves. Hilly ran through them, bending to toss them into the air, gathering them into piles and throwing himself down on them.

  Someone moved into the space between the boy and the sun. Shielding his eyes, Hilly looked up. “Gussy,” he said, struggling to sit up.

  “Not ‘Gussy,’ dummkopf. ‘Gus.’”

  “What’s ‘dummkopf’?”

  “You. A dummy. Somebody who doesn’t know nothin’.”

  “Elvira’s gonna teach me. Like kindy garden.”

  “I’m in first grade, dummkopf. I know lots mor’n you.” Young Gus Rabel kicked leaves into Hilly’s face. “Dummkopf.”

  Hilly flung his arms in front of his face. “Please don’t, Gussy.”

  “I told you, my name is Gus. Now you’re gonna get it, dummkopf.”

  The bigger boy fell upon Hilly, knocking him backward and rubbing leaves into the boy’s face.

  “Please, Gussy . . . Gus. Please don’t.” Hilly struggled to roll away, but Gus’s knees dug into his ribs, pinning him. “Hurts.”

  “Ooooo, poor little dummkopf. Little baby dummkopf.” Gus’s face was so close, Hilly could smell the pickled pig’s feet on his breath. “Does it hurt, baby?”