One afternoon Nell set aside her reading glasses and Agatha’s latest novella, One Night’s Indiscretion—soon to be serialized. She glanced at Hilly as he lay curled on the daybed listening to the farm report.
How curious Hilly had been when Nell had first purchased the radio. But when phantom voices issued from the big box, he scuttled away. Later, he inched back, sitting across the room from the great mystery but staring at his shoes. If you looked away, it probably wouldn’t explode.
One evening he heard an announcer he was convinced was John. “Jawn,” he shouted, leaping from the daybed.
Another voice was Cora. Ghost voices came to soothe and entertain him. Radio was now his boon companion while Nell was at school.
On a brisk morning in early March of 1934, Hilly finally mastered the art of shoe tying. For fifteen years he had persevered; now he’d show the town he wasn’t an idiot.
Nell, who’d been at school, heard about the ensuing scene later. She knew from witnesses that he’d stripped to his underwear, gathered up his clothes, and rushed downstairs, to show the customers in the meat market how adept he was at dressing himself.
Once inside the front door, he threw down his clothing and began, piece by piece, to put it on, carefully buttoning his shirt and explaining, in his indecipherable excitement, what he was doing. Two women shrieked and ran into the street.
“Idiot! Get out of here!” young Gus Rabel screamed at Hilly and came around the counter, wielding a meat cleaver. Hilly cowered, frightened, recalling some past trouble with this person. But he’d waited all these years and he was going to do what he’d come to do. A nice lady, sitting on a bench waiting for her salami, smiled at him and told Gus: “He gave his mind for his country. What about you?”
“I’ll use a gun next time he comes down here,” young Gus vowed.
Mrs. Reverend Norton, clinging to the meat case, had also stayed, and walked Hilly upstairs. “I made him a cup of tea,” she told Nell that afternoon. “I hope that was all right. He only drank a few sips, then he went straight to bed.”
When Nell learned from Mrs. Norton what had happened, she wept, knowing what a setback this would prove. Like Hilly, she retreated to the bedroom. Indeed, it would be two years before Hilly next left the apartment.
Lying prone upon the gently sagging old bed, she located once more the portal leading her to a recurring dream, this one of taking tea with Mr. Wodehouse and his wife, Ethel, the three of them seated in lawn chairs in what the Wodehouses called “the garden,” as in “come into the garden.”
From year to year, the dream varied only slightly. For instance, in 1934 she was wearing her summer challis, strewn with watercolor flowers.
Nell had just read Brinkley Manor when, in the day dream, she wrote Wodehouse, asking if she might stop in at Low Wood in Le Touquet, France, to pay her regards. Wodehouse and his wife, Ethel, replied with a kind invitation.
Of shipboard life, Nell spent little time imagining. She had seen two or three movies filmed on liners, so she proceeded directly to the moment in Le Touquet when her hero, savior, and literary companion—Plum, as he was familiarly known—swung open the door to Low Wood, welcoming her.
He was as always, perhaps more so each time. Neither strikingly handsome, nor plain featured. He was as he was meant to be: awfully pleasant to look at, with eyes full of wisdom and humor, though perhaps not of practicality. A man, she thought, who required a woman, like Ethel, with his best interests at heart.
They reposed in the Wodehouses’ French garden, the afternoon warm without being oppressive. A slight breeze carried the scent of roses and something else—perhaps cinnamon. The three of them giggled over an anecdote Mr. Wodehouse had related concerning a Broadway crony.
Ah, my, yes . . . she was conversing with Mr. Wodehouse, and she was not at all self-conscious. A thrill of disbelief at her good fortune raised gooseflesh on Nell’s arms. Trembling, she gathered her cotton shawl around her.
“Let me fetch a jumper,” Ethel said.
“No, no. Please, I’m fine.” With her tea napkin, Nell dabbed lemon curd from the corner of her mouth.
“Bring us up to date,” Wodehouse said, shaking crumbs from his napkin. “How are things in Harvester?”
“Bad. Dry and hot. Crops stunted, prices low. But, worst, my dear Juliet, a pillar of our little world, Hilly’s and mine, has died.” She told them of the stone that had been cancer.
“Hilly,” she continued, “well, he progresses, but not without difficulties.” Now she relayed the humiliating scene in Rabel’s.
For long moments Wodehouse considered, then said, “Well, now, let’s look at it this way . . . I picture your boy holding up each article of clothing as if to say, ‘And for my next trick—ta-da!—I will don these socks, one at a time! Note closely how deftly I screw them ‘round, just so, toes first—these lovely socks knitted for me especial by my close personal friend the Countess of Brackingham.”
This was how his magic worked. As she listened, the unyielding shard in Nell’s breast, left there by Juliet’s death, began breaking into smaller, more manageable pieces.
Later that March, Eudora Barnstable recruited volunteers to carry boxes of books from the Water and Power Company to the new Juliet Lundeen Memorial Library on Second Avenue, catty-corner from the school. Awaiting these were one hundred boxes of new books, ordered by Larry Lundeen.
In June, Larry threw wide the library doors for a grand opening. A buffet of sandwiches and sweets, coffee and beer, lay ready. Everything his grandmother would have ordered, Prohibition having ended at last.
Larry and young Ed Barnstable each contributed a few words. “This is the work my mother was born to,” Barnstable said of Eudora. “But, remember, Mama, you can’t order people to read ‘good’ books.” The knowing crowd laughed and filled their plates.
The Standard Ledger noted the presence of Ed Barnstable’s bride of eighteen months. Blonde Brenda, who was beginning to show her pregnancy, was the offspring of a lesser Minneapolis milling family. “Certainly not a Pillsbury,” Eudora told Nell.
Eudora had hoped for a daughter-in-law as deep and true as Cora Lundeen. No such luck. Brenda was, alas, arriviste. Brenda and Ed had moved in with Eudora, which was fine, since Ed was establishing his veterinary practice. He had converted the old barn—once home to a horse and carriage—into his offices.
But Eudora’s house was too old fashioned for Brenda, who preferred Deco. “So uncluttered.” She was forever picking up Eudora’s books and periodicals and stacking them into piles, so that Eudora found herself searching several tables in the parlor and hall to find that thing she had been reading about the Spanish-American War.
“She ordered Deco for their bedroom,” Eudora explained, playing bridge with Barbara Gray, Nell, and Ivy, little Mrs. Apollo Shane. “And I suppose that’s all right. It is their bedroom after all, and her family paid for the furniture. We stored my parents’ mahogany in the attic.”
“Does she pitch in around the house?” Barbara Gray asked.
“She manicures her hands and pedicures her feet and plucks her eyebrows and reads Vogue—I promise you she has six shades of nail enamel. If she’s in a particularly generous mood, she dries the dishes, though she hates to wash them on account of the nails. I bought her a pair of rubber gloves, but they don’t seem to agree with her skin.”
“Well, la-di-da,” Barbara chirped, to the appreciation of the others. In a small town, a certain piquancy does not go amiss at the card table.
chapter fifty-one
“IT’S TIME WE FOUND some younger company,” Nell said as Eudora date-stamped Willa Cather’s Shadows on the Rock and handed it across the library desk.
“Ivy Shane is young. Youngish.”
“She’s forty. We’re getting old and set in our ways.”
“If you’re thinking of my daughter-in-law, Brenda, don’t. She wouldn’t be caught dead with us old hens.”
“All I’m saying is, working here in the lib
rary, you meet younger women. Keep your eye out.”
“Younger women want to socialize with other younger women. It’s only natural.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right.”
But Nell worried. If anything happened to Eudora, she would be an old woman alone—the last leaf. Well, not really alone; she had Hilly, thank God. But, apart from Eudora, the Grays were the last of the crowd.
No, she would keep her eye out.
The Sunday after she’d been to the library, Nell sat by herself scanning the congregation at St. Boniface. Hilly hadn’t gone to Mass since he’d come home from the war. The new priest, Father Delias, stopped at the apartment occasionally to say hello and give Hilly Communion. In the pew ahead, Nell noticed a young woman with an impatient child three or four years old. Nell smiled at the girl, who was now trying to climb over the back of the pew to join her. The mother set the child down on her lap and shook her head. The father scowled.
After the service, congregants gathered on the church lawn to discuss spring planting, the weather, and the local baseball team. Nell spied the woman standing with her child. The husband had left, but the woman was searching as if hoping to see someone she knew.
“Hello,” Nell said, approaching. “We haven’t met. I’m Nell Stillman. I teach third grade up at the school.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Arlene Erhardt. We just moved here last month. My husband works at the depot. He has to be there when the freight comes in.”
“Of course.” Nell doubted there was a freight train at this hour on a Sunday, but never mind. “Welcome to Harvester. What a lovely child.”
The girl buried her face in her mother’s skirt.
“Where do you live?” Nell asked.
“There was this really big room in the depot that nobody was using,” Arlene replied. “Gandy dancers and trainmen used to overnight there sometimes. I’m dividing it into three rooms for us. Rent free, so we can save up for a house.”
“Well, you are clever!”
“This is my little girl, Lark. Lark, can you say hello?”
The girl shook her head.
“Well, Arlene, it’s nice to see a fresh face. Let me give you my telephone number.” Nell dug in her bag and found a pencil and a tiny notebook. “My son and I live above Rabel’s Meat Market. As a newcomer, if you have any questions, just ring me.”
At home, Nell carried her purse and hat to the bedroom, calling over her shoulder, “She had the sweetest little girl, Hilly. And guess what the child’s name is? Lark. Isn’t that pretty? And this woman—Arlene—said she knows another new couple in the parish with a little girl, too. The Wheelers.”
Setting her rosary and prayer book on the bedside table, she sat on the bed, staring out at the honey-golden May light. If not for the war Hilly might be married and have a little girl of his own.
“Things are looking up, Hilly,” she said, returning to the living room. “Pancakes for lunch?”
On the following Thursday evening, the telephone rang. At the sound, Nell said, “That’s Arlene Erhardt, I know it.”
“Mrs. Stillman? Arlene Erhardt. Do you know a girl who babysits? I’ve made another new friend, and she’s asked me to sub at her bridge club Friday night. But Willie has to work.”
“I’d be happy to babysit, but you’re probably looking for someone who’d be regular.” Nell looked up a number and passed it along. “But while I have you on the line: Can you come for a cup of tea and cookies Saturday afternoon? And bring Lark? About three o’clock?” No sense in wasting time.
“My son suffers from shell shock,” Nell explained, pouring tea into three cups and handing one to Arlene. The second cup she placed beside Hilly, who sat in the green chair. The rocker was too tippy when he dealt with tea.
As the women chatted, the little girl opened a picture book she’d brought with her, set it on the table beside Hilly, then climbed with some difficulty onto his lap. Perplexed, Hilly glanced at his mother, but she was engaged. Unthreatened by so small a person, he decided to accept the situation.
Lark reached for the picture book, opened it, and began pointing to animals and children, naming them and peering at Hilly for assurance.
“Cow.”
“C . . . ow.”
“Cat.”
“Cat.”
When she had flipped to the last page, Lark returned to the beginning. Again, Hilly glanced at his mother.
“Cow.”
“C . . . ow.”
“Cat.”
“Cat.” Perhaps because she herself was still wrestling with construction, the child grasped Hilly’s fractured words. When he named a cow, she nodded and helped him turn the page. In this way, they passed the half hour of their mothers’ visit. Like playmates, Nell thought.
When they had read the picture book three times, Lark set it aside. Straightening her skirt and patting her Mama-made curls, she said, “Now I will tell you a story.”
Hilly nodded. He liked stories. Maybe one day he’d tell this small person the story of Little Lord Fauntleroy.
“Well,” Lark began slowly, her face pinched in concentration, “once upon a time there was a girl named Lark and she lived by the railroad tracks and she liked trains. She liked trains a lot. And one day she got on a train and . . .”—she struggled for a conclusion—“. . . and she didn’t come back.” She threw up her hands with a flourish, shaking her head and repeating, “She didn’t come back.”
Hilly’s face fell. “Naw,” he pleaded, “come back. Come back, girl.”
Lark twisted around to look into his face. “Oh, all right. I guess she came back.”
chapter fifty-two
EUDORA LEANED ACROSS THE LIBRARY DESK, pointing toward a woman asleep on the old leather sofa.
“She checked out A Farewell to Arms and began reading while her little girl was in the children’s room. I noticed she was crying. In total silence. I didn’t want to ask why.”
“What about the girl?”
“Still in the children’s room.”
Nell turned, heading into the room behind her, where all manner of reading was crammed onto low shelves. Squat tables and small chairs were scattered around. But on the floor, under a window where morning sunlight poured in, a child with tiny black pigtails lay sleeping, her cheeks flushed from the heat.
“Hello there,” Nell said, kneeling beside the child. “Did you find a book?”
The girl woke slowly, rubbing her eyes with small fists, then wiping the drool at the corner of her mouth with the hem of her dress. She shook her head at Nell’s question.
“What’s your name?”
“Sally.”
“That’s one of my favorite names. Shall we look for a book, Sally?”
The girl followed Nell to shelves crammed with picture books.
“Here’s one about a family of bunnies.”
Together, they chose three books, and Nell carried them to the desk. There the child turned, inquiring, “Mama?” Spying her mother, she ran to the sofa. “Mama!” She shook the woman’s arm. “Mama!”
The woman roused with effort, finally peering at her watch. “Oh.”
“Are you all right?” Nell asked.
“Oh, yes. I don’t know why I fell asleep like that. I seem to do it a lot lately.” The woman felt her face, but the tears had dried. Pulling out a handkerchief, she blew her nose. Then, noticing the child for the first time, she said, “Sally, are you all right?”
The child nodded.
“Do you live nearby?” Nell asked.
“Yes. Close.”
“I was just leaving,” Nell said. “We’ll check out your books and then I’ll walk you home. We can get acquainted.” As the group left, Eudora gave Nell a knowing nod.
Stella Wheeler was the woman’s name. “Isn’t that a coincidence!” Nell exclaimed. “Mrs. Erhardt mentioned that you were new in town, and had a little girl nearly the same age as hers.”
Lost deep in
her own mind, the woman said nothing in return. Her attention seemed to flicker on and off, like a faulty bulb. She was beautiful, if disheveled and underweight—all neck and elbows. The glance of her huge hooded eyes retreated when she was questioned directly, as if she lacked answers. Repeatedly her hand went to her thick black hair, pulled back raggedly in a wrinkled bit of ribbon.
At the Wheelers’ front stoop, Nell wrote her name and telephone number on a slip of paper, as she had for Arlene Erhardt. “Just in case. Maybe I can be helpful. I’ve taught school here forever.”
Without glancing at it, Stella shoved the paper into the pocket of her dress.
“Do you ever shop at Rabel’s Meat Market?” Nell asked. “My son and I live upstairs. Drop in sometime. Bring Sally.”
As she turned away, she saw the child reach into her mother’s pocket and remove the slip of paper, tucking it into her own dress. What was that about? Was she afraid her mother would forget about it?
The following Saturday, Nell found both Arlene Erhardt and Stella Wheeler at her door, along with the two little girls. Stella hung back, looking coerced. Nell thought Arlene was probably a force to be reckoned with. That might be just what Stella needed.
“Oh, come in. I’m so glad you took me up on my invitation. Have a seat. I’ll pour iced tea.”
“I brought cookies,” Arlene said, handing a pasteboard saltine box to Nell.
“My, how lovely. Home-baked. And so many. I’ll get a plate.”
Returning with a tray, Nell said, “I bake so rarely, it’s always a treat to have something homemade.” She handed around cookies and tea. “I’ve never been much of a baker, I’m afraid. Mam had a way with all that . . . sometimes that can inhibit a girl, you know, being afraid of not coming up to standards.”
“Oh, yes,” Stella agreed with vehemence.
“And Mama doesn’t have time,” Sally added, glancing around to be certain they understood how busy her mother was.
“Now, then,” Nell said, “I’m going to get the girls paper and crayons and, if they like, they can draw at the kitchen table or on the floor.”
Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse Page 23