Crestmont

by Holly Weiss

  “Got it.” PT said. “And if you let me jam on the piano instead of playing that Victrola during tournaments, you’ll have more customers walking through your door.”

  Sloan gradually took PT under his wing. He let him play piano and taught him not just the business of running a bowling alley, but also the sport of bowling. His only gripe was that he had to tear the kid away from the piano to help with the scoring during tournaments.

  Woodshed on Crestmont Hill

  February 5, 1926

  William switched off the radio, his slight frame swimming in his camel and cream-colored blanket bathrobe. “No school again today, Margaret. The International News Service just reported twenty-two inches of snowfall and that roads all over the area are closed. You are stuck with me for your birthday,” he announced.

  “Our school is closed too, so we have a long weekend. Eleanor, now we’ll have time for Gracie to cut our hair into bobs like hers. We’ll be just like modern women.” Peg jokingly tugged on a stray tuft of her sister’s hair.

  “We will discuss bobs later.” Margaret brushed a kiss on her daughter’s cheek as she headed into her bedroom to dress.

  “Peg, bundle up and bring in some wood, please. The coal stove works wonders, but today we need a fire in the fireplace to make it extra cozy,” William said.

  Eleanor, still in her yellow bathrobe, plunked herself in the middle of the couch. “Let’s have Mama open her birthday presents now instead of waiting until after dinner.”

  “Whoa, slow down, Eleanor. I haven’t wrapped mine yet.” He frantically grabbed a pencil and paper, sat at the kitchen table and began to write. “Peg, I need a box and some ribbon.”

  “Hurry up, Papa,” Eleanor said, rapping on Gracie’s door. “Of course you should join us, silly,” she insisted a moment later, pulling Gracie into the living room. “You sit here while I get Mama.”

  “You’re going to have a wicky-wacky birthday, Mama,” Eleanor explained, ushering her mother into the living room.

  “What does ‘wicky-wacky’ mean, sweetheart?”

  “You get to open your gifts before breakfast. We decided.”

  “But you won’t have a birthday cake, because I can’t get out to buy eggs,” Peg moaned.

  “Oh, no bother,” their father said. “We’ll make a big cake as soon as the snow clears. Time to open your gifts, Margaret.”

  “Me first, Papa.” Eleanor undid her bathrobe, pulled out a picture she had drawn and handed it to her mother.

  “You drew my hibiscus. Eleanor, it’s beautiful. Just the thing to brighten up a winter day.”

  Peg gave her mother a collar and cuff set made with dainty Oriental lace. “It’s a new color called ecru, Mama, and it was imported. You can wear it with your navy blue suit all buttoned up and people will think you have a whole new blouse underneath.”

  “Wherever did you get the money, Peg?”

  “Mr. Swett is a real good tipper when I pull his canoe out of the water.”

  Gracie’s gift was a bud vase in an unusual design of Japanese lusterware. “I wonder what catalogue you ordered this from,” Margaret teased, placing it on the mantel.

  “My turn. Your real gift is stuck on my desk at school, my love, so this will have to suffice.” Her husband placed the small box delicately in her hands. “Happy Birthday, Margaret.”

  She untied the pink ribbon and opened the box. Her lips moved slightly when she read the words on the paper. “Oh, William, just what I wanted!”

  “What does it say?” the girls asked.

  Taking a deep breath, Margaret held up the paper importantly and read, “You have nothing to do today except what you want to do.”

  “Huh?” Eleanor scrunched her eyebrows together and her strawberry beauty mark almost disappeared.

  “It means your father is giving me a day of rest. What a lovely gift.”

  “So what did you really give Mama?” Peg asked her father later while she broke the only egg in the house into the pancake batter.

  “I find it curious you feel what I gave her isn’t a real gift.” William neatly lined up bacon in the cast iron skillet.

  “You know what I mean, Papa.”

  “Well, two topaz earrings with diamond chips set in gold in the long dangling style are sitting on my desk at Westlawn, but it will be Monday before I can get to them. Wait until you see what a marvelous compliment they will be to the color of her eyes.”

  “And the shoulder of lamb I was going to roast for Mama’s birthday dinner is stuck at the butcher’s.”

  ****

  “We’re going to need to shovel the big house attic, Papa. That was a big snowstorm.” Icy air blew into the Woodshed as Peg came back in from the porch while Gracie rinsed breakfast dishes in the sink.

  “I’ll give Sid a jingle to help, but I’m just not sure how he’s going to get here.”

  “Oh, let’s do it ourselves, Papa,” Peg pleaded.

  “Do it ourselves?” Margaret groaned, pushing herself out of her caned rocker. “Oh William, it’s too much for the children.”

  He eased her back down. “Today was the day you weren’t going to do anything taxing, Margaret. Relax here by the fire and we’ll do the work.”

  “I’ll go instead. It sounds like fun.” Gracie said. “I mean—any way to help the family—that’s what you hired me for, right, Mr. Woods?”

  “Oh, goodie. You rest, Mama, and Gracie can borrow your boots.” Eleanor grabbed her own boots, sat on the floor, and pulled them on.

  “Not so fast, Miss Eleanor. Gracie’s going to need more than boots. With this much snow on the ground, we need to snowshoe on over there.”

  “Snowshoes, the bees knees! You’re going to love it, Gracie.” Eleanor started furiously buttoning her coat.

  “Have you walked on snowshoes before?” William asked. Gracie shook her head. “It’s hard work, especially for the novice. Your feet are probably going to sink eight inches in this snow because it’s fluffy. Then, it’s difficult to pick your other foot up to take the next step. Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  “Yes, I’ll be fine.”

  The ladder snapped into place as William reached up and pulled the rope. He climbed up to the crawl space above the kitchen. Accustomed to this ritual, Peg stood at the bottom and reached for the snowshoes when he handed them down to her.

  Eleanor pulled two kitchen chairs side by side and indicated Gracie should sit down. Slapping a three-foot-long wooden framed lattice snowshoe on the floor, she pointed to the leather binding. “Put the ball of your foot boot in there.” She put the rawhide straps into Gracie’s hands. “Come on, I’ll show you how to buckle them. If you don’t do it right, one might come off and you’ll go head-over-tea-kettles into the snow.”

  William led, carrying a shovel, as they trudged over to the big house in single file. Behind him, Eleanor bent over double, pumping her legs deliberately up and down in her snowshoes. Gracie followed with her eyes squinted against the cold and her feet slipping inside Mrs. Woods’ boots. Peg brought up the rear, keeping her balance with another shovel.

  It was incredibly windy. Gracie and Eleanor turned their backs to the blowing snow while they waited for the other two to shovel the steps of the inn and a path through the porch to the door.

  Once inside, they removed their snowshoes. “I’ll get the other shovels and a broom from the store room,” said Peg, handing her shovel to Gracie to hold.

  “It’s really dark in here.” Gracie blew on her gloved hands, gawking at the cold, empty shell of the inn.

  William opened some blinds. “We keep the blinds on the main floor closed in case any unwelcome strangers come poking around peeking in the windows off season. It’s colder in here than outside because it doesn’t get any sun.”

  “All right, troops, upstairs we go. Stay close.” He accepted the flashlight Peg handed him. They all trudged up to the first landing and then climbed four more flights. William waved the flashlight back and forth across the at
tic. “That’s using your noggin, Peg. There’s a good foot here in some places.”

  “Why does the snow collect inside the building?” Gracie asked, flapping her arms around herself for warmth.

  “Well, don’t tell my wife I told you, but her father skimped a bit on the construction of this place. The snow blows in through eaves and cracks around the windows. Then it melts and leaks down, creating water damage on the ceiling and walls. When the temperature drops, ice forms, making the floorboards buckle. We want to keep this place going as long as we can, so we shovel it.”

  “Where do you put the snow after you shovel it?”

  Peg trudged over to open the window on the east end of the house. “Out there, silly. Sometimes we have to shovel a path to the windows.”

  Eleanor was busy throwing little shovelfuls of snow out the window while the others talked. They followed her lead and in forty minutes the attic was clear.

  ****

  “Aw, Papa, can’t we roam around?” Eleanor asked as her father swept up the snow the shovels missed. “I want to see the new addition. Can I use one of the new toilets?”

  “There’s not much to see. It’s just a bunch of empty rooms now, Eleanor, and the water is turned off. If you need to use the toilet, you’ll have to go back home.”

  “Papa, Gracie and I are going down to the kitchen. Maybe we can at least find some canned food to serve for Mama’s birthday dinner.”

  When they got to the third sleeping floor, Peg peered up at the boarded up entrance to their hideout. “Do you really expect me to believe that you didn’t tell my mother about this?”

  Gracie shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “Honestly, Peg, she figured it out on her own.”

  “Hm.” Peg turned abruptly and clopped down the stairs. Gracie tripped over her boots and landed on all fours on the next landing.

  “Maybe you should buy your own boots for next year. They’ll be on sale soon and you can get them cheaper than if you wait and buy them in the fall.”

  A stiff icicle replaced Gracie’s backbone when Peg mentioned next year, but she kept her mouth shut and followed her into the kitchen.

  Peg switched on a flashlight and the girls made a quick reconnaissance. Without Isaiah and Sam bustling about, the kitchen seemed bare and forbidding. It was pretty well cleaned out, but Gracie found some tins of dried beef in the pantry.

  “I guess its creamed dried beef on toast points for Mama’s dinner. What a far cry from roast lamb. I’ll take care of it.” Peg pocketed the beef. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait. I saw something.” Gracie pulled an old piece of paper from behind a shelf and tucked it into her pocket.

  ****

  Margaret stood at the stove, stirring the milk, frustrated that she couldn’t get to the post office until Monday. Mrs. Pennington’s special needs came in the mail like clockwork the first of February and Margaret compulsively made note of all requests immediately upon receipt. Invoices from the purchase of furnishings for the new wing would also be arriving and would need to be paid. It never ended. William did as much as he could to help, but his responsibilities at Westlawn meant that attending to most of these details fell to her.

  Sighing, she stared listlessly out the window at the drifting snow and pried the top off a tin of cocoa powder. She dropped a few spoonfuls and some sugar into the pot. After turning down the flame so the milk didn’t catch, she went to check her file of letters. The name of the guest and any requests made were carefully marked on the envelope in her own handwriting. Her memory was correct, of course. Mrs. Pennington’s letter had not yet arrived.

  Boots scraped on the steps and Margaret quickly put the letters away. By the time the others entered, she stood at the stove, placidly stirring the cocoa.

  “Margaret, you weren’t supposed to work today,” William said gently.

  “No, William, your gift said I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to. And I wanted to surprise you snow shovellers with cocoa.”

  “Cocoa?” Peg faked a smile, wondering how she was going to make creamed chipped beef on toast points without the milk her mother had just used.

  “Don’t worry. We have canned,” Gracie whispered, reading her mind.

  Gracie’s hands felt warm around the cup as she contemplated her adoptive family. In whose kitchen would she be sipping cocoa in six months? Surely fretting about the long term was fruitless—but planning—evidently she was stuck in neutral about that. Perhaps the Woods would let her help decorate the addition to the big house. The prospect sounded like fun, but she also felt it prudent to make herself indispensable to them.

  ****

  The back of Margaret’s hand patted her mouth to stifle a yawn. “I guess I need a nap.”

  “Then the rest of us shall be quiet,” William said as his wife headed for their bedroom.

  Peg pulled out a tablet, licked her pencil, and chewed on her brown hair. “I’m going to work on the water sport schedule.” Eleanor wandered into her room.

  Gracie tried to immerse herself in Willa Cather’s latest book, but she kept seeing pictures of PT and the mystery man from Christmas Eve, Eric Sturdy. When she envisioned herself tripping onto the stage to do a singing audition, she switched to working on crossword puzzles.

  William sat in his blue and tan plaid chair, tapping his pencil lightly on his ledger as he examined little pieces of paper that he kept pulling out of his pocket. He let out a big sigh when the clock on the mantel chimed twice.

  Peg draped her arms over his shoulders from behind the couch and put her cheek up to his. “What are you working on, Papa?”

  “Shhh,” her father whispered, pointing toward the bedroom where Margaret slept. “Tennis courts.”

  “Oh,” Peg mouthed. “Your secret is safe with me. I’ll go make dinner.”

  ****

  After downing her creamed chipped beef on toast points, Eleanor asked to be excused. The others lingered a long time over coffee. Gracie talked about the additional revenue Pennsylvania had brought in by raising the gasoline tax. Peg described the Clydesdale horses Zeke’s brothers were raising.

  “They’re using them to pull the ice out of the lake and roll the snow down on the roads.”

  “You’ve been at Zeke’s a lot lately,” her father observed. “He’s too old for you, Peg.”

  Peg rolled her eyes. “Papa, he’s only my pal. He’s also five inches shorter than I am.”

  “Well, I understand he and his brothers have been fixing the foot bridge at the bottom of the lake again,” Margaret said.

  “Again!” the three Woods laughed. Confused, Gracie scanned each face.

  “The ice cuts through the bridge pilings every year.” William explained, clearing the cups and saucers off the table.

  “William, I hope you remember your promise to organize your cufflink collection. I kept all the gift tags and wrote down the descriptions. All you have to do is write the giver’s name on the little boxes. Then you could wear the cufflinks the same week that guest stays at the hotel without me reminding you who gave them to you.”

  “I can’t do that by myself, Margaret.” William swatted her playfully with the dishtowel. “I need your organizational expertise.”

  “I’ll do it,” Gracie offered.

  “Good, because I want to teach Peg how to embroider these fingertip towels with the Crestmont insignia for the guest rooms,” Margaret said, pulling her sewing box out of the inlaid cabinet under the radio.

  “Oh, Mama, you should teach Eleanor. She enjoys those feminine things more than I do.”

  “I wonder what she is doing. She has been in her room for over an hour and I haven’t heard a peep out of her.”

  “Gracie, my cufflink collection is on the shelf in our closet. Would you get it while I see what my youngest has gotten herself into now, please?” William asked.

  ****

  “Look at all of this.” her mother exclaimed as the family gathered in Eleanor’s room.

  “Oh, I was j
ust guessing what Grampa Warner would have done to help the guests if they had been here in the snowstorm,” Eleanor explained, busily cutting something the shape of a tall isosceles triangle out of green construction paper.

  Her dolls sat on a chair, protected by a roof draped over the chair back made from a game board. Canopies made from napkins held by thumbtacks draped down the sides to create walls.

  “That’s the fireplace, right there.” Eleanor pointed to a carved area at the base of the chair back.

  “And this?” her father asked, amused. The pieces from the chess set they had given her for Christmas were scattered all over her dresser, with folded brown construction paper covering them like tents.

  “Those are the children on the playground in tents. And these,” she said holding up the green triangles, “are trees to make it pretty.”

  “It must be terribly cold out there on the playground,” her father teased.

  “Well, goodness, Papa, it’s just pretend, after all.”

  “Grampa Warner would have been proud of you.” Her mother hugged her.

  “Oh, yes, he told me so.” Eleanor said matter-of-factly.

  “That’s impossible. He died before you were born. You didn’t even know him,” said Peg.

  “I do too know him. He has funny dark eyes and a pointy beard. He sits on the bottom of my bed and tells me stories sometimes when I can’t sleep. He reads out of a big book called 440 Lakeside Curiosities.

  “Sweetheart, let’s allow your guests to warm up in front of their fire while we enjoy our own before we go to bed.” Her mother steered her into the living room.