Still laughing, she asked, “Any last words?”
“It was nice knowing you.” I laughed too. It did me good to see her having such a good time.
Then Mary was calling us to lunch. When we came into the dining room, she looked at us like she wondered what was going on. “Mrs. Winchuster, that was Mr. Pettigrew on the phone. He’s bringing the car around and will wait for you in front.”
“Pettigrew?” I asked. “Does she mean Percival?”
“Yes. My staff call him Mr. Pettigrew, but you are not staff, you are my…”
“Companion?”
“More than that…” She couldn’t put it in words, so I dropped it.
We sat down at the table, and I examined my plate. “What’s this we’re eating, Mary?”
Mary read from the menu. “It’s Belgian endive salad, with caramelized apple, frissée, St. Peter’s bleu cheese, and sherry hazelnut vinaigrette.”
Well, that didn’t tell me much, but I figured, If that’s St. Peter’s blue cheese, maybe it’s okay to eat the rest of what’s on the plate. I really meant it when I bowed my head and prayed, “Bless this food.”
When I looked up, Mrs. Winchester was eying me curiously but didn’t say anything. I started eating, and in a few minutes, she did too.
As we were eating, I noticed what Mrs. Winchester was wearing—an orchid-colored dress with filmy sleeves and an amber neckpiece that caught the light in a beautiful way. The way her own natural hair was done up with a hair piece to fill it in looked nice, but I didn’t say anything. By then I had come to realize that everything that woman wore would be gorgeous.
The food was delicious, and after we finished, I brushed my teeth, made a pit stop, and was ready to go. Mary handed Mrs. Winchester a hat made of different colors of orchid, lavender, and purple with a brim that dipped down over her forehead. It set off the outfit perfectly.
When we stepped off the elevator I could see the Rolls outside with Percival still waiting. Inside the car sat Lucy and Desi, ready to ride. Percival opened the door for us, and I asked him, “Where we headed?”
With his nose back in the air, he answered, “Madam, we will visit the city of Linton, twenty miles distant,” and closed the car door behind me.
Mrs. Winchester chuckled. “It’s no city, hardly a spot on the map. It’s where Chet Atkins is buried.”
I remembered when “Heartbreak Hotel” was popular. Chet Atkins recorded that one, as well as “Wake Up, Little Susie.” Beatrice and I liked both of them, and we used to try to sing them. Beatrice was better than me at singing, but that don’t mean she was, or ever would be, a threat to any star on the Grand Ole Opry.
Mrs. Winchester knew all about Chet Atkins. “He had a distinctive way of playing the guitar,” she told me, “picking the strings with two fingers and a thumb.”
Thinking about Beatrice, I wondered when and if she would get my letter. She’d get a kick out of seeing me now on my way to Chet Atkins’s grave and riding in a Rolls-Royce with a stuck-up chauffer, two stuck-up hounds, and Mrs. Winchester, who I have not yet figured out. If this was just me and Beatrice, I know we’d be belting out “Heartbreak Hotel” or one of them other songs we used to sing.
The way “Speedy” Percival Pettigrew was driving, it didn’t take long before we were turning off onto a rural road that we followed all the way to the cemetery. We drove through the gate under the sign that said Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens and made a couple of turns. Then it wasn’t hard to find his grave; his marker was a big one.
As we were getting out of the car, the jewels clinked against one another, and I figured they were shifting about. Well, I could fix that, pack cotton in there. That would hold them in place.
To show some interest, I asked Mrs. Winchester what Chet Atkins died of, and she said cancer. “He died in 2001.” Of course, I could see that from the tombstone.
It made me a little sad being there at the grave of a man who had given Beatrice and me so much fun with the songs he played.
I guess we moseyed around there about a half hour before we got back in the car. “Now we’ll go to Tammy Wynette’s grave,” Mrs. Winchester said. “She’s buried in Nashville.” On the way there, she lit into telling me all about Tammy Wynette’s life.
“Tammy married a bootlegger when she was seventeen, and they lived in a log cabin that did not have running water, so there was no bathroom or kitchen.” Mrs. Winchester was so amazed at that, she forgot to plop a chocolate in her mouth. “Can you believe that? No bathroom and no kitchen! Tammy Wynette had to do the cooking over a fireplace! Can you imagine that?”
Of course, I’d heard of women living up in the mountains in cabins like that, but I guess she hadn’t.
“That marriage didn’t last long, and he left her with three children to support.” She plopped the chocolate and took her time eating it. “In the daytime Tammy worked as a beautician and at night she sang in clubs. Have you heard her song ‘Stand by Your Man’?”
“Yes, I think everybody’s heard that one.”
“Well, that song is the biggest hit ever sung by a female artist.” She giggled. “Seems Tammy didn’t stand by her man, or men, I should say; she was married five times—had five husbands.”
As we tore up the turnpike, Mrs. Winchester got busy writing her Chet Atkins poem. I kept quiet so she could concentrate. Percival was weaving in and out of traffic like a football player headed for a touchdown.
It didn’t take her long to finish the poem. “Here, read this,” she said, and I took her little moleskin book and read to myself.
Chet Atkins was “Mister Guitar,”
Surpassed all others, a mile by far,
His style—two fingers and thumb picking sound,
Was a gift among players never before found.
There was no getting around it—Mrs. Winchester was a great poet. I told her, “One day your name will become famous, and everybody will be wanting your autograph.”
My saying that must have inspired her, because she kept the little black book open to a blank page ready to write some more. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, and the minute she got that bolt out of the blue, she dashed off a poem about Tammy Wynette. She read it over once, then handed it to me and watched me while I read it.
Tammy Wynette sang, “Stand By Your Man,”
We’re sure five husbands were not in her plan!
On everyone’s list of country music,
She was tops in all the poll’s pick.
“That’s great,” I said. We were taking an exit off the interstate, and when we turned onto the street, I saw a sign, Armory Drive. Percival made a couple turns after that, and we rode on Thompson Lane until we came to the Woodlawn Memorial Park.
Percival drove us right up to what must be the main building and parked. He got out and opened the backseat door for us. I climbed out and waited for Mrs. Winchester. The graveyard stretched all around, but Percival walked up two steps of the building and opened the door for us to enter. Mrs. Winchester followed right behind me as we went inside.
It was cool in there and so quiet I could hear the jewelry clinking as I walked. Our footsteps echoed off the walls and ceiling. If this was where Tammy was at, I figured it was one of those places where the dead are cremated and their remains put in cubbyholes in the walls. They call it a mossyleum.
Percival led us up some stairs and down a hallway and turned right where there were glass doors. He stopped, opened the doors, and once we entered, I felt like I was in church—in a stone church like the ones you see on TV. There were rows of vaults all alongside the walls, and it seemed like we ought to be tiptoeing down that hall. Percival had no trouble finding where Tammy was at. We stood there looking at her name and the dates printed on her tablet until Mrs. Winchester was satisfied. Then we left.
I never been inside a mossyleum before, and to tell the truth, it kind of give me the creeps.
Back in the car on our way to the hotel, Mrs. Winchester pulled a tissue out
of her handbag and dabbed at her eye. “It’s awful sad,” she said. “Here are all these people who did so much—entertainers who made music for the whole world… From what I hear, they have a hard life. They work so hard, and no matter how popular they are, once they die they are soon forgotten. They all wind up the same way—a pile of bones lying in a hole in the ground or in a mausoleum.”
“Oh, Mrs. Winchester, that’s not where they wind up. The ones that have lived for the Lord are in Paradise. And as for their bones, one day the Lord will raise them up.”
I think that was something she had never thought about before. For a long time we just rode along, saying nothing, and I wanted to believe she was thinking about what I had said.
As we were rolling into Opryland, she asked, “Is that what your Bible teaches?”
“It is. One day everybody will be raised from the dead.”
She was very quiet. Then she asked me to show her where that is found in the Bible.
“Okay. When we get back to the hotel, I will.”
10
Before we went to the saloon, I showed Mrs. Winchester a few places in the Bible where it teaches about resurrection—I had her read what Jesus had to say about it as well as verses from the epistles and one from Daniel. But there were verses from Ezekiel that struck us both funny. That’s the chapter that talks about dead bones coming to life, and as she was reading it, we got silly imagining them bones getting up and getting put back together. I know you shouldn’t laugh about Scripture, but when you think about it, that is too funny for words. Of course, Ezekiel was talking about Israel rising from the dead to be a nation again, and since the good Lord seemed to be already doing that, it didn’t take much faith to believe he will raise Chet and Tammy and the rest of us too.
Well, I stuffed cotton among the jewels in my apron, and that worked fine. We got down to the saloon a little after 5:00, and I was relieved to see another bartender mixing drinks. It must have been Singapore Sling’s day off. I ordered a glass of ginger ale, and even though I took my time, I finished it before Mrs. Winchester was ready to quit. She went on drinking until she was too soused to go to dinner. I managed to get her back to the suite, and Mary, the maid, took over so I could go down and eat a bite.
By the time I got back upstairs, Mrs. Winchester was propped up in bed and was all wound up talking. I let Mary go, and I settled on the chaise lounge to listen.
“Miss E., I had a wonderful… wonderful childhood… toys… games… maids and nannies who never let me out of their sight.”
If I heard wonderful childhood one more time, I would be obliged to change that broken record one way or another.
“I had private lessons…” Those pudgy fingers toying with the sheet made me notice her nails; they were orchid like the dress she had worn that day. Since she had not had a manicure, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know they were press-on nails. She mumbled on. “I had lessons in art… music… dancing… Some of my teachers… most of the teachers lived with us on the third floor… but a few came from the outside to teach me art, music…”
A tear trickled down from her good eye. I put a box of tissues on the bed where she could reach them. “Miss E., I never learned to paint or sing… or dance… but I did look forward to seeing those teachers… the ones who came from the outside… They even smelled different… smelled of smoke… of food cooking…”
It was the liquor making her spill her guts and ramble so, but I believed what she was telling me. I was beginning to get a handle on this wonderful childhood she was talking about. To my way of thinking, she had been a little girl shut up with grown people who were paid to take care of her. So far she had not shown me one wonderful thing about that.
“The ones who lived in the house… they never let me out of their sight… They tried to teach me math… science… Latin… French… I was nine years old before I could read English… I never learned Latin or French.”
For a minute, she stopped talking, and it was plain as day she wanted another drink, but she wouldn’t ask. I felt sorry for her. Looking at her, with half her face dry and the other half wet with tears, made me realize I was seeing a picture of what was going on inside of her—one half telling me she had had a wonderful childhood and the other half crying her eye out over what was the truth. Splurgeon said, “What is in the well will come up in the bucket of speech,” and that was sure happening before my very eyes.
“Mrs. Winchester, Percival tells me we drive to Chicago tomorrow. Don’t you think—”
“After my accident I had… I had scarlet fever. They put me in the hospital for that too…” Her cheeks flushed, and she raised her voice. “Miss E., I will never… I will never go to another hospital as long as I live… as long as I live! Do you hear? I hate hospitals! I hate doctors!”
I was glad to see that something got her dander up. “You had an accident?”
“Yes. I had an accident. A very bad accident. When I was four I fell off my pony… That’s when I lost my eye… Do you know that I have an artificial eye?”
I didn’t want to answer, so I kept quiet.
“Yes, you saw it, didn’t you?” She looked away from me. “I spent a lot of time in hospitals… months… in one hospital after another. Two guards stood at my door… only my nanny visited me.”
“Your nanny? Didn’t your parents come?”
“Oh no. They never even knew me.” A bitter little smile curled her lip.
Even though I was curious, I wished she would stop talking, considering how upset she was. But she didn’t.
“I never knew my parents,” she told me. “Soon after I was born they divorced.” She pressed a tissue against her quivering lips; several minutes passed before she could go on. “The maids told me my mother was an actress. They told me she lived in Beverly Hills when she was not on tour… She’s dead, of course.”
I got up and brought a wastebasket to the side of the bed so she could gather up the wet tissues and get rid of them. “And your daddy?” I asked.
“My father lived abroad… played polo, I think… Had something to do with horses… yes, horses.”
I could see how this woman could make herself sick over all this, and I didn’t want to see that happen. Splurgeon says, “Raking the ashes of the past” don’t do nobody good. In Mrs. Winchester’s “ashes” there wasn’t a single live coal that I could see. I suggested we turn in for the night. I don’t think she heard me. She kept right on talking.
“My grandfather disinherited my father. I don’t know why… Maybe he was like me… maybe he couldn’t do the things required of him… I like to think that…”
It was pitiful, but this was no pity party. All she was doing was raking those ashes, hoping to find something good, something to make it all worthwhile. I figured those nannies and nurses must have kept telling her she had a wonderful childhood because she lived in a mansion and had all the toys she wanted. At least she was still trying to believe that, but in my mind the sooner she shucked that idea and faced the facts, the better off she would be. “So you were left to live with your grandfather?”
“You might say so. I lived in his Newport home… but he was never there. After he disinherited my father… after he did that, I was his only heir… He made sure nothing happened to me.” She blew her nose and absently dangled the tissue over the basket before dropping it. “To make sure… to make sure I never had another accident… not another one like that one, he had my pony shot…”
That went through me like a knife. What kind of a man would shoot a little girl’s pony? I didn’t need to hear anything more; if that man had still been alive, I would have personally punched out his lights! Of course, he must have been long dead. I looked at Mrs. Winchester and thought to myself, She could have been the poster child for all the poor little rich girls of this world.
“They told me my grandfather was afraid I would be kidnapped… There had been a ransom note, they said, a note telling him… telling him to give them money or
they would kidnap me.”
“Did he give them money?”
“I don’t know. All I know is, he hired two men to guard me… to guard his heir… his only heir… twenty-four hours a day.”
If I had been her, you can bet your bottom dollar I would have run away; I would have got out of that situation. But not Mrs. Winchester; raised like she was, she couldn’t have got away nor survived.
It was getting harder and harder to listen to all this misery. But when Mrs. Winchester started up again, her face lit up, and I thought she was going to tell me something good, maybe about some prank or other. “When I wasn’t taking lessons or playing with my toys, there was this… this tiny balcony outside my window… I could sit out there and watch the gardeners working in the yard… the groomsmen exercising the horses.”
Well, that sounded as pitiful as anything she had said before. But she wasn’t finished. She was quiet for a few minutes then, smiling, went on. “When I was a little girl, if the hem of my dress turned up… they told me to make a wish… make a wish and kiss it… and my wish would come true.”
“I used to do that too,” I said. “What did you wish for?”
She giggled. “My wish was that somebody would kidnap me!”
I laughed too. “You don’t mean it!”
“Yes, I do. Nobody ever kidnapped me, but they might yet. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“Wonderful?”
“Can’t you just see the headlines—‘Mrs. Winifred Winchuster, Wife of Philip Winchuster, Kidnapped and Held for Ransom’?”
“Well, I hope that don’t happen!”
“Miss E., that would be fun, fun, fun!”
She was dead serious. Is she wacko or what? “Mrs. Winchester, what about your daughter, Barbara? That would worry her to death.”
“Oh, she’s not my daughter.”
“Not your daughter!”
“No, she’s Philip’s daughter.”
“What do you mean? He’s your husband, right?”
Land Sakes Page 7