by Flora Kidd
The first of the weekend guests arrived promptly at three in the afternoon. They were a middle-aged couple from Brooklyn, New York. In the pleasant long living-room/lounge that was furnished with comfortable couches and armchairs all covered in rose-pink slip covers, an antique roll-topped desk, several bookcases and side tables, Blythe greeted the couple just as if she was welcoming them into her own home, then introduced them to Lenore, who led them up the stairs to the second floor.
The room she took them to was typical of the inn. Not too big because part of it had been partitioned off to make a private bathroom, it was furnished simply with two chests of drawers made from maplewood, a reproduction four-poster bed covered with a patchwork quilt handmade locally, and an old-fashioned wardrobe. Woven rugs were scattered about the shining oak floor and a rocking chair with cushions tied to its spindled back and its seat had been set by the window that, framed by flower-patterned curtains, overlooked the garden at the back of the inn, over the roofs of the houses further down the hill to the blue sun-glinting water of the estuary. Everything that could be done to preserve the early nineteenth-century look of the rooms had been done, at the same time providing every modem convenience including central heating and a hot water system.
When Lenore returned to the living room she found Blythe greeting the next couple to arrive, and from then on, for the rest of the afternoon she was busy showing people to their rooms because, as Blythe had predicted, the sunny weather had brought many visitors into the village and some had decided to stay overnight. At dinner-time she helped Carrie Carter, the young woman employed by Blythe both as a waitress and a housemaid, to wait on the more than twenty guests who had reserved tables for dinner, and afterwards she helped Blythe to clean up in the kitchen, rinsing dirty dishes and stacking them into the dishwasher, scouring cooking pans and also preparing for breakfast the next morning.
For the next three days she had little time to dwell on her own problems as she rushed from job to job, carrying out Blythe’s calmly uttered instructions to the best of her ability, falling into bed in her small room in the attic to sleep dreamlessly, awakening early each morning to the sound of her sister’s voice urging her to wake up and get with it because they had to serve several breakfasts.
On Sunday the routine changed slightly. Only coffee and muffins were available for early risers who wanted to go to one of the churches to attend the Easter Day services, because the main meal of the day was brunch, served from eleven o’clock onwards, buffet style, in the long sunlit dining room with its round tables and Windsor-style chairs. Not having to wait on tables, Lenore had time to talk to Isaac Goldstein, to whom Blythe introduced her as ‘my musical sister’.
A silver-haired, swarthy-skinned man of about seventy years of age with twinkling black eyes set under bristling black eyebrows, the well-known violinist had brought his wife and his daughter who was visiting her parents, to brunch, as well as a young man with straight black hair and a definite Oriental slant to his dark eyes and a wide white smile.
‘Jack is our conductor as well as being a fine pianist. He keeps us in order, disciplines us,’ said Isaac. His accent was still thick and guttural, betraying his German origins, although he had lived in the States for many years.
‘Are you staying in Northport for long, Lenore?’ asked Jack.
‘I haven’t decided how long I’ll stay,’ she replied. ‘As long as Blythe can bear with me, I guess.’
‘You’re not with an orchestra, then?’
‘I was playing with one, but I had to quit when we returned from a tour of the country a few weeks ago. I developed pneumonia and I’m resting just now. Though helping Blythe in this inn for the past few days has hardly been a rest. We’ve really been busy.’
‘You must come and play with us,’ said Isaac. ‘Next Thursday at seven at my house. So far we’ve been limited in what we can offer the public. At the moment we’re looking for a cellist. You don’t know one, do you?’
‘Not living here,’ replied Lenore. ‘But thanks for the invitation. I’ll look forward to Thursday.’
The guests who had been staying at the inn all departed next morning after breakfast and the old inn was quiet again. The weather had changed. Heavy grey clouds screened the sun and there was a strong wind. Seagulls blown in from the sea swooped and screamed above the rooftops and some circled down to perch on the guttering.
‘A sign of bad weather to come,’ said Blythe, pointing to the birds. ‘And the forecast is for snow. I’m glad it held off until the weekend was over.’
‘I think I’ll go for a walk, then, before it comes,’ announced Lenore, removing the apron she had been wearing. ‘That is if you don’t need me for anything?’
‘No. We won’t have any more guests until next weekend and I’m not serving dinners tonight. You go for your walk.’
‘Like to come with me?’ asked Lenore.
‘No, thanks. I’ve got a date this afternoon,’ replied Blythe, her dark eyes twinkling with mockery as she noticed Lenore’s sharp enquiring glance in her direction.
‘Here?’ Although curiosity was bubbling up in Lenore she knew better than to question her sister too closely. Blythe was a very private person, not given to shouting about her affairs from the housetops.
‘Yes, here. He’s coming with the plans he’s drawn up for an extension I’m thinking of having built on to the end of the dining room. It will be a sort of bar-lounge where people can sit and have cocktails while waiting for dinner to be served. I’ve already applied for a wine and spirit licence and have every hope of getting it.’
‘Oh, you’re expecting the architect to come,’ murmured Lenore, her interest subsiding almost as quickly as it had bubbled up.’
‘Well, yes, he is a kind of architect,’ replied Blythe. ‘He’s Josh Kyd, and he owns the boatyard, designs and builds beautiful wooden boats.’ Blythe looked around her gleaming kitchen at the smooth wooden counter tops, the wooden panelling against which copper pans gleamed. ‘He designed and helped build this kitchen for me when things were slow at the boatyard this past winter,’ she said, and there was pride in her glance and in her voice, arousing Lenore’s interest again.
‘Then I guess you’re looking forward to seeing his plans for the dining room annexe as well as seeing him,’ she remarked, and now her amber eyes held a glint of affectionate mockery. ‘I promise to keep out of your way for a couple of hours. See you later.’
Dressed warmly in jeans and boots, a quilted down-filled parka, a brightly coloured knitted cap pulled down over her ears and matching mittens on her hands, Lenore strode down Main Street and turned right into Bay Street West.
The street was narrow and without sidewalks, and followed the curving shoreline of the wide river estuary. On either side there were old clapboard houses, no two exactly alike. The first house had a brass plaque on its wall showing that it was of historical interest. Three storeys high, it had been built in 1800 for a doctor who had fought against the British in the American Revolution. There was a fine fan-shaped window over the solid front door.
On the other side of the street was a smaller house, known locally as ‘the house of sin’ because the original owner had broken the Sabbath by working on Sundays building ships. Behind the house was the boatyard, spiky with yacht masts. A man came out of the front door. Dressed in the ubiquitous jeans and quilted parka, he had a roll of paper under one arm. About forty years of age, he was lean and his uncovered wavy hair was grey.
He nodded in a friendly way to Lenore and walked off in the direction of Main Street. Watching him over her shoulder, Lenore guessed he was Josh Kyd, on his way to see Blythe.
She was glad Blythe had found a friend, she thought as she stepped out more briskly along the road. The wind sweeping in from the sea was raw, stinging her face. Above, the branches of tall elms creaked as they swayed, but the wide sturdy trunks of the trees didn’t move. Many years old, amazingly free from the dreaded disease that had attacked so many of New Englan
d’s elm trees, they seemed to be as solid as iron.
Now she was passing the Episcopal Church, built of stone in the Gothic style, on the comer of Bay Street and Leggatt Lane; its stained glass windows glinted blue-red and gold and its oak doors were closed. How often she had attended Sunday morning services there in the summertime when staying in Northport with her parents. They had always stayed in one of the cottages facing the estuary on Bay Street East, renting it from the owner—a Mrs Mather, a wealthy widow, who had lived in one of the big houses near the Golf Club.
How long since she had last walked this way? Lenore calculated backwards. Almost eight years ago, that last vacation she had spent with her parents, when she had been eighteen and had just graduated from High School and had been planning to go to New York to study music there. Eight years of her life that had gone by so quickly she had hardly noticed them passing. Eight years of dedication to her chosen career to be as good a musician as her father had been.
Her lips quivered and tears filled her eyes as she remembered her beloved father, Joe Parini. A lively but sensitive man, descended from Italian immigrants, he had died a little over three years ago from cancer. She had received her first music lessons from him, learning to play a soprano recorder at the age of five. He had himself played in the woodwind section of an orchestra for many years and he would have been pleased with her success as a clarinettist. Oh, how much she missed him!
Perhaps that was why she had turned to Herzel Rubin for emotional support and musical advice. A teacher of woodwind instruments at the music college she had attended, he had suggested she audition for an orchestra in which he had been the leader of the woodwind section. She had been appointed and they had become constant companions. Against her practical mother’s advice Lenore had moved into and had shared Herzel’s apartment to live with him freely, believing he had loved her as she had loved him.
Oh, damn! She didn’t want to think about Herzel. She had come to stay in a place where he had never been and that held only happy memories of long serene summers; a place that was renowned for peace and quiet, where people could relax and forget about the rat-race of the big cities; a place where the local inhabitants never hurried, were slow-spoken and content to carry on in the way of life of their forefathers, working the land, fishing the sea, harvesting the trees from the forests, building and repairing fishing boats as well as fine yachts.
Past the oldest house in the village she walked, a simple two-storey building set at right angles to the wild wind-tossed grey waters of the estuary. Old apple trees with twisted branches stood in its back yard. Known as William Pickering’s house, it had been built as long ago as 1664 by one of the original English settlers to come to what had then been known as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Beyond it were grass-covered irregularly shaped mounds, all that remained of an old fort that had been built by French settlers.
Past the brick-built museum where many Indian artifacts were housed, together with old guns and muskets, relics of the many battles fought in the area; past some more grass-covered mounds, the foundations of another fort, built after the Revolution.
The road took a sudden turn to the right away from the estuary. A pathway slanted off the road to the left and curved over a hill. A signpost bore the words Pickering Point Lighthouse.
Leaning against the wind, Lenore fought her way along the path, intending to walk as far as the old lighthouse, long abandoned in favour of an automatic beacon set at the foot of the sheer cliffs of Pickering Point. Soon she could see the cylindrical tower with its black-painted pointed top where the light had once been contained, rearing up starkly against the sky across which dark grey snow-laden clouds were being pushed by the wind.
Snow began to fly. In a few seconds the soggy winter-brown grass was covered white. The wood of pine trees to her right rustled and sighed as the wind whipped through them. Time to turn back before she was caught in a blizzard, thought Lenore, but she kept on, determined to have at least one glimpse of the sea raging against the rocks at the foot of the cliffs.
Battered by the wind, her cheeks stung red by icy snowflakes, she reached the edge of the cliffs and looked across the wide bay. No sign of islands or of the distant Camden Hills. They were all hidden in the snowy murk, and below her the foghorn sounded its dismal wail. She saw the surf leaping and crashing against dark primeval rocks, and then, feeling the cold penetrating her jacket, she turned and began to hurry back along the path, driven by the wind, her back soon coated with snow.
It would be quicker to go through the woods and back to the road, she decided. Often in the past she had taken that route across the Jonson land, and now she didn’t hesitate to duck under what looked like new fencing to gain shelter under the dark plumes of the pines.
But where there had once been a path clearly marked there was only a tangle of undergrowth and fallen trees through which she had to force her way, changing course several times until she was completely disorientated, not knowing if she was going towards the road or back towards the windswept headland. Above, the tree branches creaked and groaned. At eye-level other branches protruded, snatching at her parka, scratching her cheeks and even sometimes attacking her eyes. She seemed to be trapped in a gloomy green nightmare, tripping over hidden rocks and fallen tree trunks, wishing she had never decided to come that way, remembering stories she had heard of the dangers of walking in the winter woods and how sometimes people had been lost in them for ever.
At last she saw space between tree trunks; a space filled with sideways-slanting snowflakes. She made towards it and found she was on the edge of the wood at last, looking across a field covered with snow towards the shape of a house with pointed gables and a turret at one comer. Dark grey, it looked darker than the trees and clouds behind it, veiled by snow, somehow ghostly and forbidding. No light twinkled from any of its windows.
She was far away from the road, she realised. Instead of bearing right through the woods as she had thought she had been doing, she had cut straight through them. But she wasn’t going back into them. She would walk right across the field to the driveway of the house which she could just see, a double row of pine trees. It would lead her into the road and she would be able to follow Pickering Lane to Main Street, coming out uphill from the Inn.
The wind whined and the snow lashed at her as she crossed the field, which was exposed to the west and the sea. No one in their right mind would be out of doors in this weather, she thought wryly, not even the tough guy who lived in the old house. As Blythe had said, it was a godforsaken place to live in—and yet looking back to her childhood she could remember seeing it bathed in golden sunshine, its clapboard gleaming, its windows brimming with reflected light. She could remember too this field, starred with wild flowers, its long grass shimmering green and gold under a light summer breeze. Then the old house had seemed to her to be a fairy castle in which a beautiful princess might have lived. Now it seemed like a derelict ruin in which a monster lurked.
Laughing at her gothic fantasy, Lenore tripped over a snow-covered rock and went sprawling on the ground, banging her right knee on another unseen rock. Pain from the bruised kneecap zigzagged through her leg making her gasp when she kneeled on it before standing up. Slowly she bent the leg again. More pain. Somehow she managed to get to her feet and looked around to get her bearings, then she began to limp onwards in the direction of the line of trees edging the driveway. Her bruised knee twinged painfully and it took all her grit and determination to keep going.
At last, gasping for breath, having fallen several times, she reached the driveway. Leaning against the trunk of one of the pine trees, she felt her right knee through the thick denim of her jeans. There was a lump like an egg on the kneecap and when she pressed with her fingers the pain was excruciatingly sharp.
She looked down the driveway. It seemed to wind off into an infinity of wildly dancing snowflakes. It seemed to be miles long, going nowhere and soon to disappear under high drifts of snow being blown ac
ross it. And Pickering Lane would be even longer. It would take her hours to reach the Inn with her knee in this painful state, and she was afraid she might damage it permanently if she walked too far while it was hurting.
Of course, she would probably get assistance from the first house she reached in Pickering Lane, but the Jonson house was nearer. She turned her head and looked at it. Dark and high, it loomed close at hand. A few limping strides and she would be at the foot of its steps. A few more and she would be on the wide covered verandah and could knock on the door.
Pushing away from the tree, she began to limp towards the house, but the short time she had been resting it her right leg had grown stiff and somehow useless. She lost her balance again and fell down in a heap of soft snow, and wondered if she would ever get up again.
The wind howled in the tree-tops, the snowflakes whirled across the land. Soon she would be covered. She would be buried in snow! The thought was enough to make her get up and reach the house.
Limping and hopping she went, climbed the steps on all fours, and collapsed on the verandah floor in front of the elegant front door with its spiderweb transom and brass knocker and knob. Dragging herself across to the door, she thumped on the lower panels with a clenched fist.
Nothing happened, so she thumped harder, several times, and then listened. She thought she could hear a dog barking, so she thumped again.
After a while—it seemed like hours—the door swung open slowly and faint yellow light slanted out. Lenore looked up. Adam Jonson stood in the doorway, his light-coloured hair shining under the yellow light, his dark glasses glinting as he peered down at her. Beside him sat a dog, a beautifully arrogant, well-kept German Shepherd, wearing a guide-dog harness.