That Camden Summer

by LaVyrle Spencer

  After a while they all piled outside, still in their school dresses, eating cold rice cakes. ‘‘Daddy, I’m taking the girls home to show them our house!’’ Isobel shouted.

  He stopped hammering and peered over the edge of the roof. What could he say? His daughter had been a guest here yesterday. He could hardly admit he didn’t want them tramping through his house. ‘‘Change your dress when you get there! And don’t make a mess in the house!’’

  ‘‘We won’t!’’

  Off they galloped through the mist.

  On the roof, Gabe watched them. From the front door, with her hands on her waist, so did Roberta.

  When the three Jewett girls saw Isobel’s kitchen they came up short. ‘‘Golly, it’s so clean,’’ they said in awe.

  ‘‘We keep it just the way Mother kept it. My father won’t change anything, except he added electricity.’’

  ‘‘How long has she been dead?’’

  ‘‘Seven years.’’

  ‘‘How did she die?’’

  ‘‘Our horse kicked her.’’

  ‘‘Oh, how awful.’’

  ‘‘Then you know what my dad did?’’

  The Jewetts waited, rapt.

  ‘‘He shot the horse. I saw him crying after he did it, and I was only seven years old but I remember it just as clear as a bell.’’

  ‘‘Gosh,’’ someone said, breathless.

  ‘‘And ever since then he won’t let anybody change anything in our house. He says he wants to keep it just the way she left it. I’ll tell you a secret.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Her clothes are still in her bureau.’’

  It was Lydia—an impressionable age ten—who asked in a whisper, ‘‘Could we see them?’’

  ‘‘Only if you promise not to touch them, because he’d scold me if he found out. He’s real funny about her things. Well, follow me, but remember—don’t touch anything. You can only look, okay?’’

  While they tiptoed through the spotless parlor and up a set of narrow stairs, Susan whispered, ‘‘Who keeps your place so nice?’’

  ‘‘My dad and I do, and sometimes my grandma comes over and takes down the curtains and washes them—things like that. Here’s their room.’’

  Just inside the bedroom door, the girls stood respectfully silent and still. The bed was neatly made with a white coverlet. It had carved head- and footboards that matched the other pieces in the room. Isobel went to the bureau that had drawers along the right and a tall door on the left. She opened the door and said, ‘‘See? This was her nightgown, and these were her dresses.’’

  ‘‘Golly, doesn’t it give you the willies touching them like that?’’

  ‘‘Of course not, silly. She was my mother.’’

  ‘‘Gosh, I wouldn’t touch them if I could.’’

  ‘‘I would,’’ said Rebecca. ‘‘The amber one looks very pretty.’’ Only an amber sleeve showed.

  ‘‘That’s the one she always wore to church on Sundays.’’

  ‘‘We don’t go to church,’’ Lydia informed Isobel.

  ‘‘Don’t go to church! But everybody goes to church!’’

  ‘‘We don’t. Mother doesn’t like it.’’

  ‘‘Well, are you heathens then?’’

  Lydia shrugged—a great big shrug—and turned her palms up. ‘‘I don’t know.’’

  Rebecca got piqued. ‘‘No, we’re not heathens! Lydia, don’t be so stupid!’’

  Isobel closed the door as if reluctant to have her mother’s garments exposed to the godless.

  Susan spotted the photograph in an oval frame. ‘‘Is that her?’’

  ‘‘Yes. Daddy has kept it here forever.’’

  ‘‘Gee, she was beautiful.’’ Susan picked it up and gazed.

  ‘‘Don’t touch, Susan, remember?’’

  ‘‘Oh . . . sorry.’’ She replaced the picture in the spot where the linen dresser scarf was dented from the feet of the frame.

  ‘‘I suppose we shouldn’t stay in here too long, but I’ll show you my room.’’

  After the tour of her room Isobel obediently changed clothes, then offered them cinnamon jumble cookies, which were much preferable to the cold, rubbery rice cakes they’d eaten at the Jewett house. ‘‘My grandma keeps the cookie jar filled all the time, just like my mother did. She makes any kind I ask for.’’ The four of them cleaned up the cinnamon jumbles and left an empty jar, taking two cookies each for later.

  Roberta’s girls, however, took home more than spare cookies. They returned bursting with the story of the dead woman whose clothing still hung in her husband’s bureau.

  ‘‘Mother, guess what.’’

  ‘‘I couldn’t guess. What?’’

  Rebecca did the honors. ‘‘Mr. Farley’s wife was kicked by a horse and she died, then he shot the horse himself and killed it—’’

  ‘‘And it was his own horse!’’ put in Lydia.

  ‘‘And Isobel saw him crying afterwards! Isn’t that romantic?’’

  A shudder went through Roberta. She set aside her ironing and drifted toward the kitchen table where all the girls gathered, leaning far forward on their elbows. ‘‘That’s not romantic. That’s tragic.’’

  ‘‘And listen to this! He keeps the house exactly as she left it and won’t let anybody touch anything she touched—’’

  ‘‘Except for the electricity,’’ Lydia inserted. ‘‘He had electricity put in.’’

  ‘‘But everything else is just the way she left it and she’s been dead seven years and her clothing is still hanging beside his in their bureau! We saw it!’’

  ‘‘And her picture is on his dresser—’’

  ‘‘And she’s just beautiful. She had on this white dress with a tall collar and her hair was piled up in ringlets just like Lillian Russell’s.’’

  Roberta’s gaze drifted toward the front porch where Farley had been working for two days. He was gone now and the place was quiet. She imagined him keeping a shrine to his beautiful dead wife, this carpenter who could irritate her so. When her attention returned to the girls, her expression had softened. ‘‘That’s very pitiful.’’

  ‘‘Isobel wouldn’t let us touch anything ’cause she said he could tell if we did and she’d get a scolding. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten scoldings, have we, Mother?’’

  ‘‘Of course you have. You just don’t remember.’’

  ‘‘You should see how clean their house is. And guess what, he and Isobel do most of it, but her grandma goes there every week and takes them cookies. Boy, I’m sure glad we don’t have to clean every week!’’

  ‘‘She has a grandma then. Well, that’s good.’’ Roberta had never considered Farley in relation to a mother. Of course, it could be the dead wife’s mother.

  ‘‘She made the best cinnamon jumble cookies. We ate them all up,’’ Lydia divulged.

  ‘‘All?’’

  Lydia nodded, thrusting forward on her elbows nearly to the middle of the table.

  ‘‘Well, he won’t be too pleased about that. I don’t think he wanted you over there in the first place.’’

  ‘‘Why not?’’

  ‘‘You just told me why not. He’s not used to having a tribe of wild hooligans traipsing through the place like I am. Now listen’’—Roberta cheered up—‘‘there’s something I have to tell you. We’re going to get our new motorcar tomorrow.’’

  ‘‘We are?’’

  ‘‘That’s right. A Model T Ford.’’

  There were a lot of questions and rejoicing then, and the subject of the Farley household was dropped.

  But in his house across town, when Gabe finished his supper and reached into the cookie jar, he found it empty and swore softly under his breath.

  Seven

  The girls had gone to school and Roberta was up and dressed the next morning when she heard the first hammer blows on the porch. What had happened to her animosity toward Gabriel Farley? Since the girls had come home wi
th their story about his wife, her negative feelings seemed to have dissipated like yesterday’s clouds from the sky. He kept popping into her thoughts, and whenever he did she always pictured him in a doorway, which is where he’d been yesterday when he’d so fortuitously interrupted Elfred. She had seen two sides of Farley: One considered divorced women fair game; the other rescued them from unwanted attention. One held that all marital troubles started with the woman; the other was a husband who had so worshiped his wife he’d kept a shrine to her for seven years. What kind of man was this who was capable of such devotion?

  Roberta admitted she was mystified by him.

  His wife was beautiful, the girls had said, with hair piled high like Lillian Russell’s. A quick glance in the umbrella stand mirror assured Roberta she was no Lillian Russell.

  She spun from her own reflection. Whatever are you thinking, Roberta Jewett! You finally got rid of one man and the last thing you want is another! Certainly not Gabriel Farley, who snickered the first time he met you!

  No, she didn’t want Gabriel Farley. That glance in the mirror had been a mindless female reaction by which she set little store as she headed out her back door and around the house. She could hear the hammers in syncopation, ringing through the foggy day with an eerie bell-like tone that seemed to carry as if connected by slurs on sheet music. Din-dinggg . . . dindinggg . . . She snapped up her umbrella, rounded the front corner of the house and encountered Farley, constructing a new set of steps for her. Whereas yesterday she had all but snubbed him, today she paused.

  ‘‘Good morning, Mr. Farley.’’

  He straightened slowly, as if he’d stooped too many hours in his life. ‘‘Morning, Mrs. Jewett.’’ Tilted over his left ear was the same plaid cap he’d worn the day she’d met him. It was covered with droplets of fog the size of frog’s eggs.

  At the far end of the porch his brother was putting up a railing. ‘‘Morning, Mr. Farley,’’ she offered.

  ‘‘Ma’am,’’ he replied, remembering her snub of yesterday and continuing to work, leaving Roberta to face Gabriel with her anger displaced by the knowledge that he’d shot the horse that killed his wife seven years ago and had not disposed of her clothing since.

  ‘‘Be glad to have your steps back, I suppose,’’ he remarked.

  ‘‘Yes, I will.’’

  ‘‘Have ’em all done later today. Paint the porch as soon as there’s a break in the weather. Don’t want to leave raw wood to the elements up here in this soup pot.’’

  ‘‘No, of course not. I hear my girls emptied your cookie jar last night.’’

  He dropped his chin and drawled, ‘‘Waaal . . .’’ There’s a way a man stands with a garden hoe. Farley often brought to mind such a pose, whether he had a hoe or not.

  ‘‘I’m not very domestic,’’ she admitted. ‘‘When they get around good food they sometimes lose their manners.’’

  ‘‘My mother will load it up again.’’

  Why would a man keep his wife’s clothing? Did he take it out and touch it? The disconcerting picture of him rubbing a garment between his callused fingertips made him more human than Roberta wanted him to be. She shored up her wayward thoughts and said, ‘‘Well, I thought you’d like to know, I’m off to Boynton’s to get myself a motorcar.’’

  ‘‘You’re buying one then.’’

  ‘‘Yes, a Model T Ford.’’

  ‘‘It’s for sure you’ll know how to drive it.’’ He ventured a restrained grin.

  ‘‘Yes, I will, won’t I?’’

  ‘‘It’s going to cause some talk, you being a single lady.’’

  ‘‘Yes, I’m sure.’’

  ‘‘Boynton’s got a decent garage though. They’ll take care of it for you.’’

  ‘‘That’s what Mr. Young said when I talked to him yesterday. Well, I’d best be off. See you later.’’ She raised her voice to Seth. ‘‘See you later, Mr. Farley. Sorry about this weather.’’

  When she was gone Seth remarked dryly, ‘‘Oh, she’s talking to you today.’’

  ‘‘Seems to be a moody woman,’’ Gabe replied. Then he, too, went back to work.

  She drove her spanking-new Model T Ford away from Boynton’s carrying a myriad of accessories upon which Henry Ford had proudly emblazoned his company insignia: a spare fan belt, a tire-patching kit, a small tool kit, a canvas duster to protect her clothes and a pair of goggles for when she lowered the top. The only thing Mr. Ford seemed to omit his name from was the ten-pound can of carbide crystals that Hamlin Young gave her after filling her lamps . . . making sure he patted her hand plenty during the exchange.

  ‘‘Now be sure to come back and let me show you how to adjust the carburetor!’’ he called after her.

  In a pig’s eye, she thought. The carburetor you want to adjust is mine, and I’m not that big a fool!

  She motored down Main Street, bouncing on her new patent-leather seat, feeling sassy and free with the side curtains rolled up in spite of the drizzle. Her own motorcar, completely paid for! And nobody to tell her where she could go with it! She stopped at Coose’s Hardware and carried her new gas can inside, had it filled and replaced the wooden plug herself with a jaunty slap. It was heavy, as Elfred had warned, but Mr. Coose wouldn’t hear of her carrying it outside herself and did it for her. Away she went again, grinning at the astonished faces of the men she left behind. The mist continued, blurring visibility on the horizontally split windshield. But she peered through it at every driver she met, feeling superior to discover none were women.

  Such elation demanded company, so she stopped at Grace’s and gave several bleats on her Klaxon.

  Grace stuck her head out the front door, slapped her own cheek and said, ‘‘Oh, merciful heavens, what will she do next!’’

  ‘‘Grace, come on out and take a ride with me!’’

  ‘‘Are you insane, Roberta!’’

  ‘‘Not at all! Come on, we’ll go show Mother!’’

  ‘‘Mother will be furious!’’

  ‘‘Mother is always furious. Come with me anyway!’’

  From the opposite end of the walk she could tell Grace was waffling. ‘‘Without a man?’’

  ‘‘Oh, Grace, you don’t need a man for everything!’’

  Grace’s eyes veered down the street, then back to the car. ‘‘Oh, dear, Elfred will flip his wig! We aren’t going far, are we?’’

  ‘‘No.’’ Just for fun, Roberta added, ‘‘No farther than Portland!’’

  ‘‘Oh, Birdy.’’ Grace flapped a hand, but this innocent collusion became more than she could resist. When they were girls it was always Birdy who got them in trouble, and as she popped inside to grab her coat Grace realized she was letting herself in for more of the same.

  Their mother lived on Elm Street, one of the loveliest thoroughfares in town, in a sturdy two-story with a Colonial exterior and a Wedgwood-blue door and shutters. In the few short blocks it took to get there, the sisters reverted to giggles, driving along, ringing the brass bell beside the Klaxon, feeling smart and worldly in this man’s contraption that drew open-mouthed stares from all the drivers they passed.

  Grace went to the door. ‘‘Look, Mother, Birdy’s gone and done it. She bought the motorcar!’’

  ‘‘Oh, that girl, she’ll be the persecution of me yet!’’

  ‘‘She wants to take you for a ride in it.’’

  ‘‘Not on your life! And you shouldn’t be riding in it either! People will be calling you both loose women!’’

  ‘‘But, Mother, I don’t see what harm can come of a little ride.’’

  ‘‘Does Elfred know you’re out running around alone?’’

  ‘‘No, but I’m not doing anything wrong.’’ Grace’s enthusiasm was fading fast.

  ‘‘You get right back in that thing and tell your sister to take you straight back home before Elfred finds out!’’ She raised her voice and screeched at Roberta, ‘‘Elfred wouldn’t like her out running around like some floozy! You might think
it’s just fine to go out and buy yourself a car, but this is a small town, and women don’t do things like that! Now you take your sister home!’’

  She disappeared and slammed the door.

  Grace returned to the car somewhat glum. ‘‘Mother’s probably right. I knew it before I came with you.’’

  By the time she had returned Grace to her house, Roberta’s own spirits were dampened. She should have known better. Grace was not only under Elfred’s thumb, she was under Mother’s as well. She had been doing what the two of them demanded for so long that she had accepted oppression as her natural way of life.

  When Roberta pulled up at home the reaction she received was far different. Farley and his brother stopped pounding and moved toward the car like children toward a circus.

  ‘‘Well, there she is!’’ Farley called. ‘‘And isn’t she pretty!’’

  Forgetting her umbrella, Roberta had gotten out and met them at the bridal wreath hedge.

  ‘‘Why is it that all you men call conveyances she?’’

  Both men stopped and casually admired the car. Gabe said, ‘‘Never stopped to think about it, just do.’’ Seth started circling the Model T but Gabe stayed by Roberta. ‘‘Did you leave the spark lever up so you don’t break an arm next time?’’

  ‘‘I did.’’

  ‘‘And the throttle up, too?’’

  ‘‘The throttle, too.’’

  ‘‘You learn quickly, Mrs. Jewett.’’

  ‘‘It appears I’ll have to. I’ve come home with a whole mess of repair tools that Hamlin Young assured me I had to have—a rubber patching kit for the tires and a spare belt for the fan and a bunch of screwdrivers and wrenches for the carburetor.’’

  ‘‘And don’t forget the transmission bands.’’

  ‘‘Oh dear,’’ she said, touching her lips melodramatically like a maiden in distress, putting them both in danger of laughing, for Roberta was as far from a maiden in distress as a black widow spider. The moment held a beat of disquiet while they stood in the rain enjoying each other completely, taken off guard by the realization that their acquaintance was taking a turn that neither of them had expected: They were slowly becoming friends.