A Desperate Hope

by Elizabeth Camden

  But tonight, it was time to say good-bye to the old town. Bruce had arranged a huge celebration for anyone who wanted to watch the final demolition of Duval Springs from the terrace of his home. His household staff was here, as was Marie, but most people chose to watch from Highpoint, where a similar gathering was being held to witness the town’s final hours. Eloise brought her telescope out onto the terrace, and Marie set out sandwiches, fruit, and pastries. Alex looked like he was bracing for a battle as he stood at the edge of the terrace, hands in his pockets, gazing down at Duval Springs.

  “How are you doing?” Eloise asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m okay. Sort of.” He flashed her a wink. “No matter what, I’m not going to cry in front of Garrett.”

  She wasn’t so sure about that. Alex usually got misty at times like these, and he’d been emotional all day. She wished this final farewell could be over so they could start their new life in Highpoint. To her relief, Bruce and all his staff were respectful as they began gathering on the terrace. Moose even offered Alex a handshake.

  “I have good memories of the harvest festivals down there,” he said. “I used to be part of the barbershop quartet.”

  Alex nodded. “I remember.”

  Even the housekeeper had a story. “My father had a wishbone in the tavern during the Civil War. We still have it in the family.”

  Alex blinked a little faster as the memories started getting to him. Eloise slid her hand into his and squeezed. He squeezed back.

  “Thanks, ballast,” he whispered to her.

  Even from up here, Duval Springs looked terrible with over half its buildings gone and every tree in the town already cut down and burned. The old elm tree where Alex had carved their initials was gone. Teams of real gravediggers had moved the rest of the cemetery. Smaller buildings had been knocked down and the rubble gathered into mounds. Larger buildings would be burned in place with their windows propped open to allow for air circulation to help the flames. The Gilmore Inn had been set with accelerants to ensure all four floors would be properly engulfed.

  Moose peered through the telescope. “Enzo is getting ready to set off the fuses,” he said. “Come look!”

  “I can’t take it,” Alex whispered, and remained motionless as he watched the beginning of the fire through pained eyes.

  This was going to be hard, but witnessing the town’s final moments was a way to bid farewell to a place that represented the best of America. Nothing lasted forever, and Duval Springs had a grand run.

  “There’s the first flame,” Moose said from his position at the telescope. Even through the naked eye, it didn’t take long to spot the orange line creeping up the column of the Gilmore Inn. The accelerants kicked in, and the other columns soon caught, and then the underside of the balcony was quickly engulfed. Marie came to stand on Alex’s other side.

  “It is the last hour of the last day,” she said gently.

  Alex gave a ragged sigh and lost the battle. He collapsed into a chair and started bawling like a baby. After a few minutes, he got control and wiped his face. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he told Marie. “Thank you. A thousand times, thank you.”

  “For what?” she asked.

  “For being the best teacher I ever had. For staying with us until the end.”

  Tears spilled down Marie’s face too. “We were all lucky to have been at a place like Duval Springs.”

  Other buildings were soon lit, but it was the four-story inn that was the most spectacular as flames poured from the open windows. Everyone stood in dazed fascination as the fire spread throughout the town. Even from here, Eloise could smell the burning wood.

  Someone tilted the telescope toward Highpoint. “Look over there! Dr. Lloyd is smooching Rebecca Wiggin in the bandstand.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Alex said. He darted to the telescope and focused the knob. “Eloise, you’ve got to see this.” He beckoned her to the telescope.

  She hesitated. “I don’t think it’s right to spy on people.”

  Alex pulled away from the telescope to shoot her a teasing grin. “Listen to you! Didn’t you spy on the entire town of Duval Springs for years?”

  She could hardly deny it, but she still lifted her chin and refused to look. No one else was so prudish. Even Marie took a peek at the creamery lady sharing an unseemly kiss with the town’s bachelor doctor. Small towns would always have their scandal and nosy neighbors, and Highpoint was following in the tradition.

  After an hour, most of the buildings in the town square were smoldering piles of charred wood, but far more interesting were the ongoing developments over at Highpoint. Alex moved the telescope to the other side of the terrace so people could watch the children at Highpoint play crack-the-whip on the town square, and Hercules had people lined up to bob for apples.

  Duval Springs was in the past. It was time to look toward the future in Highpoint.

  Epilogue

  June 1915

  Incessant knocking on his bedroom door woke Alex. It was only four o’clock in the morning, but as the hotel’s manager, he didn’t have the luxury of ignoring it. Eloise still slumbered, so he padded quietly to the door to crack it open. Nick and Rosalind Drake were on the other side, both fully dressed and looking anxious.

  “What’s wrong?” Alex asked.

  “Nothing, but we need you to open the kitchen,” Nick said. “We need breakfast. It’s going to be a long day.”

  Alex smothered a laugh. “I know. That’s why I’d like a few more hours of sleep. Go back to bed.”

  “Can’t,” Nick said. “We open the pipes today, and I’ve got a team ready to do a final inspection before we start.”

  After eight years, millions of dollars, and thousands of uprooted lives, the reservoir was filled and ready to begin operations. For years the reservoir had been a vast pit in the ground, surrounded by cranes, earthmoving equipment, and thousands of construction workers. Now the finished reservoir looked like a natural lake, sparkling like a gem in their secluded valley. When they turned the taps on later today, water would begin flowing toward New York City for the first time.

  “Please,” Rosalind said. “I know it’s early, but we’ve got a crew of hungry men and need to be on the job within the hour.”

  Alex nodded. “I’m doing it for you, not for him.”

  At least Rosalind said please. Alex still sometimes resented the city workers who had invaded their lives, but he couldn’t help being a little proud of the reservoir. It was a testament to the human spirit that they could transform the earth in such a manner.

  When he returned to his bedroom after opening the kitchen, Eloise was up and getting dressed, looking almost as anxious as Nick and Rosalind.

  “Hurry,” she said. “We need to set up the tables on the lawn, then start carrying out the food. We’re expecting two thousand people for the celebration today, and they’ll be here soon.”

  Eloise loved planning these town festivals, and as the mayor’s wife, she got to attend every one of them. She was still a perfectionist, and it was that quality that had helped them create a first-rate hotel in Highpoint. Their town needed a hotel, and since Willard Gilmore had moved to Albany, Alex and Eloise had stepped up to the plate and built one. They had owned and operated it since the first year of their marriage.

  By noon, people from all over the valley gathered on the banks of the new Ashokan Reservoir. Children played in the nearby field, adults ate and gossiped, and everyone took part in judging the pie contest. Each year since the clearing of the valley, the displaced residents scattered around the state gathered for a reunion, but today was special. Today the festival would be held on the banks of a beautiful lake that had been born of their sacrifices.

  From the corner of his eye, Alex spotted a couple of teenaged boys tugging off their shirts, and when they kicked off their shoes, he knew exactly what they were up to.

  He darted to the water’s edge to stop them. “You boys know the rules against swimming in t
he reservoir.”

  After all, the city had posted dozens of signs prohibiting swimming and boating. Alex usually looked the other way when local boys stole a quick swim, for ducks and fish certainly made themselves at home in the lake. The water would go through plenty of filtration and treatment before it arrived at the city, so the rules seemed a little pointless to him.

  And if he and Eloise sometimes slipped out for a forbidden moonlit dip of their own? Well, let the city come arrest them. He didn’t intend to quit.

  “Oh, come on,” one of the boys grumbled.

  Alex leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Wait until the journalists and photographers are gone. Then you can have at it,” he said with a wink.

  It was approaching the noon hour, and Alex loped over to join Eloise, who was burping their youngest son over her shoulder. Eloise had a limitless supply of patience, which was good, because they’d had four sons in the last seven years, and they were a handful. At the moment they only had the baby to tend with, for Hercules had taken the older boys and Blessed Joy to watch the engineers open the inlet gates.

  “Brace yourself,” he murmured to Eloise.

  The clock was about to strike the noon hour, and Nick had warned the entire town of what would happen at twelve o’clock. Even so, the blast of the steam whistles was overwhelming. Ducks startled into flight, and Alex covered the baby’s ears. Every steam whistle, siren, and horn stationed along the reservoir blared, signaling that the taps had been turned on.

  The whistles bellowed throughout the valley for a solid minute. At this very moment, the first gallon of water had been released to begin its hundred-mile journey to New York City. Some of the crowd clapped and cheered, and others covered their ears and waited for the earsplitting assault to end.

  “Good boy,” Alex crooned to the baby when the whistles fell silent, for little Jacob had only let out a few whimpers and now smiled at him with a gummy, toothless grin.

  Alex’s ears were still ringing ten minutes later when Nick and Rosalind rolled up in their automobile, both smiling wide. Hercules and the children clambered out of the back seat.

  “Pipes open!” Nick roared as he vaulted from the car. He reached over the lunch table and began stuffing his pockets with apples, muffins, and a wedge of cheese. At Eloise’s frown of disapproval, he shrugged defensively. “What? It’s going to be a long day. I’m driving ninety-five miles to make inspections of the aqueduct all along the way. This time tomorrow, the water is going to be at New York City. Are you ready, Rosalind?”

  “Let’s go,” she replied. Rosalind had to scurry to keep up with Nick’s long-legged stride, but soon the two of them were back in their automobile, the bonnet folded back and their faces to the wind as they set off to race the water to New York City.

  Blessed Joy watched Nick’s departure, her six-year-old face covered in awe. “I want to be a plumber when I grow up.”

  “Last week you wanted to be a ballerina,” Hercules said.

  “She can be anything she wants to be,” Eloise said.

  It was what they told all the children living in Highpoint, even though Alex hoped they wouldn’t be lured away by the temptations of the city. As the mayor of Highpoint, maybe he was biased, but this valley was the best place in the world. He grabbed Blessed Joy’s hand to walk her over to the edge of the water and hunkered down beside her.

  “Do you see that buoy out there in the middle of the lake?” he asked, pointing to a distant speck. “That’s where the tavern was. That’s where you were born.”

  “In Duval Springs?” Joy asked.

  “Yes, in Duval Springs.” The lake was so huge it was hard to know exactly where Duval Springs had been located, but its memories were forever engraved on his heart.

  Blessed Joy ran off to show the spot to Ilya, who resented being pulled away from the pie contest for something so pointless as admiring a distant buoy. Most of the children weren’t interested in the idyllic village that once flourished here. Someday they might want to know more about the history of this place, and if they did, he would be ready to teach them.

  Maybe that was the nature of progress. Why dwell on the way life used to be? The sacrifices of the past were already fading away, even for him. Someday people would probably even take this reservoir for granted and never realize the sacrifices made by thousands of people to make this engineering miracle possible.

  Wind coming off the lake ruffled his hair as he gazed at the buoy bobbing in the sunshine. He dwelled on the past because he loved it, because it was part of his soul, and he never wanted to forget those days, even though they were gone forever. The end of Duval Springs had been hard, but helping his people survive that time would always be his proudest accomplishment.

  Eloise slid up alongside him, wrapping an arm around his waist as she gazed out at the lake. “I used to stare down at that town with such envy,” she said. “Now all that’s left is a buoy.”

  Her comment triggered the romantic in him. He had fought hard for Duval Springs, but in losing it, he’d found something better. He leaned over to whisper in her ear. “That town tempted the princess down from the mountaintop. I’ll be forever grateful for that.”

  The detour that had been thrown into their lives ended up guiding him and Eloise exactly where they were meant to be. He pulled his wife and baby close and thanked God for the unexpected detours in their lives.

  Historical Note

  Duval Springs is a fictional town, but it’s modeled on the collective experience of several towns that were dismantled to build the Ashokan Reservoir. Some of the smaller towns relocated to higher ground, but most people took their payouts and moved to nearby villages. Urban legend claims that when the water level in the reservoir is low, chimneys and church steeples from the drowned villages break the surface of the water. There is no truth to the myth, as all buildings, cemeteries, railroads, and vegetation were completely removed before hollowing out the basin of the reservoir. Today only a few historic markers along the edge of the water commemorate the vanished towns of Ashton, Boiceville, Brodhead Bridge, Brown’s Station, Olive Branch, Olive City, and West Hurley.

  Beginning in 1913 and continuing until the late twentieth century, an annual Labor Day reunion of the displaced residents and their families was held at the reservoir. In 1985, Mayor Ed Koch of New York City sent a proclamation to be read aloud at one of these reunions, which was attended by five of the surviving displaced people. The proclamation read:

  “The aqueduct system that supplies water to New York City is one of the wonders of the modern world. . . . It is appropriate indeed to remember and honor the sacrifices of our fellow New Yorkers upstate who helped make our water supply possible. Every day of the year since 1905, the people of New York City have raised their glasses in a toast to you—and in those glasses is the best water in the world.”

  Questions for Discussion

  At the end of the novel, Alex is trying to educate the next generation about the past. Are there things you wish the younger people in your lives had a better appreciation for? What is the best way to teach them?

  Bruce drove Alex out of town to split him away from Eloise. Why did he do this rather than force Eloise and Alex into a shotgun wedding? Although his methods were harsh, was his decision to discourage their romance the right one?

  Eloise has the steadfast skills of a planner, while Alex is a dreamer. She reflects, “It was simply the way God had made them, and the world needed both sorts to succeed.” Do you agree with her?

  At one point Eloise predicts that if she and Alex had married when they were young, it would have been a disaster. What do you think?

  Shortly after the dead bodies are found, Eloise proclaims, “I can’t abandon someone, even if the worst is true. Especially if the worst is true.” How do you feel about supporting a loved one if they had committed a terrible offense?

  Eloise often harkens back to swashbuckling heroes of adventure novels and ultimately draws upon their bravery when she
helps move the town. Have you ever been inspired to embark on an action based on fictional characters?

  Do you think Eloise chose the right man? Why?

  When Eloise is at Nick’s wedding, she looks through the terrace window to see an idyllic image of people dancing and laughing. She characterizes them as happy people living perfect lives. Are there times when you observe people from afar and feel your own life comes up short? How realistic is that?

  Did you guess the villains before the end? Were there any plot twists that took you by surprise?

  Eloise overcompensates for her history of being rejected by making herself overly helpful to people. Are there any upsides to this?

  Eloise concludes that most of Oscar Ott’s nasty comments were rooted in unhappiness and insecurity. Do you agree?

  Elizabeth Camden is the author of twelve historical novels and has been honored with both the RITA Award and the Christy Award. With a master’s in history and a master’s in library science, she is a research librarian by day and scribbles away on her next novel by night. She lives with her husband in Florida. Learn more at www.elizabethcamden.com.

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Books by Elizabeth Camden

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

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