Beloved

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Meg knocked on the door. It was opened by a nurse who was clearly expecting her. The nurse led Meg past a living room filled with surprisingly good furniture and into a rugless bedroom fitted out with a hospital bed, a small bureau, a wood chair, a La-Z-Boy recliner, an aluminum walker, and a nightstand buried under bottles of medication.

  Meg moved closer to the sleeping form on the bed. She hadn't seen Orel Tremblay in a year; it might have been ten. He was quite emaciated. His hair was thinner; whiter; longer. He hadn't shaved, or been shaved, in several days, which made him look homeless somehow. And yet his nightshirt was clean, and the bedding crisp and well turned down. He had a good nurse.

  "Mr. Tremblay," whispered the nurse in a hovering voice. "Look: Here's that Mrs. Hazard you wanted so much to see."

  The old man's eyes fluttered open. He made a querulous sound in his throat and turned to Meg, fixing her with a listless stare.

  At last he spoke.

  "My God," he said, shaking his head. "You‘re the spittin' image of her."

  "I'm Meg Hazard, Mr. Tremblay. I've seen you in town— although we've never officially met," she added. She spoke loudly, assuming that his senses were as frail as his body.

  The nurse gave her a sharp look and whispered, "He can hear just fine, and he knows perfectly well who you are."

  She ordered Meg to take the rush-seated chair, and then she left the room. Meg sat with a Raggedy Ann smile stitched to her face, waiting to hear what Orel Tremblay could possibly have to say that was a "matter of life and death."

  But he only stared, as if her face, with its hazel eyes, full lips, and wreath of chestnut-brown hair, was not her face at all but something borrowed for the occasion.

  "Who am I the spitting image of?" Meg finally blurted out.

  Orel Tremblay didn't answer the question directly. Instead he said in a slow, mournful ramble, "I seen you so many times ... in the market ... gassin' up your car ... window-shoppin' on Cottage Street ... and every time, every time ... it give me such a start, I figured my heart would go, right then and there."

  He lifted one of his hands — big, misshapen, arthritic hands — and rubbed his brow with the tips of his fingers, as if he were stroking a lamp of memories, calling forth the genie of time past.

  "Even now," he said with a bitter sigh, "I have to pinch myself that you're not her. How could you be? She's dead; has been, this half a century."

  He continued to speak with an effort; every word seemed to cost him. "The thing is, when I met your grandmother, she was your age — that would be, what, thirty-some?" In the same mournful voice he added, "She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw."

  Meg smiled in disbelief, but the old man seemed not to notice. "I never loved another woman after your grandmother," he went on. "I never loved a single, other woman."

  Loved her? Since when? Who was he, and what in God's name did he have to do with her grandmother?

  "I never knew my grandmother," she told him. "I guess you know she died in the Great Fire of ‘47."

  "Of course I know it, gahdammit!" Orel Tremblay snapped. "Why d'you think I asked you here?"

  Meg said testily, "I don't have any idea, Mr. Tremblay."

  "True, true. How could you?" he muttered, fumbling with a control button on the side of his hospital-style bed. Slowly he raised himself into a semi-sitting position. After a deep breath or two, he reached over for a glass of water that stood on the bed table. The drink seemed to revive him: He was able td continue in a more civil tone, and his words flowed more easily.

  "I'm old, and I'm dying, and I know it," he said, dismissing her sympathetic protest with a fluttery wave of his hand. "I don't own much," he went on. "Just a few sticks of furniture that I made — I was a cabinetmaker — and the equity in this house. And the chipper-shredder. And the dollhouse."

  It was an odd list, but Meg let it pass; she was waiting, still, to see why she'd been summoned.

  "I have a niece somewhere who's bound to show up the day the will gets read," Tremblay said, snorting with derision, "and that's about it. Now. Help me out of bed."

  "Oh! Shouldn't I get the —"

  "Daow," he said, shaking his head impatiently. "No need. Just muckle onto that walker and set it alongside. The other bedroom's within hailin' distance. I'll make it," he said grimly.

  Meg helped the old man out of bed and into his slip-ons, and walked slowly alongside him as he shuffled behind his walker into the hall. The nurse popped her head through a doorway to see what her charge was up to, gave him a brisk, friendly smile, and retreated to another room. Meg and her host continued on their slow journey into the second bedroom.

  At the doorway, Orel Tremblay paused and jerked his head toward the room within. "I'll go first," he said, suddenly eager. His voice was shaking with anticipation.

  Meg waited as he preceded her, marveling that the frail, bent-over figure with the skinny calves and liver-spotted brow had once been passionately in love with her own grandmother.

  She stepped through the doorway after him. The room was dark; its shades were drawn, and the venetian blinds were closed. Then Orel Tremblay turned on a lamp.

  It threw dim, golden light over the most beautiful, the most exquisite, the biggest dollhouse Meg had ever seen, a masterpiece of gables, balconies, turrets, and chimneys, with many diamond-paned windows and stately French doors, the entire, wonderful structure sitting serenely atop a cherrywood table shaped to match its elaborate footprint. Orel Tremblay reached behind the dollhouse and threw another switch, and the whole weathered-shingle fantasy lit up from within like a Christmas tree.

  Meg was breathless with pleasure. A low, awed sound escaped her throat, and nothing more; the words simply weren't there.

  Orel Tremblay nodded his head vigorously. "Ain't it just?" he kept saying, his voice dancing for joy. "Ain't it?" He was watching her intently, savoring it again through her eyes.

  Meg approached the superb miniature and peered through a tiny lattice-paned casement. Inside she saw a dining room furnished in stunning detail. The Chippendale-style table, the focal point of the room, was elaborately set for a formal dinner that would never be eaten. Everything, from the impossibly tiny gold flatware and crystal stemware to the thumbnail-size hand-painted platters — everything was incredibly complete and perfectly rendered to scale.

  The silver chandelier with its half-inch candles; the sideboard covered with silver salvers; the Oriental rug, twelve inches long and nine inches wide, knotted from silken threads into a pattern of stunning complexity; the mauve brocade drapes, held back by tiny gold braid; even the bits of wood in the marble-manteled fireplace, kindling and log sized.

  "This ... is magic," Meg whispered, finding her voice at last.

  She peeped through another window: the library. Another fireplace, this one with a mantel of burnished mahogany, held a porcelain-faced clock and charming examples of chinoiserie: tiny twin red vases and a pair of lamps with bases of blue-patterned porcelain. A brassbound bellows less than two inches long looked as if it might actually be workable. Portraits the size of postage stamps hung from moldings on two of the walls; they were original oils. Two armchairs, covered in kid leather, filled up much of the room, which was cozy more than majestic. One wall was lined with books; it wouldn't have surprised Meg to learn that they had pages that turned and stories inside, written by best-selling authors of the day.

  She peeked through a gabled window on the top floor. Inside was a maid's room, starkly plain, with an iron-frame bed, a small bureau, a commode, a mirror — and a maid. The maid, a porcelain-faced doll wearing a white cap and an apron over a black dress, was one of several in the garret rooms.

  "When was the house built?" Meg asked. She had a tremendous sense that she'd seen it before, but whether in a newspaper or on television, she had no idea.

  "The estate house — the real house that this is modeled after — was built in the 1880's. This miniature of it was built during the Great Depression," Orel said. "To
give the help something to do, y'see. I myself did some repairs on it later. In 1947," he added in an oddly meaningful tone.

  He began lowering himself from his walker into a small armchair placed nearby. Meg broke out of her gaping reverie and hurried to assist him. After he was settled, she turned and stared at the dollhouse. It was so incredibly beautiful, and yet it was so incredibly ... something else. Forlorn, maybe; and sad. It would never really be lived in, after all.

  "I know this house," she said, puzzled. She turned to Orel Tremblay. Her face, usually friendly and confidant, was troubled. "How would I know this house?"

  The old man was nodding triumphantly. "Your grandmother!" he cried, pointing a gnarled finger at the lovely house. "That's how you know! She was a sleep-out nursemaid there! This is a replica of the Eagle's Nest — the old Camplin estate house!"

  "Ah. That's how I know," Meg said, not really reassured. She had heard the name many times, but she couldn't recall having seen any photos of the place. If they existed. How did she know the house?

  "Your grandmother took the job in the spring of ‘47. She was merely fillin' in for the children's regular nursemaid, who took a fit to elope with the chauffeur after the boy got fired. Then in October come the fire."

  Meg peeked through the casement window of another top-floor room. It was the nursery itself, with two little brass beds and a rocking chair, and impossibly small toys scattered on the floor. A boy doll lay in one bed. A girl doll was sitting on the floor with a set of minuscule play-blocks. A nursemaid doll — her grandmother, presumably — stood looking out the gabled window at some imaginary vista beyond. She was the only doll in a shorter length dress.

  "I never knew the job was only a temporary placement," Meg said, filled with a sudden sense of loss. "How sad."

  "For God's sake! Didn't your people tell you nothin' about her?"

  "Yes, of course. I know that my grandmother was very devoted to her two sons," Meg said defensively. "My father still talks about the blueberry tarts she wheedled from the cook at Eagle's Nest for him and his brother — they were just boys when she died in the fire, of course. I guess the cook was from Paris and homesick, and my grandmother's Quebec French was very good. She used to listen to his stories."

  "Oh, yeah; the cook," the old man said, nodding. "Jean-Louis. Short fat guy with brown beady eyes. Couldn't speak a word of English. Personally I have no use for a man who can't be bothered to learn our mother tongue.

  "But that was your grandmother all over," he mused, rubbing the stubble of his beard. "Everyone loved her. She had this glow about her ... this wonderful warmth ... you couldn't help but be drawed to her. Everyone was. Everyone —"

  His expression suddenly turned dark and angry, surprising Meg once more; he seemed too fragile for such wrenching shifts of mood.

  "You have Margaret's smile," he said suddenly, veering away from his anger. "Not exactly the same: You're less open. More guarded. Well, that's no surprise," he said with a thin shrug of cynicism. "Times are different."

  But Meg was surprised, because she truly didn't believe that times were that different — at least, not in Bar Harbor. She didn't lock her door and she'd never been robbed and she always felt safe on the town's streets. She knew and liked everyone, and everyone knew and liked her. That was the whole point of living in a small town, even one as visited as Bar Harbor. That was why, like her grandmother, she'd never leave Bar Harbor.

  "Times aren't so very different, Mr. Tremblay," she argued, convinced that her smile was as open and unguarded as her grandmother's.

  He gave her a long, searching, and utterly dispirited look. "Maybe not," he said wearily. "Maybe not."

  There was a pause, and then he said, "She never did want to be more than my friend."

  "My grandmother, you mean," Meg said, shifting gears with him.

  Orel Tremblay nodded. "Oh, I'd of stole her away from her old man in a shot, if she'd of let me. Your granddaddy was a drunken lout," he said contemptuously. "He didn't deserve Margaret. But she was just ... so ... loyal, don't you know. To him, and to their two boys. And damn it to hell, it cost her her life. It was criminal."

  "What?"

  "You heard me."

  Meg was well aware that her grandmother had become trapped in Eagle's Nest during the Great Fire and had burned to death. Naturally her family had never dwelled on it, even though the fire itself was a major event in Bar Harbor's history.

  Meg began edging away from the dollhouse. It seemed no longer charmed but sinister, a painful reminder of a family tragedy. As for her grandfather: yes, it was true; he drank. That was nobody's business, least of all Orel Tremblay's. Suddenly she was sorry she'd come.

  "Mister Tremblay. I don't understand what you're driving at. As far as I know, my grandfather and grandmother were a happily married couple — average happy, anyway. But even if they weren't, I don't see what the point is in your dragging up the fact. They're both dead now. I think the decent thing would be to let them rest in peace."

  "Aaagh, you're right," Orel Tremblay said, more annoyed than embarrassed. "Why ever did I bother? Never mind. What's done is done. Mrs. Billings!" he shouted, with astonishing vigor.

  The nurse came in, and Meg went out. That was the end of her visit with Orel Tremblay, unrequited lover of Margaret Mary Atwells.

  ****

  At the family supper that night, Meg's strange and wildly unsatisfying visit with Orel Tremblay was the hot topic. Nothing else could touch it — not young Terry's second black eye of the month; not his mother's honorable mention at the pie bazaar; not even the ten-year-old pickup Meg's older brother Lloyd had just got for a song. Everyone wanted a word-by-word blow, and they did everything but bang on the table with their spoons to get Meg to tell her story.

  Meg wasn't inclined to go into detail. For one thing, they had an outsider at the table tonight — Tom Wyler, sitting smack-dab in the middle of the Wednesday chaos they called Chicken Pie Night. She stole glances at him, perfectly aware that he was watching her watch him. He made her uncomfortable, although nobody else in the family seemed to feel funny about having him there. Allie was still enchanted by the man, and their nephew Timmy seemed to be thrilled to know someone so tall and smart with almost the same first name. His twin brother Terry was ignoring Tom Wyler, but that was nothing new; Terry wasn't on speaking terms with anyone except Coughdrop, the family part-Golden Retriever.

  Meg looked to her father, Everett Atwells, head of their extended household, for his reaction to the newcomer. No problem; to him Tom Wyler was apparently just another mouth to feed. Of her relatives, only her brother Lloyd looked unhappy to have him here. That was probably because Tom Wyler clearly had money and a job, and at the moment Lloyd had neither.

  The real test, of course, was Uncle Bill, her father's older brother. Uncle Bill was outspoken, outrageous, and unmanageable. He was a kind of litmus strip for the family. If Uncle Bill liked someone, everyone else was allowed to like him too. If he didn't, he made life such hell for the newcomer that the family, out of pity, usually ended up taking the poor wretch back to where they'd found him.

  They had no choice in the matter, because Uncle Bill, not the marrying kind, wasn't the cooking kind, either; he ate with the family as often as he could and always on Wednesday, when Comfort served her Chicken Pie with Secret Seasonings.

  So it was Bill Atwells's voice, as usual, that elbowed its way through all the rest.

  "Are you gonna tell us what happened or not, Meg? In the meantime, pass them pertitters. And I don't mind another dollop of chicken pie while I'm at it, Comfort; it's wicked good tonight. Well, Meg? Don't just sit there poundin' sand. You went to the man's house and the nurse let you in and what?"

  Meg cast a wary eye at her irrepressible uncle. She was treading over tricky ground here. Bill Atwells might find it fascinating that someone had had a crush on his mother, but he wouldn't think much of the "drunken-lout" description of his father. And what about Allie? Did Allie really need to be
reminded that drinking ran in the family?

  Meg tried simple evasion. "We don't want to bore Mr. Wyler with our little small-town dramas, Uncle Bill."

  "Don't be silly, Meg. Tom wants to hear," Allie said with a confident, beguiling look at her invited guest.

  Meg had seen her sister — who could look seductive reciting the alphabet — use that look before. It was very effective, almost a form of hypnosis.

  Tom Wyler gave Meg a good-humored smile and said, "I like a good mystery."

  "C'mon, tell!" said Timmy.

  "What're you afraid of?" asked his twin brother Terry.

  "Okay," Meg said with a sigh. "As I said, Mr. Tremblay's not in great shape physically. But he's very sharp mentally. It turns out that he's noticed me around town. In fact he says I look exactly like Grandmother."

  "Don't be silly," Everett Atwells said. "You look exactly like you."

  "Well, all right; but here's the part he seemed determined for me to know: He was wildly in love with Grandmother."

  "That son of a bitch!" Bill Atwells said through a mouthful of chicken pie.

  "It never went anywhere, Uncle Bill; you won't have to challenge Mr. Tremblay to a duel," Meg said ironically.

  "When was this?" Everett demanded. Plainly it was all news to him.

  Meg explained that Orel Tremblay and Margaret Mary Atwells had both worked at the Eagle's Nest at the same time, and that Tremblay, like the rest of the staff, was smitten with her grandmother's great natural warmth.

  "Which, by the way, he told me I didn't have," Meg added wryly.

  "He said that to you? That he had a thing for Grandmother, and that he thinks you're cold?" Allie was agape with indignation. "What nerve!"