by Donna Ball
Bridget actually moved the receiver away from her ear and looked at it for a moment as though she did not recognize the voice on the other end. “Why would we want to do that?” she said.
“Obviously, you didn’t know what you were getting into when you offered on the house. I doubt if parts of it are even up to code, and—”
“Oh, Kevin, really, stop it. I love this place! How could anyone not love it? There’s enough here to keep me busy for the next decade at least! Why would I want to leave?”
On the other end of the line, Kevin sighed. “Well, Mom, all I can say is I hope you appreciate what good friends you have.”
She laughed. “Of course I do! I love them.” And then she frowned a little. “Why? What do you mean?”
“Just that there aren’t a lot of people in this world who would do what they did for someone who isn’t even related. I mean, they both had great jobs, friends, and lives back in Maryland. But they gave that all up.”
Bridget caught her underlip between her teeth and glanced around uneasily. “That was what they wanted to do. What we all wanted to do.”
The silence that followed made Bridget realize how chilly the spring morning was, and she shivered. “Sure, Mom,” Kevin said gently. “Whatever you say. Listen, I’ve got to be in court in half an hour. You let me know if you change your mind about that place, okay? I really think we can make a case.”
“Kevin, you don’t really think—”
“Seriously, Mom, I’ve got to go.”
“Okay, honey, sure. You take care now, you hear?”
“Bye, Mom.”
Bridget hung up the phone, but it was a long time before she felt as cheerful as she had been before she dialed his number.
Lindsay dialed two of her friends from school before she realized they were still working. She had used her accumulated leave to depart six weeks early, but her colleagues would be frantically readying their classes for the year-end placement tests this week. For a moment she felt a stab of nostalgia. The mountains of paperwork, the parent–teacher conferences, the unutterable smells coming from the cafeteria . . . no sane person would miss them. She supposed it had something to do with the way zoo animals would return to their cages even when the gates were left open, and prisoners would re-offend in order to return to the familiarity of their cells. For good or bad, the smell of chalk dust was all she had ever known.
She called her sister in Fort Lauderdale instead, which was a predictable mistake.
“So how is everything in rural wherever?” Edith wanted to know, sounding busy.
“I wish you could see it. This has got to be the most beautiful place in the world. Everything is so green, and in the morning, the way the fog settles just above the treetops . . . I can’t even describe it, it’s so pretty. We have raspberry bushes and blueberry bushes and strawberries already getting ripe. The rose garden is unbelievable, and—”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Edith interrupted. “Do you have Mother’s onyx brooch?”
Lindsay blinked. “What?”
“You know, the brooch she used to wear on her winter coat. It had diamond chips all around it. I know I saw it after the funeral, but I never did find it among her things.”
Lindsay said, “Mother died three years ago. Why are you asking me about this now?”
“I just thought in the move you might have found it.”
“How could I find it? I never had it.”
“Well, you know she always wanted me to have it. She must have said so a dozen times.”
“I never wanted it. If you can’t find it, it’s probably still on her winter coat.”
“Well, I can’t stay on the phone all day. I’ve got a bridge game, and Harold’s going to be home from golf any minute wanting something to eat. I’m glad you’re having a good time. Bye.”
Since that day of gorging on mass communications, none of them had used the telephone once. They still did not know their telephone number, though they promised themselves they would stop by the telephone company office to inquire the next time they were in town. And no one could remember why it had seemed so important that they have telephone service in the first place.
The days had a different kind of rhythm here. They rose early, but they were never in a hurry. They never lacked for something to do—as evidenced by Lindsay’s list, which took up more and more pages of the blue-lined legal tablet—but they never felt guilty for simply sitting and gazing at the mountains. The very texture of their lives was different. Accustomed to going from their air-conditioned homes to their air-conditioned cars to their air-conditioned workplaces, they now slept with their windows open to all the sounds and scents of the night, dined in the open air, and worked all day in the sun. Once they had been accustomed to staying up for the eleven o’clock news and being shocked into groggy wakefulness by the shrill blare of an alarm clock; now they awoke with the sun and were in bed, exhausted, by dark. They had been on Ladybug Farm little over a week, and the lives they once had lived seemed like someone else’s memories.
“Okay,” Lindsay said, turning over a page in the tablet. “Not bad for the first couple of days. The downstairs is completely unpacked, the living room window frames are scraped and painted, and the staircase is finished.”
They had spent the past two days on their hands and knees and, one enormous curved stair at a time, used steel wool and sandpaper to scrape away the layers of dark, dull wax. Washing away the residue with mineral spirits, they applied a fresh coat of wax to each of the twenty-four stairs and the landing, and then buffed each stair to a high sheen by hand. The results were spectacular, but the effort had taught them a valuable lesson about the physical toll an excess of ambition could take.
“I don’t suppose . . .” She looked at the other two tentatively. “Anyone is interested in tackling the living room floors?”
The expressions her friends returned was the only answer she needed. “Right,” she said quickly, making a strike on the pad. “We’ll come back to that one.”
“You know what we really need to do,” observed Cici, cradling her coffee cup in both hands as she leaned back in the cushioned wicker chair. “We need to take a weekend and go antiquing. I’ll bet there are some great places around here where we could pick up some things that would really suit this house.”
The other two nodded agreement. As the interior of the house slowly began to take shape they couldn’t help but be struck by the enormity of the decorating task that lay before them. Bridget’s grand piano went into the front bay window. Cici’s damask wing chairs were arranged before the fireplace and Lindsay’s grandmother’s Queen Anne table went beneath the stained glass window. An occasional table here, a mirror there, and it hadn’t taken long to realize that their meager possessions were dwarfed by the oversize rooms of the mansion.
“The landing really cries out for a grandfather clock,” observed Bridget with a sigh.
“Paintings on the walls,” Lindsay said. “That’s what we need.”
“That’s what we have a resident artist for,” Cici pointed out, and Lindsay grimaced.
“I mean real paintings,” she said. “You know, from the period. The house should tell a story.”
Before moving, they had agreed that, while their personal bedrooms could be decorated in any style they chose, the downstairs areas of the house should remain true to the period. That was one reason that the downstairs rooms were so sparsely furnished.
Bridget said, examining a chipped nail, “Remember when we used to have time to do things like antiquing?”
“Anyway,” admitted Cici reluctantly, “we shouldn’t get any more furniture until we refinish the floors. And before we do the floors, we really should paint.”
“But before we pick a paint color we should decide on draperies,” Bridget pointed out.
“I think I’ll start taking down the wallpaper in my bedroom today,” Lindsay said, reaching for another muffin.
“I’d love to ge
t started painting the porch,” Cici said.
“That’s going to be a nightmare project.”
“I know. But it’s kind of like—my gift to the old place, you know? Like when a woman goes in for a little shot of Botox, just a little around the eyes and the frown lines, and she walks out feeling twenty years younger. It’s all in the attitude.”
They nodded in thoughtful agreement, sipping their coffee.
“I finished cleaning out the herb garden,” Bridget announced after a moment. “You can mark that off the list. We’ll have tarragon, basil, and dill by June. And today I’m going to clear a vegetable plot. I bought a dozen seed packets the day after we bought the house, and I’ve been waiting all these months to get them in the ground.” She stood. “I’m going to warm up my coffee. Lindsay, can I pop that in the microwave for you?”
“Oh, thanks.” Lindsay handed her the plate with her buttered muffin on it, and dutifully marked “herb garden” off the list. “I really should start working on that rose garden, too. What do you think about moving that statue from the side yard and placing it at the end of the path in the rose garden?”
Cici looked surprised. “There’s a path there?”
Lindsay nodded. “I think there used to be a bench or something at the end of it, but it must have rotted away. Gosh, I’d love to have a landscape design of how this place used to be.”
“Well, I’ll be glad to help you move the statue, but it’s going to take about a ton of concrete cleaner to make it look presentable again. And I thought the next thing on the list was getting the dairy cleaned out so you could move your art things in there.”
“There’s no rush on that. I don’t exactly know how I want to set it up, and it’s going to be awhile before I have time to paint.”
“That’s odd,” said Bridget, returning from the kitchen. “The microwave doesn’t work.” She set Lindsay’s plate in front of her, the butter on her muffin still unmelted. “Sorry, Lindsay.”
“I’ll check the fuse box,” Cici volunteered.
“Better her than me,” Bridget confided after she was gone. “That basement gives me the creeps.”
“It’s not so bad,” Lindsay murmured absently, turning another page. “I think the wine cellar is kind of quaint.”
Bridget said softly, after a moment, “Does it ever scare you, what we’ve done? I mean, it’s so . . . big.”
Lindsay looked up, and reached across the table to squeeze her friend’s fingers. “No,” she lied. “Never.”
Bridget returned a smile that recognized the bravado, and appreciated it. She sat back, sipping the lukewarm coffee. “You know what would really be spectacular? To get the reflecting pool cleaned out and the fountain running again.”
“I can’t imagine what that would cost.”
“Probably just a pool pump. I was flipping through the telephone book last night and saw there was a hardware store in town. I bet they have pumps.”
“Girls!” Cici’s voice, muffled as it came from the cellar stairs and through the open door. “Come down here! You’ve got to see this!”
“Oh God.” Bridget rushed to her feet, only half kidding. “She’s found a body.”
The two women hurried inside and, slippers clattering on the stairs, rushed into the dimly lit cellar.
“What is it?” Lindsay demanded.
“Are you okay?” Bridget insisted.
Cici gave an impatient shake of her head, holding the hem of her robe off the dusty floor as she led the way forward. “I fixed the fuse,” she told Bridget. “But that fuse box is the first thing we’re going to have to replace if we expect to have central heat and air. But look.” Turning a corner, she pushed open an arched, stained plank door. “This is what I wanted to show you. I never even realized it was here. I guess the movers must have found it when they were storing our stuff down here and forgot to close the door all the way. I only noticed it because of the daylight coming through.”
“Good heavens,” said Bridget.
“Well, will you look at that?” Lindsay entered the room slowly, gazing about.
Cici had flipped the switch that illuminated the overhead light fixture, revealing a small chamber with a painted iron bed, a dresser, and a nightstand. The interior light was not really necessary, though, because of the glass-paned door that opened to the exterior of the house. A set of steps, all but concealed by an overgrown boxwood, appeared to lead to the back garden.
The bed was neatly made up with a patchwork quilt, and on the dresser was a worn leather Bible. Bridget carefully opened the front cover of the Bible and read the faded brown handwriting inside. “Ida Mae Simpson, 1951,” she said softly. “Wow.” She glanced around. “It’s like whoever lived here just . . . walked away.”
On the left-hand wall there were two doors. Cici opened one of them to reveal a small bathroom.
“Probably this whole cellar was the servants’ quarters,” Lindsay said, “until they decided to turn it into a wine cellar. And this room they would have kept and updated for the modern-day housekeeper.” She sighed. “Imagine being able to live like that. I feel like I’m in one of those PBS specials. You know, Upstairs, Downstairs or something.”
“I think you’re right about this being the old servants’ quarters.” Cici opened the second door, and found a light switch on the interior wall. A narrow staircase opened upward into the house. “Probably this opened into a hallway originally until they decided to build this room around it.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Bridget. “That must be the staircase that goes from the kitchen to the attic. I never realized it went down, too!”
“That’s because there are doors on every level to conserve heat,” explained Cici. “This must have been the maid’s quarters, or maybe the chief housekeeper’s. She would have access to all the floors from here, plus the kitchen garden.” She nodded toward the outside doors. “Nice digs, for hired help.”
“Come on,” said Lindsay, catching Bridget’s hand and pulling her into the stairwell. “Let’s check it out.”
Cici flicked a switch that illuminated a bare bulb one floor above them, and Lindsay tossed a grin over her shoulder. “I just love this house!”
They traced the staircase all the way to the attic, a long, dusty-floored room that they had only briefly explored before. The small windows at each end were so caked with grime that only a pale wash of sunlight made its way through, and the expanse was mostly in shadows. There were some pieces of abandoned furniture—a rocking chair with broken rungs, a child’s wooden table, a painted lampshade—and odds and ends piled in various places against the wall.
“We really need to spend a day up here straightening this place up,” Lindsay observed, plucking a few cobwebs from her hair.
“I wonder what’s in those boxes,” said Bridget, making her way toward a haphazardly piled row of boxes—some cardboard, some wooden—that lined a long wall.
“Mice, probably,” replied Cici, and Bridget withdrew quickly.
“It’s like living in a castle,” said Lindsay with a wondering shake of her head. “You never run out of things to explore.”
“Say, Lindsay,” grinned Bridget, elbowing her in the ribs. “Do you think this is where your ghost hangs out?”
Lindsay drew a breath to reply, and then they all froze as a sound floated up the stairs, muffled and distant.
“Hal-loooo!”
Bridget’s eyes grew big. So did Lindsay’s. The voice came again.
“Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?”
Cici went to the window and looked out. “It’s Maggie’s car,” she reported with visible relief, and they hurried downstairs to greet their guest.
Maggie insisted she just stopped by to see how they were settling in, but was easily persuaded to stay for coffee and muffins. She had brought Farley with her, and while she told them how to find the nearest hairdresser and where the Laundromat was, Farley rumbled around the barn until he found a box of tiles that matched the ones missing from the
ir roof, and proceeded to make repairs. As usual, all he wanted in return was ten dollars.
“It’s his disability insurance,” confided Maggie. “He’s convinced that if he charges more than ten dollars for anything, the government will take it away. Lord, when that man goes, we’ll probably find a couple thousand ten-dollar bills hidden behind the walls of that trailer of his!
“Now,” she went on chattily, “have you had much chance to get out and look around? Finding everything you need? You know the best prices are at the supermarket on the highway, but Jason’s Grocery in town has the best smoked bacon in the state, and he cuts his own meat. His milk is delivered twice a week, but you need to be careful to check the expiration date on his dry goods—I don’t think he moves them fast enough to keep them fresh. I know I showed you the bank and the post office, but if you need a good mechanic . . .”
And so as they sat on the porch sipping coffee and nibbling on muffins, Maggie filled them in on the details of their new community. Cici could get whatever building materials she needed from J&J Lumber three miles west of town, and they delivered the same day—for free. Doug Hasting’s Chevron was fine for gas and oil, but never let him fix your car. The town library had a Charlottesville telephone directory, which would be helpful for finding contractors, and high-speed Internet. And Family Hardware on Main Street was worth spending an afternoon browsing even if you didn’t need hardware.
Bridget said, “Oh, that reminds me! When we were checking the fuse box this morning we found a room in the cellar we didn’t even know was there. We think it was the maid’s room. There was a Bible there from 1951—I think the name was Simpson.”
Maggie nodded. “It probably belonged to Ida Mae. She took care of this place for, oh, as long as I can remember. She used to make fruitcakes at Christmas and take them to all the neighbors. I think she went to Mountain Rest Nursing Home after Mr. Blackwell died.”
“Maybe I’ll send it to her there. It looked like a family heirloom.”
