My Heart Belongs on Mackinac Island

by Carrie Fancett Pagels

  “Yoo-hoo!” A stout woman waved at Ben from behind her arched front gateway.

  Ben slowed his Sterling and pedaled in her direction. “Yes, madam?”

  The lady, perhaps in her sixties, clutched her hands together almost as though in prayer. “Are you the young man who saved Jackie?”

  “Jack Welling?”

  She giggled like a schoolgirl. “Such a precious boy. I want to thank you—as one of the Wellings’ neighbors.”

  “That’s unnecessary.” But here was a golden opportunity.

  “I’m Mrs. Glenn. I’m having tea and cookies if you wish to join me.”

  Ben looked past her where an ornate silver teapot sat atop a small round wrought-iron table with two chairs. A platter of cookies did indeed rest there as well.

  “Peter told me he expected you to call on the hour, so you should have time.” She turned and moved toward the house remarkably quickly, for a woman of her girth.

  Ben pulled out his watch. He still had thirty minutes. He opened the gate and crossed the lush green lawn.

  Mrs. Glenn sat and poured tea into a blue gilt Bohemian glass cup nestled in a matching saucer.

  The teacup reminded him of one his groβmutter preferred and that he’d never been allowed to use. A wave of sadness washed over him.

  “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you.” From the street, the sounds of carriages rolling by competed with a low foghorn.

  The matron poured Ben’s tea. “I think Maude needs to move on and not let this dreadful business with that poor Luce boy slow her prospects at a better marriage opportunity. Is that why you’re meeting with Peter?” She smiled beneficently.

  So the lady already had Ben married off to Maude? “I wished to introduce myself to him, ma’am.”

  “He’s been ill. But I think he’s just heartsick over losing his wife.”

  “It must be difficult.”

  “She passed away over a year ago.” The woman added five lumps of sugar to her small teacup. Ben watched in fascination that she could drink so sweet a tea.

  “A shame.”

  “I wonder if Peter will be leaving the island now that he has no reason to stay.”

  No reason to stay? When she offered him the plate of cookies, Ben selected a madeleine and a lemon wafer. “He has his daughter and son here.”

  “Pish posh.” The woman waved her hand as though dismissing the notion. “He’s been longing to return to his family’s farm downstate in Shepherd. Only a matter of time till the poor man may have to.”

  “Oh?” Ben tried not to sound too eager. He nibbled on the wafer.

  “That mother-in-law of his was a real harridan. The inn belonged to her, as did all the other properties that her daughter and son-in-law managed. I was surprised Peter didn’t sell off half of them after she died, just to spite her memory.”

  Ben sipped his tea and nodded, hoping the busybody would continue.

  “You mark my words—someone wants to buy that inn—and Peter will be gone just as fast as that boy of his runs. I believe Peter Welling has been running over to St. Ignace to see the attorney so he can sell.” She waited expectantly, eyebrows raised.

  “Mr. Hollingshead?”

  She lifted her chin and grinned in satisfaction. “That must be the one.”

  He exhaled. So this biddy didn’t know—she was fishing for information from Ben. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it. But what did she know?

  “Mrs. Glenn, do you believe the Wellings are having difficulties?”

  She frowned and cocked her head to the side. Sporadic birdsong announced the presence of a great many avian friends. “Oh, yes, I’d say so. With Robbie Swaine not even staying with them this summer. Simply unheard of. His sister, Peter’s wife, kept him in her household all those years after their mother died. There must be some bad blood between Robbie and Peter that I haven’t heard about. I do know they aren’t speaking to each other.”

  “Captain Swaine is Maude’s uncle?”

  “He’s been more like an older brother to her.” The woman’s beady eyes darted right and then left, as though she thought someone might be listening. “My drayman swears he saw Maude working up at the Grand Hotel. Can you imagine? I insisted he cease spreading such rumors, or there shall be consequences.”

  Ben coughed to stifle a laugh. This woman wanted to keep others from gossiping?

  “You haven’t seen her there, Mr. König, have you?”

  He took a long drink of his tea. “My dear Mrs. Glenn, if I had seen her I’d have been the soul of discretion, like you—I’d keep that to myself and urge others to do the same.”

  “I knew you’d understand. You see, islanders try to protect their own, and when my drayman started in with such an absurd tale, I silenced him immediately.” She gave a quick nod of her head to emphasize her words.

  A foghorn sounded, followed by a toot from a boat in the harbor. The mist had thickened even as they’d sat chatting.

  “I must keep my appointment with Mr. Welling, and I fear I must depart.”

  The matron smiled. “A pleasure to meet you.”

  “And you as well, ma’am. Good day.” He departed and closed the gate behind him.

  Walking the Sterling, Ben rounded the curve to the Winds of Mackinac. In front, the groundskeeper deadheaded the roses and clipped the lilacs. A fringe-topped carriage slowed to a crawl as fog crowded the roadway.

  As Ben leaned the bike against the fence, the gardener’s wizened face appeared behind a pink rosebush.

  “Don’t leave it there.”

  “Why not?” Seemed a perfectly reasonable spot.

  “Jack’ll take it.”

  Ben shrugged. “It isn’t his bike.”

  The elderly man scratched his head. “His new prank is to ride off with a bike and leave it down at the docks.”

  “At the docks?”

  The gardener resumed snipping. “Young people and their bad hearing—I said docks, and that’s what I meant.”

  “Ja.”

  “Before that, he was taking them from town and leaving them at the island post office. Heard he even got you to help him with one of those trips.”

  “Me? I helped Jack take Maude’s bike …” Her very masculine bike with a seat raised high enough for a tall man. “I see. I was duped.”

  Mr. Chesnut cackled. “Yup, you were duped by a kid.” His scrunched-up face sneered up at Ben, but he supposed he had it coming.

  “Do you know why Jack would do such a thing, sir?”

  The gardener’s white head popped up again. “Sir am I now? I see. Yes.” He straightened, though it didn’t much improve his height. “Believe I know.”

  Ben waited.

  “Jackie’s hoping to go to the mainland—poor boy hasn’t been the same for a while. Not since his mother died.” Sadness flitted over the wrinkles in the man’s weathered face.

  “And that is why he takes bicycles not belonging to him and deposits them at the wharf?” Some kind of cryptic message for his father, no doubt.

  Two hazy blue eyes raked his face. “He’s not a bad boy, but he’s cooped up on this island.” A gleam of moisture shone on the man’s eyes.

  Ben couldn’t do anything about Jack’s mother—knowing from experience the pain loss could bring even when assured that one would be reunited with loved ones in heaven. But if he wanted a trip off the island, that he could arrange. “I could take the boy with me when I go over in a few days.”

  Mr. Chesnut extended his hand. The two men shook and Ben caught the scent of chewing tobacco.

  “Ya probably ought to stop jawing with me.” He gestured with his trowel toward the inn. “You’ll find Mr. Welling in the office.”

  Ben tipped his straw boater at the man and hustled up the steps and into the lobby. Every piece of metal gleamed—from the brass fittings on a leather trunk to the gas-lamp fixtures and the doorknobs. A sumptuous emerald green carpet covered the entry hall.

  A girl dressed in servant’s
garb whisked with a feather duster at the dark wood bannister railing. Beeswax scented the air. “Can I help you, mister?”

  “Ja, Friedrich König here to see Mr. Welling.”

  “The one who helped Jack!” The girl moved toward a nearby mahogany-stained paneled door and rapped several times.

  The door flew inward and a disheveled man stood there, his hair mussed as though he’d been awakened.

  The girl bobbed a curtsy. “Mr. Friedrich König, the one who helped Jack, here to see you.”

  “Thank you, Bea. Tell Jack to come down.”

  “Yes, sir.” The girl practically flew up the nearby stairs.

  “Come in.” Folders and ledgers covered the rectangular black Eastlake desk.

  “Thank you.”

  “Have a seat.” He pointed to an upholstered chair on the opposite side of the desk.

  Through the nearby window, a brief break in the fog gave Ben a view of the lakefront. Small boats ducked in and out of the waves.

  “I want to thank you for saving my son.” Welling followed Ben’s gaze and rubbed his chin. “Rough out there.”

  “I only did what any man would do in the situation, sir.”

  Thick brows drew together. “Shame I had to hear it from the local gossip and not from my own daughter.”

  Above and behind the man, four pictures hung side by side from a picture rail. The first two were framed tintypes of dark-haired men in army uniforms but with different hues and insignia, the third a beautiful young woman attired in a frothy gown from about two decades past, and the fourth a sad-eyed young man with chubby cheeks.

  Ben pointed to the pictures. “Are these your family?”

  “No.” Welling turned and pointed to the woman. “My wife.”

  “Beautiful lady.”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat and pointed to the left. “Her older two brothers, killed in battle in Virginia.”

  “During the war?” Ben perused the tintypes again. One man wore Confederate clothing while the other was attired in Union. Now there was a story he’d like to know more about. He pressed his fingers to his lips.

  “Yes, I never knew them—they were more than a decade older than my wife.”

  “And the youngest?” The man’s clothing was similar to that worn by Ben when he’d come to America, so he couldn’t be much older.

  “My mother-in-law was blessed in her grief with yet another son. He’s actually closer to Maude’s age than to my wife’s.”

  “Ah, that must be Captain Swaine when he was young.”

  Ben’s only sibling, his older sister, had perished on the journey over from Germany. She’d be thirty now, had she lived. Perhaps God spared her the humiliation he and his parents had endured.

  “Why do you want to talk with me, Mr. König?”

  “Sir, I’m here to …” He was about to request an interview about Greyson Luce, but instead, he said, “To ask permission to court your daughter.”

  “Maude?”

  “Ja, she is your only daughter, right?” Ben laughed, but Welling frowned.

  “She’s had her heart broken by a young man. I don’t think she’s quite ready.”

  “Her heart is broken?”

  “She’s been mooning around the house. Disappears all day—probably out doing good to anyone on the island she can visit her attentions upon. I just hope they aren’t tormenting her over Greyson.”

  Might Maude be “mooning” over him? Might Ben presume such a thing? “Ja, sir, perhaps it would be best if I was her friend?”

  Welling’s lower lip bulged, and his eyebrows drew together. “Yes, she needs a companion. With Greyson abandoning her, and her uncle—”

  Three long foghorn blasts were followed by a quick toot from a boat and then another.

  The screeching of metal upon metal carried through the office’s open windows. Ben sprang to the one facing the jetties. Through the haze, he discerned the shapes of two boats.

  “Oh, Lord,” Peter Welling moaned as he, too, looked through the window. “Come on, we’ve got to help. I’m on the rescue brigade.”

  Welling pulled off his jacket and threw it across his chair. Ben did, too.

  “Your shoes, too—leave them here and come on. Can you swim?”

  “Ja.”

  “You able-bodied enough to help, König?”

  “Ja—I’ll try.” His ribs argued otherwise.

  “Mr. Welling!” Bea called out as they ran past her. “Be careful.”

  He heard the girl’s sobs as bells began to clang in the distance. In the street, carriages and drays were pulled aside and parked at the curb as men stripped down to their undergarments and ran to the jetties.

  Mr. Welling pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew it. A dozen men of all ages encircled him within minutes. “Form a line. We’ll have the women tie the shirts together, and I see Ned has got us the rope, too.”

  A middle-aged man dropped a heavy-looking reel of rope to the ground and began to unroll it toward the shore. “Arrange yourselves from youngest to oldest, healthiest first, and go!”

  The smell of hot metal gagged Ben, but he followed the others into the frigid water. Cries of the injured carried across the water. Another day long ago came to mind. They had to save whomever they could. Finally up to his shoulders in the cold water, his ribs feeling fine, Ben swam steadily out toward the two sinking ships. The new lighthouse, being built on Round Island, wasn’t yet completed, and there was no light to pierce the fog.

  Every reporter’s instinct within him urged him to memorize what was happening and get the story down. But the pitiful moaning and the bloodied injured were real. As were his reactions. Back at shore, he spied rowboats being pushed off. The cacophony of noises emanating from the boats made his hair stand on end. With such thick fog and the waves unrelenting, would he or some of the other rescuers soon find their own watery grave? He couldn’t think of such things. A dark-haired man sliced through the water toward two little girls who clung to a trunk that inexplicably floated on the water.

  Spurred on by the man’s heroism, Ben released the rope and swam to where a young mother with her infant continued to slosh against the side of the hull, as she clung to a large cleat. “Take my baby. Don’t let her drown.” The woman sobbed as Ben reached her.

  “Take your shawl and put the baby in—like a papoose is carried.” Ben had seen some of the Chippewa women on the island carrying their infants secured to their chests in such a manner.

  Ben held the baby while the woman removed her light wool shawl and tucked her infant inside. “Tie the corners and drape that over your head.”

  Soon he had pulled the woman and child to shore. Women had set up fires with kettles of water and had brought stacks of blankets, which they distributed.

  “Thank you, sir. We were coming here to see my father—he’s right there.”

  She pointed to Dr. Cadotte at the same time that Ben collapsed to the sand in agony, his ribs burning in excruciating pain. But he had to keep on.

  “Father! We need help.”

  Maude wished she could have soaked in the new porcelain tub Father had had installed inside the inn, but she’d not risk walking into the house smelling as foul as she did. So she’d washed in the laundry house out back after she returned home each day from the hotel. Although they sometimes heated water over a fire in the building, Cook had taken to heating Maude’s water on the woodstove, inside, before she arrived home. Quickly she dried off and dressed. But the entire operation from donning her corset and pantalets to buttoning her shirt consumed almost a half hour.

  She moved to the rotary washer and began loading her own work clothes to save the servants the task. She’d determined to cease her habit of changing for every activity of the day. Instead of a morning walking suit, a dress for afternoon tea, and possibly even a change to an evening dress, she vowed to pick an ensemble that could make it through the day’s typical activities. At the Grand that morning, she’d been forced to assist a youn
g woman who’d donned seven ensembles before she’d settled on the very first one Maude had suggested. Had she been so inconsiderate of others’ time? Yes. But no longer.

  A strange crashing sound rent the silence in the room. The water in the tin bathing tub sloshed over with the reverberation. Maude grabbed a mop and sopped up the mess, lest anyone slip on the brick floor, then headed outside. She moved through the foggy air to the right side of the house, where all manner of men were tossing aside their bikes and disrobing to their undergarments. She raised a hand to her mouth as the mist broke and she spied two vessels near the jetties.

  Bea stormed through the back door, her face crimson. “Oh, Maude, oh …”

  She ran into Maude’s arms and buried her head in her neck.

  Maude stroked the girl’s head.

  Bea pulled free. “Two ships crashed together in the fog, and your father and Mr. König went down there.”

  Maude stiffened. “Father and Mr. König?”

  “Yes.”

  Might both men be gone before the day was over? Chills slid down her arms as she pulled the girl close again. “We need to pray. And we need to be useful. Let’s gather blankets and towels, and get every available servant to help with heating water.”

  Jane stumbled out the back door. “Miss Welling.” Her face had gone ashen.

  Bea and Maude turned to face her. “Please get out all the blankets and towels you can find, and we’ll need to heat the water ourselves. Those survivors will be chilled to the bone.” If there were survivors.

  An hour later, bone weary, Maude, Jane, and Bea gathered on the front porch. Maude crossed her arms and clutched them close to her body, shivering from the chill fog. Survivors were being driven away by carriage and even dray, just to get them to someplace safe and warm.

  Jack rode into the backyard and threw his bike down. “They’ve found them all!”

  Bea ran to him and grabbed his arms. “Your pa didn’t go out in that water, did he? I couldn’t stand it if he drowned. He’s been so good to me.”

  The girl raised her apron to her face and wiped her wet cheeks.