“Speaking of friends, I almost forgot I’m here on a mission of mercy. Whatever did you find in the attic this time?”
Annie pointed. “That box. It’s labeled ‘From Charlie’s desk,’ which surprised me a little. You know Gram never labeled anything. Oh, and this hatbox, which is full of bits of embroidery thread, probably left over from a Betsy Holden Original. I thought you might be able to use them. Somehow I doubt there’s a big market on eBay for that sort of thing, even leftovers from a semi-famous cross-stitcher.”
Alice laughed. “Probably not. Though I’ve heard about some weird things being sold, like a potato in the shape of Mickey Mouse, and some guy’s leftover brussels sprouts.”
“Eeew! That sounds disgusting,” said Annie. “Maybe the thread would sell if it magically appeared in the shape of a rock star.”
“Maybe. But let’s not take the chance of that happening. I’ll be a good friend and take it off your hands,” Alice replied. “I know Betsy never could throw anything away, so some of it may be too short to do anything with. If I can’t use it, maybe Mary Beth can use it at the store for her cross-stitch classes. Or perhaps I’ll attempt that rock-star–shape thingy. Hmmm … Bruce Springsteen, maybe.”
“Yeah, he’s a good one. And thanks for taking these. Seems I inherited that ‘can’t-throw-anything-away’ gene too.”
“I do so appreciate that you’ve made me the recipient of your idiosyncrasies,” Alice said, running her fingers through her auburn hair. “It doesn’t look like you’ve gotten too far into that box yet.”
“No, I had just opened it when you called. But it’s clearly from Grandpa’s vet days. I’m guessing it’s from the desk he used in the carriage house. He probably made Gram label the box in case he needed it later.”
“That’s true,” said Alice, “from what I remember. When I moved into the carriage house, Betsy told me some of the history. You remember that Captain Zacharias Grey built Grey Gables as a wedding present for his wife back in 1897, along with the carriage house. Back then, the first floor of the carriage house was the stable, and a little later, a garage. The second floor was living quarters for a servant or stableman. I moved in soon after my divorce, and you know how Betsy took me under her wing.”
A sad, faraway look crossed Alice’s face. “Your mom and Charlie were gone by then, and you were in Texas,” she said. “I think both of us needed each other. I remember one day she was telling me about their early days in Grey Gables.” Alice shut her eyes and could almost hear Betsy’s voice again.
****
“We moved into Grey Gables in 1947, the year after we got married, and just before I gave birth to Judy—Annie’s mother. So much space for a baby and my needlework!
“The first floor of the carriage house—with a little bit of work—was the perfect place for Charlie’s veterinary practice. He loved it out there. We liked to joke that our work areas—separate but nearby—were the key to our happy marriage. And when Judy got to be too much of a handful for one of us, we’d pass her off, one to another.”
Betsy smiled as she thought of her precocious daughter and her dear husband—both gone now.
“Charlie didn’t want to retire; he loved the animals and loved working with them. But we both knew it was time. He sold most of his equipment, and I packed up his desk, crammed with notes, patient files, and bills. For some reason, he wanted to keep those.
“After that, we turned the carriage house into complete living quarters, with the intention of using it as a guesthouse for visitors. We figured they would be more comfortable in their own space, and I wouldn’t have to worry about having to clear a bedroom.”
Betsy shared the scope of the renovation. They gutted the first floor and created a powder room, dining room, living room, and kitchen, along with the entrance foyer, and added windows to take advantage of the ocean views. In the upstairs—which already had a bedroom, bathroom, and small kitchen—they left the bedroom alone, but ripped out the kitchen, renovated the bathroom, and added a second bedroom, making it a compact two-story home. Like the careful edging on a wedding cake, they added a porch to match the one on Grey Gables, complete with gingerbread trim and white wicker furniture. They also planted rhododendrons and lilacs, most of which had survived the intervening years.
“After Charlie passed,” Betsy said, a catch in her throat, “I just could not bear to keep the carriage house. Between the memories of him and the animals he treated there—plus just the upkeep on the place—I decided to sell it. We’d rarely used it as a guesthouse, so it just made sense to let it go.”
After an exhaustive search for the perfect people to become her neighbors, Betsy sold the carriage house to a couple from New York, Yvonne and Arthur Swann.
“The Swanns are such nice people, and I really enjoyed having them as neighbors,” Betsy said. “They used it as a summer home for many years, and would occasionally host parties for their ‘summer friends,’ as they called them. As they grew older, it was harder for them to make the trek up, so they decided to turn it into a rental property. Lucky for you and for me!”
****
Alice shook her head, bringing herself back to the present and taking another sip of her coffee.
“I think I was far more lucky than Betsy, to tell you the truth. I got to live next to her in a lovely place I could afford, and she gave me a kind and patient ear when I needed it.”
“I wish I had come to visit her more,” Annie said wistfully.
“She wanted to see you too, but she knew how busy life in Texas kept you,” Alice replied. “She really enjoyed her trips to see you, I can tell you that. And she wouldn’t shut up about how precious and cute and darling her great-grandchildren were.”
“Well, they are at that! Who can blame her?” Annie answered, once again feeling slightly guilty for being so far away from her daughter and grandchildren. She resolved to have the whole family up to visit that summer, or else to go see them and spend a few weeks in Texas—maybe both.
“All right, quit being glum,” Alice said, realizing that all the talk about Betsy had made Annie a bit melancholy. Annie was startled, forgetting that her friend could always sense her mood. “We’ve got a box to look through!” Alice put down her coffee cup and hobbled carefully to where the box sat. “Wonder if we’ll find anything interesting?”
The two plopped down on the floor next to the box and emptied it in short order. Papers and files surrounded them.
“Boots!” Annie exclaimed as the cat settled on one of the stacks and stretched to her full length. “Why is it that cats have to be right next to you if there’s paper or food involved?”
“The food part is easy,” Alice laughed. “I’m not sure about paper or boxes. My sister had a cat when we were kids, and that thing just loved cardboard for some reason. I remember one time Mom had bought new dishes or something, and put the empty boxes in the mudroom. We didn’t find that cat for two days because she’d curled up in one of them. Stuff had gotten stacked on top of it, and she couldn’t get out. And she was one of those weird cats that didn’t freak out if she got locked up somewhere.”
“I’m pretty sure Boots knows better than to try something like that, living in the house where other people’s belongings come to rest.” Annie gave the feline a pat on her belly, and turned to the detritus around them. “I have no idea what to do with this after we go through it. I guess just box it back up.”
The two friends stayed mostly silent as they perused the papers, interjecting on occasion if they found something entertaining.
“OK, these files are written neatly, but I think they’re harder to understand than the recipes,” Annie said. “Obviously, I get the animal’s name and the owner’s name, but what do you suppose ‘imrab-1’ means? Or ‘dex sp’?”
“Beats me,” said Alice. “All I know is that they are boring me to tears. Are you sure you even want to keep this stuff?”
“I have no idea. But you know me. It would be hard to just throw
everything away. I guess I could ask Carla Calloway what she suggests.”
“She is good with animals, but not so good with people,” Alice replied. “There’s no telling what she would say!”
Carla, a competent vet, ran a shelter for abandoned animals, but some people called her “Carla Callous” because of her brusque manner.
“That’s a chance I’ll have to take,” Annie said. “Besides, she’s been much nicer lately—to people, that is. She’s always been nice to animals. I guess I could have Vanessa ask her. She seems to get along just fine with Carla.”
“That’s because Vanessa is an angel and puts up with her, but it’s mostly because Vanessa loves the animals and likes volunteering at the shelter.”
“I should also ask Cecil Lewey what he thinks. He may want to keep these, or at least look at them. Grandpa mentioned him quite a bit in his journals.”
The ladies were quiet as they went through more of the files.
“Look at this ledger,” Annie said an hour later. Most of the files were—as Alice had stated so eloquently—boring and had been put back in the box. The blue leather-bound ledger was a welcome find. “Sometimes Grandpa would settle a debt by accepting a tool or eggs or wheat or something like that in lieu of cash.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Your grandpa never would let an animal suffer, regardless of the owner’s financial state.”
“And Gram didn’t have to keep chickens to get fresh eggs for cooking! Seems I remember she liked chickens but didn’t like their upkeep or them getting into her garden.”
The ledger, written in her grandfather’s neat hand, was a straightforward list with the date, animal name and type, owner’s name, procedure, and the amount owed.
Annie missed her grandfather. She’d felt closer to her grandmother, probably because she’d helped Gram with chores—at Gram’s insistence, of course—and the older woman had spent hours teaching her to crochet, while her grandfather had been busy with his practice.
She’d been a teenager when he’d retired. At that age, she’d hung out with Alice and her other friends more than with her grandparents. But she had fond memories of rainy days or those days when everyone else was busy—she’d sit on the window seat of the library, working on a crochet project, while Grandpa sat at his desk and wrote in his journals, occasionally reading a short anecdote aloud. And she’d loved it when, as a child, he’d read her stories from The Jungle Book or other classics. She was nearly through with college when he died and was thankful for the years she had known him.
Annie decided to add the ledger to the bookshelf that held her grandfather’s journals. Just holding it made her feel close to him.
“Looks like we’re almost to the end,” Alice said, nudging Boots off the last stack.
“Thank heavens,” Annie replied. “I forget how tiring it can be to go through stuff.”
They discarded the first few files without comment.
“Hmmm … this one looks interesting,” Alice said. “Apparently our esteemed mayor had a very sickly cat when he was a child.” Annie tried to grab the file, but Alice kept it just out of reach. “Seems that little Ian liked to feed ‘Banana’ raw eggs, which caused the poor kitty’s fur to fall out.”
“Ian named his cat Banana?” Annie asked.
“Yes. And there’s more! Seems after the raw eggs incident, our young friend decided that Banana needed some raw meat.”
“And?”
“And that caused vomiting and diarrhea. For the cat, not Ian.”
After a few minutes of laughing and playing keep-away, Alice finally handed it to Annie so she could see for herself.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look him in the face again,” Annie said dryly.
“Me either. Or at least, not without giggling!”
At the very bottom of the stack sat a nice, slim container, in much better condition than the rest of the files.
“This looks rather official,” Annie said, turning the box over in her hands and then opening it. “Look—here’s a sticker that says ‘Connor and Sheehan, Boston, Mass.’” Unfolding the papers, she let out a squeal. “Why, it’s the building plans for the renovation of the carriage house!”
“Oh cool!” said Alice. “This is really neat.” Together, they spread the blueprints out on the floor and examined the documents. “Here are a couple of sketches of what the interior and exterior used to look like.”
“According to this, your spare room was the original bedroom,” Annie said. “That means whoever hid the recipes could have lived there back in Captain Grey’s era.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean they weren’t put there by someone who rented from the Swanns either.”
“True enough, true enough,” Annie said. She began folding everything up again. Once the pages were neatly placed back in the container, she handed it to her friend. “I think you should have these. After all, you’re going to be the new owner of the carriage house and in charge of its history.”
“Are you sure you trust me with this?”
“Absolutely! I’m also sure it’s one less thing for me to worry about!”
****
After Alice had gone home, Annie fixed herself a light lunch and looked through some of Gram’s crochet books. One of the books, with a copyright of 1979, instructed the crocheter to make forty-eight different squares in very dated shades of gold, light orange, and dark orange. Annie liked the patterns, but she decided that no one loved orange that much, and she knew that trying to figure out that many different stitches, along with the proper gauge, would take too much time.
She decided on two tried-and-true granny-square stitch patterns she’d made in the past and two different yarn colors—a pretty sky blue and white. Settling into the window seat with Boots and a skein of the blue yarn, she got started.
4
Kate didn’t have to work at A Stitch in Time that Saturday, but she still got up at her usual early hour. She spent a lot of time working on a blanket for the project, and when her hands needed a rest, she looked out the kitchen window at the snow and thought about the recipes Alice and Annie had found. Of all the mysteries the club had encountered, this one seemed the silliest, and yet it was so intriguing. Try as she might, she couldn’t remember anyone other than Alice living in the carriage house. And she couldn’t imagine why someone would hide recipes.
She crocheted a little more, and then she flipped through one of her needlework books. She’d been collecting them for years, ever since Betsy Holden had given her a copy of Crocheting for Beginners. Betsy had patiently taught her first how to hold the hook, and then taught her all the basic crochet stitches. It wasn’t long before Kate had mastered them and started crocheting more and more elaborate patterns.
Kate practiced crochet and spent as much time with Betsy as she could. Today she wouldn’t give up her skill for anything in the world. She had been careful not to make her daughter feel like she had to crochet too, but Vanessa had happily taken up the crochet hook and learned basic stitches when she was merely five, and she had crocheted off and on as she’d gotten older. Mackenzie had only been introduced to needlework and crafting when she and Vanessa became friends, but she thought it was cool and always wanted Kate to make her things.
Kate smiled to herself. If a cheerleader liked needlework, the other kids could hardly make fun of it. And everyone loved Mackenzie. So they might not love crochet or other needle crafts, but they would keep their opinions to themselves.
She glanced at the clock above the kitchen table. Mackenzie had come over to spend the night with Vanessa so they could work all day Saturday on the flyer about the blankets for the orphanage. It was already after ten o’clock; Mackenzie and Vanessa would eventually wake up and come out for breakfast. Kate had heard giggling when she’d woken up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, so it could be a while.
Kate had always loved to sleep in on the weekends, but her mother had never let her and had in fact been veheme
ntly opposed to it. Kate had vowed back then to let her own children sleep as late as they wanted, as long as they got up on time for school during the week.
The phone rang, and she jumped up to grab it before it woke up the girls.
“Hello?”
“Hey Kate,” she heard her ex-husband, Harry Stevens, say.
“Handsome Harry!” she heard herself reply, groaning inwardly. She hated that she still called him that after everything they’d been through. He was handsome on the outside, but not on the inside. Plus, calling him that only added to his oversized ego.
“Yeah, so I haven’t had Scooter over for a while, and thought I should arrange for a weekend visit.”
Kate smacked herself in the forehead. She and Harry supposedly had joint custody of Vanessa, but he rarely bothered to see his daughter. If he actually made plans, typically he’d back out at the last minute. To top it off, because they had joint custody, and he supposedly made less money than she did, he didn’t have to pay any child support.
She wanted to scream at him, but replied calmly, “You know she hates that nickname.” He’d christened his daughter with the name when she first learned how to walk—because mostly she’d scooted around on her bottom until she’d gotten the hang of standing up. Kate had found it cute at first, but at six years old, Vanessa had vehemently—and loudly—opposed the term, so she’d never called her that again. Harry, as usual, didn’t care.
“Yeah, well, she’ll always be Scooter to me. And what about it? When can I have her?”
That really set Kate’s teeth on edge—Harry acted and spoke like Vanessa was another thing, rather than his only child. But she kept her tone and words as polite as possible, knowing that showing her anger would only make him more difficult to deal with.
“I’ll have to check with her to find out her schedule. When did you want to get together with her? I know she’s got projects due for school, and I seem to remember that one of her friends is planning a sleepover, but I’m not sure which weekend.”
A Spicy Secret Page 4
