The Tapestry in the Attic

by Mary O'Donnell

  Her next step was to release Boots from the mudroom. She tried to make up with Boots, but Boots gave her the cold shoulder and bounded up the main staircase to go and pout. When Annie went up to get the second box of letters, she saw that Boots had already made herself comfortable in the center of Annie’s bed and appeared to be napping. Annie knew that when the persnickety cat got hungry, she would once again be Annie’s best friend.

  Annie deposited the box of letters in the living room next to the other one and then decided she would do what she could until Alice returned to help her. She began by carrying the props that hadn’t been approved up the staircase and placing them by the attic door so she could put them back in the attic later.

  After several trips up and down the stairs, she heard the doorbell ring. Alice had gone home first to change into more comfortable clothes since she had dressed up a bit to meet with the professor. Once again she shed her boots in the hallway and slipped on the house shoes she had carried along.

  “You know,” said Annie. “Instead of carrying those back and forth, why don’t you just leave them here?”

  “That would be a good idea,” said Alice, “if you don’t mind—at least in the winter. What shall we do first?”

  They decided to return the kitchen to its proper condition first, so they rolled up the carpet again and took it into the library, and then they moved the table and chairs back into position. Next they moved the living-room furniture back to its proper placement. Then they went into the dining room to pack up the smaller props in boxes for transport over to the Cultural Center.

  “So, tell me about your luncheon,” said Annie as they worked. “When did you realize that it wasn’t going to be just you and the professor?”

  “I didn’t have any warning at all—I had all my notes and sketches laid out on the table so we could discuss them while we waited for our food after we ordered, but when the professor and Stella and the Fortescues showed up all together, I just put them away. Then, about fifteen minutes later, Felix and Stacy walked in the door. Apparently, the Fortescues had come to see Stella at her house, and the professor had stopped by unexpectedly to drop off some invoices for stuff for the play. When he told them about coming over here to see the tapestry, they were all interested, so he invited them to lunch. Felix told me in the car on the way over here that he got a text from the professor telling him to round up Stacy and bring him to Maplehurst Inn as soon as possible. Felix didn’t even know why; he just did what he was told to do. I’d guess that Professor Howell wanted Stacy to come over to Stony Point with Felix so he could meet the Fortescues, since they are the three principal actors in the play. Actually, we really didn’t talk much about King Lemuel’s Treasure. The whole point of the meeting was supposed to have been an opportunity for me to learn more about the professor’s vision of the play, but with everyone else there, it just didn’t happen. It was fun to meet the Fortescues though. They’re a really interesting couple, and they’re so cute together. You’d think they were still in their twenties sometimes.”

  Annie smiled. “I liked them too.” She paused and said, “That poor fellow—Felix, I mean. He seems to be at the professor’s beck and call. Thing is, he really doesn’t seem to mind. At least not that I’ve seen.”

  “He’s a good guy, I think,” said Alice. “Stacy did most of the talking in the car, but every now and then Felix would say a word or two, and I don’t think he said anything at the restaurant. He’s naturally quiet, but I think he likes being the organizer.”

  “And what was Stacy like?” asked Annie. “I didn’t really have a chance to talk to him.”

  “Very nice—like Kate said at the Hook and Needle Club meeting—friendly, not at all snobbish. He was easy and open over lunch with the Fortescues. They seemed to get along very well. Of course, you saw how handsome he is. If he can act even a little bit, I predict he’ll have a really great career,” said Alice.

  “Remember the crush we had on Dr. Gannon on Medical Center?” asked Annie.

  “Oh my gosh! How could I forget?” said Alice, laughing. “We took over your grandparents’ TV set every Wednesday night at nine o’clock!”

  “Except for the blond hair, I thought Stacy was a dead ringer for Chad Everett,” said Annie.

  “I didn’t think of that,” said Alice, squinting her eyes as she tried to conjure up his face in her memory, “but I think you’re right. How could I have missed that? Well, if we can get the teenage girl demographic to show up to the play as faithfully as we watched that show, I’d say we’re in pretty good shape to make a lot of money for breast cancer research!”

  When Annie and Alice had finished putting everything away, they sat down in the kitchen to relax with a cup of tea and some of the pound cake Alice had made.

  “Shame that the others couldn’t stay for tea,” said Annie. “This cake is so good. It tastes like lemon and almond—is that right?”

  “You hit the nail on the head,” said Alice. After another bite, Alice asked, “So what did you think about the Fortescues?”

  “Like you said, they seemed very nice, and interesting—both of them,” said Annie. “I thought what Cyril had to say about the tapestry was fascinating. It really makes me want to find out as much as I can about it. After the play is over, I can’t just put it back in the attic. That would just be wrong. I did have a bit of a brainstorm earlier.”

  Alice raised her eyebrows. “Knowing you, that could be a good thing, or it could be a bad thing.”

  “Well, harrumph!” said Annie. “You really can’t say that I’ve ever come up with a bad idea, can you?”

  “Remember that time when we just took off and walked all the way down past Butler’s Lighthouse to Edge Cove when we were supposed to be weeding the garden, and then we got in trouble with Betsy?” said Alice. “That was your idea.”

  “OK. Maybe that one time,” said Annie. “That was pretty stupid really. I think she must have been worried to death when she couldn’t find us. But I think you have to admit that it was usually your brainstorms that got us into trouble.”

  “I think we’re getting off track here,” said Alice. “Tell me your idea.”

  “Nice way to change the subject, Alice,” said Annie, “but I’ll let you get away with it this time. My thought was that I could go through Gram’s old letters and see if I can find any mention of a tapestry.”

  “I think that’s worth a try,” said Alice. “I wish I could help you out, but between work and the play, I just don’t have a lot of free time these days. This is the first time in days that I’ve eaten something without having my nose in a book at the same time—well, this time and at the restaurant.”

  “That’s OK,” said Annie. “I’ll probably just go through a few packs at a time in the evenings. Fortunately, Gram did have some organization; she kept letters from the same year all together, tied up with string or ribbon, so if I find a letter that mentions the tapestry, it should be pretty easy to follow the trail through the years—at least I hope it will. The trick will be to find it in the first place. There are over a dozen boxes of letters in the closet upstairs—or at least there were before I brought two of them down here. Granted, they aren’t all the same size. After the 1980s, the boxes got smaller and smaller.”

  “Yeah, letter writing is a lost art, I think. I was never any good at it, but it’s such a lovely idea—you know to have monogrammed stationery, and beautiful cursive handwriting. My grandmother had beautiful writing, and my mother’s isn’t bad, but frankly, mine is terrible. I think it must be that the expectations changed. When our grandmothers were learning, you had to write a certain way, and you practiced until you were good at it. By the time I went to school, it was all about ‘self-expression.’ I usually think that’s a good thing, but I have to admit, there are some things that require a certain degree of conformity, for communication’s sake if nothing else. Even individual expression needs a foundation. What’s the point of expressing yourself if no one else can tell
what you’re writing or saying?” Alice sighed. “Of course, it’s not like I couldn’t buckle down and learn to do it if I really wanted to. I just don’t take the time, and now with computers and email, I don’t really have to. I don’t really have any right to rant about it.” Alice smiled and raised her right hand with her index finger pointing up and said, “But one of these days—mark my words—I’m going to do it. Maybe when I’m retired. I mean, I’m going to work on my cursive writing and start writing letters.”

  Annie laughed. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Not that I don’t think you can do it. But you know what Gram would say—‘there’s no time like the present,’ and ‘don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’”

  “I hate it when you’re right,” said Alice. “How ’bout this: As soon as the play is finished, I’m going to start practicing my handwriting skills until I have beautiful calligraphy.”

  “Can I have that in writing?” said Annie.

  They both laughed as Alice took her plate and tea cup and saucer over to the kitchen sink. “Well, I hate to eat and run, but I’d better head back to the carriage house. I have a pile of paperwork for Divine Décor and Princessa.”

  When Alice left to go home, it was already starting to get dark. Annie locked the door and fastened the safety latch. She liked the quiet sometimes, but now she felt like listening to music. Because of the play and its connection to the Middle Ages, she had recently ordered two new CDs of medieval-style music off the Internet, and they had only arrived the day before, so she hadn’t had a chance to listen yet. One was by a group called the Tallis Scholars singing Palestrina. Annie hadn’t read the liner notes yet, so she wasn’t sure who or what that was, but the samples she listened to on the Internet sounded beautiful. The other CD was by a group called Anonymous 4 performing a collection of songs written by a 12th-century nun named Hildegard von Bingen for the Feast of St. Ursula. It wasn’t her usual fare, but she thought it might be nice to try something different. She put in the CD with the songs by the nun and pressed “play,” and then she moved the 1946–1950 letter box to the coffee table and sat down on the sofa.

  The voices on the CD were beautiful and haunting, and put her in an unusual frame of mind as she picked up the first bundle of letters and checked the postmark on the top letter to see which year this bundle contained. It wasn’t the one she wanted, but after checking a couple more bundles, she found the one with 1946 postmarks. There was nothing to do but start reading, so she opened the first letter and began.

  Two hours later, she had been through about half of the letters and had listened through both CDs. She decided it was time for a break. It had been interesting to read the letters, but she hadn’t found anything that mentioned a tapestry. She went into the kitchen to warm up some chicken noodle soup for dinner and munched on a saltine while she waited. Soon, she felt something brush along the side of her ankle. Sure enough, it was Boots; all was forgiven and her cat food bowl was almost empty. Annie knew she could depend on Boots’s tummy to rule over her emotions. She reached down and scratched between Boots’s ears and spoke to her soothingly, apologizing for the cat’s earlier incarceration.

  After Annie finished her soup and cleaned up the kitchen, she decided to get comfortable. She went upstairs and changed into her flannel nightgown and bathrobe, and put on her crocheted slippers. She retrieved the book she was currently reading from her bedside table and took it downstairs with her. In the kitchen, she made herself a cup of chamomile tea and then took it and her book into the living room, intending to curl up on the sofa to read for a while. The room had gotten chilly, so she started a fire in the fireplace. Then she put the Anonymous 4 CD in the player again, turned the volume down low and pushed play. She bunched up pillows on one end of the sofa and sat down, her legs stretched out across its length. For good measure, she covered her legs with the crocheted afghan she kept draped over the back of the sofa. She took a sip of tea and began reading.

  The book was enjoyable, but as she read on through the evening, she slipped down further and further on the sofa. Soon she fell asleep with the open book on her chest and Boots curled up on top of her legs. She awoke with a start when she heard the clock in the kitchen strike eleven o’clock.

  “Oh, Boots,” she said sleepily, “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Guess it would be a good idea to go to bed now.”

  Boots didn’t stir, but Annie slipped her legs to the side, out from under the afghan and the cat, and stood up to stretch. The fire in the fireplace had gone out, and just a few red embers remained. As Annie reached down to pick up her tea cup and saucer from the coffee table, she saw the corner of an envelope on the floor, sticking out from beneath the edge of the sofa. One of her grandmother’s letters must have slipped out of the bundle, and Annie thought she must have inadvertently kicked it under the sofa when she was getting up or sitting down.

  She picked up the envelope and checked the postmark. It was from May of 1946. Annie shivered. “Must be getting cold,” she said aloud, but she really felt quite warm after her nap. It was late, so she started to put the letter back in the 1946 letter bundle, but something made her stop. She looked at the return address. There was no name, only “Office 316, Wilson Hall, Longfellow College, Maine.” Now she was hooked. Who did her grandmother know at Longfellow College in 1946? Annie opened the envelope and took out the letter and began reading: “Dear Betsy, I was very pleased and honored to have received in the mail this week the invitation to your wedding.”

  As Annie read, she felt like she was seeing another side of her grandmother that had been unknown to her. She’d had no idea that Gram had taken college courses before she married Grandpa. She felt a little bit of an ache that she hadn’t known her grandmother better. To her, she was just Gram—Annie loved her, but she had learned since she moved into Grey Gables that she had just scratched the surface when it came to knowing her grandmother.

  When Annie reached the end of the letter, she breathed in sharply when she saw the signature: Lily Cornette. She cast a look back to the top of the letter at the heading: Longfellow College. May 7, 1946. That’s when it all came together for her; she knew she had found what she was looking for. In her mind’s eye Annie saw it: “L.C.~1946~ L.C.”

  10

  Rehearsals for King Lemuel’s Treasure were to begin the first week of February and would continue up until the first performance near the end of April. The rehearsals were scheduled three nights a week—Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—and on Saturday afternoons. All the members of the Hook and Needle Club planned to be at the first rehearsal on Wednesday of that week since Professor Howell wanted a word with everyone involved with the production. But the day before, at the club meeting held at A Stitch in Time, the play was not the main topic of conversation.

  The main focus was on Mary Beth, who had been to see her oncologist to get her biopsy results the day before. Though Mary Beth could have easily driven herself to see the doctor, Alice insisted that she would drive. When the results were known, Alice and Mary Beth were both glad she had insisted. It wasn’t long before all the members of the club knew the results: The lump in her breast was a small tumor—and it was malignant.

  After everyone had arrived, just before the Hook and Needle Club meeting began, Kate locked the front door of A Stitch in Time and turned the “Open” sign to the “Closed” side so that they wouldn’t be disturbed. Mary Beth was understandably emotional. Her worst fear was confirmed, and her friends consoled her. When she shed tears, so did they.

  When Mary Beth was able, she told them what the doctor had said would be her next step. She would have to undergo a lumpectomy, which meant that they would remove only the lump and not the entire breast. The doctor had told her that they would be inserting a radioactive dye into the breast and would use a Geiger counter to follow its progress through the breast and the lymph nodes in the armpit to determine if there were any more small lumps in the breast and if any of the lymph nodes would have to be remov
ed. Her surgery was scheduled for that Friday.

  After her surgery, the tissues would be tested to determine what kind of cancer it was, and what stage it had reached. The doctor also told her that if the tumor was determined to be ER positive, that is, whether estrogen was causing the tumor to grow, it would be sent to a lab in California where they could do a special test to determine if that was the case and help develop the best course of treatment for Mary Beth. Only then would she know if she would have to have chemotherapy or radiation or hormone therapy or some combination of the three.

  “Would you like to go home today?” asked Kate. “I can handle everything here.”

  “No,” said Mary Beth. “I need to be active. If I go home, I’m just going to sit around and feel sorry for myself.” She looked at Annie. “Someone gave me some good advice recently. She said to put things in order, but then live in the present and let the future take care of itself, and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not going to lie to you; you know that I’m scared. But I’m not going to just give up.”

  “Have you called your sister and your niece yet?” asked Gwen.

  Mary Beth’s sister, Melanie, a fashion designer, and Melanie’s daughter, Amy, both lived in New York City. Mary Beth was close to Amy, but her relationship with her sister was complicated. For years the sisters’ connection had been strained, but Melanie had helped Mary Beth during her purchase of the building that housed A Stitch In Time, and their relationship had improved somewhat. Since Mary Beth’s mother had died, Amy and Melanie were her only close family.