Time Is a River

by Mary Alice Monroe

  Beep.

  Hello, Mrs. Landan? This is Lucy Roosevelt, Mrs. Minor’s granddaughter. She’s feeling poorly. I don’t reckon you should come by today. Is tomorrow OK?

  Beep.

  Morning, Mia. It’s Flossie. Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner about that dinner. Why don’t you come by Thursday night? About seven? I haven’t forgotten about that pie, neither.

  Beep.

  Hi, Mia. Stuart here. I followed up with the front desk at the Manor House about seeing the murals. The couple in the room is checking out today. So if you’re free sometime after three o’clock, I can bring you up for a look-see. Call me when you think you can come. Oh, and put on a pretty dress. I’d like to take you out to dinner. We have a four-star restaurant here.

  She pushed save with a smile. That message brought the sun back into her day after Charles’s dark cloud. Then she realized she didn’t have a pretty dress up here. Glancing at her watch, she figured she’d have just enough time to buy a dress, do her errands, catch up with Nada at the Gazette, and make it to Watkins Lodge before five.

  It was nearly five o’clock when Mia passed through a security gate onto the grounds of Watkins Lodge. It was an impressive country estate with a rolling green lawn, meticulously maintained with large beds of flowers. The humidity had subsided so she rolled down her windows to the sweet-scented air. She breathed deep as she drove the narrow, paved road past a medley of historic trees. At the beginning of summer she couldn’t have named one. Now she identified each one she passed: beech, sugar maple, tulip poplar, hemlock, Fraser fir. She made a wide curve around a hillside, catching a glimpse of water. Then suddenly before her, rising above a still, blue lake, loomed the steeply pitched, gabled roofline of the Manor House.

  The Queen Anne estate sat on top of the hillside like the grande dame of Watkins Mill that she was. The mansion was romantic in design but not fanciful, elegant but not pretentious, regal yet harmonious with her natural surroundings. Ancient magnolias were her ladies-in-waiting, tall, proud, and glossy with creamy white blossoms to adorn the front entrance. An imposing porte cochere that once upon a time gave shelter to carriages that delivered guests to the Watkinses’ events now served as the lobby entrance for the Manor House. Behind the house on another hillside she saw a much larger, newer wood-and-stone building. This was Watkins Lodge. To the left of the house was a stone carriage house that was under reconstruction. She supposed that was where Stuart’s Orvis shop would be located.

  She pulled up under the portico and had no sooner turned off the engine when a uniformed attendant trotted to her door. It had been a very long time since she’d lived in the world of doormen, attendants, maids, and maître d’s, and she cursed herself for not washing her mud-streaked Jetta. Slightly embarrassed, she handed over the keys, then took a deep breath and climbed the stone steps to the front porch.

  She stepped inside and instantly felt transported back into the previous century. Straight ahead a very wide, bold staircase of dark wood rose to a half landing under a skylight. Rich tapestries, carpets, and upholstery fabrics in gold and neutral tones appeared burnished against the highly polished floors. She could smell the lemon soap and the pungent, clean scent of eucalyptus from the glorious spray floral arrangement at the front desk.

  “May I help you?” an attractive young woman at the desk asked.

  She opened her mouth to speak when she heard Stuart’s voice behind her.

  “That’s all right, Victoria. She’s with me.”

  Mia turned to see Stuart, and yet it wasn’t. She had to do a double take at seeing him in his dress trousers, an ironed tartan plaid shirt, and a green tie. He smiled and as always her gaze was directed to his eyes. They shone with appraisal.

  “You look beautiful,” he said.

  Mia basked in the compliment. Earlier that day she’d shopped at the only women’s clothing store in Watkins Mill. The salesclerk was a young woman about Mia’s age, and when Mia told her she needed a dress for dinner, something classic and not showy, the salesclerk brightened. She hurried to the rear of the store, where long dresses with sequins and satin bows hung. Mia’s heart sank, expecting to see something fit for a mother of the bride or a prom.

  “I thought of this dress the moment I saw you. It’s very Audrey Hepburn,” the clerk exclaimed as she carried out a slim-cut, black, sleeveless, silk sheath dress. Mia tried it on and felt as chic as Audrey wearing it. She bought the dress and black strappy heels, and, at the clerk’s insistence, a strand of faux pearls. Before ringing up the sale, the clever clerk showed her a rose-colored pashmina shawl. “The nights get cool in the mountains,” she warned. Mia bought that, too.

  She fingered the pearls and looked around the entrance. “It’s a magnificent house,” she said. “Much more grand than I’d expected. I can’t help but imagine how Kate and Walter must have felt living here.”

  “Did you catch the view they had?”

  “The lake? I did, it’s lovely. Is it stocked?”

  “What do you think?” He took her elbow. “Let me show you around.”

  He escorted her through the rooms of the main floor.

  “I talked to the manager to get a little history. They gave me this,” he said, handing her a four-color brochure depicting the history of the property. “In a nutshell, this house has eight bedrooms. The lodge has another fifty and there are condominiums on the other side of the lake.”

  “I had no idea it was so big.”

  “They’ve been mindful of keeping the essence of the estate as true to the original as possible. A lot of the land was put into conservation. That was a condition of the sale, I believe. This is the library,” he said, guiding her to a wood-paneled room with arched, paned windows that overlooked the grounds.

  Mia imagined she was Kate, born at the turn of the century and living here as mistress of the house at the height of the town’s wealth and social life. She would have walked into this room to speak with her father in his paneled library. She’d have read Mr. Nelson’s letter of introduction for DeLancey in the living room, perhaps sitting on the blue velvet sofa. The Queen Anne house was asymmetrical. She enjoyed the surprise patios, balconies, and window seats.

  Stuart took her for a walk through the house gardens and across the small footbridge that led to the lake. A pair of white swans glided across the serene water against the bluish-black mountains, like a painting come to life. Even knowing that the estate and grounds had been greatly improved by the resort compared to when Kate had lived here, Mia was in awe of the privilege it must have been to be local aristocracy and to live in this idyllic spot.

  After the tour Stuart took her back to the house to see the paintings on the bedroom wall. “There are eight bedrooms and each of the rooms is named after a Watkins family member,” he explained as he led her down the hall of the second floor to the corner room. Over the door it read Katherine Watkins.

  “Well, this has to be it,” Mia said.

  Stuart had the key and opened the door. He stepped back to allow Mia to walk through. The room was bright and cheery with lots of windows that afforded a spectacular view of the lake and grounds. Yet she couldn’t help but be disappointed. It was not the young girl’s room she’d imagined. This was a typical upscale hotel room, with more local decor. The furniture, though nice, was all reproduction. Still, looking at the queen bed positioned under the steeply angled roof, Mia couldn’t help but think young Kate’s bed would have been placed in the same spot.

  “Over here,” Stuart called from across the room.

  Mia hurried over and with a gasp of delight zeroed in on three murals of wildflowers on the wall. They were done by a young girl, anyone could tell. Yet Mia’s trained eye saw the talent in its execution that Walter Watkins had seen. The rest of the walls had been painted a soft yellow color, but the owners had been careful to preserve these murals and had protected them with Plexiglas. Beside the mural was a small framed card identifying them as being painted by Kate Watkins. Mia rea
ched out to place her hand on the Plexiglas over Kate’s favorite—the Turk’s cap lily—then traced the outline of the six petals. Her mind was filled with the voice of young Kate in the diary, so indignant at having been punished.

  “Why are you smiling?” Stuart asked.

  “Oh, I was thinking…If Mrs. Hodges had known how many people would be charmed by these paintings, she might not have put young Kate to bed without supper.”

  “Speaking of supper,” he said, looking at his watch. “If you’re done here, we should go. We have reservations.”

  She cast a final lingering glance at the murals, then followed Stuart downstairs. Before entering the formal dining room she caught the tempting aromas of garlic, spices, and hot rolls emanating from the kitchen. The dining room was now the Manor House restaurant. Instead of one long dining table there were several small tables, each draped with heavy white linen and covered with white folded napkins, ruby-trimmed china, sparkling crystal, and fresh flowers. The room was empty and Stuart selected a table at the window.

  Mia enjoyed the luxury of being taken to a fine restaurant again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d dressed up to go out. She unfolded the napkin, fingering the fine damask linen, remembering a time when such opulence was taken for granted. Her gaze drifted around the room, taking in the heavy brocade wallpaper; the velvet, tasseled curtains; the fireplace with the dentil molding. Over it was a magnificent portrait of a dark-haired gentleman in nineteenth-century clothing. So, she thought, this was Robert Watkins. Despite surviving the agony of the Civil War and the trials of the Reconstruction era, he assumed the typical aloof expression of gentry for his portrait. Suddenly, her eyes widened.

  “Stuart, look! In the painting, behind the man. It’s the armoire!”

  He grinned. “I thought you’d recognize it. After I saw it at the cabin I knew I’d seen it somewhere but couldn’t place it. Then weeks later I was having a business meeting here and I glanced up and there it was. I almost choked on my lunch.”

  “So she did bring the furniture from the house. Of course she would. The dining table would have been in here, with all the leaves, of course.”

  “And the mahogany sofa…”

  “In the living room by the fireplace.”

  He was amused. “Is the house as you imagined it?”

  “In some ways, yes. I didn’t expect to covet living here so much. The house makes me wish I lived in the twenties.”

  “People always assume if they lived in an earlier era that they’d live in a house like this one. More than likely, most of us would have been in a cramped house without electricity or running water, or the downstairs staff of a house like this one. I’d have been the gillie taking the gentry out fishing.”

  Mia laughed lightly, thinking of how she imagined she was the mistress of the house. Every girl has dreams of Pemberley, she thought.

  “I wonder if Belle has ever seen this house. If the family hadn’t lost their fortune, she would have been born here. Maybe even grown up here. Imagine that.”

  “More than Belle, I wonder if her mother ever saw it.”

  “Theodora? She must have. At least the outside. Oh, Stuart, imagine how hard that was for her, living out in the cabin and to come here and realize all this could have been hers.”

  “She’d be bitter.”

  “I wonder if that’s part of the reason why she was so angry at her mother. Even though Kate or her father wasn’t to blame. Many families lost their fortunes in the crash of twenty-nine.”

  “We can see that now, in retrospect. But Theodora was what? Seventeen? That’s reason enough.”

  The waitress came and delivered their drinks. Stuart had Scotch and Mia selected a chardonnay. They took a few minutes to study the menu. Mia ordered the trout but Stuart selected the filet, explaining that, given how he made his living, he had lost his taste for trout. He was committed to catch and release.

  Mia sighed and changed her order to the chicken.

  “What did you think of Kate’s murals?” he asked.

  “They’re just as I imagined them. The vitality I found in her words was right there in her colors, too. But…” She looked around the room, at so much luxury compared to the ruggedness of the cabin. “I don’t sense Kate in this house. Not even in her bedroom. Not like I do in the cabin.”

  “She loved the cabin.”

  “But she loved this house, too.”

  “I’d imagine if she’s lingering anywhere, she’d be where she had her love affair with DeLancey. She wouldn’t have brought him here, not with Dad in the library.” He chuckled. “And Mrs. Hodges.”

  “But there was sadness at the cabin, too.”

  “Well, we don’t really know that, do we?”

  She shook her head. There were still so many things she didn’t know.

  He brought the conversation around to fly-fishing. As always they never were bored with each other’s company. The summer sun shone bright through most of their dinner, too bright for the seductive glimmer of candles. It began its slow descent only by the time they were drinking their coffee. Several more diners had joined them in the room, and two more couples were waiting to be seated.

  “Thank you,” Mia said after Stuart paid the bill. “I haven’t had such a wonderful time in I don’t know how long. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed dining at a fine restaurant.”

  “It’s only eight o’clock. If you’ve got time, I’d like to show you some paintings I’ve found stored in the carriage house. The old chauffeur’s apartment has been a storage facility for the house for years. There’s this group of paintings up there that caught my eye. They’re all of trout. I liked them and saved them for the shop, but when I saw Kate’s fishing diary I was struck by the strong similarity in style between the trout in the diary and the trout in the paintings.”

  “You think they were done by Kate?”

  “They’re not signed, but it’s a possibility.”

  “I’d love to see them,” she said with barely restrained enthusiasm.

  “Good,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  The sky had turned crimson over the mountains when they left the Manor House. The lake shimmered with a pearly reflection, its stillness broken here and there with the concentric circles of trout sipping.

  The carriage house was an ivy-covered building built for four vehicles. The base was built of stone and the roofline was steeply sloped in the style of the Manor House. Stuart guided her through a heavy wood door. Inside she saw lots of new framing and piles of sawdust, buckets, tools, and other signs of active construction. The floor was made of beautiful stone and she was glad to hear they were keeping it. Stuart described with grand gestures where the clothing section would be, where rods and reels would be sold, and where he would have an entire section dedicated to flies and fly-tying classes. He talked excitedly about the circular wood counter in the middle of the store that he’d designed for customer service and checkout. She saw boyish enthusiasm in his eyes, and as he described the scope of the project she realized that he would be single-handedly responsible for its success. It dawned on her how high up in the management he had to be to take on this operation and it tilted her perception of him.

  “Will you stay here once the shop opens?” she asked. “Or will you go back to Orvis headquarters?”

  His eyes searched her face. “I don’t know yet where I’ll end up. This is the third shop I’ve established and the company is looking at a few more locations. They might want to move me, but I’m tired of traveling around and corporate politics. I put in to manage this one. It’s close to home. I’ll have to wait and see. The storage is through here. Take my hand. It’s dark up these back stairs.”

  He opened a door and, taking her hand, led her up the dark, dusty, narrow staircase to the second floor. As she followed him, her mind wrestled with the possibility that Stuart could leave the area. To where? she wondered. Orvis was located throughout the country. In her mind he was fixed here, like the other t
own residents. Even though he’d told her he was a wanderer, she’d just assumed he would always be here.

  He opened a narrow door at the top of the stairs. The rooms were dark and she felt a blast of heat from the closed space. “Wait here while I find the light switch,” he told her. A moment later light filled the room.

  She entered a rabbit warren of small rooms that had once been the chauffeur’s quarters and now was filled with clutter like an old attic. Cobwebs hung from the rafters, the small windows were caked with dust, and old furniture and boxes crammed the small space. It was as hot as an oven and she felt her silk dress cling to her skin. Stuart went to open a few windows and let the cooler night air in.

  “There’s dust and dirt everywhere. I’d hate for you to get your dress dirty.”

  “No matter,” she said, admiring the wood bed frame with beautiful acanthus leaves climbing up the four posts. “I’ll bet this beauty is original to the house. It’s a shame to see it wallowing in here. Or this bureau.”

  “Not mine to deal with. I went through the art looking for something I might want for the shop. The paintings are over here.”

  Her gaze lingered on a standing mirror, a rocking chair, and a wrought-iron garden table as she followed him. I would love to spend a few hours going through those boxes, she thought. Who knew what treasures were there? She joined him in a corner where several framed paintings were stacked against the wall. He grabbed hold and hoisted three frames up and brought them to the wrought-iron table.

  “Here they are.”

  Mia came closer to look. They were oil paintings on paper framed in simple, chipped, black wood frames and glass. She looked around for a cloth of some kind and, finding none, took the end of her shawl and wiped a layer of dust from the glass. The painting was of a glorious rainbow trout leaping with exuberance from the dark water, droplets spraying from its whipping tail. Its rosy band shone across the fish’s gray dots.