Spring House

by Taylor, Mary Ellen

  The Germans are again moving to expand their borders. I’ve got bets with a few of the men that the Krauts bust through the Maginot Line by next year. The French say it’s impenetrable, but that kind of talk reminds me of all the chirping about the unsinkable ships that are now at the bottom of the ocean.

  I expect the waters to grow more dangerous as we get closer to the coast of Africa. I’m not happy about this side trip, but someone far above my rank has ordered that we pick up Edward Garrison and his wife, Victoria. Like many rich people, they are clearing out of Europe and Africa ahead of the Germans. Once we get them on board, we are committed to make a call in the Port of Le Havre, and then it’s back to the US. God bless America is all I got to say.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Megan

  Monday, March 5, 2018

  Cape Hudson, Virginia

  4:00 p.m.

  As Rick backed out of Spring House’s driveway and onto the main road, his radio squawked. It was his dispatcher.

  “Sheriff, Buddy Trice wants to know if you remember his court date. He said you were going to call the magistrate for him.”

  “Tell him it’s May 18. He’s to be in the county courthouse by 9:00 a.m. sharp.”

  “I’ll pass it on.”

  “Ten-four.”

  “When did you start calling the magistrate for people you’ve arrested?” Megan asked.

  “I don’t make a habit of it. But Buddy has a hard time remembering. That’s the third time he’s asked, and he’ll ask me at least a half dozen more times in the next few weeks.”

  Since moving to Cape Hudson in January, she had gotten to know all the players in the community. Buddy, she had learned at Arlene’s diner, had been in a car accident a few years earlier. Since then, he hadn’t been good about managing his alcohol or his time. The local bars knew to cut him off after two drinks, but occasionally he got it in his head to roam from bar to bar, buying up two drinks at each place along the way. Rick had arrested him for being drunk in public as he was coming out of the Rusty Nail in late February. He’d done it for Buddy’s own good so the man would not do anything stupid.

  Rick eased back in his seat, resting his hand on the steering wheel. That was Rick. So self-contained and together. Scott had told her that Rick had wanted to be a marine since he was knee high, and once he set his course, he was locked in. Now he had shifted his sights to Cape Hudson and would no doubt care for it as he had his men. He had met more people in the area in the last year than she had met in a lifetime of summer visits. He made lifelong relationships, whereas she saw them all as temporary.

  “How do you like living in Winter Cottage?” he asked.

  “It’s been great. Nice not to make the trip in from Norfolk three times a week. Though a steady supply of hot water would be appreciated.”

  “You still delivering pies?” he asked.

  “I have one last delivery in Norfolk on Friday. The pies are for a wedding rehearsal dinner. Apparently, the groom hates cake and wants pie. As soon as I fill that order, I’m suspending the business until after the baby is born.”

  “Why even pick the business up again? I would bet a month’s salary Lucy is paying you well, and she’ll keep you busy for at least the next year.”

  “She is paying me well.”

  “Then why even keep the catering business?”

  “Because renovations are not a forever job. And I’ve got a nice online catering presence now, and it would be a shame to give it up. It’s always smart to hedge your bets and have a fallback.”

  “You were juggling two jobs, or was it three, when we met at Chic’s Beach?”

  She was surprised he’d remembered. “Four. I suppose I’m the classic jack-of-all-trades and master of none.”

  “And your folks are due back in town soon.”

  “By mid-April.”

  He was silent for a moment, his jaw tightening as it had the night they’d dived into politics. “Helen called me.”

  Megan plucked at a thread on her blouse. “She’s also called my mother.”

  “She wants to see you,” he said.

  The last time she had seen Helen, the older woman’s eyes had been raw with anger. “She emphatically stated my baby wasn’t Scott’s and then recently asked my mother the same thing.”

  He frowned, tapping his index finger on the steering wheel. “She knows the baby is Scott’s.”

  “Then why the theatrics?” She could feel her anger stirring.

  “She’s afraid. She’s lost her husband and now her son. She’s afraid of loving a baby that she could also lose.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to her.”

  “Deep down, she knows that. But fear and pain are a powerful thing.”

  “She has never struck me as afraid.”

  “She’s terrified.”

  Helen had been upbeat and smiling when she was around Megan and Scott. When she spoke about her late husband, she always did so with such tender affection. Helen had never let on about her suffering, and Megan had never looked beyond the smiles.

  “I don’t play games,” Megan said. “I’m willing to let her be in this baby’s life if she behaves.”

  “I know that.”

  He slowed his truck and pulled into a small gravel driveway. The tires rolled and crunched over the stones as the vehicle approached a one-story brick ranch house. Several flowering dogwood trees surrounded the house, along with clusters of weather-beaten crab pots beside two overturned green rowboats.

  Mr. Crawford had retired from the Federal Reserve and moved back to Cape Hudson full time two years earlier. He had maintained property here all his life and fished, caught eels, and harvested oysters when he could. He now considered himself a true waterman, and thanks to a generous retirement plan, he wasn’t beholden to the harvests or weather.

  Parked in the driveway was a large truck attached to a trailer sporting a twenty-seven-foot boat. The bed of the truck was loaded with coolers, fishing rods, and nets, suggesting Mr. Crawford was in search of a new adventure.

  “Where’s he going fishing this time?” Megan asked.

  Rick put the car in park. “The gulf coast of Texas. When I came out to see the boat I mentioned the renovation on Winter Cottage had begun. That reminded him of the furniture he had in storage. He thinks the piece he has is from Winter Cottage.” He opened his door and came around the front of the car.

  She grabbed her purse and reached for her door, only to have Rick open it and extend a hand. If she thought she could slide out of the seat and balance her big belly with some dignity, she might have refused his help. But with her center of balance totally skewed, she opted to accept rather than risk missing a step and falling.

  “I am a beached whale,” she said.

  “You are not.”

  She cocked a brow. “You are a polite gentleman, Rick.”

  He closed the door behind her. “I’m being honest. You have a glow. Pregnancy suits you.”

  “That glow is from nausea, and if you think my Michelin Man figure is attractive, then you have been in Cape Hudson too long and had better visit the mainland soon.”

  He chuckled as she walked up to the front porch and rang the bell. A dog barked, and seconds later footsteps followed.

  Mr. Crawford was in his late sixties and had a tall, wiry body and thinning gray hair. At his ankles was a black miniature dachshund with gray whiskers.

  “I’m Megan Buchanan.” She shook his hand.

  The dog barked as it wagged its tail and sniffed her feet. She would have leaned over and petted him, but her body wasn’t so flexible these days.

  “Don’t mind Shorty. He talks like that to everyone.”

  “No worries,” she said. “I’d pet him if I could reach him.”

  He took one look at her belly and shook his head. Just like she knew his story and Buddy’s and everyone else’s in town, they knew hers. “Come on in. I’ll show you what I have.”

  “Great.” With Rick trailing behind, sh
e followed the old man into the dimly lit house. They walked past a small living room with a wide-screen television broadcasting a game show toward the back room off the kitchen. “I was cleaning out my mother’s storage unit a few weeks ago after she passed. The woman saved everything, and my brother and I didn’t realize she even had the unit until the annual charge hit her credit card.”

  “It’s been a while since your mother moved back to Norfolk,” she said.

  “About fifteen years ago, if you can believe it. She wanted to be closer to my sister. It took my brother and me the better part of a weekend to get that twenty-by-twenty space sorted out.” He pushed open a side door that led to the garage.

  “Was the storage shed climate controlled?” Megan asked. She’d seen too many lovely heirlooms destroyed by mold, heat, or water.

  “It was. She paid a pretty penny for it, but seeing as the furniture was in such good shape, I suppose it was worth it.”

  “And you have how many pieces?”

  “Just a few. My brother and sister took most of it. I didn’t want more clutter. As far as I’m concerned, if it doesn’t have to do with fishing, then it’s not important.”

  He crossed to a worn cloth tarp covered with dried red, blue, and black paint splatters. Carefully, he pulled it free, revealing a late-nineteenth-century game table made of walnut and four matching chairs. Resting on a single pedestal base was a round tabletop inlaid with a checkerboard or chessboard. Though dusty, there were few scratches on the surface, and the patina was excellent.

  Megan skimmed her fingertips over the smooth wood. “It’s French, circa 1880 or 1890. It would have been the type of furniture that belonged to Julia or Elizabeth Buchanan.” Both of her great-great-grandfather George’s wives had loved all things French. Each had visited the country as often as she could.

  Julia had come from money, and she had given George his children, Robert and Victoria. But shortly after her daughter’s birth, Julia had lost interest in her husband’s constant talk of hunting. She’d also tired of the responsibilities of children and managing a household. When she moved abroad for an extended stay, George met Elizabeth. A former actress and a widow, she shared George’s love of hunting, and the two quickly hit it off. For years, the two lived as a couple, and when Julia finally passed, they married.

  George and Elizabeth had been inseparable until their deaths in a motor accident in 1920. By then, Robert Buchanan, his father’s sole male heir, was dead, and his younger sister, Victoria, though married, was still childless. The only male heir at that time was Robert Jr., Claire’s son. The Buchanan fortune and company fell under the control of a trust until Robert Jr. turned twenty-one.

  Later, Victoria would have three sons, but for whatever reason, her children had no interest in the Buchanan company and never placed a claim for an inheritance.

  “There was also a picture in the drawer,” Mr. Crawford said. “It’s of two women.” He opened a center drawer likely designed to hold playing pieces or cards and removed the black-and-white photo.

  Megan flexed her fingers and accepted the picture of two young women sitting on a settee. Embossed on the bottom right corner was DuPont Photographer, Le Havre, France.

  She flipped it over, but there was no notation about the women’s identities. However, written in faded black ink was the year 1909. The date matched the women’s long skirts, formal pinned hair, and straw hats.

  The women appeared to be as opposite as night and day, and she recognized the woman on the left immediately. The pale peaches-and-cream complexion and round face gave her away as Claire Hedrick Buchanan, Megan’s great-grandmother.

  Claire’s soft curls peeked out from a straw toque embellished with dainty flowers. Though the black-and-white image could never confirm this, Megan knew her great-grandmother’s hair had been a rich auburn. There was a splash of freckles across Claire’s nose, and her smile was warm and welcoming. She wore a high-collared white lace top that was drawn tight around her waist by a high-waist skirt that dipped over the tops of her black shoes. The skirt had a tunic effect and conjured images of a Russian peasant.

  Megan didn’t recognize the other woman, who had dark hair sweeping into a twisted coil set low on her head, which was adorned with a wide-brimmed hat. A high slash of cheekbones combined with a pointed chin created an angled face that looked more exotic than approachable. This woman’s dress was made of a simpler fabric and resembled something a woman from the country would have worn. Her skirt hit inches below her ankle, but polished black shoes peeked out from under the hem.

  Both the women would have stood out, and she could see why they had caught the photographer’s eye. Together they were an odd blend. A sense of giddiness rose up in her as it did whenever she stumbled onto an interesting find.

  “I can see the wheels spinning in your head,” Rick said.

  “They’re racing,” Megan admitted. “There are so few pictures of Claire before her marriage.”

  “That’s Claire? As in Winter Cottage?” Rick asked.

  “One and the same. This is my great-grandmother, Claire Buchanan. I know from family records that she traveled with the Buchanan family all over the world around that time. Paris, only a few hours away by train, was a favorite stop. In 1909, Claire would have been twenty-one and a lady’s maid. She was still eight years away from marrying Robert or having her one and only child, Robert Jr., in 1917.”

  “Who’s the other woman?” Mr. Crawford asked.

  “I don’t know,” Megan said. “As I mentioned, Claire worked primarily at that time as a lady’s maid for Victoria Buchanan, but that’s not Victoria. Victoria was an ice blonde who would have been in her teens about this time. She also would have been dressed more stylishly.”

  “The other woman is younger than Claire?” Rick asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Their heads are slightly inclined toward each other,” he said. “Their legs are crossed and angled toward each other, and their smiles are relaxed. Body language says they liked each other and knew each other well.”

  “I would agree.” Megan shifted her gaze to the table. “I’ve pored over every picture I can find of Winter Cottage between 1900 and 1910, and I don’t remember this table in Winter Cottage. That’s not to say it wasn’t in the house. Claire sold off several pieces during the Depression. Perhaps she didn’t realize this picture was in the drawer.”

  “Or whoever owned the desk knew the Buchanans,” Rick said. “The owner of the table could have been attached to the other woman.”

  Megan stared at the mystery woman’s face. “Given the other woman’s attire, I doubt she’d have owned such a fine piece. She’s dressed as if she lives on a farm.”

  She wasn’t sure where the piece would be placed in Winter Cottage once the house was redone, but she felt strongly that it needed to be there. “Do you know how your mother came across this piece?” she asked Mr. Crawford.

  “She loved to go to yard sales and estate sales,” he said. “I couldn’t say for sure, but I can tell you her favorite antique dealer is in Norfolk. Her name is Pat Schmidt.”

  “I don’t know the name,” Megan said.

  “I can ask my sister. I don’t have a clue,” he said.

  Most pieces like this came with stories, and Megan wanted the story as much as the piece—it was the stories that would bring Winter Cottage and Spring House alive for the tourists.

  “Do you have a price in mind?” Megan asked.

  Mr. Crawford quoted a price that caused Rick to straighten. She imagined he was thinking the money would be better spent on a new truck or dash-cam video equipment for his squad car rather than a table and four chairs.

  Megan, however, kept her expression stoic. She knew enough about the furniture to know its worth, and Mr. Crawford was asking triple its value. She smoothed her hand over the top, knowing that the piece needed to return to Winter Cottage where it belonged. But she was not a fool, and she was patient. “Knock off seventy-five percent and we
have a deal.”

  “Seventy-five percent!” Mr. Crawford said. “That would take me down to . . .” He let the sentence trail as he quickly calculated the math.

  She’d already come up with the number. As she waited for him to burrow down to it himself, she pulled out her cell phone and snapped several pictures of the image that had captured Claire and the mystery woman over a century earlier.

  “That’s robbery,” Mr. Crawford said.

  “It’s a fair price.” She handed him back his picture. He might get a few hundred dollars more from another antique dealer, but that would require him to shop the pieces around, and judging by the boat already hooked up to the packed truck, he didn’t have the time now.

  Mr. Crawford shook his head. “I can’t go that low, no matter how sorry I feel for you.”

  If the comment was meant to throw her off her game, it did the opposite. In fact, it irritated her. “I don’t expect you or anyone else to feel sorry for me, Mr. Crawford. In fact, instead of feeling desperate, I’m annoyed now. I’m not here for a handout but here to make a business deal. Do you accept my price or not?”

  A redness spread over his gaunt cheeks, suggesting he had been properly chastised. But feeling chagrined was not enough to make him accept her offer. “No, I got to have double that.”

  Which put them at half of his original number, which was still too much. “I’m afraid that’s too rich for my blood.”

  “It’s not even your money that you’re spending. We’ve all heard the old lady left a ton of money for the restoration projects.”

  “You’re right, it’s not my money, and that makes me all the more responsible.” She dug a small business card from her purse, scribbled her offer on the back, and handed it to him. “I can promise you I’ll buy it if you can change your mind.”