Enright Family Collection (112 page)

“She never married?”

“Oh, yes. She married her high school sweetheart, but he left for World War Two about three months after they were married. He died on the beach at Normandy.”

“So she never had children?”

“Just Matt and me.” Laura grinned. “She always said we were all the kids she’d ever needed.” Laura’s voice softened. “I miss her very much.”

“It must have been hard for you, losing your father a few years ago, then your aunt last year, and, in a way, your mother, all in so short a time.”

“It has been. I think maybe I don’t always appreciate just how difficult it’s been, but if I stop and give it too much thought, it all but overwhelms me. On the other hand, while I’ve lost a lot over the past few years, I’ve gained a lot, too. I’m only sorry that Matt—” she stopped, reflecting back to one of the wishes she had made the night before. “—well, that Matt still seems to have so many empty places in his heart.”

An ill-tempered crow dropped to the ground in front of the Jeep and began to scold them for trespassing. Soon several others joined in.

“Ah, they didn’t happen to film a movie out here, did they?” Georgia frowned. “One with lots of birds ...”

Laura laughed and searched through the keys on the brass ring. “They’re just being ornery and territorial. Come on, let me show you around. We’ll start with the big barn.”

With practiced efficiency, Laura quickly worked off the padlock and swung aside the barn door, flooding the open space beyond with light. Something scurried noisily off to their left, and Georgia jumped back.

“Probably just a wild cat,” Laura shrugged, unconcerned.

The air was cold and dusty and heavy with a sweet lingering trace of hay.

“Aunt Hope used to keep goats.” Laura pointed to a row of empty stalls. “We had to send them off to a neighbor after she died. Matt and I couldn’t take care of them, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to sell them, either. Mrs. McCoy down the road is tending to them for a while, until ... well, until there’s someone here who can look after them.”

Laura’s boots scuffed along the concrete floor in the direction of a row of old farm equipment that stood along one wall. She walked from one machine to the next, her fingers tracing lines in the dust that covered old fenders and massive black rubber tires, the treads of which were deep and noticeably free of mud and dirt. With one hand Laura swung herself up
into the seat of a small tractor the color of new spring grass.

“Nineteen thirty-nine John Deere Model L,” she said softly. “Two cylinder engine. Nine horsepower. Your basic all-purpose tractor.”

Georgia watched as Laura touched this knob and that before hopping down and walking around the next piece of equipment.

“Now, this one”—she patted one of the back tires—“this is a nineteen fifty-six Model sixty—another Deere machine, of course; my grandfather never bought anything but. You might notice that this one boasts a number of modern features for the modern farmer.” She climbed up into the seat and pointed to what Georgia assumed was the engine. “This baby has a two-barrel carburetor, a hot and cold intake manifold for faster warm-ups, and a water pump in the cooling system.”

Georgia wandered over and pretended to know what she was looking at.

“Did your aunt use this?”

“Damn near every working day of her life.” Laura nodded.

“It has directions on it?” Georgia leaned forward to peer closely at the decal on the body of the tractor.

“Sure does.” Laura laughed. “Remember that these tractors were intended to replace farm animals. Now, men who had relied on the use of horses or mules to plow their fields knew how to care for their animals. You cooled them down, you gave them food and water and rest when they came in from the fields at night, and the next morning you just hitched them
back up and headed on back to the fields again. Machines need a little more maintenance. John Deere placed these little decals everywhere to remind the farmers when and how to do just about everything, from changing the oil in the crank case and tightening the clutch to how much air pressure to maintain in the tires.”

Laura turned the steering wheel almost unconsciously as if lost in thought somewhere.

“Wonder if it still has gas?” Laura asked idly as she pushed a button on the side of the engine. The resultant roar almost threw Georgia backward.

“Wow!” Georgia yelled up to Laura, who sat grinning atop the old plow seat. “You could have warned me!”

“Sorry,” Laura mouthed the word, then turned the engine off. “Sorry,” she repeated. “I forgot how loud she is.”

For a moment Laura stroked the side of the tractor much as one might stroke the flanks of a well-loved horse.

“Want to see upstairs?” she asked suddenly as she climbed back down off the old tractor.

“Sure.”

Georgia followed Laura to one end of the room, where a wide wooden stairway led to a second floor.

“They used to store hay here.” Laura paused to push open a window at the top of the steps. “Let’s bring a little fresh air in. All the dust from the hay is going to give me a headache.”

Georgia walked the length of the barn to gaze out the big windows at one end. With a tissue she rubbed
the dirt from the glass, and peered through the clean spot to the fields beyond.

“I want to take just a quick check into Matt’s apartment.” Laura studied her keys. “I think this is the one.”

She walked back to the stairwell and slipped the key into a door that was set into the wall on the right side of the landing. With a twist of the knob and a gentle push, the door swung open.

“Come on,” Laura called over her shoulder as she passed through the door.

Georgia followed tentatively, overwhelmed by the feeling that she was trespassing into a very private place. The door in the barn wall led into a galley-style kitchen that had a very fifties look, from the speckled linoleum—red and white—to the white wooden cabinets that hung above the short counters on either side of the enamel sink. The narrow refrigerator and stove were white, as were the walls and the curtains that hung over the one small window. The counters were bare except for the ceramic canisters in the shape of apples, all painted shiny red with stems for handles, that lined up close to the wall in descending size. Georgia had half expected to see a few dishes stacked in the sink of this bachelor apartment, but there was not so much as a cup or spoon to be seen. There was nothing to identify who might live in this place other than a large white dish that sat on the floor near the sink and bore the name
Artie
in red block letters.

Laura’s footsteps moved away somewhere beyond the kitchen. Georgia followed, stealing an inquisitive
peek through the doors that led to a study, its walls lined with books, on the left off the hall, and a large square living room, furnished in nondescript fashion, to the right. Three steps at the end of the hall led down to the bedroom that was, she discovered, as neat as the rest of the apartment. A worn quilt of faded green-and-white squares covered the old maple double bed, and the bedside table held a brass lamp, a small alarm clock, and a small stack of books. Several framed photographs stood atop the wooden dresser, and the closet door was snugly closed. A mirror covered the wall behind the dresser, and the other walls held framed black-and-white photos and several ink prints. An old movie poster—John Barry-more as Sherlock Holmes—hung nearby a newer one—Basil Rathbone, dressed in the close-fitting ear flapped cap known as the deerslayer, and a long gray traveling cape, a magnifying glass held up before his face. Georgia stepped closer to study the series of small pen-and-ink drawings, and stopped before the first. Two men forcibly led a woman in a Victorian-era gown. Precise letters across the bottom of the print identified the scene as “The abduction of Miss Nurnet in
Wisteria Lodge.”
The second print—a tall, gaunt man with deep-set eyes, wearing a dark overcoat, his hands holding a top hat behind his back—bore the legend “The Napoleon of Crime, Professor Moriarty, from
The Final Problem.”

Laura watched from the doorway as Georgia went from one print to the next.

“Matt’s a sucker for Sherlock Holmes,” Laura told her.

“So I see.” Georgia pointed to another of the prints
and read the neat print across the bottom aloud: “‘The body of John Openshaw is fished out of the Thames in
The Five Orange Pips;
by an unknown French artist, circa nineteen twenty.’”

“My brother has tons of Holmesian collectibles. He even named his dog after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“Ah.” Georgia nodded. “The ‘Artie’ of the water dish.”

“Exactly.” Laura nodded and walked to the windows, where she straightened the shades that really had not appeared to Georgia to be in need of adjustment. “Let’s go on out and I’ll show you the rest of the farm.”

They left the apartment not as they had come in, but through a door that opened off the tidy living room onto an outside landing and steps that led down the side of the barn. Once at the bottom, Georgia tried to shake off the feeling that she’d just taken far too close a look into the life of a man she had met only briefly, but who had found his way into her subconscious and refused to leave.

“This used to be an old workshop,” Laura said as they walked past a clapboard outbuilding that seemed to grow like an appendage from the old barn. “And that over there”—she pointed to a smaller building to their right—“was the chicken coop. That fenced-in area behind the house was Aunt Hope’s kitchen garden.”

“Sounds like Aunt Hope was a busy lady,” Georgia noted.

“That she was. Idle hands, and all that ...” Laura paused in the driveway, then said, “Let me just check the mailbox before we go inside.”

Georgia followed Laura down the drive toward the mailbox.

“Matt sometimes gets mail here, and sometimes people stuff circulars in and such.” Laura opened the old metal mailbox from the front and stuck her hand inside. She pulled out a mass of paper. “See what I mean? Advertisements for everything from water beds to pizza.”

She folded the small stack of papers and placed it under her arm.

“Let’s go inside and check to see that all is well.” She pointed to the walkway of wide, flat gray stones that led to the front door. “And don’t let me forget to bring back some of Aunt Hope’s preserves. Jody will hang me if I don’t. She swears that those homemade jams are one of the reasons that people come back to the inn.”

Georgia followed her up the walk and waited on the narrow porch while Laura unlocked the front door, then pushed it gently aside.

They were greeted by the faint smell of must and camphor and old dust. The door opened directly into a squared-off living room with long, wide windows running from floor to ceiling along the front and one side. A fireplace with a simply carved oak mantel stood in the wall nearest the door. Straight ahead, steps led unceremoniously to the second floor. To the right, one passed through a darkened dining room into a large square kitchen that overlooked the fields beyond the house.

“It’s so still and close in here,” Laura remarked. “Help me open a window or two. Let’s get a little fresh air circulating.”

Laura walked from the dining room through the living room, pushing back curtains and opening windows throughout the downstairs. The temperature inside the house was already cold, the thermostat having been lowered to provide just enough heat to keep the pipes from freezing, but bringing in the cool morning breeze did a lot to dispel the empty feeling of the old house.

Not entirely empty,
Georgia thought as she wandered from room to room. The living room held a collection of upholstered furniture of indeterminate style and age, all of which were covered by white sheets intended to protect the old fabrics from dust. A porcelain bowl of waxed fruit still served as a centerpiece on the old pine dining room table, and along the window ledge several painted pots of dried plants sat where they had died of neglect. Little particles of dust danced in the hazy sunlight that spilled through the panes of old glass.

Georgia wandered through the first floor, then followed Laura up the old stairwell that bisected the front foyer.

The steps were a little steeper than they appeared, and led straight up to a dark landing. Laura turned on a lamp that sat on a small dresser, then, one by one, opened all of the four bedroom doors.

“This was my room when I was little,” she told Georgia, pointing to the room off to their left. “I loved it here.” She entered the room and sat on the end of a narrow bed covered by a white bedspread with small yellow flowers. “I could fall asleep listening to the crickets, and wake to the song of the wrens. It was wonderful. Matt slept right here”—she
pounded on the wall behind the wooden headboard—“and at night we used to tap messages to each other.”

She tapped lightly on the wall, as if sending a remembered greeting in code to her brother.

“We used to chase fireflies long past dark, and we’d put them in old jars with a piece of screen over the top and use the jars like lanterns. Of course, we’d always let the bugs out of the jars before we went in to go to bed, then we’d go back out the next night and catch more.” She leaned on the window ledge and looked out, as if seeking something in the fields beyond the house and the old barns. “Some nights there’d be so many fireflies that the entire field would be lit up. Aunt Hope used to say they were the ghosts of all the soldiers heading home after the war.” Her voice dropped into a modified drawl as she explained, “Now, of course, that would be the War of Northern Aggression.”

“Ah, your family had southern sympathies, then.”

“Some did, but not all. My great great uncle Peter fought for the Union. His cousin Ted fought for the South—ran off to join Magruder’s rebels when he was just seventeen. Maryland was really divided during the war.” Laura pulled aside the curtain and pointed to the woods. “Back behind those trees is a small tributary of the Nanticoke River, which leads eventually to the Chesapeake, which was, as one might imagine, a real hotbed of activity during the war. The farm two over,”—she pointed out the window toward the left—“was owned by Quakers who were suspected of running a stop on the Underground Railroad, so there was a lot of nocturnal
activity over there. But over this way, closer to town, stood the home of a major in the Confederate army.”