Читать книгу Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse - Faith Sullivan - Страница 24

chapter fourteenchapter fourteen

CORA WAS STILL IN HER WHEELCHAIR when the young Lundeens returned in late August. Her girlish lightness had fled. Without being self-pitying, she was older, more sober.

“She’s still an invalid. How could she be the same?” Nell pointed out when Aunt Martha spoke of Cora’s “comedown.”

“She’s furnished the Methodist sunday school with expensive toys and books and I don’t know what all.” Martha commenced to fan herself. “Meanwhile, we have to count our pennies to buy a new carpet for the parlor.”

Nell’s patience was thin. “She and Juliet Lundeen have also contributed a beautiful bookcase for the lobby of the new Water and Power Company.”

“What on earth for?”

“So folks can leave books and magazines for others to borrow. I call that bighearted. I’ve already been over there taking advantage.”

Martha set the fan aside and rose with much wheezing and importance. “If you have to buy people’s affection, what’s it worth?”

“Has Cora Lundeen offended you?”

“I don’t approve of people flaunting their money. If I were rich, I wouldn’t throw mine around.”

Nell waited until Martha was down the stairs before she started laughing.

Hilly wouldn’t start school for another year, so Elvira had begun taking him for walks to “build up his stamina.” It was her opinion that school required a good deal of stamina—and that Hilly, because he lived in an apartment, needed his improved.

Besides, the walks fit in with her plan to “buck Cora up.”

One mild late-September day, as she and Hilly marched around the schoolhouse block and then around the park, Elvira said to the boy, “And while we’re at it, we’ll stop at Cora’s to see if she’d like to take the air.” “Take the air” was a phrase Elvira had picked up from one of the English novels she’d grown devoted to.

“I’d love to go,” Cora told her. “We’re going to the park, Lizzie. Get my shawl and Laurence’s sweater. Also the little package on the buffet.”

George had ordered a ramp built onto the porte cochere so that Cora could come and go. Now, while Cora held Laurence on her lap, Lizzie guided the wheelchair down the ramp.

In the park, Cora released Laurence and he tottered away, following Hilly, who was headed toward swings hanging from a pair of maples. On the swing, Hilly held the baby in his lap with one hand and clasped the rope with the other, pushing off gently with his foot. When finally the boys tired of this, Hilly called to Elvira, “Can Laurence come on the teeter-totter?”

“He’s not big enough,” Elvira told him.

“I’ll go with him,” Lizzie said. She showed Laurence how to cling to the grip, then she applied her weight to his end of the teeter-totter, forcing it up and down.

“She’s very willing,” Cora said to Elvira’s silence. She smiled and handed the “little package” to Elvira.

“It’s too pretty to unwrap,” Elvira said, but pulled on the satin ribbons. “Oh, my,” she gasped, lifting the lid and then the contents, a cameo brooch. “Oh, my. I’ve never had anything so beautiful. You shouldn’t have. But I love it!” Tearful, she embraced Cora. “Thank you, thank you. You are so good to me.”

“It is you who are good to me,” Cora said. Then, indicating the face on the brooch, “The silhouette is Queen Victoria. Thank heaven, it’s the young Victoria.”

Pinning the cameo to her breast, Elvira said, “It’ll soon be time to plan the Christmas party.”

Cora shifted in the chair and gazed toward the back of the schoolhouse. “I’ve been thinking, though . . . maybe it’s time to have it at Mother Lundeen’s.”

Recalling Cora’s earlier hope that she’d be dancing this Christmas, Elvira changed the subject. “Do you have plans for the fall?”

“I’m scouting furnishings for the kindergarten.”

“Kindergarten?”

“For young children. Next fall. The school board’s adding one. It’s a shame Hilly will miss out this year.”

“What do they do in kindergarten?”

“It’s a new idea from Germany,” Cora said, leaning toward Elvira. “They learn their ABCs and simple numbers and they color pictures with crayons and cut shapes out of paper. And there’ll be a sandbox. And the teacher will read the children stories.”

Elvira was pleased that her question had lit a spark of animation.

“They’ll play games, of course,” Cora went on. “I want to find beautiful books for them and colorful pictures for the walls. Four more years and Laurence will march off to kindergarten.”

Then Cora grew quiet, perhaps imagining Lizzie marching Laurence to his first day of school.

When Nell arrived home the following day, Elvira told her, “I have shopping to do.” In Lundeen’s, the young woman gathered up a pair of children’s scissors, a thick pad of cheap paper, and a wooden box of crayons.

George Lundeen himself rang up the sale. “What’s this all about?”

“It’s about Hilly and kindergarten. I don’t want him to miss out on all that.” Elvira smiled. “I sound like a mother hen.”

Wrapping the items in brown paper and tying them with string, George said, “Hilly’s a lucky boy.” Like Cora, George was moving into that pale landscape where the sun shines dimly through a scrim of vanished possibilities. Elvira wished she could lay a comforting hand on his.

Outside, Elvira stood pensive for a moment, then plunged on toward the Water and Power Company to scour the shelves for children’s books. Like the post office, this building was golden brick, and the broad interior lobby boasted a terrazzo floor. Elvira thought it hinted at a promising future for Harvester. Entering, she squared her shoulders and hoped that she looked a tiny bit soigné, a word newly acquired from Cora.

Shuffling through the bookshelves, Elvira found a little primer, nearly lost among the larger books. Seeing its quaintly illustrated alphabet, she tucked it into her satchel.

“What’s kindy garden?” Hilly asked, later, when Elvira showed him her purchases.

She repeated what Cora had told her. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

He nodded. “I kin do those things?”

“Most of them. We can’t have a sandbox, but we can learn the ABCs and numbers and do coloring and play games.”

“You’re a lucky boy,” Nell told him, echoing George Lundeen. “What do you say to Elvira for being so good to you?”

“I love you, Elvira.”

Elvira lifted him, hugging him. “Someday I want a little boy just like you.” Setting him down, she added, “But I don’t know how to manage that without a husband.”

“You could go to Boston and get a baby,” said Hilly. “Mrs. Lundeen got one there.”

An autumn Saturday morning, flaxen and mild. Nell sat at the kitchen table, drawing up lesson plans. Hilly had descended the stairs, promising not to wander off. “I’ll play by the pump,” he told his mother.

On one side of the vacant lot behind Rabel’s, a three-hole outhouse squatted; on the other sat one of the village pumps where, winter and summer, Nell and Elvira drew water.

The vacant lot was now drifted with leaves. Hilly ran through them, bending to toss them into the air, gathering them into piles and throwing himself down on them.

Someone moved into the space between the boy and the sun. Shielding his eyes, Hilly looked up. “Gussy,” he said, struggling to sit up.

“Not ‘Gussy,’ dummkopf. ‘Gus.’”

“What’s ‘dummkopf’?”

“You. A dummy. Somebody who doesn’t know nothin’.”

“Elvira’s gonna teach me. Like kindy garden.”

“I’m in first grade, dummkopf. I know lots mor’n you.” Young Gus Rabel kicked leaves into Hilly’s face. “Dummkopf.”

Hilly flung his arms in front of his face. “Please don’t, Gussy.”

“I told you, my name is Gus. Now you’re gonna get it, dummkopf.”

The bigger boy fell upon Hilly, knocking him backward and rubbing leaves into the boy’s face.

“Please, Gussy . . . Gus. Please don’t.” Hilly struggled to roll away, but Gus’s knees dug into his ribs, pinning him. “Hurts.”

“Ooooo, poor little dummkopf. Little baby dummkopf.” Gus’s face was so close, Hilly could smell the pickled pig’s feet on his breath. “Does it hurt, baby?”

“Yes.” Hilly had begun to whimper, as Gus bounced his weight on top of the smaller boy’s ribs.

“Here! What you think you doing?” Butcher Gus Rabel, wearing a broad white apron over his work clothes, grabbed his son roughly by the arm and yanked him to his feet. “What kinda dummkopf are you?” He smacked the boy hard on his backside. “I am ashamed. You should learn from this little fellow how to be a man! A gentleman.” He shoved young Gus out of the way.

“I am sorry,” he said, helping Hilly to his feet. “You come. I give you oyster crackers. You like oyster crackers? We get you a little bag of oyster crackers.”

Hilly took the butcher’s hand and followed him through the back door of the meat market. Never before had he been in the big room where Gus butchered meat. How important he felt, being let into the mysterious place behind the meat counter.

It was dim and smelled of a number of things: blood and sawdust and pickling spices and smoke. It was a homey, familiar smell since these odors rose up through the big hot-air register into the Stillman living room.

When Gus had filled a little bag with oyster crackers, handing it to Hilly, he said, “You always be a good boy, won’t you? Everybody love a good boy.”