The Rejected Writers' Book Club (Southlea Bay) (14 page)

“I’ll take this one,” I said in a tight voice.

I knew that Flora would have probably succumbed to Grandma’s fate if we left her in here.

“Great,” Joe said. Then he added, “That means you two other ladies will have to take the nursery.”

Just the word “nursery” made them both visibly relax. It was hard to imagine children had actually been in this space, but the mention of it seemed to enable them to breathe again. I put down my overnight things on Grandma’s bed and was eager to get out of the room to see the nursery.

Joe opened up the next paneled door, and it was utterly enchanting, totally out of place from the other rooms, created for children from an era gone by. Two charming little beds stood side by side. Surrounding the room on painted shelves were china dolls, wooden soldiers, and overstuffed teddy bears. In the corner of the room was an enormous white-and-pink dollhouse. In the center, a group of china dolls in Victorian whites was seated around a pretty miniature wicker table that was set for a tea party.

“I’m sorry there are only two single beds, and you two girls will have to share,” added Joe. “I hope that’s okay with you.”

“It’s perfect,” squealed Flora.

All at once, the room burst into glorious electric light, and we heard Tom’s voice shout from a distant room, “Got it!”

“Lovely,” said Annie, picking up one of the dolls.

“Oh, yes,” said Joe nostalgically. “My grandmother brought a lot of the toys from England when she came here as a little girl. Mrs. Jameson, the lady that cleans, loves this room. She takes all the doll clothes home, washes, and presses them before the beginning of the season. I think she looks after these toys better than she does herself.”

As we made our way back out into the corridor, Doris was waiting there.

“I would like to see the kitchen.”

“Of course,” said Joe, blowing out the candles. “This way.”

“Do you have any meat in this place at all?” asked Doris.

“There’s some venison in the back freezer that’s on a different circuit so it should still be okay. I’ll go and check for you.”

“Good,” said Doris as she breezed past him toward the kitchen.

We all walked to the kitchen but stopped in our tracks. It had obviously been designed with a fifties theme in mind, with a stunning monochrome floor and red-and-black wall tiles.

“Oh, good. It looks like Mrs. Jameson made it in here too!” said Joe as he dropped a lump of frozen meat on the counter.

As we all stood in awe of the room, Doris was practically salivating at my side.

“This is very different from the rest of the house,” I finally said, trying to be tactful.

“Yes,” sniffed Joe as Tom joined us in the kitchen. “My son, Tom, got himself married for a while back there. And
this
is the result.”

Joe didn’t seem too impressed.

Tom picked up the story. “My ex-bride decided this place needed some updating and started with the kitchen. She had planned to modernize the whole lodge.”

“Turn it into some yuppie chateau,” added Joe with obvious disdain. “It would have taken away all its character.”

“Fortunately, the remodel was as short-lived as the marriage.”

And then, as if on cue, they both looked at their feet.

Joe broke the silence. “It takes a certain kind of female to live up in these parts.”

He said the word “female” as if he was sexing goats. I wanted to laugh, but instead I said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Tom.”

“Oh no, I dodged a bullet, alright. Otherwise who knows what else she would have changed.”

Looking around the gleaming kitchen, I tried to imagine how “terrible” that would have been. It wasn’t my favorite style, but it was stunning, like something out of
Good Housekeeping
magazine. A shiny, state-of-the-art cast-iron range with double burners and two ovens stood against one wall. To its side, multiple slick, open stainless steel shelves housed every conceivable piece of kitchen equipment. A large square island topped with a thick slab of smooth black granite dominated the center of the room.

Under the window, which was cheerfully decorated with black-and-white polka-dot curtains, sat a shiny black-buttoned booth. Above it, an oversized neon-pink backlit wall clock. It depicted a cute, smiling fifties-era waitress wearing a short pink uniform and a pretty white apron. Skating on roller skates, she carried a tray of Coca-Cola as her long, pinlike legs hung low below the clock and swung back and forward as a pendulum.

“This will do nicely,” said Doris with an approving sniff.

She washed her hands and started barking orders to us to retrieve certain boxes out of the car. Ethel got to work peeling potatoes.

It wasn’t long before we were all gathered in the kitchen, ready to eat. We polished off the venison stew that Doris had created for us in record time. Then she produced a huge pan of moist, hot brownies.

“I just had to try out that fancy kitchen mixer,” she drawled as she handed out plates of the warm, chewy dessert. “It had one of those baker hook attachments and everything.” Only Doris seemed impressed.

Between them, Tom and Joe managed to polish off four bowls of stew and six brownies. But as soon as they were done, they stood up to go.

“Unfortunately, you don’t have a phone up here, but we’re only twenty minutes down the mountain if you need us,” said Tom.

“There’s only one road,” joked Joe. “You can’t miss it.”

“We’ll be gone in the morning,” I assured them, confidently. “We’ll stop in to say good-bye and pay you for the night.”

“Oh no,” said Tom, “the house isn’t really set up yet. We wouldn’t dream of taking a penny off you, especially after a dinner like that. However, we would be happy to take some of your leftovers, if you have some to spare.”

“Of course,” said Doris, a twinkle in her eye.

She had dishes wrapped for them in aluminum foil before they’d finished putting on their coats and boots. Eagerly they took their packages and made their way to the door. As we followed them outside, I noted there was a severe nip in the air.

Joe got in his truck, wound down the window, and shouted out to us, “It’s supposed to rain hard tonight, so take your time getting back down the mountain tomorrow. Oh, and the back door doesn’t close properly, so make sure to set something heavy against it to stop any critters from wandering in during the night. You’re in bear country now!”

That was all we needed to hear. Before their taillights had even disappeared, we were back inside with the front door firmly bolted behind us. We wandered into the peculiar living room, and Doris made us all hot cocoa. Sitting down on the lumpy furniture, we peered into the fire in silence.

Doris stood up slowly, her large stature illuminated by the glow from the fireplace.

“I guess I owe you all an explanation.”

No one dared speak for a minute, though I think we all knew what she was referring to.

“You don’t owe us anything,” I eventually answered.

“Yes, I do. I need to talk to somebody, and where else would I be safer than here with . . . my friends?” She cleared her throat. “I did a very foolish thing, and Momma may end up paying for it.”

Sighing heavily, she turned her back to us and stared absently at the hunting scene above the mantel as she began. “A couple of months ago, my mother’s only living relative, her sister, Regina, died. They had a very tumultuous relationship. Regina never married or had children and always appeared to be just a little jealous of her sister.”

Doris let go of a long slow breath and sat down in one of the side chairs.

“Momma is more of an extrovert, and Regina preferred to retreat to the world of her books and her writing, eventually becoming a teacher in a private girls’ school. When she died a few months ago, I inherited all of her things. I got rid of a lot but decided to keep all the volumes of her stories. They were crafted in beautiful books and so eloquently written. One day I was bored and wanted to spice up my manuscript—you know, change it up a bit. I was stuck about what to add when I remembered Regina’s stories. I searched through her journals. Many of them were inappropriate, about goblins and fairies. But then I found this one about a young girl embarking on an illicit love affair during the Second World War. It was exactly what I was looking for, a love triangle with a British girl, her Scottish lover, and an American GI stationed in England during that time.”

Doris sat back, her tone more relaxed now she’d decided to unburden herself.

“The story started with the young woman falling in love with this GI stationed in her hometown. They got engaged before he had to leave her to fight the war in Europe. While he was gone, she stole her best friend’s Scottish boyfriend, whom she met when he’d rescued her from a pond where she’d fallen in, drunk and unable to swim. However, she spurned his love, and the young Scottish man died heartbroken and alone in a hospital. When the GI eventually came back from the war, she told him nothing of her affair and married him. I thought the story was an interesting addition, and I managed to work it into one of Jane Austen’s time-travel adventures, and it fit nicely with the rest of the book. I then sent it off in this last manuscript.”

Doris got up then and started to pace.

“Then, a few weeks ago, Momma and I decided to try out that new aquatic place that opened up on the island, as I know how much she loves to swim. On our way there, she just happened to mention that she didn’t learn to swim till after she was married and that my father had taught her. She went on to tell me how she’d once nearly drowned in a pond in her village and a friend had saved her life. Her recollection was eerily similar to the story I’d just sent off to the publishers. So, I tentatively asked her a few more questions. She couldn’t remember much else, but she did mention her best friend Mary’s maiden name. After this conversation, I was really concerned. It bothered me. Surely the story I’d just read in Regina’s journal couldn’t be based in fact. Momma had never mentioned anything about a story like this. And you know we’ve heard so many of her stories set during the war. The thought just wouldn’t go away, so I decided to do some checking to see if I could locate Mary.”

Doris paused.

“Did you find her?” asked Annie, finishing her cocoa.

“Yes and no. The morning we left on this trip, I eventually tracked down a phone number for Mary’s granddaughter. I tried to call her straightaway, but with the time difference in England, it wasn’t easy. Then the other night when you’d all gone to bed, I asked Dan’s parents to let me use their phone and managed to talk to her. Her name was Sarah. She informed me her grandmother had passed away quite some time ago, and unfortunately she didn’t know an awful lot about Mary’s childhood. However, she did remember Mary had spoken of a friend called Grace and that her grandmother had once been engaged to someone from the north. She didn’t know the details of why they’d split up, just that Mary had gone on to marry her grandfather, whom she’d nursed during the war.

“It seems like the north could be Scotland, and now instead of putting my mind at rest, I’m now really worried, more than ever, that all this is a true story. I can’t stop wondering, if so, how come Momma has never told me about it.”

We sat quietly and listened to the fire as we finished our cocoa.

“It could still all be a story,” said Flora gently. “A love triangle? It doesn’t even sound like something Grace would do.”

Doris nodded. “I know. I have thought of that too, but it’s how the story ends that has me most concerned. At the end of the story, the girl decides to marry the GI even though she doesn’t love him. She marries him for one reason only . . .” She paused then, before saying quietly, “She marries him because she was pregnant with the Scottish man’s baby.”

We all seemed to realize at once the implication of what she was saying, and heaviness descended on the room like a blanket.

Doris clarified it for us. “Which means if this story is about my mother, the man I knew all of my life may not have been my father.”

I tried desperately to think of something reassuring to say.

“And where is the story now?” asked Flora in alarm.

“It was hidden in the attic. I wish I’d destroyed it before we left. But those books are the only things of my auntie’s I have. I just didn’t want to destroy them until I’d spoken to Mary’s granddaughter. I didn’t want to overreact. I thought they would be perfectly safe while we were gone, as Momma never goes up in the attic, and she was going to be staying at the twins’ house. Now, in my foolishness, I may have exposed my momma to something she has felt the need to keep hidden from me all these years.”

Doris sighed deeply.

I tried to encourage her. “There are a lot of ‘what ifs’ here, Doris,” I reminded her gently. “Regina could have just set her tale in the same village she grew up in, drawing on experiences from her childhood, and Lavinia might have been talking about completely different stories at the group. We’ll have your manuscript back by tomorrow, the day after that at the latest. Then you can destroy both that and the journal when you get home, if you want, and no one will be any the wiser.”

Doris nodded at that wisdom as she collected our cups and headed for the kitchen before adding, somberly, “Yes, it would all go away, except for knowing for sure that my father was really my father.”

We sat quietly for a while, each with her own thoughts, before an antique clock on the mantel chimed ten o’clock. We decided to call it a night.

I patted Doris’s hand as I left for my bedroom.

“Try not to worry about all this, Doris. There’s nothing we can do tonight, and in the morning you can call Lavinia and get her to destroy the journal if it will make you feel better.”

She nodded and seemed to cheer a little before making her way to her room.

We all said our good nights.

I opened my bedroom door and there it was . . . staring at me . . . Mr. Moose. I had momentarily forgotten about him with all that had happened, but now he was staring down at me as I shivered. Preparing for bed, I felt his two beady eyes following me all around the room, silently questioning: “Why did you do this to me? What did I ever do to you?”