Margaret from Maine (9781101602690) (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

I
t was the final perfection. Margaret sat up on her passenger seat and felt she couldn't breathe for excitement. She turned and started to say something to Charlie, but he shook his head and shrugged and she decided she would not protest. Not now. She had never heard of it before, but the Inn on Biltmore Estate was the most dazzling residence she had ever seen in person. Charlie slowed to let her take it in. A thousand flowers, a million flowers stood scattered around the welcoming meadow. In the late afternoon light, the flowers nearly choked her with beauty. And the meadow, in turn, gave way to a gravel drive, and the drive then spread into the warm canvas-colored walls of the estate.

“Charlie . . . ,” she said, but she couldn't stop looking.

“The Vanderbilts built it. It's the biggest residence ever constructed in America, I think. It has wonderful grounds and hiking trails and we're staying here.”

“In the house?” she asked, not quite believing it.

“No, that's pretty much a museum, but there's an associated inn on the grounds. Is it all too stuffy? I worried it might be.”

“Oh, Charlie, it's amazing!”

“I wasn't sure you would like a place like this, but the grounds are supposed to be wonderful . . . azaleas and tulips. This time of year, I suppose the flowers are changing. I've always wanted to visit it.”

“Charlie, it's so extravagant! You've never been?”

“I drove past it once and promised myself I'd be back. That's how I knew about it. This seems like the perfect occasion.”

Margaret felt her heart racing. How glorious and how gallant of him to find such a romantic hotel! Was it possible a small wedge of sun had worked itself free to send a single curtain of light across the building's facade? The setting was beyond anything she could imagine. A building like this, she thought, could become a horrible tourist cliché, but a glance told her that the estate had escaped such a fate. The setting had kept it pure and lovely; the tall spires—it wanted to be a castle, she realized—gave it a grandeur that maintained its dignity. It resembled the castle at the beginning of the Disney program years ago, the one with Tinker Bell darting above, only this was real and present and situated perfectly on the land.

Charlie eased the Jeep forward, following signs for the inn. She unsnapped her seat belt and crawled on top of him.

“Thank you,” she said and kissed him, once, twice, fifty times.

“I wasn't sure you would like it. It might be fussy.”

“Charlie, most women will like a thing like this no matter what,” she said, scrambling back into her seat.

“Cornelia Vanderbilt was born here, I think.”

“You're extraordinary, Charlie, do you know that?”

Then they arrived, the Jeep's tires crunching gravel. Margaret stared up at the enormous building. It required no imagination at all to picture horses arriving, old cars, carriages. The women would have worn long skirts, clothes from the early 1900s if she had it right, and the men in solid breeches and tweed jackets. And dogs. Dogs would have been everywhere, and workmen, too, everything bustling and gracious. She watched as the sun glinted off one of the glass panes; it blinked like a star. She suddenly felt absurdly, ridiculously underdressed, but there was no help for it.

“We have a reservation here, Charlie?” she asked when he pulled the Jeep into a slot. “Are you serious? Or is this some kind of a joke?”

“Looks like we do have a reservation. If we missed it somehow, I guess we'll sleep in the car.”

“You're crazy, Charlie. I can't help you—”

He leaned over and kissed her to cut her off. She wanted to say something about the cost, about the ongoing expense, but what was there to say? In reality, she didn't have the funds to cover their travel. She tried when she could to pass along a little money, but it was not an even contest. She closed her eyes and reminded herself to accept things, to not resist, to permit the world to bring things to her. That was what Blake would have advised.

A doorman came and handed her out. He was a young blond man, thin and slightly overwhelmed by his uniform, but he smiled broadly and tipped his hat. Again, she began to feel embarrassed about her clothing, and then she let that go, too. Who cared? She squared her shoulders and tried not to gawk like a complete tourist. But the residence was undeniably grand. Everywhere her eye fell, she discovered new details: a row of summer chairs under a long portico, a stone column made of granite, acres of rich, worn mulch lining the flower beds. It was all delicious. She wanted to see everything, to tour it all, but for now she stepped away from the car and let Charlie handle things.

And she liked—she freely admitted it to herself—to see Charlie's command of the situation. Where Thomas might have been shy and deferential and ill at ease, where she would have felt she was imposing, Charlie moved with quiet assurance. The doorman who had handed her out inquired if they had more bags, and Charlie pointed to the back, allowing the doorman to empty the Jeep into a luggage cart. How simple it was, really, she decided, when you let people do what they were paid to do. Charlie was perfectly friendly and kind, but he did not try to help or to second-guess the doorman's effort. He took her arm and led her inside, and Margaret snapped mental pictures of every detail.

“I love this kind of thing, Charlie,” she said. “I feel like I've stepped into a PBS movie . . . with Dame Judy Dench and a bunch of other vaguely identifiable stars. You should be wearing a top hat and I should have an Empire gown.”

“You'll like this, then. But I suppose it's Edwardian, isn't it?”

“I guess. I want to know everything about this place.”

“Let's check in, then we can poke around.”

They walked into a luscious lobby and Charlie moved confidently to check them in while the doorman tagged behind with their luggage cart. Margaret walked a slow tour of the lobby, letting her eye run over everything. The lobby had tall ceilings and bright windows everywhere, the expanse broken only by small seating islands for the guests. How wonderful, she thought, to spend their last night together here. It didn't truly matter, because she had loved their night in a motel, too, but this was something special. It struck her as she moved slowly around the lobby—a wood fire burning in the oversized chimney, its andirons fashioned like Hessian soldiers—that life with Charlie would be like this, filled with surprises and small moments of delight. He was not a show-off, and she didn't believe he was rich, but he knew how to spend money in ways that brought pleasure. That was a talent, an enviable one, and she made a mental note to become more adept at it in her own life. Use money; don't allow it to use you, she told herself. That was Charlie's simple message.

“Ready?” he said when he finished with the desk clerk. “We have a nice room overlooking the back grounds. It has a small terrace. It's called the King's . . .”

Charlie glanced at the doorman.

“King's Terrace Room,” the doorman supplied. He was just a young boy, Margaret saw now, underneath his formal uniform.

“Makes sense to me,” Charlie said.

They followed the young doorman through the inn. Margaret could not help thinking of Blake, how she would love seeing a place like this. At the same time, she cautioned herself against saying too much to Blake. Things were not going well with Donny, and to take too much pleasure in the details of the trip wouldn't be fair. But she did wish Blake could see the lobby and the long hallway they followed to the King's Terrace Room. It would have been a little orgy of details, each of them greedily marking things for further discussion. The upholstery, the glassware, the ashtray stand, the tiebacks holding the thick folds of gray-green material in tiny fists. How lovely it all was; how much care had been lavished on the smallest elements of the inn. She tried to observe everything.

As soon as the doorman pushed back the door to their room, she spotted the tiny terrace, the sweet fountain table set up overlooking the gray grounds. She couldn't help passing by the doorman and Charlie and opening the French doors that communicated to the terrace. How sweet! She turned and smiled at Charlie as he passed a bill to the young doorman—how did he know what to give as a tip, she wondered, how did he know how to do these things so effortlessly?—and she walked into his arms.

“This is beyond lovely,” she whispered as the doorman slipped out. “Charlie, this is a dream. I know it's just a room, but it's such a sweet room. You're very thoughtful to arrange this. It means the world to me.”

“I'm glad you like it,” he said. “What's the view like?”

“Come here,” she said and took his hand and led him out.

The grounds swept away from them. Fog made the early evening darker, but here and there she spotted beds of azaleas and rhododendrons. And peonies. She had never seen so many peonies, nor so many varieties and colors, and they saturated the lingering fog and pierced the grayness with muted tones. Charlie put his arm around her. Gradually, shade by shade, she felt evening win over the day and calmness settle over the grounds. She slid deeper under Charlie's arm.

“How do you know to do these things?” she asked. “Most men don't, you know?”

“Don't they?”

“No,” she said, her eyes watching the light fail on the gardens, “they don't. It's not their fault. Most women don't know, either. I certainly don't. But you . . . you see how things might be and you aren't afraid to risk something to have it. I admire that.”

“Well, if it's worked these last few days, then I'm grateful. My father taught me some of it. I guess it was my father, if I understand what you are saying. He called it living with flair, but he didn't mean it in a boasting way. He always said you could make something festive and pretty nearly as easily as boring and normal. He had a knack and he made things fun. I never really thought about it much, but I guess he made things nice for my mom. I remember one time as a kid he created a drive-in movie in our backyard. It was a date for my mom and he took her out and he made us promise to let them have some privacy . . . anyway, I remember looking out in our backyard and there was our old Dodge Dakota pickup and mom and dad sat in the front seat looking out at an old movie screen. It was Iowa, so we didn't really have drive-ins nearby, heck, by then they were mostly gone anyway, but Dad pulled it off. Mom used to laugh and tell him he was a kook—that was her big word—but he did things anyway and she liked it deep down. I remember seeing moths flash back and forth in the light of the projector. I haven't thought about that in years. . . .”

She turned and kissed him. It was a different kiss than any of the others that came before it. It was a kiss of gratitude and understanding and something else Margaret couldn't name. It had something to do with the quiet night, the gentle crickets, the memory of bright flowers drifting down a hillside wrapped in layers of drifting fog.

* * *

With his window cracked, Gordon heard the spring peepers calling from the fire pond beyond the barn. It was early still and he did not feel sleepy, but Grandpa Ben had read him a story and turned out the lights and so it was time to rest. Secretly Gordon thought Grandpa Ben needed sleep: that was what adults did. They took their own moods or needs and projected them onto kids. Gordon didn't have words for these concepts, but he understood why he was in bed and why it was still twilight outside.

He danced the saw-chuck guy across his stomach and let him begin a fight with the meerkat. But the fight felt halfhearted. The saw-chuck guy paused once or twice, then decided to ride on the meerkat's shoulder. Lately they had become friends, although occasionally the meerkat still posed a threat—he was wild and unpredictable, like King Kong, Gordon thought—and the saw-chuck guy needed to be vigilant. But they walked around the bed a little bit, coming close to the edge and nearly falling off, then climbing back to the safety of his stomach with the soldier happily whispering into the meerkat's ear.

Then for a while Gordon puzzled over the spring peepers. What he wondered about, particularly, was the idea of frogs watching him. They were
peepers
, after all, and the notion of hundreds of frogs resting in the pond grass, their eyes trained on the house, weirded him out. Why would they watch? The only reason to watch, Gordon figured, was to plan an attack. But he couldn't quite get his mind around the idea of frogs marching on a house, so as he listened he involuntarily moved the saw-chuck soldier into a defensive position, getting him ready for karate chops if the peepers sprang into action.

In small pulses, sleep stole up on him. He heard his grandfather's radio, the broadcast from Fenway Park, and he listened as Grandpa Ben cleared his throat. An empty spot existed where his mother's sounds should be, but that was okay. She would be home tomorrow, he reminded himself. He did not think of her arrival with anything resembling clarity. His mother represented warmth and comfort, and his blood grew quieter remembering her. A breeze came off the pond and he smelled cows and mud and water. Then the curtains lifted and waved good night, and the saw-chuck guy slid from his hand and landed at the meerkat's feet. The meerkat had a chance to devour the saw-chuck guy at last, but the larger animal ignored him. In the tall grass the peepers called for mates, their tiny clouds of vaporous breath on the cool evening setting around the house.

* * *

Charlie sat on the terrace and smoked a cigar. It was a small luxury to smoke a cigar, one he did not indulge in often. He liked the weight of the cigar in his hand, the sweetness of the smoke as it curled and rose to the night's heavy moisture. He had asked Margaret if she minded, and she had answered by lighting the cigar for him, her leg suggestively draped over his for a moment, then calling room service for two good scotches. She was still waiting for it while he smoked, and he didn't mind the moment alone, the chance to clear his head and consider the next day.