Sarah's Legacy (9 page)

Arthur walked in first, looking haughty and displeased at having been forced to beg. Plunk trotted in right on his heels and jumped up on the bed as though he'd been sleeping there his whole life. And for all I knew, he had.

True to his name he plunked down, flopped his head in front of him, and closed his eyes. I wondered if that was supposed to trick me into thinking he was already asleep.

“I thought I told you that sleeping in here was a one-time deal,” I reminded Arthur. “And what's the big idea, bringing a friend?”

His response was to rub against my leg and jump up onto the bed, settling beside Plunk. I put my hands on my hips and gave the pair of them the sternest look I could summon.

In reply, Arthur offered a curious glance, as if to say, “What's the big deal? Aren't you coming to bed?” Then he commenced to wash his shoulder with long noisy licks and odd sounds of satisfaction.

Plunk opened one eye, looked at me for a few seconds, and then closed it. I decided it would only be a losing battle and I was too tired to argue right then anyway.

I crawled back into bed, shoving them over a bit to make room, which didn't seem to please them much. I muttered that it was, after all,
my
bed. Plunk concentrated harder on feigning sleep but it was an obvious bit of fakery.

Arthur yawned and turned his back to me, but as soon as I picked up the diary he flopped back over, leaned up, and started licking my ear. It tickled like crazy. I told him not to be so weird. He blinked innocently and settled back down. Hoping he'd satisfied his urge to be a nuisance, at least for the time being, I opened Aunt Sarah's book and started to read.

It struck me kind of funny the way she wrote, old fashioned and formal. I guess things were pretty different back then. I gathered that they had a car but also a horse-drawn carriage, which was used by Sarah and her mother when they went anywhere. Sarah mentioned several times that she had asked her father to teach her how to drive the car, but it didn't sound as if he was going to, at least not at that point in time. It was especially unfair that Sarah's two younger brothers, Richard and Stephen, already knew how to drive. She hardly ever mentioned them, and I could see why! It was obvious that they were treated differently than she was, just because they were guys.

There were a few references to a Miss Johnson, and at first I thought she was probably a relative or something, since she was living at their house. After a while, though, I realized that Miss Johnson was a servant.

There were also two men who lived in what Sarah called the west wing of the house. They seemed to be hired hands. She called them Berkley and Patterson,
which I took to be their last names. Berkley always drove the carriage when Sarah and her mom went anywhere.

I found it odd that she called the female servant Miss Johnson, while she didn't use Mr. with the men's names. Then I came to a passage where she mentioned that Miss Johnson's family had fallen on hard times, which made it necessary for her to accept a position below her station in life.

Sarah wrote: “One can only admire Miss Johnson's pleasant deportment in the face of such misfortune. To be raised as a gentlewoman and be thus lowered must be a bitter tonic to swallow. I wonder if I could manage as well as she, should I be reduced to similar circumstances.”

A lot of what she wrote about was just ordinary stuff, but it sounded different the way she said things. I wondered what it would be like to talk that way, all stiff and formal. I couldn't help giggling, imagining myself meeting David and saying something like, “How do you do, Mr. Murray?”

Plunk shifted then, squinted, stretched his front legs, and shoved them against my shoulder, as if protesting that I was taking up too much space. I rearranged him and gave him a pat to soothe him back to sleep. Then I continued reading.

A lot of what Aunt Sarah talked about was how she didn't like Brockville and how much she longed to get away. I felt sorry for her, even though it had all happened
years ago. It did sound as if her life was pretty boring. Besides that, there were no guys around that interested her.

Then, I came to this passage!

March 30

A stranger arrived in Brockville last week, causing a flurry of speculation among the townsfolk. It wasn't long before word of his affairs had spread through the whole town.

The gentleman is Mr. Anderson King, a wealthy businessman from the east coast. It seems that he has come to build a factory for the production of an improvement for the modern automobile, although I've not yet heard the exact details.

Today, Mother and I were in town picking out dry goods for our summer frocks when Mr. King came into Hamilton's General Store to set up an account. He introduced himself to Mr. Hamilton, and I noted, as the two gentlemen shook hands, that Mr. King's were well manicured and without that rough look so common to the local working class.

He bowed gracefully to Mother and me and it seemed that his eyes rested on me for several seconds longer than was necessary. I flattered myself that he was not displeased with what he saw.

I must say he's the most handsome man I've ever seen. He was dressed in a fine woollen day suit of deep grey, and the cut of his garment left no doubt that it had been expertly tailored. His shoes were black leather and had recently known the attention of
polish, unlike the all-too-often scuffed and muddied shoes of Brockville men.

I must confess that I tarried over my selections in the hope that Mr. Hamilton would make introductions, but this did not happen. Mr. Hamilton was too busy fawning over his important visitor, no doubt pondering the large amount of business Mr. King would bring to him. This lack of manners shamed me, and I wished I could implore Mr. King not to make assumptions thereby on the general refinement of the townsfolk.

When Mother and I had finished our business, she made a point of talking of the merits of Mr. Colby on our journey home. All the while, my thoughts were wholly taken with Mr. King.

I wonder if I shall ever have the pleasure of being presented to him.

I was wondering the same thing! It all sounded so romantic, the handsome stranger in town. I longed to know whether or not Aunt Sarah ever got to meet Mr. King, but my eyes were getting heavier and heavier and the words kept blurring.

With some reluctance, I laid the diary aside, turned off the light, and fell asleep to the sound of Arthur snoring softly beside me.

We were up earlier than usual on Sunday morning, although for different reasons. Mom was spurred into action by her eagerness to get started on the servants' quarters, while I was wakened by Arthur the Fifth's scratchy wet tongue on my nose. I gave him a lecture on proper morning manners but I don't think he got it. In any case, all he did was yawn and blink questioningly.

“You are
not
sleeping in my room any more if you're going to pull stunts like that,” I threatened. His response was to stretch and jump down off the bed. I tried to convince myself that was a sign of comprehension and repentance, but deep in my heart I knew he just wanted his breakfast.

Plunk was up like a flash the second my feet touched the floor, and it was obvious what he wanted. I hurried
to the bathroom and then hauled on some clothes to take him and the other dogs out for their morning walk — always a matter of some urgency with them.

There were pancakes cooking when I got back and breezed into the kitchen. I filled the dishes for the furry crowd and then washed my hands in the kitchen sink and sat down to wait for my pancake. It occurred to me that kids are a bit like pets, waiting anxiously for their food to be served.

Mom was humming and smiling as she moved about the kitchen and I suspected her mood was because of Stan. For a second, that kind of upset me, but then I reminded myself that I'd decided to be mature and reasonable about the idea of Mom having a boyfriend.

“I think I've made up my mind on what kind of business I want to start,” she announced while we were eating. “Crafts! They're always popular and I've heard that a lot of local people make beautiful things. Many of them sell their products at events that are set up here and there. That means they have to store everything in between sales events, rent tables, and so on. I was thinking that if they had somewhere that they could display their work year round, they'd probably be glad to do it. So, I'm going to open a craft store.”

“How would you make money for yourself if you're just selling other people's stuff?” I asked, chasing a bite of pancake with a cold drink of milk.

“I'd charge a monthly fee for tables, probably not much more than they'd pay to rent one for a weekend somewhere else. And I'd earn a commission on sales. On top of that, I'd have a section where I'd carry a lot of the supplies they need to make their things. Without any overhead, I could probably offer them supplies at a better price than they pay other places.”

“It sounds pretty good.”

“I think it will work out well. Another thing, it won't cost me anything to decorate because some of the crafts will be displayed on the walls.” She got up, scraped half of her pancake into the garbage, and poured coffee. “Any ideas on what we might call it?”

We talked about possible names for the business for a while but none of them seemed quite right. By then, we'd finished eating and doing the dishes.

“Well, I guess we'd better get at it,” I said. I knew my enthusiasm probably wouldn't last too long once we started going through all the boxes. “The only thing we've cleared out of there so far is the hope chest.”

“That's it! That's the perfect name!”

“What?”

“The Hope Chest. That's what we'll call the store.”

Well, I felt anything but hopeful once we got out there. It seemed impossible that we'd
ever
finish sorting through the piles of boxes and furniture. There was also the question of what we were going to do with it all.

“Some of this stuff, like old clothes, can go straight out to the garbage.” Mom sighed, looking around her. “And Stan suggested that we could hold a yard sale to get rid of lot of things.”

We'd gone through seven dusty boxes and filled a couple of garbage bags with things no one in their right mind would ever want, when we heard Stan's voice.

“Hello? Hello? Anybody home?”

“We're out here,” Mom yelled back. She straightened up from the box she'd been bent over and turned to face him as he came through the doorway.

“Morning, ladies.” Stan's face appeared around the corner. “I thought I'd find you hard at work. Came by to give you a hand, if that's all right.”

It was sure all right with me!

“Uh, wait, I think I might have the wrong place.” He peered at us closely one at a time. “I'm looking for the Gilmores.”

Then he leaned toward Mom. “Maggie! It
is
you. I thought I'd wandered into a hobo's house!”

I was laughing at that until he added, “And I suppose this unusually large dust bunny is your lovely daughter, Sarah.”

It was true that we weren't exactly clean. Both of our faces were dirty and smudged, but Mom assured Stan that he'd look the same in no time.

“Might be an idea to open these windows and let
some air in,” Stan suggested. “Help clear some of the dust out.”

The windows were old wooden-framed things that seemed as though they hadn't been opened in years. It took quite a bit of persuasion before Stan could get them open, but once he did, a fresh breeze soon improved the stale smell and the dust started to clear a little.

Before long, we'd fallen into a routine. Mom and I tossed things that were to be thrown out into a growing pile, which Stan started to bag once he'd made some progress with arranging things. In another section we stacked all the stuff that was good enough to sell. There were also a few things we decided to keep.

By noon we'd made more progress than we could have thought possible, and things were starting to look a bit more hopeful. Mom, on the other hand, looked downright ridiculous. She had grey streaks through her hair and splotches of dirt on her face, with a big one right in the middle of her nose. She reminded me of a bag lady, the kind you see on television sometimes. I figured I didn't look much better.

“I'm getting kind of hungry,” I said when one o'clock had come and there'd been no mention of lunch.

“Goodness, will you look at the time!” Mom's hands brushed her face again, wiping hair away and depositing even more dust. “I'll make some soup and sandwiches.”

“No need for that,” Stan said quickly. “I brought along a little something. Took the liberty of putting it in the fridge. Hope that was all right.”

The “little something” looked more like a feast to me. There was a tray of cold cuts with cheese and pickles, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, potato salad, fresh bakery rolls, and a white cake with chocolate frosting. We cleaned up, set the table, and dug in.

I ate too much, which made me feel lazy afterward. The last thing I wanted to do was go back out and sort through more of Aunt Sarah's junk.

And then, miraculously, I was saved by the phone. It seemed like an extraordinary bit of good luck — at the time.

“Is this Sarah?” The voice coming through the phone line seemed breathless, as though the caller had just run up and down a flight of stairs.

“Hello? Hello?” screeched Stoolie behind me. “Who's calling please? Hello?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Who's this?”

“Jamie.”

I paused, then said, “Oh, hi.”

“Don't sound so excited!” she laughed.

“Sorry,” I said, “you just caught me off guard. I didn't think you had my phone number.”