Page 52 of For the Love of Lilah
She studied Max, saw earnest blue eyes and a shy smile. “Ayah,” she said. “And you’d be Dr. Quartermain.” Her voice was a crackle, heavy with down-east. “Making doctors young these days.”
“Yes, ma’am. This is Lilah Calhoun.”
Not a shy bone in this one, Millie decided, and wasn’t displeased when Lilah sat on the grass at her feet to admire the crocheting.
“This is beautiful.” Lilah touched a fingertip to the gossamer blue thread. “What will it be?”
“What it wants to. You’re from the island.”
“Yes, I was born there.”
Millie let out a little sigh. “Haven’t been back in thirty years. Couldn’t bear to live there after I lost my Tom, but I still miss the sound of the sea.”
“You were married a long time?”
“Fifty years. We had a good life. We made eight children, and saw all of them grown. Now I’ve got twenty-three grandchildren, fifteen great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.” She let out a wheezy laugh. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve propagated this old world all on my own. Take your hands out of your pockets, boy,” she said to Max. “And come on down here so’s I don’t have to crane my neck.” She waited until he was settled. “This here your sweetheart?” she asked him.
“Ah... well...”
“Well, is she or isn’t she?” Millie demanded, and flashed her dentures in a grin.
“Yes, Max.” Lilah sent him an amused and lazy smile. “Is she or isn’t she?”
Cornered, Max let out a little huff of breath. “I suppose you could say so.”
“Slow to make up his mind, is he?” she said to Lilah and winked. “Nothing wrong with that. You’ve got the look of her,” she said abruptly.
“Of whom?”
“Bianca Calhoun. Isn’t that what you came to talk to me about?”
Lilah laid a hand on Millie’s arm. The flesh was thin as paper. “You remember her.”
“Ayah. She was a great lady. Beautiful with a good and kind heart. Doted on her children. A lot of the wealthy ladies who came summering on the island were happy to leave their children to nursemaids and nannies, but Mrs. Calhoun liked to see to them herself. She was always taking them for walks, or spending time in the nursery. Saw them off to bed herself, every night, unless her husband made plans that would take her out before their bedtime. A good mother she was, and nothing better can be said of a woman than that.”
She gave a decisive nod and perked up when she saw that Max was taking notes. “I worked there three summers, 1912, ’13 and ’14.” And with the odd trick of old age, she could remember them with perfect clarity.
“Do you mind?” Max took out a small tape recorder. “It would help us remember everything you tell us.”
“Don’t mind a bit.” In fact, it pleased her enormously. She thought it was just like being on a TV talk show. Her fingers worked away as she settled more comfortably in the chair. “You live in The Towers still?” she asked Lilah.
“Yes, my family and I.”
“How many times I climbed up and down those stairs. The master, he didn’t like us using the main staircase, but when he wasn’t about, I used to come down that way and fancy myself a lady. A-swishing my skirts and holding my nose in the air. Oh, I was a pistol in those days, and not hard to look at either. Used to flirt with one of the gardeners. Joseph was his name. But that was just to make my Tom jealous, and hurry him along a bit.”
She sighed, looking back. “Never seen a house like it, before or since. The furniture, the paintings, the crystal. Once a week we’d wash every window with vinegar so they’d sparkle like diamonds. And the mistress, she’d like fresh flowers everywhere. She’d cut roses and peonies out of the garden, or pick the wild orchids and lady’s slippers.”
“What can you tell us about the summer she died?” Max prompted.
“She spent a lot of time in her tower room that summer, looking out the window at the cliffs, or writing in her book.”
“Book?” Lilah interrupted. “Do you mean a journal, a diary?”
“I suppose that’s what it was. I saw her writing in it sometimes when I brought her up some tea. She’d always thank me, too. Call me by name. ‘Thank you, Millie,’ she would say, ‘it’s a pretty day.’ Or, ‘You didn’t have to trouble, Millie. How is your young man?’ Gracious, she was.” Millie’s mouth thinned. “Now the master, he wouldn’t say a word to you. Might as well have been a stick of wood for all he noticed.”
“You didn’t like him,” Max put in.
“Wasn’t my place to like or dislike, but a harder, colder man I’ve never met in all my years. We’d talk about it sometimes, me and one of the other girls. Why did such a sweet and lovely woman marry a man like that? Money, I would have said. Oh, the clothes she had, and the parties, the jewelry. But it didn’t make her happy. Her eyes were sad. She and the master would go out in the evenings, or they’d entertain at home. He’d go his own way most other times, business and politics and the like, hardly paying any mind to his wife, and less to his children. Though he was partial to the boy, the oldest boy.”
