Time Windows (10 page)

"I didn't mean to barge in," began Miranda uncertainly. "I saw Buddy and he said to wait here."

"Of course, of course. Well, now that you're settled with a snack, I think I'll just take a little break, too. Do you mind?"

"No, not at all," said Miranda, feeling foolish granting Mrs. Wainwright permission to sit down in her own kitchen.

"Iced tea, dear?" Mrs. Wainwright poured Miranda a large glass before she could say she didn't like iced tea.

"Uh, thank you."

Mrs. Wainwright stretched her spindly legs out under the table. "So tell me. How do you like Garnet?"

Miranda hesitated. "It's very—beautiful."

"Yes, yes, but how do you like living here? How do you like your new house?"

"It's nice to have so much more room than we did in New York."

Mrs. Wainwright settled back, regarding her with bright eyes. "Hmm," she said.

"Have you ever been to my house?" Miranda asked suddenly.

Mrs. Wainwright sipped her tea, her eyes on the ceiling. "Yes, but that must have been—let's see, during the war. World War II, you know."

Miranda nodded.

"My goodness, it's almost fifty years since I've been in that house! And, of course, I went there when I was a little girl to peek in the windows with my brothers when the house was empty."

"Who lived in our house during the war?"

"Oh, a nice young couple from Boston. Let's see, named Kramer. The woman was very pretty, and named after a flower. Let's see. Rose? No. Daisy? No ... oh, I remember now—it was Iris! Lovely girl. And I don't recall the fellow's name, but he was a handsome man, very dark and tall."

"Andrew," murmured Miranda.

"That's it! Andrew Kramer. There were two little boys, too, but I don't know their names anymore, either. How time does fly. That family was here only a year, I think. I took over a casserole when they first arrived."

"Timmy and Jeff," murmured Miranda. She sipped her iced tea. It was better than she'd expected. She looked up again to find Mrs. Wainwright regarding her with raised eyebrows.

"How do you know the names of those children, dear?"

Miranda inspected her ice cubes. "Oh, I guess I just heard someone talking about them..."

"Oh? Now I wonder who. Not many folks in Garnet would remember the Kramers."

Miranda shrugged, then ventured another question. "Why did they leave so soon?"

Mrs. Wainwright allowed herself to be sidetracked. "Let's see. They came in the early forties ... I know it was then because I was pregnant with Matthew when I went to visit them. Matthew was born just before they moved back to Boston. Matthew is my youngest," she told Miranda. "My three children are all married. I have two lovely grandchildren out in Colorado."

Miranda hoped Mrs. Wainwright would not bring out the photo albums. There were still so many questions she wanted to ask. "The Kramers," she prompted.

"Oh, yes. As I said, they didn't stay long. Weren't very happy here, as I recall. Family problems of one kind or another." She peered shrewdly at Miranda. "That old house of yours certainly hasn't had a history of happy families. I hope you and your family will change that."

Miranda seized on this eagerly. "Why wasn't the first family happy? Do you know anything about them?"

"Of course I know, dear! I'm historian for the Ladies' Guild, after all." She paused to refill her glass. "Before the Kramers lived in your house—and a good long while before, mind you, around the turn of the century—the Galworthy family lived there. In fact, that handsome Kramer man was related to the Galworthy family, too. The house is still known locally as the Galworthy House; a man named Ezra Galworthy built it for his bride way back in 1790 or thereabouts. I could check the records, if you like. But in any case, at the turn of
this
century, Sigmund Galworthy was a young lawyer here in town. He had grown up in that house and continued to live there after his parents died. He and his wife had a little girl, too. Ah, what a tragedy."

"What kind of tragedy?"

"A terrible accident. Mrs. Galworthy and the little girl were killed in a train wreck. The big wreck of '04 on the Boston—New York line. All the old-timers talked of nothing else. Not too much happens around these parts to talk about!"

Miranda's thoughts raced ahead. The family she saw in the 1904 house must be the Galworthys. The calendar on the wall said 1904. But that meant that the mother and daughter must have died in the wreck later that same year! "When did the crash happen? I mean, do you know which month?"

"It was in the winter. It must have been around—no, for certain—it was January. People said what a terrible beginning to the New Year that was. It must have been horrible. I myself wasn't born till 1910, but people still talked about the wreck years later as if it had happened only yesterday. A lot of families in Garnet had fathers and husbands and sons who took the train to the cities.

"My mother often took care of the little Galworthy girl when Mrs. Galworthy went shopping or visiting. My older brothers were close to her in age, and another neighbor of ours, Joey Johnston, was a special playmate of hers. The whole bunch of them used to play together. It seems their two favorite games were weddings—dressing up in my parents' old clothes—and Underground Railway.

"My brothers often talked about that little girl when I was growing up. Her death had a real effect on them—I guess the death of a friend will do that to you at any age. And poor little Joey Johnston. Apparently he went into some kind of shock when he heard she had been killed. He retreated into himself. It was a long time before he would make any new friends again. Maybe he thought friendship wasn't worth it, if friends were going to die..." She shook her gray head.

"Of course, as I said, all this happened before I was born. I never knew the Galworthys myself. But since I grew up just across the street, their empty house was always a reminder of the tragedy. It kept the talk going."

Miranda tried to absorb all the details of the story Mrs. Wainwright told her. That poor little girl! That poor woman! "What about the man—Mr. Galworthy? Did you know him?" she asked.

"That sad man. Grief-stricken, I think, all the rest of his life. No, he never lived in the house after his wife and daughter died. He went crazy, in a way—he must have loved them both very much. They were all he had, and he couldn't bear to go back into the house for a long time after the wreck. He'd been at work when word of the accident reached him, but at first he kept insisting that his wife had not been on the train. After he went to identify her body, he was frantic and came rushing to our house because he thought his daughter would be with my mother—as I said, my mother often kept the child while Mrs. Galworthy was out."

"But the little girl wasn't there?"

"No, she wasn't. Mrs. Galworthy had telephoned that afternoon, you see ... oh yes, the Galworthys and the Hootons were some of the first in Garnet to get telephones installed, my dear. My family was rather well off in those days. That was, of course, before the stock market crash of '29 ... and as you know, our house is the museum now..." Her voice trailed off.

Miranda steered her gently back on course. "The little girl's mother called?"

"Yes." Mrs. Wainwright adjusted her scarf and swirled the tea in her glass. "Mrs. Galworthy decided at the last minute to take the child with her, and so they were both killed. That's the real tragedy, you see. The dear mother only wanted to give her daughter a nice day's outing in the city, and it ended in both their deaths. Fate can be so cruel." She stood up. "But it was all a long time ago, dear. It has nothing to do with you."

"Well, they lived in my house."

"But after Sigmund Galworthy moved away, no one lived in your house until the Kramers moved in. A long, long time later. You see, after Mr. Galworthy came to our house to collect the child and found she had gone with his wife, he was inconsolable. My father drove him back to identify her body ... it must have been awful. Fire had broken out on the train after the crash, and everyone was badly burned. Some of the bodies weren't identifiable at all. My father brought Mr. Galworthy back to our house to stay with us until he felt better. Only he didn't get better—he stayed in bed for weeks and weeks and lost interest in everything. When he finally did go back across the street, it was only to collect some clothes and important papers; he didn't stay. I guess living there would have always reminded him of what he'd lost. So he left everything and boarded up the house right after the funeral. People always wondered why he didn't just sell it. But then years later the Kramers moved in. Andrew Kramer was a nephew, I believe. He inherited the house but, as I told you, didn't end up staying long.

"I heard some talk about Sigmund Galworthy's will. Apparently Andrew Kramer couldn't sell the house; he had to leave it to his children. When he died, the house went to those boys; only it seems
they
weren't bound by the will, because they put the house up for sale immediately. And now you folks have it!" She beamed at Miranda. "Quite a story, isn't it?"

Miranda digested what Mrs. Wainwright told her with a sense of wonderment. Andrew
dead?
"How did Andrew Kramer die, do you know?"

"Goodness, child! I expect it was old age. We all have to go sometime." She finished her tea. "Lordy! Look at the clock! I must give you your lesson before my last pupil comes. Gracious me, I never realized how time was flying. Once you get me started—"

"But—" Miranda didn't want this conversation to end. "About the fire?"

"My dear, all this happened a very long time ago. I don't know much more to tell! Oh, look, the ice in your tea is all melted. Do you want to finish it, or should I throw it out?"

"I—uh, I had enough, thanks," Miranda replied.

Mrs. Wainwright poured the nearly full glass of tea down the drain, then wiped her hands on her skirt. "We can talk again," she promised. "I can tell you the history of nearly every family in town! Seems you're a regular little historian yourself. Must take after your father. I hear he teaches American history. Or used to. Maybe he'll give a lecture for us some evening. And we'll get you joining the Ladies' Guild someday, how will that be?"

"I'd like to hear more about my house," said Miranda, picking up her flute and music books.

Mrs. Wainwright motioned her into the sun-filled music room. "Patience, patience, my girl. Anything I can tell you about your house happened long before you were born. Let's deal with the present before we tackle the past. The present is your flute lesson, and that's what matters now."

Dinner that evening was another subdued meal. Miranda felt her mother glancing at her as she ate, but she kept her own eyes averted and finished her food quickly. After dinner, as usual, she climbed the stairs into the hot stuffy attic, opened the low windows, and turned on the fan. Settling herself comfortably behind the house, she folded her arms on the ledge of the dollhouse attic floor and peered through the windows. The attic she saw was the Kramers', black-curtained and empty. She waited but nothing happened. No one came upstairs after nearly ten minutes of waiting, so she lowered herself to a somewhat less comfortable position at the second-story level and looked put the windows of her miniature bedroom. There she found Timothy Kramer's bed unmade and his school clothes tossed carelessly on the floor. Jeff's side of the room was no neater. She went from room to room, peering through the windows. Nothing. Maybe no one was home. But when she came to the living room she drew closer with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure. This was not the Kramers' living room; it was a room from the past she had never seen before.

A fire burned in the grate and a man sat quietly with his legs stretched out in front of him and a newspaper lying unread across the bulk of his stomach, his eyes steadily watching the darting flames. Miranda decided that, from the look of his clothes and the room's furnishings, he must belong to the 1904 house. The furniture was heavy and dark, and portraits of whiskered men lined the wall above the rolltop desk. A mauve love seat hung with shiny tassles crouched in the far corner of the room. To the left of the love seat, a tall Christmas tree drooped, its red bows limp and faded. Dry pine needles littered the carpet around the tree, and one of the crimson candles had fallen from its holder and lay nestled among the branches near the bottom of the tree.

She was hardly surprised by the small, sickening lurch of terror that hit her. The terror always seemed to be present in 1904. But Miranda had learned that the terror
was
controllable. It had to do with holding in her stomach muscles and not breathing, clenching her fists and staring straight at the scene. By facing the terror this way, she was learning to conquer it.

And so she tightened her stomach and stared at the Christmas tree with stern control. Just as the terror subsided, Lucinda entered the room. She wore a shimmery dark blue gown, the waist very narrow. Silvery blue lace frothed around her throat and at her wrists. She stepped into the room without a sound, her magnolia scent overpowering the aroma of the pine Christmas tree.

The smell of magnolia set the terror churning again in Miranda's stomach, and she fought to ignore it. Lucinda walked over to the man and stood by his chair.

"Sigmund." Her voice rang sharply in the warm stillness of the room.

The man raised his eyes wearily and turned away from the flames to focus on her. "Yes, dear?"

"Don't you Yes, dear' me!" She mimicked his belabored voice angrily.

"What is it, Lucinda?"

"You know perfectly well what it is! We haven't finished talking. How in the world am I to manage without the servants? I simply cannot! I won't have any time at all for my own pursuits."

"Lucinda, you know I wouldn't have let them go if there were any way to keep them. But we don't need so many servants! We can't afford to pay them! You've still got Hannah to help with Dorothy, and there's Mrs. Bowen."

"Bowen has quit! She left this afternoon when she heard that Mariette and Lizzie and Robert and Sam were all going."