Chapter
! Two #
When she arrived at Miss Tilley’s neat little antique house Lucy began to feel hopeful that their old farmhouse might someday look like something. Taking in the polished wide plank floors, the windows with their tiny panes of hand-blown wavy glass and the smoothly plastered walls and ceilings she found herself sighing in admiration. “What a lovely house,” she said, setting Toby and her tote bag on the floor so she could take off her coat. She looked around eagerly taking in every detail as she pulled off his boots and mittens and unzipped his snowsuit: the gleaming antique pine furniture, the glowing colors of the Persian rug, the table top Christmas tree trimmed with tiny glass balls, the silvery sheen of the pewter plates displayed in a hutch, the portrait over the fireplace where a bright fire blazed merrily.
“My father,” said Miss Tilley, indicating the rather stern gentleman pictured in the oil painting. “He was a judge.”
“He does look judgmental,” said Lucy, quickly biting her tongue. “No, I didn’t mean that. Judicious. He looks quite judicious.”
“He was named after General William Tecumseh Sherman, you know, the Civil War general, and I was named after Julia Ward Howe.” She smiled, her eyes twinkling. “It’s a family tradition, naming people after relics of the past.”
Lucy scooped up Toby, who was heading for the fire, and 296
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perched him on her hip. “Toby was named after my great grandfather Tobias.”
“It’s a good old-fashioned name,” said Miss Tilley, leading the way to the kitchen.
“We were trying to avoid the Js,” said Lucy, using her free hand to grab the tote bag that was overflowing with toys, extra clothes and diapers, a bowl of cookie dough, a cookie press and baking tins. “Names like Jason, and Justin, and Jennifer are all the rage now.”
“I have noticed quite a few of them at the library.”
“Oh, my,” said Lucy, startled to see an enormous black and chrome Glenwood coal stove taking pride of place in the middle of the Miss Tilley’s kitchen. “That’s a beautiful stove but I don’t know how …”
“Never mind that old thing,” said Miss Tilley, dismissing the gleaming monster. “I have a modern electric stove, too.”
Indeed she did. A slim electric model was tucked into a bank of cabinets that was built against one wall and also included a double stainless steel sink set beneath a window with red and white gingham curtains. A porcelain-topped table sat in the middle of the room, on top of a cozy red and blue braided rug, and a hutch stood against the wall, filled with blue and white Canton china. Lucy felt as if she’d wandered into a Tasha Tudor book.
“I prefer the table for baking,” said Miss Tilley, reaching for Toby. “Now, young man, we need to let your mother get on with her cookies.”
Lucy expected Toby to resist but instead he smiled and reached out with his arms. The transfer was smoothly made and Miss Tilley carried him into the living room where she joined him on the rug and engaged him in building towers of blocks which they knocked down with a ball. Toby found this enormously entertaining and Lucy could hear him laughing as she set about the business of scooping dough into the press and squeezing out the shaped cookies onto the tins, then she decorated them with bits of candied fruit and col— CANDY CANES OF CHRISTMAS PAST
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ored sugar before popping them into the oven. Soon the whole house was filled with the buttery scent of baking cookies. Lucy was just sliding the last pan into the oven when Miss Tilley appeared, leading Toby by the hand.
“I think this young man is ready for a snack,” she said, pulling an antique oak high chair out of the corner and setting it by the table. Lucy hoisted him into the chair and put a couple of warm cookies on the tray while Miss Tilley poured a small glass of milk. “Those cookies smell absolutely delicious,” she said.
“Please, have some. I’m going to leave you some, too,”
said Lucy, with a nod to the overloaded wire cooling racks that were covered with dozens of perfect cookies, golden and brown around the edges. “I really appreciate …”
“Nonsense,” said the old woman, with a wave of her hand. “We’ve enjoyed ourselves, haven’t we, Toby?”
Toby took a bite of the cookie he was holding in his fat little hand. “Mmm,” he said.
“I agree,” said Miss Tilley, after taking a bite of cookie.
“Mmmm.”
Toby laughed and kicked his feet. “Mmmm.”
Lucy was amazed at how Miss Tilley could turn the simplest thing into a game, making sounds that Toby imitated, playing peekaboo, reciting “This Little Piggy” while wiping his fingers with a washcloth. Soon the last cookies were out of the oven and Toby was rubbing his eyes.
“Why don’t you put him down for a nap?” suggested Miss Tilley. “Then you could get off your feet for a bit while I wash up these pans.”
“Oh, I couldn’t let you …” protested Lucy, even though her feet and back were killing her.
“I insist,” said Miss Tilley, using the voice that had maintained quiet in the library for thirty-odd years. She nodded toward a little downstairs room, the borning room she called it, and Lucy settled Toby on a daybed, removing his shoes and covering him with a handmade crocheted afghan. A copy 298
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of The Night Before Christmas was lying on the bedside table so she sat on the side of the bed and read him a few pages, closing the book when he was settled into a deep sleep and going out to the living room. There she found Miss Tilley waiting for her by the fire, along with two glasses of golden sherry and a plate of cheese twists.
“I think we both deserve a bit of a treat,” said Miss Tilley, lifting her glass.
Lucy was about to protest that she rarely drank alcohol, and never in the morning, but the scene was so inviting that she changed her mind. “This looks lovely,” she said, sinking into the down couch cushions.
“It is,” said Miss Tilley, taking a sip and smacking her lips.
“Dry Sack. Yummy.”
The sherry was delicious and Lucy finished hers before she remembered the glass cane which she had left out in the car.
She jumped to her feet. “I almost forgot,” she exclaimed.
“There’s something in the car I need to get.”
She hurried out and came back with the cane, awkwardly wrapped in white tissue with a big red bow. “I have a Christmas present for you.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” protested Miss Tilley, stretching out her hands to take the gift.
“I hope you like it,” said Lucy. “When I saw it I thought of you.”
“That is intriguing,” said Miss Tilley, examining the oddly shaped package. “May I open it now?”
“Please do,” said Lucy, eagerly anticipating the joyful reaction she was certain the cane would evoke.
But when Miss Tilley tore off the tissue there were no smiles, no raptures, no expressions of thanks. There was only shock and stunned silence as a single tear traced a path down the old woman’s wrinkled face until it reached the corner of her mouth and she quickly licked it away with a flick of her tongue.
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Lucy was dismayed at her reaction. “I didn’t mean to distress you,” she said.
“Forgive me,” she said, as if coming out of a trance. “I was just overcome. This is wonderful. So thoughtful of you.
An antique glass cane.”
“I’ll take it back. I’ll get you something else,” said Lucy. A bottle of Dry Sack came to mind. It would be expensive, but at least she could be sure Miss Tilley would enjoy it.
“Not at all.” Miss Tilley got to her feet and laid the cane on the mantel. “This is remarkable, a wonderful find. And so festive.” Her voice became soft and reflective. “I haven’t seen one of these in years.”
“So you know what it is. You’ve seen one before?”
“Oh, yes. There used to be a glass factory in town many years ago and canes like this turned up frequently. But of course they’re fragile and I suppose a lot of them got broken and now they’re quite rare. This one is a real find.” She looked at Lucy. “Do you mind telling me where you got it?”
Lucy blushed, embarrassed. “Actually, well, it was at a yard sale.”
“A yard sale,” mused Miss Tilley, reaching for the sherry bottle. “Would you like a bit more?”
“None for me, I have to drive home,” she said, watching the old woman refill her glass, setting the bottle on the table beside it.
“Where was this yard sale?” asked Miss Tilley, emptying the glass of sherry and refilling it.
“Out on Packet Road.”
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “Kyle and Dora. How interesting.”
“That’s right,” said Lucy, who continued to be surprised at the way Miss Tilley seemed to know everyone in town.
Miss Tilley sighed. “I suppose I owe you an explanation.”
“Not at all,” said Lucy, wishing desperately that Toby would wake up and she could get out of there, away from her 300
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embarrassing gaffe and back home. But Miss Tilley was not about to be deterred.
“It was Christmas Eve,” she began, taking another sip.
Her eyes had lost their focus and she was looking inward, seeking the past. “I was just a girl. I’d been out skating on Blueberry Pond and when I got home the house was quiet.
Very quiet, which was unusual, because my mother was an invalid and there were usually people around, a nurse, a cook, a maid. There was always someone in the kitchen, people going up and down the stairs. It was the stairs, you see.
She’d fallen down the cellar stairs. Mama was there at the bottom, crumpled in a heap, and there was a glass cane, red and white like this one, on the floor beside her. Smashed to smithereens.”
Horrified, Lucy’s hand flew to her mouth. “I had no idea,”
she said.
“Of course not. How could you have known?” Miss Tilley’s voice was thoughtful. “Nobody knew, really. It was all kept very quiet. Papa didn’t want people to know the details, that Mama was wandering about the house as if nobody was taking proper care of her. He let people assume that she died a respectable death in bed, surrounded by her loving family.”
Lucy’s mind was full of questions but she wasn’t at all comfortable asking them. She sat, trying to think of something appropriate to say, and watching as Miss Tilley refilled the glass yet again.
“It was horrible. He made me help, you see. He made me help carry Mama upstairs to her bed.”
“Who did?” It popped out before Lucy could stop herself.
“Papa did. He took her by the shoulders and told me to lift her by the ankles. He said she wouldn’t, she couldn’t be very heavy, not after being sick for so long, but she was heavy. We kind of bumped her up the stairs, two long flights. And then he sent me back downstairs to sweep up the glass and tidy the basement while he put her in a fresh nightgown and tied her hair with a ribbon and tucked the covers around her, CANDY CANES OF CHRISTMAS PAST
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folding her hands around a Bible and laying them on her chest.” Miss Tilley looked her straight in the eye. “Then he called the doctor.”
Lucy found her eyes going to the portrait over the mantel.
The stern, righteous man pictured there suddenly didn’t look quite so respectable. That gleam in his eye, was it the light of truth and justice, or was it something more sinister?
Lucy thought of her own great grandfather Tobias. He wore flannel shirts and khakis in the house, where he spent his days reading and watching baseball on TV from his armchair in the living room and making wooden furniture in his basement workshop, but he never went outside in such casual clothes. He put on a starched white shirt, a dark suit, shiny black shoes and a hat for the short walk down the street to buy the newspaper. “Times change,” said Lucy.
“When I was a little girl I wore white gloves to church. And my great grandfather wouldn’t go out of the house without a hat.”
Miss Tilley nodded. “Straw between Memorial Day and Labor Day, felt for the rest of the year.”
“Exactly,” said Lucy, smiling. “So it’s not surprising that your father would want to protect his family from gossip.
Every funeral’s the same: everybody wants to know all the details. Did she smoke? Was it expected or was it sudden?
Did she suffer? I can see why he wanted to keep some things private. He wanted to preserve your mother’s dignity, even in death.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Miss Tilley. “Mama rarely got out of the house except to go to church on Sunday even before she got sick. She may have looked like a fine lady then, in her silk dress and her flowery hat, but at home she worked like a slave. Everything had to be just so for Papa.
She even ironed his morning paper before he read it.”
Lucy had never heard of such a thing and her eyebrows shot up.
“Oh, yes,” continued Miss Tilley. “He had to have fresh 302
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linens on his bed every night, fresh towels every day, starched napkins and those shirts of his.” She rolled her eyes. “The slightest little wrinkle, even a pucker from the iron and he’d have a fit. My goodness, the hours my poor mother spent at the ironing board. There was no permanent press then and if there had been Papa certainly wouldn’t have allowed it.
When I think of her, before she got sick, I think of her standing at that ironing board, her sleeves rolled up and her hair falling down, her face shiny with sweat.”
“She didn’t have any household help?”
“Not until she got sick.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she got sick on purpose,” said Lucy, attempting a joke.
Miss Tilley’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, she would never do that. It was the doctor who insisted that she needed bed rest and even then she would try to get up and make sure everything was just as Papa liked it.”
“Perhaps that’s what she was doing the day she fell,” said Lucy. “She was probably weak and collapsed.”
“An accident?” Miss Tilley looked at her empty glass and reached for the bottle, sighing when she realized it was empty.
“I don’t think it was an accident.”
Lucy glanced at the portrait. “You don’t?”
“There was a tense atmosphere in the house that morning.
That’s why I went skating. I wanted to get out.”
“Did they have an argument of some sort?” asked Lucy.
“No. I never heard them fight, but I’d know that something was wrong. Papa would be very abrupt, his tone would be very sharp, and Mama would watch him anxiously, as if she were afraid of him.”
“Oh dear,” said Lucy, remembering the scene she’d witnessed the day before, with Kyle and Dora.
“I’ve always suspected that Papa pushed her down the stairs.”
Lucy gasped. “That’s a terrible thing to think about your father,” she finally said.
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“Yes, it is,” agreed Miss Tilley, looking up at the portrait.
“I loved him, I still do, but every time I look at that picture I have the same dark suspicion. If only I could know for sure what happened that day.”
Lucy thought of the book she was reading, Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time about a British police inspector who attempts to solve the fifteenth-century murder of the Little Princes in the Tower of London. “Maybe we can try to solve the mystery,” she said. “Just like Inspector Grant.”
“I thought you’d like that book,” said Miss Tilley. “But it’s fiction. This is real life.”
“But that mystery was hundreds of years old. Your mystery is much more recent.”
“But the princes and Richard III were historical figures, things were written about them, there were documents and books.”
“A lot of which was propaganda put out by Richard’s enemies.”
“And a lot of it was written quite a bit later, long after anyone who might have known the truth was dead,” agreed Miss Tilley.
“Which is not the case here,” said Lucy. “You were on the scene.”
“But it’s been so long,” said Miss Tilley.
“Why don’t we give it a try,” coaxed Lucy. “You might be surprised what you remember.”