One of Andrews’s many responsibilities was to sort the mail, and one way of letting me know that I was not a member of the family was to keep my letters separate from the Alcotts’ correspondence. And there, all by its lonesome on the foyer table, was my first letter from Rob since his arrival in Atlanta.
October 14, 1948
Dear Maggie,
Arrived safely in the good old USA. It was smooth sailing once we got clear of the British coast. The British Navy has these buoys all over the place to mark ships that were sunk by German torpedoes. Three years after the war, the Brits are still clearing the approaches to its ports. This guy, who did convoy duty in the North Atlantic, told me that the amount of tonnage that went to the bottom during the war was kept top secret because it might have caused the Brits to “lose heart.”
Since neither of us had been here before, after docking in New York, Frank and I decided to do some sightseeing. We went to the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building and down to the Battery where we could see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. After that, we ate a steak at Jack Dempsey’s, which looked huge compared to what I was used to in England. Then we headed to Grand Central Station.
About the disagreement we had at Beth’s house, I know I acted like an ass. But before you came downstairs that morning, Michael was telling me how the two of you had gone to the Peak District and had walked down to the village for coffee. Even before I knew about that, I was already pretty steamed because of the way he had come on to you the night before. Thinking about it now, I can’t say I blame him. I guess because he had to leave to go to his new station in Germany, he had to go at you head on. As they say, “All’s fair in love and war.” I just want you to be happy.
Love,
Rob
The following day, I discussed Rob’s letter with my boss. Don told me never to go by what a guy said or wrote because “we stink at both.” He believed a man’s actions spoke louder than words. In that case, it boiled down to the fact that Rob had not asked me to return to the States with him. So that was that — or was it? I would have plenty of time to think about it because that night I came down with the flu. When Beth learned I was sick, she immediately came to Holland Park, bringing her own portable medicine chest as well as some of Reed’s drawings from the 1913 road trip.
“I haven’t seen these drawings in years. Jeremy had them locked up in the tower.” Shaking her head showed that, even after all these years, her uncle’s behavior still puzzled her. Picking up the first sketch, Beth said, “This is the coach inn where we stayed our first night on the road. Many years later, Jack and I stopped there for a drink, and on the wall was a framed drawing Reed had made for the owner all those years ago. The new owner didn’t know the story behind it, and when we told him, he asked Jack and me to sign the back of it.”
Placing the next drawing on top of the one of the inn, Beth showed me Helmsley Hall, Jane Austen’s Netherfield Park, and the home of Charles Bingham and Jane Garrison during the early years of their marriage. It looked nothing like the house I had imagined. The drawing showed a very pretty three-story, red-brick Georgian manor, with one wing and a white porch and white-framed windows, but it wasn’t anywhere near as large as I had imagined it. Seeing my expression, Beth said, “It’s not as grand as Montclair, but it’s a good-sized manor home for the neighborhood.”
“But how many people could have attended a ball there?”
“More than you would think. In houses such as this, all of the public rooms were connected, and the furniture was pushed against the walls to make room for the dancers. I don’t know if the wing was there at the time Charles leased it, but if it was, the floor plan has a nice flow to it. If you recall, Jane Austen wrote in her novel that the Bennets’ neighborhood was made up of about twenty-four families. I would say this house could have accommodated that many couples.”
Now that I knew what Helmsley Hall looked like, I understood Will Lacey’s objection to Charles’s choice of residence. George Bingham had charged Will with turning his youngest brother into a gentleman, someone who would be received in the finest homes in the country. Will dismissed Helmsley Hall and nearby Bennets End as completely inadequate for his purposes.
I looked at Beth, who was enjoying sharing her brother’s work with a friend. Because of Reed’s tragic life, too much of his past had been kept in the shadows, and now his sister was bringing it back into the light of day.
The next drawing was of the parsonage that Charlotte Ledger and William Chatterton called home and Jane Austen called Hunsford Lodge. I remembered how thrilled I was when I realized I was standing in the same room where Will Lacey had asked Elizabeth Garrison to marry him. When Rob and I had toured the parsonage, I remembered thinking that Elizabeth Garrison could not have been more in love with Will Lacey than I was with Rob McAllister. That visit seemed like a lifetime ago.
Moving on to the home of Lady Sylvia Desmet, Reed had drawn Desmet Park from a half dozen angles. “When we saw the house, it was being used for storage by the local council, and the courtyard was full of junk. Reed left out the junk and added planters and a working fountain.
“Oh, by the way, I have some information on Desmet Park for you. According to The Times, the Thornhill has been sold to an undisclosed buyer. I guess they figured out how to get it off the ceiling. The contents of the house are to be auctioned off the first Saturday in December, and the house itself is to be sold for the value of its stone. The article said it is one of more than one hundred houses that have been torn down since the end of the war because their owners can no longer afford their upkeep.”
Here was another piece of the Will Lacey/Elizabeth Garrison love story that was being lost. The Edwards farm, the assembly hall, the parsonage, and now Desmet Park, were all going or gone. The thought of so much of Elizabeth Lacey’s personal history disappearing depressed me.
“And here is Brighton where Lydia agreed to an elopement with Mr. Wickham. As you can tell from the number of drawings, Reed loved sketching the royal residence, the gardens, the pier, and the sea. I have a soft spot for Brighton because it was where Jack first told me he loved me.”
But that was in 1913. The following year Beth was engaged to Colin Matheson. What had happened in the interim?