“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Berger. I am Dolly Seymour.” She inserted a plastic card into the security slot. The barricade in front of the bridge hummed and slowly began to rise. “Kindly lead on. I shall follow.” She started back to her car.
Mitch eased his way slowly out over the choppy blue water on the spindly wooden bridge, trying to remember the last time he had heard someone use the word “shall” in ordinary conversation. The bridge was exceedingly loud, bumpy going. Also exceedingly narrow. Not much more than one car-width, with railings on either side, along with utility poles that carried the power and phone lines out there.
As he drew closer to Big Sister he began to realize that the houses were not clustered nearly so close together as they had seemed. Each of them was built on the rocky cliffs overlooking the Sound and distanced from its neighbor by acres of woods and green meadows. There was the cream-colored center chimney colonial that Dolly had referred to. It was at least two hundred years old, and quite grand. But not nearly so grand as the natural-shingled Victorian summer cottage next door. This place had wraparound balconies and turrets and sleeping porches and must have had at least ten or twelve bedrooms. Also a spectacular garden. There was a second Victorian summer cottage that was like a miniature version of the big one. There was a squat stone lighthouse-keeper’s cottage house built in the shadow of the old lighthouse. A gravel driveway connected the houses, which were also joined by footpaths bursting with wild beach roses and bayberry. They had a tennis court out here, their own private beach and their own dock, where two yachts were presently moored.
It was, Mitch reflected, a hundred or so acres of pure paradise.
He told her so when he pulled up outside of her house and got out. It was at least five degrees cooler out here, thanks to the brisk breeze off of the water.
“Yes, it is quite lovely,” she acknowledged wistfully. “Sometimes, I forget just how lovely.”
“How did it get the name Big Sister?”
She squinted at him, as if she were regarding him from a great distance. “It’s the tides. At low tide one can actually walk out here across the rocks and tide pools. That’s how the animals get out here. The deer and so forth. But when the tide is high, such as it is now, the cross currents from the river are swift and treacherous. Swimming out here from the Point is unthinkable-one would be washed out to sea instantly. And there are rocks. That was why they built the lighthouse. It’s been decommissioned for years, poor thing. But in its heyday, it had a pair of thousand-watt lamps that could be detected from thirty-five miles away on a starry night. There was no bridge in the old days. We had our own little ferry boat to the Point. And once, during a terrible storm, my grandfather’s older sister, Enid, capsized in it and drowned. That’s why it’s called Big Sister. It was simply known as Peck Island prior to that. That’s also why we built the bridge. Hurricane Gloria totalled it in 1985,” Dolly Seymour recalled, her chin raised with stubborn Yankee pride. “We rebuilt it.”
Now she marched briskly down a path that led around to the back of her house. She pumped her arms vigorously as she walked, her small fists clenched. He had to speed up to stay with her. She had a formal ornamental garden back there. But that wasn’t where they were heading. She was leading him in the direction of a sagging, unpainted old barn.
“They used to raise salt marsh hay on the island in the old days,” Dolly continued. “There are about fifty good acres of land. They floated the oxen out here on flat barges.” Beyond the barn there was a carriage house that had been converted into living quarters. “Well, here we are,” she exclaimed. “What do you think?”
Mitch didn’t know what to think. It was small. It was dilapidated. It was a wreck. One end of it appeared to be sinking down into the overgrown shrubbery. Then again, it was entirely possible that the shrubbery was actually holding it up. Its shingles were green with mildew and rot. Its windows were either broken or gone. It looked as if one good gust of wind would blow the whole place over.
“It used to be our caretaker’s house,” Dolly explained. “But we haven’t had anyone full-time in years. And now that my Niles is gone I’m afraid that money is…” She broke off, her bright blue eyes widening with alarm. “Oh, dear, should I be telling you this? I suppose there’s no harm. What I mean to say is that the income would be most welcome. That’s why I’ve decided to rent it out.”
“For the summer?”
“I had hoped year-round,” she answered fretfully, “but I suppose if you’re only interested in the summer we could work something out… Oh, dear, maybe I shouldn’t have said that either, since you are the first person who has come. I didn’t want to go through one of the agencies, you see. The Realtors out here are such busybodies. Frightful, nosy women. And it’s none of their business, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” Mitch agreed, liking her. She was just the tiniest bit dizzy.
“My lawyer will want references and deposits and things,” she added with a vague, helpless wave of her hand. “You’re a New Yorker? I noticed the license plate.”
“Yes, I am.”
“And do you and Mrs. Berger have children? The reason I ask is because it’s really quite ill-suited for a family.”
“No, no. I’m a widower.”
She considered this, her brow furrowing sympathetically. “How awful. She must have been frightfully young, poor thing.”
Mitch said nothing, knowing his voice would catch if he did.
Dolly plunged hastily into the awkward silence. “Let’s have a look inside, shall we? Now I should warn you-I’ve been using the downstairs for storage and it’s, um, a bit…”
Filthy. It was filthy. There were cobwebs and mouse droppings everywhere, coupled with the pervasive smell of mold and disuse. A man’s things had been heaped rather carelessly in the center of the bare floor. There were garment bags and suitcases stuffed to bursting with coats and suits and sweaters, cartons crammed with shoes, athletic trophies, old yearbooks, papers. There was a set of golf clubs, a bicycle, a stuffed and mounted warthog’s head.
But in spite of this, Mitch was awestruck by what he saw. Because this was no ordinary outbuilding. It was a genuine antique post-and-beam carriage house with exposed beams of hand-hewn chestnut. The room, which was a good-sized one, had a big fieldstone fireplace at one end, wide-boarded oak floors and floor-to-ceiling windows that afforded a totally unobstructed view of the water in three different directions. It was a bit like being on the bridge of a ship at sea.
Standing there, Mitch felt a tingle of excitement. It had been Maisie’s dream that they would one day find a little cottage for themselves. A place where they could curl up in front of the fire. Dig in the garden. A place to escape from everyone when they felt like it. This place. Mitch was sure of it. He had never been more sure of anything in his whole life.
“I haven’t quite figured out what to do with his things,” Dolly murmured apologetically. “Niles hasn’t asked me for them-I suppose he’s not settled yet. Mind you, I did consider taking all of it to the dump, but that would have been so petty, would it not?”
Evidently her husband had left her. Which Mitch found rather hard to imagine. Dolly was so attractive and classy and nice. Plus this island was so remarkable. Why would anyone ever want to leave?
“I’ll move all of it out, of course,” she went on. “And have it properly scrubbed and painted. The windows repaired and so forth. But we do tend to be a pretty self-sufficient lot out here. So it would help if whoever took it were handy. Are you?”
Mitch was not. His experience with handyman specials began and ended with Mister Blandings Builds His Dream House, which he considered a vastly overrated film. “Well, I’m certainly game,” he said helpfully.
“Good, good! The roof is sound… Fairly sound, anyway. And it has its own oil furnace and septic and well.”