Chapter 35 Cynthia
Cynthia
Finally, a day off. Cynthia still awoke earlier than would have been her habit had she not been employed.
Nevertheless, she didn’t want to miss breakfast in the staff room.
She wasn’t working so hard that every muscle in her body ached to spend a penny she’d earned on breakfast at an overpriced restaurant in town.
She rolled over onto her side and propped her head on her hand, noticing Dolores had been up even earlier than she was.
Her roommate never made her own bed, preferring to leave the rumpled tangle of sheets and light coverlet just as they were when she slipped out and hurried off to work.
She flopped onto her back and stretched, long and luxuriantly.
Through the open window, she could hear the sounds of birds and resort guests moving about their business.
The calisthenics class held every fine morning on the beach drew the majority of the guests, and she could hear the lilting sound of feminine voices as they made their way towards the water’s edge.
Cynthia slid out of bed and crossed to the small closet at the far end of the room.
She flipped through the sundresses hanging there next to her spare maid’s uniform.
Her hand lingered on a blue gingham-checked sundress with a matching bolero jacket, but she found herself disinclined to choose anything blue.
Her maid’s uniform, with its navy cotton dress and white apron, was the only option during her workweek.
After reaching for a pink-and-white-striped sundress, she lifted it over her head, feeling almost defiant.
A pair of espadrilles and a broad-brimmed straw hat completed the outfit.
She dug in the closet a little deeper and withdrew a raffia handbag, into which she placed her two-piece bathing suit and a towel filched from the supply closet.
Before leaving the room, she could not resist the impulse to make not only her own bed, but Dolores’s as well.
While Dolores had stated that she made enough beds in the course of the week that she wouldn’t include her own among them, Cynthia couldn’t stand to leave things so untidy.
Besides, who was more deserving of a freshly made bed to slip into at night than a hardworking cleaner?
Calvin was nowhere to be seen in the staff kitchen when she arrived, but Mrs. Dudley was at her usual station, right in front of the stove, extracting a pan from the depths of the oven. She turned and smiled as Cynthia entered the room.
“Don’t you look nice,” she said.
Cynthia looked down at her dress, feeling her cheeks flush at the compliment. “Thank you for saying so.”
“Any plans for the day? You’re dolled up enough that I assume you have something special going on.”
“Calvin wants to take me out for a drive. He says there’s something he wishes to show me, but I have no idea what it is,” Cynthia said. She hoped that the warmth she felt in her cheeks was not showing.
“You just be careful with what sort of surprises young men wish to show you,” the cook said. “Although I must say that Calvin seems to be a very good sort. You’re probably in safe hands with him.”
Cynthia’s cheeks grew even warmer at the suggestion something untoward might transpire between herself and Calvin, or even that he might consider such a thing. Anyhow, although she liked him perhaps more than she ought to, she wasn’t that sort of girl.
“I’m sure he has nothing but friendly intentions,” Cynthia said. “I’m not even certain that the drive constitutes a date.”
“That’s not the way he described it when he was in here asking me for a favor,” Mrs. Dudley said, a mischievous smile spreading across her face.
Now she was sure the cook could see her blushing.
If Calvin thought it was a date, then perhaps her interest in him was reciprocated.
Not that she was sure she wished to be interested in him or that she would like those feelings returned.
According to her mother and Pauline, it would be a much better idea for her to set her cap at someone like Glenn, with his money and connections.
Still, it was very flattering, and she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed his company.
“What sort of favor?” Cynthia asked.
The cook glanced at her wristwatch and then back at Cynthia. “The kind that I wasn’t supposed to mention. Now, sit yourself down and eat some breakfast before you end up being late.”
Cynthia turned her attention to a hearty breakfast of freshly baked biscuits, scrambled eggs, and bacon.
Even though margarine had become a staple on most tables in the last several years, Cynthia was pleased once again to see a crock of real butter placed in the middle of the table, along with a pot of blueberry jam.
Under the cook’s approving gaze, she slathered her biscuits with both.
After refusing a third helping, she thanked Mrs. Dudley and headed off to the converted stable in search of Calvin.
As she stepped out of the bright sunshine and into the gloom of the garage, she could just make out his form bent over the hood of a bottle-green jalopy.
There was no way that it was one of Miss Arden’s automobiles.
Hers were all late-model luxury cars, like the royal-blue-and-black Rolls-Royce Wraith parked at the back of the garage, or the deep-maroon Cadillac Fleetwood 75 limousine positioned near the doors.
Calvin had offered to drive her into town on a few occasions, and the interiors of each vehicle, with smooth leather upholstery and exotic wood trim, was as beautifully designed and maintained as the exterior.
As her eyes adjusted, she could see he was vigorously buffing the hood of the car with a chamois.
He turned his head as one of the floorboards creaked under her foot and flashed her a wide and welcoming smile.
“Hello, sleepyhead,” he said. “I thought maybe you had stood me up.”
She took a few steps closer as she shook her head. “It’s nowhere near as late as you’re making it out to be. The biscuits in the kitchen were still fresh out of the oven when I sat down to gobble them up. We weren’t all raised on dairy farms, you know.”
“I suppose that’s a decent enough excuse for laying abed all morning,” he said, folding the chamois carefully and placing it on a bench nearby.
“It’s still barely eight o’clock,” Cynthia said. “Wherever you’re taking me can’t be about to close anytime soon, if it’s even open yet.”
“Where I’m taking you has no opening time or closing time either,” Calvin said. “At least, not yet it doesn’t.”
“That sounds intriguing. Won’t you give me just a hint of what you have planned?”
“I don’t think that I will. But like I told you before, it won’t take all of your day off.” He inclined his head towards her straw bag. “What’s that you got there?”
“I thought I would bring along my bathing suit. Since you had mentioned it wouldn’t take all day, I figured we would have time to stop at a beach for a swim if we were so inclined after we finished up with whatever your plan was.”
Calvin smiled broadly enough for a pair of dimples to appear in his cheeks. “I expect I could be persuaded to stop in at the beach. Just give me time to grab a pair of trunks from my room.”
He sprinted up the stairs at the back of the garage.
The chauffeurs had their own accommodations on the second floor of the converted stable.
At least, that was what Dolores had told her.
Cynthia would not have been brazen enough to visit male members of the staff in their private quarters.
In a flash, Calvin had returned with a towel and bathing trunks tucked under his arm.
He walked to the far side of the jalopy and opened the passenger door for Cynthia, waiting for her to be comfortably settled on the seat before closing it.
He slid in behind the wheel and flung his arm over the back of the seat as he turned to back out.
Cynthia could feel the warmth of his body radiating through her exposed shoulders.
As they slid out of the garage and into the bright sunshine, the cook’s warning about being careful what young men might wish to show her screamed through her head.
But before she could begin to fret about it, Calvin withdrew his arm and placed both broad hands on the steering wheel.
The air suddenly felt cold around her shoulders despite the warmth of the morning. She looked over at him.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She nodded, but she wasn’t entirely sure she was.
* * *
Calvin slowed the car to a stop at the edge of a hillocky field beside a For Sale sign from a local real estate brokerage.
He leaned over the steering wheel, peering through the windshield.
Cynthia shaded her eyes with her hand and gazed out at the field stretching before her.
The ground looked nothing like the manicured grounds of the Maine Chance.
Then he popped open the driver’s-side door and sprang from the vehicle.
Never one to forget his manners, he moved to the passenger side and held open the door for Cynthia.
Mindful of her skirt, she swung her legs out carefully, her knees clamped tightly together.
He offered her his hand and helped her to her feet.
After closing the door behind her, he swept out his arm towards the sprawling acreage in front of them.
“So, what do you think?” he asked.
Cynthia took a few steps forward, watchful of the rocks and roots beneath her feet.
Truth be told, the property was not particularly lovely to look at.
Evidently, someone had clear-cut it for the lumber.
Still, there was a small view of the lake in the distance that provided the property with some small measure of beauty.
She in no way wished to be discouraging.
Calvin caught her by the hand and tugged her forward, his enthusiasm bubbling up from within him.