14. Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
September 1931
L enore Wainwright had just stepped into the kitchen when she spotted that rascal, Billy Stodge, approaching the windowsill or, more specifically, the chocolate cake that had been set on the drainboard in front of the open window to cool. The room smelled of chocolate and baked sugar. It was heady. Mother and Dad would want a slice for lunch but if Billy had his way, there’d be no cake for anyone except Billy. It was a new recipe that didn’t require eggs, milk, or butter. Eggs and butter were rationed, along with other food items, which was a challenge when trying to feed people.
Billy Stodge was the bane of her existence. He took anything that wasn’t nailed down. Despite this, Lenore cut him a lot of slack. His father was a drinker and his mother was, well, overwhelmed. That was the only way Lenore could describe it.
The boy hadn’t observed her yet. Staying out of view, she took the morning newspaper that had been left on the chair by the stove, indicating it had been read by all parties and could be used for the fire, and folded it in half. With the newspaper in hand, she put her back up against the wall next to the window. As soon as Billy’s hands slid through the open window, she leaned over and gave them a swat with the newspaper.
“Ow!” came from outside.
Lenore lifted up the sash and leaned out the window. “That didn’t hurt, Billy. But if I catch you near my cakes again, I’ll take a switch off the birch tree and use it on you!”
Billy was backing up, rubbing the top of his hand. A scowl formed on his face.
She sighed, looking at him. He was only a child. It wasn’t his fault that things weren’t ideal at home.
He took off like a shot, heading toward whatever else was next on his list of mischief and general getting up to no good.
Smiling, she wiped her hands on her apron. She might as well give Hilda a hand and start putting the lunch together. She’d made Hoover stew after seeing a recipe for it in a magazine at the library. It consisted of macaroni, sliced hot dogs, tomatoes, and canned corn. There were two slices of bread, which would be reserved for her mother and father .
Hilda entered the kitchen as Lenore pulled out the china plates from the cabinet. Just because they had to skimp and save on meat and other things, that didn’t mean they couldn’t eat off the fine china, if only to cheer them up.
“Did I just see that Billy Stodge running through the yard?” Hilda pulled her apron off the hook and donned it, tying it.
Lenore rolled her eyes.
With a glance toward the window, Hilda nodded and said, “Let me guess. He was eyeing up the cake.”
Lenore laughed. “Yes. But I caught him in the nick of time.” She paused, rubbing her chin, thinking. “Maybe I should have given him a slice to take home.” Now she regretted that she hadn’t.
Hilda shook her head with a laugh. “You’re too good, Miss Lenore. What that child needs is a good spanking.”
“We must remember that he is still a child,” Lenore pointed out.
Hilda took down a jar of preserves and went to open it, but Lenore interceded. “Let me do that.”
“All right then,” Hilda said easily, handing her the jar.
The previous summer, Hilda had taught Lenore how to can fruit. Right behind the white picket fence out back was a small orchard of fruit trees: apples, cherries, and peaches. At harvest time, any fruit they didn’t use or preserve would be gathered up in bushel baskets and set on the front porch for people to help themselves .
Before the Depression, Lenore remembered when two to three cuts of meat were served every day with plenty of potatoes and vegetables. Her father was the mayor of Lavender Bay, and these days, he wanted to set an example by skimping and saving and eating less meat, like everyone else.
He had frozen his own annual salary when he learned that two men of the town hall were to be let go. These men had eight children between them. When people got wind of the fact that he resoled his shoe with a piece of cardboard, it had further endeared him to the electorate.
And like everyone else struggling during these unprecedented economic times, they made do. They ate watered-down soup. They cut back on sugar. They wore the same clothes over and over, repairing holes and tears to get further wear out of it.
Although Lavender Bay wasn’t hit as hard as the larger American cities, there were subtle signs that it, too, was suffering. The Gibson’s Grape Jelly factory had asked the workers to take a pay cut to save their jobs. There weren’t the long lines of people snaking around city blocks, waiting for the soup kitchens, but the church in town provided a hot meal every day at one in the afternoon for those that had lost their jobs. Those men too embarrassed to take part went around privately to houses, never to the front door, always to the back, in search of a little bit of food or some work to be done around the house. Most people, including the Wainwrights, couldn’t afford to hire someone to clean out the gutters or paint the picket fence out front. But they did give whatever they could in the way of food.
This past summer, with Hilda’s guidance, Lenore turned over a small portion of the backyard for a vegetable garden. They ended up with carrots, radishes, and tomatoes. The corn had failed.
Hilda Wolf had been with the Wainwrights for as long as Lenore could remember. She was a tall, solid woman with a long, narrow face. But she was getting on in years and had terrible arthritis in her hands and wrists. Lenore loved working in the kitchen, much to her mother’s dismay and her younger sister’s ridicule, but she was happiest when she was cooking and baking. And even though her mother reminded her regularly that there was “help” to do that sort of work, Lenore carried on. She let Hilda do the easier tasks, like walking to the shops, as Hilda was social and loved to meet people, while Lenore stayed behind, figuring out what to do with leftovers or the ingredients they had on hand.
Lenore helped Hilda carry the platters into the dining room, where the family took all their meals. Her father and mother were already seated at the table.
“Lenore, is it true that there’s a chocolate cake for dessert?” her father asked, his expression hopeful.
Lenore laughed. “There is, Dad. I found a new recipe and it has no eggs, butter, or milk. ”
“It sounds ghastly,” her mother said with a horrified expression.
“It’s a wonderful thing to be your father, Lenore,” Mr. Wainwright said, beaming.
At the opposite end of the table, Lenore’s mother scowled. “Leo, for a man of your standing, you talk pure foolishness sometimes.”
His response was to laugh as Lenore circled behind him. She couldn’t help it that she leaned over him and kissed the top of his head. This elicited more laughter.
“What on earth?” Lenore’s mother shook her head.
“It’s all right, Mother, Dad doesn’t mind,” Lenore said, breezing out of the dining room.
“But I do!” Eleanor Wainwright called out after her.
Lenore passed her younger sister, Laura, in the hallway. Laura Wainwright was a great beauty, golden-haired and with eyes the color of the palest cornflowers and a pair of dimples bracketing her smile, while Lenore had hair that was dull brown in color and eyes that were more gray than blue.
“Good morning, Lenore,” Laura said in passing.
“Morning? Wake up, Laura, its lunchtime,” Lenore teased. She did not stop on her way to the kitchen to hear her sister’s response, if she’d had one.
Lenore returned to the dining room with the two slices of bread she’d saved for her mother and father. She set a bread plate next to each of them .
Before she’d left the kitchen, she’d made sure Hilda was sitting down with her own plate of lunch. She couldn’t see why Hilda couldn’t join them in the dining room, but both Hilda and Mrs. Wainwright would have been aghast at such a suggestion.
She no sooner sat down than the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” she said, pushing her chair back and laying her napkin on the table next to her plate.
Her mother pursed her lips. “Who calls during luncheon?”
“Maybe they don’t eat luncheon at this time,” Lenore said. As she walked out of the dining room, she called back to the kitchen, “I’ll get it, Hilda.”
“Sometimes I wonder who the help is around here,” her mother muttered.
Lenore opened the front door wide.
On the front step stood a clean-shaven man, thirtyish, with sandy brown hair and dark eyes. The bright afternoon sunlight picked up the gold strands in his short hair. An old scar sliced through his eyebrow and ran down the side of his face, but it did not detract from his handsomeness. In fact, Lenore thought it added to it. He removed his fedora as soon as Lenore appeared. His overall look was rugged, though his clothes were pressed and clean.
“Good day,” he said. “I’m here to see Mayor Wainwright. ”
He was attractive, that was for certain, and Lenore couldn’t help but wonder what kind of business he had with her father. People called at the house all the time, mostly politicians or people seeking help: widows needing food for their children, men looking for jobs, anything. Her father did his best to accommodate them all. But this man looked neither like a politician nor someone who was even hungry.
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“John Hadley.”
“One moment, please.” She left the door half open, feeling it would be rude to close it on him.
Back in the dining room, she told her father, “Dad, a John Hadley is here to see you.”
“Tell him to come back—” her mother started.
“No, no, Lenore, bring him in. I’ve been waiting for him,” Leo Wainwright said, standing up. To his wife, he said, “Set another place at the table for him.”
Mrs. Wainwright stood and headed off to the kitchen to tell Hilda.
Lenore returned to their visitor, doing as her father had asked. “Please do come in, Mr. Hadley, and join us for lunch.”
Following her in, hat in hand, he said, “I couldn’t impose, Mrs. . . .”
Lenore reddened, stopped, turned, and said, “It’s Miss. Lenore Wainwright.” It was an honest mistake. At twenty- five, she supposed she should be married by now. Much to her mother’s dismay, she wasn’t. But she wasn’t going to marry just anyone for the sake of getting married, also to her mother’s dismay.
He nodded. “Miss Wainwright.”
“And you’re not imposing. I’m afraid Dad will insist, and he’s used to getting his way.”
“All right then,” John Hadley said with a laugh.
Lenore decided she liked this man. There was something solid about him. Like you could rely on him every which way and on Sundays, too. Lenore figured he was about ten years older than she, although there was an air of gravity about him that made him seem older, as if he had a lot of life experience behind him.
As soon as they entered the dining room, the mood improved. Laura sat up straighter and smiled, and even Mrs. Wainwright stood and extended her hand, then offered him the seat next to her, between her and Laura.
“John Hadley, it’s good of you to come all this way,” Mayor Wainwright said, shaking his hand.
“I’m sorry to bother you at home, sir, on a Sunday of all things.”
“Nonsense. I’m relieved to see you. With our former chief of police dying so suddenly, our officers were left without leadership.”
“My condolences,” Mr. Hadley said quietly .
So this was the new chief of police, Lenore thought. He almost seemed too young. But again, there was an air of sober maturity about him. Their previous chief of police had fallen ill with something rare; Lenore couldn’t remember the name of it. But he’d been dead within three weeks, and the town’s police force was made up of only a few men, all too young to assume the position of authority. Unfortunately, those few in Lavender Bay who were up to no good knew of it and took advantage of it.
“You can start right away?” Mr. Wainwright asked.
“Of course.”
With a nod toward the scar on the man’s face, Mr. Wainwright said, “The Great War?”
“The Meuse-Argonne Offensive.”
Leo Wainwright cleared his throat. “My younger brother was killed at the Somme.”
“Again, condolences,” John Hadley said quietly.
“Hopefully, we’ll never go through anything like that again,” Leo said.
“Agreed.”
Sensing the gloom and despair that threatened to follow, Mrs. Wainwright said, “Come on and sit down. Eat something. Tell us a bit about yourself, Mr. Hadley.”
Lenore’s mother didn’t like unpleasantness of any kind. She was all about putting on a brave face and being bright and cheery. Lenore had only been eight or nine when Uncle Tommy had been killed, and her father had retreated to his study for months. It had taken a long time for the gloom to lift. At the time, her mother had countered her husband’s sadness with a forced cheeriness.
Hilda had set another place setting, and John Hadley took the chair between Laura and Mrs. Wainwright, directly across from Lenore.
As soon as everyone was situated, Mrs. Wainwright stood and filled his plate with Hoover stew, apologizing that like everyone else, they were tightening their belts because of the economic crisis the country currently faced. Lenore passed him the small plate of bread-and-butter pickles.
He looked across the table, made eye contact with Lenore, and smiled.
Her heart rate picked up a bit. Don’t, Lenore , warned a voice inside her head. Don’t go getting notions . It never ends well for you.
Despite the initial talk of the war, lunch turned into a pleasant affair. Mr. Hadley was both well-educated and well-traveled. And to Mrs. Wainwright, this made him in desperate need of a wife. He hailed from Illinois, and currently worked for the Chicago police department. He’d never spent time on the east side of the country, except when he’d taken a troop train to the East Coast for transport to Europe during the war .
“Mr. Hadley, what made you decide to come here, to Lavender Bay?” Mrs. Wainwright asked, refilling his water glass from the crystal pitcher.
“I grew up in Chicago, near Lake Michigan, and I thought Lavender Bay sounded like a nice place to live and work.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” Mr. Wainwright said wholeheartedly.
Mrs. Wainwright turned to her eldest daughter. “Lenore, will you ask Hilda to bring in the chocolate cake and the coffee?”
Lenore pushed back her chair and stood. As she did, John Hadley pushed back his chair and stood as well.
Lenore smiled, appreciative of the gesture. “Don’t get up, Mr. Hadley. Or you’ll be up and down like a jack-in-the-box all during lunch.”
He let out a short bark of laughter in response.
Warmed by his reaction, Lenore went off to the kitchen for the coffee and dessert. Hilda stood at the sink, washing her own lunch dishes and setting them on the drainboard to dry. On the stove, the blue enamel coffeepot began to bubble and hiss, filling the air with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.
“Oh good, you’ve put the coffee on,” Lenore said. She pulled down china teacups, saucers, and matching dessert plates from one of the cabinets.
“Who’s the company?” Hilda asked .
“A Mr. John Hadley. The new chief of police,” Lenore answered.
“It’s about time, too. Some miscreant broke the window of the hardware store last night.”
“Oh no, they didn’t,” Lenore said.
“They did. Broken glass all over the place,” Hilda said.
Lenore cut six slices of cake, laying them out on plates and setting them on a tray, leaving one plate at the table for Hilda.
“Is that coffee ready?” Lenore asked.
“Almost.”
“I’ll carry the tray in, if you bring in the coffee.”
Hilda nodded.
As Lenore carried in the tray with the sliced cake, she noticed John Hadley saying something to Laura, sitting next to him. In response, her sister giggled and looked up at him from beneath her dark velvet lashes.
You little minx , Lenore thought. Didn’t she have enough suitors? They practically lined up around the block every night to call on her. It was a bonus that she was the mayor’s daughter.
“Couldn’t Hilda bring the tray in, Lenore? You’re not a kitchen maid,” her mother grumbled.
“It’s no bother, really, I was there. Hilda will bring in the coffee,” she said.
Lenore set down the tray and her mother handed out the plates of cake, passing them left or right, apologizing to Mr. Hadley that they had no fresh cream. As Hilda entered with the coffee, now in the matching china coffeepot, Lenore eyed the table to make sure there was milk and sugar. The coffeepot was pretty to look at, but did not keep the coffee as hot as the enamel one on the stove. But her mother wouldn’t hear of the old blue enamel pot sitting on her dining room table. The only solution was to pour the coffee fast and drink it quickly.
Lenore fixed her coffee, passing on the sugar. She and her mother had given it up in an effort to conserve it. Laura put two teaspoonfuls into her cup, and Lenore gave her a sour look.
Once everyone had a slice of cake, they went quiet as they dug in.
Despite the lack of butter, milk, and eggs, the cake was delicious, and that pleased Lenore.
“My compliments to the baker,” Mr. Hadley said, pushing his plate away. He hadn’t left so much as a crumb behind.
Lenore felt the heat creep up to her cheeks. She knew without looking in the mirror they would be stained scarlet.
“That’s Lenore,” Mr. Wainwright said. “She’s the resident baker.”
Mr. Hadley bowed his head toward her. “Again, my compliments. ”
“Thank you, Mr. Hadley,” Lenore managed to croak out. Smiling, she finished her own piece of cake. There was satisfaction in cooking and baking for people who appreciated it.
As the dinner wound down, Laura, still smiling at Mr. Hadley, disappeared from the room with Mrs. Wainwright as the mayor and Mr. Hadley settled down for another cup of coffee and a cigar. Anticipating this, Lenore removed the cigar box from the fireplace mantel behind her father, opened it, and offered one to Mr. Hadley. He took one and looked up at Lenore and smiled.
“Thank you.”
She handed one to her father and set the box down next to him. She began to quickly clear the dishes from the table as it was Sunday and they usually spent the afternoon playing cards. In the past, local politicians would gather in their parlor every Sunday from late afternoon to late evening, trying to solve the problems of Lavender Bay. But the dual effects of Prohibition and the Depression had ended that. And as one business closed after another in Lavender Bay, the meetings soon turned grim.
As she and Hilda cleared the last of the dishes, her father and Mr. Hadley finished their cigars. She helped Hilda with the washup and they left the dishes to dry. She returned to the front parlor and pulled the card table with its green felt top out from behind the sofa, setting it up in the center of the room. The window faced west, and it was nice to see the colors of the sky when the sun set. She retrieved a deck of cards and laid them on the table. From the closet beneath the stairs, she pulled out the matching wooden chairs that went with the table.
John stood in the hallway. “I best be going.”
His gaze lingered a moment on Lenore, and she said hurriedly, “Why don’t you join us for cards?”
He hesitated and she added, “I’m sorry, maybe you have other plans.”
“No, I didn’t want to impose on your hospitality any more than I already have.”
“Not at all.” She nodded toward the parlor. “Go on in and take a seat.”
Lenore joined Hilda in the kitchen, where another pot of coffee was being brewed. Her thoughts were focused on John Hadley.
As if reading her mind, Hilda said, “He’s kind of young to be the chief of police. He still looks wet behind the ears.”
“He served in the war,” Lenore informed her.
“Ah well, that would make anyone old before their time,” Hilda said, and no more was said about John Hadley’s suitability for the job he was about to undertake.