Ch. 8 ~ Caswell
Dragged along in an ill-fitting suit, Franck faces feisty Mrs Caswell
Bob slept like a log again. Franck wasn’t so lucky. He tossed and turned, and couldn’t stop wondering what this Nancy Caswell would be like and how he was going to face her. He hated apologies, especially making them. He didn’t even like people apologizing to him. Easier just to move on. There’s always somewhere to move on to and something interesting to do, and if there isn’t anything interesting, it’s your own fault; that was Franck’s view. No one with an imagination could ever get bored. The word wasn’t even in his vocabulary, or so he liked to think.
But an active imagination was what kept him from sleeping. Finally he drifted off and had another dream about the cackling rat queen. This time she was listing off his crimes in rat court while he lay on his bed in a prison cell with no windows. And in the dream he began to hear faint rustlings in the room. He listened for a while until he was sure it was the sound of something alive and moving, now on the floor, now on his bed. He sat up fast to see what it was but it jumped off his bed onto the floor and was silent. Franck lay quiet for a few moments and then peered over the edge of the bed toward the drain in the center of the cell, and then he saw several of the little creatures scurrying toward the edges of the room. One of them dashed across the gray light from the cell door. Finally, he made out what they were: tiny people, the size of rats, cowering in the dark corner.
Franck woke up exhausted. Bob was banging on his door.
“Come on, lazybones, let’s go. Here’s something for you to put on. Come on, up and at ‘em. Rise and shine. Out of bed. Bacon on the grill.”
Franck could smell the bacon. He dragged himself up, opened the door to head to the bathroom, and literally bumped into Bob holding a suit on a hangar.
“Here, wear this. Old Nancy can’t be mad at a responsibly dressed gentleman.”
Franck looked at the suit with bleary eyes. “It’s got to be at least two sizes too big, Bob.”
“No worries. At least it will look like you tried. Come on, the eggs are getting cold.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Traffic was terrible. Bridge Street was blocked for the Veteran’s Day parade. Woodland Road was backed up past the railroad tracks.
“Okay, Franck, calm down, boy, easy does it, be glad we’re in my car, and I’m driving, and we’re not even crossing over any tracks.”
“Very funny,” said Franck, fidgeting in his uncomfortably roomy suit. He leaned his head onto his hand against the window and looked out gloomily. At least he could feel his trademark ridged pinstripe hat nestled in his frizzy hair like a bird’s nest in a tree. No one could take that away from him.
They pulled up across the street from Caswell’s house.
“I can’t do this, Bob. This is ridiculous. Me in this stupid suit and going up there with my tail between my legs. Let’s go see the parade and chalk this one up to…”
Bob grabbed Franck by the roomy collar, and directed him across the street. The house was medium sized, Victorian, needed paint, had a big front yard with several oaks and maple trees, one of them bright red, and one yellow.
Walking up the sidewalk to the house seemed to take about an hour, as far as Franck was concerned. No one answered the doorbell for a long time.
“Come on, let’s go,” said Franck, “No one’s home.”
“You have to wait more than 5 seconds, Franck. Ring it again. And Franck, put on the charm.”
There was movement inside. They noticed a curtain at the window to the side of the door fall back in place. Someone must have peered out. Franck shuddered; for a moment he pictured a giant rat queen squinting at him.
The door opened. A short, spry lady, slightly bent over, with white hair, wearing an orange and black sweater, leaned out the door and said, “Sorry boys, I’m all set. I read the Bible my own way and I don’t have time for chat this morning. Bye.”
“Wait! Miss Caswell?” said Bob. “We just want to introduce ourselves.”
She hesitated and looked them over.
Franck gave her a big, pleasant smile, and said, “I just want to apologize to you, Ms Caswell.”
She turned her head and squinted at him sidelong. “What for?”
“For driving on your grass. I didn’t mean to scare the horses.”
Her eyes opened wide. “That was you, was it,” she said quietly.
Suddenly she laughed. “You two come in here for some coffee and you explain yourselves. Come on, get in here.”
They bustled inside, looking at each other, stunned, and followed Nancy Caswell into the kitchen.
“Now you sit yourselves right there and tell me what that escapade of yours was all about,” she commanded, as she filled a pot with water, set it on the stove, and measured ground coffee into it.
They sat speechless for a moment.
“Well I can’t explain it, Ms Caswell,” said Franck, feeling uncharacteristically shaken. Usually he could perform as needed, when needed. Feeling shaken up was for later.
“I didn’t mean to scare your horse, and I can help fix whatever might have happened to that hill you have. I’m sorry it ever happened.”
Nancy Caswell laid out three plates. “You’ll have to have a bit of my pineapple cake while you’re waiting for the coffee. You know, if you didn’t have that colorful hat, Mr – what did you say your name was?”
“Franck Wainwright.”
“Yes, if you didn’t have that nice hat, I would have slammed the door in your faces. I was sure you were missionaries. But your hat gave it away. And your messy hair too. That’s not too missionary-like.”
“Well it was Bob thought we should wear suits.”
“Ah, yes, And you’re Bob…”
“Bob McIver, ma’m.”
“You’re kidding. That’s the same name as my next door neighbor. Oh, nice man, so sad. So sad. Oh my.”
She cut up the cake, and brought it to the table. The coffee water started boiling and she turned off the flame.
“Of course you don’t look like our Robert next door.” She laughed. “Why, one time, not long after I met him, he and Catherine were sitting there enjoying the sun, and he’s a good sized black man, well brown, really, you know some folks directly from Africa are pure black, and he’s more like a dark tan, so they’re out in the back sitting in the delightful sun on a summer day and I brought them over some lemonade, you know, a neighborly thing to do, and I say to him, ‘Getting a nice sun tan, are we?’ and I could see him deciding whether to get my joke or to bust me in the nose, and then he burst out laughing! It was priceless, boys, you had to be there, and we were good friends after that.”
She set out mugs for everyone.
Bob shifted in his seat and took a bite of the cake. “Delicious cake, Miss Caswell.”
“You boys can call me Mrs Caswell. I lost my husband a good ten years ago now. My two grown boys come see me now and then, so it’s good to keep the house. And then there are my horses. I’d be nothing without them.”
“Have you kept horses a long time?”
“Oh dear, all my life, it seems. I grew up in Saratoga Springs, by the racetracks, you know. Mmmm. Nothing like getting up at 6 in the morning and getting that first whiff of coffee and horseshit.”
She poured coffee into mugs straight from the stove. “Best coffee, boys, just boil it in the pot. The grounds sink to the bottom and you just pour it off the top. I hope you like it flavorful.”
“You mean strong? Yes, I do,” said Bob. “But I like decaf. Caffeine does bad things to me, I have to say.”
“Oh well why didn’t you say so? I’ll fix you some, maybe after we go see the horses, how about that?”
“No that’s okay, Mrs Caswell, I had some this morning.”
“Here you go, Franck. Now where are you boys from?”
“You mean originally?” said Franck.
“I’m from Lewsbury, Mrs Caswell,” said Bob. “Never been far from home, except when I went to college down in North Carolina.”
“Oh, I have a few good friends from over in Lewsbury there. Nice town. What about you, Franck?”
“Well I’ve been all over, really. I guess I kind of grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut, but we moved a lot when I was a kid. And then college out in Ohio, and a little traveling, and now here. I’m not really from anywhere yet. I kind of like adventures now and then, you know. Well, except I didn’t mean, like here, you know, with the driving and all, on the grass, well not that kind of adventure at all.”
“You know, my boys used to have escapades like that. Doing stupid things.” She looked at him sharply. “What were you doing over at the McIver place? No one lives there any more, you know.”
“I – I was just visiting. It’s a beautiful home. A friend of mine, he works for the bank, invited me to come see it. He and I play music together.”
“So you drove on back and right onto the field and scared my horses and destroyed the mound and alighted back on your branch again.”
“Well, you could say it that way.”
“A man from the bank, you say?”
“Yes, he gave me a little tour of the place.”
Bob couldn’t help eyeing Franck with a look that said, “what the hell are you doing?” but said nothing, figuring Franck might possibly know what he was doing.
“It’s such an interesting house, Mrs Caswell, isn’t it? With the high ceilings on the first floor and low on the second, so low I kept feeling like I was going to hit my head. And all those photos of people, people in the family, I figured.”
“Yes, that family’s been there forever. I only came here in the 70s after we got married and traveled a bit. With young kids, we needed the space for a family and to have horses again.”
“How long have you known Bob McIver?” asked Bob.
“Oh about 45 minutes!” said Nancy Caswell, and laughed. “Right. Our neighbor. Well, first of all, his name is Robert. You won’t catch him or anyone else calling him Bob. Let’s see, he was gone when we moved in here. Off sowing his wild oats, I guess. He would have been in his 30s when he came back to town. Let’s see, his dad was about 10 years older than me. Dear man, Sam. Oh boy, I’d have to figure it out on paper. Say, I do have something to show you boys. Come with me. Just leave the plates there, that’s fine.” She walked spryly to a glass door looking out at the bright sun in the back yard, and held it open for Bob and Franck.
The strong smell of coffee mixed with the lovely aroma of horseshit. With a chuckle, Franck mused that this must make Mrs Caswell very happy. Past the gravel drive she opened a tall gate. They passed through a fenced-in yard that was open to the stables.
“When you’re done with that, take Sparky out, will you?” shouted Mrs Caswell to a girl working in the stable. The girl waved.
They straddled the fence on the far side and walked on out into the grassy field.
“Beautiful old house, that is,” said Mrs Caswell, pointing to the parsonage house. “Did you see the posts and beams?”
“Um, no, what do you mean?” said Franck.
“Well, in that house you can see how in the old days they made supporting posts just by squaring off tree trunks and turning them upside down. That way, the thick part of the trunk was at the top, you see, so they had more space to cut in a big notch, and hold up the cross beams. Take a look next time, in every corner of every room. You’ll see. When are you visiting next? You’re friends of the McIvers?”
“Just friends of this one,” said Franck, pointing to Bob, who was trailing them as they trudged across the field. “No, at the house I was just friends with the banker there.”
“Oh, yes, the banker. Now I wonder what he was doing in there? I’m sure they haven’t been paying the mortgage for a long time. That must be the problem. They ran out of money just paying health insurance premiums plus medical bills. You would think the insurance was there to pay the medical bills, wouldn’t you? No, they’re just another bill, and for hardly anything, I can tell you. The hospitals jack up the cost of everything and we’re left paying a big bill anyway – plus the insurance. A big racket. Here we are.”
They had reached the grassy mound that Franck skimmed during his wild ride. Franck didn’t really want to be there. He hung back as Bob caught up to Mrs Caswell.
“What’s this?” Bob asked. “What are we looking at?”
“See there,” said Mrs Caswell. “All fallen in. This boy went swerving around and clipped the edge of this hill and there we have it, a cave-in.”
Franck stepped up. “I’m sorry, Mrs Caswell, I was just heading for the edge of the trees to get to the driveway over there and I miscalculated, is all. It looks like I could have knocked the whole thing in and sank into it, car and all, if I had hit it head on. Wow. Why is it hollow? What’s in there?”
“That was the edge of the old tunnel from the parsonage house.”
“Tunnel?” Franck’s eyes opened wide.
“Did you ever hear of the Underground Railroad? They used to sneak slaves out of the South and smuggle them as far as they could every night, staying by day at houses like this one, all the way up to Montreal.”
“Underground Railroad?” asked Bob. “From where?”
“Well of course you know it wasn’t a railway, they just called it that. This was one of the stations. The slaves would come in, maybe by train or by wagon, and sneak in through the tunnel to the basement of the house. Couldn’t have a bunch of slaves come in the front door. Slave hunters could find them if people saw them around.”
Franck gulped. He steadied himself and asked, “Did they go in and did they stay in the basement by the big hearth there?”
“Oh I don’t know how they did it. You saw that big huge stone fireplace in the basement there? They must have used that if they had to cook for a whole wagonload of escaping slaves.”
Franck was recalling the picture he’d had in his mind when he made up, or thought he’d made up, the story of slaves in the basement, for Zeke the banker. He pictured that basement chock full of refugees warming themselves and cooking and resting.
“Franck, isn’t that what you were telling me about, about the basement there?” asked Bob.
“Uh, yeah, that was it, right, that was what I was talking about.”
“Oh, that house has treasures, I think. Did you see the plaque out front, on the little boulder? The Historical Society put that up years ago,” said Mrs Caswell. “I’m glad the McIvers have taken pretty good care of the house. It’s been in their family forever, I think. I don’t know what will happen now. A banker, huh?”
“Yeah, nice guy.”
“They usually seem nice. If he’s in there they might be thinking foreclosure, did he say anything about that?”
“Y-yes, he did,” stumbled Franck. “I think he said something about next month.”
“Really! I’ve been afraid of that. No idea what a bank would do with that house, or with the property. I’ve been using this field for my horses for as long as I can remember. The McIvers have been awfully nice about it.”
“So this isn’t your land here?” Bob said.
“No, I just borrow it from them. They never use it. Maybe when their kids were growing up they did. It would have made a great baseball field. And they hardly ever used that little horse barn they have, that I know of. It used to have a few stalls built into the first floor – I think they’re still there, even, but years ago they remodeled it into a guest house. Now it’s just a big storage bin, full of junk.”
They turned back toward Mrs Caswell’s house.
Franck couldn’t help staring at the horse barn and then at the parsonage house, and back at the entrance to the tunnel. The horses were out again in the field. One of them trotted over toward the grassy mound. Franck turned uneasily and followed Bob and Nancy Caswell back into the house.