Secrets of the Morning Read online

  "Well, pick up your luggage and come on in," she said. "We have no servants for that sort of thing here. This isn't a hotel."

  "Yes, ma'am," I repeated. She stood back to let me pass, and as I did so, I got a whiff of her strong, almost overpowering cologne. It smelled like a combination of jasmine and roses, as if she had sprayed one scent on, forgot, and then sprayed another.

  I paused in the entryway. It had a cherry wood floor and a long, rather worn looking oval rug. The Oriental pattern was almost faded. As soon as we stepped in and I had closed the second set of doors behind me, a grandfather clock on my right chimed.

  "Mr. Fairbanks is introducing himself," she said, turning to the tall clock encased in a rich mahogany wood. It had Roman numerals for numbers and thick, black hands with ends that looked more like tiny fingers pointing to the hour.

  "Mr. Fairbanks?" I asked, confused.

  "The grandfather clock," she said as if I should have known. "I have given most of my possessions names, the names of famous actors with whom I once worked. It makes the house more . . . more . . ." She looked about as if the words were somewhere in the air to be plucked. "More personal. Why?" she asked quickly, "do you disapprove?" Her eyes grew small and she pulled her lips so tight the corners became white.

  "Oh, no," I replied.

  "I hate people who disapprove of something just because they didn't think of it first." She ran the palm of her hand up the side of the grandfather clock cabinet and smiled as if it were indeed a person standing there. "Oh Romeo, Romeo," she whispered. I shifted my feet. The suitcases were heavy and I was standing with them in my hands. It was as if she had forgotten I was there.

  "Ma'am?" I said. She snapped her head around and glared at me as if to say "Who was I to interrupt?"

  "Continue," she said, waving toward the hallway.

  Directly ahead of us was a stairway with a thick, hand-carved brown balustrade. The gray carpet on the steps looked as worn as the entryway carpet. The walls were covered with old pictures of actors and actresses, singers and dancers, framed clippings of theater reviews and pictures of performers with accompanying articles. The house itself had a pleasant musty scent to it. It looked clean and neat and a great deal nicer than most of the places Daddy and Momma Longchamp had taken Jimmy and me and Fern to live in. But that seemed ages and ages ago now, as though it all happened in another life.

  Agnes stopped at the entrance to a room on our right.

  "This is our sitting room," she said, "where we entertain our guests. Go in and sit down," she directed. "We'll have our first talk immediately so there are no misunderstandings." She paused and pursed her lips. "I suppose you're hungry."

  "Yes," I said. "I came right from the airport and I didn't have anything on the plane."

  "It's past the lunch hour and I don't like Mrs. Liddy having to work around the students' whims, eating and not eating when they feel like it. She's nobody's slave," she added.

  "I'm sorry. I really don't mean to put anyone out." I didn't know what to say. She had been the one to suggest eating and now she was making me feel terrible for confessing I was hungry.

  "Go on in," she commanded.

  "Thank you," I said and turned to enter. She seized my shoulder and stopped me.

  "No, no. Always hold your head high, like this, when you enter a room," she said, demonstrating. "That way everyone will notice you and sense your stage presence. You might as well learn the correct things right away," she said and sauntered off down the corridor.

  As soon as she was gone, I turned back to the room. The sunlight through the pale ivory sheers was misted and frail and gave the sitting room a dreamlike quality. The chintz sofa and matching side chair with its high back and cushioned arms were both worn and comfortable looking. On the coffee table were copies of theater magazines and an old rocking chair sat across from the sofa.

  In the corner to my right, next to a beautiful desk, was a table of dark oak with an old-fashioned record player just like the one in the RCA logo, and a pile of old records beside it. The top record was the aria from the opera Madame Butterfly. Over the fireplace mantel was a painting of a stage play. It looked like the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

  On the other side of the room was a piano. I looked at the sheet music opened on it and saw it was a Mozart concerto, something I had played in Richmond. I felt like sitting down and playing it now. The tips of my fingers tingled in expectation. It was as if I had never been away from it.

  Behind the piano were shelves filled with copies of plays and old novels and a glass case full of things from plays: old programs, pictures of actors and actresses, props, including a colorful mask like the kind worn at fancy costume balls, some glass figurines and a pair of castanets with a note under it that read, "Given to me by Rudolph Valentino."

  My gaze fell on a silver framed photograph of what had to be a very young Agnes Morris. I took it into my hands to look at it more closely. Without the heavy makeup, she looked fresh and pretty.

  "You shouldn't touch things without permission." jumped at the sound of Agnes's voice and pivoted to see she was standing in the doorway, her hands pressed to her chest.

  "I'm sorry, I was just . . ."

  "Although I want the students to feel at home here, they must respect my possessions."

  "I'm sorry," I said again. I put the picture back quickly.

  "I have a number of valuable artifacts, things that you can't replace no matter how much money you have because they are associated with memories, and memories are more precious than diamonds or gold." She came farther into the room and gazed at the picture.

  "It's a very nice picture," I said. Her face softened some.

  "Whenever I look at that picture now, I think I'm looking at a complete stranger. That was taken the first time I appeared on a stage."

  "Really? You look so young," I said.

  "I wasn't much older than you." She tilted her head and swung her eyes so she gazed toward the brass light fixture on the ceiling. "I had met and worked with the great Stanislavsky. I played Ophelia in Hamlet and got rave reviews."

  She peered at me to see if I were impressed, but I had never heard of Stanislavsky.

  "Sit down," she said sharply. "Mrs. Liddy will be in shortly with your tea and sandwiches, although you mustn't expect to be waited on hand and foot after this."

  I sat on the sofa and she sat in the rocker across from it.

  "I know a little about you," she said, nodding, her eyes small and her lips tucked tightly together. Suddenly, she reached under the waist of her skirt to produce a letter. What an odd place to keep it, I thought. She held up the envelope as if to show me she possessed some valuable secret thing. The instant I saw the Cutler Cove Hotel stationery, my heart began to flutter.

  She took the letter out of the envelope. From the way it was folded and creased, it looked like she had been reading it every hour on the hour since it had arrived. "This is a letter from your grandmother. A letter to introduce you," she added.

  "Oh?"

  "Yes." She raised her eyebrows and leaned forward to peer right into my face. "She has told me about some of your problems."

  "My problems?" Had Grandmother Cutler put my dreadful story in writing? Why? Did she hope to make me seem freakish and curious even before I had begun here? If she had, it was only to make sure I failed to follow my dream.

  "Yes," Agnes said, nodding and sitting back in the rocker. She fanned herself with the letter. "Your problems at school. How they had to transfer you from school to school because of the difficulties you had getting along with other students your age."

  "She told you that?"

  "Yes, and I'm glad she did," Agnes replied quickly. "But, I didn't have any trouble at school. I've always been a good student and . . ."

  "There's no point in denying anything. It's all here in black and white," she said, tapping the letter. "Your grandmother is a very important and distinguished woman. It must have broken her heart to have had t
o write these things." She sat back. "You've been quite a burden to your family, especially to your grandmother."

  "That's not so," I protested.

  "Please." When she raised her hand, I saw that her fingers were turned and twisted with arthritis and her hand looked more like the hand of a witch. "Nothing matters now but your next performance."

  "Performance?"

  "How you behave here while you are under my wing," she explained.

  "What else did my grandmother write?"

  "That's confidential," she said as she folded the letter. She stuffed it back into the envelope and returned it to where she kept it under her skirt.

  "But it's information about me!" I protested.

  "That's not the point. Don't be argumentative," she said before I could respond any further. "Now then," she concluded, "since you do have this unfortunate past history, I'm afraid I'm going to have to consider you under probation."

  "Under probation? But I've just arrived and I haven't done anything wrong."

  "Nevertheless, it's a precaution I must take. You must not violate a single rule," she warned me, shaking her long forefinger. "No one stays out later than ten P.M. on weekdays and no later than midnight on weekends, and only when I know where he or she is going.

  "Excessive noise is not permitted ever. And no one is ever to be messy or in any way damage or vandalize my home. You understand that while you are here, you are a guest in my house, don't you?"

  "Yes, ma'am," I said softly. "But since the letter from my grandmother was about me, can't you tell me what else she said?"

  Before she could reply, a plump, round-faced woman with blue-gray hair and friendly eyes, who stood no more than five feet tall, arrived carrying a tray with a sandwich and a cup of tea. She had roller-pin arms and small hands with pudgy fingers and she wore a light blue dress with a yellow flowered apron over it. I felt warmth and friendliness in her smile immediately.

  "So this is our new Sarah Bernhardt, is it?" she asked.

  "Yes, Mrs. Liddy. Our new prima donna," Agnes said and twisted her mouth up into her cheek. "Dawn, this is Mrs. Liddy. She's the one who really runs the house. You are to listen to her the same as you would listen to me. I will not tolerate anyone being nasty to Mrs. Liddy," she emphasized.

  "Oh, I don't think this one will be anything but nice, Mrs. Morris. Hello, m'dear." She put the tray on the coffee table and stood back with her hands on her hips. "And welcome."

  "Thank you."

  "Pretty one," Mrs. Liddy said to Agnes.

  "Yes, but the pretty ones are often the ones who get into the most difficulty," Agnes snapped.

  With both of them staring at me, I felt as if I were encased in glass just like the theater artifacts.

  "Well, m'dear," Mrs. Liddy said, "I'm in the kitchen most of the morning. If there's anything you need, you can come see me there. We like everyone to have his or her bed turned down by ten at the latest on weekends and once a week we do a thorough sweep of the house. Everyone helps."

  "Yes," Agnes said, cutting her eyes toward me. "We all work here. The girls tie their hair up, slap on the oldest blouse and skirt, and roll up their sleeves, just like the boys. Windows are washed, bathrooms scrubbed down. I compare it to breaking down a set," she added. "I imagine you know what that means, don't you?"

  I shook my head.

  Agnes's eyes widened as though she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

  "When a play has finished its run, the actors and the crew tear down the scenery so the next play can begin."

  At that point Mrs. Liddy smiled at me and left. "Have you ever had piano lessons?" Agnes asked. "A little," I said.

  "Good. You will play for us during our artistic gatherings. I try to bring everyone together once a month for recitals. Some of the students recite lines from plays; some sing, some play instruments.

  "But, that will be later on when the school year begins. I don't have many students here during the summer session. Actually, there are only two at present. But in the fall, we'll pick up three more. The Beldock twins are returning, and one, Donald Rossi, is brand new, just like you.

  "Trisha Kramer has agreed to share her room with you. If you can't get along with Trisha, I will have to move you into the attic or ask you to leave. She's a delightful young lady and a promising young dancer. It would be dreadful if anything happened to make her unhappy here. Do I make myself clear on that score?" she asked.

  "Yes, ma'am." I could only wonder what lies Agnes had passed on to my prospective roommate.

  "And I especially don't want you disturbing the other student who is here," she warned. "His name is Arthur Garwood." She sighed and shook her head. "He's a sensitive young man studying the oboe. His parents are quite famous: Bernard and Louelia Garwood. They play in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

  "Well, I see you enjoyed your little snack. I will show you the rest of the house and take you to your room."

  "Thank you." I stood up. "Should I take this tray back into the kitchen?"

  "Absolutely. According to your grandmother, you are quite used to being waited on, but I'm afraid . . ."

  "That's not true!" I exclaimed. "I've never been waited on."

  Her eyes grew small and watchful and for a long moment she stared at me.

  "Follow me to the kitchen. We'll come back for your suitcases after I've shown you the rest of the house."

  I followed Agnes out and down the hallway. The kitchen and the dining room were at the far end. The kitchen was small with a kitchenette table and chairs in the center and a window that looked out on another building, which meant there would be no sunlight here in the morning. Even so, Mrs. Liddy had everything looking so spick and span: the light yellow linoleum shining, the appliances glittering clean, that the room sparkled.

  The dining room was long and narrow with a big chandelier of teardrop glass. The table could easily seat a dozen or so people. Right now it had a crystal centerpiece with a vase of flowers beside it and four place mats set at the far end, which I quickly imagined was there for myself, the other two students and Agnes Morris.

  "Trisha set the table this morning," Agnes explained. "Each of the students takes his or her turn for a week setting the table and clearing the dishes. And no one complains," she added pointedly.

  There were no windows in the dining room, but the right wall was covered with a long floor-to-ceiling mirror, which made the room look even longer and wider. The opposite wall was peppered with pictures of dancers and singers, musicians and actors. From the way some of the pictures had faded into sepia, I knew they were quite old. The floor was carpeted in dark brown and the carpet looked far newer than the rug in the entryway.

  Agnes led me through the dining room to a short corridor. She explained that her room was here and Mrs. Liddy's room was at the far end. She paused at her door and her eyes seemed to soften a bit.

  "If you ever need to talk, just knock softly on my door anytime," she said. I was surprised, but happy she had finally said something nice to me.

  "It's one of the reasons why my house is so popular with the out of town students. I, having been in the theater, can appreciate the problems performing arts students face. I understand and I can empathize." Sometimes, when she spoke to me, she made her gestures so big, it was as if we were both on a stage before an audience and our conversation was dialogue written for a play.

  "Knock like this," she said and tapped gently on her own door. "Then wait. I'll say, enter. You turn the handle slowly and open the door gradually, an inch or so at a time," she said in a loud whisper and demonstrated. "I hate it when doors are thrust open."

  I stared at her, fascinated by her every move, the soft way she spoke. I had never had anyone take such care showing me how to enter a room. Then my eyes swung from her to the doorway and I saw the curtain. It was in two sections, draped from the ceiling to the floor about five feet or so inside the door. Anyone who came into the room would have to separate the curtains and walk through,
just like he or she would separate a curtain to enter a stage. Before I could ask about it, she closed the door softly and turned to me.

  "Do you understand everything I've told you?" she asked.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Good. Let me show you your room."

  We returned to the sitting room to pick up my luggage and then proceeded up the stairway to the second floor, which contained four bedrooms. There were two bathrooms on this floor, one on each side.

  "Now," Agnes said, pausing in front of the bathroom on the left, "although everyone could use either one in an emergency, I like to keep this one reserved for males and the other one for females. We mustn't abuse our bathrooms," she emphasized. "We must always keep the others in mind and not be selfish and take up too much time doting on ourselves.

  "As long as I've had students here," she said softly, "I haven't had any problems having both boys and girls. That's because we all use discretion," she said. "We don't spend inordinate time alone with a member of the opposite sex and never close the door when we are alone. Am I quite understood in this?" she asked.

  "I'm afraid you have been misinformed about me," I said and felt the tears burning under my eyelids.

  "Please, my dear Dawn. Let's not bring a single note of unpleasantness into this opening scene. Let it all go like clockwork—all of us in tune with each other, all of us taking cues from each other. I just know we'll have curtain call after curtain call after curtain call. Don't you?" she said, smiling at me.

  I didn't know what to say. Curtain calls for what? Using the bathrooms fairly? Not getting into trouble with boys? What cues did she mean? All I could do was nod.

  She opened the door and stepped into the bedroom.

  "It might not be as large and elaborate as what you've been accustomed to, but I am rather proud of my accommodations," she said.

  I didn't reply. I could see it would do no good to defend myself right now. Her impression of me had already been poisoned by Grandmother Cutler.

  The room was sweet. There were two white post beds with headboards and a night stand between them. The night stand had a lamp with a bell-shaped shade on it. The floor wasn't carpeted, but there was a rather large pink throw rug between the two beds. The bedding matched the pink in the rug. Each of the two small windows on the right above the two student desks were covered with white cotton curtains that had lace edging. There were shades on the windows, both drawn up at present to permit whatever sunlight squeezed in between this building and the one beside it. There were two dressers, and a large closet with a sliding door.