South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [116]
Madeline was impressed. That look of desolation had come and gone fast, but it had been there, and here Gladys was planning the party.
They finished dinner and Madeline cleared the table. Greyson wanted to paint pictures (Like her? Maybe. She felt a flash of terrible, vulnerable tenderness at this.) and brought the sketch pad and set of watercolors she’d given him to the table and set to work. Pete headed back to the hotel to check the radiators. “Don’t want you two to freeze in your beds tonight,” he said as he left. The night before, Madeline had woken Up at three shivering, and padded around the cavernous building with a flashlight to find all the radiators cold. Pete thought he had fixed the problem that afternoon. Gladys and Arbutus retired to the front room. Madeline could hear the low murmur of voices.
She carried the platter on which the chicken had been served over to the hutch near the parlor to put it away, and heard Gladys say, hesitantly, “Where will you live, then? After you’re married?” Madeline stayed to hear the answer.
“Live? Why, in my house, my house that Pete just bought of all things.” She laughed at the strangeness of the way things worked out, and then she said, puzzled, “What did you think?”
“I—didn’t know. I thought maybe Pete would want you to move down there to Chicago. Thought maybe you’d want to go. Be closer to Nathan and all. You can, you know. I’m fine here. It’d all be different this time, I don’t blame you if you want to go.”
Arbutus laughed. “We’ll live right here, McAllaster is my home. Why, how could I ever leave you? Pete knows that. And he loves it here. I’m sure we’ll go down to visit, but I am too old and set in my ways to move to the city.”
“Oh,” Gladys said, brusque. Madeline felt as relieved as she had to be. “Have you told Nathan yet?”
Arbutus hesitated before she admitted, “No. I’m afraid he’s not going to like it. You know how he is, so conventional. I guess I can’t blame him, I’m sure it will come as a shock.”
“What if he tries to stop you? Tries to get you declared incompetent ? I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Oh, no, he won’t do that.” Arbutus sounded very certain.
“How can you be so sure? If I know Nathan that’ll be the first thing on his mind, now that there is some actual money involved.”
“No, you see, I already gave it to him. I knew it would prey on his mind as long as I had it. Now that our bills are caught Up and I’ve put a little aside, I didn’t see where I needed it. I’m glad not to have the worry of it.”
If Madeline hadn’t already set the platter down, she might have dropped it.
“Arbutus! You didn’t! That’s your security.”
“Of course it isn’t. I have my house, and you, and Pete now too. And Madeline will be right Up the street in the hotel. If that’s not a miracle I don’t know what is. And I have Nathan. He’ll take care of me, if need be.”
“He’ll put you in a home, is what he’ll do, we’ve already seen that.”
“Well, so be it. People do end Up in homes, that’s the way of life. It’s no tragedy. I’ve had a good life. I’m getting married, Glad, think of that.”
“But, Butte, to just give him all your money, I can’t believe—”
“He’s my boy, my only child. I didn’t need the money.”
“But the future, you don’t know what might happen.”
“The Lord will provide. He always has. You know it as well as I do.”
Gladys was silenced by this. Madeline wondered if she agreed or didn’t. She picked the platter Up and fitted it into its place in the stack on the shelf, then bent over Greyson on her way back to the sink to see what he was painting.
“It’s the hotel,” he said, chewing a little on the end of his