Gindle

Gindle



   Gindle thought the sweep of the lawn down to the sea very impressive but the house itself tattered and in need of much repair. So was the middle aged man who picked her up at the airport, a tall, bony man, who she at first thought to be Mr. Calico, but when she addressed him as such he laughed heartily and said no, no, he was only the chauffer and the man of all trades about the house. Mr. Calico was known to be an eccentric and a recluse and the outlandish costume of the chauffer seemed to fit the bill. His pants were a Napoleonic blue, his cap so grimy it was impossible to tell what color it was or if it was cotton or wool and his woolen coat, smeared with what seemed to be a mixture of grease and ashes, was held together with a slight gap between the edges by three pieces of baling wire looped through the buttonholes.

   When they drove through the trees and up to the house, he said, “Well, here it is miss, the auld wreck, as you can see.”

   It was an ‘auld wreck’ but a glorious one. Built of sawn granite, with stone lintels, cornice gargoyles, massive mullioned windows, it thrust up into the twilight, huge and menacing. The central section, before which they had come to a halt, was a hundred feet across, and out from it, on either side were three story wings, extending another seventy-five or eighty feet. The paint on the windows was peeling; some of the gutters had come loose and were dangling uselessly. The roof of the long wooden verandah leading up to the front door was holed here and there and the railing rotted and sagging. The top story windows in the wing to the left were boarded up with plywood, black with age. The front steps leaned to the right and forward, so that climbing them had to it a nautical feel. When they reached the top, Samuel grasped her by the elbow and led her in a circuitous route around the worst of the deck rot. The boards were covered with a black slime and in several spots there were gaping holes.

    The house had been constructed fifty years before, long after the advent of modernity had thrust such buildings back into the mists of history. Gindle marveled at the wealth necessary to build such a structure in an age in which it was an act of nostalgia requiring an enormous layout for special orders, the importing of stoneworkers and specialty carpenters. Perhaps the expense had crippled the Calico fortune and thus led to its present state of disrepair. One day, after she had settled in, she would ask Samuel. This was the only name the chauffer had given her, claiming himself to be an informal man and ‘not like the boss (Mr. Calico she presumed) who was a ‘keener’ on formalities.’ Samuel claimed no one had called the boss by his Christian name for more than thirty years.

   “You mean he has no intimates?” Gindle asked.

   “O he has intimates, Miss, but not the kind who call him by his Christian name, if you know what I mean.”

   Gindle did not know what he meant but thought it better, at this stage in their acquaintance, to let this remark pass by without comment. Samuel let them in the front door, working the lock on the big oak door with an oversized key. She followed him up the main stairs, which began just past the entrance vestibule, to the secfond floor where he opened a door already ajar with his shoulder and deposited her two bags inside the door. “Got to be off, Miss,” he said and was gone.

   The room was huge, thirty feet square, the floor covered with Turkish carpets, (mismatched and faded) and cast now, by the increasingly darkening twilight and the closed drapes across the windows, into a middling gloom. She crossed the floor and attempted to open the drapes, unsuccessfully.

   “They are sewn together at the top so it is useless for you to try and yank them open,”
said a thin voice from one of the darkened corners. So thin and weak was the voice that Grindle was surprised rather than frightened. She looked in its direction and saw a short, fat woman dressed in a maid’s outfit. As if in answer to an unvoiced question this figure continued, “I’m Cicily, the maid, in case you are wondering. I cleaned this room yesterday but I don’t know if it did much good. The carpets are old and musty and should be sent out for cleaning but the boss won’t have anything to do with that. Well, at least I cleaned all the surfaces of the furniture and put clean linen on the bed. Better than nothing I suppose.”

   “Very much better,” said Grindle, “and I thank you. But the effort might have been wasted I’m afraid. The kitchen is in the basement, Samuel tells me, and I would much prefer a room off of the kitchen even if it is a lot smaller.”

   “There is one but, as you say, it is a lot smaller. Maybe a quarter of the size of this and it has only one window and that small. Of course, since these drapes don’t open and the boss refuses to allow anyone to open them, any window open to the light and air would be an improvement. If you want I could help you down with your bags and we could clean it together and find linen for the bed. I cleaned it three weeks ago and it has been closed against the dust so it shouldn’t be too bad.”

   “That would be wonderful,” said Gindle. Cicily took hold of one bag, Gindle the other, and, Cicily leading the way, they walked down the stairs to the first floor, along a corridor for some way and down another flight of stairs into the basement. 

   This room, much smaller, perhaps fifteen by fifteen, suited Grindle to a T. Not only was it right off the kitchen but it had a window looking out into the garden and it was sufficiently large without having the feeling of a warehouse to it, like the room upstairs. It contained a writing desk, a cupboard, a bed, two bureaus and a bookcase. On the wall above the bed was a painting of a young woman, seated in a wicker chair in a garden, perhaps the one outside the window. She seemed the picture of a dreamy woman of leisure and Gindle wondered what her painting was doing in a bedroom to be occupied by a cook or a maid. “Who is she?” she asked Cicily.

   “Was. She was the last cook but two. She’s dead now.”

   “Dead? The last cook but two? How old is the painting?”

   Cicily puckered up her face in concentration, and, after what seemed a great effort, came up with, “three years I believe. Yes, three years this coming July.”

   “Then she would have died very young. What did she die of?”

   “She fell from the roof of the main building onto the stones of the driveway.”

   “What was she be doing on the roof?”

   “Some say she was flighty and romantic. Maybe she was looking at the stars.”

    “Perhaps I’ll take the painting down and put it into storage.”

   “O I wouldn’t do that, Miss. No, no, that wouldn’t be the proper thing to do at all. The boss would be very disturbed if he heard of such a thing. They say he had an affection for the young woman, that is in a fatherly sort of way. So kindly did he feel toward her that he had a painter come in and do her portrait, a very expensive enterprise, very expensive.”

   The two women busied themselves and soon the bed was made with fresh linen, the surfaces wiped with a damp cloth and the tile floor mopped from a bucket of hot, sudsy water. Gindle opened the window to let in some air. She thanked Cicily and the maid, after a strange salute with her left had which could have been either a salute or a spasm of some kind, quickly slipped out the door. After making herself a sandwich in the kitchen. Gindle went to bed early for she had been traveling all day and was exhausted.


   When Gindle got up in the morning and went into the kitchen she was surprised that it was so well equipped. Considering the run down look of the house from the outside she had expected to find things old and behind the times. Instead there was a huge modern gas range with eight burners and two ovens, food processor, bread dough machine, etc. After taking breakfast upstairs to the boss, Cicily came in and had coffee at the long wooden table. “Doesn’t Samuel eat in the kitchen?” Gindle asked her.

   “No. He has a separate little house to himself at the back and does for himself. He comes in now and again for coffee, perhaps two or three times a week. ”

   “Any others?”

   “There is a young boy who comes in the evening and on weekends this time of the year. He works the garden and the grounds although not so vigorously that it interferes with his daydreaming. He’s always looking for something to eat and if you let him he will talk your ear off. Then there are two old maid sisters who come in five days a week to do a general cleaning.  They will ask for all kinds of special food from you, claiming their delicate digestive systems can deal with nothing else. In truth they have the digestive systems of horses and are only trying to lever a little more payment from the boss in the form of expensive meals. I tell you so you will know. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.”

   “Why, thank you Cicily. I appreciate it.” Actually Gindle did appreciate this warning but not in the way Cicily no doubt intended it. She determined that she would keep on hand a ready supply of pies, date squares, freshly made bread for the boy and once she discovered what delicacies the old ladies liked, she would find some way of hiding their purchase in the kitchen accounts, for to Gindle, to deny people wholesome, well cooked food was a terrible sin. It was her opinion that much of the wickedness and suffering in the world rose directly from people eating tasteless and unhealthy meals.

   The boy arrived the next afternoon. He was a thin, sorrowful lad with a great mop of uncut hair sticking out in all directions. He came into the kitchen as if he were expecting to be beaten, one eye on Gindle and one eye on the door through which he had come, ready, if necessary, to beat a hasty retreat.

   “No need to slouch about like a frightened dog, my boy. I won’t hurt you and the food you will get in my kitchen will be better than you’ll get in most and lots of it. So stand up straight first and then come over here to the table and I will give you something good to eat.”

   The boy did as he was asked. When he was seated, Gindle asked him,

   “Did you have supper yet?”

   “No, mam.”
   
   “Fine then. When you have worked for two hours it should be ready and then you can come in and have some. For now, here is a slice of apple pie and a piece of cheese to keep you going.” Gindle put a plate of pie and cheese before him on the table and laid a fork alongside it. The boy looked at the plate of food in amazement for some seconds and then set to demolishing its contents, a feat he accomplished in record time. Gindle gave him a second, smaller piece of pie and he ate that too.

   When he was finished she gave him a cup of tea, set another on the other side of the table and sat down. “Do you like veal cutlets?”

   “Yes, mam. Or at least I think I do. What are they?”

   “Veal is young lamb. Cutlets are like chops and veal cutlets are breaded. I make a mushroom sauce that you pour over the top and they are served with roast potatoes and brocolli.”

   “It sounds wonderful, mam, and I’m sure I will like it.”

   “Didn’t the cooks before me give you meals?”

    “Sort of. Bread and cheese. Old bread and dried up cheese.”



   When he was finished his tea the boy went off to work. He didn’t come in for supper until it was dark. When he was seated and eating, Gindle asked, “Does your mother cook?”

   “My mother is dead.”

   “Father?”

   “Dad eats at the pub so I do for myself.”

    “Do you remember the young cook from three years ago?”

     “Indeed I do, mam. I was only ten then but my Dad did this job before me and sometimes I came to help.”

   “You probably remember her because she was beautiful.”

   The boy blushed a deep red and Gindle regretted what she had said. But the boy quickly shrugged off his embarrassment and said, “she was beautiful but also a good cook. She used to feed Dad and I real meals but out in the garden so they wouldn’t know.”

   “Who wouldn’t know?”

   “Cicily and the boss.”

   “They objected to her serving you meals?”

   “So I gather.”

 
   When the boy was gone Cicily came into the kitchen and sat down at the table to drink a cup of coffee.

   “Mr. Calico would not approve of the boy being fed the same meal served at the main table,” she said.

   “Then he should come and tell me so.”

   “Mr. Calico never comes down into the kitchen. If he has instructions for the cook then he relays them through me.”

    “Then I will relay a reply through you, Cicily. I will be feeding the boy supper and since it is most efficient, and even economical to feed him the same meal as I send to the main table, then I will do so. If Mr. Calico wishes to discuss this with me then he can come down here or summon me upstairs, whichever he prefers.”

   Cicily seemed quite astonished at this reply but she didn’t say anything. She finished her coffee in silence and went up to her bedroom on the second floor.

 
   That night, when Gindle was in bed and falling asleep, there was a scratching at window. She assumed it was a cat but when she got out of bed and went to the window and opened it there was nothing there. At least there was nothing on the windowsill but in the distance at the gate leading through the stone wall out of the garden, her eye caught a movement. It was very dark, just the barest light coming from her own tiny window and a window in the upper floors of the house but it seemed as if a woman wearing a dress and a shawl for the night chill was walking along the wall. But as soon as this impression registered the figure disappeared. Gindle decided it was just a shadow, perhaps created by someone moving across a lighted window upstairs. She closed the window, turned off the light and went back to bed.


   When the boy, Ralph by name, as Gindle discovered on their second meeting, finished his supper the next evening, Gindle asked him, “Do you think the young cook jumped from the roof?”

   Ralph did not seemed upset by this question at all. Gindle had expected him to be a little shocked.
 
   “No,” he said.

   “Then what?”

   “Pushed.”

   “Why do you say that?”

   “Because she wasn’t the kind to kill herself. She was happy and energetic. Why would she kill herself?”

   “Some times people can disguise the symptoms of depression.”

    “No. If you are in the presence of a person for some hours then you know. She was not depressed and did not kill herself. She was pushed.”

   “How can you be so sure? What about slipping? Maybe she went to the edge of the roof  to look over and lost her footing.”

   “If you saw her cross the kitchen just once you would know that didn’t happen. She was as sure footed as a goat.”

   “Was there an inquiry?”

   “Yes.”

   “And what did it say?

   “Accident.”

   “Well?”

   Ralph laughed. “Inquiries around here find answers satisfying to the living. They are not really about what happened to the dead. The judge didn’t know the cook but he did know Mr. Calico.”

   “Are you saying they covered things up?”

   “No. I am saying they had no information so they came up with accidental death. That’s not true but what else could they have done?”

   “Did Mr. Calico appear at the Inquiry?”

   “No. He was ill and his doctor wouldn’t let him leave his bed.”

   “Was he ill?”

   “In a way but not in the way the doctor claimed. He was devastated by the cook’s death. I think Mr. Calico was in love with her. He’s an old man but my Dad tells me sometimes old men fall in love and its worst for them than it is for the young men.”

   “You make it sound as if it were a disease.”

   “Dad says, in a way, it is.”

   “And do you have an opinion of your own?”

   “I have no experience and so no opinion. Yet I suppose it could be both, a disease and a happiness, I mean.”

 
   That night there was another scratching at the window. At first Gindle turned over and tried to ignore it but the scratching continued and she rose and went to the window. When she opened it a cool breeze came in, blowing the stray hair back from her face. There was a woman standing ten feet beyond the window, looking at her. There was enough light for Gindle to identify her as the woman in the painting. She was looking at Gindle with a kindly curiosity. She wasn’t substantial. Gindle could see through her to the garden and the wall beyond. She was wearing a dress and over her shoulders was draped a knitted shawl. “I am not looking for revenge,” she said in a sweet clear voice, the melodious, bird like voice of a happy young woman. Then she disappeared. One millisecond she was there, the next gone. Gindle was not the least bit frightened. She was even sad that the figure disappeared and did not give her an opportunity to speak. She went back to bed and fell asleep almost right away.


   The next morning Samuel came into the kitchen for coffee. After some desultory talk of the weather and the Spring Festival which was to be put on the next weekend in the little town nearby, Gindle asked him, “Did you know the cook who fell from the roof?”

   “Yes, of course. I’ve been here for a dog’s age.”

   “And what did you think of her.”

   “A very nice young woman.”

   “That’s it?

   “What else would there be? I hardly knew her. She was only here for a year before she died and in those days I seldom came into the kitchen.”

   “But she was such a good cook they say.”

   “Apparently, but I was warned away from that.”

   “Warned away?”

   “Told to keep my distance.”

   “By whom?”

   “His nibs. The boss.”

   “Mr. Calico?”

   “There is only one.”

   “Why?”

   “Well now, that’s quite a question. My answers would be speculative for I don’t really know why.”

   “Then what are your speculations?”

   “The old man had the hots for her. For another man to be near her made him jealous. Which is ridiculous for I was old enough to be her father and have no inclinations towards lurking about robbing cradles.  But then the boss was old enough to be her grandfather, so there you go.”

   “Do you think she jumped from the roof?”

   “No.”

   “That she fell, then?”

   “No.”

   “She was pushed?”

   “Probably.”

   By who?”

   “The auld witch.”

  “One of the cleaning sisters?”

   “No, no. Auld hide in the corner.”

    “Cicily?”

   “Who else?”


   The cleaning sisters, Gindle found, would have been incapable of pushing anyone off the roof, even six years before, for they were quite crippled with arthritis. When they first came into the kitchen two days after she arrived, it took them five minutes to make it across the floor and seat themselves at the table. This they accomplished by holding onto one another, each serving the other as a living walker. How they managed to do their cleaning was a wonder to Gindle. She supposed they didn’t manage to do much even in five days of work. Perhaps they were kept on because of Mr. Calico’s dislike of having strangers in the house. When they were finally seated in their chairs, on cushions supplied by one from a gigantic cloth bag she carried over her shoulder, they both gave out a heartfelt sigh of relief. Gindle wondered if they did their cleaning in the same way they crossed the floor – clutching onto one another for dear life. When they were settled they both looked at her and smiled.

   “You can’t possibly know, my dear, how debilitating age and arthritis can be,” said one.

  “Or how trying to the spirit,” said the other.

   “Even a saint would question the Lord if arthritis was visited upon them,” said one.

   “And the Lord would forgive them their weakness for the rain falls equally upon both the good and the wicked,” said the other.

  Then, as if this introductory set of remarks had cleared the air of all necessity for further metaphysical speculation, the first, (Gindle never did find out which was the youngest, which the oldest, not that it mattered for they were born a little less than a year apart) whose name was Dorothy, said,

   “We are especially inclined toward shrimp, dear.”

   This was immediately followed by Gillian, the other, saying, “Breaded lightly and fried quickly in the wok, dear. Olive oil, double virgin, is the best.”

   Dorothy burst into a series of giggles at this last remark which disgusted her sister. “Stop it,” she said. “You’ll fry, yourself, in the deepest regions of hell if you don’t discipline your mind away from gross bodily things like virginity.”

   “Well,” said Dorothy. “You have to admit that the connection between double virgin olive oil and our own double virginity is rather obvious and only a prude would pretend that it doesn’t pop up like a jack in the box.”

   “I admit no such thing,” said Gillian. “Those with disciplined minds do not make such connections despite what that disgusting Doctor Freud had to say. To those with dirty minds all things are dirty.”

    “O dear,” said Dorothy. “Not only do we have to clean Mr. Calico’s house but we also have to clean our minds.”

   “You can do one while doing the other,” said Gillian.

   Dorothy smiled at Gindle. “Don’t pay too much attention to her, dear. She’s always testy like this on the first day. By the second or third day her joints loosen up a bit and she becomes far less evangelical and more companionable. The interval, however, can be quite a trial.”

   The ladies grew quiet when Gindle brought the teapot and cups to the table. Gillian, after a moment of what seemed to Gindle, to be silent prayer, reached out to grasp the pot and pour tea.

   After sipping from her cup, Dorothy said. “And plum sauce to dip them in dear, the expensive kind, I forget the name….”

   “’Moon On the River’,” said Gillian.

   “Yes. ‘Moon On the River’. Not that cheap stuff which tastes like boiled dishwater.”

   “Ugh,” said Gillian.

   “Do you bake bread my dear?” asked Dorothy.

   “Yes.”

   “Wonderful! Then perhaps some freshly baked brown bread to go along with the shrimp.”

   “As a kind of absorbent to aid the digestive processes,” said Gillian.

   “Each piece spread with a light skim of real butter,” said Dorothy.

   “None of that margerine. You would have thought the end of the war would also have been the end of that; but no, sadly and unfortunately, not,” said Gillian.

   “Then, afterwards,” said Dorothy, “perhaps a tasty chocolate pudding. Not too bitter and certainly not that store bought stuff which tastes like congealed motor oil.”


   That evening, after sending Ralph into town on his bicycle to get shrimp, Gindle made the ladies exactly what they had ordered and they could not praise her highly enough. During after dinner conversation they ‘put in their order’ for the next day – pork chops braised in a sweet and sour wine sauce, whipped potatoes, Harvard beets, with stewed prunes, covered with two tablespoons of whipped cream for dessert. When Gindle told them that would be fine, Gillian said, “Why, it’s like going back into time, isn’t it, Dorothy? To when Ruthie was here.”

   “Now there,” said Dorothy, “was a young woman with a golden touch.” She looked briefly at Gindle. “Not quite as good as yours, my dear, but almost.”

   After Gindle had asked her usual questions Gillian said.

   “Ruthie loved cooking far too much to kill herself. And as for falling, give me a break. After all, what was she doing up on the roof in the first place? Cooks usually stay in the basement.”

   “It was the old man if you ask me,” said Dorothy. “He was a randy ram when he was young and age doesn’t change men like that. Always looking for something to stick it into, the younger the better. The way I see it he brought her up there on some pretext like examining the beauty of the night sky, a favorite modus operandi for seducers, I am told. When she reacted in horror to his aggressions he became enraged and tipped her off the roof. Granted he is old and weak but even an old and weak seducer, in a passion at being rejected, can accomplish surprising feats.”

   Gillian concurred with this opinion, although she thought ‘Miss Spiderweb’ (Cicily) had a hand in it. “For tipping people off roofs,” she said, “it helps to have a partner. They say, as well, that at various times in the old man’s career, Miss Spiderweb was little more than a procurer. Some even say, when she was younger, she was not opposed to servicing the old vulture herself. And then, of course, she would have been jealous. The old man was infatuated with Ruthie. He brought in that painter to do her portrait. He had her, twice a week, dine at the main table. With Miss Spiderweb serving, no less. You can imagine the poison curdled in her stomach while she was serving the soup to poor Ruthie.”

   That night the old ladies left later than usual. Samuel drove them home after half carrying them across the gravel to the waiting car.

 
   “Actually,” said the apparition when she was seated in Gindle’s reading chair, later that night, “it was the ladies who had it right. I was told by Cicily to report to Mr. Calico’s study on the fourth floor that night. When I arrived he led us up the wrought iron stair leading onto the roof. There is a small deck there close to the front of the house and we sat there in the wicker chairs they put up there in the summer. The old man declared his love for me. He wanted to marry me and proposed, that very night, that we act as if this had already been accomplished. I was horrified. I was a young woman of romantic temperament and the idea of marrying such an old man and abandoning my dream of love with a man my own age, was repulsive to me. I tried to be kind but firm. I wanted no misunderstandings. But, when he realized that I was not to be convinced, he grew enraged. He turned red in the face and said terrible and bitter things about how ungrateful I was and then about what a slut I was, hankering after lustful nights with young studs. I didn’t know what to say so I rose from my chair and started toward the stair. Surprising fast for such an old man he was upon me. We struggled and ended up against the front railing at the edge of the roof.  I was young and strong and, despite his rage, I succeeded in breaking free. I was just about to run to the head of the stair and down when Cicily came out of the shadows and pushed me over the railing. I was so surprised I didn’t even scream. Bump, she hit me with her shoulder like hockey players do and I was over. Fortunately I hit my head on the flags when I landed and was killed instantly.”

   “When you first appeared to me some nights ago you said that you were not looking for revenge.”

   “That’s true.”

    “What are you looking for, then?”

    “A good cook. After me they hired terrible people who were under the thumb of Cicily. They fed Ralph food not fit for dogs and often wouldn’t even let him into the kitchen. Upon Cicily’s instructions they fed Gillian and Dorothy burnt eggs and stale bread. They forbade Samuel the kitchen altogether. It took me a while but I finally managed to get my old friends a good cook and a kind woman. As soon as you came they were conspiring to get rid of you, both of them. I put a stop to that.”

   “How?”

   “You wouldn’t want to know. I may seem to you kind and meek but I have a dark side. I rattled their cages you might say. I put the fear into them. They will not be bothering you. I’ll be going off but I will also be keeping an eye open. I doubt they will try anything but if they do they will regret it. When the old man dies Samuel will inherit. Those two are in limbo so to speak. They live only in the memories of their old crimes and old vices which myself and old age no longer allow them to indulge. As they are no longer capable of injuring others, as they did me, they are merely pitiable half creatures chewing the bones of their extinguished desires. Hungry Ghosts I believe the Buddhists call them.”

   Gindle put on her coat and accompanied Ruthie through the garden to the gate in the stone wall. There, if you can call a clutching of the substantial and the insubstantial an embrace, they embraced. Then Ruthie walked through the open gate and disappeared into the shadows. When she was almost gone Gindle called out. “And the painting?”

   “Burn it, please,” was the answer.

   The next morning, first thing, before anyone else in the house was up, Gindle carried the painting into a corner of the garden and lit it on fire. When it was fully consumed she shoveled the ashes into a small pail and sprinkled them on the garden.
 

   That evening Gindle sent Ralph round to bring Samuel for supper. The ladies and Ralph sat on one side of the table, Gindle and Samuel on the other. Between them were pottery bowls containing the chops, whipped potatoes and Harvard beets. After a brief grace, offered by Gillian and assented to with an amen by the others, they set to. Everyone, including the ladies, whose digestive processes, revived by Gindle’s cooking, were now in fine fettle, ate heartily. Afterwards, following a pause filled with gossip, laughter and story telling, they ate stewed prunes with whipped cream, washed down with several cups of hot tea.

   When the dishes were removed from the table, Samuel set a fire in the fireplace standing in the kitchen’s far corner. Here, the assembly sat in a semi circle, final cups of tea on their knees, holding a friendly argument about what would be on the menu for the following day. They settled on leg of lamb with roasted potatoes and curried rice. In honor of his stupendous appetite, they left the choice of dessert up to Ralph. He, of course, chose apple pie.