An Unforgettable Lady

Grace hesitated before looking up at the towering white house with its terraces; columns, and porches. It was the first time she'd been back since the funeral. Then, she'd been distracted and overwhelmed by the guests offering their condolences. Now, in the quiet, she could feel the absence of her father much more keenly.

"Your mother is awaiting your arrival anxiously,” Wilhelm said while opening the car door for her.

Grace stepped out and slowly approached Willings's formal entrance. Five white marble steps led up to a pair of massive, wrought iron and glass doors that were set inside a columned portico. Above the doors, dangling down from the ceiling on a thick black chain, there was an old-fashioned, heavy lantern still lit by beeswax candles at night. A pair of boxwood topiaries in stone urns framed the doors and Grace recalled having decorated them with red, white, and blue ribbons on the Fourth of July when she was young.

Wilhelm walked by, holding some of their luggage and glancing repeatedly over his shoulder. Smith was close on his heels, carrying the rest of their things easily and thus breaking one of the butler's hard-and-fast rules. The old man had never been comfortable with guests being self-sufficient and had long disapproved of Grace's own independence. He regarded her unpacking for herself or merely driving into town to get her own groceries as a failure in the natural order of things. His Old World ways were part of the reason she loved him.

Grace followed the men through the front doors and, as the sound of their footsteps echoed through the vast foyer, she tried to see her home through Smith's eyes. The typical response of people as they came inside for the first time was of awe and wonder and the architects had planned for just such a reaction. There were marble fireplaces on either side of the hall with enormous gilded mirrors hanging above them. Massive brass doors opened to the formal dining room and a parlor but neither they nor the glittering chandelier hanging from the ceiling were the main attraction. Ahead, rising up like the wings of a great bird, was a bifurcated marble staircase. Among all the home's details, the stairway, with its two arms joining together to form the second floor's landing, had been photographed the most.

She glanced over at Smith. He wasn't looking at the art or the architectural details. He was marking the doors and windows, and she smiled to herself. For all the interest he was showing the decor, they could have walked into a dim cave, and she liked the fact that he wasn't impressed.

As she shrugged off her coat, she saw her father's stand of walking sticks in the corner. They were a variety of shapes and sizes, some ivory handled and thin, some thick and gnarled as tree roots. She could remember her father taking them on their walks around the grounds, a stylish ornament he would use to point out flowers that interested him or boats on the horizon.

Wilhelm was taking her coat just as her mother came in from the parlor. Carolina was dressed in a pale cream suit, looking elegant as a tea rose.

"Darling, how was your trip." As they embraced, her mother's attention was on Smith. "Grace, won't you introduce us?"

"This is John Smith. Er—John, this is my mother, Carolina Woodward Hall."

Her mother offered him a thin hand and a thinner smile. "We don't know many Smiths. It is s-m-i-t-h, correct? "

He nodded.

"Yes, I had a feeling it wasn't with a 'y' and an ‘e’," she murmured. "Didn't I see you at the Congress Club recently?"

"Maybe."

"Whose guest were you?"

Grace interrupted. "When are Jackson and Blair coming?"

Turning to her daughter, Carolina said, "They should be arriving any minute. We will be ten for dinner tonight, with Mr. Cobith, the Raleighs, and the Blankenbakers. Marta is working on a fabulous roast beef."

There was a pause and Carolina glanced back at Smith, fixing her eyes on his leather jacket. "We dress for dinner here."

When he neither looked away, nor showed any reaction, her mother's brow rose.

Grace jumped in again. "I think we better get settled. Why don't I show John to his room."

"He is in the green suite."

With Wilhelm and Smith behind her, Grace headed up the staircase. On the upper landing, she asked Wilhelm to take her bags to her room and took Smith down the hall in the opposite direction.

When she opened the door to a masculine room steeped in dark greens and wood, he didn't even bother looking inside.

"Where are you sleeping?" he asked.

"At the other end of the house. This is the guest wing."

“How far away?"

"Down the hall, take a left, go past the stairs. I'm the corner room, ocean side."

"Show me."

Grace noticed that he kept his bags with him as they went to her room.