Knollwood
By Harry Buschman
Widow Hopkins slept in a canopied bed with purple silk damask side curtains. The mattress was nearly three feet above the level of the floor and she had to climb three steps to get into it. Since the death of her husband Schuyler, her butler helped her to get into bed every night. He saw to it that she took the steps carefully and crawled to the center of the bed and then rooted herself firmly under the covers before he pulled the curtains.
“Goodnight Miss Hopkins,” he said, and then listened for the muted paper thin whisper of her voice before turning out the light and leaving the room.
Sarah Hopkins lay still in the center of her bed, her eyes focussed on the narrow “vee” of the curtain opening. Finally the crack of a light from the hall told her that Epson had opened her bedroom door. When it blinked out she knew he was gone and she would be alone until morning. She could get up if she wanted, without calling him, with the aid of her stick she could even make her way to the bathroom. She had done it before and she could do it again. She didn’t have to stay in bed at all if she didn’t want to. After all she was Sarah Hopkins and this was her house.
In fact the only thing she had to put up with was that she couldn’t sleep, she had no control over that; Doctor Angelis had no control over it either. He left strict orders with the butler; “Be sure she doesn’t take more than two of these. If two won’t do it, nothing will.”
Well, Sarah Hopkins knew that wasn’t true.
She knew what would happen if she
took more than two -- at least she thought she did. How many more would it
take? Two more than two? Three? Four?
She had accumulated four pills she wasn’t
supposed to have. She held them between her lip and her gum when she was supposed
to swallow them. Then when the butler wasn’t looking she spit them out
in her hand. They had to get up pretty early in the morning to put something
over on Sarah Hopkins. She knew exactly where she hid them too; in her old scrapbook.
There was a tiny blue envelope in the scrapbook, it was one of the invitations
she sent out for the
housewarming party at Knollwood. She hid the pills inside the invitation.
She stretched her legs out as far as they would
go and they came nowhere near
reaching the foot of the bed. It was more than a king sized bed, and just as
wide as it was long. She stretched her arms out as far as they would go and
she couldn’t feel the sides of the bed. Ridiculous bed! It was all Schuyler’s
idea. He had to have the biggest and the best of everything, and he had to have
them before anyone else did.
Schuyler was a covetous man, jealous of men
richer than he was. Sarah remembered the anger in him as he read the morning
paper, cursing the deals he missed out on and smiling with satisfaction when
they fell through. She thought of their four sons. Not one of them showed an
interest in the company. Schuyler
would bring them to the plant to show them how exciting it was to watch a
toaster or a vacuum cleaner slowly take shape on the assembly line. They would
come home in tears, “Papa scolded us! He yelled at us all day!” Schuyler
would be
livid with rage, “They showed no interest! No interest at all. they can’t
belong to me! How can children of mine not care about the business?”
No amount of explaining to Schuyler that his sons did not share his passion for the factory, they were not athletic or competitive, and they were certainly not interested in their father’s business. Stanley, the youngest, in fact was the author of two children’s stories in the Catholic Quarterly.
He took Buddy and Skipper camping, “To
make men of them,” he confided to
Sarah. Buddy stepped on a paper wasp nest and was stung so badly they had to
come home. He was unrecognizable from the swelling. She remembered the doctor
coming over immediately when he heard of the reaction, “Buddy’s allergic
to wasp stings, he could have died.”
Schuyler sat in his huge reclining chair and shook his head, “I don’t know, Sarah, I just don’t know. I’m trying to make men of them. Four boys, Sarah, you might just as well have had four girls.”
Then he tried to make a man of Sarah, tried
to get her to love the woods and
streams that were fast disappearing from this part of the country. Up before
light on weekends and off under cold cloudy skies to some god-forsaken lake
without a name. She remembered those mornings now, The lakes were lined with
dead trees, dead reeds and sumac. Schuyler would say, “The fish are out
there, just waiting for us Sarah. This hour of the day you can’t keep them
off the hook.” She’d stand knee deep in her son's boots in the dark
murky water hoping with all her heart that the trout were elsewhere. Most times
they were and when the weather improved, when the sun came out and it might
even have been a pleasure to spend the day at this lake without a name, Schuyler
would say, “The hell with it! They ain’t bitin’ today, let’s
go home.”
They’d come home and realize they made
no plans of what to do the rest of the
day, they’d discover the boys had made plans of their own and would have
nothing to do with them. Schuyler would walk into his den and close the door,
Sarah would sit in the kitchen and talk to the cook.
Well, Buddy was a teacher now -- at a girl’s school in Connecticut, Skipper was in South Africa teaching sanitary cooking to the Nigerians, Stanley was still writing children’s books -- and Thomas, dear Thomas was living in the city with someone named Lance.
Of course Sarah Hopkins couldn’t sleep.
The past pressed in on her so close it smothered her. She wished they had been
poor, perhaps they would have been
happier if they were poor. If Schuyler had to worry about making ends meet,
he
may not have had the time to badger his sons.
Well, Schuyler was dead now. “He couldn’t
be deader,” she said to herself. His death was slow and painful for him.
The boys, were grown and wordly wise by
then, they were not overcome with grief. Nor was Sarah. Death came slowly for
Schuyler and in many ways it came as a blessing. She lay there in the center
of her bed, the bed that used to be hers and Schuyler’s and admitted to
herself that she mourned more profoundly when Schuyler ran over her Cocker Spaniel
in the driveway. It was unexpected, she reminded herself, it was the suddenness
of it, and nothing to be ashamed of.
She was wide awake now, drumming her fingers
on the mattress. How did they
expect her to get through the night on two pills? She felt like getting up and
walking around the room. What was the weather like? How can you tell what the
weather is when you’re shut up in a canopied bed -- “It’s like
a tomb in here,” she thought.
Rolling over twice she was able to reach the side of the bed. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and parted the side curtain. By leaning out a little she could see the window overlooking the terrace. The jet black cypress trees just beyond the railing were waving restlessly. She swung her feet out over the stool at the side of the bed and gripping the blanket tightly she let herself down gently to the floor. She let out a little triumphant sigh and reached for her walking stick and robe that hung from the back of the chair.
If they heard her downstairs they’d be
up in a minute. “What are you doing out of bed, Miss Sarah? You know you
shouldn’t be walking around up here alone. Suppose you fell and no one
heard you? Tsk. Tsk.” It would go on and on, then
they’d lead her back to bed and the night would start all over again. She
was careful to stay on the rug so her stick would not be heard on the bare floor.
She made her way to the dressing table, that’s where her scrapbook was. She carefully lifted the chair and moved it back just enough to allow her to sit. Her face in the mirror showed strain. “You look a wreck, Sarah,” she whispered. “They’re going to take you away, Sarah -- next month, maybe the month after.” She overheard her lawyer speaking to Buddy just last week. “The house is a drain on the trust fund. Look at these landscaping bills. For her own sake Buddy, and yours -- she needs full time care -- it’s time for the home.”
“Nobody thought to ask you, did they Sarah.
This is the house you grew old in
-- your husband died here. This is the house you loved and the house your sons
want no part of.” She pulled the scrapbook over to her and turned to the
page with the housewarming memorabilia. A picture of Sarah and Schuyler dancing
to the George Tilyou band. There was the menu -- leek soup, Caesar salad, roast
veal, French cut string beans and new potatoes ... cherries jubilee for dessert
too.
There was the invitation ...
© Harry Buschman 2003
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