No Mortal Reason (4 page)

“Don’t forget this,” he said, handing back the empty dipper.

Oblivious to Ben’s deceit, Grant replaced it and the padlock and continued his spiel. “Lenape Springs water gives relief in cases of kidney disease, dyspepsia, and impure blood. It will cure skin diseases, nervous debility, headache, loss of appetite, bladder and kidney stones, Bright’s disease of the kidneys, salt rheum, and liver complaint, and it’s been found useful in by patients with rheumatism, dropsy, scrofula humors, and male weakness.”

“Impressive.”

“Ain’t it? Just what a high-class clientele wants in a summer watering hole. I’ve been working on the advertising pamphlet.” He gave Ben a sly look. “Letters from satisfied guests are easy to produce, but testimonials from medical men are harder to come by. What would you say to the whole week here free for you and the missus?”

“I’d say I couldn’t take advantage of you that way. I’d have to witness the effectiveness of your waters before I could claim they’ll help sufferers, and at present there are no patients to observe.”

“Huh,” Grant grunted. “An honest physician. Just my luck.”

“I could vouch for the quality of the air,” Ben offered. “This is an ideal location to bring those who suffer from lung disorders.”

As he’d anticipated, Myron Grant bristled at the suggestion. “No consumptives! We don’t want their kind here. No, sir, I aim to attract only the best sort of people. Folks who don’t really have much wrong with them, but are willing to pay to cure what little is. I’ll do it, too.”

He started walking back toward the hotel and Ben accompanied him, frankly curious to hear what the old man would say next. Ben could think of a half dozen reasons why Grant’s plans were impractical, but there was a bizarre fascination in listening to him elaborate on this pipe dream.

As they walked, taking their time, Grant pointed out such sights as the gas plant, the old barn they’d converted into a laundry, and the new artesian well. By the time they came out into the open again, the sky was no longer overcast. They had a clear view to the southeast.

“See there?” Grant waved a hand toward a distant hilltop. “That’s the Walnut Mountain House. Built two years back just off the road between Liberty and Jeffersonville.  This time last year, they started taking reservations. Within a week, forty guests from New York City had already engaged rooms for the summer.”

“I can see why this area would be a popular destination for people who live in Manhattan. It’s only a short trip by train. Five hours?”

“About that. And Hotel Grant has been here a lot longer than that place. Got a reputation, so to speak. And we’ve got the spring.”

“Just the one?” Ben asked. It was a reasonable question. The town was named Lenape Springs, after all. The Lenape, Ben recalled, were an Indian tribe.

Grant’s glower returned. “Got other springs around.” He made a vague gesture in the direction of the village. “But our spring is the only one with healing properties. The others are just plain water.”

They resumed walking with Grant leading the way past the front of the hotel and out along the curved drive that led to the road. Wooded areas were interspersed with fields. One boasted a scarecrow.

“See that swampy area?” Grant indicated an patch of ground overgrown with rhododendron and laurel. “By high season, that’ll all be cleared out and we’ll have put in a small pond for boats. My niece says we should have geese, too. We can use the feathers for pillows.” He gave an indulgent chuckle.

“A practical girl.”

“About some things.”

“Your niece—that would be the desk clerk?”

“That’s right. She’s my brother Howd’s girl.” He shook his head. “Talk your ear off, that one, and go all the way around Robin Hood’s barn before she’ll get to the point. And stories! That girl’s got a head full of romantic twaddle. Still, she’s a first rate manager. Keeps the records just as good as a real accountant.”

Unable to think of an adequate rejoinder to these observations, Ben changed the subject. “You say you have a brother. Does he work at the hotel?”

Grant snorted. “Howd? Not so’s you’d notice. Only interested in art.” He gave the word a highfalutin’ sound.

“Ah. I sympathize. I also have a brother who’s an artist.”

“What’s he paint?” They ambled back toward the hotel as they talked.

“Landscapes. Some figures.” Grant didn’t need to know about Aaron’s predilection for putting naked mermaids in his paintings.

“Howd does water colors of critters. Mostly birds.” Contempt crept into his tone. “Lives in a camp in the woods half the time so he can be close to nature. Lot of nonsense, I say. He’s got no notion of how to get on in the real world.”

Ben paused to regard the front facade of Hotel Grant. “You’ve done a good bit of remodeling here in recent days.”

“We commenced the repairs and expansion last fall, as soon as the season was over, and started up again this spring. Put on a new roof. Extended the veranda to two hundred and forty-four feet.
And
got a plate glass window for the dining room—have you seen it? The dining room’s a hundred feet long now, twice the size it used to be, and there’s a separate room for guests’ servants and children to eat in. The bedrooms have all been refurbished and bath tubs and water closets added to all the suites. We have room for a hundred and fifty guests now, but when I’m done we’ll be able to accommodate twice that.”

Tremont the goat wandered across the lawn, stopping here and there to eat grass. That was her function, Ben imagined, recalling that Lyseth, for all his apparent dislike of the creature, had been careful not to hurt her.

“Picture the place with a fresh coat of white paint,” Grant said, “and the veranda furnished with wicker chairs—I’ve got eighty of them on order. You know how folks like to sit out on a veranda. See and be seen.”

Remembering the crowded verandas of various hotels he’d stayed at during his travels, Ben nodded, but Grant didn’t give him a chance to get a word in edgeways.

“Entertaining the guests is important. We put in a dance floor during the winter, too, and a billiard room. Still a lot to do yet, though. I’m thinking of adding tennis courts and a place to play croquet. Fancy folk like those.”

“No bowling alley?” Ben inquired when Grant finally paused to take a breath.

The reaction was unexpected. Grant exploded with laughter. “Suppose there should be,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “This is mighty close to Rip Van Winkle country, you know. According to the old stories, thunder is the sound of a ghostly game of nine-pins.”

“I was thinking ten-pins myself,” Ben said, which set Grant off again.

It could work, Ben supposed, as the other man chortled. He’d heard there were several flourishing, self-contained hotels in Maine and New Hampshire. He’d been considering taking Diana to one of them on their wedding journey.

“There’s one thing besides the spring that’ll have them flocking to Lenape Springs,” Grant said, recapturing Ben’s attention. “I mean to built a racecourse.”

Ben hastily revised his opinion of Grant’s chances of success.

“Dirt track, oval in shape.” Grant indicated an area off to the west and sketched the shape with his hands. “I’ll fence it in, put up a grandstand and some board-and-batten barns to house horses, trainers, and hands.”

“And the bookies?” Ben asked, watching two red squirrels dash across the empty meadow that was currently all that was visible in that direction. “Where will you put them?”

“Out of sight of my neighbors,” Grant said with a chuckle.

“They don’t approve of gambling?” Ben was not surprised. All small towns had much in common, which was why successful self-contained, rural hotels did not build race tracks.

“Some folks don’t approve of anything. The other hotel in town, it’s a temperance house. Ever since Lida Rose Leeves married that Free Methodist preacher, entertainment at the Lenape Springs Villa consists of daily blessings, prayer meetings, sermons, and psalm singing.”

Lida Rose Leeves, Ben assumed, was the sister of Elmira Grant Torrence’s friend Ed Leeves. He wondered if Lida Rose and her husband knew what Leeves did for a living.

“Some folks can abide trotting but think flat racing’s the work of the devil. And steeple chasing, well, that’s something else again. I’ll have all three.”

From the way Myron Grant gazed at the hotel and its environs, Ben supposed he was visualizing them as they would be when all his grandiose schemes came to fruition. Ben saw only what was there. It wasn’t Howard Grant who had an unrealistic view of the world, he thought. It was his older brother. Myron Grant wasn’t going to be content to build a self-contained resort, which might have a prayer of success. He really thought he could turn Lenape Springs into a second Saratoga!

* * * *

When she’d finished unpacking and changed into a plain but comfortable dress of dark blue cashmere and a pair of kid walking boots, Diana felt much more settled in her mind. She was still disappointed in Ben, but she was willing now to give him the benefit of the doubt. She had been put in mortal danger twice in the short time they’d known each other. His concern for her safety and his desire to stay close to her to protect her were wrongheaded but understandable.

She paused as she left the suite for the dimly-lit corridor. Given that they seemed to be the hotel’s only guests, she had to admit that she’d not have relished staying in a room at any distance from Ben. The stillness of the place had a decidedly eerie quality.

With more haste than grace, Diana made her way to the elevator, only to find that it had returned to the ground floor. Just as well, she decided, and went in search of the nearest stairwell. Every elevator she’d ever been in had been staffed by an operator. She had never paid much attention to what made it go up and down, or even to how to open the door once it came to a halt.

A short time later, having descended a narrow flight of steps, Diana emerged into a passage that did not look at all familiar to her. She looked both ways and listened. A faint clacking sound came from her right, so she turned in that direction. After a moment, she reached to an open door. The brass plate set into the wall next to it said “Casino.”

The word made Diana frown. In her vocabulary, casinos were places where people went to gamble. Her husband had died in one, shot by an angry poker player who’d accused him of cheating at cards. But she could already see into the room. There were no roulette wheels, no tables for cards, no Heironymous bowls for dice. It contained nothing but a few chairs and two billiard tables. A young man in shirt sleeves was practicing shots at the one nearest the door.

“Well, hello there,” he said when he noticed her. His voice was warm with approval.

Diana felt heat rush into her cheeks. His stare was very bold, but then she supposed that any woman who ventured into a hotel’s billiard room should expect a stranger to think the worst of her. “I beg your pardon,” she said, hastily retreating along the corridor. “I lost my way.”

“Wait, wait! Don’t let me frighten you off!” He crossed to her in three long strides and caught her arm. “This place is a tomb. You mustn’t deprive me of the only delightful sight I’ve seen in weeks.”

She glared at his offending hand and he hastily removed it. Then, a twinkle in his eyes, he sketched a courtly bow and humbly begged her forgiveness.

Diana peered more closely at him. He had hair the color of cornsilk, bright blue eyes . . . and Mercy Grant’s nose. It looked better on him. Was he a relative? Except for the nose, she saw no other similarities to herself or her mother or Cousin Mercy. He had a slender but solid build and was taller than Diana, but not so tall as Ben. As to age, she’d guess he was a few years older than her own twenty-three.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name is Sebastian Ellington.”

That meant nothing to Diana, and there was something about him that made her wary. Sweet talk only aroused suspicion when a man was so quick to lay his hands on a woman he’d just met.

“Are you a guest here?” she asked.

He grinned at the suggestion. “I’m the youngest son of the oldest sister of the owner of this place. You can imagine how far down the pecking order that puts me. Still, if you’ve come to apply for a job, I can put in a good word for you with Uncle Myron. He pays $2.50 a week for waitresses and provides lodging. You’d be seeing a lot of me if you worked here.”

The simplicity of her attire, Diana supposed, had given him the mistaken notion that she was seeking employment. Or had it? Dark blue cashmere was something a housekeeper might wear. A local farm girl looking for her first position would be more likely to have clothing made of serge.

The corner of Cousin Sebastian’s mouth twitched.

“I think you know perfectly well who I am, Mr. Ellington,” she said in a repressive tone. He really was much too forward.

“But I did not anticipate that some stuffy old medical man would have such a young and lovely wife. Please, tell me you’re his daughter.”

For a moment Diana had forgotten that they all thought she and Ben were married. It gave her a jolt to hear herself referred to as his wife.

“You are! You
are
his daughter! My prayers have been answered.”

“Stop your foolishness.” The admonition came out more sharply than she’d intended. She drew herself up straighter. “I am Mrs. Benjamin Northcote.”

He reacted to her bold lie by catching her hand and carrying it to his lips. “It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he assured her. “I am your humble servant.”

She jerked her hand free. He was incorrigible. It was as if the discovery she was married made him more determined to charm her.

“You said you were lost,” he continued. “Where do you wish to be?”

Diana hesitated. “I was hoping for . . . tea, perhaps?” It was too early for supper, but she knew many of the larger hotels offered a late afternoon repast for guests. It had been a long time since the sandwiches she and Ben had consumed on the train.

“Let’s see what we can find,” he said, reaching for her arm. When she eluded his grasp, he turned the movement into a sweeping gesture that indicated she should follow him.