Lewis knew that Susannah was in the kitchen dicing vegetables for the evening’s stew and he had seen Daniel disappear upstairs sometime earlier, so he supposed it was up to him to greet their new guest. Lewis sighed and took one last hasty sip of his tea, folded the newspapers into a neat pile, and walked out onto the verandah just as the carter handed down a striking woman who was dressed in a fashion that signalled her origins; her finely cut cloak spoke of the city and shops, of the latest fashion and of clothing made with the greatest attention to detail. She wore a hat that fit snugly to her head, with a small brim and ribbons that matched the satin loop on the muff she carried. It was quite unlike the flowered and feathered headwear that Canadian women generally wore when they dressed up. This woman wore no cap under her hat either; instead, her face was framed on each side by long curls that dangled down to her chin. She was quite unlike anything Lewis had ever seen.
“How do you do, ma’am,” he said as she looked up at him. “Could I be of assistance?”
She smiled, an action that gave her heart-shaped face a distinctly cat-like appearance.
“How do you do. I wonder if I might take a room — a very private room, please.” Her voice was high-pitched, almost shrill, with a telltale twang that spoke of somewhere in the south of the American republic. It grated on Lewis’s ears and he found himself hoping that he wouldn’t have to listen to it for long.
“Of course,” he said. “Please come in and I’ll fetch the innkeeper.”
The bell on the front door jangled as he opened it for her. Daniel must have heard it and came running down the stairs, wiping his hands on the filthy apron he had tied around his waist after breakfast and had neglected to remove. However, when he saw the woman, he hastily tore it off.
“Welcome, welcome,” he said, beaming at her. “Are you looking for a room, miss? We have a pleasant one on the ground floor. It has a view of the street and there are two beds in it.”
“I should prefer a second- or third-floor room if that is possible,” she said. “Horatio must be away from the awful dust that is thrown up from the street.”
Lewis hadn’t noticed the small, pale boy who had entered behind the woman. He must have been hidden amongst the trunks and hatboxes that the carter had stacked beside the wagon. Whatever dust had been in the streets of Wellington had long since dissolved into a muddy mess with the cold rains of autumn, but perhaps this woman from away was unfamiliar with the usual state of the streets in Canada in the fall.
“And I must insist that it be well-curtained,” she went on. “Poor Horatio needs a great deal of rest and I must be able to draw the curtains against the light if he’s sleeping, poor lamb. And is there a sitting room attached? If not, could I ask you to also furnish a good table and a few chairs?”
Lewis knew that he should go and help the poor carter, but he was mildly intrigued by the woman’s requests, and so he remained standing in the hall to see how his brother-in-law would respond.
“That’s no problem, ma’am,” Daniel said with barely a moment’s hesitation. “We can prepare rooms to your specification if you give us but half an hour. Perhaps you would like to take tea in the dining room while we make it ready?” He shot Lewis a glance, as if to tell him to get busy with the luggage, and then he almost bowed as he showed the woman the way to the dining room. “And of course we’ll ensure that the rooms are adjoining, although I must inform you that there will be an extra charge for it.”
“That would be lovely,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Thank you.”
Daniel reappeared gleefully a short time later, just as Lewis set the last of the luggage down in the hall.
“I was able to charge that woman more for two rooms than we normally get in a month for the whole lot,” he said in a low voice. “She didn’t bat an eye when I told her how much it would be.”
“Who is she?” Lewis asked.
“She’s Nathan Elliot’s wife. She says her first name is Clementine. I don’t recall ever meeting a Clementine before, but then she’s American, and they do have strange ways, don’t they?”
As a veteran of both the War of 1812 and the more recent Patriot Hunter invasions, Lewis had to agree. Still, he wondered why Nathan Elliott’s wife and, presumably, his son, would choose to stay at a hotel instead of at the Elliott farm.
“I wonder why she didn’t come with her husband in the first place,” Lewis said as they carried a large trunk up the stairs.
“Hiram Elliott wasn’t expected to last nearly this long,” Daniel replied. “I expect Nate thought he could just skip up here, pay his last respects, collect his inheritance, and then skip back home again. Apparently, it’s the first time he’s been to visit his father in twenty years. I hear it was always Reuben who danced to the old man’s tune.”
“Well, everyone must be regretting the visit now,” Lewis remarked. “Poor woman. It’s a desperate reason for a visit.”
Susannah was busy in the kitchen making the tea that had been promised and was unable to supervise the preparation of the rooms, so she had given Daniel strict instructions about what needed to be done.
“Apparently, we need to turn the bed,” Daniel said as they stood in the large front room he had chosen for their guest.
“Why?” Lewis asked. “No one’s slept in it for weeks.” But he took one side of the floppy feather mattress and helped Daniel flip it over.
Fresh linens were necessary, as well, apparently, and after a struggle the two men managed to make the bed adequately, although the coverlet refused to hang straight.
“Should I find some extra blankets?” Daniel asked. “They won’t be used to the cold nights.”
“Do it later,” Lewis said. “We’ve got to move the beds out of the other room and find a table and some chairs to move into it. And there are still bags and boxes that need to be brought up.”
They went through the connecting door between the front bedroom and the smaller one beside it. The latter held two small beds. They moved one of them into the big room for the boy. The other they heaved out into the hall for the time being. They then brought up a small table and some chairs from the dining room. When they had finished, Daniel surveyed their handiwork.
“Well, I don’t expect it’s what she’s used to, but it’s the best we can do on short notice.”
Lewis carried the rest of the luggage up the stairs while Daniel went to inform their new patron that her accommodation had been prepared. There were three heavy valises and a number of bandboxes, besides the trunk he and Daniel had already deposited in the bedroom. Rather a lot of luggage for what Lewis assumed would be a fairly short visit, but then what did he know of city ladies and their sartorial needs? She probably changed her dress every day. He could only hope that it wouldn’t be he and Daniel who would be expected to do her laundry.
Clementine wafted into the room just as the two men had delivered the last bag. “Oh, this is lovely,” she said, and again Lewis found himself slightly irritated by the timbre of her voice. She turned and smiled at Daniel. “Thank you so much for going to such trouble.”
Daniel reddened, and stammered in return, “You’re most welcome, ma’am. And now I’ll leave you to get settled.”
Obviously he found her high-pitched drawl of no concern. It was obvious, to Lewis at least, that he found Clementine Elliott quite charming.
Chapter Three
Over the next few days, Mrs. Elliott appeared to charm nearly everyone else in Wellington, too. As a widow, or at least a presumed widow, she was the subject of a great deal of sympathy.
“I expect we’ll find her husband’s body in the spring,” was Susannah’s opinion.