CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next morning the girls were not speaking to each other. Breakfast was a quiet and somber event. Samantha picked at her poached egg, while Nellie ate quickly, shoveling down her food as if it were her last meal.
"Slow down child," Grandmary commanded. "If you eat too quickly you will contract worms."
"You girls are awfully quiet," the Admiral remarked.
"That is because they were up screaming at each other all night," Grandmary remarked.
"I didn't hear a thing," said the Admiral.
"That's because you sleep through everything," said Grandmary. "A train could crash into the house at full speed and you would sleep through it."
"Oh Mary," the Admiral said through laughter. "I do love you. You're a spitfire!"
"Spitfire?" Samantha repeated with a look of disgust.
"Speaking of spitfire," said the Admiral as he cut his ham. "I really don't encourage you seeing that Denardo boy again."
"I'm not listening to this," Samantha got up and stomped out of the room.
"Jiminy!" The Admiral declared. "She sure does have a bad track record of finishing her breakfasts here."
Nellie finished her food shortly after, because she had a date with Eddie Ryland at ten in the lilac tunnel. It was to read him a little of her story that she was writing. Eddie had taken an interest and asked if she would read him a passage. Nellie was afraid, since only Samantha read her romance stories, what would a man think of them? What if Eddie thought they were foolish and decided to quit seeing her? It would probably make Samantha happy, well maybe not. She seemed upset with humiliating him in front of tons of people, but Nellie wasn't going to have it. She was going to tell him that morning who she really was. She was hoping he wouldn't remember her. When she worked at the Ryland's as a servant Eddie couldn't care two beans about her. But then again, they were in the same grade briefly at school she had been in his class.
At ten sharp Nellie crawled through the tunnel with her composition book in toe. Eddie was already there smoking a cigarette.
"You mind?" He asked gesturing to the cigarette, Nellie shook her head.
"Want one?"
"No thanks."
"You said you'd try it sometime," said Eddie.
"I said I'd try a cigar the next time we are at the track," Nellie corrected.
"You start with the big guns," Eddie said. He leaned over and gave her a quick little kiss on her forehead.
"You look beautiful today Helene," he remarked.
"Thanks you," said Nellie feeling uncomfortable with the deceit. "I really need to talk to you."
"I have to talk to you too," said Eddie. "It is really important and if I don't say it now, I will burst!"
"I uh," Nellie began.
"Helene I think I am falling for you," said Eddie as he put out his cigarette. He took her hands in his. "I'm falling love.
Nellie was speechless. Never had she imagined to hear those words spoken to her so soon. Maybe in her farthest away dreams, dreams that her stories were made of, she had heard those words, but never now, so young.
"I think I love you," she whispered. That was the truth, it wasn't just from the flattery of having someone confess their love to her. She thought about Eddie constantly, she got butterflies every time she knew she was going to see him. She had seen Samantha in love many times, she knew the symptoms and she had them.
Eddie gave her hands a squeeze, he was beaming.
"Are you free today around three-thirty?" He asked.
"Uh yes," Nellie replied. "I'm free."
"I would like you to come to tea to meet my mother, and my father will stop by as well," said Eddie. "They are dying to meet you."
Double whammy. First he said he loved her, and now it was meet the parents. This was serious. So far Samantha had only met two of her many beaux that were important enough to take tea with Gard and Cornelia.
"Oh dear," sighed Nellie. "I don't know, I might say something very stupid."
"Pifflecock!" Eddie snorted. "You are the brightest girl I know. Helene I have to warn you though. My mother is not right. She has some problems."
Nellie's mother had always suspected that Mrs. Ryland was going crazy. She remembered once overhearing her mother tell her father that she thought the woman was going mad and needed to go to the institution. She didn't know what the institution was, but it sounded like a dreadful place. When she grew up a little and did find out she found that it was indeed a dreadful place.
"You mean like problems with the head?" Nellie asked trying to be gentle with a delicate situation.
Eddie nodded.
"To put it in my terms she's gone crazy and needs the loony bin. She needs help, more help than what Doctor Shields and his opium gives her. She needs a hospital for the mentally sick, but Dad won't commit her because he thinks it will ruin his business contacts. She instead he just lets her run ranpid through the house ranting and raving like a lunatic about this and not done right. I pity our poor servants having to deal with her. We have this one servant girl named Becky and yesterday Mother smacked her for brining her tea when she asked for a pot of chocolate. I know for a fact that Mother did not ask for chocolate, she asked for tea. She was in a rampage since. Not only did she smack that poor girl, but she trashed her bedroom. I have no idea how she got the strength but she even turned over her desk, and sometimes she throws things. So I am just warning you that any behavior like that is nothing personal. I hope that it doesn't change how you think about me. I've been afraid that it would, and I would loose you. She has scared away other girls with her tirades."
Nellie could understand Eddie very well.
"I understand Eddie," she said. "I had an Uncle Mike. He wasn't crazy but he had a problem with liquor. He would get drunk and then he would get angry and violent. He would yell and trash things."
"Mother drinks too much to," Eddie nodded. "And when she drinks her moods is worse, but even without liquor she still gets bad. You won't be scared away?"
"Nothing scares me," replied Nellie. Eddie took her hand and kissed it.
"Thank you Helene. You have made me the happiest boy in the world. And I do apologize right now for any trouble she might be today."
He glanced at the composition book on her lap.
"You didn't read to me," he announced.
Nellie was so filled with nerves, shock, and excitement from being told that Eddie loved her, and from the invitation to meet his parents that she forgot about her story. She really wasn't in the book to read it either.
"You aren't missing much," she answered. Eddie picked up the book and flipped through it.
"It's long. This is a novel!" He observed. "Adair's chest was a fortress. A fortress that felt like a slab of fine Italian marble, as Moira ran her soft, delicate, hand over it like a swan gracefully over water," he read aloud. Nellie turned red.
"Just don't read it out loud," she begged.
"What is the difference if I read it aloud or to myself?" Asked Eddie.
"To yourself isn't as torturing," replied Nellie.
"Very well," Eddie said and snapped the book shut. "I won't read it aloud but you have to let me keep it for a day or two so I can read it."
"You don't want to read that," Nellie exclaimed. "It's trash."
"Nothing penned by you is trash my dear," said Eddie. He gave her a quick kiss. "I must be going love. I have some errands to run for my mom this afternoon and if I want any chance of her being in a good mood for tea, I better get them done. See you later, Helene." And with that he tucked the book in his coat pocket and left the hedge.
It was when he had said her name again that Nellie remembered that she had copped out on her plan to tell Eddie the truth. She certainly couldn't say anything at the tea in front of his parents.
Nellie got up and went inside. She was so nervous. She had never had a boyfriend, never been in love, and had never been asked to meet a boy's parents. What if the Rylands recognized her? The embarrassment would kill Nellie on the spot. Though crazy, Mrs. Ryland did have an eye for detail. She wished that her and Samantha were speaking. Samantha had taken tea with the family of gentlemen callers many a time. She would know all the tricks to warming up to a boy's mother. She would also know what to wear. Nellie knew one thing, she wanted to wear her pearl drop earrings, and there was only one place to go to get them. To Samantha.