The Crawford Affair: a literary novel in three parts (Book 1) Read online

  M.R. ADAMS

  THE CRAWFORD AFFAIR

  a novel about the little things

  Solemn Chanting Press

  Written 2008-2010

  Copyright 2013 M.R. Adams

  All rights reserved.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title/Copyright

  Prologue: Mrs. Penniweather Has a Guest

  ACT I

  Family Portrait

  1 Crawford Manor

  2 Downtown Riverdale

  3 Dr. Dunn Pays a Visit

  4 An Unexpected Visit

  5 Claire Gets a Bullseye

  6 The Birth of Margaret McPhee

  7 Family Time

  8 The Dawes at Loften

  PROLOGUE

  Mrs. Penniweather Has a Guest

  If there are as many levels of narration as there are levels of consciousness, and if consciousness is like the matter it manifests: one subdivision begetting another subdivision thought to be the last subdivision until another subdivision is discovered, and this process repeats to the point where people, at their most explicit level of consciousness, throw their hands up in exasperation and exclaim, “Matter must go on forever!”–then the levels of consciousness, and the narrations that spring from them, are infinite. It all goes somewhere; it all goes nowhere.

  That is why the gray woman, who has dubbed herself Mrs. Penniweather, and is unknowing that she exists in the chasm of a boy’s mind, seems to be unaware that she, like the boy, who may as well only exist in the mind of a boy, girl, man, woman, or sheep, lives as the fulcrum of the universe, that point or moment where nothing topsy turvies with everything, the finite see-sawing with the infinite.

  As a result of their points of subjective physical existence, the boy and Mrs. Penniweather share something. When she thinks of things that the boy knows as truth but she knows as fiction, her grasp of the matter reaches further than he can understand, and because this reach is further than he can understand, he does not detect even the slightest hint of omniscience in her, and hence, the omniscience within himself, particularly the effect of the knowing she has of his realm that she unwittingly keeps secret from the boy she only deems a figment of her own imagination, a knowing whose effect radiates from and bounces back to the boy, his family, and to all that, to her, are only a cast of characters, as she and a host of others are only a cast of characters to the boy.

  So, despite their ignorance, she and the boy know all. The boy knows all of his world; she knows all of her world, but they only think they know all of each other’s. She knows the movements of the boy’s older brother, sister, Father, and Grandfather, and so many more, while he knows the movements of her, the queer woman stooping in the alley, and of the visitor she is about to have, but curiously, he seems keen on sticking with the graying woman, and not so much with the others he has cast to play in this world of his, and hence unknowingly her, choosing.

  Now, as the boy knocks his head against the wall of the picture window he sits in, knocking because of the voice and image of the old woman that keeps flashing into his head, leaving him to question his sanity, she, Mrs. Penniweather, a name she bestowed upon herself for “Edna Chaste” was society’s child, and she, without ever truly knowing, was her own being, sits in the office built into her greenhouse, the windows permanently fogged and kissed by the petals of roses, the walls lined with used bookshelves filled with used, but to her unread, books; her self seated in a rocking chair, before a desk, before her a pale blue volume with golden vines along its spine, calling to be penned.

  She rocked and thought, with eyes closed, of the town next to the one where the boy and his family lived. The town of Riverdale. She avoided thinking of that town’s uptown with its congested highway, strip malls, and chain restaurants, instead dwelling on an area below its ghostly downtown, an area where a river flowed and only the select few who remembered the downtown as the culture’s center would board the ferry and take a tour on that river, flowing under the drawbridge to open water. She would linger here today, because things had gotten unfortunately grim down the way where the Old Country Road led to a school, an academy, then into another town, part of an incorporated village, a town much like her own where it’s main attraction was a Main Street lined with boutiques, but unlike her town because the homes and land owned were so large that to call one’s neighbor, “neighbor,” was insane by any sane person’s account. Mrs. Penniweather knew this town, the town of West Umpton, was not the wonder it seemed, but she did occasionally love perusing that boy’s house, Crawford Manor, with its top floor that stretched at both ends into abyss if one were to stand at the top of its central stair. There was always a dreariness to the place, a dreariness made increasingly more palpable to her, and only her, as the matriarch’s memorial drew nearer and nearer, and she always wished to return to the river.

  She was unaware of what a nuisance she was posing to the boy who had now stopped knocking his head against the wall, leaving his window perch to fulfill his Grandfather’s mandate that he practice his piano. If she had, she would have stopped if she could, because she found him–all of them–draining. However, that was inconsequential. Suffice to say, she was a nuisance to the boy, and soon enough, she would have a nuisance of her own, because as she sat in her rocking chair, in her greenhouse office, taking her tour along the river, hovering above the ferry with its occupants who knew downtown when it was truly a downtown, there would be...

  A knock.

  “Who is that?!” said Mrs. Penniweather, jumping from her rocking chair to see a man, hunched over his cane, step from the portal, onto a step, then into her greenhouse.

  “I-I’m here to see about the room,” said the man.

  “Why, Mr. Timpleton,” she said, clinging to her chest even though her heart had returned to normal pace a moment ago, “Creeping into my house, lurking about my things, then frightening me half out my mind...”

  “I knocked for some time. Then the door was open–”

  “You tried the door?”

  Mr. Timpleton took a step back, his heel bumped on the first step out of the green house and he began to descend. Mrs. Penniweather rushed to the man’s aid and eased him up before his free hand even reached the landing behind him.

  “You move like a jaguar.”

  Mrs. Penniweather felt a heat swirl in her chest. Now her heart truly quickened. A jaguar crawled among the trees, slick as night, single-handedly prepared to pounce.

  “Edna?” said Mr. Timpleton.

  Mrs. Penniweather gave a short jolt up. This “Edna” was no longer something–someone–she claimed.

  “I’ll give you the room under one consideration. Because I know you cannot afford the seven hundred I’ve asked for, and only if this condition is met, will you get your new abode for the two hundred less that I am sure you came to try to swindle from me.”

  Edna felt his hand quiver, a quivering she saw sprung from his quivering legs.

  “What is the condition?” Mr. Timpleton’s eyes drooped.

  She laced her arm in his and turned him back toward the portal, then on tiptoe, she said, in his ear, “You are to call me Mrs. Penniweather.”

  Mr. Timpleton turned his head to the old woman. She couldn’t read his widened eyes. Of course it was shock, but what was the underlying thought? Did he think her insane? Stupid? Pitiable? She couldn’t handle pitiable from anyone, especially a creature that had lost all utility.

  But his face softened. He took th
e hand not on cane and patted her hand, which he held tucked into his side. “I understand.”

  “Beg your pardon?” She squeezed his arm. Seeing the blood drain from his face, she became aware of her grip and loosened it.

  “I understand.” He smiled. “Going back to your husband’s name. It truly does get lonely doesn’t it?”

  “Thankfully, yes.” Her husband’s name? Fool. What to do? Could she let this insulting assumption stand? It would corrode her character. Wait. That was absurd. It would only corrode her character in his eyes, and what importance did she place on that? Not enough to not have relished in the reception of her desire.

  She bowed her head low. Mr. Timpleton gave her a peck on the forehead. Presumptuous old man. She would have to check future cheekiness.

  Mr. Timpleton chuckled; then Mrs. Penniweather helped him shuffle back to the small steps, back into the main house. He chuckled once more, then said:

  “Penniweather. What a striking resemblance to Fannyweather.”

  Mrs. Penniweather stumbled onto the landing, her hand touching down. Mr. Timpleton was holding on to her.

  “I have myself, you old bat,” she said, shaking her arm from his grasp. “If I hadn’t, I would’ve ended up taking you down with me.”

  Mr. Timpleton cast his eyes down and began shuffling. But to where? Mrs. Penniweather tapped her foot: if he expected her to run to his aid, it wasn’t happening. He reached out to prop himself on a dining room chair, but before his hand made contact, Mrs. Penniweather was at his side, arm wrapped around his lower back, easing him along.

  ACT I

  Family Portrait

  CHAPTER ONE

  Crawford Manor

  Horatio Crawford stood over the dining room table, the faint sound of piano music wafting into the room, looking at the swatch samples he had to arrange in a spectrum ranging from their reds: dark, burgundy and merlot–to their blues and violets: magenta, cerulean and royals–with the various shades of white above and black below, an arrangement which, in his opinion, should have already been constructed by the beak nosed woman standing next to him, Miss Eliza Dunn.

  He had hired her to coordinate his daughter’s anniversary memorial with the intention of seeing if leadership was in the Dunn genetic schema. Dr. Dunn, her mother, had only reassumed the dean’s office at Laurel Academy for a short period because her initial replacement, Albert Smynoff, had a heart attack, her second replacement, Gerard Dant, went temporarily missing in a yachting mishap, and her third replacement, Cornwall Guest, had gone into rehab for a morphine addiction developed after an operation, which was not completely disreputable enough for him not to be reconsidered for the post after a lapse of time; but upon Horatio’s last visit to the rather hotel-like facility with fitness and pool house amenities, he learned that Dr. Guest, upon release, was to announce engagement to a fellow patient, a twenty-one year old former singer (wasn’t twenty-one too young to be a former anything?), which of course would be a simultaneous announcement of his divorce to his wife, Sylvia, who’d surely bleed the fat bastard dry, and, in Horatio’s opinion, with just reason.

  He tried playing on any belief of duty, providence, and destiny Dr. Dunn might have had in regards to her reassuming the position, but her legacy was rich and she was older, that young girl afraid of not having an effect–not being remembered–was no more. She was hard-nosed and worked more than necessary for everything she had (and had had) in life and she knew it, but it was worth a shot before playing the race–guilt–racial guilt card, in his right because it took him over a decade just to get her installed as dean: some months convincing her to leave social work–for which, with her ambition and intelligence, she was over-qualified–and then some more months to position her as counselor at Laurel Academy, then the following years paving her way as the faculty representative on the school board partially through numerous solicitations at charity events (“Oh, you mean Ms. Dunn, she helped the Sullivan boy break Harvard, and he had C’s in gym”), before finally, after a decade of promotions and endorsements, they worked her way to becoming the first African-American dean (an event bound to happen since the town had finally forgotten, after more numerous accomplishments, that indeed, she was black). Everyone now remembered her for the restructuring of the science curriculum which lead to INTEL science winners and finalists and her restructuring of the arts curriculum which produced that lad who caused that minor debate in the city about whether or not teens should win Pushcarts, but no one really remembered how, before Dr. Dunn could be given rightful reign, the three other deans–Smynoff, Dant, and Guest–had to be faded into her associate deans, and Horatio had found himself the patron of something he had to grit his teeth to support: athletics, including another field, which the rugby team tore up which led to the donation–a loaning–of a secondary field for football, and then out of fairness, the girls needed a hockey field. The school now looked more like a farm, but it was easily enough done, as the Crawfords owned the land surrounding the school. Certain board members pushed him to sell the land to the academy, but he just wasn’t that stupid. Land, and business, were the black man’s road to wealth and independence. He had hoped to sell in future years, knowing that the increasing prestige of the school, which had gone from a hundred and twelve to breaking the top twenty-five in the national ranks, would increase the land’s value; however, with Dr. Dunn once again resuming retirement–clearly she had lost all sense of community as she aged and felt it was time to serve herself–the school was surely to collapse, especially if the rumors were true, and the four associate deans were to become a committee of deans, rumors told with enthusiasm, betraying that they actually thought this idea novel. Horatio was sure the rumors were true (as rumors have a way of lagging behind the momentum of reality–the school board and superintendent had already raised the issue in private talks) and he had expected, and accepted, that the four associate deans would become four deans, but perhaps with the daughter Dunn, history could have repeated itself–until Miss Dunn had felt the need to prove herself a forgettable lark. Ultimately, the school had a structure rendered hopeless by those who served it, regardless of well intentions and degrees decorated by seductive, entangling ivies.

  But none of this was important at the moment. Reminiscing was idle–passive–useless–and Horatio was sure he messed up some of the details as he was never one for this retracing of steps in time, and this was another reason why he was unsettled by Eliza: he had taken up to doing things against his nature, his character, since he began working with her, like blurting thi–

  “The roses should be darker.”

  “Excuse me?” said Eliza, hunching over to look into Horatio’s face.

  Truly a slow creature. “The roses–should be–darker.”

  “But, Sir, we are trying to choose a color for the tent.” She waved her hand over the samples. “We are not yet on the flowers.”

  “Eliza. I was not on the flowers. All you had to do, was make a note, stuff it some place” and he had an idea where “and then we’d continue with the tents.” Horatio never exhibited such immaturity. “I apologize.” He always maintained a gentlemanly stance, a calmness. Perhaps it was all this planning, but that was no excuse. Besides, it might be valuable to keep Eliza close this summer, getting insight into her mother, a way to–

  “Are you okay, Sir?”

  “I’m sorry, my child.” He rested his hand on her shoulder. “I forgot my manners. It has happened too frequently as of late.”

  “No, Sir, it’s okay. My mother warned me that–” Eliza fumbled with swatches.

  Horatio laughed. “I’m sure Mertyl has said worse to my face.” The girl had a loose tongue. That may prove profitable.

  Eliza’s lips tensed.

  “Go on, my dear, give a laugh.”

  Eliza chuckled, looking up to Horatio.

  “You know, Sir. I didn’t get to tell you how beautiful your grandson’s playing is. It’s like an aroma. A sweet aroma.”

  Good,
she was warming. “Thank you, Eliza. Now, we’ll do something in the brown family for the tent–you’ll need to bring more swatches–and the garden…have the finishing details been finished?”

  “Yes, Sir, the cobblestone walkway, the stone bench, marble not granite, and the swinging bench, cherry not pine, are being installed.”

  “Excellent.” Perhaps she did have potential. “A few more details. Then we’ll move on to the cake samples set up in the kitchen.”

  Like the swatches, the roses, the garden additions, the table settings, and the tombstone engraving, the cake samples were another aspect of memorial planning Horatio found himself taking initiative with as Eliza had not yet arrived, nor presented notice–like a phone call–that they, the samples, would be arriving at the back door leading to the kitchen; so Horatio had found himself the sole recipient of the twenty slices of cake that he then–because he had given the maids duties in the locked rooms above, and he never believed in giving more, only less, than what was assigned–found himself preparing twenty plates on the kitchen island and arranging the slices by icing: first the white buttercreams, then the white buttercreams with colored sugary decoration, then the brown buttercreams, then the brown buttercreams with colored sugary decoration, and then the whipped frostings (which he lined along the counter, separated for easier disposing, but left out as to not offend Miss Dunn). His arrangements would’ve been more precise had he known the cake flavors–clearly the bakery had frosting for brains–but there was one who knew the flavor of each cake, his granddaughter, Jessica Crawford, for she had slipped in through the kitchen’s back door with hair disheveled, jeans and metallic t-shirt champagne stained, stilettos in hand, and had had a sampling of her own of the buttercream lemons, vanillas, and almonds and the chocolate vanillas, lemons, raspberries, and her new favorite, kahluas.