Margot Dalton - A Family Likeness

“You be nice,” Gina told him severely.

She left him under the tree with his whittling, strolled across the grass and let herself through the gate into the courtyard, recalling, too late, that she still hadn’t told Roger about the cracked toilet seat in the blue room.

No rush, she decided. Roger was busy with other things at the moment, and the blue room wasn’t booked for at least a week.

She paused inside the hedge and looked up at the house. Even after all these years, the sight of its massive vine-covered bulk against the distant violet of the mountains and the cloudless blue sky was enough to make her heart beat faster.

“It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?” a feminine voice said at her elbow, echoing her thoughts. “Like a scene out of Sleeping Beauty or something.”

Gina turned and smiled at the honeymoon couple who, dressed in bathing suits now and carrying towels, were on their way down the path to the beach. They were an attractive pair, both medical students from Minnesota who’d just completed their residencies before their June wedding. This Canadian honeymoon had been a gift from the groom’s parents.

“The house is more than a hundred years old, fairly ancient by local standards,” Gina told them. “Actually it’s quite a romantic story.”

“Tell us,” the girl commanded, leaning against her young husband and gazing up at him. “We’re in the mood for romance these days.”

Gina smiled, thinking about their cozy love nest up in the rose pink dormer room with its little stone fireplace.

“The house was built by Josiah Edgewood,” she began. “Josiah was a Scottish nobleman and adventurer who came out to Canada when he was a young man and discovered gold up north in the Caribou region. Josiah made a fortune at his mine and fell in love with the area. He picked the Okanagan Valley for its spectacular scenery and mild winters, and started trying to convince his new wife to come and join him here.”

“But she wouldn’t?” the young bride asked, still looking up at her husband as if unable to believe that any woman would be reluctant to follow her man to the ends of the earth. He dropped a kiss on her nose.

“She was afraid. Poor little Lady Edgewood,” Gina said. “She was barely out of her teens and quite frail, and she thought this whole country was overrun with wolves and grizzly bears. She refused even to consider living in the wilderness unless Josiah could provide her with some decent accommodation.”

“So he built this big house?” the groom asked.

Gina smiled. “Wait till you hear the story. Josiah moved the house. Most of this is the original Edgewood Manor from the family estate near Kilmarnock in Scotland. Josiah had the whole structure dismantled and every piece marked. It was shipped across the ocean in crates, a proceeding that took several years to accomplish. The house was reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle right here on the shores of Okanagan Lake. All to please his darling Elizabeth.”

Both young people gazed at her, enchanted. Gina understood their rapt expressions, because she, too, always felt a little thrill whenever she thought about Josiah’s great venture.

If she could ever meet a man like that, a real man with a generous spirit and a strength to match her own, maybe then she wouldn’t be so reluctant to share her life…

“So what happened?” the girl asked. “Did Elizabeth come and live here with him? I hope she didn’t die on the ship coming over and leave him all heartbroken or anything.”

“She certainly didn’t,” Gina said cheerfully. “She arrived to find her manor house completely reproduced on the shores of a Canadian lake, right down to the chandeliers and the stained glass on the stair landings. She was so happy she gave Josiah a big hug and a kiss and settled right in to have babies.”

“How many?”

“Eight. Six girls and two boys. She became the queen of local society and a generous patron of the arts and charities, too. She lived in the house until she died more than seventy years later. That was about 1960, I believe.”

“What happened to the house after that?”

“It went through some pretty hard times,” Gina said. “None of Josiah Edgewood’s offspring wanted to live here, so they tried various money-making projects, like opening the manor up for day tourists and dividing it into apartments. Both the value and appearance declined rapidly, and about fifteen years ago they decided to put it on the market.”

“And?” the young man asked, toying absently with a strand of his wife’s long blond hair.

“And I bought it,” Gina said. “I’d just finished a degree course in hotel management. I was on my summer vacation, like you are. I came out to Azure Bay with a friend to spend a day swimming and lazing on the beach, saw this tumbledown old place and fell in love at first sight. I knew it would be perfect for a bed-and-breakfast, which was something I wanted to run.”

“But you must have been so young! ” the bride said in awe. “Younger than we are, even. How could you ever buy a big place like this?”

“Well, for one thing, I had a small inheritance from my grandmother.” Gina’s voice was offhand, but her stomach tightened at the memory of that awful time. “And the bank was really impressed with my plans for restoring the building and developing a business.”

“Bankers aren’t all that easy to impress.” The young doctor looked at her with frank admiration. “Nowadays it seems they only lend money to people who already have lots.”

Gina gazed across the rippling turquoise waters of the lake. “I know. It all happened so long ago the details are pretty hard to remember. But I managed it somehow,” she said with forced casualness. “So, you two are off for a swim?”

“If the water’s warm enough. Yesterday it still felt like ice. ”

Gina laughed at the girl’s expression. “Okanagan Lake is more than eighty miles long from one end to the other, you know, and it’s mostly fed by snow melting up in the mountains. The water doesn’t really warm up for another month or so. But with the hot weather we’ve been having, it should be getting tolerable.”

“Jenny’s just scared of the lake monster,” her husband said, ruffling his wife’s hair fondly. “What’s his name again?”

“Ogopogo,” Gina told him. “Lots of the local people say they’ve seen him. He’s supposed to be about sixty feet long, quite playful, with several humps and a head much like a horse.”

“Have you ever seen him?” Jenny asked.

Gina smiled. “Maybe,” she said. “But I’m not telling. Hurry up and go for your swim, or you won’t be back in time for tea.”

“I love teatime,” the husband said with enthusiasm.

“Forget the tea and cakes,” his wife teased. “The sherry’s what he really likes.”

The young man grinned, then ran off along the path to the beach, laughing as his wife came scrambling after him.

Gina watched them until they disappeared behind a rocky promontory. At last she turned and headed back up to the house, climbing the stairs to the gold room with its piles of wallpaper scraps.

SOON SHE WAS ABSORBED in her task again, lulled by the mechanics of the job, the careful measuring and fitting and the almost magical transformation as the fresh new paper covered the faded walls.

Gina hummed softly, thinking about curtains. The old lace panels looked limp and discolored against the new paper. Maybe she’d make a set of white priscillas for the window seat. Or some muslin panels on fling rods, trimmed with macramé lace…

She frowned, considering, and took a step closer to examine the window frame. In most of her decorating projects, she tried to stick to an authentic Victorian look, which was in keeping with the rest of the house. But window coverings, those were a real challenge.