Secrets of the Morning (Cutler 2)

As soon as she was gone, I turned back to the room. The sunlight through the pale ivory sheers was misted and frail and gave the sitting room a dreamlike quality. The chintz sofa and matching side chair with its high back and cushioned arms were both worn and comfortable looking. On the coffee table were copies of theater magazines and an old rocking chair sat across from the sofa.

In the corner to my right, next to a beautiful desk, was a table of dark oak with an old-fashioned record player just like the one in the RCA logo, and a pile of old records beside it. The top record was the aria from the opera Madame Butterfly. Over the fireplace mantel was a painting of a stage play. It looked like the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

On the other side of the room was a piano. I looked at the sheet music opened on it and saw it was a Mozart concerto, something I had played in Richmond. I felt like sitting down and playing it now. The tips of my fingers tingled in expectation. It was as if I had never been away from it.

Behind the piano were shelves filled with copies of plays and old novels and a glass case full of things from plays: old programs, pictures of actors and actresses, props, including a colorful mask like the kind worn at fancy costume balls, some glass figurines and a pair of castanets with a note under it that read, "Given to me by Rudolph Valentino."

My gaze fell on a silver framed photograph of what had to be a very young Agnes Morris. I took it into my hands to look at it more closely. Without the heavy makeup, she looked fresh and pretty.

"You shouldn't touch things without permission." jumped at the sound of Agnes's voice and pivoted to see she was standing in the doorway, her hands pressed to her chest.

"I'm sorry, I was just . . ."

"Although I want the students to feel at home here, they must respect my possessions."

"I'm sorry," I said again. I put the picture back quickly.

"I have a number of valuable artifacts, things that you can't replace no matter how much money you have because they are associated with memories, and memories are more precious than diamonds or gold." She came farther into the room and gazed at the picture.

"It's a very nice picture," I said. Her face softened some.

"Whenever I look at that picture now, I think I'm looking at a complete stranger. That was taken the first time I appeared on a stage."

"Really? You look so young," I said.

"I wasn't much older than you." She tilted her head and swung her eyes so she gazed toward the brass light fixture on the ceiling. "I had met and worked with the great Stanislavsky. I played Ophelia in Hamlet and got rave reviews."

She peered at me to see if I were impressed, but I had never heard of Stanislavsky.

"Sit down," she said sharply. "Mrs. Liddy will be in shortly with your tea and sandwiches, although you mustn't expect to be waited on hand and foot after this."

I sat on the sofa and she sat in the rocker across from it.

"I know a little about you," she said, nodding, her eyes small and her lips tucked tightly together. Suddenly, she reached under the waist of her skirt to produce a letter. What an odd place to keep it, I thought. She held up the envelope as if to show me she possessed some valuable secret thing. The instant I saw the Cutler Cove Hotel stationery, my heart began to flutter.

She took the letter out of the envelope. From the way it was folded and creased, it looked like she had been reading it every hour on the hour since it had arrived. "This is a letter from your grandmother. A letter to introduce you," she added.

"Oh?"

"Yes." She raised her eyebrows and leaned forward to peer right into my face. "She has told me about some of your problems."

"My problems?" Had Grandmother Cutler put my dreadful story in writing? Why? Did she hope to make me seem freakish and curious even before I had begun here? If she had, it was only to make sure I failed to follow my dream.

"Yes," Agnes said, nodding and sitting back in the rocker. She fanned herself with the letter. "Your problems at school. How they had to transfer you from school to school because of the difficulties you had getting along with other students your age."

"She told you that?"

"Yes, and I'm glad she did," Agnes replied quickly. "But, I didn't have any trouble at school. I've always been a good student and . . ."

"There's no point in denying anything. It's all here in black and white," she said, tapping the letter. "Your grandmother is a very important and distinguished woman. It must have broken her heart to have had t

o write these things." She sat back. "You've been quite a burden to your family, especially to your grandmother."

"That's not so," I protested.

"Please." When she raised her hand, I saw that her fingers were turned and twisted with arthritis and her hand looked more like the hand of a witch. "Nothing matters now but your next performance."

"Performance?"