~*~
When they got back inside, Nash agreed to stay late, and they tried to return to their lessons. Few seemed able to concentrate, though, and a lot of congratulating still went on with comments like, ‘Did you see his face?’ and ‘I think the big one wet himself.’
Suddenly, Madame Brockwell stomped into the room grumbling and wiping her hands on a towel. A smudged white apron overlaid a conservative, short sleeve, buff colored dress covering her ankles.
“Grandpa Nash,” she called. Everyone here called him that, even Granny Fletcher, the herbalist next door who tended to the medication needs of the girls from time to time. She was seventy-five. “Can I trouble you for a moment? The darn pump is broken, and I need to draw water to wash the dishes. I don’t want to disturb you or the girls at their lessons, but, well, I was just wondering if maybe you knew anything about pumps.” Her full lips curved into a disarming smile and her soft, brown eyes twinkled. Few would guess she had passed her fourth decade. “Since you seem to know a lot about so many different things, I just thought you might.”
“I’d be happy to take a look at it.” He smiled back.
Addressing his students, he said, “Continue your studies. I shouldn’t be long. If you need any help, I’ll be in the kitchen.”
He followed her through the door and along a gently sloping corridor. The boardinghouse obviously began originally as several different buildings built at different times for different purposes. The corridors connecting the various sections angled and sloped to compensate for this.
Hurricane lamps placed on special little shelves with mirrored backs along the walls provided more than enough light for the cheery yellow kitchen. Copper pans and cooking pots of all sizes hung on hooks over a large, butcher-block table in the center of the spacious room. One of Madame Brockwell’s current helpers futilely operated the handle of a red, cast iron pitcher pump.
“I can’t get more than a spit out it,” the young woman said with exasperation.
“That’s all right. It’s not your fault,” the landlady replied in a caring, maternal tone. “Grandpa Nash said he’d take a look at it.”
The old storyteller took the handle of the recalcitrant device in his hand and gave it a few pumps, listening carefully as he did so.
“Do you have a screwdriver and pliers I can use,” he asked the anxious boardinghouse owner.
Without turning she said, “Alice, honey. Can you go fetch Grandpa Nash the toolbox out of the utility closet? There’s a good girl.”
Once the young woman returned with the tools, it did not take him long to disassemble the simple device and locate the problem.
“It just needs a new cup leather.” He said. “I don’t suppose you have any spares.”
“Um, I don’t think so,” Madame Brockwell replied.
“I can probably get it working well enough for now, but it won’t last. I can pick up some new leathers and fix it properly tomorrow, if you’d like.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful. I’m so glad you were here. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
Nash doubted this very much, but he took her statement for the compliment he felt sure she intended it to be.
“It’s no problem at all,” he assured her.
A pensive look came over her face. “Trixie says you’re new in town. Have you found a place to stay yet?”
He had rented a small room at a cheap boardinghouse in one of the more rundown areas of town. It served him adequately, but he thought he saw the direction of her inquiry. “Nothing permanent.”
“You know, I could put you up here, if you’d like. I have this nice room with it’s own outside entrance. I’m just using it for storage now. Once it’s cleaned up, it will be very comfortable, I’m sure. You can have it, if you want. All I’d ask in return is that you help out once in a while when something needs a man’s touch.” She smiled, brushing her light brown hair away from her face with her hand.
“That’s a very tempting offer, Madame Brockwell,” he began.
“Call me Jenny.”
“All right, Jenny. But I wouldn’t want to put you out. This is a boardinghouse for ladies, after all, and it may not appear seemly for you to have a gentleman in residence.”
“Fiddle-faddle. Anyone silly enough to be upset about you staying here isn’t worth paying any attention to.” She paused for a moment and smiled. “Did I mention my offer is for room and board?”
“All right, you’ve convinced me,” he answered good-naturedly. “I’ll come by early tomorrow to clean out the storage room and see to that pump. I can move my things here in the afternoon and be all settled before the ladies’ lessons tomorrow night.”
“Oh, thank you. I’m sure you will be very happy here. All the girls love you like a grandfather, you know. It will be good for them to have you here. We do pretty well for ourselves, but I have to admit that sometimes it’s just nice to have a man around, especially one like you.”
“Why Jenny, you flatter me!”
“Nonsense. A lot of the girls here grew up in homes that didn’t have much by way of a father figure, if you know what I mean. In my experience, it’s the rare man who can pull off fatherhood properly. They’re just too, well, unsettled. Most of them, anyway. Not you, of course. You’re one of the rare ones, Grandpa Nash, and I think it will be good for my girls to have you here. They’re like my own children, and I always try to do what’s good for them. You, I think, will be good for them.”
Her appraisal warmed his ancient soul and triggered a sense of purpose basic to the core of his being. She presented him with an opportunity to be again what he had been designed to be—a caretaker and guardian, a teacher and a mentor. His new charges might be older than those he first cared for, but age is a relative thing. They were all still children in comparison to someone his age, and he wanted to help them as much as he possibly could, regardless of some obsolete directive.
Chapter Eighteen