Free Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt Page A

and is moving out here for the winter while he finishes his latest book.” She corrected the height of a window shade and ran her finger across the sill at which gesture I trembled, but she smiled at me in a very friendly way. “You really are becoming very careful, Julia; your dusting is much more thorough than it used to be.”
    I decided to try once again. “Who is Dr. Jonathan Eltwing, Aunt Cordelia?” I asked, betting to myself that she would never get into the romantic angle involving the distinguished professor.
    She didn’t. She raised her brows ever so slightly and adjusted another shade. “He is a noted lecturer and writer,” she said, “an authority on nineteenth-century Russian literature. I knew him rather well when we were young; it will be very nice to see him again—and his wife, of course.” She hesitated, frowning thoughtfully. “I have heard that Mrs. Eltwing’s mind is a little deranged; if she should seem—different, we must be very tactful.”
    We commenced right away to get the house in order for the Eltwing visit. “There will be a lot to do, Julia; I think we had better get Mrs. Peters to help us if she has the time.” She stroked her chin in concentration. “I wonder if we should serve tea; Mrs. Eltwing is English, I believe. No, I think in spite of that, we’ll serve coffee. Jonathan used to enjoy coffee and a special kind of cinnamon roll my mother made for him. Mamma was very fond of Jonathan until he outshone—someone very dear to her.”
    Uncle Haskell, I thought. Grandmother’s fair-haired darling. I guessed that there was no love lost between Jonathan Eltwing and Uncle Haskell.
    There was a pleasurable excitement in the air that week as we made our preparations. My grandmother’s china had to be taken from the closet and each piece washed carefully and wiped. I was not allowed to breathe upon it, much less to touch it and so, with proper humility, I helped Mrs. Peters wax floors and wash windows, tasks in which my lack of coordination could do no particular damage. I didn’t mind at all since I enjoyed working with Mrs. Peters; she was a chatty little woman, and a very good source of information regarding Aunt Cordelia and Jonathan Eltwing.
    â€œOh, they were in love, all right. She herself once admitted as much to me when we were young together,” Mrs. Peters told me in a low voice as we washed the outside of the living room windows and kept on the lookout for any sudden appearance of Aunt Cordelia. “But after he left, the months went by, and she would have to say no to Jonathan’s urging that she come to him—there was always sickness or debt or another worn-out old woman to be cared for. One couldn’t blame Jonathan—he waited and hoped for a long time, and after a while I suppose that if the memory of her hurt, there were other women to soothe that hurt. I suppose I haven’t any right to say this, Julie, but I’ll say it anyway—if your grandfather had lived, things would have turned out differently around here. He would have seen to it that a certain person who shall be nameless would have carried his share of the burdens that fell upon this household. But not old Mrs. Bishop. Oh, no! According to her way of thinking, Cordelia was created to carry on for the rest of the family.” Mrs. Peters paused for a few seconds and polished a pane of glass with a flash of energy out of all proportion to the need of her task. “I’ve said to Jim Peters many a time,” she continued, “and he’s always agreed with me, that old Mrs. Bishop was lacking in the qualities that make a good mother. And saying it that way makes her sound a good deal better than she really was.”
    By the week’s end the whole house shone with the effects of ammonia and wax and furniture polish. On Saturday morning Aunt Cordelia allowed me to arrange several bowls of