Page 14 of A Mind of Her Own

It was snowing gently on the day that Oliver stepped off the train in Chicago at ten in the morning. He had taken the Broadway Limited at Pennsylvania Station in New York, and was met at Union Station in Chicago by one of the faithful employees of the Courier . Horace, the Courier driver, had brought one of their trucks, with a blanket for Oliver, for more warmth than the heat in the truck would provide. He also had a basket of sandwiches that Alex had given him when he left Beardstown at two in the morning, to make sure he met the train on time. Alex didn’t expect them back until late that afternoon, so she had provided food and a warm blanket for the trip. There was a thermos of hot coffee in the basket too, and another of hot chocolate.

Horace was waiting on the platform when Oliver stepped off the train and they recognized each other immediately, from Alex’s description. A porter carried Oliver’s bag to where Horace had parked the Courier ’s truck, and a light snow was falling. “The trip is likely to take longer than usual,” Horace said after he’d put Oliver’s bag in the back, and got behind the wheel. Oliver noticed that the truck was new, in good condition, and immaculately clean. When they left the station, the city looked like a Christmas card, with a light snow coating the lampposts, rooftops, and every surface. It looked like a gingerbread village.

Horace told him that he’d worked for the Courier for forty-four years, one of the first people Paul Peterson had hired and visibly proud of it. Oliver smiled as they drove away from the station, which looked like a setting for a model train set. They headed toward Beardstown. Oliver was excited to make the trip, and see the paper and Alex’s home. He drank some of the hot chocolate she had sent with Horace, and it was delicious. They talked about the newspaper, Horace’s early days working for Paul Peterson, and what a great man he had been. It gave Oliver a new perspective on Alex’s history and the family she came from. He had always heard good things about her grandfather, but Horace was a living voice from the past—a personal link to the paper, and Alex’s ancestors, and her grandfather’s journalistic brilliance and strong moral fiber. It was an interesting history lesson for Oliver.

“I have high hopes for Miss Alex, if she steps into her grandfather’s shoes one day,” Horace said as he got onto the road that would take them to Beardstown. Oliver couldn’t wait to see it now, and the operation at the Courier that Alex raved about.

With Horace’s sharp eyes and steady hand on the wheel, they reached Beardstown in just under seven hours, in spite of the still-falling snow. Oliver slept part of the way, and it looked like a fairyland when he woke up. They drove past the orchards on the way to the house, which was all lit up, waiting for him. Alex stood in the doorway, having heard the truck approach. The house shone brightly behind her. She was wearing a big white sweater and a red wool skirt, and her hair was a mass of soft curls around her face. Oliver smiled when he saw her. She beamed when she saw Oliver get out of the truck, while Horace got his bag from the back. It was a dream come true seeing Oliver there. She thanked Horace warmly for his important mission bringing Oliver safely home, as Oliver walked up the front steps and followed her into the house.

As soon as the front door closed behind them, he took her in his arms and kissed her. There were delicious smells coming from the kitchen. The housekeeper had made a rich stew that had been simmering for hours, waiting for him to arrive. And looking around at the house she had inherited, he felt like he had come home for the first time since his childhood. She looked more beautiful than ever as she gazed up at him.

He followed her into the big inviting kitchen, which was a combination of state-of-the-art equipment that had fascinated her grandfather, and old-fashioned charm. She poured him a glass of wine and smiled as she handed it to him.

“Welcome to Beardstown, Oliver.” She was only sorry she couldn’t introduce her grandfather to him. She had a feeling they would have liked each other immensely. Oliver had that feeling too, from everything Horace had said about him. “I’m so happy to have you see all this, especially the paper. My grandfather was so proud of it.”

“With good reason, from everything I know of it,” Oliver said, taking a sip of the wine.

She turned down the flame under the stew, and they walked into the library, which had an enormous fireplace, three large animal heads—an elk, a moose, and a buffalo—and walls of beautifully bound leather books all around the room. Paul Peterson had an impressive knowledge of and a deep respect for literature and rare books.

“Those are Joey, Charlie, and Francois,” she said, pointing to the animal heads. “I named them when I was six.” It startled him suddenly to realize that it was a mere fourteen years ago—he had already graduated from college by then, and she was just a child. In some ways, she still was to him, and he loved her openness and innocence, in spite of having come through the war, and lost so many loved ones, including the grandfather who had left her his newspaper and his house. There was never a shred of bitterness or self-pity about her, in spite of her losses, and she was grateful he had come to spend Christmas with her. It was going to be a very different holiday with him there. She had decorated a tree the night before that stood proudly in the front hall. He had seen it on the way in, but didn’t realize she’d done it for him. She hadn’t had a tree for Christmas since her grandfather died. But she had something to celebrate this year, with Oliver there.

They sat in front of the fire in the library as Oliver got warm.

“I hope the drive wasn’t too awful and Horace didn’t talk your ear off.”

“Not at all. He loved your grandfather, and he has high hopes for you. He’s eager for you to run the Courier one day.”

She looked serious when she answered. “I don’t know if I have the skill to ever do that. My grandfather had big shoes to fill. I don’t think I could ever measure up to him. He knew so much more than I do.”

“You’ll learn in time, you’ve already learned a lot.” She’d been very interested in the technical details at the paper in New York. The men in charge of the mechanics had been impressed by her, as well as the editorial staff. Sylvia Bates and her colleagues loved her, and he had heard nothing but good things on the grapevine. But she had her own empire to run one day, if she chose to, which was impressive too. She was still young, but she was hungry to learn all she could. And now he better understood why. Her grandfather’s legacy was an important one. She had inherited a newspaper of real quality that had a far reach into the community, and served it well. The Courier stood up well to its big-city competition in Chicago. The paper was respected among its peers. Oliver was sorry not to have had the chance to meet Paul Peterson.

The snow continued to fall while they were talking, and they put on coats to walk outside and sit on the porch for a few minutes before dinner.

“I used to love coming here as a child,” she reminisced. “I thought it was a magical place. I still do. But I feel like I should be learning everything I can in cities like New York and Chicago. It would break my heart to sell the paper, but I don’t know if I’m equal to the task of running it.”

“You’re up to it. I know you are, Alex,” he said gently. “And what you don’t know now, you’ll learn.” He believed it too. The longer he knew her, the more he saw how exceptional she was. And he was glad he had come for Christmas to see this side of her life. Here she wasn’t just a summer intern, she was the great hope of the grandfather who had been revered locally, and had kept the farmers abreast of world news while addressing their local concerns. The Courier did exactly what it was supposed to. It enlarged their world with solid knowledge and important facts, as well as progress in their field. It was a local paper with a wide-scale, international view.

“I’m not sure they’d respect a woman running it, not the way they did him. He was very special.”

“Would your mother have run it if she had survived?” Alex laughed at the idea.

“My mother didn’t care about journalism, the only thing she cared about was medicine, just like my father. Nothing else interested them.” They were a family of strong passions and brilliant minds, and Alex was no different, Oliver saw easily, and realized again how lucky he was to have found her on his path. He even forgot sometimes that she was French and not American. She adapted to any situation, and had learned a lot about American culture in the three years she’d been there. She fit in wherever she was, with discretion, intelligence, and poise.

She showed him around the house after he poured his second glass of wine. There was a handsome drawing room, which Paul had hardly used since his wife’s death. Miriam had loved to entertain the locals, and was the social leader of the successful farming families, which was less important to Paul, who worked all the time. They had bought some handsome art, which Alex enjoyed although she never used the room and didn’t entertain when she was there, and if she did, she did it in the cozy kitchen. There was a formal dining room, which Alex never used either, but her grandparents had. The master suite was upstairs, with two master bedrooms that shared a sitting room. Her grandparents had slept in separate bedrooms, as most people of their generation did. There was a little den on their floor, which had been Miriam’s haunt and favorite place for tea with her women friends.

On the third floor was Victoria’s old childhood bedroom, where Alex stayed, and her playroom, plus two guest rooms, with an entire warren of small bedrooms on the top floor for the servants. None of them lived in anymore, and came by the day since her grandfather’s death. These were modern times, and the employees preferred to live in their own homes, work by day, and then leave. It allowed them to have families and lives that old-time servants didn’t. Not living there herself full-time, Alex didn’t expect them to live in, as long as the house was cared for properly. Oliver noticed that it was impeccable, and everything in it was of the finest quality. Miriam had loved exceptional furniture and beautiful art, none of which interested her daughter when she left for Europe, stayed in France, and never came back.

Alex loved living in her mother’s childhood room on the third floor, when she stayed there. It was large and sunny, decorated in pink silks from France that were rarely seen in farm country, but Miriam Peterson had collected beautiful things and her husband had indulged her. Victoria’s childhood bedroom, although less grand than Miriam’s room, which Alex felt was a little too fancy and grown-up for her, was lovely. She preferred Victoria’s girlhood room, which was grand enough. She had picked her grandfather’s room for Oliver to stay in. It was full of beautiful books, and handsome bronze sculptures of western life by Frederic Remington. Alex’s grandfather had had many of them, and with Remington’s death eleven years before, his collection had become extremely valuable. Alex thought Oliver would enjoy them, so had opened her grandfather’s bedroom for him to stay in, which was a treat, and he admired it when he saw it.

Discovering Alex’s universe in Beardstown gave Oliver a whole new view of her than the little he had seen in New York. She had thrived in her Illinois life since she had come to the States three years before. She had integrated her American grandfather’s world and culture with her European background, and the culture she had grown up with in France. It made her all the more interesting, and made Oliver love her all the more when he saw her in her home, and not merely as a young summer intern in New York. At a young age, she was already a woman of many cultures. He knew she would have a wealth of subjects to write about one day, when she would feel ready to write a book. It fascinated him that she appeared to be American, and even sounded like it at times, but wasn’t. She was just subtly different, but it made her much more exciting than all the women he’d ever met.

As Alex preferred, they had dinner in the kitchen that night. Alice, the housekeeper, had set the table for them with Miriam’s linens and they ate the delicious stew and a cake Alice had made from a Viennese recipe that Paul had loved, a rich chocolate Sacher torte with raspberry filling, served with whipped cream. Oliver loved it. Alex readily admitted that she didn’t know how to cook, and had no interest in it.

“You have other talents,” he said and kissed her.

They retired to their bedrooms early that night. Oliver was tired after the long drive, although he enjoyed the evening with her, and he was touched to be put in her grandfather’s bedroom, and felt like the honored guest he was.

The next day, Alex took Oliver to the newspaper after breakfast, and introduced him to Josiah Webster. Josiah showed them around, and pointed out to Oliver all the technical details that fascinated him. The paper was state-of-the-art in all its equipment, which had been her grandfather’s passion, the modernization of everything. It put other bigger papers to shame with the equipment they had. She and Oliver talked about it animatedly over lunch, and Oliver was excited by what he’d seen.

“You’re going to love running this place one day,” he said enthusiastically, but she was still hesitant.

“My grandfather was such a big person, it makes me feel very small.”

“But you’re not small, Alex. You’re huge, and with your talent for writing, you could take your grandfather’s paper to the next level. It’s one of the best small newspapers in the country and can compete with the best of them.” Newspapers were a man’s world and Alex was afraid to leap in and drown. Even writing a book seemed less daunting. “With the management your grandfather left you, you could do it. I know you can. I can help you.” And then he realized what he’d said and what it meant. Helping her meant he would have to stick around to do so, and they had carefully avoided talking about the future, and lived entirely in the present. She wasn’t even twenty-one yet and hadn’t finished college. Her age was one of the things that made him hesitate. She was so young, and what did he have to offer her? He was just a reporter, no matter how good he was at his job. And soon he would be a published author, which seemed like a more important step than his career in journalism. He didn’t want to be a crime reporter forever. Alex wanted to be part of both worlds too, but it scared her when she thought about it. She knew she wasn’t ready to run the newspaper, and she didn’t want to ruin what her grandfather had so carefully created.

She took Oliver to see some of the neighboring farms, and he thought the area was beautiful, and some of it reminded him of Pennsylvania where he grew up, although he had lived in the city. He marveled at how lucky Alex had been to land there during the war, but she had been so much less fortunate, losing everyone she had loved, and ending up alone at such a young age. He admired her courage and fortitude even more than her beauty, and was touched by how shy she was, with other people. But she was comfortable with him.

They went to church together on Christmas Eve, and ate dinner in the dining room afterward. The housekeeper had prepared a goose for them, which was delicious, and Alex cooked a turkey herself, with Oliver’s help, on Christmas Day. They both agreed it was the nicest Christmas they’d ever had.

“My mother always tried to acknowledge Thanksgiving, even though it’s not a holiday in France, she wanted me to experience it. But it was a workday for them, and she wasn’t much of a cook, so we’d wind up eating at ten o’clock at night, and sometimes the turkey wasn’t totally cooked, so we’d eat sausages instead.” Alex laughed at the memory she shared with him, and Oliver looked wistful.

“We stopped celebrating holidays after my father left. My mother was too depressed, and I’ve hated holidays ever since.” But Alex had changed that. She improved everything. They joined some people from the church to go caroling on Christmas Day, and it was fun. Some children joined them, and Oliver had a deep voice, and the carolers came to the house for cider afterward. Oliver chatted with them and enjoyed it.

“It must be beautiful here in summer,” Oliver said to her after they left, and she nodded and said it was. “This would be a wonderful place to write.”

“It is,” but she’d been in New York for the past two summers, so she hadn’t spent much time in Beardstown. “Maybe you can come out this summer—the Fourth of July is a big deal here, with lots of picnics and a parade down Main Street. There are still some Civil War vets who walk in it with all their medals.” She smiled at the thought.

Oliver left on New Year’s Day, with great regret because of leaving her, and because he’d had the best holiday of his life.

She was sad to see him go, and they had shared a nostalgic New Year’s Eve the night before. At breakfast on New Year’s Day, she turned to him.

“When will I see you again, Ollie?” It was the question he always ran from, but she braved it.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. Not knowing had kept her from doing anything foolish with him while he was there. There was always something fragile and uncertain between them, because of his fear of commitment. Their relationship was wonderful, but always seemed fleeting and tenuous. “I won’t have any vacation for a while,” he answered, dodging the question. She nodded, knowing she had none from school in the accelerated program, except for a few days here and there.

Alex was going back to Chicago herself in two days, to start classes again. It had been a wonderful interlude with Oliver during the holidays. He had managed to squeeze ten days out of the newspaper, with some extra days traded with other reporters in order to spend them with her. He had to make up for it now. The passion between them had made it hard to resist the temptation to go too far sometimes, but she didn’t want to do anything that neither was ready for. It would ruin everything if she got pregnant, so they had been strong in their resolve, although they could easily have given in to temptation, but he respected her too much to do so.

There were tears in her eyes when she kissed him for the last time and he got into the truck with Horace for the drive to Chicago to catch the train to New York.

“Write to me,” Alex said when he rolled down the window.

“I’ll try,” he said, but he readily acknowledged that it wasn’t his forte. He hated writing to anybody, even to her, and she knew he loved her, more than ever now. She would just have to keep busy at school, and hope he’d come to see her again when he could. She was thinking of applying for a real job at the paper in New York for after she graduated in September, but she wasn’t sure.

She waved as they drove away, and walked back into the house. She and Oliver had been happy there together for ten days, and he loved the Courier. All the ingredients were there for a good life together, but she had no idea, given their respective wounds and scars from the past, if it would ever happen. There was no way of knowing with Oliver if he would retreat, bolt and run, or seize the future with both hands. Alex knew she had to make her decisions for herself. And as much as she loved him, she couldn’t depend on Oliver.