their lifetime. The days of unlimited grandeur were over. Louise was determined to make the best of it, as she had urged Eleanor to do with Alex. She was planning to drag Charles along with her if she had to. It was easier with Alex, at thirty-three. Charles at fifty-two no longer had a career to occupy him, or any hope for the future. Louise was determined to gently pull him into the present at least, and out of the past they had lost. It was undeniably a sudden change. All their lives they had been rich men, until four months before, and now they were paupers and had almost nothing. It was a brutal change in a very short time, and a huge adjustment.
On her last trip to Tahoe before they moved, Louise took some favorite objects out of the main house, and moved them to their new one, and put some more pieces in the barn. The rest of it they were going to sell with the Tahoe property if the buyer wanted it furnished. There had been no interest in it so far. The property was vast and the land too valuable to sell for very little. Charles wanted to hold out for a good price, for as long as he could. And they weren’t as desperate for a fast sale, now that they had sold their home in the city.
Eleanor and Alex moved into their new apartment the weekend before her parents were leaving for Tahoe. Leaving the house was painful for all of them, and the house was too quiet once the young people moved out. Eleanor had looked around the house and the ballroom for the last time, remembering her debut there only a year before, and their wedding in the tented garden four months before. It was a time and a lifestyle that they all sensed would never come again.
The hall boys and maids they were no longer paying but were housed for free, had to move out that weekend. They had all found minor jobs as waitresses in restaurants and maids in hotels, truck drivers, and janitors. They were paid poorly and used none of their skills and experience working in a fine home, but they were grateful to find work, and all moved to boardinghouses now that the Deveraux family was finally leaving. There were countless tearful goodbyes among the staff, and with their employers who had always been kind to them, respectful, and fair.
Wilson was leaving for New York the day before Charles and Louise were moving to Lake Tahoe. She had booked passage in third class on a boat to England, and at the last minute Houghton had decided to join her. They planned to try and find a job together in a home in London, as housekeeper and butler or chauffeur. The British economy was suffering too, but not as severely as in the States, or at least not yet. They came to say goodbye to their employers on Monday morning. Charles and Louise were having breakfast, which Louise had prepared for him. She was getting quite good at it, and had never cooked in her life till then.
“We came to say goodbye,” Wilson said, already overcome with emotion, and Houghton looked equally moved. They had both worked for them for almost thirty years, their whole adult lives. It broke their hearts to leave them, but there was no place for them in Lake Tahoe, nor money to pay them, and they both needed jobs. “And we have something to tell you,” Wilson said as she choked back tears. “We got married on Friday,” she said as she reached out to hug Louise, and Houghton shook hands with Charles.
“You did? Why didn’t you tell us? We would have celebrated,” Charles said immediately. It hadn’t seemed right to them to expect the Deveraux family to celebrate anything, when they were facing such severe losses. The newlywed couple had gone out for a quiet dinner on their own.
“We thought that if we were going to try and find a job together, we might as well be married and be a proper couple.” Wilson smiled through her tears and Houghton beamed.
“We really hope you find a good job in London,” Charles said. He had written a glowing reference for each of them, and given them each a generous check to thank them for their years of service. The kind of jobs they wanted and were so well trained for