train before the men did to get organized and settled. They didn’t have guests coming on the first weekend, but had invited many for the rest of July and August. Their dining room was as large at the lake as it was in the city, and they had more than twenty guest rooms, including the guesthouses near the main house.
Louise met with the gardeners when she arrived, and told them what flowers she wanted every day from their gardens. She brought the cook from the city, with her assistants, and many of the maids. They hired some local girls to help every summer. The boatmen had the boats ready. They kept horses in the stables for their guests to ride. Louise rode, but wasn’t enthusiastic about it. Eleanor enjoyed riding up into the hills with her father. All the fishing gear was at the ready for Charles and their guests. By the time Charles and Alex arrived on the weekend, everything was in order and waiting for them. Louise ran an extremely efficient home.
The four of them enjoyed a quiet dinner together the night the men arrived on their private train. They had their own small station not far from the house. They went to bed early and Eleanor and Alex went riding the next morning, before her parents were up.
“This is a wonderful place,” Alex said, looking enthusiastic. There was so much to do. “My parents had a ranch in Santa Barbara where we used to go in the summer. I sold it when they died. My brothers didn’t like it, and it was too much for me on my own. I thought I’d buy something smaller, but I never have.”
“Well, you don’t need to now.” She smiled at him, comfortable on the horse she rode every summer, a gentle mare. She had given Alex one of her father’s hunters who was a good ride as well. “We have this,” she said peacefully, looking out at the vast expanse of their land, which included a forest, and part of the mountains behind them, as well as a long stretch of lakefront, where they had their boathouse and the dock, and a narrow beach. “I like coming up here. It’s nice to get away from the city. I hope you’ll love it here.”
“I’ll love any place where I am with you and it will be wonderful for our children one day,” he said, and she blushed. It embarrassed her to discuss things like that with him, but it was her dream too, and she could envision it easily. The property had been in her family for four generations, and would continue to be in the future.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently, “that was indelicate of me, but I can’t think of anything more wonderful than having children with you.” She nodded, unable to speak for a minute, and he leaned over and gently touched her cheek. “I want you to be happy, Eleanor, and to give you a perfect life.” Her life was already perfect, but he was the added blessing now. She had never expected to love a man as she did him, and they seemed to love each other more every day.
They rode for an hour, and then took the horses back to the stable and joined her parents for breakfast in the morning room that looked out at the lake.
“Have you been out in the boats yet?” Charles asked Alex over a hearty breakfast.
“Not yet. We thought we’d go down to the boathouse after breakfast.” Charles nodded with a smile, knowing the pleasant surprise in store for him. He joined them and walked to the lake with them after breakfast, while Louise went to confer with the cook. They were going to have crayfish from the lake for lunch, and trout. The boatmen fished for them and the cook did wonders with their catches.
When they reached the boathouse, Alex was stunned by the beautiful speedboats they kept there. They had a sleek Gar Wood racing boat, a Fellows & Stewart “marine sedan.” They got into Charles’s favorite one, Comet, with a Hall-Scott engine, and then sped across the lake, and took a tour for an hour at full speed, before returning to the dock. Eleanor wanted to change into a swimsuit, and lie in the sun, and they were going to water-ski that afternoon.
The days at the lake passed easily, and Alex and Charles spent considerable time discussing the recession that had begun that summer and