Charles. Eleanor was sad, but had a sense of peace about it. At least their final years had been comfortable ones in a place they loved, and they had each other. And Louise had gone to join him in the end.
* * *
—
The war in Europe was fierce by then and had been for some time, in the spring of 1944. Alex followed it avidly in the newspapers and on the radio. The Allies were fighting hard to defeat Hitler, but victory wasn’t assured yet. In spite of that, the Allies had liberated Rome in June of 1944 and at the same time, the Allied invasion of Normandy had begun. And as Charles had predicted for years, it had taken a war to end the Great Depression and turn the economy around. The economy was much stronger due to war production and new fortunes were being made. No one lived the way the very wealthy had when Eleanor and Alex were younger, but the country had money and was gaining strength.
It was in the spring after her mother’s death that Eleanor turned her attention to the barn, and decided to go through what was in it, and possibly sell it. She hired two young local boys to help her take everything out in the good weather, and she stood marveling at what they found there, including her wedding and debut dresses, which Louise had had carefully sealed in special boxes to protect them.
The furniture they uncovered consisted of some of the finest pieces that had been in the Deveraux mansion, of museum quality, none of it had suffered from being stored in the barn. It had been carefully covered, and looked as pristine as ever, upholstered in exquisite fabrics. Louise had even saved many of the curtains, some of which were antiques they’d brought back from France along with the furniture.
“What are we going to do with all this?” Alex asked, wheeling his chair around it, admiring the obvious quality that had previously been so familiar to him in his own home too. His old possessions were scattered to the winds now. Eleanor still owned a mountain of fine antiques from the barn, and had no way to use them in their real life. Louise had also saved a number of their very good paintings by well-known artists. They would have gotten nothing for them in 1929 and 1930, when they sold the house for a school.
“We should sell it, I guess,” Eleanor said, remembering how everything had looked in their home. Seeing it brought back so many distant happy memories. It was like a trip back in time for her.
They got it back in the barn after she inventoried what was there, and photographed it in order to send a list of the barn’s contents to an auction house, possibly Parke-Bernet in New York. Eleanor lay in bed thinking about it that night, all the beautiful things her mother had left her. She’d been right to keep them and not sell them at the time, fifteen years later, they were worth a fortune again, and people could afford to buy them. That night she dreamed about selling all of it. When she woke up in the morning, she went to find Alex in the kitchen, having breakfast with their daughter.
“Alex, I’ve had an idea,” she said, eyes bright with excitement, after she’d kissed them.
“You want to go on a boat ride with me after breakfast?” he said happily, looking at his wife.
“No, I’m serious!”
“So am I,” he teased her, and Camille asked if she could come too. Eleanor gave her some paper and crayons to keep her busy so she could talk to Alex. They weren’t financially desperate now with what her parents had left her, but the contents of the barn represented a considerable amount of money, or an opportunity. In fact, in the current climate of growing national prosperity, the contents of the barn, and the remaining smaller piece of property in Tahoe Eleanor owned now were worth a small fortune. Not the kind of fortune she’d grown up with, but very solid money, and more than enough to start a business, or buy a larger house if they wanted to. They were cash poor, but had her father’s investments, and her parents had lived frugally.
“What if we don’t send my parents’ things from the barn to auction? What if we sell them ourselves?”
“How? Privately, or take out an ad in a newspaper? ‘Fabulous antiques