A FAMOUS CARETAKER
FAMOUS CARETAKERS
Last April, a month or so before heading up here for the summer, Rutherford Lodge, aged 99, of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, settled down in his study to reflect on the passing of Hannibal Brown who had died during the winter at age 101 and on the long history Hannibal and his descendants shared with Rutherford and his. It had been thus, the parallel lives of the Lodges and the Browns, ever since Rutherford commissioned the building of the ‘cottage’ high up on the bluff on Peaslee’s Cove back in 1926 and had subsequently taken on young Hannibal as Caretaker.
Linen writing paper carrying the embossed heading Above the Fray, under which appeared a nice ink rendering of the looming cottage as viewed from the shore below, could be found at the little writing desk in each of the nine bedrooms, each also with a bath and an expansive view of either the Thorofare to the East and West or the village of North Haven with the Camden Hills looming over its shoulder across the way to the North. Out back, away from the water, beyond the fray as it were, and looking out over the clothes yard and driveway, were six small and sparsely furnished bedrooms and a bath reserved jointly for the butler, chauffeur, house maid, cook, scullery Maid and governess. Back then the ‘help’, as they were known, were transported up to the island late each spring from the estate in Chestnut Hill. A few days later the ‘Family’ would follow, settling in comfortably to their carefully and freshly quaffed summer encampment.
Accustomed to selecting from among a broad field of supplicants, often Irish Immigrants, to fill out the ranks of ‘help’ back in Massachusetts, Rutherford was unaccustomed to the contrasting nature of applicants from North Haven and Vinalhaven. Following each interview, he found himself feeling somehow diminished and by the middle of August had settled with some apprehension but with a distinct sense that an unalterable course had been set, into a kind of subservient mindset, almost as if it were himself who was being scrutinized. Toward the end of August, desperate to have someone in place by Labor Day, he offered the job to Hannibal Brown who seemed the least suspect of the lot and Hannibal, after pondering the offer, re-negotiating the salary, restricting the hours during which and the reasons for which he could be called, and generally doing Samuel Gompers proud, accepted and then began a long and often volatile marriage of independence to interdependence.
During the next half century Rutherford or his wife Grace, often in a great huff and usually with noble cause, terminated Hannibal’s employment at least once every summer. Hannibal, on the other hand, resigned his position as frequently, usually for reasons that were, if not entirely clear to him, seemed at least sufficient. One morning, during a particularly contentious summer when Hannibal seemed to offend at every turn and the Family’s lofty airs, by August, appeared to Hannibal pretentious, Rutherford re-hired him in spite of the fact that he hadn’t been fired beforehand. Not more than an hour later, however, Grace did fire him after he invaded her tea party and, emboldened by a little early tea of his own, unmistakably propositioned one of her guests. Hannibal retired to the boathouse, a sanctuary over which he exercised some dominion and to which he often retreated to lick his wounds, and while working himself up into a good stew and having some more tea, observed that the North Haven Dinghy races, directly offshore, were laboring through one false start after another. A final swig propelled him to the corner cabinet where he kept a 12-gauge shotgun. Loading in several shells he bellowed through a megaphone that it was high time they got underway, discharged several rounds above the assembled boats and watched with satisfaction as they scattered, some directly downwind along the course, others in the opposite direction into the wind and still others on a hasty tack for the lee shore.
Rutherford, who was a volunteer monitor observing from his float just off the boathouse, went charging up the ramp and, unaware that Grace had just dismissed Hannibal, told him that, this being the final straw, he was dismissed. Feeling excessively dismissed, Hannibal did retreat but only to his truck which he drove out of sight and in which he then consumed just enough additional tea to gain the courage to row out to the mooring around dusk and cut loose Much Ado, a forty-foot ketch. On board but in the galley preparing the ingredients for an above deck repast for the Lodges were their weekend guests who’d sailed up from Cape Anne. When they came topside to welcome their dinner guests who had by now rowed out to an empty mooring, they found themselves just shy of foundering on the Sugarbush ledges, the outgoing tide and a gentle northeasterly breeze having carried them nearly two miles from their berth.
Still, the next day, when the cistern ran unexpectedly dry, and no one knew how to get re-supplied from the wooden water tower back up the hill Hannibal was re-called into service and bygones were regarded as just so.
Eventually, in spite or perhaps because of regular incidents like these and certainly because their enjoyment of ‘The Fray’, as it had become known, depended on the skill and resources of Hannibal and, it shouldn’t be forgotten, Hannibal and his family profited from the employment, the relationship between them and him came to resemble any of several good solid island marriages. They were mutually devoted to and respectful of one another and as each mellowed, more and more tolerant, one of an occasional indiscretion and the other of appearances. Rutherford, alone now since Grace had passed away a few years back, had broken his hip and, for the first summer in 77 years would not be returning to the Fray this summer. His old nemesis and constant solace had died at just the right moment.