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I could hardly wait to write this article, and am fully aware that my title closely resembles a very non-Victorian "ladies' garments" store that keeps no secrets and puts everything "out there" for anyone to see.
I am behind a closed door, though, typing on a laptop on the floor of a vacation house. The rest of my family is getting ready for a day at the beach. They just finished doing as much packing as possible to return home tomorrow. My topic concerns a family secret, now ending.
Our family has been together for a hilarious week of secrecy-celebration just outside a Victorian New Jersey seaside town, Cape May. It has unnecessarily linked well with the fascination my husband and I have these days with Victorian mysteries.
The family secret started when our son-in-law wanted to plan a special birthday for my husband this year. He got the idea and my two daughters, three grandsons and I joined in. It was decided that all of us, except my husband and his mom, who lives with us, should plot a surprise birthday party for him the week of July 16, his birthdate and also our wedding anniversary.
Our New England daughter called to tell me that her husband wanted to reserve a house in historic Cape May Point for the family surprise vacation and celebration. Sitting along Delaware Bay, the Point is five minutes south of the uniquely American Victorian town of Cape May. Many of the town's well-maintained Victorian mansions, with their grassy lawns, look out on the ocean-bay waters.
I whispered into the phone: "Cape May is a terrific choice! We all love that place and it fits right in with the Victorian mysteries that your dad and I are reading. I can drop all kinds of clues without really divulging much, the way Anne Perry's detective stories do!"
"Hmmm...OK, Mom. Can you just make sure Dad never suspects what we are planning?"
Thus began an intricate scheme put together in parts by all of us. We needed to coordinate a lot of details, agree on our plot line for the surprise, and conspire carefully to assemble all tools of non-discovery we could muster.
It began, as mysteries do, with partial truths...well, lies. I can tell you that even for a good cause doing this is painful. I made the sacrifice, every night rehearsing the moment when I could spill my guts to my husband with relief and tell him how everything had been worked out behind his back so he could have one of the biggest and most loving surprises of his life.
Imagine the cell phone calls made in closets and from under the bed in the middle of the night just to check on this detail or that and get help as to how much I could tell him about "our" birthday-celebration journey...which I told him I would be taking him on..."just the two of us. Isn't that exciting?!!!"?
"I gotta hang up now. He's coming!" became another favorite line during secret phone calls to one daughter or the other.
The grandsons, down to the very youngest, were in on it. We saw them in May, when the plan was well under way, and I was so proud that no one dropped even an off-hand remark to open up questions or suspicions in my husband's active mind. They even had a dummy sports camp schedule on hand for the big birthday week we were all plotting to make happen.
The plan finally began to unfold last week, and I was so relieved.
My husband and I left at 6 a.m. on last Saturday morning from a condo we have close to the Chesapeake Bay area near Annapolis. We had packed for a week away, to "celebrate your birthday," I had told him. "Together! Isn't that romantic?"
He had twinkled a smile back to me.
For this once-in-a-lifetime adventure, I claimed the driving wheel and enjoyed my husband's guesses at each turn onto new roads or highways. At every modification of direction, he put forth guesses about our possible destination. I hemmed and hawed, knowing he was close on the trail.
As we approached a ferry station at Lewes, Delaware, for one of the huge, modern ferries to Cape May, New Jersey, about two hours from our Bay start-off, I unfolded another surprise. I told him that his mother and our younger daughter were on their way from our home in Maryland , and would join us on the ferry. "They'll be with us...for a few days," I added, knowing all the time they would share the entire week.
It was a relief, though, to turn the conversation in a direction that did not include my main clue, "Victorian," a word which I had smilingly over-used the entire morning, inserting questions and musings about our newest Anne Perry Victorian mystery.
Whenever I mentioned "Victorian this" and "Victorian that," he never seemed to mind. And he never seemed to think of adding "secret," or to wonder if maybe I had brain cramp.
"How many days does she have off?" he asked, regarding our younger daughter.
"Enough to have some time to help celebrate," I said, trying to avoid answering the question.
The next big surprise happened at a favorite Cape May restaurant of years past, when our family would get together during summers at the Point.
This time, my husband was so preoccupied making sure we had a comfortable booth that he did not notice our older daughter, his son-in-law, and his grandsons at a table our way to sit down. The hostess was in on the whole thing, and she kept a straight face while insisting, "No, this table will be better for you."
After wondering (he told us later) "Why is this lady trying to put us with this table already full of people when I see a perfectly good booth that's free over there?"...my husband, shocked, saw the rest of our secretive cast of characters. By then, they had dropped or lowered the newspapers, caps, and menus they'd been hiding behind.
He was truly, authentically, and emotionally surprised over the Victorian birthday secret. After we had lunch, he was eager to see the mystery house reserved for us. No one in on the plan had seen the house except in photos on the Internet.
This has been a week of relief, when we have all shared a fun, emotional, laugh-filled, and relaxing time at the beach of Cape May Point!
Amid lace-work architecture of the 1800's and gingerbread design of multi-colored hues, just like a giant Victorian cake, we have pulled on the beach wear, hauled the beach gear, and solved every puzzle known to man.
This Victorian secret would not have been complete without my husband's mother being with us. What a good sport she has been. You'll appreciate this especially when you learn that she did not know, until the last minute, that she would need a week's worth of clothes and everything else important to a woman taking a week away! Aged 88, she has shown grit and poise...just as Victorian women did!
Our younger daughter pulled a lot of weight getting her grandmother's medicines together in advance, helping her pack, and loading a wheelchair into a van. She secretly put ice-packed Maryland into the car, ready to bake for a family dinner.
Our older daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons drove for several hours with vacation rental key securely in hand for the home they were treating us all to, as our holiday base. Their car was crammed with sheets, towels, and presents, as well as books, games, toys and home-made casseroles and treats.
In every way this has been a week to remember always, a time of relaxing fun and surprises featuring a Victorian beach town with every modern convenience, including a fast-baked, intricately decorated Victorian-era surprise birthday cake to close this case with panache!
I wish everyone could enjoy the reveal of a similar Victorian secret at Cape May someday! If chosen, it would be a proper thing to do! |
