That afternoon, outside Eastcliff’s crumbling stone and timber walls, ancient pine trees blackened in the waning light. The winds weakened and snowflakes began to fall, like secrets from a charcoal sky.
Inside the manor’s cavernous dining room, Annaliese placed Throckmorton in an ornately carved high chair used by generations of Easterling children. She set his tray with miniature pieces of fine English bone china and a tiny, slightly tarnished silver spoon.
Throckmorton felt like royalty.
Annaliese sat on his left. Evan and Teddy, eleven-year-old twins, sat across from him. The Honorable Judge Ellis Easterling crowned the head of a polished wooden table that was long enough to seat a small army.
A portrait of the family’s founder hung on the wall in back of the judge. Throckmorton had often heard the story:
A long, long time ago, Henry Easterling had sailed from Scotland to the northern coast of Maine, where he’d fished the seas, felled the trees, and skinned the silver foxes of their precious furs, amassing a great fortune. Henry Easterling had built Eastcliff as his summer home, but his descendants lived here year-round.
Miss Pine was seated in a faded brocade dining chair on Throckmorton’s right. Annaliese’s nanny wore a woodsy fragrance. Her blouse had ruffles, and she’d tied her hair back with a velvet ribbon.
Throckmorton glanced at the judge, wondering if the dreary man would notice her presence.
He didn’t.
In fact, the judge was half-finished with his bowl of lobster bisque before his eyes came to rest on Miss Pine’s plain face.
“Ah, Miss . . .”
“Miss Pine, sir. Laurel Pine.”
“Father,” said Teddy, noticeably chagrined. “You hired Miss Pine just last week.”
“Why, yes. Yes, of course.”
After that exchange, much was eaten but little was said. The judge’s gloom was contagious. Throckmorton thought that the meal would never end.
Finally—finally!—Judge Easterling scraped the last bit of whipped cream off his dessert plate.
“Children, Miss Pine, you may be excused.”
Annaliese’s dimples deepened in her cheeks. “Wait! I have a surprise,” she announced.
Miss Pine reached into her skirt pocket. She leaned across the high chair and slipped four red envelopes into Annaliese’s hand.
Pressing her lips together with delight, Annaliese delivered the day’s mysterious mail to her father. She peeked over his shoulder, rubbing her arms and shivering with excitement.
The judge nodded toward the high-back upholstered chair she’d vacated. “Be a good girl now, Annaliese . . .”
Throckmorton felt a tightness seize his throat. Those four words—be a good girl—often seemed like the only words the judge ever spoke to his daughter.
After Annaliese took her seat, Judge Easterling drew a pair of wire-rimmed glasses out of his vest pocket. Scowling, he shuffled through the envelopes.
“What in the world . . . ?”
Then, in a voice best suited for the sentencing of dangerous criminals, he read: “Throckmorton S. Monkey; Captain Eugene S. Monkey; Sir Rudyard S. Monkey; Miss Beatrice S. Monkey.”
“Huh?” Evan blurted—the first sound that Annaliese’s brother had spoken since dinner began.
The judge’s salt-and-pepper mustache twitched. “I demand to know what this is all about.”
“The letters came today,” Annaliese explained. “A man in a uniform brought them right up to our door. But Miss Pine wouldn’t let me open them. Not even Throckmorton’s.”
The judge plucked an envelope out of the short stack on the table in front of him. Right before he broke the seal, he cast suspicious eyes in Throckmorton’s direction. “If you don’t mind . . .”
Of course Throckmorton didn’t mind! He couldn’t wait to see what was inside.
“It looks like a valentine!” Annaliese exclaimed.
“Who’s it from?” asked Teddy.
“Your great-grandmama,” the judge answered with a touch of irritation in his voice. “My grandmother on my father’s side,” he clarified for Miss Pine’s benefit.
“She’s got oodles of money,” Teddy gloated.
Annaliese’s palms made rapid taps on the tops of her legs. “Read it,” she urged.
Judge Easterling cleared his throat and recited the words precisely as printed on the heart-shaped card:
Mrs. Ethel Constance Easterling
Requests the pleasure of you and your keeper’s company
At a party in honor of her ninetieth birthday
Saturday, February 14th
Six o’clock in the evening
The Ballroom
Eastcliff-by-the-Sea
RSVP
The judge snorted. “A party? For sock monkeys?”
For joy, for joy! Throckmorton cheered to himself. A party for sock monkeys!
“On Valentine’s Day? That’s less than a month away,” groused the judge. “Why, there hasn’t been a party in the ballroom since . . .”
In his mind, Throckmorton completed the judge’s sentence: since Olivia left . . .
Not only no parties . . . no music either.
No dancing.
And definitely—most definitely—no joy.
Throckmorton remembered how Olivia’s fingers once flew across harp strings like fairies in flight. And how, when her vagabond friends brought their fiddles, flutes, tin whistles, and drums to the Eastcliff ballroom, the crotchety old manor house sprang to life.
“The least my own grandmother could’ve done,” the judge grumbled, “is asked to use our ballroom before . . .”
“Our ballroom?” Evan chided, rubbing salt in his father’s old wound. “I thought you said that Great-Grandmama still owns Eastcliff, even if she does allow us to live here.”
“She’s up to something. . . .”
A sock monkey birthday ball, that’s what she’s up to! Throckmorton was so happy, he feared his seams might split.
After taking a draught of tea, the judge stroked his five-o’clock shadow, as if deep in thought.
Miss Pine broke the uncomfortable silence. “Excuse me, sir, but where did the sock monkeys come from?”
“Whenever a baby is born into the family, Great-Grandmama Easterling makes a sock monkey.”
Now, it was common knowledge that Ethel Constance Easterling had spent most of her wild and wealthy life pursuing fickle whims, exotic places, and four husbands. Her adoration of sock monkeys was deemed just one more curious aberration of character.
“I see. . . . ,” said Miss Pine.
“We all have one,” the judge told her.
“They come with birth certificates,” Teddy added.
“I’ve never seen your sock monkey, Father,” said Annaliese. “Where is it?”
The skin above Judge Easterling’s white shirt collar reddened. “Um, I guess I don’t know where she is.”
“She?” Evan sneered. “Yours is a girl?”
“Yes,” the judge acknowledged. “Miss Beatrice.”
Although he’d never seen Miss Beatrice, Throckmorton felt sorry for the judge’s sock monkey. Through firsthand experience, he’d learned how dreadful it felt to be forgotten by your keeper.
“Well, Captain Eugene is mine,” Teddy said. “Sir Rudyard belongs to Evan, even if he won’t admit it.”
“Sir Rudyard. What a stupid name,” said Evan. “No wonder I ditched that thing.”
Sir Rudyard was hardly stupid, Throckmorton silently protested.
Au contraire . . . Sir Rudyard S. Monkey was the largest, and considered the smartest, in the long line of sock monkeys that Great-Grandmama Easterling had made. Sir Rudyard was also impeccably dressed: a white shirt and bow tie; suspenders and herringbone slacks; and a tiny round gold watch in the pocket of his paisley vest.
Abruptly, Evan pushed his chair away from the table. “Anyway, who cares? I’m not going. Teddy and I always play pond hockey on Saturday nights.”
“Hold on, Son.”
The judge distributed the invitations like a man dealing cards: “Throckmorton, Annaliese; Captain Eugene, Teddy; Sir Rudyard, Evan; and Miss Beatrice, me.”
“Great,” Evan groaned.
“Now, no more skating or games of any sort until the missing monkeys are found.”
Evan punched the air. “Aw, Father, that’s not fair.”
“Life,” the judge declared, “is never fair.”
“And perhaps it’s a good thing for most of us that life is not fair,” piped Miss Pine.
Throckmorton just about tipped over.
No nanny talked back to Judge Easterling.
His eyes bore into her. “Would you care to elaborate?”
The corners of Miss Pine’s mouth turned up slightly and she met his gaze. “Oh, just something my favorite poet once said . . .”
The judge checked his watch. Grim and eager as he always was to retire to his study, he waved his hand dismissively. “Take care of this business, Miss Pine,” he told her, turning on his heel.
“The, um, monkey business?” she asked.
Miss Pine winked at Throckmorton.
“Oh yes, sir. I will, sir. You can count on me, sir.”