October 1922
Hestia Myatt paused before knocking on the door of her aunt’s Victorian home situated in the foothills of the Appalachians in Maiden, North Carolina. She would only be staying three weeks, helping her relative recover from a broken pelvis—and during that time, Hestia hoped to collect her thoughts and make plans for a new life after her broken engagement.
A train whistled as it passed. The familiar sound always reminded Hestia of her aunt’s house. An afternoon autumn rain had left burnished leaves lying on thin grass and a musty smell in its wake. Loving this season, Hestia took a moment to invigorate herself with a breath of chilly air as a welcome respite. Aunt Louisa’s friend, Mrs. Howard, had picked up Hestia at the train station in her Model T. After a harrowing ride, thanks to her inexperience with the motorcar, she had dropped Hestia at the end of the sidewalk and departed. Undaunted, Hestia handled her two brown leather bags with ease. After composing herself, she rapped twice on the front door.
“Come on in.” Hestia could hear the familiar voice through the open window. Her aunt’s bedroom was on the front left side of the house. “Door’s open.”
As Hestia entered, a faint odor of leftover vegetable soup greeted her. Evidence of lunch didn’t surprise her. Aunt Tillie had left only a couple of hours before, and Hestia had stepped in to take her place. The soup’s aroma didn’t smell appetizing at the moment; Hestia had had a good meal on the train. She took off her wide-brimmed hat decorated with large flowers and noted that the clean but cluttered parlor looked the same as she remembered from her childhood visits. Some of the sepia-toned portraits of long-dead relatives displayed in silver frames on occasional tables brought memories to Hestia’s mind. Not a speck of dust could be seen. Overstuffed chairs with doilies draped over their arms and backs, crocheted years ago from cream-colored tobacco twine, offered comfort.
Figuring she’d be assigned to the back bedroom but unwilling to make assumptions, Hestia set her luggage on the shining pine floor.
“In here, Booth! What you waiting for?” Aunt Louisa called from her sickroom.
Booth? A flicker of remembrance visited Hestia. The round little boy could be counted on to throw a frog down her back or tease her by pretending he’d take aim at the nearest innocent bird with his slingshot.
She wondered how the little squirt was doing. Only he couldn’t be a little squirt anymore. Too many years had passed since her last visit.
Smiling, she made her way through the parlor and turned into the bedroom. Out of respect for her aunt’s privacy, Hestia had rarely ventured into the bedroom during past visits, but it, too, appeared much as she remembered—an extension of the cluttered parlor. A cherrywood four-poster bed dominated the space. Her aunt sat propped up by many fluffy pillows and rested underneath a quilt she’d sewn years ago out of colorful fabric scraps in the pattern known as Flying Geese. As a girl, Hestia had studied the triangular patches, wondering about the history behind the different cloth remnants. When Hestia quilted with her friends at church for their annual bazaar, the women would talk about the dresses, shirts, and skirts they had sewn from the material they’d donated, so each quilt symbolized the love of friends and family.
“Oh, it’s you.” Aunt Louisa’s voice sounded welcoming, and bright eyes regarded Hestia from behind small spectacles. “I didn’t realize the time had flown by so quickly. Why, you nearly crossed paths with Tillie.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Hestia walked to her aunt’s bedside and kissed the smooth apple of her cheek, which defied the rest of her wrinkled face. As usual, Aunt Louisa smelled of talcum powder and, more so, of menthol liniment, the combination of scents Hestia associated with her. “I can still smell the soup you two had for lunch. Am I right that you’re not hungry for supper yet?”
“Not yet. Tillie left some ham biscuits in the icebox. I reckon we can eat those around six thirty this evening.”
Hestia didn’t find her aunt’s exacting time surprising. Aunt Louisa loved to stay on top of details. “That sounds fine to me.” Though not overly tired from her trip, Hestia still felt grateful that her aunt had been considerate and already made plans for the next meal. “For now, why don’t you let me bring you some tea, anyway? I could use a cup myself, truth be told.”
“Of course. I’d love to visit over tea. Tillie and I had the best time catching up while she tended to me, but I’m ready for fresh news from other quarters.” The older woman sighed. “I hate to be such a bother. Can’t believe I fell right in my own house.”
“Happens to the best of us. But you’ll be well soon. I’ll see to that.”
“Oh, and you can get settled in the back bedroom.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Hestia decided her bags could wait. A pick-me-up in the form of a cup of piping hot tea sounded good. She journeyed through the dining room. A substantial table and matching oak sideboard displayed her aunt’s good rose-patterned china. Aunt Louisa liked to brag that the dining room set came from nearby Hickory, which was famous for quality furniture. Smiling as she remembered the boast, Hestia entered the kitchen in the back of the house. Like the others, this room hadn’t changed from Hestia’s recollection. Old-fashioned appliances, the likes of which she hadn’t seen since the last time she visited, remained. Aunt Louisa never believed in replacing anything that wasn’t broken. The old-fashioned room possessed charm.
Aunt Louisa had always kept a blue-and-white kettle full of hot water on the wood-burning stove, and although she now kept to her room during this convalescence, today was no exception. Hestia prepared the refreshments without delay. Spotting a cookie jar painted with blue roses on the white countertop, she lifted the top and peered inside. Empty except for a few crumbs. She’d have to bake a batch of sugar cookies so they could have a snack in the afternoons to cheer her aunt’s spirits and tide them over between meals. If her aunt’s bony shoulders indicated the weight on the rest of her body, a little in the way of sweet treats wouldn’t hurt her.
Aunt Tillie had left a silver tray to dry in the sink, so Hestia used it for the tea. Before exiting the kitchen, she checked the stove. Using a dish towel to protect her hand from the heat, she picked up the iron handle that went with the stove, which had been fashioned to catch into the slots of the heavy circular iron lids covering the fire. With alacrity she slid the handle into the slot of the nearest lid and lifted it to take a peek inside. Bright orange flames told her the wood would be burning awhile yet. She replaced the lid and then, bending, pulled out the white enamel drawer underneath to see if the ashes needed to be emptied. They didn’t. Aunt Tillie had been her usual efficient self in making sure all was taken care of before exiting—well, except for cookies. All the same, Hestia made a mental note to thank Aunt Tillie when she next wrote to her. Surely Aunt Louisa would miss seeing Tillie every day since she’d returned to her home in Shelby.
Hestia’s glimpse of a corner caught a bucket overflowing with fresh cucumbers. Apparently they had been a gift from someone’s second harvest. She wondered what her aunt had planned for the vegetables.
With that thought, she picked up the tray carrying the tea and entered the sickroom.
“How did Tillie leave everything?” Aunt Louisa wanted to know.
“Fine, except I couldn’t bring you any cookies, but we can do without for a day. I’ll bake a batch tonight if you’ve got flour and sugar on hand.” She set the tray on the vanity table.
“Tillie said I’m a bit low on supplies, but we should have enough to get by for a while yet. Didn’t you see the apple pie on the counter? I thought she said there was some left over from lunch.”
“Maybe she put it in the icebox.” Hestia shrugged. “I’m not hungry enough for pie, but I’ll be glad to fetch you a piece.” She made a motion toward the kitchen.
“No, I’ll wait for dinner—or maybe even lunch tomorrow. Being on bed rest the way I am, I don’t move around enough to need much to eat.” Aunt Louisa appraised Hestia as though she were a newly fashioned hat she was considering buying. “You look like a slice of pie wouldn’t hurt you.”
“I’m not a fanatic about staying slim, but I try not to overindulge.”
“That’s a good idea.” She studied her again. After a few seconds, an approving nod went Hestia’s way. “Your mother is a beautiful woman, but I do believe you surpass her.”
“Now is that the laudanum talking?” Hestia joked. “Really, you flatter me.”
“I’m serious. Your father can forget a career for you. Some man will sweep you off your feet before you can shoo him away. What’s all this your father says about you thinking of a career in medicine, anyhow?”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I do find Father’s work as a doctor fascinating. Demanding but fascinating.”
“Yes, you never get a good night’s sleep when you’re a doctor. Somebody’s always sick, it seems.” She chuckled. “Like me, I’m afraid.”
“Maybe he sent me here so you would discourage me from being a doctor, but I do know he enjoys having me as his assistant. The truth be told, I’d be content working for him the rest of my life.” Hestia picked up an old image of her parents, taken when they were newlyweds. The smiling couple had grown into contented marriage partners.
“I know he’d like to keep you close to home.” Aunt Louisa’s attention focused on a picture of their family at a long-ago reunion when Hestia was but a child of six and her brothers not much older. “But Roger is still close by, at least.”
“Yes, and that’s a comfort to all of us.” She set the picture on the table.
Aunt Louisa paused. “Nothing has been the same in your family since Edwin and Roger went to the Great War, has it?”
“No, ma’am.”
She hated to think about how they lost Edwin; Roger came home without a physical wound but not the carefree boy he had been when he signed up to serve in the army. Hestia had encouraged him to share his war stories, but Roger said that his commanding officer had ordered his unit to forget everything they saw. Roger, always obedient to authority, did just that. Or so he said. “Papa has always been overprotective of me, but he did get worse after my brothers went to war.”
“The reality of losing a son will do that to you.” Aunt Louisa paused so long that Hestia thought she might cry, but she held back her emotion with an audible swallow. Instead, she turned cheerful. “How is Roger?”
“He and Elizabeth seem happy. They’re renting a little house now, near where we live.”
“Good to have family around. Any babies in the near future?”
“If there are, they’re keeping it a secret from all of us. I know that Papa and Mama want some babies to hug.” Hestia wished for a soft new baby to arrive in their family, too. Something about a newborn had a way of bringing everyone together. Maybe the helplessness of an infant brought out the compassion in people, putting them at their best.
“They’ll come soon enough.” Aunt Louisa sighed wistfully, and Hestia wondered if she felt sorry she didn’t have children. “Did you get a chance to investigate your room yet?”
“Not yet. I will after we have our tea.”
Aunt Louisa looked at the small clock on her nightstand. “Booth should be here soon. He stops by every day and helps me out, you know. He’s such a sweet boy.”
Hestia held back a grimace. Booth Barrington could not be described as sweet, at least not by his peers. She remembered the unflattering nickname he’d given her. Perhaps he seemed more polite to older folks. He always got their names right. Sometimes Booth used to tease her by pronouncing her name as Hes-TEE-ah instead of HES-tee-ah, a jest that annoyed her no end. She almost let out a groan in remembrance but restrained herself.
Hestia handed her aunt a cup of tea. A second cup in hand, Hestia took a seat in the vanity chair and set her thoughts to more immediate concerns. “Well, you can tell him he won’t need to stop by anymore. At least not every day. I’m here now.”
A knock on the back door kept Aunt Louisa from responding.
“Does he usually come through the back?” Hestia reasoned that they enjoyed a close relationship if he took such liberties.
“It varies. He stops by after work.”
“Where does he work?”
“Union Mill. He helps run the office.”
The back door slammed shut and the sound of boots clacking on the hardwood floor of the enclosed porch told them that whoever it was felt free to enter without waiting for a response.
“Yoo-hoo!” A rich yet high-pitched female voice trilled. “Louisa? Tillie?”
“In here, Olive.”
Hestia recalled the distinctive voice. “Miss Olive still lives next door, I take it.”
Aunt Louisa nodded, which didn’t surprise Hestia. She imagined the lifelong friends would always live side by side. Yet a tired sigh told Hestia that often Miss Olive’s visits proved more of a trial than a pleasure.
A graying woman roughly the same age as Aunt Louisa entered the bedroom. The scent of sugar hung about her.
Hestia rose from her seat.
With sharp eyes, the visitor assessed her. “Mercy! Who is this beauty?”
“You don’t recognize me?” Hestia couldn’t believe she had changed so much, but perhaps she had indeed.
Miss Olive tilted her reedy figure back from the waist up and set her forefinger on thin lips. “Your voice sounds familiar. Say something again.”
Hestia chose one of her favorite Bible verses. “‘The Lord is my strength and my song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.’”
Miss Olive grinned and snapped her fingers. “I know. Hestia!”
She smiled. “Yes, ma’am. May I get you a cup of tea?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” She eyed Aunt Louisa. “Where’s Tillie?”
“She’s gone back to Shelby. Has her own life to live, you know. Didn’t I tell you she was going back today?”
“I reckon you did. I must have forgotten. But I see you have another nurse.”
“Yes, I do. Hard to believe this is little Hestia, isn’t it?”
“It sure is,” Miss Olive concurred. “The last time I saw you, Hestia, you wore your hair in plaits. I’m glad to see that you haven’t chopped it off like some of the young girls these days. Mercy, they look a fright.”
“I agree.” Aunt Louisa picked up a sepia-toned picture of Hestia’s grandmother, which was in a sterling silver frame embossed with roses and leaves. “There was a day when women prided themselves on looking as members of the fairer sex should and conducting themselves in like manner. Oh, for those days once again.”
“Yes, and even our generation never failed to uphold high standards.” Miss Olive shook her head as she studied Hestia, her expression conveying disbelief over the passage of time. “Why, you’re as beautiful as I thought you’d turn out to be. How’s that handsome father of yours? I do declare, you look just like him with a wig on. And your lovely mother? Or maybe I should ask them myself. They are here, aren’t they?” Miss Olive scoped the room with an eagle eye as though the mention of their existence would bring her parents leaping out of the dresser drawers.
“No, Miss Olive. I made the trip by myself.”
She gasped and hit her chest with her unadorned hand. “Mercy! Whatever for?”
“I told you, Olive.” Aunt Louisa’s tone was prickly. “She’s here to help me—and to recover from a broken engagement.”
Hestia felt her face flush. Did Miss Olive also know that Luther’s eye for other ladies had caused their breakup? At least Hestia had discovered the fact before, rather than after, walking down the aisle. Still, she didn’t want everyone in town to know her business. Hestia tried to dodge the subject and instead encouraged the two friends to bring her up-to-date on all the news in Maiden.
Animated by conversation, the neighbor never did state the original purpose for her visit. Hestia imagined that Miss Olive had spotted her and came over to investigate.
“So, Olive, what brings you by?” Aunt Louisa’s tone indicated she already knew.
The neighbor jumped. “Oh. Yes. Sugar. Why, I ran plumb out of sugar right in the middle of baking my famous jelly thumbprint cookies for the whist party tomorrow. I could have sworn I had an extra sack of sugar in the cabinet, but when I went to look for it, it wasn’t there.”
“That can happen,” Hestia sympathized.
“I hope not at your young age,” Aunt Louisa opined. “You should have a sharp enough mind that you don’t mislay things.”
Miss Olive didn’t wait for Hestia to respond. “So, Louisa, how much longer will it be before you can come back and play whist with us?”
Aunt Louisa shook her head. “The doctor says three more weeks at least. I wish there were something I could do for my broken pelvis, but staying propped up here in bed is about it.”
“Leave it to you to break something you can’t easily fix. I wish you’d hurry up and get well. Ethel is such a terrible player, and I get stuck being her partner for every game. Daphne ends up winning the prize every time, and you know how competitive she is. She just waves it in my face. Not that I want the prize that badly anyway. It’s the principle of the thing with me.” Miss Olive stared at Hestia. “Do you know how to play whist?” The catch in her voice indicated that she hoped the answer would be yes.
The old-fashioned card game that held the country captive with fascination in years past had never caught on as wildly with Hestia’s friends. “Uh, I might remember a few of the rules from my childhood.”
Before either of the older women could answer, someone else knocked at the back door.
“Come in!” Aunt Louisa shouted.
Hestia wondered if her aunt should ask who might be there first but then recalled that Booth Barrington was expected. Cringing, Hestia remembered his frogs.
The sound of sprightly footfalls marked the new arrival’s progress from the porch to the kitchen. In a flash, a dark-haired man entered.
“Booth, it’s good to see you again.” Aunt Louisa smiled.
To her shock and consternation, Hestia’s heart skipped a beat. Booth? This is Booth Barrington?
He smiled back. “How are you today, Miss Louisa?” He looked to the neighbor. “Miss Olive.”
As she watched him greet the ladies, Hestia observed Booth. All his baby fat had disappeared, revealing a strong jawline and chin. His voice had matured from a boy’s medium-pitched taunt to the lower tone of a confident man. Had he grown taller? It seemed so.
Carolina blue eyes locked their gaze with hers, widening. As though he were trying to conceal surprise, he hesitated. “And…Hestia? Hestia Myatt?”
“You remember me?” Her heart beating faster, she didn’t bother to conceal her shock even though that meant her mouth hung open in a most unladylike manner. She never would have recognized Booth had she not been told it was he. Not even his dark, wavy hair would have given him away. Not entirely. “Oh, I know. Aunt Louisa must have told you about my impending visit.”
“As a matter of fact, I did mention it.”
“Yes.” A look of remembrance flickered on his face. “But of course I remember you, Pi—I—I mean, Miss Hestia.”
She held back a grimace at the almost-mention of the childhood nickname he had saddled her with in honor of her plaited hair, which he called “pigtails.” Piglet. The name still made her wince.
She wondered what he must think of her. Had she changed as much as he had? Suddenly she felt self-conscious. Many young women had given themselves over to the flapper look—short skirts, bobbed hair, lips brushed with scarlet paint. With full parental approval, she had kept her hair flowing—though confined in the daylight hours—her skirts long, her face unknown to paint. Had her former fiancé been right? Was she out-of-date, out of step with the times? For a brief moment she wished she had given in to fashion dictates so she would seem more modern to the new Booth.
Just as quickly, she chastised herself for such shameful thoughts.
What’s the matter with you? The man God has planned for you to marry will love you for yourself.
Marriage? She had seen Booth for less than a minute, and the thought of marriage had entered her mind? Her thoughts muddled with confusion. She felt faint. Maybe she should ask Aunt Louisa where she kept the smelling salts.