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AMANDA STOOD AND stretched her arms over her head. “We’ve been sitting too long. It’s time to get the blood circulating. Everybody up!”
“What are you,” Dee said, “a Phys Ed instructor?”
“Nope.” Amanda’s voice was louder than usual. Maybe the attic air had inspired her. Or maybe she’d just gotten as stiff as I felt. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a neuromuscular massage therapist, and we pay attention to such things.”
“Fine with me.” Sadie reached high over her head and spread her fingers wide apart. “This feels marvelous.”
So we all took a good stretch.
Once we’d settled back down, Dee asked, “How long did people court, back then?”
I had no idea, but I was pretty sure Carol would know. It was Sadie who answered, though. “It depended a lot on how old they were, and how anxious they were to wed.”
“And probably,” Ida added wryly, “how happy their families would be to usher them out of the house.”
“Just the bride’s family,” Carol said. “The woman usually moved into the house with her husband and his parents.”
“Eeuw,” Easton said.
“That might have been a good idea.” Dee ignored Easton and turned to Rebecca Jo. “Things might have turned out differently if Barkley and I had started out with you instead of heading for Atlanta the way we did.”
Rebecca Jo took a deep breath. “Barkley went through a truly obnoxious phase when he was two. He never grew out of it." Nobody laughed, and I could tell Rebecca Jo didn’t expect us to. "Don’t get me wrong. I still love my son in spite of everything he did, but having him in the same house with me for twenty years was more than enough.” She patted Dee’s knee. “You, however, were more than welcome when you came here.”
~ ~ ~
JUNE 1997
EVERYWHERE SHE WENT, all she heard was "Welcome home, Charlie," "Welcome back," "We’re glad you came home to Martinsville."
If she had ever wondered what sort of home she might make here, it was put to rest by the attitude of all these strangers. Strangers who had apparently known the previous Ellis Girl, Charlie’s mother. And they all seemed to be familiar with what Charlie had been like as a little girl. They told her stories, all their favorite stories, about how Charlie liked to fish with old Wallace Masters, whoever he was, down on the town dock—that was before he had his first stroke, of course. About how she always had the perfect answer for everything—sometimes an extremely inventive sort of answer. About how she chattered all day long and giggled quite a bit.
She started attending the town council meetings so she’d have an idea of how the town operated. She made a point of being nice to Clara Martin, the wife of the town chair. She ate at the deli and shopped at the local IGA. With Hubbard Martin’s help, she found herself a little house to buy, and gradually fit into the day-to-day operations of the town. Whenever she introduced herself to anyone, she said her name was Charlotte. Charlie sounded so childish.
SHE DIDN’T GET a job. At least not that anyone could tell, but somehow she always seemed to have enough money.
"Savings," everyone said. "She must be using up her savings. Not a very smart thing to do."
"Maybe she’s an heiress of some sort," others guessed, "living on a trust fund?"
But nobody knew for sure, and nobody was rude enough to ask her, although Sadie Masters worried about her. Still, Sadie thought, it was good to have the child back home. She’d grown into such a fine young woman, and she didn’t chatter at all anymore. Sadie rather missed that. Charlie had always been so bubbly. Maybe she just needed time to adjust to living here in Martinsville again.
~ ~ ~
MONDAY 4 JANUARY 1768
CHARLES HASTINGS HAD never been one to admit to despair. But now, as he stood in the rain watching the linen-wrapped body of Nehemiah Garner lowered into the muddy grave, he came as close to despair as he had ever been. Beechnut House Inn and Tavern was a thriving concern, in large part because of the fine ale Nehemiah had brewed for the past fourteen years. Charles had to admit, though—if only to himself—that a good part of the success of the enterprise had been because his father, Robert Hastings, the original publican and innkeeper, had been at the helm for all those years.
But Father was dead, carried off two months ago by a cough that entered his chest and would not be relieved no matter what the healers of the town applied. They had no doctor, so Father had not been bled, as should have happened. Instead, the women had doused him with herbs and teas and poultices and plasters, until Father was like to scream. None of it had helped.
Charles had come to recognize that he, Charles, was not the man his father had been. Robert Hastings had a way of encouraging peaceful gatherings of men in the evenings. He had always maintained a civilized tavern, where brawls were not allowed. Indeed, something about Father’s very way of being seemed to keep men in a joyous mood. If not joyous, then at least amicable.
Charles may have inherited his father’s rounded nose, but he had not his father’s abilities. He had hoped that his son, Alonzo, would carry on the family business. Alonzo was much like his grandfather had been. Even as young as he still was, he had his grandfather’s charm, his grandfather’s nose, and a laugh, like Robert’s had been, that would bring light to a thundercloud.
The only trouble was that Alonzo was the village schoolmaster. He charmed the children at his school and charmed their parents as well. He had his bulbous nose buried in a book wherever he walked, and much to the despair of Charles, Alonzo did not particularly like the taste of ale.
Charles grunted in dissatisfaction, and Edna Russell Hastings, his wife for these past twenty years, clucked her tongue in mild reproof at this slight disruption to the funeral service.
On the morrow, Alonzo was set to marry with Margaret DeWitt. Charles ground his teeth together. He did not know how much longer he could maintain Beechnut House, for there were precious few ale kegs left, and Nehemiah had even now taken the secret of how to brew his special ale into the grave with him. Once the remaining kegs were emptied, the quantity of customers would, Charles feared, decline precipitously.
He would not have Margaret’s father as a loyal customer, since the man had died the previous year. DeWitt had been a hopeless lush, who could not tell fine ale from second-rate beer, but he had always had money to lay on the counter. No money would come from that quarter anymore.
The tavern was doomed.
As soon as the graveside service was completed, Charles turned to walk farther up the hill toward the grove of trees. He knew he should return to Beechnut House as soon as possible, for the men who had attended the burying would want refreshment, but he felt a need to stretch his legs, even if only for a few minutes.
Behind him, he heard his wife. “Husband? Where go you?”
He tried to raise a hand to still her questions, but the strength seemed to have left his arm. He stumbled, fell to one knee, and toppled forward onto his face. His Hastings nose, of course, hit the dirt first, but by the time the rest of his body lay limp on the ground, Charles was past feeling any pain at all.
~ ~ ~
"HUSH UP, EVERYBODY," Ida said. “It’s diary time.”
Tuesday 5 January 1768
I would never have supposed that the Hastings family would be laid so low so fast. But two months ago Mister Robert Hastings died, and then just yesterday his son Charles was taken so suddenly there was no warning, just moments after the burial of Nehemiah Garner. I am certain now that the public house will be no more, and I dread the thought of Mister Homer Martin remaining here all the evening long. With luck, he will find someone else’s house to frequent, somewhere he can drink himself insensible. It is my good fortune that he has begun to sleep in the main room of our house. John has not spoken of it, although I know he is aware of what is going on. We have a piece of furniture crafted for us by Silas Martin that he refers to as a couch. It is like a rather long wide chair, and as it is padded with a rush mattress and several pillows along the back of it, it serves as Mister Homer Martin’s bed. During the day, people who come to the house exclaim at its practicality, for two or even three people can easily sit side by side on it. Little do they know what purpose it serves at night. I have stripped bare the room where we shared such a cold bed for so many years and gave the bed itself to my son, for his family will soon grow. My room—for so I deem it—now contains but a narrow bed, a chair, and a short table under which I keep these precious diaries.
~ ~ ~
FRIDAY 5 FEBRUARY 1768
THE WEDDING OF Alonzo Hastings and Margaret DeWitt was, naturally enough, delayed for a month. There was the burial of Charles Hastings to be accomplished, followed soon by the official closing of the Beechnut House Tavern and Inn. Several of the town women complained that to be married so soon after a death in the family was unseemly, but Margaret DeWitt had set her firm mind, and Alonzo saw little reason to delay their nuptials. Old Reverend Anders Russell had become rather absent-minded lately, and he seemed not to remember that he had so recently prayed over the body of the man who would have been Margaret’s father-in-law, had he but lived one day longer.
The day before her wedding, Margaret visited Jane Elizabeth Benton Hastings, so recently widowed that her black dress of mourning had yet to settle well on her shoulders.
“Alonzo and I plan to live in Beechnut House. Now that it will no longer be a tavern.”
Mistress Hastings inclined her head. “The tavern—the building—is Alonzo’s now, to do with as he chooses.”
“You and Edna are welcome to move there with us,” Margaret said, but with a tone in her voice that indicated she was less than enthusiastic about the idea.
“If we choose to stay here?”
“Of course you may continue to live here in the corner house, Mother Hastings,” Margaret assured the woman who would the following day become her mother-in-law. “Will Miss Julia continue to board here with you?”
“She has expressed no wish to leave.”
“Then she may come as well to take meals with us, for it seems a wasted effort to prepare a meal for only the three of you, particularly since Miss Julia always insists on so much ...”—she turned up her nose—“so many greens in her meals.”
Jane Elizabeth lifted her head, and Margaret was struck with how proud the woman looked. “I thank you for your consideration, but we will feed ourselves.”
“At least come to us three or four times a week so you may eat of rabbit or squab or venison.” Margaret tried to ignore the imperious look from the older woman. “You need meat to keep up your strength and ...” But her words stuttered to a halt. When Mistress Hastings raised an authoritative eyebrow like that, Margaret remembered that this was the woman who had, unaided, lifted an immense boulder from off the leg of Reverend Russell. Wisely, Margaret decided to hold her peace.
~ ~ ~
SATURDAY 6 FEBRUARY 1768
ALONZO CARRIED HIS new wife across the threshold of their new house, to the cheers of the townsfolk who had accompanied them from the church.
“Will you not serve us some ale,” one of the men called.
“You should have plenty of time to do so,” another yelled amid the general hilarity.
Alonzo kicked the door closed, set down his wife, and barred the door firmly. “We will fill these rooms with our children, my wife,” he said, “but we do not need observers as we begin the process.”
Margaret felt she should be scandalized, but could not call up such a useless emotion. “I am ready to start whenever you are, my husband.” She wound her arms about his neck and within moments heard a loud hoot and several whistles. Over her husband’s shoulder, she saw the leering faces of their neighbors peering in between the shutters.
Alonzo turned, made a peremptory gesture, picked up his wife, and carried her up the stairs. No one would be able to look in the windows there.