The Bluestockings: Chapter Fifteen
"The thought of Vera Black somewhere else in the world while her daughter grew up without her was a pain so sharp it sliced into Eleanor’s very bones."
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Catch Up On Previous Chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
Eleanor
The moments after Ruby’s heart attack were a blur. Doctors and nurses rushed into the room, and Eleanor was swept outside, where Mariana pulled her into a hug, shushing her cries. She’d been sobbing. Eleanor didn’t even remember when the tears started, but the large wet spot she’d left on Marianne’s sweatshirt told her they had.
Guilt coursed through her, and Eleanor tucked her knees up against her chest. Maggie asked what happened, but all Eleanor could do was stare blindly at the floor, stunned into silence. At some point, her dad showed up and ushered Eleanor outside and into his car, but she remained silent in the face of his questions. Finally, as James closed the door behind them and turned to face his daughter, she crumpled into his arms and wailed.
“It’s all right,” he hummed into Eleanor’s hair. She shook her head, a mess of snot and tears staining his navy polo shirt. “Yes, it is, sweetheart. Ruby is okay. She’s going to be okay.”
“It’s my fault!” Eleanor cried against her father’s chest. “She was fine until we started talking, and now she’s going to die because of me!”
James guided her to the sofa and pushed Eleanor’s hair, clinging in loose strands, off her wet face. “Elle, it’s not your fault. The woman almost drowned this morning. She’s eighty years old. Who knows what kind of damage that did to her body, not to mention the stress of it all. You don’t get to carry that weight and call it yours. It’s not. It just happened.”
Eleanor’s brain knew he was right, but her heart hadn’t received the memo just yet. For the rest of the afternoon, she cuddled on the couch with her favorite fuzzy blanket and drifted in and out of sleep, warmed by the small fire. She was vaguely aware of her dad’s presence in lucid moments, but not enough to come out of her cozy, safe cocoon. Eleanor dreamed in fits and spurts, dreary, hopeless dreams about books that wouldn’t open and doors that stayed closed.
A gentle hand shook her awake. “Elle, wake up,” came her dad’s quiet voice. “It’s dinnertime, and you need to eat.”
She blinked up at him and scowled, hurling the blanket over her head. “I’m not hungry,” she replied.
“I made chicken and dumplings,” he sang. Eleanor peeked out from behind her covers as her stomach gave a low, long growl.
“Okay, maybe I’m a little hungry.”
Eleanor devoured two plates full, her fears and guilt momentarily placated by the comfort of simple carbohydrates, and washed it down with a glass of sweet tea. James watched her chew on a piece of ice, a bad habit she had picked up from Vera as a kid, and smiled. “You’re going to wear the enamel off your teeth, you know,” he said.
“That’s what dentures are for,” Eleanor replied.
James shook his head. “It’s easier to take care of the teeth you have.” In response, she chomped down even harder. James winced at the sound. “There goes my retirement fund,” he joked.
Eleanor swallowed and sat back. Might as well go for broke. “I don’t know about you, Dad, but I find it hard to focus on personal care when any day now we’re going to lose the bookstore.”
James choked on his tea. “What?” he asked, coughing. “What in the world gave you that idea?”
“I saw the bills on your desk.”
He took another sip of tea and worked his jaw, avoiding Eleanor’s piercing stare. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”
Eleanor scoffed. “I could ask you the same question.”
“It’s not for you to worry about our finances, Eleanor. That’s my job.”
“Well, obviously, you need some help. It’s not just your store anymore. It’s mine, too, remember? Or it might be one day.”
James worried his thumb with his teeth. “Eleanor, you’re a child. Do you expect me to lay that burden on you? After everything else we’ve been through together?”
Eleanor sat up straight in her chair, chin up and out. “I’d rather know now than when we have to close our doors.”
“We won’t,” James insisted. “I put in an Offer in Compromise to the Small Business Administration to keep them from calling in the entire loan or taking my assets as collateral."
Eleanor cocked a brow. “English, Dad.”
“It gives us some time to come up with a certain percentage of the loan,” he answered.
“And if we don’t?”
James looked up at the ceiling and blew out a long breath. As he looked back at Eleanor, he said, “Then...we lose the store. I lose the store.”
Eleanor put her head in her hands, half terrified and half angry at the circumstances out of her control which continued to dictate their lives. “Will the Whatever-You-Called-It let you work something out? Like a payment plan?”
James sighed. “Not this time.”
Eleanor’s voice went up an octave. “What do you mean? This isn’t the first time?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Shame fell over James’ face.
Eleanor felt foolish now for her excitement about working with Agatha as if a few extra dollars a week could right this lilting ship. “How long do we have before they take the store?” she croaked. Her throat felt like it was growing smaller by the second.
“Four months.”
Eleanor calculated in her head. Springtime. March. The month her mother had disappeared and the absolute worst time of year. What a cosmic joke.
“I’ve had to live without my mother since I was six years old,” she said, her voice a hard edge. “I won’t live without our books, too.” At James’ answering hug, Eleanor felt the spiral begin, just as it always did when she made a concentrated effort to conjure sense from her grief.
Today, it was too much.
“I will handle this, honey,” James said in a scratchy voice. “No matter what happens, we will be okay. This house is ours, and I can get another job. You let me worry about the shop. You just worry about being a kid.”
Eleanor sat up and swiped at her runny nose. “I don’t know how,” she said in a small voice.
A flicker of grief shone on her dad’s face before it was gone again. Eleanor didn’t blame him for the mess they had become, but she would have liked to forget all that had happened between them and go back to the way things were once upon a time. Back when her grand- parents were still alive, filling up the house with their laughter and joy. Back when Vera had been her mother instead of some distant, eternal heartache.
“Would you like me to call Maggie? See if she can come over for a while?” James asked in lieu of further conversation.
Eleanor simply nodded, then laid back down on the couch and covered her head with the blanket, dizzy from all she had uncovered in the last few days. Past and present sadness tore at Eleanor as she peered around the blanket at her mother’s photograph on the mantle, Vera’s lovely hair tangled and unruly, a perfect match for Eleanor’s thoughts.
Before Ruby’s heart attack, Maggie had shown Eleanor the website for a bookstore in Savannah, which carried a published copy of The Woman of Valbrooke Hall. “Look! It wasn’t just a draft, Eleanor.” Maggie pointed to the screen. “It was published by the Hursts in 1950.”
Eleanor peered at the phone in shock, lightheaded from all they had discovered that day. “I have an original handwritten draft of a book written seventy-four years ago?”
“Wonder how much it’s worth,” Maggie muttered, and both girls locked eyes.
“Do you—” Eleanor began.
“Think it might be enough to save the store?” Maggie finished with a squeal. “I told you, Eleanor! I told you. Alma’s here to save the day.”
Eleanor swallowed hard as hope bubbled up her throat, addictive and sweet. But she wouldn’t count her chickens before they hatched. “Give me your phone.”
Maggie held it out, and Eleanor swiped through the list of search results on Alma Gardyne. Some were mismatched obituaries with people of the same name, but others were bookstore links with listings for sale. No Wikipedia entry on Alma, though, or any biography at all.
“Boo, this is not helpful,” Maggie declared, swiping back her phone.
Eleanor pouted. “I wish I had the book with me. It’s still in my backpack at the store.”
“It’s been there for decades, I bet,” Maggie said pointedly. “It can sit a little longer.”
“Okay,” Eleanor replied with a pout. “In the meantime, let’s brainstorm. Alma’s draft was eventually published.”
“Which means we could have a serious treasure on our hands.”
“Except there’s almost nothing about her online, so she couldn’t have been very well known. At least not outside this area.”
“I bet you someone knows about her.”
Eleanor groaned. “Yeah, Maggie, and that someone is lying in a hospital bed right now.”
She thought back to what Ruby had later told her about Alma, how the author had bailed on William Hurst after he’d made her a success and broken his heart. Yet another woman from Hawthorne who had left her loved ones without a second glance, forcing everyone else to pick up the pieces in her wake.
Footsteps sounded on the front walk, and then the doorbell sang through the cottage, a sweet tinkle of a sound. Maggie was here, thank God. “Hey,” Eleanor said as she opened the front door and waved Maggie into the house. Marianne pulled away from the curb with a sad wave. “How’s your aunt?”
“Stable now,” Maggie replied, swinging her backpack onto the chair by the door. “Awake, but not very alert. She’s going to be in the ICU for a few days at least and probably not out of the hospital until right before Christmas. Marianne is a total wreck. She called my mom and freaked her out.”
“What did she say?” Eleanor asked. “You don’t have to leave now, do you?”
Maggie shook her head. “No. I told her I’d made a friend here and didn’t want to go, which seemed to calm her down. I’d rather have to visit Aunt Ruby in the hospital every day than go home to whatever crap she and my dad are fighting about today.” At that, Maggie glanced around the living room for the first time, one corner of her mouth tilted up. “It looks like a very English Christmas in here.”
Eleanor let out a soft laugh. “You can thank my grandmother for the inspiration.”
“Your grandmother?”
“This was my grandparents’ place before it belonged to my parents. We all lived here together until I was ten. That’s when my grandparents left to live in the nursing home.”
Maggie nodded. “Are they still there?”
“No,” Eleanor replied. A stab of grief went through her ribs. She led Maggie into the kitchen and rooted around in the fridge for something to drink. “Both of them were diagnosed with dementia, and my grandmother died a few months after my grandfather. They were together for, like, 65 years or something.”
Maggie thanked Eleanor as she placed two sodas on the table. The click and hiss of their drinks were loud in the small, quiet kitchen. “I bet that was hard, especially with...” Maggie trailed off and tapped a bright pink nail on the table. Her cheeks turned pink as she met Eleanor’s knowing gaze.
“It was.” Eleanor had prepped herself for this conversation. She knew it was only a matter of time before the subject of her mother came up again. She hopped up onto the counter and took a long swig of soda, the sting of carbonation calming the jig in her stomach to a gentle waltz. Eleanor was just getting used to having a friend. She wanted Maggie to like her even after she knew what Vera had done.
Maggie pulled her feet up in the chair. “I wonder why Aunt Ruby didn’t tell me about your mom. She doesn’t get out much, but she has to know.”
Eleanor had wondered that herself. “Maybe she thought it was better for me to tell you.”
Maggie looked thoughtful. “I guess. Either way, I’m sorry that happened to you. And your dad. Are the police still searching for her now?”
“Not actively,” Eleanor replied. “The case is still open, but unless new information comes in, they won’t look into it anymore.”
“What do—” Maggie chewed her lip. “What do you think happened?”
Eleanor took another sip of soda to quell the sting of her tears. She wanted to trust Maggie. No one had ever asked her outright what she believed about her mother’s disappearance. Either they were too polite to broach the subject, too afraid to upset her, or they assumed Eleanor thought what so many others did: that Vera Black was dead, the victim of a heinous crime or her own broken mind. What they had never considered was how Eleanor could still feel her mother in the world, somewhere. It was a knowing, not a concrete fact the police could file away in a drawer, but still as true as the DNA in her blood. Vera Black had walked away from her family, from her daughter, and never looked back. Whatever darkness she carried in her heart, it had taken up too much space in this house—in this family—for Vera to stay. Maybe her mind had broken along with her heart, and Eleanor’s mother didn’t even remember who she was now. Either way, she was gone. And the thought of Vera Black somewhere else in the world while her daughter grew up without her was a pain so sharp it sliced into Eleanor’s very bones.
“I don’t know,” she answered, the words catching in her throat. “But I don’t think she’s dead. I would know that, at least.” Maggie looked dubious but didn’t reply. “Anyway, I’m glad your aunt is going to be okay. I feel terrible.”
“Don’t,” Maggie said, slurping her soda. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Besides, I’m glad you were there for her. It was scary as crap, but Aunt Ruby’s made of steel. Did you get to talk to her about Alma?”
Eleanor grimaced. “Kind of. We started to talk about the bookstore, and then I brought up Alma, which seemed to annoy her. She said Alma was a ‘charlatan’ and that her dad was in love with her, but she just used him to get published. Alma left town after a few years, and he never heard from her again.”
“Boo,” Maggie groaned. “My mistress theory is moot now.”
“She could still be a ghost,” Eleanor suggested with a halfhearted smile.
Maggie shot Eleanor a look. “Don’t tease me.”
“Never!” Eleanor cried with a grin.
“I can’t stand the suspense,” Maggie groaned. “Why was Alma’s book hidden away? And who put it there? I’m dying.”
“Maybe they weren’t trying to hide it,” Eleanor countered. “Maybe they just wanted to save it.”
“For what?”
“Why does anyone save anything? For the memories,” Eleanor said, tossing her can into the recycling bin. “It was probably William. He loved Alma, and she didn’t love him back. So he kept a small piece of her in a place where it would be safe, but he’d never have to see it again.” Eleanor slipped the straps of her backpack off the dining chair and retrieved the leather-bound journal from inside. Maggie’s eyes grew wide with excitement.
“That’s it?” she whispered. Her hands reached reflexively for the book, but Eleanor held it fast to her chest. “What’s it say?”
“I haven’t read it yet,” Eleanor replied, though that wasn’t strictly true. She had flipped through the journal, but the reality of its contents felt too weighty to consume alone. Eleanor hadn’t had a real friend to share anything with in a long time, and she didn’t want to waste the opportunity. “Dad brought it home while we were at the hospital, but I thought we should read it together.”
Maggie’s face softened, her blue eyes sparkling with warmth. “Let’s do it.”
Eleanor placed the journal between them on the table and opened to the first page with reverential slowness. Maggie shimmied in her seat and leaned forward to read.
The Woman of Valbrooke Hall, Draft Chapter One
Louise Murphy came from a long line of storytelling women, women who understood the deep, primal need of humans to make sense of their world with words. She also came from a long line of women whose words failed them when they fell in love.
“Uh oh,” Maggie exclaimed.
“Failing the Bechdel test already,” Eleanor quipped. Maggie raised a brow.
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Two lines in, and we’re already talking about boys,” Eleanor clarified.
“Sure, okay,” Maggie replied with a shrug and turned back to the page.
Louise’s determination to avoid inheriting the lovesickness that plagued the women of her family came to a swift and abrupt end when she arrived on the pedimented porch of Valbrooke Hall. It was a vast estate in the low country of Georgia, measured in acres that spread across rough, sandy earth between the Savannah River and the Atlantic Ocean. The sticky, humid air, the palatial oaks, and the unseen presence of long-ago stories beckoned one to a slow, languid existence beneath the Spanish moss. Louise loved it at first sight.
“Oh, she fell in love with the house,” Eleanor replied.
“The estate,” Maggie corrected. “So no failed whatever-you-called-it.”
“Maybe. But it sounds a lot like your aunt’s house,” Eleanor said with a glance at the page. “Like Alma’s telling her own story.”
“But here’s a bigger question,” Maggie supplied, “if Alma—Louise, whatever—loved this place so much, then why did she leave it all behind?”
Eleanor hugged herself against the rising chill forever creeping through the walls of their old cottage. “Because,” she replied. “Isn’t that what they always do?"
