The Bluestockings: Chapter Ten
"She shouldn’t have spent all these years hiding as if she were ashamed. The truth was Ruby had never felt shame. She’d only ever been afraid."
Welcome to The Nook! The Bluestockings is my latest novel, which I’m releasing in serial form one chapter at a time. These posts are free for you to read, but they were not free for me to produce. If you’d like to support my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or purchasing your own paperback/Kindle copy of The Bluestockings. Thanks for being here!
Catch Up On Previous Chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
Ruby
Ruby was stunned when Maggie suggested they play a game of Scrabble together with Marianne one afternoon. She was so stunned, in fact, that she agreed to a game.
After a lunch of sandwiches and pasta salad, the three of them settled down in front of the fireplace in the library. Their sweet teas, made fresh by Marianne that morning, sweated in their glasses, and Ruby wiped hers with a napkin before she took a sip.
“I must say, Margaret,” she said as her niece counted out the tiles for each player. “I’m looking forward to this. I love a good game of Scrabble.”
Maggie set up her tiles and frowned. “I don’t know if I’m going to like this one.”
“Just try to go for points,” Marianne added with a pat on Maggie’s hand. “Don’t worry about fancy words.”
Ruby thought that was a terrible idea, but she swallowed the com- ment and scrutinized her tiles. She schooled her expression into a neutral one and placed her first word on the board.
Maggie turned her head sideways to read. “‘Gaunt’,” she said. “Okay. With a double letter score for ’T,’ that’s seven points total.” She scribbled Ruby’s score on a lined pad of paper.
“Nice start,” Marianne added. “Not many points, though.”
Ruby glowered at her housekeeper. “Okay, then. Let’s see what you have to offer us mere mortals.”
Marianne looked back and forth between the board and her tiles. After a moment, she put down her word. “‘Torte,’” she said, upbeat. “One of my favorite desserts.”
“Not many points, though,” Ruby countered, a note of sarcasm in her voice.
“That’s ten for a double word score,” Maggie added as she took note. “You guys are too fancy.”
“Your turn,” Marianne said with a flourish of her hand toward Maggie’s letters.
Maggie chewed on her bottom lip, considering. The fire crackled and popped behind her, filling the room with a comfortable, lazy heat as they sat around the table, waiting. Ruby took another sip of her tea while Maggie switched tiles around, her blue eyes laser-focused. Then her face lit up, and she laid down her tiles with a triumphant smile.
Maggie’s word intersected horizontally with Marianne’s, using the ‘e’ in ‘torte’ as her second letter. It was a double-word score with a double-letter score at the end. Ruby calculated the total in her head and sucked her teeth.
“‘Feral,’” Maggie said, victory writ large on her small face. “That’s nine points plus a double word score for a total of eighteen points.”
“Maith thú!” said Marianne with a clap of her hands. “You’re going to be a formidable opponent, Maggie.”
“A fitting first word for you,” Ruby replied, to which Maggie scoffed. “I take it you’ve played this game before.”
Her niece stared down her nose at Ruby, one eyebrow lifted high. “My dad and I used to play a lot,” she said, biting out each word.
Ruby felt properly scorned. “Oh,” she said. “Well. Looks like we’ll make a game of it, after all.”
Just as quickly as Maggie’s mood had soured, it brightened once more as Marianne began to count out new letters for each of them. Ruby sipped her tea and peered over the glass at her niece, seeing for the first time the purple shadows under her eyes. She remembered how it felt to be let down by the people you loved, and she knew all too well what it was like to be disappointed with one’s father. It couldn’t be easy for the girl, being so far from home when everyone—and everything—she loved had changed. When this was all over, Maggie would go back to Virginia with a new life she’d had no say in building. Worst of all, she’d be asked to pretend it was better that way. But Ruby knew the pain of a broken family on a young girl’s heart.
“So, did you enjoy your visit with Eleanor?” Ruby asked. She made her turn, and Maggie visibly brightened.
“We had so much fun,” she answered with a grin. “We have a lot in common, and she asked if I could come to the bookstore later today. Would that be okay with you?”
Pleased to be asked instead of told, Ruby nodded. “Certainly. Marianne can take you.”
Maggie hesitated and cast a nervous glance at Marianne before she spoke again. “Aunt Ruby, would you mind, uh—I mean, do you think you’d like to come along?”
Ruby withdrew her hands from the tiles and placed them in her lap, a sense of foreboding creeping up her spine. “Whatever for?”
Maggie looked down at the table and tapped her fingers on the wood. “I just thought it would be nice for you to see it.”
“I have seen it,” Ruby countered.
“When?” Maggie demanded, spearing her aunt with a critical look.
“Once or twice as we passed on our way out to Savannah.”
Maggie scowled. “That’s not the same, Aunt Ruby, and you know it.”
“It’s the same to me.”
Marianne watched their exchange like a tennis match, her head snapping back and forth as they spoke. Maggie persisted, undeterred. “Would it make a difference if I told you Eleanor’s dad is about to lose the store, and she’s desperate to help him save it?”
The air seemed to leave the room. The fire burned high in the hearth, casting long, dark shadows on the walls, like ghosts come close to listen. Ruby’s heart thudded against her ribs.
“And what possible difference would I make in their present circumstances, hmm?” she demanded.
“If people saw you there, they might come by more often. Buy more books, you know?”
It was a different answer than the one she’d expected. Ruby pinched the bridge of her nose and took a few deep breaths. When she had considered what it might be like to befriend young Eleanor Black, it had been with the hope of connecting to the one person who seemed able to understand her, not offering herself up to the people of Hawthorn as a sideshow. Ruby’d had enough of that nonsense in her life.
“So I’m a profit generator now, am I?” she said in a sharp voice. Maggie winced.
Marianne reached a hand out to Ruby’s arm. “She just wants to help her friend,” she said in a steady, gentle tone.
Ruby considered her point but refused to give in. “This is utterly ridiculous. I will not be a pawn in some childish game. If James Black cannot earn enough money to keep his business afloat, then perhaps it’s time to sell. That’s what my father did, and look what it left me. I’ve never had to want for a thing.”
As Ruby spoke, Maggie’s face turned an angry shade of crimson. Her jaw tightened as she listened to Ruby’s words, but a small tear slid down her cheek despite the fury in her eyes.
“Oh yeah?” Maggie countered. “How about friends, Aunt Ruby? How about a life where you aren’t hiding in your house all the time? Did your dad leave you that, too?”
Ruby reared back as if she’d been slapped. Marianne’s eyes were as wide as saucers. No one had ever dared speak to Ruby that way before, and she was stunned into silence as Maggie’s words pierced their target. Before she could respond, Maggie stood up and stomped out of the room. The only sound left in her wake was the hiss and pop of the dying fire.
Marianne coughed and reached for the Scrabble board. Ruby stilled her with a touch of her fingers.
“Do you think she’s right, Marianne?” Ruby asked her words only just above a whisper.
Marianne sighed and sat back in her chair. “She’s a child, Ruby.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Marianne countered, defensive. “Are you asking as my employer or as a friend?”
“I thought I didn’t have any of those,” Ruby shot back.
Marianne pushed back from the table and stood. “Get a grip. I’ve always been your friend, even if you’ve never wanted one. So, yes, I suppose. Maybe Maggie has a point. She shouldn’t have spoken to you in such a harsh way, but you said it yourself, Ruby. Look at all you have. Who is it for, huh? You don’t seem to enjoy it very much, but I know plenty of people who might benefit from what you have to offer, starting with your niece.”
“You think I should help the Blacks?” Ruby asked, unable to meet Marianne’s glare.
“I think you could,” Marianne answered. “And I also think you could do something to show Maggie you care about her as more than just an interruption to your life.”
Ruby nodded, quiet.
“Maybe you’re too close to this,” Marianne said, gentler this time. “To what Eleanor has been through. Forest for the trees and all that.”
Ruby looked up sharply. “I’m in the damn trees, Marianne,” Ruby countered, defensive. “I’ve thought of my mother every single day of my life, and that girl only stirs up painful memories for me.”
The conversation had landed in territory much too close for comfort. Ruby remembered the cold stares and vicious words from her youth that children are so skilled at directing to anyone they deem different. In any other town, Ruby’s family name might have saved her from such treatment, but here in Hawthorn, where everyone knew everyone else, the tragedy that had befallen her family had made Ruby a target. Her testimony about what she saw the day her mother disappeared had filtered through official channels into the ears of family sitting rooms and kitchen tables, and it had not sat well with the children she’d wanted to call friends.
“She’s only five,” William had boomed at the Chatham County sheriff so long ago. The sheriff was a robust man, almost as wide as he was tall, and he had come by the house that day to inform William they were stopping the search for Alice’s body. Ruby, small and frightened, had stood on the porch with her arms wrapped tight around the railing as she watched them argue on the gravel drive.
“She’s traumatized!” William shouted. He glanced over at Ruby, and his gray eyes turned soft. Stepping closer to the sheriff, William lowered his voice, but Ruby heard him all the same. “Alice didn’t go anywhere except into the water. She didn’t leave, she died. And it’s your job to find her, not give up looking after only a week.”
The sheriff flinched at William’s words but stood firm where he was. “I only have so many resources, Mr. Hurst.”
“Well, I have plenty of them. Find her.”
With William’s money at the helm, the investigation had been expanded and extended. His access to all manner of well-connected businessmen had helped him cover the costs of additional boats, crew, and all the equipment necessary for underwater searches. Law enforcement combed the waters around Savannah and Tybee every day. And every night, William stood on the front porch, waiting for news from the sheriff.
Finally, on New Year’s Day of 1950, a woman’s decomposed and scavenged body had been discovered tangled in the marshland reeds off Cockspur Island. A set of rings, including Alice’s emerald engagement ring from William, were found on the delicate platinum chain she always wore around her neck, which her first husband had given her many years before. Three days later, Alice’s cherry wood casket, draped in handmade lace, was lowered into the red Georgia clay while Ruby stood next to her father, clutching his fingers as tightly as she could. She didn’t cry, not then. Her tears had already been swallowed up by the ocean, coaxing them out of her as it had swirled around her ankles, stealing the only thing left that Ruby had to give after it had taken her mother.
William had tried to talk to Ruby about what happened. He was gentle and patient with her, even in his grief, but she closed up after she overheard his conversation on the porch. She didn’t understand all that had been spoken between her father and the sheriff, but she could sense, as children often do, that what she had to say did not matter.
“I want Maggie to enjoy her time here,” Ruby continued now, helping Marianne scrape letter tiles into the soft velvet pouch. “I didn’t care much at first, it’s true, but I do now. I just wish her only friend didn’t have to be godforsaken Eleanor Black.”
“Ruby,” Marianne chided. “That’s cruel. Eleanor can’t help what happened to her mother any more than you could have stopped what happened to yours.”
No, but Ruby knew she could have fought harder to tell the truth. She could have stood up for herself when children called her crazy, when her father dismissed Ruby’s claim about what she’d seen as nothing more than a child’s traumatized imagination. She shouldn’t have spent all these years hiding as if she were ashamed.
The truth was Ruby had never felt shame.
She’d only ever been afraid.
