The Bluestockings: Chapter Two
"Ruby didn’t care much for this life anymore, but she retained her sense of self-preservation like any good Southern woman should."
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Ruby
Ruby stirred from her catnap by the fire, the cobalt blue afghan on her lap a closed oven door against her body. Her chest was damp with sweat, and with a grunt of displeasure, she cast the afghan onto the floor by her feet. Ruby stared at the blanket, one she had knit long ago before arthritis set in, and frowned. Like her, it was ancient. And, rumpled on the floor that way, nearly as useless.
She set her chin forward and stood, palms pressed against the arms of the chair for support. Ruby Hurst was eighty years old, but she was not, nor would she ever be, an invalid. Though she had no family or friends to speak of, except for Benjamin, her gardener, and Marianne, her housekeeper—if one could call employees such things—Ruby was of strong stock. She had survived greater hardships than that of a tired body, and useless though she may be, she would die before she lost all her mental and physical faculties. It was a decision she’d come to many years before, and once Ruby Hurst made a decision, it was etched in stone.
The clanking of pans in the kitchen drew Ruby to the door of the library, where she searched her pocket for a handkerchief and pressed it against her damp skin. If it didn’t draw Marianne’s noble nitpicking, Ruby would throw open the front door and stand, delighted, in the fresh, cold air. She could just imagine the prickle of her skin against the chill as it cooled down. Ruby could do without the manufactured holiday nonsense at this time of year, but she loved winter. She felt un- derstood by the landscape, the way it turned quiet and still as life settled down to rest for a few months. Ruby thought more people should take their cues from nature.
Down the long hallway, past the front staircase, Marianne was hard at work on lunch. The woman was a sensational cook, and she pre- pared Ruby’s meals with as much joy as if she were cooking for royalty. A delicious meal was as necessary to Marianne’s peace of mind as a good book was to Ruby’s, and they shared a mutual respect over their love of the stories each could tell.
A bowl of chicken salad in front of her, Marianne turned at the sound of Ruby’s footsteps and smiled. “Hey, honey,” she said in a gen- tle lilting accent. “Have a good rest?”
Ruby raised an eyebrow at the pet name but nodded. “The heat woke me.”
“Oh, that’s my fault,” Marianne replied as she tossed a sprinkle of chopped almonds into the bowl and stirred. “It gets chilly in that front room, so I covered you with the afghan.”
“I like the cold,” Ruby said.
Marianne huffed. “Only God knows why.”
Ruby ignored the comment and poured a glass of sweet tea for herself. It tasted of sunshine, of memories long past and a childhood spent exploring the house on her own, the library her sanctuary even then.
“Are you looking forward to seeing Maggie again?” Marianne asked. She set a plate of chicken salad and fruit in front of Ruby, who glanced up sharply. “It’s been a long time since there have been any children in this house.”
Ruby froze. “I forgot about Maggie,” she said after a beat.
Marianne snorted. “How could you forget about your niece coming to stay with you?”
Ruby sniffed. “It’s not as though I know the child. She’s my brother’s youngest granddaughter. I haven’t seen her since she was three.”
Marianne laughed, and her entire body shook with it. “Good gracious, woman! I don’t know how that makes a bit of difference. If my great-niece was coming to visit with me for a month, I think I’d keel over from the joy of it.”
“I have no doubt.”
“Well, lucky for you, I’ve already taken the liberty of getting the guest bedroom ready upstairs.” The room that had been Ruby’s as a child, long before her life became a shadow of what she had hoped it would be.
There was no use in hope anymore. Ruby knew that now.
“Fine. She’s welcome to stay wherever she wants as long as she doesn’t act like a fool in my house,” Ruby replied. “I don’t know much about young people anymore, and I certainly don’t know why I agreed to this. I must have been drunk.”
Marianne eyed her employer with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see that. But anyway, you agreed be- cause she’s your family.”
“Hmm. Well. Don’t let her treat you like the maid.”
Marianne laughed again. “Ruby, I am your maid.”
“You’re my housekeeper, and I pay you handsomely,” Ruby corrected her.
“Shush and eat your food.”
Nearly a decade had passed since Ruby had last seen Maggie.
Ruby’s younger brother, Edward, had once hosted a family reunion here at the Hurst family homestead, and Ruby had been anxious for everyone to leave before they even arrived. It had been painful to have family gathered together in this house when so many others were gone by that point. Their father. Their younger sister, Caroline. Ruby’s mother.
A few years later, Edward died, too, and Ruby was left well and truly alone in the world. No one she’d ever loved had survived long enough to share in the blessing of growing old with her, and so she hated growing old. She hated feeling useless.
She couldn’t wait for it all to end. She would only miss her books.
By eight o’clock that evening, Ruby’s stomach was twisted into knots. Maggie’s plane would have arrived at Savannah International Airport at six, but dinner had come and gone, and still no Maggie. It didn’t take but fifteen minutes to get to Hawthorn from Savannah. Even with baggage claim and traffic in the city, the girl should have been here by seven at least. Ruby paced the foyer.
She was nervous. Ruby preferred to keep to herself over the hassle of getting to know anyone new, and Maggie was new, family or not. When Maggie’s mother, Janet, had phoned a month ago and asked if the girl could come to visit for a while, Ruby had bristled at the idea of a child living in her house. She was thirteen, the age when one is too young to know just how young she still is, and Ruby could think of plenty of other things she’d like to do than deal with a bratty teenager for a month.
It turned out that Maggie—Margaret—was about to become a child of divorce, and Janet was well on her way to single motherhood. She needed a few weeks to set up house and wanted Maggie to have somewhere nice to stay for the holidays, somewhere free from the stress of her parent’s separation. “Somewhere with family,” Janet had said on the phone, which was quite a statement considering how irregular her contact with Ruby had been over the years. In the end, Ruby had agreed to let her great-niece travel down here from Virginia to a secluded house in a secluded town she had only visited once as a toddler and live with her until January.
In truth, Ruby had hoped Janet would forget the whole thing. She certainly had.
Half an hour later, as Ruby sat in the library reading, there was a sharp rap at the front door. Ruby glanced up from her book as Marianne crossed the hall to greet their new arrival. As the door swung open, Ruby stood to take in the couple on the threshold before them. Janet was a petite woman with blond, wavy hair and wide, blue eyes. Even though Ruby hadn’t seen her in almost ten years, she hadn’t changed much. To Janet’s right, swallowed in a pair of jeans and a sweater that must have once belonged to a man, was Maggie.
“Oh my goodness, hi!” Janet exclaimed as she pushed forward into the foyer and threw her arms around Ruby, who stiffened at the touch. “It’s so good to see you, Aunt Ruby. Thank you so much for letting Maggie come and stay with you for Christmas. I just know she’s thrilled about it.”
Ruby and Maggie eyed one another with skepticism. “Yes,” Ruby said. “Thrilled.”
Maggie stepped into the hall and peered at her surroundings. Ruby imagined she had never stayed inside a home as grand as this one. Her face was open and curious, intrigued rather than anxious, and Ruby recognized the small child she had once been. Maggie’s cropped, messy haircut framed her pointed chin, and while she wasn’t short like her mother, her delicate features gave one a certain elfish impression. Ruby scanned the girl’s appearance with disdain. It looked like she had rolled around in a donation bin.
“Maggie!” exclaimed Marianne, coming up behind Ruby. “Come on in, honey, we’re so excited to see you!”
Ruby pursed her lips together but nodded. “Welcome, Margaret. I’m pleased you’re here.” With a turn to Janet, she added, “We had begun to wonder when you’d arrive.”
Maggie moved further into the room and dropped her backpack on the floor. Ruby stared at it as though it were a dirty dish rag. “It’s Maggie,” she corrected Ruby, who merely blinked.
“I should have called, I know,” said Janet, talking a mile a minute. “But I met this fantastic woman on the plane who was on the third leg of her trip home from India, and I had so many questions for her. I’ve always wanted to visit, so after the plane landed, we grabbed coffee. Before I knew it, we’d talked for an hour!”
“How lovely,” Ruby said, though she had no idea why anyone would want to spend an hour talking to a stranger she’d just met on a plane. Ruby didn’t like talking to anyone except Marianne and Ben, and even that was a stretch. Talking got one into trouble.
Maggie cast a sideways glance at her mother and rolled her eyes. Ruby didn’t approve of the gesture, but she couldn’t disagree with the sentiment.
“Of course, we understand,” clucked Marianne as she offered Maggie a hug and scooped up her bag. “I’m Marianne, Ruby’s housekeeper. I live in the guest cottage around back. Is this all you’ve packed?”
“No, I’ve got more,” Maggie replied.
“She has a suitcase in the trunk of my rental,” Janet interjected, “but we can get it later. I’m in no hurry.”
“So we’ve learned,” Ruby said in a dry tone.
Maggie turned to face Ruby then, eyebrows raised in delight at the sarcasm in her aunt’s voice, and appeared to look at Ruby for the first time. She felt the fire in her niece’s gaze, the judgment of Ruby’s color-coordinated pastel sweater set and expensive but sensible jeans, and she met the girl’s stare with a steely one of her own. Better for the child to know who she was dealing with from the get-go than to show up expecting to be doted upon. Ruby was not the doting type.
After a moment, Maggie’s shoulders relaxed, and she turned her attention to the phone in her hand. “This house is nice,” she said. Maggie held up her phone, and Ruby heard a distinct shutter sound. “My friends are gonna freak.”
Ruby pressed her lips together into a ghost of a smile, but Maggie had already gone back to typing. A moment later, Marianne directed Maggie and Janet up the stairs to the guest rooms. Ruby released a puff of air from between her lips. She could hear Marianne’s voice, eager to pepper Maggie with all sorts of questions about her life, but Ruby shared none of her housekeeper’s interest in the girl.
At least now Ruby knew she and Maggie were on the same page. As far as she could tell, they had nothing in common except their mutual disinterest in one another, and that suited Ruby just fine.
~~~
The watery winter sunlight pierced the crack in Ruby’s bedroom curtains and landed right on her face. She had dreamed of sand be- tween her toes and tears on her cheeks, and the brightness behind her eyes made her feel like she was there on that beach. She could still hear the seagulls cry as if they knew her torment and grieved along with her.
Ruby groaned and turned away from the window. Not today.
She sat up in bed and pressed long, cool fingers to her temples. The swell of a budding headache thumped inside her skull, and Ruby knew from many similar experiences that it would be a bad morning for everyone if she didn’t get up and take care of it soon.
Ruby shuffled to the bathroom that had once belonged to her parents—and her grandparents before them—and grabbed an ibuprofen. With a swish of water in her mouth and a splash of water on her face, the pressure in Ruby’s head seemed to ease.
She brushed her teeth and hair and then padded back to the bedroom to change. Hers was an ancient routine, simple and unaffected. A quick rinse, a moisturizer, and some mascara. She allowed the pattern of lines on her face to shine through, having made peace with them once she realized she had no one to impress at this point anyway. Her eyes, once bright and vibrant green, had turned the color of swamp water, and her cheekbones, a point of pride for many years, now cast hard shadows on her face. Only Ruby’s hair retained its youthful appearance, gray now instead of the deep auburn it had once been, but still thick, wavy, and styled down past her shoulders. Ruby would never cut it short. That was for very young women, like Maggie, or for women who’d given up. Ruby didn’t care much for this life anymore, but she retained her sense of self-preservation like any good Southern woman should.
She dressed in a long, floral skirt and white cashmere sweater and then made her way down to the kitchen, not without some effort. It was time for her to begin using the master suite downstairs— it had been for a few years now—but Ruby was nothing if not stubborn. She had already moved bedrooms once, and she had no intention of doing it again. Marianne had once suggested an elevator, more for herself than for Ruby, and she was beginning to consider it. She had more than enough money and little else to spend it on.
Seated at the breakfast table tucked in the front parlor window, Ruby turned to face the morning sun. Ruby was a nature lover, and the large Queen Anne Victorian she’d inherited from her father offered plenty of views from which to observe the acres of forest around it. As a child, Ruby would often imagine pirates skulking across their land to steal the antique treasures within her home. Although she hadn’t known their monetary value then, she knew well the story of her great-grandfather, George Hurst, who had immigrated to the United States from Germany and founded the town of Hawthorn in the late 19th century. The significance of her family heritage had been a common theme throughout her childhood, but rather than give Ruby a sense of self-importance or duty, it filled her with a persistent dread that somehow, someday, it could all be taken away from her.
And it had been.
Not the house or the name, but the people she had loved most, one after the next, until no one was left but Ruby. Sometimes, it felt like her life had been one cruel joke, a poor man’s version of what it could have been—what it should have been—all along. Now, all she had to show for it was a tired, old body, a tired, old house, and a niece who appeared sooner to forget Ruby existed than spend any meaningful time with her.
Ruby settled into her seat and took a sip of the coffee Marianne had placed in front of her. She liked it sweet and creamy, a cup of comfort to her soul, and Marianne made it just right every time. “That’s delicious,” Ruby said with a sigh of contentment.
“I know,” said Marianne with a wink. “You want eggs or grits this morning?”
“Grits, please, with extra butter on top. And a few slices of bacon.”
“Extra butter?” asked Marianne, her eyebrows raised. “It’s about time. You need some more meat on your bones.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. If she’d heard that cliche once in her life, she’d heard it a thousand times.
“I’ve never understood the point of that phrase,” Ruby replied dryly. “I can stand, can’t I? I can walk around and lift my arms and even do a little twirl if it pleases me.”
“Let’s see it then!” came a voice from the doorway. It was Janet, fresh-faced and wide-eyed, her hair a shaggy mess on the top of her head. Ruby said nothing. Maggie stood just behind her, looking as grumpy as Ruby felt.
“Good morning, ladies,” Marianne crooned, plates of grits, bacon, and toast piled high on the plates she held. She set one down in front of Ruby, who took another sip of her coffee and nodded at her nieces as they took their seats at the breakfast table.
“Morning,” Maggie replied in a scratchy voice. Her face was puffy from sleep, and a small, angry pimple had made its way to the surface of her chin. At the sight of it, Ruby felt something tight in her chest uncoil. She swallowed hard. She supposed they’d have to make the best of this if they wanted to live in peace.
“Did you both sleep well?” Ruby asked in a placid voice.
“Oh, yes,” replied Janet with a sip of coffee. She sighed and curled her fingers around the mug with a soft grin. “That bed up there is dreamy, Aunt Ruby. Like sleeping on a cloud.”
Maggie said nothing. She pulled her knee up to the table and leaned on it, slumped over her food like a veritable beast gnawing at a bone. Ruby held no romantic ideas about how much better life was in the past, especially for women, but she did often wish that people would still act with manners more suited for a breakfast table than a wild animal’s den.
“And how about you, Maggie?” Ruby asked pointedly.
Maggie looked up at her with a bewildered expression as though she had forgotten Ruby was even present. “It was fine.”
Janet glanced at Ruby and raised her brows as if to apologize. But Ruby was undeterred. “Good. I’m afraid I don’t leave the house much, but there is plenty for you to do here if you use your imagination. What do you like to do for fun?”
Maggie shrugged, and Ruby set her toast down on the plate, brushing her hands free from crumbs. “I don’t know what that means,” she said, nodding to Maggie’s shoulders.
The girl scowled at Ruby and slumped into her seat. “Talk to my friends. Watch videos of cats. I read a lot.”
“Ah,” Ruby replied, confused. Cats?
Maggie sunk deeper. “Can we go to the beach?” she mumbled.
Marianne shot Ruby a sharp glance, whose mouth turned down into a frown as she spoke. “I’d rather not. It’s too cold this time of year, anyway. You won’t enjoy it.”
Maggie fiddled with her toast and muttered, “Yes, I would.”
Janet cut in. “Maybe you can go into town sometimes and look around? We drove through the square on the way, and it looks like such a sweet place.”
“Yes, we have a coffee shop and a bookstore and some great little restaurants,” Marianne said as she cleared a few dirty dishes and headed back to the kitchen. “The man who owns the bookstore has a daughter about your age, too.”
At that, Maggie’s eyes lit up. Ruby looked to Marianne with gritted teeth, who returned her gaze with an expression of remorse. Her housekeeper knew good and well how much Ruby hated town.
“Thank you for the wonderful breakfast, Marianne,” Ruby said in a sharp tone and stood from the table. “I think I’ll go for a short walk.”
Marianne retreated quickly, leaving Maggie and Janet to finish their meal as Ruby stepped outside. With the fresh, cold air in her lungs, Ruby felt calmer. She took slow, even strides down the dirt driveway that had never been paved in one hundred and thirty-eight years, terracotta Georgia clay still wet from rain and clinging to her shoes. The live oak trees that lined the drive on either side hung their thick limbs over her head, protective and ancient. Ruby used to climb them as a young girl, even into her teen years, and found such comfort in how the low-hanging branches stretched out to welcome her up, as though they were forever anticipating her arrival. When she reached the paved road that traveled east into town, tall iron gates flanking the entrance to the Hurst estate, Ruby turned and walked back toward the house. From a distance, the pale yellow Queen Anne Victorian looked much like Ruby herself: put together well, but old enough to be haunted and not approachable to anyone who hadn’t been invited. Benjamin did his best with the grounds, but there was just too much of the estate to care for and not enough people to care about enjoying it. For years now, Ruby had only asked that he keep the house, the cemetery, and the immediate property tidy. The rest of the vast acreage she’d inherited didn’t matter anymore.
As she walked, Ruby thought of her dream from the previous night, of the grief that still lived within her heart, and worried that its coinciding with Maggie’s arrival was a bad sign. A sign of more loss to come.
But what else was there to lose?
If Ruby had been anxious about Maggie’s visit before, she was even more anxious about her departure. She could only imagine what kind of nonsense the girl would bring into her home before it was all over.
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