I wonder what you’d think of her, El.
CHAPTER 27 Agnes, Leeward Cottage, April 1961
Dear Sister,
My rate of correspondence has dwindled, I am well aware. Yet it is for a good reason; I am happy. I know. Implausible! But true.
Virgil came over late morning to show me his new pages. We sat in the glass room, and sunny it was. We kept having to move around to avoid the glare. I read the pages to him so he could hear the shape of his sentences, and then we went through them line by line. It’s so exhilarating. It’s as if our minds fit together like puzzle pieces. There’s so much feeling to it, too. We are speaking our hearts as well as our minds… if I do say so. I know it is unlike me to be so… what? Something vulnerable, I suppose.
I love his writing, I love Nan, I love the lupines, I love Star, I love the Point, every tree and rock and flower and bird. I love the eagles!
And Elspeth—I got my hair cut.
CHAPTER 28 Agnes, Leeward Cottage, June 1961
Dear Elspeth,
Yesterday I saw Virgil for the first time in two weeks. He’d been away on a trip to New York to meet with an editor about Scalene. We only said hello briefly, just long enough for him to say he had some news. I wanted to know what it was immediately—I’m not very patient, as it turns out, har har—but I didn’t press him more than once to tell me right away. He wanted time alone first. Time alone is a phrase I understand well. So be it.
I found out what happened tonight when we had our usual dinner. Nan sits at the table now. Mrs. C. made a shepherd’s pie and squash and spinach on the side.
Nan was very happy to have her father back and doted on him. “Water, Fur?” she asked, holding her glass toward him at a breathtaking angle. Adroitly, he took it from her, with not a drop spilled.
“So?” I prompted. Enough stalling.
“So they want the book.” He blushed, deeply pleased. Karen clapped and Nan imitated her.
“Of course they do!” I said. “Was there ever any question? Why would they ask you to travel all that way if they didn’t want it?”
He ran his hand through his hair, which was still long but groomed now. I was reminded of Greek heroes when he did this. Oh, brother!
“You’ve been very sure, but I haven’t. I was confident last time, and—” He shrugged. What he thought of as his failure still stung.
“The book is good. Very good.” I made it so, Elspeth, to the extent he allowed it. He did too, of course—I’m not taking the credit. But I helped him. A lot! “Details please.”
“The editor said he’s rarely seen a manuscript as finished. He thinks the book will do well.”
I smiled inwardly. His combination of wishing to be modest and to be admired—I obliged.
“That’s excellent news,” I said, and raised my water glass. “Here’s to you, Virgil.”
“Thank you.”
“I’d like to read it,” Karen said.
He looked at her as if he’d never noticed her before. Maybe he hadn’t. Again, I stifled a knowing smile, this one having to do with the male ego.
“After it’s finished?” he asked.
“As soon as possible,” she said. “I’m sure I could get the gist even if it’s only a typewritten version.”
“Maybe,” he said. “I only have one copy.”
“I’d be careful. I could read it here.” She has a child’s eagerness.
He shrugged. “Okay. I’ll bring it over tomorrow.”
Karen clapped her hands as if she’d received a big treat. He dropped his gaze, pleased. Then he regrouped.
“So what’s the news here?” he asked.
We told him, stories piling on stories and jumbling over each other. Nan talks well now—I’d say she has caught up and perhaps advanced past what is usual for her age. I don’t really know for sure what that is, though.
Karen continued to be lively. “Didn’t you tell me there is an Indian burial site in the Sank?”
Had I? I mainly spoke with her about Nan and about books and colleges. She is young and preoccupied with fantasies of her future glory. As it should be.
“It’s not a burial site per se. It was a campsite. A dwelling. Why do you ask?”
“We’re going to redo the local history section in the library, so I was looking through books. I found a few descriptions of skirmishes between Indians and settlers that happened around here.”
“Oh?”
“It all seems kind of small potatoes. A few people fighting in a field. Surprising each other. And oh! Did you know people had slaves up here? I came across an account of Indians taking a family and their slave as prisoners. The Indians told the family to wait by the river until they got their canoes and guess what? The family ran away and told the tale. But the slave disappeared and was never heard from again.”
Virgil slapped the table. “Good for him.”
“Or her,” I said. “Those artifacts in the living room are things we found in the Sank and also items my father collected. Once I had to defend the site against some plundering boys. They had guns.” Wretched Hamm Loose killing the eagle. I always cut him when I pass him in town. He’s done well, if you can believe it. That type does. Something to do with real estate.
“I can picture that,” Virgil said. “You were a girl of principle.”
“I was a tomboy. That was fine here, but not as acceptable in Philadelphia. I wanted to be an Indian, or at least captured by them.”
Nan looked at me quizzically.
“The Indians lived here before the Europeans came,” I said, which cleared up nothing. She knew none of those words, or anything of life beyond the Point. “You know the things I take out of the cases sometimes? The moccasins and the stones and the clubs?”
She wrinkled her lips, her expression of concentration.
“I’ll show you books later,” I said. “I mean tomorrow.” I didn’t want her to think she was going to finagle staying up late.
I turned to Karen. “My great-grandfather William Lee had a respect for the Indians, in the way of the Society of Friends. When he found the campground on the site, he immediately sought to preserve it. He wanted to offer the Indians to come camp here, but when the Fellowship was formed the rest of the founders rejected that notion. William was disappointed. He was Edenic in his thinking, and imagined many people living here in peace—not just Quaker Philadelphians. But his brother was a Quaker and a Philadelphian who believed that his kind were all he wanted to know.”
“I’m familiar with the type,” Virgil said.
He smiled at me and raised his eyebrows. We gazed at each other, and all the feeling in the world passed quickly between us. I think.
“I read something else interesting,” Karen said. “Maine was part of the Missouri Compromise. It entered the Union as a free state so Missouri could be a slave state.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“I forgot about that,” Virgil said. “What an awful compromise.”
“I hope you’ll keep reading these history books as you organize them. We could learn a lot during these dinners. Maybe you’ll pursue history in college,” I said to Karen.