A Hearth in Candlewood

by Delia Parr

  Emma grinned. ‘‘Like their mother?’’

  Widow Leonard grinned back. ‘‘Perhaps.’’

  ‘‘You do realize they’ll find out you’re here, don’t you?’’

  ‘‘Eventually,’’ Widow Leonard admitted, and her gaze grew serious. ‘‘I must be frank, Emma dear. I sorely need a place to live, but I’m afraid I haven’t any coin to pay you.’’

  When Emma opened her mouth to object, the elderly woman held up her hand. ‘‘Just hear me out, dear. I don’t know you all that well. In my younger days, though, I did know your mother and your grandmother, rest their souls. From all I’ve heard, you’re as generous as they both were, maybe more, but I don’t expect you to take me in like you did your mother-in-law when she landed on your doorstep all those years ago. I’m not privy to all the circumstances, but I do know you did what was right by welcoming her into your home and having her stay long after your husband died. And I don’t expect you to take me in on charity like you did Reverend Glenn, either. That was a very kind gesture, you know.’’

  ‘‘Reverend Glenn is a man of God. He . . . he married my husband and me, he baptized each of our three sons, and he buried my Jonas when he died. I could hardly look the other way when he needed a place to live with folks who could care for him after his stroke,’’ Emma countered, flushed by the praise she felt was ill-deserved.

  ‘‘Yes, you could have,’’ her guest argued, ‘‘but you didn’t. That’s because you’re a good woman. A kind woman. And I know you’d probably take me in on charity, too, but I won’t have it any other way than my way—which is to say, I’ll earn my keep here.’’

  She held out her hands and smiled. ‘‘These old hands might look pretty awful, what with all the thick veins and swollen joints, but they’re not useless, even if the cold weather does slow them down a bit. In truth, come winter, my knees aren’t too good, either, but my eyesight is still sharp enough to see the dimples on the moon at night. I can still sew a stitch better than most younger women, too, so I was hoping perhaps I might work out an arrangement with you, like I used to do with your mother occasionally when she had the General Store.’’

  Emma arched her back, stood up, and stretched her legs to bring them back to life again. ‘‘What kind of arrangement?’’

  Widow Leonard looked up at the ceiling. ‘‘How many bedrooms do you have here at Hill House? Five? Six?’’

  ‘‘Upstairs? Seven large guest bedrooms, two smaller ones, plus one for me and one for Mother Garrett. Oh, and there’s one downstairs for Reverend Glenn. We converted the storage room behind the kitchen into a bedroom for him so he wouldn’t have to attempt the stairs.’’

  ‘‘That’s a lot of bed linens that might need mending or replacing, what with all the guests you have.’’

  Emma let out a long sigh and managed to stifle a yawn. ‘‘Only until November, when they close the Candlewood Canal for the winter. Then we don’t usually have many guests until spring when they reopen the canal.’’

  ‘‘Precisely my point,’’ the widow continued. ‘‘During the next two months, you’ll be pretty busy with guests, so you could use my help keeping all the bed linens in fine order. I wouldn’t mind doing some embroidery, either. Come November, when business slows, I could start to embroider the linens you do have and make them extra special, something guests would really appreciate. Here, let me show you,’’ she insisted and looked over her shoulder toward the back door. ‘‘Bring me my travel bag, will you, dear?’’

  Once Emma fetched the damp bag and set it on the floor alongside her guest’s chair, Widow Leonard easily reached down to open it. After taking out two balls of white cotton fabric, she unrolled them, one at a time, to reveal three-inch strips of cloth, each heavily embroidered.

  She handed the end of the first one to Emma so that it stretched between them. ‘‘I wasn’t sure if you’d prefer color or not, but this one has lots of color. I could make the design any combination of colors you’d like, or I could do the same design in white or a single solid color,’’ she explained. She held up the second strip of cloth with an identical embroidered design that featured an intricate band of white intertwined flowers.

  Emma fingered the elaborate yet delicate design on the soft fabric. Although the woman had a garish sense of color, Emma easily envisioned the same design coordinated to match each of the colors of the different guest bedrooms. ‘‘Your work is exquisite,’’ she murmured with all the admiration of a woman barely able to make more than a few standard stitches. She was also convinced, yet again, that Widow Leonard’s plans to run away had been made well before tonight, since she had obviously made these samples expressly to show Emma.

  ‘‘In return, all I would really need is a cot somewhere, perhaps in the garret? I don’t eat much. Not anymore, and I’d stay out of your way for sure,’’ the widow promised. She dropped her gaze and stared at her lap. ‘‘I’ve learned to be good at many things. I can learn to keep out of the way.’’

  Emma’s heart skipped a beat. As a woman of substantial means in her own right, she had escaped the plight of most widows, who depended on their husbands to provide for them in their wills. Those widows also depended on the willingness of their children to adhere to the conditions attached to their inheritances— conditions that often spelled out exactly how the new widows, their mothers, should be provided for and treated.

  Apparently Widow Leonard’s husband must have stipulated in his will that each of their two sons would provide for their mother equally, perhaps even dictating the six-month ritual that had her moving back and forth from her original home, which she suspected the eldest son, James, had inherited, to Andrew’s home, built on the land he had inherited.

  After confirming her suspicions with the elderly widow, Emma nodded. ‘‘It must be difficult for you to be a guest in the home you once shared with your husband.’’

  A long sigh. ‘‘It’s a widow’s lot in life, I suppose,’’ she replied. ‘‘I’ve had a good life, and I’ve been more blessed than most. Or at least until recently. Now . . . the situation is just unbearable. Since I can’t talk any sense into either James or Andrew, I decided that the best thing to do was to leave. Maybe if I’m not there . . .’’

  As the woman drifted off into her private thoughts, Emma tried to sort out her concerns. Taking in Widow Leonard meant being brought into the middle of a family dispute. Once the owner of the General Store, as well as being in charge of the post office, Emma had been embroiled in such cases before. In some instances, people who had moved away would write and ask her to make arrangements for elderly relatives who had been left behind. In other cases related to her business, she had had to have her lawyer track down debtors to force them to be responsible for what they owed her. As a result, she knew more than a few families whose members turned against one another, or her, in the process.

  Her position now, as the proprietress of Hill House, was very different, but guests often turned to her for advice concerning family matters. Still, she relied even more on His guidance now to know how to best use the fortune she had accumulated through her inheritances from her mother and grandmother, as well as the canal-building frenzy, which had made many of the parcels of land she owned far more valuable than she could ever have imagined. Growing interest from investors made deciding if and when to sell off more of the land a challenge, although there were a few parcels she would never sell.

  Whether or not she should help Widow Leonard was not a difficult decision. She could not turn away this elderly, vulnerable widow any more than she could have ignored Reverend Glenn’s plight. She had the means to provide a home for her and most certainly would agree to the woman’s proposal, but she would need to rely on the good Lord to guide her in helping to bring an end to the dissension within the Leonard family itself.

  She quickly dismissed the idea that if the trend of taking in permanent residents continued, she would have more staff than visitors, and instead whispered a prayer of gratitude
for the family-of-sorts that God had sent to her in lieu of having her own children and grandchildren nearby.

  Placing her hand on the elderly woman’s shoulder, Emma answered the questions in her troubled gaze with a smile. ‘‘Before we take to our beds, why don’t you tell me your ideas about the embroidering you’d like to do over a cup of tea and some buttered bread.’’

  3

  AFTER THREE SOLID DAYS of rain, Emma squinted her eyes at the bright sunlight. Finally! A break in the miserable weather. Maybe now her overflow of guests would begin to leave. She might even be able to sleep in her own bed tonight.

  Humming softly, she eased from the massive leather chair in the corner of her office, ignored the pinch in her back, and stored away the blanket and pillow she had been using in her makeshift bed. She washed up and dressed quickly, slipping out of her nightgown into one of her usual long-sleeved gowns with a single petticoat she had laid out the night before.

  She smoothed her full skirts and made sure the collar on the high-necked bodice lay flat. While the deep blue shade she wore today accented her pale blue eyes, the gown would show little dirt or even ink stains, which was much more important. Emma was a woman with classic and very practical taste, and she found herself gravitating toward earth tones and dark colors, as well as durable cottons, which made for easy laundering.

  Once she finished dressing, she braided her blond hair. Instead of wrapping the braid into a knot at the back of her neck, however, she let it fall free down her back.

  She opened the door connecting her office to the library, walked straight through to the center hall, and entered the dining room, where a platter of sliced bread and a tin of doughnuts rested on the sideboard. The smell of frying breakfast meats led her into the kitchen, where she found Mother Garrett at the cookstove, alternating her efforts between frying pans filled with links of sausage and thick slices of scrapple she would add to the platters of cooked meats on the kitchen table.

  Liesel Schneider, a sixteen-year-old from town who had been hired several months ago, primarily to help Mother Garrett in the kitchen, was sitting at the far end of the table shelling boiled eggs. There was no sign of Ditty Morgan, the other young woman she had hired at the same time, although she assumed Ditty was busy upstairs changing bed linens.

  Grinning, Emma snatched a sausage from the platter, took a nibble of the spicy link, kissed her mother-in-law’s cheek, and waved her fingers at Liesel. ‘‘Good morning, good morning!’’

  Mother Garrett chuckled. ‘‘Feeling a bit touched by the sun, are you?’’

  Emma nibbled away the rest of the sausage, wiped the grease from her hands, and donned a heavy muslin apron, much like the ones she wore when tending the store. ‘‘I’m touched by pure joy. I think if the rain hadn’t stopped and the sun hadn’t come out today, I really would have started to build an ark,’’ she teased and started filling a tray with crocks of butter, jams, and preserves. ‘‘As it is, I’d venture our guests will be just as pleased, and they’ll guarantee that the packet boat will have a full complement of passengers today.’’

  ‘‘They’ll leave with full bellies,’’ Mother Garrett noted as she lifted crisp slices of scrapple from the pan to the platter.

  ‘‘They’ll take lots of memories with them, too,’’ Liesel noted and paused to scratch an itch on the tip of her freckled nose with the crook of her elbow. ‘‘Aunt Frances said she wouldn’t be surprised if the stories about the storm and the ruined fireworks survived to be told at the centennial in 1891. Not that she’d be alive then, of course, but I’ll be there. I told her I’d remember to tell everyone about the storm and being cooped up inside for three whole days because of the rain, too.’’

  Emma cocked a brow. ‘‘Aunt Frances?’’

  Liesel’s full round face blushed pink, and her eyes grew wide. ‘‘Widow Leonard said to call her Aunt Frances. She claims adding another widow to the two widows already living here, along with Reverend Glenn who’s a widower, might make guests uneasy, although I’m not sure why anyone would really care. She thought Ditty and I might want to call her Aunt Frances since there’s no limit to the number of aunts we can have.’’

  ‘‘Really? Just when did you all discuss this?’’ Emma asked.

  ‘‘Last night. She came up to the garret and brought me and Ditty the last of the sugar cookies and some milk to thank us for being so nice to her.’’ She shrugged her shoulders as she plopped another peeled egg into the bowl. ‘‘I think she’s easy to be nice to. So does Ditty. She’s even offered to teach us to embroider like she does.’’

  Mother Garrett cleared her throat, no doubt covering the same chuckle threatening to erupt in Emma’s throat. Liesel was so sweet and unaffected, the idea she might be guilty of gossiping or telling tales out of turn was simply not in her nature.

  Emma caught the sparkle in her mother-in-law’s eyes. ‘‘I don’t believe I’ve given the matter of having so many widows living together much thought before now. As long as she suggested it, I suppose both of you may call her Aunt Frances,’’ she murmured and mulled the idea over in her mind.

  Perhaps it took an outsider like Widow Leonard to notice that the permanent residents at Hill House had all outlived their respective spouses. Despite the deep friendship they all shared with one another, Emma could not help but wonder if any of the others ever ached for the companionship of a spouse from time to time like she did. Except for Liesel and Ditty, of course. The two young women were too young to be married, but they were not really permanent residents. They only lived at Hill House during the week and returned to their families for most of each weekend.

  ‘‘I must admit, it does get confusing at times for me and Ditty, having two Widow Garretts,’’ Liesel said while peeling another egg. ‘‘Even though I mostly work here in the kitchen with Widow Garrett, and Ditty usually helps you with the cleaning and such, since you’re Widow Garrett, too . . . We tried not referring to you as Old Widow Garrett and Young Widow Garrett, at least not in front of anyone else, but Aunt Frances overheard us and told us not to worry overmuch about it. She said she’d overheard some of the guests talking about it, and they do the same thing. She’d have the same problem, except she’s older than either one of you and she gets to call you both by your given names.’’ With a sigh, she added yet another egg to the bowl and wiped her hands on a cloth.

  ‘‘She’s older than I am by five years, that’s true enough,’’ Mother Garrett noted as she stirred the pan of sizzling sausages.

  Caught off guard by the notion her guests found it necessary to differentiate between her and her mother-in-law by referring to their age, Emma pursed her lips and tapped the tips of her fingertips against the edge of the tray while she thought about the dilemma. Mother Garrett had first come to live with Emma and her husband when they lived and worked at the General Store. There had been no confict. Since Jonas was alive, there was only one Widow Garrett—his mother.

  As a rule back then, Mother Garrett did not venture downstairs from the living quarters they shared to tend to matters in the store. Her contact with the customers remained limited even after Jonas’s death, so although she and Emma continued to live together, there had been no conflict with customers getting confused about dealing with two Widow Garretts.

  Ever since Emma had opened Hill House to guests two years ago, however, she and Mother Garrett had interacted with guests on an equal basis, save for Emma’s role as proprietress.

  Sighing, Emma picked up the tray, caught her mother-in-law’s gaze, and held it. ‘‘This may be our second full season welcoming guests and only our first with hired help, but we still have much to learn about making sure they’re comfortable and at ease. It never occurred to me they might find our similar names confusing.’’

  ‘‘Mother Garrett would suit me fine, although there’s no one else in the world whom I’d rather call me mother than you,’’ she murmured in reply.

  ‘‘I’m honored to share you with our guests. In all way
s,’’ Emma whispered. She looked over at Liesel, who had completely stopped working to observe their conversation, and smiled. ‘‘From now on, you can call my mother-in-law Mother Garrett. I can tell Ditty, or you can—’’

  ‘‘Tell me what?’’ Ditty asked as she descended the last few steps on the back staircase. ‘‘Did I hear someone . . . oops!’’

  Emma turned around just in time to see the young woman miss the last step and pitch forward. The mound of soiled bed linens she carried in her arms quickly tangled with the young woman’s skirts, and she only managed to keep on her feet and avoid falling into the back of Liesel’s chair by taking a series of awkward steps.

  Clutching the tray tightly, Emma gasped. ‘‘Careful, child! Are you all right?’’

  Breathing hard, her cheeks flaming, Ditty disentangled her skirts before she managed to stand up straight to her full height of nearly six feet. ‘‘No harm done,’’ she managed. ‘‘I thought I would change the bed linens in my room and Liesel’s room while I was waiting for the guests to get up. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to carry them all down at the same time, but I wanted to get downstairs to help everyone. All the guests are going to be leaving early today, I’d imagine.’’

  Emma held her tongue. Over the past few months, she had come to learn that Ditty was as prone to accidents as she was anxious to prove how hard she could work. She was, in point of fact, the clumsiest young woman Emma had ever met. Asking her to work alongside Mother Garrett in the kitchen instead of Liesel on a regular basis would have been an invitation to disaster. Instead, the pleasant young woman, whose family lived on an outlying farm, worked with Emma cleaning the boardinghouse.

  Unfortunately, with the number of guests they had had for the Founders’ Day Celebration, she had had no choice but to use Ditty, as sparingly as possible, to help both Mother Garrett and Liesel. ‘‘As long as you didn’t get hurt, why don’t you pile the soiled bed linens in the corner for now,’’ Emma suggested. ‘‘I think you’re right. Most of the guests will be leaving early, and they’ll all want breakfast earlier than usual so they can be at the landing for the packet boat at ten.’’