"Come up here! You"ve got to see what I found."
Max"s head popped up from the spot by the arbor where he"d been sleeping in the sun. He took off in a flash, heading for the kitchen door. He waited somewhat patiently for Gracie and Cardline to open the door and then bolted through the kitchen and up the back stairs.
Gracie moved a little slower. She was also glad she and Caroline had finally gotten a bit of hurt out of their systems. They were bound to argue again, but it would never last for long. Maybe they just needed to talk more, to be truthful about what bothered them.
Gracie hadn"t been up in the attic since the end of the summer, but it looked like nothing had changed. Dust motes danced serenely in the sunlight from the window, and boxes were still stacked sky-high. Someday there might be time to tackle the mess, but that would be well into the future.
"This"d better be good," Caroline said, laughing when Sam appeared before them, covered with dust and cobwebs.
"Oh, it"s good all right." Sam smiled. "It"s an old sampler, and it"s beautiful. And here"s the best part of all: I think it was st.i.tched by Hannah Montague."
Sam had been hugging the dark wood frame to her chest. She slowly turned it around for Gracie and Caroline to see. "Down here"-she tapped on the gla.s.s-"beneath the Bible verse, are the letters "H.E." That"s got to be Hannah Elliott. It"s dated 1864, the same as the inscription inside her hymnal."
Gracie moved in closer for a better view. "If that"s really hers, she did awfully good work for, what, a ten-year-old?"
Sam nodded. "I was thinking the same thing, although some of the letters are uneven, and some are darker and thicker than others."
"Girls back then were always so precise." Gracie added.
"What does it say?" Caroline asked.
Gracie read the verse the little girl had so lovingly embroidered: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Colossians 3:16"
Caroline looked at it closely. Pink, white, and pale reddish-brown seash.e.l.ls zigzagged along the border, with musical notes scattered among them. "What do you think the seash.e.l.ls and musical notes mean?" Caroline asked.
Gracie laughed. "Here we go again, trying to find a meaning in something that might have no meaning at all. It"s highly possible that Hannah might have thought the seash.e.l.ls and musical notes would look pretty together."
"Well, I prefer to think there"s more to it," Caroline said. "I have the feeling Hannah was a little girl who didn"t like to take orders from her father, bucked him at every opportunity."
"And what makes you think that?" Gracie asked. She thought her sister must be projecting her own personality on Hannah.
"Just a hunch," Caroline said. "All we really know is that she married beak-nosed Jedediah Montague, who had to have been much older than she. An arranged marriage-no doubt one she didn"t want."
"That"s totally made up, Caroline," Gracie said. "We don"t know the first thing about her."
"But I want her to have a story. I want to bring her to life," Caroline said. "If I have to make up a life for her"-she shrugged-"so be it."
Gracie shook her head, grinning. "You"re as incorrigible as Max."
From somewhere in the attic, Max barked.
Gracie coughed, fanning away the dust motes in front of her face. "You know where the sampler would look good? In the library."
"Should we hang it now?" Caroline asked.
"We could do that," Gracie said. "The room"s painted and papered, and we really need to start filling it with odds and ends to give it a homely feel. We can set out some of the knickknacks of Mom"s that the two of you brought back to the island, and-"
"Was that a knock at the door?" Sam asked. "I could have sworn I just heard a cane tapping away, trying to get our attention."
The sisters heard a whimper. Max peered out from his hiding place, his brown eyes wide. He was doing his best to look innocent. "Oh dear," Gracie said. "Now what has Max done?"
Since you didn"t come over to say h.e.l.lo when you got back, I figured I"d just have to come say h.e.l.lo to you."
Shirley Addison strode through the foyer and into the parlor. Her cane tapped on the hardwood floor with every other step.
"We"re glad you did, Shirley," Caroline said. She wondered when Shirley would lower the boom and tell them what Max had messed with this time. "But we"ve been a little busy since we got home. What do you think of all the work we"ve done?"
Shirley made her way to one of the sofas that would be reupholstered in the next few weeks and gave it a whack with her cane. They were relieved to see only a little dust puff out and into the air. Using her cane for balance, she sat down. She looked around. "I see you copied my parlor."
Sam set Hannah"s sampler on top of the piano for now. They had drawn inspiration from Shirley"s parlor. Their parlor had the same nautical theme, and they had used stripes and flowers to bring the theme out, just like she had. The walls were a light, calming blue. They had found and framed an old mariner map and hung it over the couch, which they were recovering in a cheery floral fabric. They planned to use pillows of blue and white stripes to set it off. They"d set a mirror in a bronze ship porthole by the piano, and there was an antique wooden buoy perched on a steamer trunk they planned to use as a coffee table.
"You know what they say, imitation is the greatest form of flattery." Caroline smiled.
"In writing, it"s considered plagiarism, but"-Shirley finally allowed herself to smile-"the color is a tad different. Perhaps a little softer." She frowned. Her lips twitched back and forth as she looked about the room. "Actually, I rather like it." She smiled. "Good choice, girls."
"Could I get you some hot chocolate?" Caroline asked, hoping to make amends before Shirley had an opportunity to chew them out for whatever Max might have done. "Some tea? Gracie and Sam brought some lovely flavors with them. Pa.s.sion fruit, mango, pomegranate."
"I"m a Lipton fan, myself. Just plain old black stuff. With caffeine. Made with a tea bag."
Caroline swallowed hard. Their neighbor was in rare form today. "Is everything all right, Shirley? Has something happened? Did Max do something?"
"Why, no, what makes you ask that?"
"Oh, no reason," Caroline said. "We sometimes worry about him going over to your place and getting into something he shouldn"t."
Shirley harrumphed. "Not today, as far as I know, although I"m sure he"ll pay me a visit before the week"s out. What about our Jamie? And George? Will they be visiting soon?"
"Jamie should be here in a little while. She has fall break this week. And George this coming weekend."
"Then I suppose you"ll invite me for dinner to celebrate your homecoming?"
"How about Sat.u.r.day night?" Sam said, but before Mrs. Addison could reply, Max bolted through the parlor, sliding across the floor. He had something big and oddly shaped in his mouth, and Caroline went after him.
"Max! What are you trying to hide?"
Max growled as he ran from the parlor into the dining room and then into the kitchen, with Caroline hot on his trail.
She found Max standing at the kitchen door, begging to go outside. He wasn"t going anywhere until he handed over his bounty, though. "What have you got?" Caroline asked, holding out her hand. Max growled. "Bad boy! You know you"re not supposed to growl at me. Drop it!" Max turned his head the other way, completely ignoring her. "You heard me, Max. Don"t pretend you didn"t. If you want to go out, you"ve got to hand over your toy."
Caroline latched on to the s...o...b..ry ma.s.s of color. "Give!"
Max wasn"t about to let go. The tug-of-war lasted for a good ten seconds, until Max tore away from Caroline and made a mad dash up the back stairs. Caroline followed, knowing exactly where he was heading-his favorite place. The attic.
It was way too dim in the attic to see much of anything well. They really did need to install better lights. If it hadn"t been for Max"s panting, she might not have found him.
She peered around several stacks of boxes. "What are you hiding back here?"
Even in the murky light, she could see a pile of toys, an old bone, some uneaten dog cookies, and . . . an old puppet theater. She parted the dusty curtains behind the stage and found Max peering up at her with innocent eyes. She wanted to laugh but didn"t, not when she saw the puppet clenched in his jaws. It was Punch-a headless Punch. Judy lay on the floor beside Max, a little worse for wear, one arm chewed almost beyond recognition. "Shame on you, Max. There"s no telling how old these puppets are, and you"ve destroyed them."
Caroline shook her head in frustration and reached down to grab what was left of poor Punch"s body. She looked at him closely. One leg had been ripped off. His clothes were wet with s...o...b..r. "Goodness, Max, have you been using Punch as a chew bone?"
She wrested the puppet from Max"s mouth and looked to see if she, or rather, Sam could put the puppet back together again, when she noticed something wedged inside ornery old Punch. She poked her finger in and dug around inside, and- Oh my!
"How many do you think there are?" Sam asked.
"A dozen or so," Caroline said as they huddled around the dining room table. It was cluttered with piles of their mother"s linen and lace tablecloths, napkins, and doilies, which Gracie had brought back to the island.
Caroline worked at untying the pink silk bow wrapped around what had to be more postcards. Sam wanted to tell her to hurry up but bit her tongue.
"Be careful, young lady." Shirley hovered close, watching Caroline, Gracie, and Sam"s every move. "If more of those old postcards are inside, the last thing you want is for them to turn to dust."
"It would be nice to have a historical preservationist with us right now, someone who knew the best way to handle old doc.u.ments," Sam said, "but I"m too eager to see if they are postcards and what"s on them."
Gracie drummed her fingers on the dining room table. "I can"t even imagine what would have happened if Max had ripped Punch completely apart and taken the packet outside."
"He would have buried it somewhere," Caroline said. "They"d probably be lost forever, and we"d never learn more about Hannah."
"You"re being a little too hopeful," Sam added. "Finding more postcards-if that"s what"s inside-doesn"t mean we"ll learn more about Hannah. If they"re like the other ones, they"ll just confuse us more."
"Oh, come on, Sam. You"re the bright one in the family. The schoolteacher and puzzle solver," Gracie said. "You should have been able to figure out what those numbers meant on the last card."
It seemed to take forever, but at last the packet was free of ribbon, and the calico was unfolded to reveal more of William"s postcards. A few of the edges were stuck together, but when Caroline handed them to Sam, she worked at them carefully, wedging them apart, until she had seven postcards sitting atop the table.
"That"s the Brant Point Lighthouse," Sam said, pointing to one of the cards, but being careful not to touch it. "That"s the Atheneum."
"This is the Three Bricks, and this one"-Caroline tapped the table next to the postcard with an eerie depiction of a gravestone-"this could be any number of cemeteries."
"There"s a name on one of the stones." Sam moved in for a closer look. "I"d have to get a magnifying gla.s.s to read it, but it looks a little like Montague."
"What"s the postmark date?" Caroline asked.
Sam turned it over carefully, her fingers barely touching the edges. "I can"t see all of it, but the year could be 1879."
"Maybe 1878? That"s the year Jedediah Montague died," Gracie stated. "Do you think that"s his headstone?"
"It could be," Sam said. She wished Jamie was here to help figure things out. She always had good insight. "But what does finding a picture of Jedediah Montague"s headstone prove? That William was a little morbid?"
Caroline sighed heavily. She gently turned each postcard over to see what was written on the back. "Numbers again," she said as she flipped one over. "What on earth could those numbers mean?"
"Who knows? But let"s not ignore the rest. Look at this one."
Sam read the words out loud:.
"Millions of happy spirits live.
On thy exhaustless store.
From thee they all their bliss receive.
And still thou givest more."
"This William fellow was rather a jokester." Shirley tsked. "It"s beginning to look more and more like he and Hannah were having a bit of a fling."
"Possibly," Caroline said, "although I don"t want to believe it. I don"t know anything about her, but I don"t see her as a floozy. I think she was just unhappy."
"So what cryptic message did our William write on the next postcard?" Shirley asked. "Wish you were here?"
Caroline shook her head. Shirley could be awfully sweet when she wanted to be, but right now wasn"t one of those times. Caroline turned over another postcard and read: "Come, Lord, Thy love alone can raise.
In us the heavenly flame.
Then shall our lips resound Thy praise,
Our hearts adore Thy name."
And yet another: "My dearest Hannah,
Red Caps beat White Stockings 101.