Carolina Mist (5 page)

“If you’d made the time to visit once in a while, you’d have known that Leila invited me to move in with her about two years ago. Right before I sold my house.” She nodded her head, presumably to indicate the house across the street. “Not that I wanted to. Sell it, that is. Couldn’t pay the taxes. Sell it or watch it be sold for back taxes, that was my choice. Leila kindly offered me shelter. I kindly loaned Leila money to have the roof replaced, once I had cash from the sale.”

“And she paid you back?”

“Nope. I figured it would come out of Leila’s estate, once you got around to coming down here.”

Abby’s face took on the appearance of plaster of paris as she tried not to choke on the thought.

Belle finished her tea and rinsed the cup out in the sink. “I’m glad you finally got here, Abigail McKenna. I was wondering how I’d keep that dinosaur of an oil tank filled this winter. Leila and I used to pool our social security checks, you know, just to eat and pay our utilities. Never would have been able to keep the furnace running by myself. Guess now that you’re here, I can quit worrying about
that.
Leila promised me I’d always have a home here. Nice to know it’ll be a warm one. See you in the morning. Oh.” She turned around to face Abby, who sat silent and wide-eyed as she tried to digest the news of her indebtedness. “Which room you figure on using?”

“I
…
I hadn’t thought about it. My old one, I guess.”

“Linens in the closet where they’ve always been.” Belle tottered off down the hall, her voice trailing behind her. “Take a quilt from the chest at the foot of the bed. It’ll be chilly by morning.”

Abby sat motionless at the table, Aunt Leila’s letter to her suddenly very clear.

“…
care for
…
any dear and gentle spirit you may encounter here—as best you can, as I have done
…”

Leila had passed not only her home but her best friend as well into Abby’s hands.

5

L
ost in a dreamless sleep after her marathon drive of the previous day, Abby had no sense of time or place when she finally awakened. The windows permitted no clue of dark or dawn beyond their heavy drapes and tightly clasped shutters. She reached for her watch on the table next to the bed. Seven a
.
m
.

Grabbing her robe from the bedpost, she tied it loosely at her waist and opened the door. The house lay as silent as it had the night before when she had first crossed the threshold. She wondered if Belle was an early riser.

Wandering down the stairs, she checked for coffee.
Even instant coffee will do,
she thought, suddenly craving the gourmet beans she used to splurge on back in her more affluent days. The cupboards held nothing but a box containing a half-dozen tea bags.

She pushed aside the narrow blue-and-white-striped curtain that hung across the glass in the back door. Looking around, she found a wall hook upon which a key dangled on a thin piece of string. She fitted the key into the lock and turned it, the hinges protesting with a low-pitched shriek as she pulled it open. Abby took a few steps out into the morning air and peered at the old thermometer on the outside wall. Fifty-eight degrees. The sun was trying its best to will away a veil of clouds and make its appearance. Abby sat on the top step and stretched the long robe to wrap around her bare ankles.

That the grounds had fallen into a sad state of neglect pulled painfully at Abby’s heart. Aunt Leila had been celebrated for her gardens. The local garden club had for many years included Leila’s property on its annual summer tour. More often than not, the event would culminate in a garden party, for which a young Abby would be pressed into
service. From her perch on the back porch, she could almost see herself, dressed in a starched white summer dress that had once been worn by Aunt Leila herse
lf, offering delicate tea sandw
iches to the ladies who clustered around Aunt Leila’s lilies or her arbors of roses. Here, Leila had hosted family weddings and grand parties. Abby’s own parents had exchanged their vows right there, under that very arbor, when the white roses that once wound overhead had been at their very peak.

What a shame.
She lamented the sight.

Vines and shrubs neglected for years had overtaken all. The cobbled paths that had once led from one pampered bed to another were obscured now, as were the beds themselves. Vestiges of Leila’s herb garden remained around the ornate birdbath which had once stood proudly in the center of the garden. The birdbath was cracked now, one section hanging off its base at an awkward angle.

What a shame.

“Broke Leila’s heart to let it go,” Belle said softly from the doorway, “but, of course, these last few years, neither of us could tend to it. And there’s been no money to hire out the work. ’Course, now that you’re here, you can tidy things up a bit.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.” Abby turned to look over her shoulder at the slight figure behind the screen.

“You start with the obvious, Abigail,” Belle sighed with exaggerated patience. “First, you pull out what doesn’t belong there, then you tend to those things which do.”

“I doubt I’d know the difference,” Abby muttered.

“Read Leila’s journals. Wrote down everything she did out here for almost seventy years. Sketched every plant she put in and dated every one of the sketches,” Belle told her with a mild drawl. “You can read, can’t you? Tea’s ready, if you’d like some.” Belle disappeared into the kitchen, and the whistle of the kettle ceased abruptly.

Abby tapped one foot quietly on the step, measuring out her patience.

“Gentle spirit,”
my ass.

“How about if I make breakfast for us?” Abby suggested
as she followed Belle into the house. “We could maybe eat in the morning room and get reacquainted.”

And maybe I can find out where your family is, and what their
plans are for you now that…
well, now that Leila’s gone, and soon the house will be passing into other hands, so to speak.

“That would be nice.” Belle nodded agreeably. “I’ll set the little table in there.”

“What would you like for breakfast?” Abby asked.

“I’d like soft-boiled eggs, sausage, and biscuits with blackberry jam,” Belle told her as she passed into the pantry for some dishes.

“Sounds easy enough.” Abby smiled and opened the refrigerator door. The relatively new appliance was virtually empty, except for half a stick of butter in a pink Depression glass dish, a jar of grape jelly with only the faintest remnants of purple streaks up one side, and five slices of bread in their plastic wrapping.

“Belle,” she called into the next room, “there are no eggs.”

“And no sausage and no biscuits.” Belle appeared momentarily in the doorway. “You asked me what I wanted. That’s what I want. But we’ll both have tea and toast, because that’s all we have.”

Abby put two pieces of toast in the ancient toaster, removed the butter from the refrigerator, and took it into the room Aunt Leila had called her morning room. She stood in the doorway and watched as Belle placed the teapot and cups on the small round table that stood between two straight-backed white wicker chairs. How many times had she watched Aunt Leila do these exact tasks in preparation for their morning meal?

The sun was beginning to beam through the back windows, casting aside some of the gloom that seemed to encase the entire house. As the light spread across the worn carpet, the shabbiness of the room became more apparent. In Abby’s memory, the chintz on the settee was always fresh and new, the window ledges lined with lushly flowering plants, the lace curtains sparkling white. Now, all seemed
faded and dusty, the paint on the window ledges peeling and the curtains almost gray. A few of the windows sat at slightly odd angles, the panes no longer solidly affixed to their frames.

As if reading her mind, Belle told her, “We just couldn’t keep up with it, Abby. It was all too much. Before Leila died, we did manage to keep most of the down
stairs open, but since she…
it’s all I can do to keep the dishes washed and the floors clean and the bed linens changed.”

“You’ve had no help at all?” Abby whispered.

“Naomi, across the street—she and her husband bought my house—has been my salvation. She does my laundry, picks up some groceries for me when my social security check comes every month, brings me soup and homemade bread once a week or so.” Belle’s voice wavered slightly, and she gazed out the window to avert her eyes. It was a hard admission from a woman who had once presided over a handsome home of her own, who had been admired and sought after for her lofty social position as much as for her wit and charm.

“Belle, where’s your family?” Abby set the plate of butter on the table.

“Abigail, the toaster
…”
Belle pointed toward the kitchen, from which the aroma of charcoal drifted.

“Good grief.” Abby flew back into the kitchen and unplugged the toaster. She dumped the charred remains of bread into the sink.

“Well, there goes breakfast,” Belle announced with a wry smile.

“I’ll make two more.” Abby shook out the last of the burnt crumbs.

“Not if you want lunch,” Belle told her matter-of-factly.

“Belle, you can’t live on tea and toast.”

“Abigail, you can live on much less than that.”

“This is ridiculous.” Abby shook her head. “I’m going upstairs to change, and then I’m going down to the store for some groceries.”

“What a lovely idea.” Belle nodded slowly. “Abigail, while you are there, could you possibly see if Mr. Foster has
any blackberry jam? Not the regular store-bought kind, the kind Annie Thurman makes and jars, if it isn’t too much? Young Foster will know.”

No wonder the woman’s so frail,
Abby thought angrily as she pulled a sweatshirt and jeans from her suitcase and slid into them.
Living on the barest of necessities for who knows how long. Where in hell is her family?

“What might you like for dinner?” Abby paused in the doorway.

“Dinner?” Belle spoke the word as if considering a foreign concept.

“Is there anything in particular you’d like?”

“Why, whatever you think, Abigail.” Belle cleared her throat. “Though a roast chicken might be nice. I haven’t had roast chicken since Leila passed on. She did all the cooking, you know.”

“Fine. Chicken it is.”

Abby grabbed her jacket and purse from the chair in the front hallway, where she’d deposited them the previous night. She checked her wallet and found she was low on cash. Opening the glove compartment, she withdrew some bills from the envelope and relocked the compartment. It was as safe there, she surmised, as it would be anyplace else.

She stopped a
t the new gas station on the corn
er. A tall, thin man in his early thirties dressed in jeans and a green and white flannel shirt came out to greet her.

“ ’Morning.” He smiled, wiping his hands on a light blue towel tucked into his waist. “What can I getcha?”

“Fill the tank, please.” She smiled at his open friendliness.

“Check your oil?” He pronounced it “earl,” and she smiled again, unconsciously this time.

“You still do that down here?” she asked.

He nodded and went about his business.

“You kin to Belle Matthews?” He watched Abby pull two five-dollar bills and three ones from her purse.

“No,” she replied, puzzled.

“Thought maybe you might be, since you were parked there”—he nodded up Cove Road—“early this morning.”

“Actually, my great-aunt owned that house.” Abby grinned, reminding herself that in a town the size of Primrose, there were no secrets.

“You the one she left it to? The niece from up north or someplace?”

“Well, yes.” She nodded.

“Welcome to Primrose, then.” He pocketed the money. “Guess you’ll be working on the place now. You planning on fixing it up and living there?”

“I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do.”

No need for anyone else to know before she could break the news to Belle that the house would be going on the market as soon as possible.

“You might want to talk to Pete Phelps down at the hardware store. His son’s a good carpenter—you’ll be needing one for
that front porch. Seems to me I
heard that the building inspector was out there a few weeks ago looking around.”

“Looking around at what?”

“That one chimney on the side is leanin’ a little farther to the right than it should be. And the porch around that big turret looks like it’s about to detach. Guess they’ll”—he nodded toward town—“be glad to see you. They didn’t know what to do, what with Miz Matthews livin’ there and not ownin’ the place. You might want to stop at the town hall and let someone know you’re here.”

“Thanks for the tip,” she muttered sourly as she rolled up the window and drove toward the center of town.

Great. Not in Primrose twenty-four hours, and the building inspector’s after me. Guess I better take a closer look at the house when I get back.

Abby parked along the sidewalk in front of the Primrose Cafe, where some of the locals lingered over their coffee to discuss the latest news. As she walked across the street to Foster’s General Store, she was not unaware that curious eyes from the window of the cafe followed her as she opened the door to the one food market in Primrose. She smiled to herself, knowing that as quickly as she closed the door
behind her, the folks across the street would be speculating on everything from her identity to her shoe size.

Housed in one storefront that was part of a row of shops in a two-story white clapboard building, Foster’s was clean and bright, if limited in its selections. Rows of canned and packaged goods lined three aisles down the center of the store. A butcher’s counter ran across the back, and along the left side, crates of fruits and vegetables sat in wooden bins. She wandered up and down the aisles, trying to decide what to buy.

“Need a basket, young lady?” a voice called to her from behind the butcher’s counter.

“I guess I could use one, thanks.” She moved toward the back of the store, trying not to dislodge the items she’d stacked in her arms.

The short, balding man in the white apron—“Young Foster,” she guessed, though he had to be in his
fifties—
held out a red plastic basket, and she tried to drop the cans of soup one by one inside, but they rolled down her front avalanche-style. He lunged to hold on to the metal handles.

“Oops…
”

“That's okay, miss, I’ve got it.” He held the basket out to her. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Where would I
find sugar?”

“Aisle two. Right there with the baked goods.”

She put a five-pound bag into the basket, then paused in front of the flour. Mayb
e she could bake something…
good, the package had a recipe for biscuits on the back. She grabbed a box of chocolate cake mix and a container of prepared frosting. She’d bake a little treat for Belle.