A Killer Crop (17 page)

Meg stayed put. “You did the same things I did today! You know, you sound like a classic wife. ‘How was your day, dear?’ ‘Can I get you a drink?’”

“In case you haven’t noticed, that’s what I’ve been for nearly forty years.” Elizabeth filled a glass with white wine and handed it to Meg.

“Oh, come on—you were more than that. You always worked—outside the home, I mean.”

Elizabeth poked at something in a pan, then set a lid on it. She filled a glass for herself and sat down at the table. “Yes, I did, thank you for noticing. But believe it or not, your father is a bit of a sexist. He applauded my working, but he did expect to find food on the table and a clean house when he came home. You never noticed?”

“I suppose, not that I thought about it much. But I guess I should apologize—I should have pitched in and helped.”

“I never asked you to, dear. I wanted you to enjoy your growing up, and you’ll have plenty of time for housework in your life.”

Meg shuddered. “Don’t look around. I’m not going to win any prizes for neatness.”

“And why should you? You’re working hard. And if I’m not mistaken, you’ve been doing a bit of the structural work here. Didn’t you mention you’d refinished the floor in here?”

Meg felt a spurt of pride. “I did, and I loved doing it. But it’s hard to keep up with old buildings—something’s always falling apart. Like the plumbing.” Meg hesitated: she’d just given herself yet another perfect opportunity to introduce Seth into the conversation. Seth’s office was on the property, a hundred yards away.
Meg, you’re chicken!

“I’m sorry I can’t be around more, now that you’re here. But I may have an idea to keep you busy,” Meg finally said.

Elizabeth dished up dinner, setting plates in front of them and then sat down. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, you have to know more about the Warren family that lived here than I do—wouldn’t be hard, since I know next to nothing. Maybe you could write it down? And fill in some of the details from online sources? Are you comfortable with a laptop? You are computer-literate, right?”

“Yes, Margaret,” Elizabeth said patiently. “I’ve been using a computer for years. Do you have dial-up or broadband, dear?”

“I splurged on broadband, not that I get much time to use it. It came bundled with my cable package, not that I have any time to watch television either. I could set you up in the dining room, because the light’s better in there.”

“I’d be delighted. I do feel rather badly now that I never came up here for all those years, at least to look the place over and make sure it was being taken care of. I hope most of the . . . detritus dates to tenants?”

“What, you don’t think I picked the tasty overstuffed chairs in the parlor?”

“Oh, I hope not!”

“Don’t worry, they weren’t my idea. But redecorating has been low on my priority list. Did you say something about Grandmother’s wing chair?”

“We’ll see. So, about this genealogy project . . . can you get me started?”

“Sure, at least for the basics. Why don’t I show you now, and you can get an early start in the morning?”

“Can we finish eating first?” Elizabeth asked plaintively.

Meg laughed. “Of course!”

Fifteen minutes later they finished dinner, and moved into the dining room. Meg pulled out her laptop, plugged it in, and logged on. “Okay—it’s pretty self-explanatory: word processing here, spreadsheets here, Internet log-on here. Once you go online, the primary genealogy sources are Ancestry-dot-com and FamilySearch-dot-org. Or you can just search on keywords. I think some of the nineteenth-century histories of the town are available online, but I have paper copies of those anyway. Questions?”

“Dozens, Meg darling, but you don’t have time to answer them right now. I’m sure I can muddle along. I think you made a good suggestion, to write down what I know first and use that as a starting point.”

“Great. I’m going to go up now, but I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, dear,” Elizabeth said absently, her eyes on the computer screen.

When Meg came down the next morning, she found Elizabeth seated exactly where she had left her the night before. Meg went to the kitchen and helped herself to coffee, then came back to the dining room. “You did go to bed last night, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did, dear. But this is certainly absorbing.”

“Don’t I know it! Anything interesting?”

“Very interesting actually. It’s amazing how many of the old families are still here, more than three hundred years after they settled in Granford.”

“Does that include the Warrens?”

“I believe so. I’m just beginning to make sense of it, so I won’t bother you with details now. What do you remember about visiting the sisters?”

“Not much. They seemed so old!”

“My dear, they were! They were both close to ninety at the time. Tough stock, that. And they seemed to have outlived most of their family—I think they were the youngest of their siblings.”

“So they inherited by default, having outlived everyone else. Remind me to call Ruth Ferry, and maybe you two can get together. I think you’d enjoy her.”

“She can’t be young herself.”

“No, but she’s still sharp as a tack. Rachel introduced us.”

Elizabeth sat back in her chair. “Hardy Yankees. Which means we are, too, you know. I’m sure they’d all be proud.”

Meg pulled a chair up to the table. “Why don’t you start by explaining how we’re connected to the people who lived in this house?”

“All right. So, I started with Lula and Nettie and worked backward ...” Elizabeth began. And continued.

Half an hour later Meg was getting itchy to head up to the orchard, and her mother showed no signs of slowing. “I had no idea! So how was it you ended up with this house?”

“If I’ve got it right, Lula and Nettie were my first cousins three times removed. Or to put it another way, my great-grandmother was their first cousin. But I guess a lot of the relatives kind of drifted away and lost touch, particularly in the later twentieth century.”

“How on earth did you know about them, and this place?”

“My grandmother used to visit here when she was a child, and she’d tell me stories. Come to think of it, she probably mentioned the orchard—I just never put two and two together. The visit you remember was in the 1980s, but I’d seen them a couple of times before that. They were amazing women, in their own limited way. They lived more or less the way they always had. Visiting them was like entering a different world.”

“Did Daddy ever meet them?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No, he wasn’t interested, and he was busy.”

“So they remembered that you’d been nice to them, and they left you the house.”

“I don’t know if there were any other relatives left, or at least, none that they knew about.”

“Why didn’t you come up here when you inherited?” Meg had wondered about this more than once, as she wrestled with decades of tenant neglect.

“I meant to, but somehow I never found the time—out of sight, out of mind. The rental income went into its own account, and I drew on it occasionally, but it wasn’t as though I needed it, or not often—as I recall, a chunk of it went toward your college tuition. But I feel badly that I never even came to the funeral—by the time they’d found the will and contacted me, the sisters were long in the ground. I suppose I should pay my respects in the cemetery here. Have you?”

“I have, actually. I’ll show you, maybe tomorrow. There are plenty of Warrens in that cemetery, and it’s not far from here.”

“I’m sure. What a narrow life it must have been. Or am I being judgmental? It was a farming community, and our ancestors were no better than anyone else here.”

“Still is, Mother. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a farmer.”

“So you are.” Elizabeth looked at her daughter fondly. “Who would have imagined?”

“Not me, that’s for sure. So, have you got all this information input into something simple?”

“Not yet. Mostly I’ve been scribbling things down—and erasing a lot of it. But to tell you the truth, I’ve enjoyed it. And it’s certainly interesting to be doing this on the spot where it all took place.”

“Great. Look, I’ve really got to go now, but it sounds as though you’ve got plenty to keep you busy. I’ll be up the hill, and I’ll probably eat lunch up there. I’m not sure when we’ll be done for the day—we’re at the mercy of the apples. If you need me, you can come get me.”

“Meg!” Bree’s voice came from the kitchen. “Get your butt in gear! Time’s wasting!”

“Gotta run!” Meg went back to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, then followed Bree out.

They were swept up in the flow of the harvest activities, and the next time Meg had a chance to breathe, it was well past lunchtime. She hadn’t even noticed there was an unfamiliar car in her driveway. How long had it been there? “Bree, looks like we’ve got company again.”

“You want to go check it out? I think we’re good here,” Bree said after scanning the activity around her.

“Yes, thanks. I’ll see you later. Good work today!”

Hard work, at least, Meg acknowledged as she felt every muscle on her way down the hill. She debated briefly about ducking in the back door and showering off the dust and leaves before confronting whoever was waiting, but she didn’t want to leave her mother alone with the mysterious caller.

As she came in the front door, she called out, “Mother?”

“In here, dear,” came her mother’s voice from the front parlor.

Meg pulled down her wrinkled shirt and followed the sound, to find her mother seated in the front parlor across from . . . Patricia Weston? “Hi. Patricia, isn’t it? What brings you our way?” Meg took in the teacups and teapot on the scarred end table between the chairs—it looked like the two women had been settled there for a while.

“Meg, darling, please sit down and have a cup of tea. I was telling Patricia how you’ve taken over the orchard in the last few months.”

“I admire you,” Patricia addressed Meg. “I can’t imagine taking on a project like that, with no experience.”

“It has been interesting,” Meg replied, accepting the cup of tea her mother held out to her. “And unexpected. But I’m enjoying it. As long as the weather holds for another month or two, I should have a good crop this year, due more to luck than to anything I’ve done.”

Meg took a sip of her tea, wondering again why Patricia was here. She noted that Mrs. Weston hadn’t answered her question. How much did Patricia know about her late husband’s history with Elizabeth?

Patricia apparently possessed the ability to read minds, for she said, “I’m not here to beat up your mother over her relationship with Daniel, you know. That happened long before we met, and I think I can say Daniel and I had a decent marriage. I thought I’d ask Elizabeth what he was like as a young man, before I knew him. I wish I had known him then—from what your mother has told me, it sounds as though he was a lot more relaxed. Or do I mean ‘laid-back’?”

“Had he been tense lately?” Meg asked.

Patricia shrugged. “Not tense exactly. And he hadn’t changed much recently. But I hate to say it, I think he was feeling his age, past sixty, though his doctor told him he was perfectly healthy. Not that he was thinking of retirement. Heavens, I wouldn’t have known what to do with him if he was underfoot all the time. But I think he wanted to make sure he’d made his mark in his field, that he’d left something that would be remembered. And he felt that time was running out.”

Elizabeth was staring over Meg’s shoulder, lost in her own memories. “Funny, but he was one of the least ambitious men I knew, back in the day. He didn’t care about awards, or prestige, or even about making a lot of money. But he did love what he was studying.”

“That never changed.” Patricia and Elizabeth exchanged a complicit glance. “He was a good teacher, and the students loved him. He could really reach them. Maybe Emily Dickinson’s poetry appeals to a generation of young people raised on short tweets.”

“Was that his specialty?” Meg asked.

“Technically, it was American poetry, specifically nineteenth century. But it seemed a waste not to study Emily when you live in Amherst. Can you believe it? The ‘other woman’ in our lives was a dead poet. How do you compete with that?” Patricia’s eyes glinted with sudden tears. She shut them for a moment, regaining control. “I can’t believe he’s gone. You never met him, did you?”

“Me?” Meg replied, surprised. “Not that I recall. I’ve spent time on the UMass campus, taking some ag classes, but I don’t think I’ve set foot on the Amherst College side.”

“He would have enjoyed meeting you, I’m sure. In fact, that was one reason I came over today.” Patricia reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of paper, which she offered to Meg. “I found that in the desk in his office.”

Meg took it and read it. It was a clipping from a local newspaper with a brief report on the death of a local organic activist; attached to it was a piece of a paper with Meg’s name and address. “Is this his handwriting?” Meg asked.