Bitter Harvest (8 page)

“You could boil some. But I’d wait until you have a whole batch of dishes. We do need to ration the wood.”

“So how are we supposed to keep warm?” When she saw Seth’s expression, she giggled. “I mean, apart from that?”

“We keep moving. Is there any cleaning or sorting you need to do?”

“Well, we can’t run a vacuum. But I’ll admit there are parts of the house I haven’t even touched—no time and no need. Maybe this is a good opportunity. Can we skip the attic?”

“Why?” Seth asked.

“I don’t like it. There may be bats. And other things I’d rather not think about. Giant spiders. Rats. Besides, it’ll be freezing cold up there, won’t it?”

“If I recall, it’s not insulated, so, yes. There should be enough to keep us busy in the rest of the house, anyway. We can do some triage while we’re at it—you know, figure out what repairs need to be done, make a priority list, that kind of thing.”

Meg grimaced. “I’m not sure I want to know. I probably won’t catch up in my lifetime.”

“One step at a time. You ready?”

Meg braced herself and headed out into the freezing hallway and up the stairs. “We might as well look at the two rooms on the east side first—since I’m not using them, I haven’t done much in there.”

“Makes sense. Uh, if we’re supposed to be cleaning, shouldn’t you take something along to do it with?”

“Oh. I guess I’m trying to avoid that. Dust cloths?”

“It’s a start.”

“Your mother trained you well.”

It was, in fact, an interesting process, cleaning out a longneglected room, and Meg found it did keep her warm. She kept a pad of paper in her pocket, making notes of which furniture she wanted to get rid of—heck, some of it was little better than firewood—and what she thought she should acquire, if she ever found the time and money. She resolutely ignored the growing length of that list. Since the house had been built in the later eighteenth century, there were few closets, and those that existed were sadly inadequate for modern storage. Nineteenth-century renovations hadn’t improved things much. The basic problem was, there were no places to even think of putting closets.

“You could build out a false wall,” Seth suggested, “and fit closets in that way.”

“Maybe,” Meg said dubiously. “But that would make the rooms too small, and we’re limited by the placement of the windows. Maybe in this room?” They were standing in the back bedroom, which was depressingly gloomy because of the storm, not to mention cold and none too clean. “At least all those tenants didn’t feel compelled to change things. I would hate to have to peel off a lot of cheap wallpaper and vinyl floor tiles.”

“Amen!” Seth said. “I see plenty of that, and it’s a lot of work just to get rid of it so you can start fresh. Getting old glue and paste off is not fun. You’re lucky.”

“I deserve a little luck here somewhere, don’t you think?” She surveyed the rather bare room. “Are we done in here?”

“I think so. How about the front bedroom?”

“Mother used that when she stayed here, so I spiffed it up a bit, at least on the surface. She didn’t complain about the bed, so I guess it’s all right. I wonder what happened to the rest of the sisters’ furniture? You’d think they would have held on to something from the family.”

“Who knows? Maybe the family divided everything up—you know, if the sisters got the house, the rest of them shared the contents? Or something like that.” They moved into the front bedroom.

“The two front rooms have closets, if you can call them that—they weren’t intended for modern clothes,” Meg said.

Seth pulled open the closet door and contemplated the empty space. A few wire hangers dangled from a modern plastic rod stretched across the closet. “Hey, at least there’s something. It looks original to the house.”

“I’m guessing this was the master bedroom, or whatever they called it back in 1760. Although you once said you thought the nursery was next to the room I’m using. Maybe they reserved this for important guests. Do you think George Washington ever slept here?”

“Unlikely, but imagine all you want. Did your mother use the closet?”

“Probably. She’s tidy that way, likes to hang up her clothes.” Meg joined him at the closet. “Although I’ll bet she brought her own hangers.”

“There’s something on the shelf. Maybe she left something behind?”

“She didn’t mention that she was missing anything. Where?” Meg stood on tiptoe but still couldn’t see anything on the lone shelf.

“Shoved in the back there.” He pointed.

“I don’t see it. Can you boost me up?”

Seth offered her his joined hands, and she stepped up, hanging on to his shoulder. He was right: there was something wadded up in the back of the closet. It looked like an old rag, and even from where she perched she could see it was covered with dust. “I think it’s been there quite a while. Can you get any closer?”

Seth wobbled a foot or so nearer, and Meg stretched out to grab the rag from the back of the closet. Dusty was an understatement: it was covered with a layer of powdery dust that had to be half an inch thick. Meg was obscurely pleased that there had been lousy housekeepers in the house before her.

“Got it. You can put me down now.” Meg stepped back to the floor with her prize. She shook it, sending a cloud of dust into the room, and they both sneezed. She teased out a couple of corners and stretched it out gingerly. “What the . . . It’s a sampler! Look.”

“I thought a sampler was one of those things where girls tried out different stitches and made alphabets and the like,” Seth said, trying to decipher the details through the dust.

“What? No, I think there are different kinds. Oh, look at the flowers, and—is that a house? And tombstones? This is so interesting. And maybe sampler isn’t the right word, but I don’t have a better one.”

“It looks old. Is it intact?”

“I think so. Linen, do you think?”

Seth took it carefully. “Looks like it. And I think the thread is silk. If it had been wool, I’d bet the moths would have gotten to it years ago. Nice. Wonder if it comes from the Warren family?”

Meg took it back from him, then walked to the window to get more light. “I don’t know. What a lovely thing it is, though. I wonder if there’s anybody who does conservation of this kind of thing around here?” she said, distracted, her eyes on the shabby piece of cloth in her hand. “I think it’s dated—it looked like seventeen-something. Wow.”

“Do you want to finish our cleanup, or are you itching to get a better look at your discovery?”

Meg looked up at him and smiled. “What do you think? The dirt will still be here tomorrow, but this is a piece of history I’m holding. Besides, if we don’t look at it now we’ll lose the light. Unless you think we’ll get power back anytime soon?”

“I won’t put any bets on it. Maybe fifteen minutes from now, maybe tomorrow. But I doubt repair crews are going anywhere fast today.”

“Then let’s go take a look at this.”

Downstairs, Meg looked around. “I can’t clear off the dining room table, because I’ll mess up Bree’s system, whatever that is. So I guess that leaves a card table—I was using one for my computer in the room across the hall, but I’m sure it’s too cold in there. I don’t suppose I should wash the sampler?” At the look of horror on Seth’s face, she said quickly, “I didn’t think so. I’ll leave that for a professional. But at least we can take a look at it and figure out what it’s about. You want lunch first? It’d better be cold sandwiches. We can do something hot for dinner.”

“Good thinking. Can you contain yourself that long?”

“I think so. But let’s eat fast.”

As they ate their sandwiches, standing in the nowcold kitchen, Seth said, “You know, you’re easily distracted.”

“I am not!” Meg mumbled through a mouthful of bread. “I’ll admit I don’t like cleaning, but I can be focused when I need to be. This is not an ordinary situation. Aren’t you even curious about what we’ve found?”

“Of course I am. I’m just pointing out that we left that other project half finished.”

“And that bothers you? Okay, we can go back to it later. Heck, for all we know this blizzard will go on for days, and we’ll have plenty of time for housecleaning. You finished eating?”

“Yes.” Seth dusted the crumbs off his hands. “Lead on.”

Meg pulled the card table into the front parlor, where the coals from the dying fire were sending out little eddies of warmth. Seth added one log to it as Meg unfurled a clean sheet on the table. “Gail will be so proud of me! At least I’m keeping it clean.” She carefully laid the fragile piece of cloth flat on the sheet, smoothing it out gently. “Maybe I should take some pictures, in case it decides to crumble to dust immediately.”

“You must be thinking of Egyptian tombs. This is quite a bit younger.”

“I know, but it can’t hurt.” She retrieved her camera from the sideboard in the dining room, came back, and snapped a series of photos, including close-ups of the details. “You know, sometimes you can use software to edit pictures and increase the contrast, make them easier to decipher. I’ve done it for tombstones.”

“I can see that makes sense,” Seth said, apparently warming to the process.

“Maybe I should have gotten a shot of it in situ,” Meg said dubiously.

“Meg, this isn’t a crime scene. You found it in your closet. Why would anyone worry about provenance, anyway?”

Meg shrugged. “You never know. What if it turns out this was made by Abigail Adams or Emily Dickinson or someone like that? It could be valuable.”

“Let’s just take it one step at a time. As you pointed out, it won’t be light out much longer.”

“Okay, okay. So, here we have a piece of handembroidery, and we’re guessing it’s silk thread on a piece of linen. It measures maybe two feet high, and eighteen inches across, I’m guessing. It’s in pretty good condition, all things considered—no holes or tears. The colors are a bit faded, but that’s not unusual, is it?”

“It hasn’t been exposed to light in a while, so it’s better than it might be. Go on,” Seth replied.

“You know, this is really kind of interesting. There are five panels, it looks like. The big one at the top—that’s a family record! How wonderful! All the births and deaths, neatly lined up. Then there’s a line for who made it—I’ll have to wait to decipher that when I can clean it up a little more. Then a row of tombstones.”

Seth was warming to the subject. “You notice there’s only one person mourning, a girl or woman on the left. Maybe the girl who made it? And clusters of flowers, probably to fill in the spaces on the side. A nice flower border, too—I wonder if it’s purely decorative, or if they represent a real plant?”

“Interesting thought,” Meg said absently, still studying the embroidery. “Then a quotation of some sort, and then at the bottom, a white house. You think it could be this one?” When Seth looked skeptical, Meg protested, “Yes, I know, it’s a pretty generic Colonial, two stories, roof, and chimneys. But look at the addition at the back—doesn’t that look just like my shed? And then there are trees—oh, look, Seth, at that little group with a fence around it. Do you think they’re apple trees? They’ve got these little red dots—it looks like each one is a single knot.”

“Could be,” Seth agreed. “Besides, I’d hate to rain on your parade.”

“I’m bowled over by your enthusiasm, sir. I think it’s a wonderful piece. Can you make out the surname?”

“It looks like Violet Cox to me for the maker, and, Lamb-something for the rest of them.”

“How odd—I don’t recognize either name from around here. I suppose things could have changed a lot since this was made. Are there any Coxes around here?”

“Not that I know of at the moment, but there could have been during the eighteenth century.”

“I’ll have to check on that. So we have the parents at the bottom of the list, and then a lot of children. Oh, dear—most of the children seem to have died very young. How sad. How awful that would be, to watch your family die. But I don’t see the name Violet Cox on the family record. I wonder where she fit? Maybe a cousin? I don’t think it would have been her married name, because it says she was, what, twelve when she stitched this?”

“Most of these were done by young girls or women,” Seth said amiably. “Needlework was considered an important skill among young ladies.”

Meg looked away from the sampler to stare at him. “Now why on earth do you know that?”

“I once wrote a college paper on early New England attitudes toward death, and mourning samplers came into it. Death was a lot harder to ignore in those days. People were vulnerable to a lot of diseases, and there were always accidents, fires. There’s a reason why all those cemeteries were close to town—they saw a lot of traffic.”

Meg shivered, and not from the cold. “I wonder why this is here in this house, and why it was forgotten? And, look, the parents died close together, not long after the last of those children.”