Twisted Threads (17 page)

“Well, then, I should tell you. Don’t look for the name Ruth Hopkins on ’em. Oh, no. I started writing years ago, when my husband was still alive, and he said he’d be dead and buried before he wanted anyone to know what I was writing. So I used other names.” She almost giggled. “Of course, now he
is
dead and buried, so it probably doesn’t make a difference. But I do have a reputation to uphold here in town, and my fans know me by the other names. It seemed easier to just keep using ’em.”

“What names do you write under, then?”

“The two I use most frequently are ‘S.M. Bond’ and ‘Chastity Falls.’”

I wasn’t sure. Had I heard those names correctly?

“Dear, I write erotica.”

I shook my head. “Really?” I’d never thought about who might write erotica. But I certainly never visualized a little old lady who used a walker. Someone who wrote erotica should be tall and blond and leggy. And young. Gram had certainly created an interesting group of needlepointers.

“Really. And my books sell quite well, especially now that no one has to hide the book covers when they use an e-reader. Now, aren’t you going to ask me whether I poisoned those cookies I brought to the needlepointers’ meeting?”

It might be worth buying an e-reader to check up on Ruth. Or maybe I’d download one of her books to a computer, once I had one of my own. I couldn’t see using Gram’s for that. Had Gram read any of Ruth’s books? That possibility was vaguely horrifying.

But Ruth was now talking cookies. “Right. You brought a plate of molasses cookies to the last needlepointers’ meeting. The one with Jacques Lattimore.”

“I did. But I mixed those up way last fall, and just had to take them out of the freezer. I don’t have the energy to make cookies now. It’s good I can still read. I’ve gone through just about every large-print book at the library. The librarian says she’ll try to get me more on interlibrary loan.”

“That’s good,” I said, being careful not to ask what books she read. I didn’t think I wanted to know. “Do you watch much television?”

“I can’t take those reality shows they have on now. I do watch the horse races, though, when they’re on. And I don’t miss a Sox game.” She raised her hand and I realized she was trying to make a fist, but her fingers wouldn’t touch her palm. “Go Sox!”

“If I get in any more orders for needlepoint, I’ll check with you to see if your hands will let you do any more,” I said, standing up.

“You do that, Angie. But don’t count on me.” She started to get up. “I’ve got my writing to do. At this point in life typing’s about all I can do with these hands.”

“That’s all right. You sit. I can see myself to the door,” I said.

“Thank you for coming by. Anytime you’re nearby, you stop in. You can tell me all about your time out west. It’d be more interesting than watching that CNN all day.”

“I will. Thank you.” I closed the door and headed to the next house on my list. How would it feel to live alone, and not be able to control what your body could do? Ruth Hopkins’s mind was fine, but how long would she be able to live in her house safely? I resolved to stop in to see her often for as long as I was in Haven Harbor.

The Titicombs lived on Elm Street, the street where ships’ owners and bankers and other well-to-do nineteenth-century Haven Harbor residents had built homes. Houses there were three stories tall instead of two. The earlier ones were Colonial or Federal styles built in the early nineteenth century; the later ones were rambling Victorians built after the Civil War.

The Titicombs’ wide yard was littered with sturdy plastic toddler-sized bicycles, a Hula-hoop, two balls, and one small pink rubber boot. As I walked up the granite walk to the front door, a small child dressed only in Pampers zoomed around the house. I ran to catch her before she reached the street and almost collided with her mother, who was also in pursuit.

“Cindy!” I said, recognizing my old grammar-school friend as she scooped up the giggling red-haired runaway. She’d put on a bit of weight, most of it concealed by her loose sweatpants and long-sleeved T-shirt, but her hair was still curly and her smile was more relaxed than I’d remembered.

It took a moment before she connected.

“Angie! How are you? I was looking forward to seeing you for lunch. Clem told me you were back in town. And I’d heard about your mother. Sorry. How are you coping?”

“I’m all right.” Not really, but you couldn’t say exactly how you felt to anyone except a close friend. Since I hadn’t seen Cindy in more than fifteen years, she didn’t qualify. “I heard you have children.”

“Guilty!” she answered. “The others are in the backyard. Come around!”

I walked with her. “You live in Blue Hill now?”

She nodded. “We came for a little visit with Grampa and Gramma. Didn’t we, April?” She tickled that young lady’s tummy and put her down. April grinned and started back for the front yard. This time she didn’t escape.

“I actually came to see your mother. But I’m glad to see you! You look good.”

Cindy shrugged and grinned. “I know I’m no fashion plate. My husband says I look maternal. Three kids in five years? I’d better look maternal. I’d feel better if I got to the gym more often. Chasing the little ones is exhausting, but doesn’t usually get your heart rate up. But how could I miss being with this angel?” She switched April to her other hip. “Mom’s back here.”

We’d reached the backyard, where Katie Titicomb was sitting in one of four Adirondack chairs, holding a baby on her lap. Near her a boy of maybe five was playing in a plastic sandbox.

“You’d better get some clothes on that one, Cindy. She’ll catch her death of cold,” said Katie.

“We have company, Mom,” said Cindy. “It’s Angie Curtis.”

“So it is,” said Mrs. Titicomb. “Good to see you, Angie.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Titicomb. I came by to give you your share of the money we got from Lattimore.” I handed her the envelope. She slipped it into the diaper bag next to her chair.

“Thank you for bringing it over. Truth be told, I haven’t missed the money or the work as much as the others. The doctor and I took a cruise this spring, and I’ve been redoing our living room. I haven’t had much time for needlework recently.”

“She also worked four beautiful pillows for me,” said Cindy. “And a piece to reupholster a footstool I loved, but it had been feeling its age.”

“Falling apart, you might even say,” agreed Mrs. Titicomb. “But I’m out of projects at the moment. If you get in any more orders, I’m ready.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I haven’t contacted any of our customers yet. That’s next on my list.”

After I’m sure who killed Mama,
I thought.

“You’ll be staying in Haven Harbor for a while then?” Cindy asked.

“Six months, anyway,” I said. “Maybe more. I haven’t decided.” How ever long it would take to get the needlework business back on a schedule and making money for these people. “I’d love to sit and get caught up, but I have two other people to visit this afternoon.”

“Clem suggested we all have lunch Monday at noon in Bath. It should be fun! So we can talk then. I’m here for ten days. Hubby went to a medical conference in San Diego.”

I smiled. “You married a doctor, like your dad?”

“Not quite. But in the same business. Clive’s a pharmaceutical rep. Doctors are his customers.”

“Sounds interesting.”

Not really,
I thought.
But lucrative.

“Actually, it’s fascinating. He’s on the cutting edge of all the new medical technologies. It’s an important field, especially with baby boomers aging. Drugs are critically important,” she stated.

“Lunch Monday then?”

“I was about to check with Mom,” she said, looking over at her mother.

“No problem for me,” said Katie Titicomb. “Take time with your friends, Cindy. I’ll keep an eye on the kids. I don’t get to see them often enough.”

“It’s a deal, then,” Clem said. “See you Monday, when we have more time to catch up.”

Lauren was at her camp. How large a camp would her parents have been able to afford? In Maine, the term “camp” was used for any structure a Mainer used as a vacation home. Lauren was lucky to have inherited both an in-town home and a camp. I felt a twinge of jealousy. Although I didn’t envy her the storage facility she’d also been left by her father.

Two more needlepointers on Gram’s list: Sarah Byrne and Ob Winslow. Ob’s home was on the outskirts of town. I decided to visit Sarah first.

The lilies of the valley were still part of her store window display. After visiting with Dave and hearing about the dangers of those delicate May flowers, I hoped Sarah didn’t have a cat.

She waved from behind her counter, where she continued wrapping two teacups and saucers for a woman wearing yoga pants and a Maine T-shirt. Out-of-stater, for sure.

Her store smelled comfortably of old, beloved things. I wondered when Beatles posters had become antiques, and how many people collected flowered teacups. Sarah had three shelves of them. She also had shelves of old leather-bound books. Did anyone read books like those anymore? Maybe people bought them as investments. Or, most likely, as decorative accessories.

I didn’t know much about antiques, but I knew about tourists. They shopped. And almost all of them wanted to take a piece of their holiday home with them. Something tangible to remind them of their favorite vacation spot. For some that meant a T-shirt or baseball cap embroidered with the word “Maine.” For others it was an antique, a painting, or a piece of sea glass. Or even a rounded stone from their favorite beach that would find new life as a paperweight. People who bought antiques from Sarah might be looking for links to the past, or they might want a souvenir of Haven Harbor.

I valued the dishes and paintings in our house precisely because they were in our house. I’d grown up with them, and, in some cases, so had Gram. And so had her mother. And maybe back further. I had no idea what their market value was, and I didn’t care. I did know old furniture was often better made than a piece you’d buy at Ikea. But I’d never been attracted to the miscellaneous bits of china and glass that Sarah displayed in her shop.

I stopped at two small rectangular framed pictures. Then I looked closer. They looked a little like embroidery, but they were incredibly delicate. One showed a coach being pulled by six horses; the other was of a horse race.

A few minutes later the woman buying the teacups left and Sarah joined me. “Like something?”

“Just curious. What are those?” Then I looked at their price tags. They were marked $350 and $400. Whatever they were, I hoped Sarah found a customer who really liked them.

“They’re Stevengraphs. Very popular in the 1860s and 1870s in England, and to a lesser degree in this country.”

“But what are they? At first I thought they were delicate needlepoint. But up close they look more like fabrics.”

“They’re woven silk ribbons. About 1860, Thomas Stevens, a weaver in Coventry, England, started making woven silk bookmarks showing scenes of various sorts. They were sold in bookstores and stationery stores, as you’d expect. They were so popular that about ten years later he started to make matted pictures, like the ones you’re looking at. He wove over two hundred different pictures and over five hundred different bookmarks.”

“Are they all as small as these?” I bent over to examine one of the intricate scenes.

“Pretty much. The largest pictures are about seven by thirteen inches. Most are smaller. They’re all silk, and many have faded over the years, or the silk has deteriorated. Since they were matted and framed, though, quite a few are still around. Their prices vary. Scenes of carriages and horses and sporting events are popular.”

“Are they still being made?”

Sarah shook her head. “The Stevens factory was bombed in 1940. That was the end of the Stevengraphs.”

“Interesting,” I said, quickly surveying the room. “Does everything in here have a story like that?”

“Probably,” Sarah agreed. “Trouble is, we don’t always know what the stories are.” She gestured at a group of iron banks and mechanical toys. “But you could make up your own stories. You could imagine who first bought these toys, for instance, and who played with them. And who must have treasured them, or they wouldn’t have lasted as long.”

“I can see I’d better clean our attic out more carefully,” I said, looking at the price tag on one mechanical bank.

“You should. If you find any antiques that look interesting, let me know and I’ll give you an estimate. Maybe even make you an offer.”

“Here,” I said, handing Sarah her envelope. “I brought your share of the money we got back from Jacques Lattimore.”

“I can use that,” she said. “Have you any new orders yet?”

“I haven’t started going through the customer lists,” I admitted. “I need a little time, but I will.”

“I’m ready and willing, any time you do get an order. Now that I’ve opened the store for the summer, I sit here and read or do needlepoint between customers. I like to read. After all, as Emily wrote, ‘There is no frigate like a book.’ But the needlepoint brings in money.”

“I understand. I liked those Christmas sachets you brought to our house the other day. Maybe you could make up more of those. Lobsters and lighthouses always sell,” I said, remembering what Gram had stitched when I was growing up.

“I’m tired of lobsters and lighthouses. But you’re right. They sell. Maybe I’ll try a boat. Or a crab. Or moose. So not all the sachets look the same.”

“Fine with me,” I agreed. “I’ll try to get all your work placed in a gift or craft shop.”

“And I’ve been meaning to call you. I’ve been researching that old piece of needlework I brought to your house the other day. I agree with Charlotte. I think the design is one from Maine. Possibly late eighteenth century.”

I nodded.

“I don’t think that little piece was originally meant to be displayed. I think it was a practice piece, for someone learning her stitches. That’s why it wasn’t signed. But I’m still learning. Your grandmother loaned me one book on nineteenth-century needlecrafts, and I’ve put in an inter-library loan for several books the library listed on traditional New England needlecrafts.”

“Great! Gram has a whole shelf of them. I’m sure she’d lend you more if you need them. I’m going to start reading, too. I’m guessing you aren’t the only one in Maine who has a piece of embroidery she’d like to save and know more about.”

“If we learn enough, we could advertise in the antique trade journals,” Sarah added. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

“And, of course, you’d get the profits from any customers you brought in,” I told her. “If they came to the business and we referred them to you, we’d take a percentage.”

“It’s too early to plan that,” she said. “But I’ll let you know when I’ve learned more, and keep my eyes out for other pieces of old stitchery.”

“Good,” I said. I glanced at an old clock hanging on the wall. “I have to get going. I still have to deliver Ob’s envelope.”

“On your way, then,” Sarah said. “I’m glad you stopped in. You know where to find me.”

I borrowed Gram’s car to get to Ob’s house. He lived in a farmhouse, complete with a barn and an ell that attached the barn to the house. The house “next door” was a couple of acres away. And much more modern. Ob had probably sold off part of the farmland connected with his home to someone who wanted to build. Across the street was a nineteenth-century mansion that had been empty for years. The old Gardener place, Haven Harbor’s ghost house.

I parked by Ob’s barn. Within a few minutes he appeared, dusting sawdust off his apron. “Angie Curtis! What brings you out here?”

“Brought you your share of the Lattimore money,” I said, handing him the envelope. “How’s your back? Gram said you were having problems with it.”

“Oh, your grandmother talks too much,” he said with a smile. “I’m pretty good today. Chopping wood, as you can see.”

“What for?”

“What for? Girl, you’ve been out of Maine too long. For the woodstove next winter. If I split the wood now and stack it so it dries over the summer, it won’t smoke much next winter. Got to do it now, ’cause next week I’m putting the
Anna Mae
back in the water, and I’ll be polishing her up and getting the gear ready for summer. Already got my first reservation in, for Memorial Day weekend.”

“You planning on doing any more needlepoint soon?”

He shook his head. “Not ’til fall, if the fishing’s good this season. My druthers are to spend time on the water. Course, a long spell of fog or rain might change my mind. My wife, though, she’s been watching what I’ve been doing, and she might be interested in learning, if your grandmother would take her as another student. I know she taught Lauren Decker a while back.”

“I’ll ask her,” I said.

“I’d appreciate that. I haven’t the patience to teach anyone. And I’m on the water so much in summer, the wife gets bored. By August she’ll be canning and freezing up a storm, but before that, it’d be good for her to have a new hobby to fill her hours.” He leaned over. “Tell Charlotte my Anna wants to learn. I don’t know as she wants to learn well enough to be a full-fledged needlepointer. Just well enough to make a Christmas ornament for the grandkids or a little pillow for the guest room. You know what I mean.”

“I’m learning, Ob,” I said. A carved sign hung above his workbench in the back of the barn: OBADIAH WINSLOW, MASTER CARVER.

His eyes followed mine. “Yup. I did that. Did it to impress the customers when I was carving decoys and such. Some folks wanted carved letters or numbers to put on their houses. That was to show I could handle that work. Don’t do much of the carving anymore, between my back and the
Anna Mae
and the work Charlotte’s been getting for me. Working with a needle is like working with a tiny chisel . . . making something from nothing. I like that part of it.”

“You do beautiful work,” I agreed. “Don’t strain your back chopping.”

He shrugged. “It’s got to be done, and looks like I’m the man with the axe. You say hello to your grandmother for me. And have her call Anna about those lessons.”

“I will,” I said, climbing back into the car.

I drove back downtown, feeling as though I was working my way back into the community.