Queen Anne's Lace

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Odd?”

  She nodded. “I got here early, because I wanted to work while it was still cool. I parked in the alley, and as I came around your stone cottage, I saw a woman dressed up like a Gibson girl—a white blouse and long dark skirt, with her hair piled up on top of her head. She was snipping lavender right over there, beside the fountain. She was carrying a basket, and she was filling it.” She pointed. “She looked up at me and smiled.”

  My heart seemed to skip a beat or two. “Did you speak to her?”

  She shook her head. “That’s the strange part, really. I thought she was going to say something. She looked as if she wanted to. But then I heard Mr. Cowan’s dog barking across the alley, and a cat squalled bloody murder and a garbage can went over. I turned around to see what was going on, and when I turned back, she was . . . well, she was gone.” Ethel laughed a little uncomfortably.

  “Gone?” My voice squeaked. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Gone, as in walked away?”

  “Not exactly. I mean, one minute she was there and the next, she wasn’t. It was like she just . . . vanished. If I believed in ghosts, I might have said I’d seen one. But I—” She ducked her head apologetically. “Sorry. I know that’s silly. It was eerie, is all. Her disappearing like that. It kind of gave me the willies.”

  The Gibson girl. The woman in the swing with the baby in her arms. Who might have worn the white shirtwaist and gray skirt that Ruby and I had found in the storeroom. Who—

  I shivered. Who might have pinned the photo and the fresh sprigs of lavender to my bulletin board. Had Ethel actually seen my ghost? If that was true, did it make her real?

  “China?” Ethel was eyeing me curiously. “Do you recognize her? Maybe she’s one of your neighbors?”

  I shook my head numbly, then tried to laugh it off. “I’d prefer it if she asked before she helped herself to the lavender, but it doesn’t matter. There’s plenty for everybody.” I bent over and brushed the dirt off the knees of my jeans. “Come on, let’s see if anybody else is ready to call it quits.”

  I went with her to thank the others for their work, and to tell them that the fall classes were posted in the shop. If they wanted to enroll in their freebie course, it would be good if they could do that early, before the classes filled.

  After the heat of the August morning, the shop was blessedly cool and quiet. A customer—Mrs. Birkett, who is ninety if she is a day but as sprightly as you or I—was browsing the bookshelves. I greeted her, then, trying to put the Gibson girl out of my mind, I stepped into the Crystal Cave to thank Ruby for opening the shop.

  She was sitting on a stool behind her counter, checking stock orders. “No problem,” she said. “I was glad to do it.” She put down her pencil and adjusted the yellow headband that held back her frizzed carroty hair. “By the way, Christine Vickery called a little while ago. She said she’s been trying to reach Lori, but nobody answers and Lori’s voice mail doesn’t pick up. Christine has to go out of town, so she asked us to give Lori a message.”

  I glanced back through the door to see if Mrs. Birkett was ready to check out, but she was still browsing. “What’s the message?”

  Ruby stood up and stretched her arms over her head, then bent to one side and then the other, pulling the kinks out of her back. She was wearing a yellow top and a pair of floral-print palazzo pants. She looked like a bright ray of sunshine in a flower garden. “It’s about a photo Lori sent her. A baby’s dress, I think she said.”

  “Oh, that one,” I said. “It’s a christening dress, very pretty, with a panel of embroidered lace down the front. Lori showed it to me yesterday.” I paused, and something occurred to me. “Maybe Lori didn’t get a chance to tell you. She located her adoptive aunt on Ancestry dot-com, and she drove up to Waco to meet her. The big news is that her aunt was actually able to give Lori the name of her birth mother.”

  Ruby grinned delightedly. “No, I didn’t know!” She sat down on her stool again. “China, that’s wonderful! She must be very happy.”

  I nodded. “Her aunt also gave her the christening dress that had been handed down in her birth mother’s family. Lori was meant to wear it, apparently, but her adoptive aunt held on to it. Ask Lori to tell you the story. A classic family feud.” I tilted my head on one side. “So what’s the message?”

  Ruby frowned. “Christine was in a hurry, and she was talking so fast that I’m not sure I understood everything.” She paused. “If I got it right, it had to do with the baby’s lace cap that was in the wooden chest we found in the storeroom. Remember it?”

  I nodded. “I remember a baby’s cap, a lady’s cap, some collars—”

  “Yes, all that lace stuff. Well, Christine said she couldn’t be sure until she sees the actual baby’s dress, but she thinks the pattern in the photo Lori sent yesterday might be the same as the pattern in the baby’s lace cap. She thinks the two pieces might be a cap and gown set.”

  “The same pattern, maybe. But a set?” I said doubtfully. “That would be a long shot. The christening dress came from a small town north of Little Rock, which is a long way from Central Texas.”

  Ruby shrugged. “Sorry. I don’t have a clue. You’ll have to ask Christine. Anyway, she wants us to tell Lori that she’ll be back from her trip early next week. She hopes Lori will let her have the baby dress so she can do some testing.”

  I hesitated, wondering whether to tell Ruby what Ethel had seen in the garden that morning. But she had already gone back to her stock orders. Anyway, Ethel’s now-you-see-her-now-you-don’t Gibson girl was every bit as improbable as the ghostly rearrangement of my bulletin board—and I hadn’t yet told Ruby about that. It was the kind of thing that should wait until we could sit down with a cup of tea and no distractions, when we could sort all this crazy stuff out.

  So I went back to the shop, where Mrs. Birkett had found what she wanted, and rang up the book she was buying. A member of the Pecan Springs Herb Society and a lifelong Crockett Street resident, she is deeply interested in traditional medicine.

  “I’m also looking for something about the history of women’s personal uses of herbs,” she said in her scratchy, high-pitched voice.

  “Personal uses?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She took her checkbook out of her purse. “These days, we talk about family planning as if it’s something new. But it’s not, you know. Women planned their families back then—when to have babies, how many, how often. But they used the plants their mothers and grandmothers told them about, not some fancy prescription they got from a doctor. My grandmother knew a lot about that.”

  “It’s interesting that you should ask,” I said. “I’m writing an article for the newspaper about Queen Anne’s lace—one of the herbs women used to manage their fertility. Along with tansy and rue and artemisia. It’s a fascinating subject.”

  “Oh, good—I’ll look for that.” Mrs. Birkett smiled at me. “My grandmother would have loved you, China.” With arthritic fingers, she finished writing out the check. “She would have loved your shop and especially your gardens.” She tore out the check and handed it to me. “She had a big herb garden herself, you know, just a block or so down the street, at the very house where I live now. She sold herbs to the village ladies, and she kept the pharmacy supplied. She worked with herbs until she was well into her nineties. When I was just a little girl, she let me play in what she called her stillroom. She said the word comes down from the time when a room in a manor house was set aside for distilling cordials and brewing beer and making medicines—all that sort of thing.”

  “How marvelous,” I said enviously. “It must have been fun, growing up with a grandmother who had an old-fashioned stillroom.”

  Mrs. Birkett’s faded blue eyes grew a little misty. “Oh, my dear, it was! I lived in her house when I was a young girl, and moved back there again after my dear husband died. Come see me sometime and I’ll show you
her equipment. It’s all antique now, of course.” She giggled. “Like me. I’m another antique.”

  “I’d love to do that.” I did a quick mental calculation. If old Mrs. Birkett had been a Crockett Street resident when she was a girl, she might be able to tell me something about the people who had lived in my building.

  “I wonder if you remember the Duncans,” I said. “They built this house in 1882 and lived here for many years.”

  “Duncan?” Mrs. Birkett frowned, thinking. “I noticed the plaque beside your door, but the name isn’t familiar. I do remember the old woman who lived here when I was a girl, though.” She looked around. “Actually, she told me once that her husband built this house for her. If I remember right, this room was her front parlor. Her workroom, too, she said. Her name was Hunt. Mrs. Hunt.”

  “Oh, really?” I felt a little thrill of excitement. Was it possible that Mrs. Birkett had actually met my ghost, back before she became a ghost? My lawyerly self got to her feet and said, with an air of bored and long-suffering tolerance, Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence, Your Honor.

  “Hunt?” I rephrased. “But I thought her name was Duncan.” I frowned. Had Jessica and the Historical Society made a mistake?

  Mrs. Birkett shook her head firmly. “No, no, I was just a girl then, but I remember Mrs. Hunt very well. I knew her about the time FDR was first elected, you see. Her husband had been dead for five or six years, but she had several grown daughters, as I recall, and any number of grandchildren. She loved having children around.” She smiled, showing a gold-capped tooth. “She taught me to crochet before I was old enough to go to school. Her hands were old and all gnarly with arthritis and she couldn’t see very well. But she was still able to make beautiful things with her crochet hook and knitting needles. And bobbin lace, too. I was always fascinated by those bobbins.”

  I was instantly sorry that I hadn’t held on to the photo I had taken from the bulletin board instead of letting Jessica have it. It had been taken long before Mrs. Birkett was born, but she might have been able to recognize the people and tell me who they were.

  “I may have a photo of your Mrs. Hunt,” I said, “but I’ve loaned it to someone. When she gives it back, I’ll bring it over. You might be able to help me identify the people in the picture.”

  “Oh, do that,” Mrs. Birkett said, picking up the book she’d bought. “And I’ll show you my grandmother’s old stillroom equipment.” She smiled. “I love to talk about the old days—whenever I can find somebody who wants to listen. Not many do, you know. Most people seem to prefer the present to the past. Which is regrettable, I feel.”

  The bell rang twice, softly. Mrs. Birkett looked up, noticing that the door was still closed.

  “Odd,” she remarked. “Does it do that often?”

  “Occasionally,” I said. “I must have my husband take a look at it.” Chatting, we walked together to the door, where we said good-bye.

  I was turning back to the counter, still thinking about what Mrs. Birkett had said, when the bell began to ring impatiently, as if it were trying to tell me something. Then, as I turned, I caught sight of the bulletin board at the end of the counter, beside the door. I froze, staring, the gooseflesh rising on my arms.

  In the empty space where the family photograph had been, there was a different photograph, stuck to the board with a smiley-face magnet, a fresh sprig of lavender tucked behind it. It was a sepia-toned studio photograph of a baby just a few months old, formally posed against a pillow on an old-fashioned parlor chair beside a table with a vase of white roses and an open book. The baby—I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl—was wearing a lacy white cap and a long white dress. The dress was carefully arranged to show the embroidered lace panel down the front. It was hard to tell from a photograph, but the dress looked a lot like the one Lori’s aunt had given her.

  I shook myself. Well, I had asked for it, hadn’t I? I had felt some sympathy for a spirit who had to live through eternity with nobody to talk to. I had deliberately left the photographs under the counter, with the idea that the ghost—my ghost—might use them to communicate with me. And she had accepted my invitation.

  So what was I supposed to make of the photograph she’d put up there? Was it the baby I was supposed to notice, or the baby’s dress? What could a baby’s dress have to do with anything, then or now? Who was the baby? Did that matter?

  The more questions I thought of, the more impatient I felt. Finally, I muttered, “What do you want from me, anyway? I’m getting a little tired of being the one who keeps asking the questions. Maybe it’s time you came with a few answers.”

  If you’re thinking that I must have felt a little silly, talking to a ghost who doesn’t exist, you’re exactly right. But for once, my lawyerly self didn’t jump up with an objection. And the words were barely out of my mouth when I heard, or thought I heard, the faintest sigh. A rueful sigh, as if my long-suffering resident ghost had decided, finally, that I was so utterly dense that it was impossible to communicate with me. She was giving up.

  The bell over the door gave a halfhearted tinkle and fell silent.

  Chapter Ten

  Pecan Springs, Texas

  September–October 1888

  Annie might be able to comfort herself with the thought of the rightness of her love for Adam, but he could not so easily ignore the consciousness of his guilt. He might excuse himself by saying that if he hadn’t been drunk that first time, he wouldn’t have lost control, and he knew that was true. It was bottled bravery that had given him the nerve to step around that table and take his friend’s widow in his arms, and heedless, reckless passion did the rest.

  But while that might explain a first transgression and perhaps mitigate the guilt, it could not explain why he had gone to her the next night, and the nights after that. He might promise himself to end it when Delia came home. He might even try to excuse his actions by reminding himself (lamely) that what his wife didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. (How many errant husbands use that for an excuse? he wondered.) But he could not escape what he knew to be a fundamental truth: that he loved Annie and he needed to be with her.

  In the beginning, of course, he had been simply powerless against the force of his need. Delia had long ago insisted on separate bedrooms, for she slept better, she claimed, when she slept alone. She had always made it clear that by allowing him in her bed, she was performing her marital duty, but after Caroline was born she had seemed to merely tolerate him, rather than welcome him. In fact, now that he thought about it, he realized that it had been quite some time since he and his wife had made love. It had been at least a month before she went off to Galveston, hadn’t it? Or perhaps even six or seven weeks. She had pleaded headaches, and then a painful monthly, and after that a lingering summer cold. And every night, they continued to sleep apart.

  In contrast, Annie’s eager passion, her physical hunger for him—quite astonishing, he thought—was equal to his desire for her. When he was with her, he drowned in her physical presence. When they were apart, he was filled with the memory of holding her, kissing her, moving inside her. The feeling of her bare body beneath his hands and the urgency of her warm mouth under his had made an impression on his soul that would haunt him to the end of time. He remembered the song his friend Doug had often sung to her: And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I would lay me down and die. He understood that now, for he felt the same way. Rapt, entranced, enchanted, he couldn’t stay away.

  But as the days and nights went on, Adam began to understand—dimly at first, then more and more clearly—that what compelled him was not just simple physical need, powerful as that might be. Over the three years since Douglas’ death, he had watched Annie become proudly, fiercely self-reliant. She had organized her business and pulled together a team of women to do the work. She knew what she wanted and had the courage to reach for it—and the determination to keep on reaching even when fate slapped he
r hands. He saw her as an incredibly brave woman, with a deep inner reserve of strength and resiliency. For all she was able to do under the most difficult circumstances, for all that she was, he loved her.

  And when he knew this for certain, he told her so, holding her face between his hands, compelling her to look into his eyes when he said, “I love you, Annie.” He wanted her to know that what he was telling her was God’s truth. And when she whispered, “I love you, Adam,” his heart sang out.

  But he couldn’t tell her what else he knew: that above all things, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, to give her a child, and children. He didn’t tell her because he knew that this was impossible, and when he let himself think of it, the knowledge filled him with the blackest despair. For better or worse, he was married to Delia. People got divorced in these modern days, but they were fashionable people in big cities. And while his wife often chafed within the boundaries of their marriage, he knew she would never give up its comfort and security, nor tolerate the disgrace that would inevitably come with a divorce. And he could never bring himself to give up his daughter, whom he loved fiercely.

  But he didn’t know how he could give up Annie, either, and the thought of it made him cling to her now, while he could. He felt himself being torn apart, and he could see nothing but darkness and danger ahead.

  And then things got worse.

  * * *

  • • •

  QUITE suddenly, and a full week before she was expected, Delia came home.

  Adam was glad to see Caroline, and he swept her up in his arms with a cry of delight. “How’s Daddy’s little princess?” He brushed her damp strawberry curls from her forehead. “Are you glad to be home?”

  “Oh, yes, Daddy!” she said, and kissed him. “I’ve missed you so much, every day!”