Body In The Belfry

talking to Peg Bartlett, the head librarian. Ezra looked like Thomas Carlyle with more neatly combed hair and Peg looked like a Scottish farmer 's wife who has just come in after delivering a calf with not a wisp of hair out of place or a wrinkle in her tweeds. She was a terrifically enthusiastic person who took her vocation, the dovetailing of person to book, with the utmost seriousness. Whenever Faith asked her to recommend something to read, Peg would cock her head to one side and eye Faith reflectively as if measuring her for a dress and murmur, 'Maybe the Iris Murdoch, no wait, there's a new Anne Tyler,' until she would suddenly straighten up and lead Faith to the exact book she wanted. Faith thought she was rather extraordinary, although a little intimidating. When Faith wanted to read a Judith Krantz, she would slink surreptitiously to the counter and slide it to one of the high school kids to check out.

Peg was replying to Faith's query about the book Millicent mentioned.

“Certainly I know the book, A Ship Captain's Daughter, by Harriet Cox Eliot. She was Patricia's grandmother and the literary one of the family. She wrote quite a few books, mostly about her family and local history. Harriet was the oldest of the Cox girls, as they were called all their lives. Captain Cox used to take his family with him on board his ships whenever he could. He wasn't at all superstitious and never had a ship go down. Harriet's book is all about her travels and in-eludes a great deal of family history. Her mother was Persis Dudley, you know.”

Faith didn 't know but somehow with a librarian she found it easier to admit ignorance than with other people. They were so used to answering questions.

“ I'm sorry, Peg, who was Persis Dudley ? '

“No, I'm sorry, Faith, I keep assuming you've lived here all your life.”

My God, thought Faith, momentarily panicked, has the Big Apple bloom rubbed off already ?

“Not that anyone would mistake you for a New Englander,' added Peg with an eye on Faith 's agnes b. outfit, 'But it just seems you belong here.'

“Thank you,' said Faith, she knew not for what.

“Anyway, as a young woman, Persis Dudley was a close friend of Lucy Stone's and an ardent worker for women 's rights. I'm sure she would have been terribly annoyed at Harriet's choice of title had she lived to see the book. But Harriet also wrote a reminiscence of her mother, A Daughter Remembers, which reprinted many of her mother 's speeches. Persis was quite in demand as an orator and was evidently quite effective in stirring up an audience. She was also a Lucy Stoner.”

This was something Faith did know. ' Oh, so she kept her maiden name ? '

“Yes, she was always known as Persis Dudley, never Persis Cox, although the children were named Cox.

“And of course there was her will. Really she was quite advanced for her time. The money was left in trust to the women in the family for five generations. She thought men could make their own money and by leaving money to the women of the family she would give them some independence. She hoped that after five generations women would have the same opportunities as men and the stipulation wouldn 't be necessary.'

“ So when she died the estate passed to her daughters and not her sons ? '

“Well, there weren 't any sons and I have the feeling that if there had been, Captain Cox might not have agreed to have his hard-earned money left the way it was, but yes, it went to the eldest daughter. He did insist that the estate not be split up. He made provisions for each, but the bulk went to Harriet, lucky girl. There 's a chapter on the will and its meaning for women in her book. She was, of course, pretty enthusiastic about the idea.'

“I'd like to read the books, Peg, could you tell me where they are ? '

“ Of course,' and she led Faith to a shelf set aside for local history.

“Now that 's odd. I saw them both just the other day when I was shelving some other books and now it seems they're out. Let me just double-check that, Faith.”

Peg went to the desk and Faith sat down to wait, quite disappointed. This had been her big brainstorm and she wasn't sure what she would do next. Although aside from the will, there didn 't seem to be much more to mine in stories about ocean voyages or reprints of women's rights speeches.

Peg was back in minutes, 'I'm afraid you're out of luck. They have both been checked out, but I can put a reserve on them for you.'

“Thank you very much, Peg, I'd appreciate that.”

Faith left the library and slowly walked down the wide front stairs to the street. So somebody else was interested in Patricia and Cindy 's roots. Who could it possibly be ?

She walked along Main Street toward the green and thought about begging Millicent to lend her her copies, but she knew just what would happen. She, Faith, would grovel all over the threadbare Orientals and Millicentwould find a way to say 'No' with the suggestion in her voice that it was because Faith would break the bindings or spill jam all over the pages.

Faith looked across the Green and tried to decide what to do next. As if in reply, Eleanor Whipple 's house snapped into focus and Faith realized she could ask her if she had copies of the books. Eleanor was related to Patricia somehow and perhaps it was on the Cox-Dudley side. And if that didn 't work out, she would have to go into town to the Massachusetts Historical Society or Boston Public Library.

It was a beautiful day and Faith strolled across the green basking in the late afternoon sun. She took a deep breath of Aleford fresh air as she crossed the street to Eleanor's. Missing the crunch of people on the crowded sidewalks of Manhattan—and the store windows everyone was trying to look at—she still felt a surge of wellbeing. She would have to be careful, she realized. Aleford was growing on her. Like some tenacious lichen.

She walked down the front path and climbed the stairs to Eleanor's porch. In the summer, one pot of red geraniums stood neatly at the end of each step with two Bar Harbor rockers facing each other in unvarying positions on either side of the front door. All these things were presumably spending the winter in Eleanor's potting shed to appear like clockwork on the first of May.

Faith didn't doubt that Eleanor was home, probably working on one of her projects for the church fair. She didn 't go out much, just to church and occasionally to a friend's. Eleanor didn 't drive, but then Faith knew quite a few New Yorkers who had never learned either. The reason was the same—they didn't need to. Eleanor walked to the center every day or so and bought her groceries at the Shop and Save. Faith had never heard her talk about buying clothes. They looked like they had grown on her and Faith imagined she just replenished them with similar ones from the trunks in her attic, adding a little of her own tatted lace here and there, those 'touches of white at the throat and cuffs' so beloved of ladies of a certain class and age. Every few months someone drove her to the hairdresser's for the permanent that kept her short white hair in soft ringlets. Faith thought of her as a very old lady, but as she rang the bell, she realized Eleanor might not be that old, probably not much older than Aunt Chat. It was all in the way one dressed. Faith gave a small interior nod as one of her most basic beliefs was yet again confirmed.

Eleanor answered the door immediately.

“ Faith—and Benjamin—this is a nice surprise ! Come in and have a cup of tea with me.”

Eleanor was so glad to see them that Faith felt a twinge of guilt at not coming more often.

Poor soul, she's probably very lonely, she thought as she followed her down the hall.

Eleanor brushed aside Faith's offer to help and told her to make herself comfortable in the parlor instead. ' I won 't be a moment, dear.”

Faith sat down, glad to loosen the Snugli. She suspected Benjamin might be getting ready to cut his first tooth. He had been drooling a little more than usual lately and was apt to get fussy if moved from one comfortable position to another not immediately rewarding, so she kept him on her lap and let her eyes wander around the room. Eleanor's parlor was a little like the Moores' in that you felt nothing that entered the house had ever gone out again. The big difference was in the kinds of things that came in. Where Patricia's sideboard held a well-rubbed and often used Georgian silver tea service, Rose Medallion bowls, and a bevy of Battersea boxes, Eleanor's Victorian veneer table set in front of the bay window held a few large pieces of cut glass and a small case of what looked like some souvenir spoons fromvacations long past. An intricate arrangement of wax flowers and stuffed birds in gravity-defying poses beneath a huge glass dome stood in solitary splendor on a marble-topped sideboard. There was a slightly pathetic dignity to the room. It tried very hard and sought to cover up any mistakes with antimacassars and embroidered centerpieces.

A bookcase that looked to be the major repository of the Whipple book collection stood against one wall. Advice on gardening elbowed Hawthorne and Thoreau. There was an exhaustive edition of Joseph C. Lincoln, which