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By Root 975 0

thing, she would soon come to realize, was that her opinion of the man had not changed one whit. She knew exactly what he had been, and what he would have been had a reversal of his fortunes not taken place. She knew that he had abused his employees, misused the landscape, greedily hoarded his wealth, and had cared not a fig for any other human being with the possible exception of his overindulged daughter. She had not even considered what they might talk about had they been given the opportunity to do so on a regular basis. And yet this did not prevent her from going over and over in her mind the conversation they had engaged in during the one meal they had shared, searching for a hint of affection in remarks such as “damn fine potatoes!” or questions such as “Have you much trouble getting supplies from the mainland in winter?” She was hoping to find a key to his behaviour, to what it was that drove him out the door of the guest house with the object of placing his hand on her shoulder. The other curious matter was that she was able to think of such things while, at the very same time, counting the number of pieces of scrap lumber left lying about on the island, scrap lumber that Gilderson was clearly not interested in.

Throughout all the walking and counting and listing Annabelle became gradually convinced that all through her adult life there had been something lost in her that now, as a consequence of one masculine touch, had been found, and that having been found she was now going to have to come to terms with it one way or another. Even though the lost thing was now found, she was never able to bring clearly into focus what the lost thing was, only that it had been discovered far too late. Sometimes she was grateful for this. At other times she was angry. She knew that it had something to do with the two place settings that she had been unable to remove from the kitchen table, and something to do as well with the dent in the guest-house pillow, but her mind would take her no further than that. Her thoughts skimmed past the complexities of her condition and insisted instead on increased motion, this nonsensical accounting.

In the midst of her counting exercises, or while she was walking vigorously from one end of the island to the other, she would now and then stop for several moments and look toward Kingston. If she saw a skiff approaching she would scrutinize it intently and, once she had determined that it was not the skiff she was looking for, she would crouch behind a convenient bush until the vessel drew up to the quay, deposited whatever it had on board, and withdrew. Often what it had on board was the post: odd bits of business she should have been attending to but, during this period, had no interest in whatsoever. Sometimes the skiff contained a person who would walk up to the house and pound on the door until, confused by her absence, they too would withdraw, though not before puzzling over the damp letters that had been left in the open box situated near the water. It was only during these spells of concealment that Annabelle became aware of herself, the fact that she had not bathed, or changed her clothes, or cleaned her house, or picked up the mail. She would huddle in a kind of fever of shame behind a cedar bush or a gooseberry bush, as if her previous self had joined with the visitor and was judging her condition. It was only then that it occurred to her that, had the gentleman she was looking for magically appeared, she would be in no state to receive him, only then that she admitted that she was never again going to have to receive him.

Still, the idea of his arrival, the reception of a guest, set off another bout of industrious activity and, after pulling from the cupboard bottles and powders and cereals and sugars that had not seen the light of day since Marie had departed for the hotel, Annabelle began to bake. Various small insects had died in the flour, the vanilla had become a gummy paste, and the sugar had transformed itself from crystals to a solid lump, the baking soda had almost disappeared,