Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [17]
“The wolfhound,” Nora prompted.
“Yes, that’s it. My dear, there’s all kinds there, real special ones from after the revolution and on up. I suppose they are worth something now. He’s written down why they are special. There’s pages of them: the ones he really liked, that is. There’s ones too with pictures of some of those famous writers. It’s all yours, Nora. He’d be some pleased, for I can see you’ll appreciate them. But girl, you can come back to the books by and by. I thought we’d go outside for a spell, while the sun is there. It’s lovely out back.”
5
Nora stood on the edge of the bluff and followed the sweep of the ocean to the horizon. She thought about the dark secrecy of Matt Molloy. How could he have fitted in with this place? She searched the landscape, the endless stretches of rocky cliff face, the grey scrubby soil, the dense growth on the hillsides. Her eyes settled on the community of Shoal Cove with its haphazard scattering of houses built solidly into the dips and hollows of the land: simple homes, some that looked boldly outward to face the sea, others that turned their backs on the rigours of their environment. A dark wooded headland circled the cove on one side and reached out into the water like a long crocodile snout, flat and impassive. From the north side of the road, Peg’s house overlooked the community.
Nora’s eyes came around to where Peg sat on her bench. On the way outdoors Peg had taken a dilapidated straw hat from a nail behind the back door and, making a half-hearted attempt at adjusting the drooping flower on the brim, had popped it onto her head, slipping a narrow elastic under her chin. Set against the sharp white edges of the house and with the coloured cloth of her dress flapping gently against her knees, she looked a picture.
“I like your hat,” Nora called out as she made her way back towards Peg.
Peg patted the bench, coaxing Nora to take a seat beside her. She touched the brim of the hat.
“Your grandfather gave me that; he ordered it one time from New York. It arrived on the steamer all done up in a fancy box. I remember taking off the lid and seeing it lying there so beautiful. I’d never seen the like in my life. You can imagine now, I was afraid to even touch the box, let alone the hat.” She glanced at Nora to see if she understood.
In the bright sunlight she looked fragile: the skin around her eyes and on her cheekbones seemed blue, almost transparent, like thin rice paper.
“‘It’s for you,’ he said to me, ‘put it on.’ I felt some foolish in my old working dress, my hair all over the place, my hands just out of the dishpan. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I took a look at him and he seemed right delighted. Well, I had to put it on now, didn’t I? So, I wiped my hands on my apron and put the hat on my head. I was afraid to look at him, afraid he’d laugh right out at the sight of me.” Her voice became quieter. “But he didn’t. He just told me I was to look straight ahead and then he caught hold of the brim and shifted it a little to one side so it felt right comfortable, like it was a part of me. He was some pleased, I could tell. ‘Have a look,’ he said.”
She paused, tapping her lips with the knuckle of her index finger as if to stop what she was about to say but a second later took it away. “Looking in my father’s old shaving mirror above the wash basin… well, girl, all I can say is, I was transformed. I thought, Is that you, Peg Barry, widow, from Berry Island, Newfoundland? I was like a lady, all elegant and mysterious looking. In a foolish moment, I imagined I was like those fancy women he knew in New York.” She turned to Nora, momentarily looking embarrassed but then