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How much should I say? My natural tendency was to remain taciturn. When one’s lived the kind of life I have, sharing too much led to either pity or fear, as if being an orphan or poor were contagious. “I served in the war with Josephine’s beau, Walter Green. When he died he left a few items that I thought she might like to have. It’s taken a while to get out here. My name’s Phillip Baker.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re a friend of Walter’s?”
Not exactly a friend. “That’s correct. Did you know him?”
“No, no. I’ve only heard about him from Josephine. Those of us who attended school together are quite close. We meet for tea at least twice a month to discuss books and gossip. Oh dear me, where are my manners? I’m happy to meet you, Mr. Baker, and I’m terribly sorry about Walter. We lost one of our boys and the whole town cried for a week. What you must have seen, I can’t imagine.” Martha bounced Quinn on her lap. The baby babbled and chewed on her fist.
“Thank you. He wasn’t a close friend. We served together, that’s all.” The car jerked, causing both Martha and me to sway slightly. I gripped my seat with both hands.
“Our poor Josephine. His death broke her heart. We all hoped she’d move on, but so far she hasn’t.”
“How so?” I couldn’t help but ask. What luck to meet Martha. I’d gather as much information about Josephine as I could. The nuns often told us that the more we knew about a subject, the better we could make a decision or persuade others to our cause.
“She’s sworn herself to spinsterhood and running the library. Which is disappointing to the eligible bachelors in town. Given half a chance, most of them would snatch her up if they could. She’s remarkable. Did you know she brought the library to us with funding from Andrew Carnegie?”
I nodded. She’d written in detail about the building and opening of her library. As if Walter had cared. I’m not sure he’d ever read a book. “Yes, Walter mentioned that to me.”
“May I ask what you’re bringing to her?” Martha adjusted Quinn to the other knee.
“The letters she wrote to him. There are stacks of them, and I thought she might like to have them. I wanted an excuse to come out here, too. I’m thinking of staying.”
“I hope you will.” She smiled at me. “We’re friendly in Emerson Pass. I think you’ll love it as much as the rest of us do. And how kind of you to bring the letters. Jo walked to the post office every Monday and Friday with a letter in her hand. Without fail, even though he almost never sent one in return. Do you know why he wrote back so seldom?”
He was too busy sleeping with nurses to reply to Josephine’s heart-wrenchingly beautiful letters. “I’ve no idea, really. He wasn’t the writing sort, I guess.”
“Have you brought the books she sent, too?” Martha asked.
She knew about the books? “Yes, I wanted to return them to her for the library. They gave me such pleasure during difficult times. I wanted to make sure others could enjoy them.”
“You like books?” Martha watched me with a more serious expression on her face.
“More than anything.”
“And Walter?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did he like books? Martha asked.
“I can’t say that he did, no.” He’d always tossed them over to me the moment he took them from the box Josephine had sent. The candy he’d kept for himself. He’d had a terrible sweet tooth.
Her glaze flickered to the window. “How odd.”
“Ma’am?”
“Josephine told me he’d written to her two times about how much he enjoyed the books, even mentioning specific plots and characters. She was thrilled, of course.”
I flushed. I’d told him what to write in those letters so that she continued to think of him as a scholar. Both times he’d tricked me into describing the plots. I couldn’t help myself but to discuss books with enthusiasm.
Martha peered at me through narrowed eyes. “May I be frank about something?”
“Of course.” Where was she going with this?
“I’ve suspected there might have been others. Women, I mean.”
I bit back a bark of surprise. Martha was no fool. I almost smiled with triumph. “What makes you think this?”
“When my husband was courting me, he was already a busy country doctor, yet he wrote me love letters at least once a week, and we lived in the same town. All he had to do to say hello was walk over to my parents’ store. All of which leads me to believe that Walter’s feelings weren’t what he’d professed them to be. What’s the old saying? Actions speak louder than words.”
