The governor took another very long sip of his drink. His eyes had gone a little glassy. “Did he give, uh, details of the exact activities she was proposing? Just so, you know, I can be clear on the full picture.”

Mr. Van Cleve shook his head. “Poor Bennett was so shook up it took him weeks even to confide in me. Hasn’t felt able to lay a finger on her since. I mean it ain’t right, Governor. Not for decent God-fearing wives to be suggesting such deviance.”

The governor appeared to be deep in thought.

“Governor?”

“Filth . . . Right. Sorry, yes . . . I mean, no.”

“Anyway. I would appreciate knowing whether other counties are having the same issues with their women and these so-called libraries. I can’t believe this is a good thing, for our workforce or Christian families. My inclination would be to shut the scheme down altogether. Likewise with this mining-permissions business.”

Mr. Van Cleve folded his napkin and laid it on the table. The governor was still apparently considering this very carefully.

“Or perhaps you think the best way forward would be just . . . to deal with the matter in whichever way we thought fit.”

He wasn’t sure, he told Bennett afterward, whether the governor’s drink had actually gone to his head. He seemed markedly distracted toward the end of lunch.

“So what did he say?” said Bennett, who had cheered up with the purchase of some new corduroys and a striped sweater.

“I told him maybe I should deal with all these matters how I liked and he just said, ‘hmm, yes, quite,’ and then said he had to leave.”

    Dear Alice

 I am sorry married life is not as you expected. I’m not sure what you think marriage should be about, and you have not given us details of what it is you find so dispiriting, but Daddy and I wonder if we haven’t given you false expectations. You have a handsome husband, financially secure and able to offer you a good future. You have married into a decent family with significant resources. I think you need to learn to count your chickens.

 Life is not always about happiness. It is about duty, and taking satisfaction from doing the right thing. We were hoping you had learned to be less impulsive; well, you’ve made your bed, and you’re just going to have to learn to stick things out. Perhaps if you have a baby it will give you a focus, so you don’t dwell on things so.

 If you do choose to return without your husband, I have to inform you that you will not be welcome to stay here.

 Your loving mother

Alice had held off opening the letter, perhaps because she had known the words she was going to find within it. She felt her jaw tighten, then folded it carefully and placed it back in her bag, noting once more as she did so that her fingernails, once highly polished and filed, were now ragged or cut down to the quick, and some small part of her wondered, as she did daily, whether that was the reason he didn’t want to touch her?

“Okay,” said Margery, appearing at her shoulder. “I ordered two new girths and a saddle cloth from Crompton’s and I thought maybe this for Fred as a thank-you. Think he’ll like it?” She held up a dark green scarf. The department-store assistant, transfixed by Margery’s beaten-up leather hat and breeches (she couldn’t see the point in dressing up to come to Lexington, she had told Alice, as she’d only have to get changed again when she got back), had needed a second to remember to take it from her, ready to wrap in tissue. “We’ll have to hide it from Fred on the ride back.”

“Sure.”

Margery squinted at her. “Did you even look at it? . . . What’s going on, Alice?”

“Look at what? . . . Oh, Lord—Bennett. I have to find something for Bennett.” Alice’s hands flew to her face as she realized she no longer knew what her husband liked, let alone his collar size. She reached for a set of boxed handkerchiefs on the shelf, decorated with a sprig of holly. Were handkerchiefs too impersonal a gift for one’s husband? How intimate could a gift be when you hadn’t seen more than an inch of his bare skin for the best part of six weeks?

She startled as Margery took her arm, steering her toward a quiet part of the men’s department. “Alice, are you okay? ’Cause you got a face on you most days like blinked milk.”

“There are no complaints, are there?” Alice glanced down at the handkerchiefs. Would it be better if she had his initials embroidered on them? She tried to imagine Bennett opening them on Christmas morning. Somehow she couldn’t picture him smiling. She couldn’t imagine him smiling at anything she did any more. “Anyway,” she said, her tone defensive, “you’re a fine one to talk. You’ve barely said a word the last couple of days.”

Margery seemed a little taken aback, and gave a shake of her head. “Just . . . just had a little upset on one of my rounds.” She swallowed. “Rattled me a bit.”

Alice thought of Kathleen Bligh, the way that the young widow’s grief would cast a pall over her own day. “I understand. It’s a tougher job than you think, sometimes, isn’t it? Not really about delivering books at all. I’m sorry if I’ve been miserable. I’ll pull myself together.”

The truth was that the prospect of Christmas made Alice want to weep. The idea of sitting at that tense table, Mr. Van Cleve glowering across from her, Bennett silent and simmering at whatever she had supposedly done wrong now. The watchful Annie, who seemed to delight in the worsening atmosphere.

Derailed by this thought, it took Alice a minute to realize that Margery was regarding her closely.

“I’m not getting at you, Alice. I’m . . .” Margery shrugged, as if the words were unfamiliar to her. “I’m asking as a friend.”

A friend.

“You know me. Been content my whole life to be on my own. But this last few months? I’ve . . . well, I’ve grown to enjoy your company. I like your sense of humor. You treat people with kindness and respect. So I’d like to think we’re friends. All of us at the library, but you and I most of all. And you looking this sad every day is just about breaking my heart.”

If they had been anywhere else Alice might have smiled. It was quite an admission from Margery, after all. But something had closed over these last months, and she didn’t seem to feel things in the way she used to.

“You want to get a drink?” Margery said finally.

“You don’t drink.”

“Well, I won’t tell no one if you don’t.” She held out an arm, and after a moment, Alice took it, and they headed out of the department store toward the nearest bar.

* * *

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