“Yes, that’s Olive, my wife. Not a good portrait really—she was as hard to catch as a firefly, and the painter, an Italian, was rather too obvious for his subject. Still, if you half close your eyes you get a glimpse … elusive person … I’m talking to you like old friends. Grand to be old,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “There don’t have to be any preliminaries—there isn’t time. So let’s get down to business. I gather Jem is marshaling his forces and has been lucky enough to get hold of you two. Just what is this plan? He’s an old loon, of course. Hasn’t the foggiest idea what history is—thinks it’s lists and dates.”

“He seems to be very busy getting all the bodies in the cemetery listed,” Tim said, responding to the sly smile.

“History in depth, eh?” Eben laughed a short boyish laugh. He gave an impression of enjoying life immensely, and the Websters laughed with him. “What is your function then? What place are you to take in this monument to Jem’s illusions?”

Sally had often felt in these last years that one of the fascinating things about Willard was that every time you talked to a different person you got a different view. It was like turning a kaleidoscope in your hands.

“He has asked us to do a chapter about summer people. Christina Chapman is doing a chapter on the women of Willard and Ellen Comstock a chapter about schools.”

“Well, one thing to be said for Jem, he has got onto the fact that women have always run the town and they might as well write the history—begging your pardon, Mr. Webster.”

“Not at all,” Tim said, but he was not exactly amused.

“I understand you’re a lawyer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mmm …” Eben leaned his head back against the back of his chair and looked at the pair before him. “The big thing, of course, is point of view—what you really have in mind to say.”

“How can we know till we’ve found out a great deal more? We’ve only been here five years, Mr. Fifield.”

“Yes, that gives you an enormous advantage. You have not been disillusioned yet. You are still, I presume, in the early stages of a love affair. You will see some things that someone like me will never see, just because I know too much. My guess is that the summer people and Willard have been a fruitful alliance but a prickly one, sort of like a good marriage—we have all known some—that works although always on the point of divorce.”

“It’s hard to divorce yourself from a piece of property once you own it,” Tim said quietly. “I must say I have nothing to complain of—except the taxes,” he added with a laugh.