“Orin remembers that Rufus once slapped his father’s face when the old man was road agent. Do you remember that? It was finally settled out of court, but not before the whole town had taken sides one way or another. Orin would probably like to see Nick in trouble.”

“Oh, Eben, I can’t believe that. People aren’t mean.”

“They are and they aren’t.” He looked across at her quizzically and cracked his knuckles. “I’m mean, I guess, because I have never quite forgiven old Judge Chapman. He helped me get into Harvard but I was blackballed for Porcellian.”

“Absurd man, to want to get into that stuffy nook of old Bostonians. Why did you?”

“Just because I couldn’t. A young man’s humiliations haunt.”

“But, good heavens, Eben, you’re wildly successful compared to any one of us.”

“I’ve made money, if that’s what you mean.”

“You’re a person in the world. Who cares about stuffy old Boston?” She felt dismayed at this Eben—the Eben she knew very well from the old days. And here he was, flaming with imagined slights. Instinctively she looked for a change of subject. “John simply sneered at the clubs. It’s quite absurd of you, Eben,” she said almost crossly.

“Yes, that’s the way it goes. I wanted what I couldn’t have, and John rebelled against what he could have. You’re right, Christina—alone here I brood too much.”

“Tell me something—when you were searching around for that history you were supposed to be writing (and why didn’t you do it?)”—but she didn’t wait for an answer—“did you find out anything about the Webber place?”

“What about it?”

“I understand most of the women, children, old men, and boys spent the Civil War up there, a kind of community.”

“Yes, that’s a fact. That is what happened.” He became animated again, pulled himself out of the dismal bog of his reflections of a moment before. “What a story if one were a novelist, eh?”

“It’s hard to imagine all they must have had to learn, from driving a team of oxen to sowing and reaping, and all the woman’s work as well—weaving blankets and socks for the men at the front. Wasn’t your great-grandmother one of those women?”

“Yes, Sophia Dole must have been a moving spirit. I found accounts all written out in her spidery hand. It looked as if she had been the leader. My guess is that it was her idea. She was headstrong—my grandmother used to talk about her. She had a hard hand with the boys and a fierce temper, but she was brave. Shot more than one wildcat herself in those years—or so the legend goes. Never wore a corset …” He stopped to look over at Christina. “Jem has got you into this fandango of his, has he?”