Chapter Eight #2
She touched the cool glass, marveling that hundreds of years ago, some woman probably stood at this window as water rolled off the eaves to pool on the ground below.
This glass was original, and over the centuries a number of people had scratched graffiti onto its wavy surface.
Elizabeth and William Tucker scratched their names and wedding date in 1771.
In subsequent years they wrote the birthdates of their three children.
A curious, disjointed snake was etched into the bottom of the window glass.
Historians identified it as the “Join, or Die” snake, a symbol calling for unity leading up to the American Revolution.
Other symbols were harder to understand .
. . stray scratch marks, doodles, and random initials.
Once upon a time, people not so different from her stood on this exact spot as they etched these markings into the glass.
Falling under the spell of this old place was an occupational hazard. Most people who studied the past probably had similar feelings, but Alice needed to quit daydreaming and find out the real age of the Roost if she had any hope of figuring out the source of the Saint Helga legend.
Her best shot was downstairs in the front room as Brandon prepared to take samples of the original wood ceiling beams. The old staircase creaked as she headed downstairs to join him.
“Before you drill, I’d like to take some close-up photos of the ceiling beams,” Alice said.
Brandon moved a card table below the center beam and helped her clamber onto the wobbly table.
The ceiling was lower than in homes constructed today, letting her get close enough to an exposed beam to lay her hand on the wood.
What secrets this old beam could spill! She took a few photographs, wondering if it was oak or maple.
It was so darkened with age she couldn’t tell.
“Nice legs,” a male voice said.
Alice startled and turned to see Jack Latimer standing in the open doorway. He held a dripping umbrella in one hand and a bucket of fried chicken in the other.
She hopped down so that her knees wouldn’t be eye-level with him anymore. She shouldn’t have worn a miniskirt, but it was warm and he wasn’t supposed to be here.
“What were you doing up there?” Jack asked.
“You said I could look around,” she defended, and he flashed one of those annoying smiles.
“I said you could, but who’s he?” Jack asked with a glance at Brandon, who held a boring tool. Jack had better not utter one rude comment about the kindest gentleman in all of Virginia.
“This is Professor Brandon Tilney,” she said. “He’s an expert in dating old structures by studying the tree rings in the wood.”
“Cool,” Jack said with a grin and clapped Brandon on the back, who looked a little taken aback by the vigor of the greeting.
Brandon wasn’t the backslapping type. He was more likely to execute a courtly bow than be a backslapper.
The skinny man named Doc came into the room as well, dragging mud in with each step.
“So how do tree rings help you date a building?” Jack asked, and Brandon supplied the well-practiced answer.
“I’ll compare the tree rings from this beam to other samples from the area. The core samples I’ll be taking today won’t hurt the structural integrity of the Roost.”
“I thought you were going to be out on the golf course today,” Alice said. Their work would be more challenging with Jack hovering over them.
“Yeah, I did too, but as you can see, the weather isn’t cooperating.” He set the bucket of chicken on the table. “Hungry?” he asked.
Her mouth watered. Deep-fried food was an insult to her arteries, her complexion, and her waistline, but fried chicken had always been her weakness. Doc set out paper plates and plastic utensils while Jack brought over two more folding chairs for the table.
Everyone else dug in, so Alice picked up a drumstick and discreetly nibbled.
“How long is it going to take before you get that tree-ring data analyzed?” Jack asked, then ripped off a huge section of chicken breast with his teeth and chewed with vigor. At least he seemed curious as Brandon replied that with luck, it could be within the week.
“It all depends on if I can find any wood with bark still on it,” Brandon said. “That outside layer is the last year the tree was alive, so if I can pair those final few rings to one of our reference samples, I will be able to pinpoint the exact date.”
To his credit, Jack fired off plenty of intelligent questions about everything from native trees to water quality in the tidewater. Jack and Brandon talked like old friends as the conversation skipped from trees to climate to invasive plant species.
The rain continued unabated all through lunch, and Brandon didn’t want to get his equipment wet lugging it out to the car.
“Who is the chess player?” Brandon asked with a nod to the chess board on the hearth.
“That would be me,” Doc said. “Can I tempt you into a game? I’m tired of beating Jack.”
“Absolutely,” Brandon said agreeably. Jack cleared away the remnants of the chicken while Doc set up the chessboard on the card table. Soon they had launched into a game Alice had never bothered to learn.
“I couldn’t help noticing the feller machine you’ve got parked out back,” Brandon said to Jack as he moved a pawn forward.
Jack grunted. “Yeah, that thing is costing me four thousand dollars a week, and I can’t use it when it’s raining this hard.”
“Why didn’t you clear the trees when you initially cleared the golf course land?” Brandon’s question provoked one of those dashing grins from Jack.
“That was before we got the idea for the amphitheater,” he said.
“It’s going to have a view of the waterfall on one side, with Saint Helga’s Spring behind it.
A gorgeous venue like that can attract PGA tours and television rights, so I’m not sparing any expense.
The quicker I can clear the trees, the quicker I can break ground. ”
“The local students are going to have a lot to say about that,” Alice said. “If the integrity of the spring is in danger, they’ll go into full eco-warrior mode. That means protests and petitions and even breaking equipment.”
“Sabotage?” Jack asked.
She nodded. “It’s happened before. They’re already mad about the golf course, and will go into overdrive if they learn Saint Helga’s Spring is going to have a tacky amphitheater plopped in front of it.”
Given Jack’s darkening expression, it looked like her words were starting to have the intended effect.
“Yeah, well, the students aren’t here. By the time they get back from their summer vacations in Saint-Tropez or wherever rich kids spend their summers, the amphitheater will be a done deal.
Right now, they’re not here and they don’t know about it. ”
“Oh, they’ll know about it. Trust me.”
Brandon, ever the gentleman, deliberately changed the subject. “What are you going to charge for a round of golf?” he asked Jack.
Alice nearly choked on her own breath when she learned a round of golf would cost two hundred dollars on a typical day, and more on weekends. “Why would anyone squander that much money to broil in the sun all day?”
“Why would anyone squander their day reading a novel about made-up people?” Jack countered. He didn’t sound mad, he sounded amused. “Pardon me, Professor, but I don’t see Jane Austen as being any more valuable to society than a decent round of golf.”
Alice drew a breath and straightened her spine.
“Jane Austen belongs in the pantheon alongside Shakespeare and Dante, and the only reason she’s not there is because the male guardians of the canon won’t let a woman past the gates.
Jane Austen didn’t need to create improbable plots about war or carnage or revenge.
Her characters are the stuff of legend. Her novels are masterpieces of sparkling wit and social observation that celebrate the triumph of human reason over baser instincts. ”
She shouldn’t have rambled on so much, but Jack was listening to every word, his expression rapt. Then he had to spoil everything by opening his mouth. “Jane Austen writes long-winded novels filled with boring tea parties and women wearing ugly nighties.”
“The dresses were rather frumpy,” Brandon said, but Alice would not concede.
“Regency gowns weren’t flashy, but they were feminine and graceful without putting half a woman’s body on public display. Our world would be a better place if people had the self-control to abide by the civilized norms in a Jane Austen novel. Meanwhile, golf is a mindless waste of time and money.”
Instead of being insulted, Jack warmed to the subject.
“You may not appreciate sweaty games of sportsmanship, but competing is hardwired into every red-blooded man’s DNA.
As soon as cavemen started walking on two feet, they competed.
Who could run faster, throw a rock farther, drag home a bigger antelope.
Look at Professor Tilney. Within ten minutes of spotting that chessboard, he rolled up his sleeves and wanted a match. Competition is normal human nature.”
“Maybe it’s a man’s nature,” she pointed out, and once again, Brandon sided with the barbarians.
“Are men not human?” he asked. “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you poison us, do we not die?”
Referencing Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice wasn’t going to make Alice see value in golf. It was three men against one woman, and she was losing.
“Face it, Alice,” Jack said. “Sports and competition are bred into us, and that’s a good thing.
Instead of going to war with the Russians, we go to the Olympics and fight it out on ski slopes and race tracks.
Sports let mankind blow off steam. If I didn’t have golf when I was growing up, I’d have landed in jail a million times. ”
The statement made her pause. She’d never known anyone who’d gone to jail or was even at risk of such a fate. What sort of man was Jack Latimer? It didn’t really matter. He was simply wrong about the value of sports.
“The way to rescue America’s at-risk youth is through academics, not sweaty locker rooms and pointless contests of strength.”
Jack remained cheerfully unconvinced. “That may have worked for you, but guys like me need an outlet to compete and conquer. Not everyone’s salvation will be found in a library. I think you need to open your mind, Professor.”
Did she? Alice had three brothers, and all of them would probably agree with Jack.
And to her mortification, she had to consider that he might be right about the value of sports.
The rain lasted all afternoon, but Brandon eventually got his samples, and Alice got an unexpected lesson in opening her mind.