Ruby closed her eyes and pictured the British children, those who’d go on to receive the spoils of their work. Poor moppets. Snatched from their homes and spirited to the countryside to live with strangers. Ruby disagreed with the warmongering, but the little ones she could get behind.
“Don’t be so glum, Ruby,” Mary said, and stood. “You’ll improve. Your output won’t always be this terrible.”
“That’s not…”
“Do we have enough?”
Mary began lining up balls of yarn on the table. Twenty Grey Ladies were due at any moment. Though Mary and Ruby had been knitting all day, their efforts would continue past sundown. At least they’d have fresh blood. Even a zippy Mary was half a Mary too much.
“I think we have plenty to work with,” Ruby said. “You’ve stocked us well.”
“Goodness, isn’t this delightful beyond words?” Mary assessed the scene, gobbling up the balls of yarn with her beady black eyes. “It’s so much more fulfilling than playing tennis or acting with the Nantucket players!”
“Yeah, it’s swell.” Ruby sighed.
She’d dropped another stitch, damn it. Ruby was miserable at this knitting business. Plain awful.
“But I’m afraid I’ll miss the tennis,” she said.
“Ruby Packard, you’re such an ingrate! I’ll have you know…”
“Tennis?” said a voice, pure smoothness. “No one told me we’d have to miss tennis.”
A woman walked up then. A right dish. She was a touch older than Ruby, or the same age. Her hair and lips were both fire-engine red and she wore polka dots and a wide smile. Ruby perked up at the very sight.
“Good afternoon!” Mary said, and swept across the patio to meet her. “Oh my! What a kicky outfit! Trousers even. I’m Mrs. Philip E. Young. And you are?”
“Hi-ya, Mrs. Young.”
She curtsied, though Ruby suspected it was a gag.
“Miss Harriet Rutter at your service.” The woman extended a hand. “You can call me Hattie. Pleased to meet ya.”
Mary’s own hand quivered as she returned the gesture. Trousers. Casual greetings. Oh the humanity. Ruby stood to rescue them both.
“Hello there, Hattie,” she said. “My name is Ruby. Ruby Packard. Welcome to Cliff House.”
“Charmed, Miss Packard.”
“That’s, um, Mrs. Packard,” Ruby said, then cringed.
What did she care, Miss or Missus? This Hattie Rutter would figure it out soon enough. Anyway Ruby still felt like a Miss. She felt like a Young.
“All righty then,” Hattie said with a wink, already in on the joke. She took a seat on the green metal glider. “Missus.”
“So, Miss Rutter?” Mary began.
“Please. Hattie.”
“Are your parents Charles and Edwina Rutter? They’ve a place on Hulbert?”
“That’s them.” Hattie pushed off from a table with one foot, sending her chair ricocheting front to back. “Well, it’s my father. Edwina’s my stepmum. Nice lady but a bit of a snore.”
As her glider continued to rock, Hattie glanced around sharply, deliberately, like a gopher poking its head from a hole. Then she closed her eyes and smiled. Her mouth somehow, impossibly, stretched wider. Hattie Rutter should’ve been in films. She’d light up the whole screen.
“What a perfect afternoon.” She popped her eyes back open. “I haven’t been to Nantucket in years. And Sconset even longer. It’s beautiful here. So peaceful. I’ve missed it and only just realized.”
“Yes, it’s grand,” Mary said, befuddled. She smoothed the front of her dress, pressing the area breasts would go if she had any to speak of. “So, uh, where do you summer?”
What Mary did not say: You’re a Hulbert Avenue sort, so why not there? It was a posh address, smack in Nantucket Town, the pinnacle of swanky summer fun. Though but seven miles separated the two, Hattie’s type deemed Sconset certifiable backcountry, nothing but fishermen and artist colonies.
“The majority of my schooling has been in Europe,” Hattie explained. “Paris mostly, so usually I summer on the Continent. But Europe, you know, not so fashionable these days.”
She gave a small hummingbird of a snort.
“When I do visit the U.S.,” she went on, “it’s usually the Cape. Mother has a house in Osterville with her new husband. Shabby place but with beaches for miles. Nothing like this outfit, though. You know how divorces are. They spread the green too thin.”
“Er, um,” Mary stuttered. “I hear Osterville is grand. And thank you for the compliment on my home.”
Ruby’s head snapped in her sister-in-law’s direction. Since when was Mary the Cliff House emissary? Its mistress? “Her” home? Didn’t that just beat it all. The last Ruby checked, both of her parents were still around.
“This place is a beauty,” Hattie said. “Massive! It keeps going and going!”
“Yes, well, Mother Young has a grand imagination,” Mary said. “And my father-in-law gives her whatever she pleases.”
“The right kind of marriage, if you can get it.”
“I suppose. Either way, they built the place from scratch, entirely at her direction. It’s a nit overdone, but we enjoy it quite nicely.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. Mary had spent all of three summers at Cliff House and was acting like she’d been there all along. Of course, she did have greater claim to it than Ruby, what with being married to Philip Junior and possessing the uterus that would harvest the heir to the family fortune. Whatever “fortune” might remain, that is, after the transition to gas masks.
“The house is snazzy as all get-out,” Hattie said. “But what gets to me are these cliffs. So beautiful. Dramatic. At Points North we have a boring flat beach.”
“I can see how that would be dull,” Mary said.
“Tell me, though. How’s the shopping around here? In Sconset or Nantucket Town? Since coming back from France I’m having a fiend of a time finding decent togs.”
“You’re worried about your clothing?” Mary said, her eyebrows spiked.
“A dame wants to look her best, right?”
“The shopping in town is fine,” Ruby said. “Nothing spectacular, but adequate.”
“Tell me, where do you buy your hats?”
“Our hats?” Mary said, and scrunched her nose. “What do you mean? We already have hats.”
Hattie chuckled amiably and gave Mary a rap on the back.
“Oh, gals, we’re going to have a hoot of a time. So, kittens.” Hattie stood, hiking up her pants to expose slim and graceful anklebones. “Do we have one of those, whaddya call it, quotas? Let’s kick off this show. The more efficiently we work, the more quickly we can have fun.”
“Fun?” Mary said, utterly perplexed.
“Yes. You know, the stuff we get up to when the men are off-island? So, my new friends, show me where to start.”
As Mary handed the girl a ball of white yarn, Ruby released a small smile. If the rest of the Grey Ladies were like Hattie Rutter, perhaps they wouldn’t be so gray after all.
*
“Pardon me, Mrs. Young.”
Miss Mayhew stood in the doorway in a simple beige dress. A glorified sack, really.
“And Mrs. Packard,” she added halfheartedly.
Miss Mayhew was the latest addition to the household staff, hired by Mrs. Grimsbury to work directly for Mrs. Grimsbury because evidently their maid was in need of a maid herself.