He knocked on the open door. She looked up. "May I?" He gestured at the chair across from her.
"Of course," he sat. She went back to work. He watched her work for a moment.
"Miss Bennett," he said. "Can I ask you something directly?"
"I prefer direct," she said without looking up.
"Do you find my brother difficult?"
She was quiet for a moment. "No, most people do. Most people haven't tried sitting still with him." She turned to page. "He's actually quite easy to be around once you stop expecting him to perform."
Samuel absorbed this. "He comes to the library every afternoon."
"He does."
"He didn't used to come to the library. Not in years."
She looked up at that. Looked at Samuel with an expression he couldn't entirely read. "I imagine he had other things to do."
"He still has other things to do. He's choosing not to do them in the afternoons." A silence.
"Mr. Whitmore," she said carefully. "I am here to catalog a library." "Whatever else you are inferring from that, I'm not inferring anything," Samuel said. "I'm observing. There's a difference." He leaned forward, elbows on the table. "And what I'm observing is that my brother, who has not genuinely talked to anyone in this valley in a very long time, comes into this room every afternoon and stays." He paused. "I'm not telling you that to embarrass you. I'm telling you because I think you should know the weight of it for him."
Eleanor was still for a moment. Very still. "I'm not staying to make things complicated for anyone," she said. "I'm staying to finish the work."
"I know that."
"And when the work is done..."
"I know that, too." He stood. "I just wanted you to know what it means for him." He looked at her steadily. "He's been very alone for a very long time. And I don't think he knows how to say that to anyone, so he just comes into the room and works and says things about survey documents." He picked up his hat from the table. "I thought someone should tell you since he won't." He left.
Eleanor sat at the table alone for a long time after that. She did not go back to work for a full 10 minutes. She sat and looked at the east wall of books and thought about a man who drove fence posts when he needed to think, who sat still in the library, because sitting still was the closest he could get to something he didn't have words for, who had refused 17 women not from pride, but from a kind of bone deep grief at being seen as a destination rather than a person. She thought about Samuel's voice when he said "very alone for a very long time". She thought, "I know something about that, too." She picked up her pen. She went back to work. But something had settled in her differently. She was honest enough with herself to notice it, even if she was not ready yet to name it.
It was a Wednesday, 12 days into her stay, when Harold Mercer came to the house. He did not send word ahead. He simply appeared at the front door at 10:00 in the morning in a good coat despite the August heat with the particular kind of social confidence that belongs to men who have never once in their lives been told they weren't welcome somewhere.
Nathaniel was in his study. Mrs. Patton came to tell him Harold Mercer was in the front parlor. Nathaniel's expression did not change. "Tell him I'll be there in 5 minutes."
He was there in two. Mercer was standing near the fireplace, not sitting, which meant he wanted the visual advantage of height with his hat in his hands and a smile on his face that had about as much warmth as a county tax notice.
"Nathaniel," he said, using the first name with the deliberate casualness of a man asserting rank he hadn't earned.
"Good of you to see me, Harold." Nathaniel did not extend his hand. "Sit down."
Mercer sat. The smile adjusted slightly. "I'll be direct." Mercer said, "I heard you've taken on a girl from Staunton library work."
"They're saying, 'We have a librarian cataloging the estate's collection.'"
"Yes."
Mercer ran his thumb along the brim of his hat. "Thing is, Nathaniel, people are forming opinions. You know how it is. A young unmarried woman in a house under these circumstances." He spread his hands. "I'm only telling you because I have some concern for your reputation and for your grandmother's."
Nathaniel looked at him. Just looked at him.
Mercer continued. "If there's something developing between you and this woman, that's your own affair. But in terms of how it appears to the county—"
"Herald," Nathaniel's voice was quiet. The particular kind of quiet that people who knew him well had learned to treat as a warning. "Let me make sure I understand you. You have come into my home uninvited to express concern about the reputation of a woman you have never met who is employed here for a stated and legitimate purpose and whose conduct by any account has been entirely beyond reproach."
Mercer opened his mouth.
"I'm not finished." Nathaniel said. Mercer closed it. "I'm aware of what you've been saying in town. I'm aware of the source and the motive. And I'm going to say this once clearly so that it can be carried back and repeated accurately." He stood. "Miss Bennett is here because she was hired to do a job that needed doing. She is doing that job with a competence and dedication that puts most people in this county to shame. Any suggestion that her motives are other than professional is incorrect. And any person who continues to make that suggestion will find that I have a very long memory and a considerable amount of influence over how business is conducted in this valley." He walked to the parlor door and opened it. "We're done."