Diann Ducharme by The Outer Banks House (v5) Read Free Book Online Page A

gonna give it to her daughter. She ’bout your age, I reckon. So if you see that dress out yonder, wearing itself out on some poor old white gal, don’t get all huffy over it, mind!”
    My mouth dropped open. The terrible luck of my nice dress ending up in the hands of that woman! I started to complain, but Winnie smacked her hand over my mouth.
    “You’ll catch flies in that gaper, so close her on up,” she scolded. I knew from experience that she couldn’t be bothered by me anymore. “And Miz Abby, you got to thicken up that pale skin of yours if you want to live out here with these Banker folks. It ain’t like living in the big house no more.”
    It seemed that I stewed over the repossessed dress for a long, long time before the withered old postman at the hotel finally handed over the Sinclair pile of letters. On top of the pile was a thick beige envelope addressed to me, Miss Abigail Sinclair, care of Mr. and Mrs. Nolan Sinclair, Nags Head, North Carolina. The letter was sealed with the Newman family seal, a cross with a medicinal herb in the middle of it.
    On the cart ride back to the house I opened the envelope, my fingers stiff with anxiety. Hector Newman had written on two sheets of engraved white stationery, in bold, slightly illegible black cursive.
    June 18, 1868
    My dear Abigail
,
    I hope this letter finds you and your family settled and peaceful there at the ocean’s edge
.
    The days are turning hot and humid here in Edenton, and I find myself thinking of you a great deal, envious of your ocean breezes and clean air. You may find that you have some new neighbors next year. I have been accompanying my father on his visits to his patients, many of whom have already contracted the yellow fever. At my father’s insistence, they have heartily vowed to make a trip to the ocean next year to take the air
.
    Indeed, I would like to make a visit to the island soon, to see the sights. I will write a request to your father and mother. I have also inquired about lodging at the local hotel there on the island, and would be honored if you and your parents would accompany me to supper there one evening
.
    I will wait eagerly for your reply
.
    Most sincerely
,
Hector Newman
    I was flattered that Hector hadn’t forgotten about me yet. I was sure that in my absence he would have found a bevy of other young Edenton girls to visit while on his summer hiatus. Perhaps that was still true. I really didn’t
know
Hector at all, having only entertained his company three times in the early spring.
    But he had stellar prospects. He currently attended the medical institute at Yale University, and his father was the revered Dr. Newman, our family physician since before I was born. People in Edenton were already talking about how purely wonderful it would be if Hector followed his father’s career path.
    ’Course, Hector was uncommonly handsome. His face was so perfectlyput together that I never was very sure what words were coming out of my mouth when we were conversing.
    Sometimes, during fits of boredom, I’d imagine myself married to him, living in a stately home on Water Street with a garden overlooking the Albemarle Sound. I could play the role of doctor’s wife very well, I thought.
    “Save any lives today, my dear?” I’d lovingly ask him at supper.
    “Oh, only a few,” he’d say with a chuckle.
    But it was embarrassing how Mama just fawned over Hector when he came to call on me, monopolizing the conversation with medical and ethical concerns and plying him with things that she had learned in the thick medical textbooks that she read as a kind of hobby.
    I planned to show Mama the letter when I returned, and discuss Hector’s visit with her, but she was upstairs napping again. And Hannah, with a mischievous glint in her eye, whispered to me that Mama had vomited her dinner in a mixing bowl before taking to her bed.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Benjamin Whimble

June 27, 1868
    [My father] told me … that mine was the middle