It's nothing personal, ma'am. Eleanor set her coins on the counter, slow and deliberate, counting them out into his hand one at a time. "It's Charles Whitaker, isn't it?" She said quietly. He holds a note on this store.
He's told you to squeeze us. Aldridge's face went pale, and that was all the answer she needed. You don't have to say it. Eleanor told him, gathering her purchases into her basket. I understand a man's got to protect what's his, but you might tell Mr.
Whitaker next time you see him that the Carter account will be paid in cash and paid in full, and that we don't require his permission to buy flower." She turned to go, then stopped. "And Mr. Aldridge, you might also tell him that a man who fights his battles through other people's ledgers isn't a man at all. He's just a coward with money.
She walked out with her chin high, but her hands were shaking by the time she reached the wagon, and she sat there gripping the reins for a full minute before she trusted herself to drive. It was worse than the store, though, when she got home. Clara met her at the door, her face tight and white and envelope clutched in her small fist. "This came while you were gone," the girl said. A man wrote up and gave it to Henry, said it was for the whole family.
Henry couldn't read all the words, so I read it. And then I her voice cracked. Papa's out in the far pasture. I didn't know what to do. Eleanor took the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet and printed across it in bold type were the words notice of inquiry. Followed by a paragraph of legal language she'd learned to cut through fast. Stripped of its ornamentation, it said this, that a formal question had been raised with the county regarding the validity of the marriage between Nathaniel Carter and one Eleanor Whitmore, widow of Boston, and that both parties were to present themselves before the county magistrate within 30 days to answer whether their union was lawful and made in good faith, or whether it was, as alleged, a fraudulent arrangement entered into for purposes of property and deception. Eleanor read it twice. Then she folded it calm and looked down at Clara's frightened face.
"It's all right," she said. ""It's not all right."" Clara's composure so carefully maintained since Eleanor's arrival splintered clean through. It says they might say you're not really married. It says a man could take Papa's land. It says, she stopped her lip trembling. If you're not really married, then you're not really my You'll have to leave, won't you?
They'll make you leave. And there it was. The thing the girl was truly afraid of laid bare at last. And Eleanor understood in that moment that somewhere in the past weeks, without either of them quite noticing it happen, Clara had stopped bracing for Eleanor to leave and started dreading it instead. Eleanor knelt down right there on the porch and took the girl by both shoulders.