Free Miss Elva by Stephens Gerard Malone Page A

said on her way to get more wet sheets. She glanced at the clock. Big, round, withRoman numerals. Couldn’t help notice how much time until, or how much time left. Elva was to get that drawing stuff of hers put away before Amos got home and saw it.
    “Mr. Purvis was in love with Lenore’s mother but she ran off with a sailor.”
    “I’d pick the sailor too.”
    “So Mr. Purvis follows her to—”
    “Montreal.”
    “Okay, Montreal, but she’s had a baby and is dying.”
    “Where’s the sailor?”
    “Oh, he’s long gone.”
    Figures. Wouldn’t happen in a story with gin-soaked Shebas with bobbed hair.
    “So he brings them back to Skyler where he builds a castle on a cliff and calls it Ipswich Abbey. It’s like a prison and that’s where he keeps Lenore because she looks so much like her mother that Mr. Purvis vows she’ll grow up to love him.”
    In addition to everyone in Elva’s stories being white and of course beautiful, they were always vowing something or other, then regretting it.
    “In the basement he builds a room all out of marble with candles for the mother ’cause he’s still in love with her too and remembers that she’s afraid of the dark. He goes down there to talk to her.”
    “But she’s dead.”
    “I know.”
    “You can’t talk to dead people.”
    Jane was missing the point. “How do you think of those things? Is he rich?”
    “Well, he builds ships.”
    “Then he’s rich.”
    Rilla wanted to know what they were on about.
    “Nothing.”
    “Nothing.”
    Rilla hated when her girls said nothing over something.
    “Elva’s making up stories about Mr. Purvis.”
    Don’t you be gossiping, Rilla said, because in her books Mr. Purvis was a fine gentleman by all accounts. Never gave her any cause. The screen door slammed, punctuated with a Peel, girl!
    “Well, go on.”
    Elva wasn’t sure she would after that. Rilla was back at the lines stringing more sheets. Cripes, but laundry day went on forever.
    “When Lenore grows up, she meets David from the town and falls divinely in love with him.”
    “You said Mr. Purvis kept her locked up. How could she meet someone?”
    “I don’t know everything!”
    “It’s your story, stupid. Well, go on.”
    They saw a sheet get away from Rilla. She’d have to wash it again.
    Jane still had the same potato in her hand. There! there! there! She stabbed it with her paring knife. “I hate peeling potatoes. It’s not fair you get the cripply arm and I have to do all the peeling. And you shouldn’t say mister. Just call him Purvis.”
    “So they love each other so much that being kept apart makes them crazy and Mr. Purvis—and Purvis says, You’ll have to marry me Lenore because you’ll have no money without me and I love you and your mother in the basement said so. David can’t stand to be away from Lenore so he runs away and joins the navy. Here she comes.”
    The screen door banged behind Rilla with the errant sheet. She went to the pump and rinsed it.
    “But he can’t stay away from Lenore,” whispered Elva, shucking more rapidly. “So he comes back to her on a ship he stole but a hurricane’s washed away the lighthouse even though Lenore went out there every night with a lantern to warn him. Just in case.”
    The ridiculous story didn’t make any sense, but Jane had to know what happened next. Rilla was still making water at the squeaky pump.
    “The ship hits the cliff in the dark and Ipswich Abbey crumbles down on top of it, sinking it, and David and Lenore are finally together in a watery grave.”
    What are you two whispering about? Rilla wanted to know.
    “It’s Elva. She thinks Purvis—Mr. Purvis—has a dungeon at the Abbey where he keeps dead ladies.”
    “I do not! I just made it up!”
    Rilla said Amos would be back shortly and Mr. Purvis was from Connecticut who minded his own business so enough of that loose talk.
    “How come I have to do the peeling and Elva doesn’t have to do anything?”
    Their mother