G. Fraser
(Mrs. Thos. Fraser)
“Someone’s old letter,” remarked Jess.
“I know,” said Jane. “But it’s more than that. Whoever Eugenie G. Fraser is, she says she thinks she’s in danger.”
“So?” said Jess.
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
Jess shrugged. “Not really.”
“But it sounds like she’s asking someone for help.”
“Maybe you didn’t notice the date,” Jess suggested, with sarcasm.
Jane leaned her backside against the table and re-read the letter. The paper it was written on was very thin, its folds pressed flat by the book and the weight of the years. “It sounds as if she’s afraid of her husband’s brother. I wonder where it came from, who Eugenie G. Fraser is.”
“By the return address, I’d say she was someone here on the lake,” Jess said, picking paint from his fingernails.
“And this book must have belonged to the person who got the letter,” Jane decided. “There’s no envelope. I wonder who it was.”
“The library gets donations like this all the time.” Jess waved an all-encompassing arm over the rows of books. “Most of the time they’re so old we can’t use them.”
“You work at the library?” Jane asked.
“Some of the time.”
“Well, the letter was written to someone who ran a shop,” Jane said, wrinkling her brow. “She says here, ‘when you waited on me’.”
“Could have been a waitress,” suggested Jess.
“Then she wouldn’t have said ‘your shop’. She says, ‘when we left your shop’ and ‘before we got into the boat’. So it sounds like the shop was by some water. It could even have been the store right here at the marina.”
“Could have been,” Jess allowed.
“Do you know who ran the store in 1930?”
Jess shook his head. “No idea.”
“I doubt if my grandmother would know either,” Jane said, doing the math in her head. “In 1930, she would have been, oh, just little. Doesn’t it make you the least bit curious about what happened to this poor woman?”
Jess’s look was non-committal. “You can’t just go and knock on her door after 68 years,” he said. “ ‘Hello Ma’am, are you still looking for help?’ ”
Jane decided to ignore the obvious. “We couldn’t find out which house she lived in anyway,” she pointed out. “General delivery means she picked up her mail at the post office.”
Jess scratched the back of his neck and shifted his weight restlessly. “It’s just an old letter. Probably someone was using it as a bookmark.”
“Maybe,” said Jane. He could be right. Perhaps she was making too much of it. “Look,” she decided. “I’ve got to go anyhow. My grandmother will be waiting for me. Maybe you should just give this to the librarian. We probably shouldn’t even have read it.”
“Whatever,” said Jess. Taking the folded paper from Jane, he poked it down into the pocket of his jeans. He followed her back around to the other side and bent to pick up his paint brush again.
“Nice to have met you,” said Jane. She didn’t expect a reply and didn’t get one. She could see Nell getting into her car at McPherson’s, and she quickened her pace before the vehicle came lurching down to meet her, spitting gravel and coughing dust onto the fresh paint.
She needn’t have worried. The Lake Car stalled before it reached the end of the driveway, and Jane seized the opportunity to clamber inside.
“I see you met young Jesse,” Nell smiled, gears grinding as they took off.
Jane opened the bag of candy and held it in Nell’s direction. “Do you know anyone named Fraser around here?” she asked.
Nell shook her head and waved the candy away. “Can’t say as I do. What did you think of Jesse Howard?”
“Weird name for a boy, if you ask me.”
“Not at all. It’s Biblical, in fact. Nice-looking young man, don’t you think?”
Nell’s car was awfully hot and the window on Jane’s side didn’t roll down any longer. “He’s okay,” Jane said. “Not exactly what I’d call friendly. Oh, the man at the store said to say hi to Mom.”
“Jackson Howard,” Nell nodded. “Man with his name on backwards.”
Jane blew into the empty bag and, holding it shut, burst it with a bang. “So you never heard of anyone named Fraser? Mrs. Thos. Fraser?”
“Why?” Nell asked, affording her a quick glance. “What’s this all about?”
“There was a book sale at the municipal centre,” Jane explained. “I was looking at some of the old books and a letter fell out of one of them. It was all folded up, from someone called Mrs. Thos. Fraser, and it was written in 1930.”
“Long time ago,” said Nell, craning forward to negotiate a curve in the road.
“I know, but the weird thing about this letter was that this Mrs. Thos. Fraser said she thought she was in danger, and she was writing to someone, asking for help.”
“What kind of danger?”
“I don’t know for sure. She said her husband’s brother had ‘terrible rages’. That she never would have come if she’d known.”
“My word! That does sound ominous,” Nell agreed.
“It was written to a woman who looked after a store, and the store was somewhere near water. I figured out that much. Maybe even the store here at the marina.”
“I’m not sure who would have had the store here, way back then,” said Nell. “It’s nice to see the Howards take it over now, though. Jackson’s been out west for years. He and Jesse came back just last fall.”
“Then Jess is his son?”
“That’s right.”
Jane looked at her watch, relieved that there would still be time for a swim before lunch. “I wonder what happened to Mrs. Thos. Fraser,” she mused, picking up one of the warm brown eggs which nestled in the container on the seat between them.
“Thos. is short for Thomas,” said Nell. “Mrs. Thomas Fraser.”
“Whatever,” said Jane, holding the egg to her cheek. “I’ll just call her Eugenie.”
