The House at Royal Oak Read Online Free

reason was that we weren’t exactly forced into change, though it wasn’t exactly voluntary either, which made it harder for friends and family to understand and support. Either way, I saw the same questions waiting for us down the road: Does it work? Have you moved in an exciting, courageous, and sustaining direction—or not?
    Not being a superstar lawyer or a banker—turned—flutist, or one of the wunderkinds you read about who retires from a lucrative corporate job to start a foundation for the arts or another good cause, Hugo and I were hoping for a modest transition. But would we land on our feet, be able to pay our bills, provide a respite for others, and be a little happier ourselves? It all sounded too uncertain, too risky.
    On the other hand, Hugo argued, and I had to admit the point, how many more years will go by before it’s too late? If you don’t have the stamina for change now, do you think you’ll have more when you’re older? The current path, though known, was one neither of us wanted to continue down. I didn’t try to assess the odds of failing. The uncertainty was undeniable, but this could be a last chance at building a life that would take not just one or the other of us, but both, somewhere better. Every silver lining has clouds, I reasoned. At least they will be new clouds.
    Hugo prowled country roads extending out from Washington for two years—long, tiring trips that always ended in no prospects—before he came across a last chance kind of place.

CHAPTER
2

Royal Oak

    THREE STORIES HIGH, WITH EIGHT HUGE WINDOWS ON the first floor alone, seven more above, the house’s steep cross gables each sheltered a small, arched window in which you could almost see a rocking chair and lace curtains. Stately, it had presence in a shaky sort of way.
    Hugo had driven up and down the Bay Hundred peninsula from St. Michaels to Tilghman Island all day, exploring back roads down to the water, looking for properties for sale. Calling it quits, he headed for home and happened on an out-of-the-way village we had passed through once on a bicycle trip. He was curiously fond of the place, but neither of us could have pinpointed it on any map.
    Now a decade or two later, he stopped in front of a rusted iron gate with a “For Sale by Owner” sign. “I felt like I was in a cheesy movie,” he told me that night. “The house is actually . . . perfect. An angular, white Victorian, a cozy grandmother’s house. It looks like a bed-and-breakfast.”
    This was not a turreted Queen Anne Victorian, laden with gingerbread, but a true country Victorian, decorous, yet with touches of trim in the simply curved decorative brackets on the porch and delicate cut-out pattern above the bay windows, like the veil on a lady’s hat. A stand of tall maples clustered to one side of the deep, shady yard, and a long weedy driveway led past the south side of the house and porch to a pleasing outbuilding, maybe once a barn, with massive, painted wooden doors. Directly across the country road was an imposing waterfront inn, graciously standing ever since the 1700s and now with a putting green, too. Hugo thought that no mini-mart or gas station would ever be built there in our lifetime.
    Maybe it would be a safe investment and provide the life we pictured, running an elegant bed-and-breakfast, living happily ever after. “Of course there’s still some work to be done,” he said that night as we sat up late talking. “All within my ability, though.” Yes, a couple of windows were boarded up and a rusted propane tank occupied a prominent position near the front door, but that could easily be moved. He pulled a paper napkin out of his shirt pocket on which he had scribbled a short to-do list:
    Paint
Landscape
Cleaning
Some carpentry?
    â€¢ • •
    An off-the-map village of about a dozen nineteenth-century houses, a couple of shops offering used