Excerpt from The Latecomers by Helen Klein Ross, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

When Mr. Tupper electrified Hollingwood, Mr. Hollingworth, like most home owners in Wellington, had prevailed upon him to convert existing gas fixtures to duals. Duals were lit by both electric lines and gas so that if electricity had turned out to be a passing fad, the lamps could be reverted to gas without the expense of calling Mr. Tupper again. Now it was clear that the invention had caught on and people were going all electric for safety reasons. Duals were proving to be temperamental. Last month, a leak of gas from a dual had caused a house just off Main Street to burst into flames. Mr. Tupper was so busy, it took months to get an appointment with him.

Today was far preferable to the December date marked on the wall calendar. It was still October. The holidays were a good ways away and whatever mess was about to be created would be certain not to interfere with holiday houseguests and entertaining. What's more, Sarah and Edmund were abroad now, which meant they'd be spared seeing the mess that inevitably resulted from a visit by Mr. Tupper. Sarah became nervous when things in the house had to be changed.

Hollingwood had been built by Sarah's grandfather, a governor of Connecticut who had drawn the plans for the house himself, which accounted for why the house wasn't like any Bridey had seen. It was the biggest house in town, built with stones mined from local quarries that weren't around anymore. The house looked to Bridey like a house in a fairy tale. It rambled this way and that, with long hallways and bow windows and several porches and sunrooms and a four-story octagonal turret. The windows at the top of the turret were arched and color-stained like church windows and whenever Bridey went up there to sweep up dead flies or dust the old telescope that nobody used, she stopped a moment to gaze through the colored panes, taking in the holy beauty of the field and the lake and the evergreens bordering everything, like a backdrop.

Bridey offered Mr. Tupper tea and a scone still warm from the oven and he ate efficiently, standing up at the worktable, careful to keep crumbs from falling onto his beard. As he dunked the scone into the teacup, he apologized for having to cut a hole in the wall. His work would damage the wallpaper, he said, which would have to be replaced. The thought of that made Bridey wonder if she ought to put him off after all. Perhaps she ought to consult Sarah, but Sarah was in Italy with Edmund on an extended lecture tour of the lake towns to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Their sixteenth. They'd married the summer after Bridey came to Hollingwood, and had her coming here really been so many years ago?

Sarah was the only one of the children who lived at home now. She'd returned to Hollingwood with Edmund soon after they married, having discovered that two Mrs. Porters in a house was one too many. Sarah was educated in many things (politics, painting, gardening) but left on her own, Bridey guessed, Sarah wouldn't be able to boil an egg. Sarah was always seeking happiness afar, in every place but home, though that was where she was certain of finding it.

To Bridey's mind, Vincent had suffered mightily because of this. Bridey, always alert to the boy, had spent years trying to relieve his suffering due to his mother's inattention to him and it saddened her to know that she could not relieve it altogether. But now - Vincent wasn't a boy anymore. He would be eighteen next birthday and how lucky for him, for all of them, that the Great War was over so the prospect of his being sacrificed for it needn't be contemplated.


If Bridey turned Mr. Tupper away, it would be weeks before he came back, then it would be Christmas, a season of parties and celebrations, and it wouldn't do for the front hall to be in a state. As Mr. Tupper finished his scone, Bridey went down to the basement and came back with old sheets from the rag bin. She'd learned the hard way about covering the furniture.

Excerpted from The Latecomers Copyright © 2018 by Helen Klein Ross. Used with permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York. All rights reserved.