{"product_id":"a-private-hotel-for-gentle-ladies-isbn-9781400079438","title":"A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies","description":"Charlotte Heath, a lively, independent redhead of humble beginnings, is married to the scion of the powerful Heath family. When, on her first outing after a long illness, she spies her husband, Hays, bending to kiss another woman in the village square, impulsive Charlotte heads her horses straight out of town. Upon arriving at The Beechmont Hotel, Charlotte makes a shocking discovery: The classy Beechmont is a rather unique institution where a different kind of hospitality awaits the all-female clientele. Seductive and high-spirited, \u003ci\u003eA Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies \u003c\/i\u003eis an unforgettable novel of one woman’s journey to self-enlightenment.“A sharp-eyed novel of erotic awakening circa 1900. . . . Cool comfort from a writer with style and heart.” —\u003ci\u003eO, The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\"An upbeat, even old-fashioned story about personal growth, telling us we can’t know where we are until we remember where we’ve been.\" —\u003ci\u003eBoston Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e “Charlotte Heath is the most enticing heroine I’ve met in some time: tenderhearted yet obstinate, genteel yet deeply sensual. The adventure she takes us on is wonderfully eccentric, deliciously observed, and ends with the kind of gratifying surprise that reminds me why telling stories, and reading them, is such an essential pleasure in my life.” —Julia Glass, author of \u003ci\u003eThree Junes\u003c\/i\u003e\"Full of earthy characters and situations you hate to leave. . . . A delightful and intriguing read.\"  —\u003ci\u003eHistorical Novels Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eEllen Cooney is the author of five previous novels, most recently \u003ci\u003eGun Ball Hill\u003c\/i\u003e, a story rooted in the unrest in the American Colonies just before the Revolutionary War. Her short stories have appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGlimmer Train\u003c\/i\u003e, S\u003ci\u003etory,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe New England Review,\u003c\/i\u003e among many other publications. She has taught creative writing at MIT, Boston College, and Harvard University. She lives in Phippsburg, Maine. \u003c\/b\u003eOne\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Charlotte Heath was in such a hurry to get to her husband, it took   her a while to notice the absence of her bells. If they were there,   she would not have seen her husband at the edge of their town's big   square, under an elm tree, bending his head toward a young, pretty   woman, to kiss her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was midafternoon. No one else was out. No one else was watching.   Except for Charlotte, her horses, her husband, and the woman, the   roads around the square were deserted. All the houses were shuttered   against the cold.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If it weren't for the absence of bells . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She'd imagine it like a song: If it weren't for the bells, the lack   of the bells, if it weren't for the lack of the jingle of bells . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Her sleigh in the snow down Mulberry Street should not have been   silent. It should have announced itself, as sleighs are supposed to,   in a chimey, wild jangle, which the horses would add to with snorting   and horsey whistles, just to make noise. They disliked snow. They   missed hearing the rhythm of carriage wheels on uncovered roads, and   their own, steady clip-clopping.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If he'd had some warning--and he would have recognized her right   away, by the bells--her husband could have thought of good excuses.   He could have passed himself off as a man who'd offered his arm to a   solitary woman, in a social-decorum sort of way, as if they were   headed for a stroll across the park, and never mind that the walkways   weren't clear. The big square did not resemble a town green so much   as a white, high-banked, North Pole tundra, with whirls of snow   blowing everywhere. Hard white sunlight was in the trees, in every   branch, like an extra layer of ice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Who was the woman? Charlotte didn't know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The snow in the road was deeply packed. The blades of the sleigh ran   as smoothly as a child's fast sled. There was a basic unnaturalness   about soundless, gliding runners, Charlotte felt, even though she'd   grown up in the East and loved winter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was the middle of February, 1900. She was supposed to feel glad   and optimistic about this new century. It didn't seem enough to be   astonished to keep finding herself still alive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Her husband turned away from the woman in plenty of time for the kiss   not to actually happen. You had to know him to know he was saying   (with a look, no words), \"This is something we have to postpone.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Charlotte remembered that sometime last summer the cook's girl and   boy had taken her bells from the stable for some game of theirs in   the kitchen. They had not put them back, which was typical of them.   Except for Charlotte and the cook, Mrs. Petty, the feeling in the   household about those children was this: they were like two red   squirrels who'd burrowed in through the walls, and very much needed   to be removed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They were gone now, having moved with their mother into Boston.   Charlotte loved them. She'd been sick. She owed them, in a way, her   life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Her horses were fond of the bells. There were many more than she   needed, in many sizes. Some were as small as buttons; some were as   large as fists. She was always collecting sleigh bells. She was   encouraged by the Heaths to be musical. She had not learned an   instrument as a child. She did badly at learning piano, worse at   violin, worse still at other strings, and worst of all at woodwinds.   She was told she lacked a feel for scales and notes and could barely   distinguish a key. She had no patience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Maybe the horses knew what lay ahead before she did. They were   unusually quiet. After the turn onto Mulberry Street, they slowed   down a lot more than they had to.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Their town, south of Boston, was settled in the earliest of colonial   times. It was a Puritan-prosperous place: big homes, good manners,   modern conveniences, gentility, professions, sacred inheritances,   nothing out of place. Her husband loved their home like a box he   happily fit into. But he was always prepared to burst out of it.   Charlotte never traveled with him on business trips.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was the home he grew up in. It was enormous; it was the only one   on the street. A Heath had taken it over in 1820 from a man who'd   made a fortune as a sea merchant and who then, having become   religious as a result of a near-shipwreck, envisioned the place as a   self-sustained college for the training of missionaries, which had   not happened.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The house was elegant and austere, with so many added-on wings and   hidden rooms you could wander around for hours without sight of   another person. Two of her husband's sisters lived there with their   husbands, and his two unmarried sisters, and two of his brothers and   their wives. And Charlotte's father-in-law. Charlotte's mother-in-law.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A dozen of them. One of her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The various Heath children--six of them who had parents in the   household--lived at their schools now; two were old enough to have   established their own homes. Charlotte's husband was the baby of his   family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It never occurred to him to live anywhere else, not even at their   summer place--on the coast, in Cape Ann, in the village of Squab   Cove--where Charlotte always longed to be, no matter the season. He   didn't care for the sea. He tolerated it one weekend a month in the   summer because that was what was expected of him. He disliked   dampness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Just now, he was involved in arranging money for the switching of a   factory in Ohio. He had been called home unexpectedly for the death   of one of his uncles. Had he brought the woman with him?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He did a great deal of work in the Midwest and felt a personal   relationship, something like love, with the train he rode to get out   there: he'd arranged the money for a part of the track to be laid.   That particular factory was in the process of changing from the   making of kitchen and parlor stoves to the making of bicycles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Everyone needed stoves, but everyone wanted new bicycles. That was   where the money really was. Her husband didn't ride one himself (as   far as she knew), but he'd offered to get her one so she could ride   in the lanes at some future point, like his sisters and   sisters-in-law. The future point meant, \"if someday you're well.\"   There was always an \"if.\" They had thought she'd never get well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If he brought home a bicycle for her, she'd let it sit in the yard   and rust. Or give it to the maids. There was only one kind of riding   she was interested in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She'd given the horses their heads on the way across town; her ears   were still ringing with rushing, icy air. Her heart had barely   started beating again in its usual way, from that wonderful   fisting-up that seized her inside the chest like a good, big hand,   then let go.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She wasn't reckless. She knew her way around speed. Before she was   sick, people were always telling her husband to make her stop going   so fast, and he would say, \"Charlotte, you must change the way you   carry yourself, you have got to slow down,\" and she would answer that   he was right, they all were right, and then she'd go at a ladylike   canter out of town, to gallop through the woods and fields and old   logging roads, where no one saw her but God.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    No bells. Only a silence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Her husband and the woman must have just left the house she was   heading to. It belonged to her husband's uncle: the man who'd died. A   Heath uncle, Owen, of the lawyer branch of the family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It had happened the morning before; he was eighty. In his house, a   high, handsome mansard full of marble and gleaming wood and French   furniture, they were holding his wake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The branch of the family her husband belonged to was the finance   branch. \"Our Mr. Heath owns money and he arranges things\" was how   Mrs. Petty explained him to her children. He liked that. \"He owns   things himself and when other people want to get things, or   manufacture things, they give him money and he arranges it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Charlotte saw the way the woman let go of her husband's arm. Slowly,   reluctantly. Confidently. It was the same way people stopped talking   about personal things when a servant came into the room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She pulled back the reins and the two horses stopped. She knew it   looked wasteful of her to have brought out the pair for such a light   sleigh, but they hated being apart. They were young, handsome   chestnuts, high-headed, proud of themselves, healthy. It had been a   long time since she'd been out with them and they kept letting her   know their joy to have her back, even though they'd never been   separated from her completely: someone from the stable had brought   them to her window every day when she was sick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Her husband took off his hat--a stiff, dark one. A mourning hat. He   brushed his hand along the crown, as if a load of snow had settled on   it, weighing down on him. But there wasn't any snow; he was   procrastinating. He took a long time to put it back on, and he did so   with an awkwardness that didn't suit him. He was amazed to see his   wife and her horses and sleigh, coming upon him silently. He wasn't   in the habit of being stolen up on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    John Hayward Heath. Hays, he was called.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Funny he should speak to the woman first and not to her. But at least   he didn't whisper.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Why, here is Charlotte and her horses.\" The woman didn't know who   Charlotte was--or pretended she didn't. Hays said, \"My wife.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The woman wore a fur coat--dark mink--and a matching hat, and stylish   leather boot shoes, very narrow and pointed. In spite of the coat,   you could tell her corset was steel-lined. Steel-lined corsets had a   particular look. The coat had a tightly gathered waist. It was   belted, with the ends in a perfect knot, exactly in her middle,   pulled tightly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Charlotte hadn't worn a corset for a long time. She lost a lot of   weight when she was sick; she didn't need one. But she'd made up her   mind never to put one on again. You don't get up from a sickbed and   find that you are the same person you were before. It maddened her to   think of herself as a weakling.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Why, here is Charlotte and her horses. Charlotte and her horses. That   sounded like a song, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She saw the way her husband looked at the woman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He was soft in the face. She knew that look: serious, naked, with a   longing that sooner or later would be satisfied. He had that. He was   someone who knew that whatever his longings were, he wouldn't walk   away from them unsatisfied.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Until this moment, she had believed that there were only two things   to cause that expression: desire for her, in the days before she was   sick, and babies, especially when someone showed him a new one, or   even mentioned one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She had no idea how much it was required of her to keep saying she   was sorry not to have had a child by now. She knew from other women   she should never stop trying, she should not give up hope; she should   think of three misses as a rehearsal, or dues you must pay, as if   bearing full-term was something she'd eventually get right, something   she would have earned. She'd developed the talent, at her time of the   month, to never pay attention to the sight of her own blood. She   avoided wearing clothes of any red shade.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At the summer place there was a female cat maintained by one of the   maids. It was not allowed outdoors because Charlotte's father-in-law,   in retirement, was studying birds. There were feeders all over the   yards, birdhouses in the trees, particular flowers and shrubs to   attract certain types. Cats in this system were murderers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The summer-place cat must have felt it was in solitary confinement.   All the maids felt sorry for it; then one day a fisherman brought   over a scrawny orange kitten. The cat took the kitten by the neck and   walked away with it to a dark corner--either to destroy it or to   adopt it. Charlotte happened to be there. She was always turning up   in kitchens.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    This was the first time in her life she understood what it was like   to be shot through her body with pure, stinging, burning envy. The   cat came proudly and boastfully back into the light to show off its   baby, as if saying to the humans, \"I don't recall giving birth, but I   suppose I must have done so, and now I am very pleased.\" Charlotte   watched the cat lick every part of the kitten, but after that, until   the kitten was grown, she stayed away from that part of the house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The woman with her husband wasn't maternal-looking. She wore her hat   at an angle, very stylishly, in spite of the fact of the wake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Hays and the woman stepped away from each other. They did a good job.   They could have been strangers. They looked as if they were used to   being parted when they didn't want to be parted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There was no guilty look on her husband's face when he realized his   wife was in the middle of Mulberry Street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She wasn't supposed to be out. He looked amazed, but he didn't look   guilty. Charlotte thought, \"He doesn't think he'd be doing something   not all right in kissing her.\" He looked like what he was doing was   right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I was on my way to look at your uncle,\" called out Charlotte, as if   he had asked her. She'd expected to surprise him at the wake: the   only husband among all those relatives without a wife at his side,   not counting the widowers. He was the Heath whose wife was always   absent. She'd thought he minded that. He wasn't particularly fond of   Uncle Owen, but that wouldn't have kept him from playing a part he   knew well: a man who's doing what he should. A man who gets things   right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A man who gets things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Heaths took mourning--and all ceremonies--seriously. Uncle Owen had   lived much longer than anyone thought he would, and for that alone,   Charlotte admired him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His heart had stopped while he dozed in front of his fire, exactly   the way he had wanted to die. He was a competent lawyer, and he was   rich, and neither overly greedy nor overly hoardful, which was true   of all Heaths. He never denied himself brandy, butter-rich foods,   sweets. He was gout-ridden, heart-weak, blood-torpid, and as fat as   the Falstaff of Shakespeare, whom in fact he had played.","brand":"Anchor","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301184655589,"sku":"NP9781400079438","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400079438.jpg?v=1767720736","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/a-private-hotel-for-gentle-ladies-isbn-9781400079438","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}