Uncle Rutledge & The Clam Shack Widow

The summer I was fourteen, Uncle Rutledge took his last bride.

He was seventy-something, she was in her mid-thirties and already a widow.  The scandal rocked the island, particularly the old timers who met regularly in the general store each morning.  Nana and I were doing some early morning shopping when we heard the news.

Kee-rist on a cross!  Uncle Shad blurted out from behind the mainland paper, I’ll be damned if he ain’t gon’ and done it again!

Shadrach!  Miz McIntyre scolded, Mind your language!

But she was outmatched by the old men rudely awakened from their early morning dozings by Shad’s sudden outburst.  Everyone came to with a start and eagerly leaned forward in their chairs, faces alight with curiosity, ready to snap at any tidbit to brighten their boring retirement day.

It’s Rutledge, Uncle Shad said wonderingly, He’s up and married The Clam Shack Widow!

There was a collective intake of breath at this and Nana snagged my shirt collar with her thumb and forefinger and gave me a quick pinch.  She disliked any gossip that didn’t originate in her own house and this was her way of reminding me to mind my manners but it didn’t take much effort to wriggle free and then it was only a couple more quick steps to the semi-circle of old fisherman.  I already knew about Uncle Rutledge – everyone knew the story of how he’d gotten rich selling land to the Canadian Pacific – then making a second fortune with a contract to cut and clear the land, and finally a third with his sawmill and lumber business.   Not everyone approved of how neatly all those pieces had fit together, I knew, but Rutledge had retired at thirty and moved bag and baggage to the mainland.  It was then he began his second career of marrying roughly every ten years, a habit the island simultaneously admired and criticized in great detail.

The Clam Shack Widow – her actual name was Arlene something or other – was almost as equally well known. 

Woman sheds men like bad habits, I’d heard someone once say.  She was generally known as the type to buy a new boat when the old one got wet and had worked her way through three husbands before turning thirty.  The gossip about that had been bad enough but when her fourth husband, the previous owner of The Clam Shack, had up and died smack in the middle of a touristy lunch rush and Arlene had neatly stepped over him and kept right on dishing out the fish chowder, well, that news had traveled like a runaway train.  No one on the island had actually seen this happen, of course, but neither did anyone doubt it.   The man had  been at work and he had died and that was good enough to go ‘round.

You listen to enough of these island stories, you might get the idea that truth is just a decoration, my daddy had observed at the time, a remark that earned him a  cold glare from my grandmother and two days of colder breakfast coffee. 

Well, one of the old man said with a shrug, Speakin’ for myself, I’m thinkin’  mebbe they’s meant for each other.

Mebbe so,the others agreed a shade reluctantly, Woman does make a godly finnan haddie, so I’ve heard tell. 

As things turned out, The Clam Shack Widow was to be Uncle Rutledge’s last bride.  Despite the talk, or maybe in part because of it, they prospered and lived happily for the next dozen years until, much to everyone’s surprise, Arlene caught pneumonia and didn’t recover.  To the dismay of everyone on Route 101 between Digby and The Valley, Rutledge closed and shuttered the little café and it rapidly fell into disrepair and was sold for taxes.  It was, the old timers gathered in the general store all agreed, a sad reminder of days gone by.   When Uncle Rutledge died a few years later, it was said his coffin was built from the remains of The Clam Shack’s wooden support beams and he was laid to rest beside Arlene in the village cemetery.  Wildflowers blossomed over their graves and eventually intertwined and grew together.