At 33 Nell Pillings was a momma’s girl, always had been, and it didn’t bother her what people said. Her other attributes had taken her into a successful real estate career. Now she was going to show, for the tenth or eleventh time, the old house on the corner of Main and Summer Streets, its gables setting off a character note. If no potential buyers showed up, there were those who would look twice.

She knew the house like she knew the palm of her hand, from the secrets of its four gables to the mysteries elsewhere deep inside, down where when you find it as a child it never leaves you. The beech tree on the side lawn was the only one of its kind in the whole town, making the house special from the outset. Its limbs spread like the horizon, its shade deep and cozy as caverns. The room at the head of the stairs was the perfect place to read a book on a windy night. Now and then a wide plank in one of the floors gave off its welcome. Occasionally the stairs talked back, but never sassy.

The only thing out of place was the ungainly For Sale sign as big as a billboard on the front lawn.

Change has reparation, she was thinking, as she stood looking at the front door, noticing again the brass hardware catching at the sun.

She had scoured all over for buyers, placing ads, screening calls, checking her friends in the business for the perfect-type buyers for the house. It was a modest house, but roomy, with an unknown warmth still hanging around its rooms. The price, she knew, could be played with, could be the ace in the hole for the right people, the possibles. The gables, at least to her thinking, seemed to speak about history and might be an attraction on their own, to people of interest.

Some of the possibles had faded, complaining about the price, the ceilings being too high, the windows not being tight enough for winter, and “that ungodly huge tree in the yard.” Nell never raised an eyebrow.

The possibles became the impossibles.

Now Janet Lucey, competitor but old classmate, had called. “Nell, I’m going to send a couple over to your office to see you. They’re out of the price range for anything I have, but they seem honest and warm and even if they’ve been married for thirteen years they’re still in love. It’s easy to see. Might fit for what you have in mind. Name is Wambeck. He’s a jeweler with a small shop over in Gladford, in that old mall.”

“Where the grass is coming back?”

“You got it.”

“If they’re the ones, I’ll owe you, Janet.”

“It’s on the house, Hon.” She chuckled loudly and hung up.

Nell, just before meeting time, coasted into the driveway off Summer Street. Under her wheels the sound of gravel was countable and familiar, though, she thought, rote could have its mean edge. Late afternoon sun hung out in the branches of the beech tree in slivers of light. Beneath the low but wide limbs a cool shadow was still growing across the lawn. She could almost see it flit along. It looked to be ten degrees cooler in that shade.

The gravel crunched behind her. A modest gray sedan came to a stop. The sun walked on its chrome and across the immaculate windshield. A man stepped out first, then a woman, somewhat smaller, diminutive, wearing a hat. Nell hadn’t seen a hat like that in years. Her Aunt Grace, now buried in Iowa with her soldier, came to mind.

The man pointed out the tree to the woman. They both smiled.

He yelled at Nell, but his voice was soft. “Say, isn’t that a beech? Well, whaddya know.” Turning to the woman he said, “Just like in Charlie Duckworth’s yard in Scraveltown. Well, whaddya know.”

Taking the woman’s hand, he walked toward Nell. The gravel crunched under their feet like popcorn. “You must be Nell Pillings.” He put his long-fingered hand out to grasp Nell’s hand. “This is my wife Thellie. I’m Lloyd Wambeck. Miss Lucey sent us.”

He still had his wife’s hand in his other hand. “I’ve got to tell you, that tree is a beauty. A friend has one. Don’t see many around. How old is it?”

His eyes, measuring the spread of limbs, came back to her. She thought he’d be able to count its rings.

Nell said, looking back over her shoulder, “About ninety years, from what I’ve heard. Want to look inside?” For a moment she realized the big sales pitch had to take a back seat. The house, in this case, would have to sell itself.

Nell led them to the front door. “The house is modest, I’ll admit, but it’s warm, it’s got character. Some of its rooms are special.” She did not say anymore.

It was Thellie Wambeck, small, near athletic in her graces, who gave Nell Pillings the first clue. They had entered the sewing room at the foot of the stairs, and Thellie Wambeck was alerted to the warmth of the room. “What a lovely hideaway. The colors are perfect; they don’t even have to be touched. It’s as if they’ve been preserved. Like in one of those historical houses up in Essex.” Her arms were wrapped around her own shoulders in a gesture of comfort, of acceptance. “You can almost hear music here.” She cocked her head to one side, her mouth slightly open. “I swear I heard music.”

Lloyd Wambeck, tall, a very minor hunch in his back, blond, thin-faced, elegant hands, smiled at Nell. “Two notes out of any opera and she can tell you what it is.” His voice was lyrical when he added, “Well, most of the time. I caught her on a couple of Puccini’s once. But not a second time. Carmen once and never again.” His arm squeezed Thellie Wambeck as if she were a sophomore at her first dance.

“Do you know anything about this room, Miss Pillings?” Thellie Wambeck said. She seemed to be aware of something not said, not seen, and not touched. Her head kept nodding as though the music still played.

“The woman who lived here loved music, loved opera and Chopin and Mozart and Beethoven and Wagner.” She stopped, looked around the room, and then added, “From what I’ve heard.”

“I must tell you, I feel a special presence in this room. There’s a grace here, warmth, something besides the music.” Thellie Wambeck turned slowly on her toes, very nimbly, in balance. “Yes, I believe there is.”

Nell looked past her, to the corner of the small room. “The lady who lived here, they say, gave special graces to the house. A few of the neighbors, if you don’t mind me saying so, think she never left the place. I’ve talked to all of them. They remember her as a very special person. At night, in the summer with the windows open, they could always count on her for a few grand pieces of music. Went with the crickets and the peepers, they said, hand in hand, one baton if you can imagine.”

Her eyes could have told the story, put every punctuation mark at its proper place, stress the right words.

Lloyd, coming back from a visit to a few other rooms, looking up the stairway to the second floor, obviously catching some other kind of interest, said, “We’d be real interested, Miss Pillings, but there are some other costs associated with us making the move right now. Could prove to be a little bothersome. Thellie and I, we’d have to talk after we look the whole place over. It’s our speed, our style, that’s for sure. Just the initial move that might kick us in the pants.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“How much would it cost you, making the move?”

“I’d guess it would have to be near ten or twelve thousand.” Lloyd Wambeck’s face was expressionless. The very minor roll in his back disappeared as he stood straighter in a move of pride. It was apparent to Nell that he was not bargaining, but stating fact.

Nell, for what they didn’t know, heard the music too. “If I were to arrange for a reduction of fifteen thousand, would that put you in the ball park?”

“It’d put us right at home plate, I’d say, without even looking at the rest of the house.” He held his sophomore around the shoulders again.

Nell Pillings, momma’s girl, put out her hand. “Consider it done.”

Going down the gravel to her car, looking first at the cool shade of the beech in the wide spread of its limbs, and then back at the house, Nell Pillings said into the late afternoon air, to the unseen company, to the musical host of all those summer nights, “I knew if I took my time, it’d be okay. You’re going to love them, Mom.”

Graciousness, when you get right next to it, never really comes from the pocketbook, but it might startle a place for action.