Cruel as the Grave (5 page)

Those brilliant eyes glanced at Gerard, then moved on to Maggie’s face. In them she read an appeal she couldn’t answer, for she knew that, if only for a moment, he was seeing someone else, probably her grandmother.
Please, God,
Maggie thought,
not Lavinia!
Then the eyes dimmed, and the old man blinked.

When he spoke, the voice came out strong, like a leather whip cracking in the air. “You’re a little early, I haven’t given up yet.”

Maggie flinched as if he’d reached out to strike her. Gerard, surprisingly, laughed aloud. “You old bastard,” he said with affection, though his voice was strained.

Maggie couldn’t take her eyes off her grandfather’s face. Though his expression changed very little, she would have sworn that her father’s reply had pleased him. His words confirmed it. “I see you didn’t go completely soft teaching poetry.”

“It kept me from going insane writing wills and drawing up contracts, not to mention bilking widows and orphans of their property,” Gerard conceded tartly.

Henry chuckled, a dry, raspy sound that Maggie mistook for a cough at first. “He always did have brass,” he confided to her. “Even as a toddler. Your grandmother had quite a time trying to potty train him.” He smiled. “He had to be tough, in this family. Else he’d’ve been eaten alive, and not just by his father. I’m glad to see he stayed that way. What about you?”

Still dazed by mental images of her father’s toilet training, Maggie didn’t know quite what to reply. "I’ve lived with him for nearly twenty-six years,” she said. “Does that qualify me?”
Now I'm beginning to sound like the rest of them,
she thought.

Henry laughed again. “You’ll do, my girl! You’ll do.” He extended a hand to her, urging her to sit on the bed beside him, while Gerard pulled up one of the chairs. Retty and Claudine, completely ignored, had faded into the background.

“Your grandmother,” Henry began. The pain in his voice nearly made Maggie wince. “Your grandmother never got a chance to see you, thanks to a lot of foolishness and stubborn pride. Not on her part, of course. She was too intelligent for all that. I hope your intelligence comes from her, and not from either one of us feebleminded men.” The tone was jocular, but the intent was serious.

He turned his head slightly toward Gerard. “We’ve wasted a lot of important time over pride. I was too stubborn to call you myself, so I asked Helena to write to you for me. God knows what she said, but I apologize now if the silly girl dramatized everything.”

“Father, I—” Gerard began, but Henry motioned for him to be silent. Maggie was amused to see her father shushed in this way.

“Your father and I have quite a bit to talk about, my dear,” Henry told her as he squeezed her hand. “I hope you won’t mind if I ask you to leave us alone right now.”

Maggie frowned. This wasn’t what she had hoped to hear. “Frankly, Grandfather,” she said, the name sounding strange even as it rolled off her tongue, “I was hoping someone would finally get around to telling me just why you and Dad have been estranged all these years. What on earth happened?”

Everyone froze around her. Henry McLendon frowned. “Your grandmother died the last time your father was in this house. Hasn’t he ever told you that?” Suddenly he closed his eyes, and for a moment he looked so still and frail that she was afraid he’d died even as he spoke.

Her heart thudding, Maggie whispered, “No, Grandfather, he never told me.”

A faint spot of red colored Henry’s cheeks. He opened his eyes, and she breathed more easily. She didn’t dare look at her father. She had felt him draw away from her earlier when she spoke her mind, tired of the shilly-shallying.

“You’re direct,” her grandfather said, regarding her with a small smile of approval. “But for now you’re just going to have to wait. Your father is the one who should tell you what happened, and I want you to promise you’ll wait and let him tell you. Not anyone else. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Grandfather,” Maggie said, taken aback at his insistence.

“We’ll have time to talk later. But I want you to know that having you here at last makes everything worthwhile." He smiled again.

Touched by this last remark, though still burning with curiosity, she leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the cheek, and he clutched her hand. Blinking back tears, Maggie stood up. Looking down at him, she wondered whether they really would have much time to talk. Seeing him like this, she thought perhaps that Helena hadn’t exaggerated in her letter. Now that she and her father were here, would he cease fighting and die, once he and his son made their peace? Or would he fight to stay alive to spend more time with his only grandchild?

Overcome with sadness, Maggie moved slowly toward the door, where Claudine Sprayberry waited with Retty. When Maggie glanced back, Gerard had taken her place on the bed beside his father. His head bent low, he murmured something to Henry, who replied quietly.

Claudine in a low voice told Retty and Maggie that she would go to her room while the two men talked. “Mr. Henry looks fine for now, but Gerard really shouldn’t stay too long. Sylvia will be up soon to take over. It’s nearly two. They should be fine until then.” She ushered the other two women out the door with her and followed them back down the hall to the next door.

This, it turned out, was Claudine’s room, connected by an inside door to her patient’s bedroom. "It used to be a dressing room,” she told Maggie with a frown. “But they’ve made it into a really comfortable room for me.” Impulsively she touched Maggie on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I was so strange earlier, but when I first saw you, it was like a ghost coming out of the dark.”

Maggie made a moue of resignation. “I’m afraid I’m rather used to that reaction by now.”

Claudine smiled her thanks at Maggie’s acceptance of her apology. “I hope we’ll have time to talk later, but right now I’ve got to change so I can go shopping. This is my afternoon off.” She opened her door briskly and closed it before Maggie had a chance to stammer out a reply.

Helena approached them, having just come upstairs, and Retty motioned to her. “Helena, take Maggie to her room. I think she probably needs some time alone right now.”

Maggie nodded gratefully. Retty patted her on the shoulder and walked away, toward the stairs. Helena, reading the distress in her face, gave her a quick hug, and Maggie struggled with her emotions, feeling completely overwhelmed.

As she followed Helena down the hall, Maggie forced herself to breathe deeply and evenly. She tried to distract herself by thinking about The Magnolias and what she had seen of it thus far. The only thing in her experience to which she could liken this mansion was a large and very grand hotel, once a stately home, in which she and her father had stayed in England. The plush carpet on the floor, which deadened all but a faint whisper of their footsteps, and the very massiveness of the building around, over, and underneath her unnerved Maggie. Her own house back in Houston, once roomy and comfortable, now seemed oppressively small in comparison.

Helena made no effort to explain what lay behind the various doors they passed. By the infrequency of their appearance Maggie estimated that each of the rooms was much larger than any of the rooms in her own house.

Finally Helena paused before a door near the end of the long corridor. Diffidently she said, “I hope you won’t mind, Maggie, but Henry insisted that you have your grandmother’s room.”

Maggie’s hand, which had been reaching for the doorknob, faltered. Her grandmother! The few times Gerard had ever discussed his estranged family with her, he had not mentioned his mother, other than to explain that she had died when Maggie was nearly a year old. Learning more about her was her innermost thought, especially after everything which had occurred this day.

When Maggie hesitated, Helena took action by opening the door and ushering the younger woman inside.

Sunshine cascaded into the room from two sets of French doors which led out onto a wide balcony. The light dazzled her eyes momentarily as it bounced off white walls and golden fixtures. The room appeared to Maggie at least twice the size of her own bedroom, which itself had been remodeled from two rooms. A beautifully carved antique bed dominated one side of the room. Another wall consisted of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There was space also for a small sofa, two chairs—each with its own reading lamp—and a desk whose woodwork matched that of the bed.

Maggie swallowed a lump which had come unbidden into her throat. The room had a cozy, welcoming feeling for her, and for the first time she had a burgeoning sense of homecoming.

As she turned toward Helena to express something of her emotions, Maggie noticed for the first time a portrait on the wall to her left. The wall was bare except for the portrait and a door.

Near life-size, the portrait drew Maggie toward it irresistibly. For a moment she thought she was staring at herself, but as she came closer she could see that the woman in the portrait was older, perhaps thirty-five or forty. Dressed in a ball gown of emerald satin, the woman had the same deep, rich auburn hair and green eyes that Maggie had. The face, intelligent, humorous, and loving, gazed searchingly back at her, the hint of a smile upon the full red lips. One hand casually smoothed back the abundant hair; the other clasped a book. In the background of the portrait Maggie could see a small replica of the mansion. This, then, was her grandmother, Magnolia Amelia Culpeper McLendon.

Helena had drawn close to her grandniece, placing a comforting arm around trembling shoulders. “We all loved her so very much,” Helena whispered, her voice husky with emotion. “She was so excited when you were born, and she fussed so when she heard that Gerard had named you for her. ‘Why on earth does he want to name that poor child “Magnolia”?’ she asked. ‘That’s no name for a modern girl!’ But she was so proud anyway!”

The image of her grandmother blurred slowly, and Maggie reached with an unsteady hand to wipe some of the tears away. “She’s so lovely,” she said unselfconsciously, then realized what she had said.

Helena smiled as Maggie turned to her and asked, “Do I really look that much like her?”

Helena nodded. Maggie blushed.

“And Lavinia, too, more’s the pity,” Helena said.

Maggie widened her eyes. “Not too much, I hope,” she said dryly.

“Honey, that’s such a long story, Lavinia and her nastiness, it would take years to tell you,” Helena said, sighing. “And right now I expect you want to be by yourself for a little while. Am I right?”

“Not just yet," Maggie said, now feeling a need for company, for someone at least a little familiar. “Stay with me a little longer.”

Helena drew Maggie away from the portrait and back toward the center of the room. She explained that the door near the portrait led into the bathroom.

“After Magnolia died,” she said sadly, “Henry just couldn’t bear to change this room, so he left it pretty much the way it was. We’ve kept it up well, though.”

“She died not long after I was born, didn’t she?” Maggie asked hesitantly, mindful of her promise to her grandfather.

Helena nodded. “You were just about a year old, bless your heart—you never even got a chance to know her. But she had all sorts of pictures of you.” She smiled. “They’re still here in this room, I think. None of her things have been disturbed in all this time—almost twenty-five years.” She walked over toward the wall of books. “Henry used to come in here sometimes—after she passed away, that is—and sit and talk to her.” She glanced sheepishly back at Maggie. “I did, too. We all missed her a lot.”

“You called this my grandmother’s room. Didn’t she and my grandfather share a bedroom?” Maggie realized the question might be considered a bit indelicate, but she wanted to know.

Helena laughed. “The room Henry’s in now was their bedroom. This was just Magnolia’s private sitting room. One of the good things about having a house this large.”

Maggie joined her at the bookshelves and squeezed her great-aunt’s arm gratefully. “Thank you for telling me these things. Since I have no memories of her of my very own, it’s very nice to share yours.”

Helena patted Maggie's arm in response. “I know, dear.” She moved closer to the shelves. “These were Magnolia’s books. She was quite a collector, and whenever she disappeared for a while, you knew you’d find her reading somewhere.” She ran a hand lightly along the spines of a row of books.

Maggie moved closer to read the titles and blinked when she realized what she was seeing. Her grandmother had obviously been a devoted mystery reader, because here were what looked to be complete sets of the works of Margery Allingham, Maggie's own favorite, as well as Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy L. Sayers. Reverently she pulled from the shelf a copy of
The Nine Tailors
and glanced inside. A first edition. Her breath tightened in her chest.

She glanced quickly through more of the books while Helena watched. In addition to the large collection of mysteries there were classics of British and American fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Jane Austen, George Eliot, Edith Wharton, D. H. Lawrence, and Henry James, along with Josephine Tey, Henry Wade, John Rhode, Elizabeth Daly, and Phoebe Atwood Taylor.

Then Maggie’s eyes lighted upon one particular title, and she frowned. There on the shelf stood a copy of Agatha Christie’s
Sleeping Murder
, which she knew had been published several years after her grandmother’s death. She pointed this out to Helena.

“Henry kept up her collection after she passed away,” Helena said. “She had loved her books so much, it just seemed one small way for him to remember her.” She laughed lightly. “Several of the rest of us are mystery readers, too, and Magnolia was always generous about letting us borrow books, although she was mighty particular about the way you treated them!” She laughed again. “Anyway, I knew all her favorite authors, so it wasn’t hard for me to keep track of them for Henry and make sure they got ordered. Of course, now they’re nearly all passed away, too, so there haven’t been many additions lately.”

Maggie was touched by the story and pleased also to have found this link with her grandmother. As she rested one hand lovingly upon a row of books by Allingham, she felt even closer to her namesake. She turned shining eyes toward her aunt and said, “Thank you! You don’t know how much this means to me. So many of these people are writers I love myself, and knowing that I share the same taste in literature with... my grandmother means so much.”