Family Vault (27 page)

“You’re going to get that man to trace the wires, aren’t you?”

“Yes, and also fix up the phone so you can take it to bed with you.”

“Why bother? It looks as though I’ll be moving out of the house any day now.”

“Don’t worry about that till it happens. Say, hadn’t we better stop for some groceries? I wiped out your larder this morning, the least I can do is buy you another pound of bacon.”

“You needn’t do that, but you might help carry the bags. Alexander always used to—”

Sarah choked up and couldn’t finish the sentence. Neither of them said much after that until they had left the supermarket on Cambridge Street and were trudging back up to Tulip. They were almost there when she mentioned what was on her mind.

“You knew the jewels would all be gone, then?”

“Yes,” Bittersohn admitted, “I was pretty sure there’d been a clean sweep of the collection when I saw those genuine India pearls your mother-in-law was wearing the night I met her.”

“Why?”

“They’re fakes.”

“Oh, good heavens! Do you think she knew?”

He shrugged. “Would she have cared?”

“I don’t suppose so, if they went to bail out her little love. It’s absolutely incredible to me that Aunt Caroline was ready to kill Uncle Gilbert for his money, then give up every penny of it without a qualm to protect another man.”

“Who must have been some prize specimen if he was willing to sit back and let her do it,” Bittersohn agreed. “I’d say your mother-in-law must have been the kind of woman who has to be the star in some real-life soap opera. You said she planned to cover herself with grease and glory by swimming the English Channel, but her parents squashed that fantasy. So she decided to become a society queen and married a man who had the cash but not the inclination. Then she found herself a red-hot romance, pulled her fake heroics to finance it, and wound up deaf, blind, and a heroine. Since there wasn’t much else left for her to do, she played the noble martyr to the hilt for the rest of her life. Whether she was genuinely devoted to that no-good bum, or infatuated with her own role as the beautiful woman who gave her all for the man she loved, is something I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.”

“I don’t know why I keep thinking, ‘poor Aunt Caroline,’ ”  said Sarah. “She really was a monster, yet I can’t help feeling a little bit sorry for her. She destroyed Alexander, but at least he had one real thing in his life, which is more than she did.”

“She and a lot of other people.”

There was something in Bittersohn’s voice that made Sarah shy away from any further remark. They finished the distance in silence. When they got to the house he helped her get the groceries inside, said, “I’ll be back around two with the electrician,” and left.

Sarah put away the food and made herself a sandwich she didn’t particularly want. Their breakfast dishes were still sitting there, so she washed them. What was it going to be like when there was only one cup, one plate, one knife, one fork, one spoon? She hurried out of the kitchen and went upstairs to finish transferring her belongings to Aunt Caroline’s suite. She might as well enjoy it while she could.

Those hideous draperies in the boudoir would have to be taken down. What if somebody besides herself happened to notice what the embroidery stood for? The best plan would be to take them out to Ireson’s Landing and burn them in the big fireplace.

It was a wonder Leila had never discovered Caroline’s secret diary, she’d been in the boudoir often enough. But did Leila read Braille? Perhaps she’d never bothered to learn, she was so adept at the hand signaling. Still, it would be easy enough for her to get hold of a chart and transliterate if she once caught on. If she did, she’d never be able to keep her mouth shut, and that would be total disaster for the whole Kelling clan.

Sarah was down in the cellar struggling with the heavy old wooden step-ladder when Bittersohn came back with the electrician. She thought of asking them to take the ladder upstairs for her, then realized they’d no doubt need it for tracing the wires, which in fact they did.

The process was a great deal more tedious than she’d thought it would be. She answered questions, showed where things were, watched till it got too boring, then left the men to their tapping and prying and went back to her own chores. There were dozens of notes to be written. The sooner she got at them, the less depressing they’d be. She sat down at the Samuel McIntyre escritoire in the drawing room where she’d be out of the men’s way, and had made a fairly impressive dent in the pile when Bittersohn came to tell her they’d finished.

“We had quite a time. The wire had been led down inside the wall all the way from the attic and carried over the roofs to a skylight three houses up. Now we’ve got to find out where it goes from there, which calls for a spot of fraudulent entry.”

“Can you manage that?”

“Sure. We’ll put on our false whiskers and make believe we’re from the phone company or something. Incidentally, Frank put a long cord on your telephone so it will reach upstairs.”

“That’s marvelous. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Why thank me at all? It’s included in the service. Look, I don’t want to press the issue, but can’t you get somebody to come and stay with you, if only for tonight?”

“I’ll ask my Uncle Jem,” Sarah was through being a heroine.

“Good. And keep that phone number I gave you handy just in case, eh?”

“Is that part of your job, too?”

Sarah smiled at him and he smiled back.

“Sure. I’ll be in touch.”

He was gone and she was alone again, but not for long. Just about teatime, Edgar Merton came to call. Seeing that dapper figure on the doorstep, Sarah felt a surge of utter panic. She forced herself not to show it, though she couldn’t manage much in the way of a cordial greeting. That was all right, he’d hardly expect a new widow to bubble over with enthusiasm. If he actually was Caroline’s “little love,” he himself must be feeling a terrible sense of loss.

If he was, he didn’t show it. He spoke of Caroline as a gallant lady whom he’d admired and respected. He was sorry she was dead, but clearly far from desolated. He was much more concerned about Sarah herself, how she was bearing up, what were her plans, whether there was some way he might make himself useful to her. On this last subject he became so importunate that Sarah began to simmer. Why couldn’t he have made himself useful to Aunt Caroline when she’d spent all Uncle Gilbert’s money paying off the blackmailers?

Then she remembered they hadn’t yet proved Edgar was the man, and felt ashamed of herself for judging him.

“Sit still, I’m going to put the kettle on. You’d like tea, wouldn’t you?”

“That would be delightful,” he replied in a somewhat puzzled tone, “but doesn’t Edith usually take care of culinary matters?”

How did she answer this one? Of course people would find out sooner or later that the old retainer was no longer here, but Sarah wasn’t keen on having it known just now that she was alone in the house. She decided to say Edith wasn’t feeling very well.

“Are you sure she’s not just angling for attention?” he replied. “I know this has been a shock to her, as it has to all of us, but this is no time for her to give way. She ought to be thinking of your convenience and comfort. Perhaps, as an old friend of the family, I might nip down and have a word with her? Ginger her up a bit?”

“She’s not here,” Sarah had to tell him then. “She’s gone out to her nephew’s.”

“Leaving you in the lurch? That’s a fine thing, I must say! If she was well enough to travel—”

“He came and got her in his van. We all agreed it was the best thing to do. I forget, do you take cream or lemon?”

“Oh dear, have I made so little impression on your memory? Lemon, please, and just a speck of sugar.”

Sarah wished she hadn’t offered tea, now she was stuck with him for at least another half hour. Edgar’s manner was really strangely frisky in view of the circumstances. Was he beginning to go soft in the head, like Alice? She gave him the stack of condolences to sort as a sobering influence, and took her time about fixing the tray. When she got back, he greeted her like a long-lost daughter.

Or would it be a daughter? Did daughters get their hands patted so often? Incredible as it seemed, she was forced to wonder if Edgar was, as Aunt Emma would say, making up to her.

“Yes, this is a terrible loss. I remember Caroline as a beautiful young woman. I myself was a child at the time, of course, though I trust I was never so ungallant as to remind her of the difference in our ages.”

“I trust you weren’t, either,” Sarah thought, “because you’d have been brought up short if you’d tried.”

What kind of fool did he think she was? He’d been at Harvard with Uncle Mortimer, who was Class of ’26, and judging from Uncle Mort’s reminiscences, Edgar had been no infant prodigy.

He wasn’t being very clever now, laying it on so thick about her fortitude, courage, presence of mind, and how lovely she looked in her grief, which was an outright lie because she looked ghastly and knew it. At last he got down to business.

“Knowing you were accustomed to the companionship of a man whom I may venture to consider my contemporary, and being painfully aware that my own bereavement may take place any day now—”

This was too much! White to the nostrils, Sarah got up and began rattling cups back on the tray. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Edgar, I didn’t realize it was so late. I have to be somewhere soon, and I’ve barely time to change.”

He was too well-bred to do anything but get up and go, though not without a few more tender pressings and a fervent promise to call again soon. Was the old goat actually intending to offer a conditional proposal of marriage before the flowers were dead on Alexander’s grave? Surely he wouldn’t have the atrocious taste to go that far, but he must be paving the way for something.

One thing certain, he couldn’t have cared any more for Caroline Kelling than he did for Alice Merton. That long hearts-and-flowers courtship had been nothing more than his way of keeping another possible meal ticket on the string in case the doctors’ bills ate up Alice’s money before she died. With Caroline gone, he was already trying to line up a substitute. Was this what Aunt Caroline had eaten her heart out for so many years? Could a woman of her mentality ever have been taken in by such a lightweight?

Probably, if she wanted to be badly enough. Sarah dumped the tea things in the sink and went to call Uncle Jem. Egbert was awfully sorry, Miss Sarah, but the boss was sick in bed with a cold he’d caught at the funeral, and there was no sense taking the phone to him because he’d lost his voice, which was one consolation from Egbert’s point of view.

Sarah said, “Oh, that’s too bad. Give him my love and tell him to take care of himself,” and hung up. Now what? Who else might be willing to come on such short notice? Leila would, if she was around, but Sarah couldn’t ask Mrs. Lackridge to come and hold her hand after having delivered that blast about minding her own business, and she didn’t want her, anyway. And everybody else was so old, or so far away.

She could drive out to Chestnut Hill and sleep over at Aunt Appie’s or the Protheroes’, but they’d want to know why Edith wasn’t around and why Sarah was so squeamish about staying alone, and a lot of other whys that Sarah wasn’t ready to talk about—yet. She’s made her bed, she might as well go upstairs and lie in it.

I
T WAS FAR TOO
early for that, though. Worn out as she was, Sarah knew she’d only drop off for a few hours, then wake up with a long, dark night ahead of her. She ought to eat some dinner, too, though she wouldn’t be hungry for a couple of hours now that she’d had tea. She might as well get back to her thank-you notes, work till eight or thereabout then fix herself a snack and take another good soak in that elegant pink tub of Aunt Caroline’s. After that, one could always fall back on William James.

She turned on the radio for company and made herself concentrate on writing. The music on WCRB was soothing, but it soon gave way to news and Sarah found that listening to other people’s tragedies was too harsh a reminder of her own. She tried switching stations, got more of the same, switched off the set. She looked at her pile of notes, decided she couldn’t stand the sight of one more kind word, slammed down her pen, went around drawing the shades, found herself pacing through the empty house like the tigress at Franklin Park Zoo she and Alexander used to feel so sorry for.

This was horrible! She’d almost rather see Edgar Merton back than endure any more of her own depressing company. She was on the verge of calling Anora Protheroe to beg a night’s lodging and brave the inquisition when the doorbell rang again. It was Bob Dee, with a flat white pasteboard carton and a brown paper bag.

“I hope you’re in the mood for pizza and beer. I couldn’t think what else to bring.”

“You didn’t have to bring me anything, but what a lovely idea. Come in, Bob. I was just thinking I must do something about dinner, now I shan’t have to. Why don’t we eat in here in front of the fire? I’ll get some plates and glasses.”

“Hey, you don’t have to bother. At the pad we eat with our fingers and drink out of the cans. Saves washing up.”

“I’m afraid several generations of Kellings would turn over in their graves if I tried that. Put on another log, will you, Bob? I’ll only be a minute.”

Pizza in the drawing room with an unattached male might not be the height of propriety for a woman in her circumstances, but at least it was a change. Bob Dee might be a nincompoop, but he was cheerful and forgiving. And young. Sarah ate the soggy, stringy, spicy pastry, drank her beer, and let him prattle.

For a while she rather enjoyed herself. One of the tall cans was all the beer she could manage, though, and Dee was obviously not about to let the rest of the six-pack go to waste. The more he drank, the louder and sillier he got. When she dropped a hint that the party was over, he horrified her by turning amorous.

“Hey, the night is young and you’re so beautiful. How about it, beautiful?”

“Bob, would you please bear in mind that I’ve just lost my husband?”