Keepsake (65 page)

Meg cast a wary eye at her irrepressible uncle. She was treading over tricky ground here. Bill Atwells might find it fascinating that someone had had a crush on his mother, but he wouldn't think much of the "drunken-lout" description of his father. And what about Allie? Did Allie really need to be reminded that drinking ran in the family?

Meg tried simple evasion. "We don't want to bore Mr. Wyler with our little small-town dramas, Uncle Bill."

"Don't be silly, Meg. Tom
wants
to hear," Allie said with a confident, beguiling look at her invited guest.

Meg had seen her sister — who could look seductive reciting the alphabet — use that look before. It was very effective, almost a form of hypnosis.

Tom Wyler gave Meg a good-humored smile and said, "I like a good mystery."

"C'mon, tell!" said Timmy.

"What're you afraid of?" asked his twin brother Terry.

"Okay," Meg said with a sigh. "As I said, Mr. Tremblay's not in great shape physically. But he's very sharp mentally. It turns out that he's noticed me around town. In fact he says I look exactly like Grandmother."

"Don't be silly," Everett Atwells said. "You look exactly like you."

"Well, all right; but here's the part he seemed determined for me to know: He was wildly in love with Grandmother."

"That son of a bitch!" Bill Atwells said through a mouthful of chicken pie.

"It never went anywhere, Uncle Bill; you won't have to challenge Mr. Tremblay to a duel," Meg said ironically.

"When was
this?"
Everett
demanded. Plainly it was all news to him.

Meg explained that Orel Tremblay and Margaret Mary Atwells had both worked at the Eagle's Nest at the same time, and that Tremblay, like the rest of the staff, was smitten with her grandmother's great natural warmth.

"Which, by the way, he told me I didn't have," Meg added wryly.

"He said that to you? That he had a thing for Grandmother, and that he thinks you're cold?" Allie was agape with indignation. "What nerve!"

"He didn't exactly say
cold,"
Meg said, coloring. "I think he said I was ‘guarded'."

"Well, that
has
been true since Paul killed himself," said Comfort naïvely. "He knew about Paul?"

"No
...
I don't know. Paul did not kill himself, Comfort. Anyway, cold or hot was not the
point,"
Meg said, exasperated. "Orel Tremblay wanted to show me the dollhouse; it was because of the dollhouse that he summoned me."

She went on to describe in great detail the exquisite miniature of the Eagle's Nest that was hidden away in Orel Tremblay's unassuming home. She avoided dwelling on the obvious — that the dollhouse was a replica of the tomb of Margaret Mary Atwells — and she made no mention at all of Orel Tremblay's scathing opinion of her grandfather.

She limped to the end of her story, which clearly had no conclusion, and waited, knowing that her family would jump all over her to provide one.

Uncle Bill weighed in first. "That's it? He had you over there to look at a dollhouse? What
for?"

"I don't know."

"It must be worth a pile," said Lloyd. "How much, do you think?"

"I don't know."

"How come
he
has the dollhouse?" asked Terry suspiciously.

"I don't know."

"Probably he
stole
it," his twin brother said. "After he fixed it up he kept it for hisself. Brother. What a dumb thing to steal."

"It must be worth a
pile,"
said Lloyd again. "How much did you say it was worth?"

"I don't know."

"This dollhouse — " Meg's father began.

"I never understood what they were doing at the Eagle's Nest in October, anyway," Allie said, interrupting him. "Okay, we know Gordon Camplin was staying on through the hunting season. Fine. But why keep his wife and two children and the whole staff there? Why not send them back to
New York
or
Boston
like everyone else? Did you ask Mr. Tremblay?"

Meg shook her head. "He threw me out."

Her family began hooting her off the stage with cries of "So you don't know
beans!"

Meg wouldn't have cared, except for Tom Wyler. He was sitting there as calm as a clock while her family took turns beating her up. It bothered her that he was neither embarrassed
nor
amused by their antics. She had the sense that he was watching them the way a psychologist might watch a play group through a one-way mirror.

No doubt it was part of his job. She was struck by the way he held himself, so casually alert, so ready to spring. If a fire alarm went off, he'd be the first one into action. But whether it would be to help the women and children, or to step over them on his way out the door — that, she couldn't know.

"Uncle Bill? A piece of my roobub pie?"

Without waiting for an answer, Comfort cut a wedge the size of an Egyptian pyramid, eased it onto a dinner plate, and passed it down the table to her husband's uncle. Comfort began dividing what was left of dessert among the rest of the family, and the talk settled down into pleasing, pie-filled murmurs about everyone else's day.

Uncle Bill, however, wasn't interested in everyone else's day; he was interested in the new man at the table. Uncle Bill had money — he'd sold his hardware store at the peak of the boom in ‘87 — and as a result he tended to respect other people who had money. He wanted to know how much respect Tom Wyler deserved.

"
So
.
Whatsit you do for a living, Mr. Wyler?"

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This is a work of fiction.
 
Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Keepsake
Copyright © 1999 by Antoinette Stockenberg