Michael’s Wife (12 page)

From that night on, Laurel walked warily through the Devereaux mansion, kept to her room at night and bolted her doors. If everyone had watched her covertly before, they did so openly now. Janet announced that “poor Laurel” needed something to occupy her mind and Laurel was introduced to Janet's workshop, a small room off the courtyard beneath the old nursery. A workbench sat against one wall, a sheet of pegboard mounted behind it with screwdrivers, hammers, and a saw hanging from nails. Laurel couldn't keep her eyes from searching the room for an ax. Wooden chests, a wardrobe, chairs, and a headboard for a bed … no ax or mallet … Laurel gave herself a mental shake. The last thing she needed was to become paranoid. A room air-conditioner hummed in the window to the courtyard.

“Surprised at my little workshop?” Janet stood beside the skeleton of a wooden chair sitting on a stained table in the center of the room. She wore a dirty smock and held a paintbrush.

“What do you do here?” Laurel stared at the loose-fitting smock.

“Refinish antiques … well, some are antique and some are merely authentic. I make foraging raids into Mexico now and again. Here.…” She handed Laurel a square of sandpaper and pointed to an oblong chest on the floor. “You can start anywhere you like. I just want the varnish and stain removed, not the deep scars and gouges. I think I'll restain over those and linseed it.”

“Why don't you use an electric sander?”

“For the same reason I don't brush my teeth with a wire scrub brush!”

Laurel knelt beside the chest and started on the lid where she'd have a smoother surface to work with. The sandpaper was of a coarse grade that left the surface roughened but made inroads on the many coats of varnish amateurishly daubed over the chest. They worked in silence for only a few minutes.

“Have you thought of a good story for the judge yet?”

The sandpaper stopped. Laurel didn't look up. “No.”

“Still don't remember?”

“No, I don't!”

“You could always say you got cold feet about being a mother and went to live with friends in the mountains or something. That sanding works better if you do a small patch at a time, dear.”

Leave it to Janet to come up with a story. It was flimsy but better than anything she'd thought of herself. But coming from Janet it was suspect; Laurel didn't trust her.

They both went back to work and Janet changed the subject. “You should have seen this place when I first came here. You wouldn't believe the valuable pieces that were stored away and the junk they used for furniture. Maria must have shopped the Goodwill. She was certainly no housekeeper, had no eye for quality.”

“Did you know her well?”

“She'd been dead for two years when I married Paul. Surely Michael told you something about us? But then I suppose you would have forgotten that, wouldn't you?”

There was another silence and Laurel began to relax. Sanding was hard but soothing work. She didn't have to think about what she was doing and thought instead of this sophisticated woman who was the last person in the world she would have expected to enjoy the messy work of refinishing furniture. She thought how quick she was to judge others, that she understood them no better than she did herself.

“As I was saying, you wouldn't have believed the place when I came here. They actually ate in the kitchen with Consuela. The front of the house was closed up except for the study and all the really nice things were covered or stored away. Well, you don't throw a Boston girl into a situation like that without a major upheaval. When I insisted we dress for dinner and use the dining rooms, I thought Father Devereaux would have apoplexy. But he dressed and he came. He said it was just to see if ‘poor Paul could tame his little filly.' That man was a horror. We all breathe easier now that he's gone.”

“When did he die?” It almost seemed that Michael's father, Paul I, was still alive the way everyone talked of him.

“Eight years ago, just before Michael went abroad. But I'd had ten years of the old man and, believe me, I didn't cry at the funeral. And the way he treated Paul was criminal. There, that's done. What do you think?”

Laurel nodded approval of what still looked like the skeleton of a chair to her and marveled at how Janet kept the mess on her smock while whatever showed above and below it was the meticulous butterfly. Laurel felt grimy from the roots of her hair to her shoes and had sanding dust between her teeth. “I'd heard Paul and his father didn't get along well.”

“Didn't get along? There was hatred there, my dear. And if there was ever doubt about that when Father Devereaux was alive he proved it in his will when he died.” Janet dabbed at her fingers with a rag and turpentine.

“What about the will?”

“Really, Laurel, if you remember anything, you remember that.” Her husky voice developed a purr. “That's why you came back, isn't it?”

“Your father-in-law never knew me, Janet. How could his will affect me?”

“You know, sometimes I could almost believe you. You're one of the most practiced liars I've ever met. That will was Father Devereaux's last joke on Paul … and me. The fair way would have been for him to divide the inheritance between Paul and Michael.”

“Didn't he?”

“Some of it. But the bulk of it was left in trust for the first child born to either of them. So you see, once I stopped to think about it, your coming back wasn't such a surprise after all.”

“Jimmy.”

“Yes, when dear sweet little James Michael Devereaux comes of age he's going to be a very wealthy young man. And I'm sure he'll take good care of his mother. You'll see to that, won't you?”

“How could he have known you wouldn't have the first child? I mean … you're Catholic and.…”

“No. Paul is Catholic, I'm not. I didn't care to go through that loathesome business of childbearing and rearing. I made it pretty plain to the old man when he kept making snide remarks about my not getting pregnant or about Paul being impotent. The leering old … oh well, he got the last leer I'm afraid.”

“What if Michael hadn't had a child?”

“If no heir was born within ten years of the old man's death or if that heir did not live to legal age the money would revert to Paul and Michael. But he knew Michael. Michael showed his womanizing talents early. It would only be a matter of time before some woman got a ring out of him. And knowing Michael, she'd be pregnant before she could get the rice out of her hair.”

“Poor Jimmy, it's a wonder no one's strangled him in his bed.” And Laurel bit her lip; she hadn't meant to say it aloud.

“Or hit him over the head with an ax?” Janet's voice hardened. “Really, Laurel, don't let your imagination run away with you. You have enough to worry about without that. I hear you want to move to Phoenix.”

“That was your husband's idea, not mine.”

“Well, I wouldn't advise it. Our Michael can be difficult when he's angry. It's soon time for lunch. Let's get cleaned up. You can come back and work on that chest any time you want something to do.” Janet removed her smock and hung it on a nail by the door as they left.

“Whatever you do, Laurel, don't cross him. Michael. Don't ever cross him.”

Janet had a way of lingering over Michael's name, her voice caressing it, drawing it out as if it were the name of a food she relished.

The sandstone of the courtyard seemed to soak up the heat and throw it back at them as they walked toward the stone stairs. Claire didn't see them as she carried Jimmy along the shaded walkway to the kitchen.

“Poor Claire. You really threw a monkey wrench into her plans. And she's been trying so hard, reading all those baby books, trying to show off to Michael. Do you know she actually pleaded with me to stop getting nurses and let her take over Jimmy? She'd like Paul to think I drafted her. But I thought why not? She might as well be earning her salary for a change doing something useful. Come to my door a minute, will you? I have something for you.” Laurel waited outside and Janet returned with a letter. “Here, you answer it. Maybe she'll stop pestering me.”

It was from Laurel's mother, Lisa Ann Lawrence, to Janet, a touching letter pleading for news of Jimmy and pictures of him with a warning to please send them to the address given, the neighbor's house, so that Mr. Lawrence wouldn't know his wife had written. Laurel could almost see the tears shed over this letter.

It came from Charles City, Iowa. She tried to marshal her memory into giving her some recollection of Iowa but got instead the familiar block. It would be inhuman not to answer this letter, but what would she say? Somehow her parents didn't seem quite human to her either.

June came and she hadn't answered it. Other things occupied her mind. The hearing in Denver. The need to be careful, watchful, to put her trust in no one. Nothing had happened since the night she'd been chased to her room and that part of her that reasoned thought she'd imagined the whole thing. But another instinctive part of her told her that the members of this household were more than just unpleasant. One of them, at least, was deadly. This instinctive side of her insisted she get up repeatedly during the night to check the locks, and it forced her to keep closer track of Jimmy. Since discovering his part in his grandfather's will, she feared for his safety too. Then, of course, if anyone wanted to harm Jimmy, they could have done so long ago. But still.…

The family kept her busy now, constant little jobs in the workshop, filing for Paul, watering potted plants in the courtyard. One Friday Janet decided to set up the large dining room for dinner. She and Laurel were polishing silver when Michael arrived from the base.

“One of your famous late dinner parties, Janet?” For some reason he reminded Laurel of a patrolman in his tan uniform.

“I'm afraid anyone worth inviting to a party has left this hot hole by now.”

“When do you plan to make your yearly flight from the heat? Little late, aren't you?”

“I've decided to stay in Tucson this summer.” Janet smiled across the table at Laurel. “I wouldn't want to miss out on any of the drama here.”

“You still haven't explained what the occasion is.”

“I thought it about time we celebrated … Laurel's homecoming. Oh, and I've asked Evan Boucher to stay for dinner. I thought it might be amusing.”

By anyone's standards but Janet's, the dinner was a flop. Six people couldn't converse comfortably around a table meant for at least twice that many. Not that one couldn't hear. Acoustically, the cavernous room was a wonder. Everyone could hear whispered conversations intended to be private. But with the distance between chairs, each diner became his own little island in his own sea of tableware and any sense of a convivial party atmosphere was lost.

Laurel overheard Claire complaining to Michael that she couldn't get into Jimmy's room in the mornings until Laurel unbolted the door. She heard Janet explaining to Evan that “poor Laurel thinks she's being chased by an ax murderer.” She noticed everyone grinning when Evan, sitting next to her and looking very pale, whispered that she should call him if she ever felt threatened again. He even surreptitiously wrote his phone number on a cloth napkin and slipped it to her. Laurel found this embarrassing and at the same time touching. Evan was a stranger in this house, too. And he was the only one who believed her or really cared about what happened to her.

Course followed course, too much wine passing with each. A weary Consuela shuffled from sideboard to table, perspiration on her dark face shining in the candlelight. Evan, who was clumsy enough at lunch, was at a total loss with the extra silver, the surfeit of delicate crystal. He must have dashed home for the ill-fitting coat and tie before dinner. Michael watched every move Laurel made. She sat directly across from him and met the intensity of his stare each time she looked up. Conversation became stiff and finally ended altogether.

Just the clinking of silver on china, the gurgle of wine pouring from bottle to glass, an occasional throat being cleared, the click of Consuela's shoes on tile. Laurel, her lips numb from the wine, prayed the dinner would end soon so she could hide away in her locked room, be near Jimmy. He was alone up there. If he awoke, no one would hear him.

When Janet's low voice rasped from the far end of the table, Laurel jumped and stained the white lace tablecloth with blood-red wine. “And how was the grand lecture this afternoon, Paul dear?”

“I did not deliver it.” Paul didn't even look up from his plate. He'd treated the whole dinner as if he were not a part of it.

“Why ever not?”

“Because Evan's hero delivered an address on my platform.”

“John the Baptist? He's here?” Evan's face flushed with wine and excitement. “In Tucson?”

“I believe his real name is Sidney Blackman and, yes, he is very much here. Just took over the hall.”

“John the Baptist? The one with all the robes and hair?” Janet peered around the brass candelabra.

“The same. Considers himself a new prophet. He reminds me more of Adolf Hitler with a beard.” Paul's mustache quivered and a tiny dot of cream sauce trembled at one end.

“What did he say?” Evan Boucher came to life, straightening, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, placing any number of side dishes in danger.

“The title of his address was ‘Peaceful Revolution—the Great Wool Blanket of the Establishment.'” Paul's sigh suggested weary but amused contempt.

Michael finally looked away from Laurel to his brother. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, he's trying to incite the students again. Things have been too quiet on the campuses lately. Ask young Evan there; he seems to know the current dogma by heart.” Reflections of candle flames danced on the lenses of Paul's glasses, all but hiding the eyes behind them.