Tea Cups & Tiger Claws (28 page)

Dorthea had been foolish. She’d coasted, closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, instead of only brain dead Veronica standing in her way, she also found an alert little watch dog by the name of Sarah Evans. Wholesome, incorruptible Sarah, Prospect Park’s own Cinderella, who danced at the balls in the evening and scurried back down the hill at midnight. Dorthea had assumed that she’d take yet another inheritance, this time from Judith Newfield, and then fade into the background. Instead, she’d been named trustee of the estate and now had the power to ruin everything. Like a common sluggard, Dorthea had settled for an assumption instead of finding out what needed to be known.

After the fit of anger had run its course, after she’d chased Veronica away for a day,
Dorthea realized that no real damage had been done—provided she made some immediate adjustments. One of those adjustments involved taking a limousine ride up the hill a little sooner than she’d originally planned.

That ride
, by design, didn’t go straight to the top, though. First it went to the bottom, to Yucky D, where Dorthea looked out the limousine window at her pathetic childhood home. She also looked for Ermel’s sneaky eyes peering through the tattered window curtains, like in the old days.

Age
seventy-three, with a liver the size of a pot roast, the old lush still hadn’t died, a fact that didn’t bother Dorthea on this particular morning because she wanted Ermel, the one who’d said that Dorthea would never amount to anything, to see for herself what she’d soon be reading about in the newspapers and hearing about from friends. The time had come to put on a little show and then watch her eat crow.

Dorthea told the driver
to park along the street and to honk the horn. He gave two short blasts that didn’t seem to get Ermel’s attention, even though it did cause a middle-aged lady in curlers, probably the neighborhood busybody, to poke her head out from the doorway of one of the normal homes across the street from Yucky D. The driver honked again. This time a haggard looking lady in the shack next to Ermel’s came out, followed by a gaggle of kids in dirty clothes and various stages of undress. The kids leaned against their mother and the whole lot stared at the limousine.

The next
series of blasts caused the busybody across the street to step onto her front porch. It also caused a man with a scruffy beard, dressed in undershorts and a tee shirt, to storm from the shanty across the courtyard from Ermel’s. He held up a newspaper to shield the morning sun and gestured with his other hand.

From all corners people stared, but not the person who
really mattered. Then the busybody started waving. Dorthea cracked the window to hear what she had to say.

“Ermel
isn’t there. They took her away in an ambulance and she died yesterday at the hospital.”

The news caught Dorthea off guard. She sat there, frozen, and then she laughed.
Of course she died yesterday. How could it be otherwise? If she’d died two days later that might’ve meant just a bit of satisfaction for her daughter, and everyone knew Ermel had a special knack for not giving people what they wanted. Dorthea herself had this same knack; from criminally minded simpletons, all the way up to the richest hillside snobs, she knew how to get the best of a person. She’d never gotten the best of Ermel Railer, though. Even then, in the back of that limousine, some forty years after she’d left Ermel to rot at Yucky D, Dorthea still heard the cackling laugh and the screeching, detestable words: “Nobody shows up Ermel Railer.”

The
car pulled away and Dorthea lowered the window the rest of the way to capture one last look of the place from which she’d escaped. Yucky D was a pit, lower than an outhouse pit, and nobody ever got out of there. At least she had that over Ermel, who’d been taken out on a stretcher. Dorthea had gotten out on her own, all the way out, and, as the limo drove through town, she saw exactly what that meant. She drove past the dangling slaves on Pine Street who saw hopelessness above and Yucky D below; past the tidy wannabe neighborhoods where dreams of status grew like infected pimples; past the merchants’ big houses, which had the best view of everything unattainable on the hill; past the business district, where everyone mixed, and well behaved wretches glad-handed and carried groceries for the rich; past the base of the hill, onto the other side, where newly married sons and daughters suffered privation by living in minor mansions; past impressive neighborhoods occupied by impressive fortunes; past bigger mansions and bigger fortunes; finally, to the biggest of them all.

The limousine pulled up to the gate
. Dorthea had made it to Sunny Slope Manor.

~~~

Sarah trudged up the hill to the house and wished Nanny had chosen another day to come unglued. She’d always been partial to breathless fluster, and advancing age didn’t seem to be helping the condition. And this one sounded like a doozy, even by her standards; something about Veronica getting married and a mother-in-law moving into Sunny Slope Manor. On the other hand, thought Sarah, the idea of Veronica having a mother-in-law didn’t sound all bad; especially if it happened to be a stern one, with an eye monocle and protruding nose hairs.

When she got to the front door
, it opened before she touched the knob, and Perkins greeted her with a curious look. Nanny stood behind him dabbing a white handkerchief to her red face.

“
A Miss Dorthea Railer is in the parlor, ma’am,” he said, in his usual detached way.

“
Dorthea? Did she say what she wants?”

“
I’m not exactly sure, Miss Sarah. Something about—”

“Perkins you’re useless!”
hissed Nanny. “If the house ever catches fire, we’ll all burn to death while you do your English butler routine.” She turned her overheated countenance to Sarah. “She’s talking crazy about Veronica getting married and about being the mother-in-law and some other nonsense about the manor. I don’t know Miss Sarah. I’ve heard about this lady before. Maybe you better talk to her.”

After letting out a small chuckle,
Sarah said, “Is that also what you heard, Mr. Perkins?”

“Yes,
Miss, something to that effect.”

“Thank you
. I’ll take it from here.”

She
wiped her hands on her riding pants and headed across the hall to parlor number one. It didn’t sound like a bad morning diversion. Now richer than most people on the hill, and hated by more than most, Dorthea Railer always promised to be mysterious and captivating. As a child Sarah hadn’t liked her mother’s cruel sister, but now, as an adult, who knew how to keep people at a safe distance, a visit with “Aunt” Dorthea, for old times’ sake, didn’t sound bad. Besides, thought Sarah, she probably only wanted to talk about the ill-advised winter ball that she and Veronica had cooked up. Sarah slid open the heavy wooden door and unexpectedly saw not only her mother’s sister, but almost an actual living picture of Mother herself. When Aunt Judith had been alive, Sarah had taken the sight of one of her mother’s identical sisters for granted. Now that two of the three sisters had died, it meant something, and caused a moment’s hesitation, before she started across the room to greet the guest, who sat in the rosewood armchair next to the coffee table.

Of course Mother had never fix
ed herself up like Dorthea, who had her hair up, tucked under a white hat with a wide brim that turned up in the back, giving her the air of a woman on the go. She wore a buttoned purple fabric bomber jacket, trimmed in white, with a white collar, over a black turtle neck. Her purple skirt, flared and pleated, with white trim, matched her jacket. A young outfit for someone her age, but she pulled it off well enough.

And then there were those eyes, light gray, with a hint of blue, but not enough to make them
human looking. Sarah extended her hand and said, “Hello, Dorthea.  This is an unexpected surprise.”

“Yes, my dear, it has been a while, but I thought, under the circumstances, it might be better to
pay you a call sooner rather than later.”

“Yes…yes…the circumstances
. You must be referring to the winter ball,” said Sarah, as she sat on the sofa that faced Dorthea.

“Not at all. I’m referring to
Ernest and Veronica, of course.”

“
Ernest and Veronica…. Has Veronica done something to Ernest?”

“Not yet
, I should hope. She hasn’t had a chance, but they are just getting started,” said Dorthea, with a little laugh.

Sarah
stared blankly.

“
They haven’t told you, have they?” asked Dorthea. “I’m not surprised. When you’re young and in love, the rest of the world all but disappears. Since they don’t seem to care, I’ll tell you. Ernest and Veronica are engaged to be married.”

“
Married? Ernest and Veronica? I don’t mean to imply that you’re mistaken, but…are you sure you’ve got the right Veronica?”

“She told me herself,
with Ernest standing by her side.”

“
It’s not possible. I’m sorry. She doesn’t even have a boyfriend. I think I’d know if she had a fiancé.”

A
subtle smile crept across Dorthea’s mouth. “You and Veronica aren’t the best of friends, and she doesn’t feel comfortable sharing intimate details with you. She told me that in the strictest confidence, and I only mention it to help you understand why she hasn’t said anything to you.”

The thought of
grumpy Veronica having a heart-to-heart with Dorthea Railer made Sarah want to laugh.

“My dear,” continued Dorthea, “
our feelings about it are not the issue. And neither is the fact that I saw them get engaged—and saw the glow on Veronica’s face. What matters is what your cousin has to say. Why don’t you just ask her?”

“Yes
, yes, I’m so silly. We’ll just ask her.” What better way to resolve this little twilight zone melodrama, thought Sarah, as she offered a polite smile and excused herself to go track down her cousin.

Sarah looked
down the hallway toward the stairway and noticed the open door at parlor number two. This obviously meant that Nanny had her ear pinned to the wall and had just heard every word.

“See! I told you!” said Nanny when she saw
Sarah.

“Nanny, go
get Veronica, and send her into the parlor.”

“
And what if I find her not being herself…if you know what I mean?”

“Send her
anyway; she could be on LSD and know she’s not engaged to Ernest Dodd. And tell Mr. Perkins to bring up some tea. I’m not going to be stuck in there without some diversion.”

Sarah
walked back to the parlor but something caused her to stop just before the doorway. Across the room she saw Dorthea leaning over the fireplace. She held her ear up to the marble mantle and knocked on it. She knocked again and listened. She then stood upright, stepped over to the window seat, and ran her hand along the leather that lined the wall behind the seat. She pushed her fingertips against it and got her face close and smelled it. Sarah stepped back and spied for a few moments as Dorthea touched and smelled and all but licked her way around the room. An odd lady, with an odd reputation, telling an odd story; harmless enough, except this particular oddball also had a well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness. Sarah didn’t like it. Something was wrong.

Finally s
he reentered the room and closed the door behind her. “Veronica will be right down. Please make yourself comfortable. I’m sure when she gets here all this awkwardness will get sorted out.”

“My dear, it’s not awkward at all
,” said Dorthea, as she sat back into the rosewood chair and Sarah returned to the sofa on the other side of the coffee table. “You still see Veronica as your little cousin, that’s all. Ernest sees her as a woman.”

“
That’s another thing that puzzles me—since you brought it up—Ernest has never seen Veronica as anything but an enemy; and the same for Veronica. How did they suddenly go from enemies to engaged?”

“
Love is mysterious. What can we say?”

“
That’s some kind of love,” said Sarah.

“
Perhaps you think Ernest isn’t a good match for Veronica?”

“
Just between you and me, the way things are with Veronica right now, the trash man would be a good match. Of course Ernest is a few steps above that.” Sarah smiled innocently and Dorthea stared. Fortunately, the wooden door then slid open and Sarah thought that she’d been saved by the tea cart. She said, “Mr. Perkins! You’ve brought us some tea. How nice.”

“No.
And I hope you didn’t get me out of bed for a tea party.”

Veronica stood
at the doorway, in more than her usual splendor, and not too far removed from the grip of whatever demons she’d most recently been entertaining. With limp, uncombed hair framing her pallid face, she stared at Sarah through joyless, sagging eyes. The ever-present bell bottoms, which she’d obviously slept in, looked as if they stayed up by nothing more than her protruding hip bones.

“
Hello, my dear,” said Dorthea, as she rose from the chair.