The Big Steal (31 page)

The pole-type fire screen once had a very practical purpose, though, as you said, it wasn't to keep the room safe, the way mesh fire screens do today. They were intended to defray the heat and glare of the fire, and even to keep a lady's makeup from “melting” under the fire's intense heat. These screens also provided the perfect place for displaying needlework. Today such screens are purely decorative pieces, and those having antique needlework are highly prized. Their prices range widely, from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on quality, style, and age.

“I
HAD JUST FINISHED
decorating the mantel with magnolia boughs and holly for the holidays. Mazie stood in that very spot,” Miss Mary Sophie said, pointing toward the now fading flame with her cane. “She told me that in Louisiana a family's pride and its property came first, and at all cost. ‘I was
raised to live by the rule of pride, property, and then—only then—people,' Mazie said.” Miss Mary Sophie rested her cane by her chair.

“I don't think this code of honor was exclusive to the Deep South,” she said, “but Mazie felt it more deeply than other people, and she lived by it. In her mind, if she had exposed Hoyt to the world, the damage would have been to his pride, and as his wife, her pride—
their
family pride would have been destroyed by scandal.”

Miss Mary Sophie smiled sadly. “Sounds old-fashioned now, doesn't it? I know Mazie grappled with her decision, for this is what she said to me … and this, too, I have never forgotten. ‘I love my husband,' she said, ‘and I vowed to obey him when we married. My problem is with myself. How can I obey him in light of what I know and still respect myself? It is my self-respect I must hold on to.'”

Miss Mary Sophie made no apology when her voice cracked. “Yes, Mazie was what my generation would have called a woman of substance.”

I barely heard Miss Mary Sophie's last words. I was transported back to the night of Christmas 1955. Mazie was in the room off the priest hole, seated at her desk, pen in hand. I must have blanched. Miss Mary Sophie gave me a questioning look.

“Oh, nothing. Just something I remembered. Not important. Not now.”

But I couldn't erase the image. It had been on Christmas, that day of hope and renewed life, that Mazie had written her own obituary. So
that
was how Mazie thought she could solve the problem. She would remove herself from the situation. Being
Catholic, though, she couldn't do it. Suicide would have meant eternal damnation for her soul. Instead, she sealed the secret in her heart and lived with it by perpetuating the myth. But at least she had kept the stones hidden away.

“How hard it must have been for her to harbor all she knew,” I said.

“Oh, there have always been strong women, my dear. It is how they choose to show their strength that says so much about them.”

“And Hoyt, how old was he then?” I asked.

“Well, he was about sixty-five at the time …”

“And when did he die?” I asked. “She didn't kill him, did she?” I said jokingly. “I might have, you see.”

Miss Mary Sophie joined my caustic laughter. “Tell you the truth, I would have been tempted if Hoyt had been
my
husband. But not Mazie. It did seem as if she aged overnight, though. She became quite reclusive. And,” she said, “never once did she mention her visit to me. I know I wasn't any help to her. All I did that day was listen. I didn't know what else to do.” She turned melancholy. “I've relived that day a million times,” Miss Mary Sophie said, only to suddenly perk up. “Tell me, dear, did you ever read any of Ellen Glasgow's books?”

I shook my head guiltily. “Mother did,” I said.

Miss Mary Sophie glanced toward the books lining the walls. “Oh, Glasgow was a remarkable woman, lived her whole life in Richmond, you know. I have little doubt that Ellen Glasgow wrote through her problems through the characters in her books. Most of us aren't fortunate enough to be so talented. But even that didn't seem to be enough. Probably
because she was a spinster and kept her life bottled up inside her. She wrote an autobiography, but didn't allow it to be published until nine or ten years after her death. I'm telling you all this, my dear, because there's one line in that book … If you'll bring it to me, please. It's
The Woman Within
. It's over there, on the third shelf from the top. There. No a little further in toward the fireplace.”

I took the book from the shelf, careful not to tear the cover further than its constant handling had caused, and gave it to her. Miss Mary Sophie held it in her hands until I was settled. When she relaxed her hands, the book fell open to the very page she had known it would. In a slow steady voice she read. “‘I, who was winged for flying, should be wounded and caged.'”

Closing the book, Miss Mary Sophie folded her hands across it. “Ellen Glasgow became increasingly deaf during her twenties. That is what wounded and trapped her. But when I read that passage it was as if
Mazie
was speaking to me from the grave. Mazie had once been winged, poised to fly. Hoyt wounded her, Wynderly became her cage.” Miss Mary Sophie sighed.

“No wonder eventually Mazie's mind began to go. She was quite senile when she died. Whether or not she ever intended to tell anyone about the dogs, or Hoyt, we'll never know.”

Without realizing it until Miss Mary Sophie asked, “What is it, dear?” I had begun rubbing my head, trying to sort out what I learned.

Mazie had promised to give the dogs to Michelle—the sort of gift a young girl would have delighted in. If Mazie had thought the gems were real, that might have been a way of
trying to pass on some of the Wyndfields' wealth to her as a member of Jacques and Daphne's family. Yet, at some point, Mazie had hidden the dogs away deep in the attic.

And, on my first visit to Oakcliffe, Miss Mary Sophie had said “dogs” had been Mazie Wyndfield's dying word. I wondered how she might have known that until I realized the nurses attending Mazie had surely talked.

Miss Mary Sophie was right—fretting over issues that Mazie took to her grave was getting me nowhere. I smiled self-consciously and drew my hand from my head.

“Oh, I was just thinking,” I said, “it would seem that no matter what her intentions, Mazie could never let go the hurt the dogs had brought into her life—for how many years was it?”

Miss Mary Sophie did the numbers on her fingers. “That was Christmas 1955. Mazie died in 1985. Thirty years. A long time.”

“Miss Mary Sophie, I don't mean to ply you with questions, but I have to ask. Why do you think Hoyt did all the things he did?”

“Hmm.” She rested her chin in her hand and thought for a moment. “Pure and simple show. Hoyt liked showy things, and he liked to stand out in a crowd. I guess, in his own way, he was our F. Scott Fitzgerald. Drop-dead handsome. And flashy. Flashy in the way only handsome aristocratic Southern men who have it all can be.” Her mouth curled in an ironic twist in a way unlike her. “Trouble is, sometimes those fellows who have it all never feel that they have enough. Soon they're bored and restless. They drink and gamble. They go to war. They take chances. All the while thinking—no, make
that
believing
—they're impervious to harm, to rules, to the law.”

Miss Mary Sophie cast a glance over at her husband's picture on the table, and I wondered what secrets were in
her
past.

“I was always amused at the board meetings when people like Peggy Powers would go on about Hoyt's noble reasons for bringing treasure to these backwoods to share with those who would never travel to foreign lands,” she said. “Hogwash. Hoyt bought them for show and brought them here to gloat. He really should have been a riverboat gambler.”

Miss Mary Sophie smiled. “You're young, my dear. At least to me you are,” she said when I started to protest. “It's taken me years, but I finally realized Hoyt's hold on us. We all yearn to be a little villainous in some way. What
we
can't be, we like our men to be.” She chuckled. “Think of it this way. Scarlett may have loved Ashley, but her passion was for Rhett.”

There was truth in her words. “Still, I can't imagine what it must have been like to be in Mazie's shoes,” I said. “To have your own morals and ethics at conflict with those of the man you love … One last thing, though, Miss Mary Sophie, and please,
please
understand that I've been fighting my own private war this last day or so. You see, I've never done anything like I did at Wynderly when I took the papers. Most of them were receipts … but there were Mazie's diaries, too, and some personal things … and the dog. That damn dog. I still feel terrible about it.”

“Well don't,” Miss Mary Sophie said emphatically. Then turning thoughtful she said, “Frankly, dear, I'm glad this will
all come out while I'm still alive. No one else knows what I have told you. After you've had some time to think about it, you'll know what to do. I'm quite confident that you can couch what you tell the board in terms of the antiques.”

She leaned her body into her words and held out her hand to me as if to encourage me to think seriously about what she was saying. “Just tell them how you became suspicious about some pieces. How far you go in your explanations, only you can decide, Sterling. Don't worry. I'll stand behind you. And as far as your
guilt
goes, my dear,
I've
been as guilt-ridden for years as you've been for the past day or so.” She let out a long sigh. “Yes, I think we're
both
going to feel better now. But there is one thing I would ask,” she said. “Please be kind to Mazie. She was so misunderstood. That often happens when good people are caught in a bad world.”

My eyes locked with Miss Mary Sophie's now tear-rimmed eyes. “When we first talked, you told me that Hoyt and Mazie had lived lives filled with too many lies. I didn't know what you meant then. But now—” I had to clear my throat before I could continue. “A few minutes ago when you said what you did about Mazie smiling down on us … that helped soothe my conscience. Thank you.”

“I meant it, Sterling. From the way Mazie changed after that day, I know that keeping those secrets took a tremendous toll on her. But the truth is, Mazie was too proud for her own good. Shakespeare said, ‘He that is proud eats up himself.' Mazie's secrets eventually consumed her. Maybe if the truth about Hoyt comes out, Mazie can rest more peacefully. At least in my mind she will.” Miss Mary Sophie crossed herself.

“I don't usually do that, my dear, and certainly not in public, but it seemed the right thing to do,” she said, smiling peacefully. “For Mazie.”

“Miss Mary Sophie, do you think Hoyt ever felt any guilt?”

“That's something else I've grappled with,” she said. “He, too, began failing shortly thereafter. I've often wondered if it was because he had been found out, or simply because he could never play the game again. Knowing his type, and I've known lots of rascals, I honestly think Hoyt's shenanigans were an amusement, a way to entertain himself. I doubt if he ever gave any thought to the wrong he was doing.” She stared into the fire. “We'll never know. But no need to dwell on that.”

But I couldn't let go of the thought. “I wonder what Hoyt said when Mazie confronted him,” I said.

Again Miss Mary Sophie cast her old eyes toward her husband's photograph. “That, too, we will never know. But this I
do
know. No one knows what goes on between two people but those two people.”

Miss Mary Sophie straightened herself up and looked my way. “So,” she said, almost cheerfully, “any
more
questions for me?”

I laughed. “Actually, yes. One I almost forgot to ask. In early photographs of Wynderly's rooms there are lovely antiques, American pieces. Whatever happened to them?”

Miss Mary Sophie smiled. “Look around.”

“Around?”

Her head turned and she nodded. “There. And there. And the fire screen, of course. It still has the old needlework. It's one of my favorites. Yes, my father bought a lot of them. And
in the living room—” Miss Mary Sophie grasped her cane as she rose from the chair. “After Hoyt's death, Mazie bought some fine Southern pieces,” she said. “Have you—”

But before I could answer Miss Mary Sophie said, “Oh, Nora. I didn't see you there.”

“Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry to interrupt,” Nora said from the doorway. “I said you couldn't be disturbed, but Ms. Hendrix at Wynderly said the police were on their way over there, and she insisted that she speak to Ms. Glass.”

Dear Antiques Expert: A friend of mine has a collection of 18th- and 19th-century stirrup cups. I know the old ones are rare, but they would make a nice gift for gentlemen who are hard to buy things for. Are reproductions being made?

Originally stirrup cups, like flasks, were designed to hold liquid and thus had either a hinged or screwed top to keep the contents from spilling. Today jiggers are being made that replicate antique fox and stag motif stirrup cups, but since jiggers are intended for pouring, they are open-ended and often have a handle at one side. These stirrup cup kinds of jiggers are made in silverplate, pewter, and sterling silver, and usually are sold in boutiques and jewelry stores in horse country regions where thoroughbreds are raised, especially Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, and of course, Kentucky.

O
F ALL THE THINGS
Miss Mary Sophie had said, one rang in my head the entire drive back to Wynderly. “Don't you know about love, my dear?” she had asked me.

“I must not,” I said aloud as I turned off the highway toward the house. I had been wondering how my own love story
would play out until I saw the police car. That jarred me out of my melancholy.