The Silver Ghost (17 page)

The Dorks, with both a son and a daughter-in-law performing, had also stayed close to the dancing green. Dorothy had particularly mentioned how easily Erp had been able to drop his Betty costume, just a rudely contrived hoopskirt framework with a wide swatch of red material draped over it, and leap in doublet, hose, and hood into the set with the rest. It turned out by a happy coincidence that she herself had devised the rig.

Both Dorks and Tolbathys had been of the opinion that all dancers had remained with the group whether they were dancing or not, except for quick trips to the pavilion for refueling. The only ones who’d left early were the Abbotts, as expected. They in fact had not gone as soon as they ought to have. They’d wound up running for their car in their costumes with loud outcries and lamentations. Lilias had had to abandon her plan of staying for the banquet and drive the car so that her husband and son could change their clothes en route. Lilias in her kirtle would surely have outshone the bride, but she’d appeared when last seen to be bearing up bravely under that expectation.

So that solved the question of what the Abbotts had done with their costumes and why Vercingetorix Ufford’s bright green hose were now interesting Max Bittersohn. Nehemiah Billingsgate wasn’t being particularly helpful as yet.

“I don’t quite know what to tell you, Max. I suppose when you come down to it, I don’t know Versey all that well, myself.”

“After thirty years?”

“It does sound absurd, I know. But I expect you yourself have acquaintances of long standing whom you don’t exactly count as friends. The sad fact is that Versey isn’t the sort one warms up to.”

“He’s hard to get along with?”

“I shouldn’t call him contumacious. It’s more that gently condescending manner of his that gets under one’s skin. Versey does know a great deal, but he tends to take it for granted nobody else knows anything at all. You must admit it’s hard to get close to someone who’s giving the impression he thinks you’re a nitwit. I don’t suppose he really thinks anything of the sort, poor fellow, but there it is. Am I being uncharitable, Max?”

“Not by me, Bill. I never got to talk with him yesterday, but I don’t feel all that charitable toward him, myself. Sarah had some trouble with him, as she mentioned last night.”

“Yes, I’m afraid that’s another of Versey’s problems. He fancies himself a ladies’ man, and that can become tiresome. We don’t have him out as often as we might for that very reason. However, the Renaissance Revel is one event from which we couldn’t possibly exclude him, considering how much he’s done to help us get started and keep them going.”

“Like what, for instance?”

“Planning the music and the menus, advising on costumes, coaching the Morris dancers, helping Lorista assemble and equip her consort. How many people, for instance, would have known just where to put their hands on a cittern or a pandora?”

“I thought Pandora was a girl who opened the wrong box,” said Max.

“So did I,” Bill replied, “but thanks to Versey, I’ve learned it can have other meanings. That peculiar-looking guitar Tick’s niece Alison played yesterday for the minstrelsy was a pandora. Or bandore, if you prefer.”

Max had no particular choice in the matter. “Alison was the pretty one in the Burne-Jones getup who looked as if she’d just ridden her palfrey in from Camelot?”

“Yes, Alison is quite lovely, we think. She’s another who has little use for Versey, you can imagine why.”

“How does a guy like him manage to teach? By staying away from coed schools?”

“Oh, Versey hasn’t taught much for years. He’s a visiting lecturer, which is to say he spends a little time at one place or another delivering a series of talks on Renaissance dancing, which is really his specialty, but he never stays anywhere long, so I suppose he manages to control himself for the duration.”

“On the other hand, that may be why he never stays,” said Max. “How’s he fixed for money?”

“Adequately, as far as I know. There’s some family money, I believe, as well as whatever Versey gets for his writing and lecturing. The pittance we pay him would hardly count, but he does enjoy the work, and it apparently gives him some kudos in academic circles.”

“So he’s got enough to live on, anyway?”

“Oh yes, though not lavishly.” Bill shook his head. “I shouldn’t say that; I have no idea how he lives when he’s abroad. But he lives rather frugally here. He has an apartment in somebody’s attic, from the way he describes it. He doesn’t even run a car. That’s a nuisance for us because it means he’s always having to be fetched and carried, but I don’t suppose he’d get enough use out of one to justify the cost of keeping it on the road. Versey does seem to spend a fair amount on recordings and sound equipment, from what he tells me, but I suppose he can write all that off as business expenses. His only other extravagance that I know of is clothes. Versey’s a dapper fellow. But he buys his things in Italy where they may not cost so much.”

“Why Italy in particular?”

“Because that’s where he spends at least half his time. Versey has a place in Venice. I can’t tell you what it’s like because I’ve never seen it. I do have the address, should you need that for any reason. Melly claims he keeps a mistress there who cleans the house and cooks the fettuccine, and carries on an amorous dalliance with a fat gondolier when Versey isn’t around. Melly and Tick are rather given to rude conjecture on the subject of Versey’s love life, I’m ashamed to say.”

Bill didn’t look ashamed, he looked mildly amused for the first time since he’d learned about Rufus. Max waited until the smile began to fade before he remarked, “This is quite a spread you’ve got here. I never did get to see much of the grounds yesterday. What are all those big pink things over in the distance?”

“Crab apple trees in full bloom. There aren’t too many garden flowers this time of year, so we rely a good deal on flowering trees and shrubs to keep our bees busy. We plant them far away from the house because we don’t want the bees bothering people. That’s a point we really have to consider, because if one happened to swat at a bee and got stung, the whole swarm might attack.”

“Thanks for telling me,” said Max, glancing around to make sure the screens over the cab were securely in place. “What’s that building over there?”

The low brick structure was so well camouflaged by spreading evergreens that someone with less acute vision might not have noticed it at all. Bill obliged by steering the electric cart toward it, but said there wasn’t anything to see, really.

“That’s what we call the honey shed, where we take the honey from the hives to be extracted and bottled. We also use it to store a lot of the paraphernalia. There’s so much stuff one needs: bee veils, smokers, frames for the combs, crates of empty jars and bottles—Abigail could tell you better than I. The mead is brewed and aged in the cellars back at the house, and also shipped from there, so we try to keep all the extraneous clutter out here in the shed.”

“Is the door locked?”

“I hope so. There’s nothing inside of value except to ourselves, but we have that problem about the insurance, so we just make a rule to keep everything locked and then we don’t forget.”

“Would you mind showing me inside?”

“Not at all, though I’m afraid you won’t find it very interesting.” Bill stopped the cart so he could reach into his pocket. “Oh dear, I was afraid I’d left my keys at the house, and I have. It’s been such a bewildering morning.” He fished some more. “I don’t have my wallet, either, or my pocket Testament. I suppose they’re all on the dresser in our bedroom. Old age sneaking up on me, Max. I spend half my time lately wondering where I’ve put things. We can turn right here and go straight back to the house, if you can spare an extra few minutes.”

“My time is your time.”

As they made the turn, Max kept his eyes on the shed, but it’s camouflage was so good that before they’d gone fifty yards down the other path, it was completely invisible. Bill didn’t show any interest, but concentrated on steering the cart toward a small side door of the big house that looked as if it ought to admit them to the dungeon.

Instead, they climbed a few stairs, passed through a short hallway, and came upon a small sitting room where Abigail and Drusilla were sitting in front of an open fire, each with a piece of needlework in her lap. Except for their tweed skirts and knitted cardigans, they might have been a pair of mediaeval ladies whiling away the time until their absent lords wended their respective ways home from the geste.

“Well, you two have made yourselves cozy,” Bill remarked, stepping nimbly between a hassock and a sewing basket to give his wife a peck on the cheek. “I expect a spot of cozy is what you both need just now. No, Drusilla, don’t move. Max and I are merely passing through. Or rather, I’m passing. Why don’t you stay here and enjoy the fire, Max, while I run upstairs? I shan’t be two minutes.”

“My pleasure.” Max took the other end of the sofa on which Drusilla Gaheris was sitting and stretched his legs toward the fender. “It’s nippy out there. Quite a change from yesterday.”

“What have you been doing?” Abigail asked him.

“Riding around in your electric cart, mostly.”

Max didn’t feel like bringing up the unpleasant subject of the tranquilizer gun just now. He’d let Bill tell them later on. “Those carts are fun, aren’t they? I wouldn’t mind getting one for Sarah, but I suspect they’re not much good on rough ground. Our land is mostly up and down.”

“Do you have a big place, Mr. Bittersohn?” asked Mrs. Gaheris.

“Thirty acres, now that we’ve sold off the far corner. Not much compared to this.”

“Bill’s grandfather laid out an eighteen-hole golf course on this property, did you know that, Drusilla?” said Abigail. “But it was a dreadful nuisance to keep up, and Bill never cared much for the game anyway. After his father died, we got interested in beekeeping, or rather I did and Bill, bless his heart, went along with me. As the swarms multiplied, we kept plowing up hole after hole and planting more clover and so forth, until we’d eliminated the entire course. We’ve rather got our eyes on the tennis court now, but Melly and Tick like to play and so do the grandchildren. Anyway, there’s not enough space to do much with, so I expect we’ll leave it alone. Did you play much tennis while you were abroad? Drusilla used to be our school champion,” she explained to Max.

“That was a great many years ago.” Mrs. Gaheris snipped off her thread and reached into her workbox for a skein of a different color. “I can’t remember when I played last, to be honest with you. Diplomatic tennis isn’t much fun, you know. One has to be so careful not to outplay the wrong opponent. My husband and I did try mountain climbing in an unambitious sort of way when we first went to Switzerland; but as time went on we had to settle for short walks and long rides.”

“Up and down the Alps?” Abigail cried to cover the moment’s embarrassment they must all have felt at being reminded of Mrs. Gaheris’s recent widowhood. “I should call that quite ambitious, myself.”

“Not really. It’s rather fun once one gets used to driving with one’s heart in one’s mouth.”

“And ifs surely given you excellent training for driving in Massachusetts. We do that all the time here. We can also arrange some nonthreatening tennis if you like, Drusilla.”

“Don’t bother. I’ve decided to take up the recorder instead. They’re easy to carry about and nobody ever asks one to play.”

“Ah, but we shall, my dear. We adore recorder music. Now that you’re going to settle here, you ought to join Lorista’s consort.”

“Not I. I’ll never be good enough. Besides, I don’t know the first thing about Renaissance music.”

“Get Ufford to teach you,” Max suggested.

“But I don’t know Professor Ufford, either.” Mrs. Gaheris got her needle threaded to her satisfaction and took up her work again. “Not well enough to ask a favor, anyway.”

“Nonsense,” said Abigail. “Versey would love to have you as a pupil.”

“Perhaps, if I were forty years younger and as attractive as Mrs. Bittersohn. But even then I’m afraid we’d never have clicked. I was a brunette and Versey prefers blondes.” She took a neat stitch. “Or so Melisande claims, and I gather from what she said last night that Melly has reason to know. She did look absolutely gorgeous yesterday, Abby.”

Mrs. Gaheris took another stitch. “By the way, Mr. Bittersohn, what color is your wife’s hair? She had it all covered up and I never did get to see.”

“It’s brown.” For some reason, Max found the question annoying. He was relieved when Bill stuck his head in at the door.

“Can I tear you away, Max?”

“Wouldn’t you both like a cup of tea to warm you up before you go?” Abigail offered.

“Thanks,” said Max, “but I’d like to do as much as possible outdoors before it rains, if that’s what it’s getting ready to do.”

The day that had started out so fair was now overcast. He hoped Sarah wouldn’t get caught in a storm on the way back from Scituate. Driving the South Shore highways was lousy at the best of times.

The fields must be positively cob webbed with paths. Bill took yet a different route back to the shed Max wanted to see.

“This one doesn’t get used a great deal,” he remarked when they’d gone a fair distance into the fields. “It has a tricky dip that Abigail doesn’t like out near the honey shed. I don’t know why we’ve never got around to having it filled in. Always too many other things to be done first, I suppose. Max, is this motor making a lot more noise than when we started out? I hope it’s not going to act up on us.”

“That’s not the cart, Bill.” The electric motor was still purring along at about the decibel level of a well-stroked cat. “The noise is coming from up ahead somewhere. Would anyone be using a chain saw?”

“They’d better not be on our side of the road.”

Bill put on an angry burst of speed. Max hoped he’d simmer down before they got to that tricky dip in the path. The noise grew louder, a throbbing buzz more like half a dozen distant saws than one. But not quite. Abruptly, the driver stopped the cart to listen.

“That’s bees, Max. But why should they be swarming now? And why here? We’ll have to check this out. Stay in the cart and don’t open the screen, whatever you do.”