The Late Clara Beame

by Taylor Caldwell

  “I think I know when I’ve had enough to drink!” she retorted. Her face trembled, and she felt like crying. What was wrong with Henry? “You know I drink very little, Henry. Please, let’s change the subject.”

  “I just don’t want you to be sick again.” Henry put his arm around her.

  “I don’t intend to be,” she told him, and heard the edge of hysteria in her voice. Oh, what a fool she was making of herself, spoiling everything, for her husband, her guests, and herself. The wind thundered against the windows. Then Edith announced dinner. Laura turned quickly and stumbled, as Henry grasped her arm. “Take it easy,” he cautioned, as the others watched them closely.

  When they were at the beautifully set table, with the crystal and silver sparkling in the candlelight, Laura felt ill again. She could not eat; she simply could not force herself. Her sense of isolation, of being completely alone, had returned. The others, sensing that she was upset, made light conversation around her. John Carr mentioned that he had not had the time to sit down with Henry to go over the partnership papers. Smilingly he confided to Alice: “Too many pretty women around. That’s the trouble.” “I’ll teach you to use snowshoes,” she promised. Suddenly she remembered what Henry had told her about John’s gun. It all seemed absurd now. David had been quite right. Surely he had hidden it for safety. A charming, easygoing young man like this could hardly be dangerous. She knew perfectly well that criminals often had honest eyes, and truly evil people the expressions of saints. But she had usually been able to detect liars and the truly evil, and there was none of this in John Carr. There was more than candor in his eyes. There was sincerity, and there was strength and kindness about his mouth. Not all the fraud in the world could put them there.

  Then she thought of her dead husband, and her face was empty again.

  “Aren’t you going to eat anything?” Henry asked Laura anxiously. “You haven’t touched your dinner.”

  Laura fumbled for her knife and fork, and tried to eat the excellent lamb chops, but the meat nauseated her. She was aware of Henry’s close attention, his encouraging smiles, which made her nervous. If only he would stop watching her! She dropped her fork in her lap and uttered an exasperated cry.

  “No damage,” David said, brushing her skirt with his napkin.

  “I’m always dropping things!” Laura apologized, gesturing with her hand and suddenly overturning her water glass. Henry was on his feet immediately, his face drawn with concern.

  “It doesn’t matter!” she told him. “Please don’t bother about me!”

  Edith came in with hot rolls. “Please bring a heavy towel, or something,” Laura told her. “I’ve spilled the water.”

  Edith went out, sighing loudly. “That girl always makes a fuss over the slightest thing Laura does,” Henry said, annoyed. “She never makes allowances for — everything.”

  “She’s really very good,” Laura put in. “And we couldn’t get anyone else to stay here, so far from everything. I don’t mind her tantrums.”

  Edith returned with a towel and made elaborate work of sopping up the water. Conversation resumed. Laura knew she had offended Henry; he refused to look at her. She ought not to have lost her temper; she ought not to have been so nervous.

  She wanted desperately to enter the conversation. Alice was describing the technique of using snowshoes to John Carr, and he was listening, his head bent to her. When she paused, Laura interrupted excitedly, “I wrote you that we’d have snow when you came, Alice, and I was right.”

  Alice looked puzzled. “In your last letter: The one inviting me?”

  “No, the first one I wrote you after Thanksgiving, when we did have a flurry. You remember I wrote that if we have snow at Thanksgiving we usually have a heavy snow at Christmas?”

  Alice frowned. Laura felt a little thrust of exasperation again. “The letter you didn’t answer, Alice, the first one inviting you. Don’t you remember?”

  “But I didn’t receive any letter from you after Thanksgiving, Laura, except the one you wrote about two weeks ago.”

  “But I wrote you two letters!”

  “I only received one,” Alice repeated.

  Laura regarded her blankly. “I did write you two. You didn’t answer the first. That’s why I wrote you the second time.”

  Alice shrugged. “Well, don’t let it upset you. Letters sometimes get lost, you know.”

  Laura turned to her husband. “You remember, darling? I wrote Alice two letters. When she didn’t answer the first, I mentioned it to you, and said I would write again, as we did so want her to come for Christmas. You took both letters to New York with you to mail, so they’d reach Alice quicker.”

  Henry looked embarrassed. “I — I can’t remember, Laura. You’re always giving me letters to mail.”

  “But you do remember my mentioning that Alice hadn’t answered my first invitation?” For some reason it seemed desperately necessary to her that Henry remember, and assure her of it.

  “I honestly don’t remember.” He smiled sheepishly. “After all, it wasn’t a matter of life or death, was it? I have lots of things on my mind.”

  Alice’s eyes narrowed as she looked questioningly at Henry.

  “But Henry! You even asked me if Alice had answered the first invitation! Don’t you remember? You suggested that I write again, that Alice might not have received the letter or was out of town. So, I wrote that night, and you put an airmail stamp on it. I noticed the stamp; you said it was a special issue. We talked about it.”

  “I remember that letter, yes,” Henry told her. “But not the first one, dear. It doesn’t matter. Alice received your last letter, and she’s obviously here, isn’t she?”

  Laura thought fearfully, I must be losing my mind. They say it’s a sign of insanity to get excited and frantic over trivialities. What’s wrong with me?

  Edith came in to remove the dinner dishes, and Laura watched her through a haze of misery and embarrassment. She swallowed and noticed for the first time that her throat was scratchy and a little sore. Her heart sank. A sore throat could mean chills and fever during the night, and at least two weeks of complete wretchedness and disability. Oh, no! she thought. I just can’t be sick on Christmas, of all days!

  She said to David: “I’ve just discovered I have a sore throat. How can I head off a cold?”

  “Try dissolving two tablets of aspirin in hot water and gargling with it,” he prescribed. “And swallow a couple of tablets. Then hie you to bed as soon as possible, with a hot-water bottle. That’s as far as medical science can reach with a cold. Greatest mystery in the world — colds. We’re about to have a breakthrough on cancer, and we have diabetes practically licked, and tuberculosis can almost always be cured in a reasonable length of time. But when it comes to colds, which are as miserable as almost any other disease, and twenty times as prevalent as any of them ever were, we stand absolutely impotent, with our fluids, aspirin, beds, nose drops, and gargles. And antibiotics to help against secondary infections. Nothing does much good, of course, except a limitless supply of handkerchiefs.”

  “I hope we don’t get it,” Alice commented.

  Her tone was light, but Laura felt guilty. “As soon as dinner’s over, I’ll do what David advised.” She laughed weakly. “Perhaps if I use will power it will help.”

  She excused herself immediately after dinner. She understood suddenly, with relief, that the cold must have been coming, which had made her nervous and confused. She took her temperature. It was 101. She could have smashed the thermometer in her annoyance. But still, her heart lifted. She could almost laugh at the spectacle of herself becoming frantic over a lost letter. They must think her very childlike, all of them, except poor Henry, who had only been trying to pamper her. Her head felt light and giddy. She really had drunk too much; she had taken a fourth drink just to annoy Henry.
I am behaving, as usual, like a spoiled child, she told herself.

  “Any fever?” David asked her, when she came downstairs and rejoined the group around the fire.

  “Well, a little. But my throat feels better. No, no brandy for me, Henry.”

  “No?” He looked surprised. “Laura doesn’t want brandy! Did you hear that?”

  But I don’t like brandy, Laura thought. Henry knows that.

  “Good girl,” Henry said, as if she had given him great pleasure. “You don’t mind us having some, dear?”

  “Not at all,” she told him.

  She would have enjoyed some crème de menthe, and looked at the bar for the customary bottle, but it wasn’t there. Oh, well, she thought. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps it would be better, with a cold coming on, not to drink. She noticed that Henry was looking at her with such obvious love, and attracting amused attention by doing so, that she was embarrassed.

  A little later they opened their presents. Laura, conscious of Alice’s pride, had paid only a modest price for the pretty nightgown and matching silk coat she gave her. Alice examined the garments and thanked Laura somewhat stiffly. She had brought Laura a velvet jewelry case. Henry had diamond earrings for his wife, which she insisted upon wearing at once. She had given him matched traveling cases. “We are going abroad in the spring, unless a war breaks out,” she told John Carr. There was, of course, nothing for John, and Laura felt deeply sorry for him.

  “You really have no relatives at all?” she asked.

  “One detestable sister,” he told her, with an agreeable smile. “Married to a detestable man, and with two detestable children. Fortunately I don’t have to see any of them very often.”

  “I thought you didn’t have anyone,” Henry said. “That’s the impression you gave me. Can’t you stand your sister even for Christmas?”

  “She lives in California. We have nothing in common, and I’m sure she’s glad I’m not squatting on her hearth tonight.”

  Then Alice said an extraordinary thing. “I’m not sure of that. If you were my brother, I’d be glad to have you; I’d want to have you.”

  Laura was astonished. She had never heard Alice express such frank emotion before, and Alice, suddenly aware of what she had said, blushed like a young girl. “Oh, it’s all that brandy!” She laughed.

  “I’ve never had anyone say a nicer thing to me,” John Carr told her. “Thank you, dear Alice.” He reached out, took her hand, and kissed it noisily. They all laughed, and the blush remained on Alice’s face.

  A few minutes later, Laura became aware of a familiarly ominous fatigue. She put the back of her hand against her forehead. It was very hot, and her head ached. As she leaned closer to the fire, she glanced at the old clock on the mantel. Almost midnight. She stood up and forced herself to say: “Now, we’ll have our carols.” As she sat down at the piano, she was aware of how much colder it was away from the fire.

  She began to sing, and the others joined her. John Carr stood beside Alice, holding her hand, and she appeared almost unaware of it. Then Laura, feeling her voice becoming hoarse, stopped singing, and merely played and nodded her head in time with the music. How could she leave them in this pleasant mood, to go and pamper a cold? But she was feeling extremely ill. She really must go to bed if she were to have any hope of getting up on Christmas Day.

  Suddenly the music was interrupted by a loud roaring and meshing sound outside and Henry ran to the windows. “The plows!” he cried joyfully. “They’ve finally come through, bless them!” He turned, beaming, to the others. “Now they’ll go on this way for about two miles, then turn and clear the other side of the road. I’ve got to give the boys something on the way back.”

  They joined him at the window to watch the huge plow with its red lights throwing up fountains and billows of snow. “No longer snowbound,” Alice said with relief. “I was getting claustrophobia.”

  “Twenty dollars, Laura?” Henry asked, fumbling for his wallet.

  “Oh, make it thirty!” She laughed. Henry went into the hall for his leather jacket and overshoes. He stood in the doorway putting on his gloves. “While I’m at it, I’ll bring in some more firewood. Evelyn’s probably dead drunk tonight.” He looked at Laura, and stopped smiling. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

  “It’s my throat again,” she confessed. “I think I’ll have to go to bed. But, please, please! don’t let me break all this up.”

  “I’m sorry, Laura,” Alice told her kindly. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No, thank you, Alice.” Laura looked pleadingly at the three men. “You won’t let me break things up? It’s this awful cold. But if I take care of it again as David advised, then I may be over it by tomorrow. Look, it’s only half-past twelve. Do stay up and drink to — ” She paused. “Drink to peace on earth and good will to men.”

  Henry put his arm about her gently, and kissed her hot forehead. “All right, dear. We’ll do that for you, and drink a toast to you, too.”

  She told them all good night, as Henry called after her: “I’ll bring you some hot milk in a few minutes. And now for that wood. No. I don’t need any help. I’ll only bring in a few pieces, just to tide us over tonight. I ought to fire Evelyn.”

  The others sat down near the fire and smoked in silence. Once John questioned David with his eyes and nodded his head towards Alice, but David shook his own head firmly. John refilled the brandy glasses. After a sip, Alice remarked: “I’m so ashamed of myself. Laura is really terribly nice, and now I’ve discovered she isn’t the fool I always thought she was, I’m ashamed. I honestly don’t hate her any more. I think I could even reach the point of liking her a lot.” She laughed, and the laugh broke. “But perhaps it’s only the brandy talking, and tomorrow I’ll be just as fiercely jealous of her as ever.”

  “I don’t think you will,” John told her, touching her hand. “I don’t think you ever really hated her. You’re not the kind to hate, Alice.”

  Her face became tense immediately. “You’re wrong. You’ve no idea how I can hate. That is,” and she glanced at David, “if I do have a reason to hate. Have I, David?”

  “You have,” he said shortly.

  Alice bent her head. “I wish to God I didn’t. I’d give anything if I didn’t. Anything.”

  John watched them both, his intelligent eyes moving slowly from one to the other, finally resting on Alice. “There are some things we can’t escape,” he said. “An old aphorism, but true. There are things we have to face. It’s good to deal with them, if we can, and get them over with.”

  She looked up startled. “But sometimes the results can be very terrible. Especially for the innocent.”

  David’s expression was brooding. “That’s something the gods haven’t provided for, I’ve noticed. All justice, and let the innocent burn up in the holocaust, too. That’s because innocence always get in the way, somehow.”

  “That’s because good and evil are often bound up together,” John pointed out. “To eliminate one, you sometimes have to eliminate the other. Unfortunate. But life’s a mystery, anyway. Remember what Aristotle said: ‘It is presumptuous to question God and demand an answer, for His words are not our words, and His justice is not ours.’ ”

  Alice meditated on that, and then she shook her head sadly, turning to her brother. “Perhaps we could forget — After all — ”

  “You forgot there is a reason,” David reminded her. “You must remember the reason. We don’t know just why, yet, though we now have an idea. And so, Laura — ”

  They heard a stamping at the door to the hall, and Henry came in carrying wood in the large brass holder. “Cold as all hell out,” he told them. “I was right. We need more wood. And the boys will be back. I think I hear them now. So on with the boots again. Dave, stir up the fire, will you?”

  The plow was indeed r
eturning. They went to the window and watched Henry slogging through the deep snow to the private road. He was waving a flashlight. The plow came obediently to a stop. There were voices, laughter, cries of “Merry Christmas!” and Henry returned to the house, grinning.

  “Now, when Evelyn shovels out our driveway,” he said, “we’ll be open to the world again.” He gave John Carr a quick glance, then continued, “I’ll take that hot milk up to Laura, as I promised. Or perhaps Mrs. Daley left some of her hot chocolate.”

  “I think I’ll look her over just once before she goes to sleep,” David said. “A lot of flu around this year, and she seemed feverish. She shouldn’t have come down tonight, I suppose, after what she went through with that — food poisoning.” He went into the kitchen with Henry. Mrs. Daley had left a pan filled with chocolate, and Henry turned on the gas under it. David watched him idly. “Still suspicious of Carr?” he asked.

  Henry turned to him. “Maybe I do have the lawyer’s suspicious mind, as you say, Dave. But he has a lot of explaining to do, and I want an explanation.”

  David chuckled. “You scout around in a guest’s room and find a gun he had missing. He put it away to protect snoopers — like you — from danger. One of the bullets in it — if there had been, originally, a full quota, which I doubt — is also missing. You think you detect a smell from the gun, as if it had recently been fired. You immediately link up that gun with the bullet you persist in believing was fired at you, though all evidence points to it as being a stray. Yes, yes” — Dave put up his hand — “I remember the attic window and the prints on the roof of the garage. Who made them? I don’t know. Could be you,” and David’s dark face twinkled with mischief. “Lawyers are naturally dramatic, I’ve heard.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Henry said, watching the chocolate. “You know very well it all ties up together. At any rate, I’ll let the police come to their own conclusions. I’m going into the village tomorrow, after the driveway is cleared.”