A Tangled Web

by Judith Michael

  “And what activity requires you to spy on him?”

  “I think he’s buying very special pieces and shipping them directly to clients, not bringing them through Ambassadors or Blackford’s.”

  “You’d hear from the clients. They always call to discuss a piece they’ve bought.”

  “Not if Nicholas told them we’ve slipped badly, lost our touch, our expertise, since Lady Longworth’s death.”

  “Is Nicholas telling them that?”

  “I’ve heard that he is.”

  It was possible, Sabrina thought. Once before, in the turmoil after Stephanie’s funeral, Nicholas had tried to take Ambassadors from her. She had stopped him then: stunned him by understanding immediately what he was doing and cutting him off exactly as Sabrina would have done. If he was trying again, he must believe Stephanie Andersen was too absorbed with her life in America to pay attention. Or to care. Stubborn Nicholas, she thought. But perhaps formidable.

  “Olivia knows it’s not true that we’ve lost our touch,” she said. “Her friends know it’s not true.”

  “Some of them are loyal,” Brian replied gloomily.

  “I’ll talk to Olivia; she’ll take care of it,” Sabrina said at last. “It used to be Alexandra who stopped rumors for me; now it has to be Olivia.”

  “For Lady Longworth,” Brian murmured, almost apologetic at reminding her that Alexandra had stopped rumors for her sister, not for her.

  Sabrina ignored it. “Is there anything else I should know about?”

  “There’s an auction on Thursday, Lord Midgeford—”

  “Riscombe Park? You didn’t send me the catalogue.”

  “I was late mailing it; I imagine it’s arriving in Evanston about now.”

  “Well, I’ll be here on Thursday, so I’ll go. Please get another catalogue and reserve a seat for me. And I’ll need a limousine.”

  “Nicholas will have his, my la—I’m sorry. Mrs. Andersen.”

  “If what you tell me is true, I don’t want to be in Nicholas’s limousine; I want him to be in mine. I’d like the names of clients you think will be interested in specific pieces at Riscombe, especially Regency silver; Abner Midgeford collected it. I’ve lost touch with a lot of the people who will want it.” She wondered if Brian would correct her again, asking how Stephanie Andersen could have lost touch with anyone when it was Sabrina Longworth who had lived in London and owned Ambassadors and known the people who collected Regency silver. But he was silent. He probably thinks I’ve gone crazy, Sabrina thought; what a test of Brian’s reserve. “Please call Nicholas; tell him I’d like him to have dinner with me tomorrow night at the Savoy. Eight o’clock; please take care of the reservation.”

  She spent the afternoon at her desk, going more deliberately through the ledgers, reading the mail. She kept looking at her watch, and when it was dinnertime in Evanston she called Garth and the children, and closed her eyes, seeing them, feeling their arms around her. “Soon,” she told them. “I’ll be home very soon.”

  Brian left early for a dentist’s appointment, but Sabrina stayed on. She was not in a hurry to return to the empty house on Cadogan Square and she liked the atmosphere of her shop, the faintly cloying scent of furniture polish in the still air, the stuffy smell of old wood and old fabrics. They were odors she remembered from the shopping expeditions of her childhood, with her mother and Stephanie, and they were exactly the same as those at Collectibles in Evanston. The universal air of antique shops, she mused with a smile; one could be anywhere in the world and always be at home.

  She heard the front bell ring and the door open. Brian should have locked it, she thought, and stood up quickly to go into the shop. “I’m sorry, we’re closed for the—good heavens,” she said as she saw who it was. “Denton.” She walked toward him. I’m Stephanie; I’m not Sabrina. He’d expect . . . She held out her hand and Denton took it and pumped it up and down.

  “Delighted to see you again, Stephanie; how well you look. Much better than the last time we met, at Sabrina’s funeral. In fact . . .” He leaned forward, scanning her face. “My God, you could be Sabrina. I never realized . . . It’s quite amazing, you know; it quite takes one aback. Did you look like this all those years ago when she and I were at that barbecue at your house in . . . where was it? Evansville?”

  “Evanston.”

  “Of course. I didn’t think I’d ever forget that day. Years ago, of course, but if you’d looked like this . . . well, I would have noticed . . . said something . . . I didn’t say anything, did I? No, of course I didn’t; I would have remembered. Well, then, that’s the answer. You didn’t look like this. You couldn’t have.”

  Sabrina gazed at him in silence.

  Denton cleared his throat. His sharp black eyes slid left and right and he wandered vaguely around the shop, trailing delicate fingers across clocks and lamps and furniture. “Wonderful things. Sabrina had superb taste, and so do you, I see. I always admired her taste.”

  That is a lie. You paid no attention to it at all.

  He looked at her from across the room, bouncing slightly on his toes. “Look here, why don’t we dine together? It would please me very much. I was passing by and I saw you in here, and it occurred to me that you probably don’t know many people in town, and I have a free evening, and why should you be lonely?”

  Dinner with Denton? What a depressing thought; it would be like seeing my life go by in reverse. “Thank you, no, Denton; I have too much to do in the short time I’m here. I’ll work right through dinner at home.”

  “Alone? You can’t do that. The worst thing for your digestion, you know, and for your state of mind. People have gone mad from eating alone.”

  Involuntarily she smiled. She wondered how he had managed to stay exactly the same for almost fifteen years. His round face and rosy cheeks, his little mustache, his fascination with himself, his desperate need to be surrounded by people at all times to convince himself that he was happy . . . they were all familiar to her. As if preserved in plaster of paris, Denton seemed the same today as on the day she married him.

  “There, that’s the ticket; you’re magnificent when you smile, you should never frown or even look too serious. Sabrina had the same smile, you know—well, of course you know; you knew her better than anyone—it was one of the reasons I adored her and could never tear myself from her.” Sabrina’s eyebrows rose. “Truth,” Denton said, raising his hand. “I couldn’t look at another woman when I had my Sabrina.”

  That is a lie. You slept with any woman close enough for you to sniff her perfume.

  “And we were incredibly happy, you know. Two people—”

  That is a lie.

  “—who adored each other. We were the talk of London society, the envy of everyone because we were perfect.”

  That is a lie.

  “I miss her, you know. In spite of the fact that we couldn’t make it, I loved her and admired her; I still do. I want you to know that.”

  Why are you telling me these lies?

  “And it was unbelievably ghastly, you know, when they asked me to identify her. I could barely look at her; I broke down like a baby, shaking all over; I nearly fainted away.”

  I’d be willing to bet that’s a lie, too.

  “It was bad enough that it was my own wife they were telling me to identify. But dead bodies, you know . . . I never could look at them; I can’t even think about death, much less look at it . . .”

  That part I believe.

  “Stephanie, forgive me. I didn’t mean to talk about this, but seeing you . . . My God, it’s even worse for you than for me and I go on and on . . . I’m a blithering ass. I do beg your forgiveness; I am truly contrite. Tell me I’m forgiven. Tell me it won’t stop you from having dinner with me. Tell me we’re still friends.”

  “I forgive you, Denton, but we’ve never been friends, and I think it highly unlikely that we ever will be. And I won’t have dinner with you because I would much rather be at home.”

 
There was a pause. “You sound just like her, do you know that? The same voice, the same odd accent that nobody could ever place, the same way of saying ‘I think it highly unlikely . . .’ Of course with twins it’s hard to fathom . . .”

  “I’m closing the shop now. Good night, Denton.”

  “You’d really rather eat alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was like that, too, you know. Sometimes she’d say she just didn’t want to go to another dinner; she wanted to be by herself. She said it quite a lot after a while, and then I’d go by myself . . . of course we were having some problems by then.”

  “Goodnight, Denton.”

  “Well, then. Good night, Stephanie.” At the door he turned back casually, as if something had just occurred to him. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Max Stuyvesant, have you?”

  Sabrina froze in shock. “Max? What are you talking about? He’s dead.”

  “Presumed dead. They never found a body. I thought if he turned up somewhere he might have tried to contact someone. You know.”

  “No, I don’t know. If he were alive he would have come home; where else would he go? He would have called you; you were one of his friends. You introduced u . . . them, didn’t you? I thought Sabrina told me you took her on a cruise on his yacht and that’s when she met him. That must have been the same yacht—” She took a breath. “He would have called you, not me.”

  Denton nodded. “I suppose so. But you know, Stephanie, if he does surface—good Lord, what an unfortunate choice of words; I’m so sorry. But if he does come back—it probably won’t happen, of course, everyone else was killed; they found everyone else—but if he does and if he happens to call you, would you let me know? I would appreciate it. I somehow can’t believe he’s really dead, you know. He always seemed indestructible to me.”

  “I’ll let you know, Denton.” She said it almost soothingly. “Now I’d like to lock up.”

  “Yes, right, sorry.” He opened the front door, then reared back as wind and rain gusted in. He slammed it shut. “Damn, I can’t go out in this.”

  “You did it once, to get here; you can do it again,” she said coldly. “Go home, Denton. I don’t want you here.”

  “Yes, well, that is abundantly clear, isn’t it? It’s too bad, you know, Stephanie; I did think we could be friends. I might stop in again sometime, just to make sure you’re all right. I feel a sense of responsibility . . . Sabrina’s sister . . .” He waited for her to say something. When she did not, he girded himself, ducked his head as he opened the door, and flung himself into the storm.

  Sabrina was shaking. What was going on? What was he looking for? Or afraid of, she thought suddenly, recalling the quivering of his mustache and the nervous thrust of his lower lip as he said, “I might stop in again sometime . . .”

  Still shaking, she pulled on her raincoat. My hat, she thought; I had one, a long time ago . . . Oh, it can’t be here; Stephanie would have found it, or someone . . . She reached up to a high shelf in the supply closet and her hand closed on a Burberry rain hat, neatly folded. Oh, Stephanie, you left it for me.

  She was crying. She grabbed her umbrella, turned out the lights and left the shop, the hat pulled low over her eyes, her open umbrella close to the top of her head. She walked to the taxi stand and stood there for a long time until, through the rain, she saw one of the familiar tall black cars pull along the curb. She got in and put her hat and umbrella on the floor. “Kensington Cemetery.”

  “They close pretty soon, miss, and it’s no place to be in a rainstorm.”

  “I want to go. I won’t stay long; can you wait for me?”

  “If you was my daughter, I wouldn’t let—”

  “Please.”

  He looked at her closely. “All right, then.”

  Inside the cemetery, the taxi moved slowly along the curved road until Sabrina told the driver to stop. “You will wait?”

  “Not likely I’d leave you, miss.”

  “Thank you.”

  She walked along the road. She had thought she would come here the next morning, but she found she could not wait. It was strange, but she found more of Stephanie in London than in Evanston: this was where she had spent the last month of her life and Sabrina felt her presence everywhere. Now she looked for her as the rain stung her face and whipped her coat about her ankles. It had been gray last October during the funeral, the clouds lowering against skeletal trees, the cold wind cutting through the mourners’ coats. But why should the sun ever shine on Stephanie’s grave?

  Sabrina tilted her umbrella against the wind and walked slowly along the road until she found the white marble stone. She had ordered it in February and sent to the stonemason the lines to be carved on it from Yeats’s poem, one of Stephanie’s favorites. This was the first time she had seen it, and she ran her wet hand over the deeply chiseled letters.

  LADY SABRINA LONGWORTH

  Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

  I will find out where she has gone,

  And kiss her lips and take her hands;

  And walk among long dappled grass,

  And pluck till time and times are done

  The silver apples of the moon,

  The golden apples of the sun.

  Rain streaked the marble like cold tears. Sabrina knelt on the sodden grass, the umbrella resting on her bent head, and wept.

  “Miss,” the taxi driver said. He put his hand on her shoulder. She had been there for ten minutes and she was shivering so violently she could barely look up at him. “They’re closing, miss, and you’re going to catch your death.”

  She let him help her up and stumbled beside him back to the taxi. She was not aware of the streets through which they drove: the sidewalks undulating ribbons of black umbrellas, the lights of shop windows and apartments wavering drunkenly through the rain-lashed windows of the taxi. Sabrina huddled in the back seat, numb and cold, the tears flowing silently down her face.

  She let herself into the empty house on Cadogan Square and dropped her umbrella and drenched coat and hat in the foyer. A stream ran from them to the serape rug in the center. She looked at it with unconcern and climbed the stairs to her sitting room. The fireplace was dark. On my own, Sabrina thought ruefully. I told Denton that was what I wanted.

  She laid a fire and lit it, then turned on both faucets in her tub, pouring in a stream of bath oil. She boiled water in an electric teakettle in her sitting room and stripped off her clothes while the tea was steeping, then carried the cup and teapot into the bathroom and lowered herself slowly into the fragrant, steaming water. Her tears had stopped and now, gradually, her shivering stopped. Her body soaked up the heat and the slow caress of the bath oil; she put her head back until only her face was exposed, her hair floating on the surface of the water.

  Stephanie was here, too: it was as if Sabrina could see her coming in that first night, walking around the room, opening closets and drawers, discovering all that would be hers for the one week they had crazily decided to steal from their lives, standing before the mirror in a dress from the closet that made her look, suddenly and astonishingly, exactly like Sabrina, the same tilt of the head, the same confident pose . . .

  I can’t do this, Sabrina thought; it’s so real it’s as if she’s alive.

  She forced herself to think of London, of Ambassadors and Brian, and of Nicholas. Dinner with Nicholas tomorrow, and she had to be prepared. She thought often of selling Ambassadors and she knew she would one day, but no one, certainly not Nicholas, was going to steal it from her.

  And so when she met him at the Savoy the next evening, she was cool and watchful. At first Nicholas was not aware of it. “A small gift, Stephanie,” he said, handing her a box wrapped in silver and gold paper. “Sabrina found them amusing.” They were sitting at a small table beside a window looking out on the Thames and the long span of Waterloo Bridge. The view was framed by velvet draperies and figured wallpaper, and Nicholas, in suit and vest and starched cuffs, had
settled into his upholstered chair with a sigh; it was his favorite room, as Sabrina had known. “I thought you might find it amusing, too. It’s a little gift to welcome you to London. It was a surprise to hear from Brian—you never told us the exact date you’d be coming—but how pleasant, Stephanie . . . and of course you have a birthday coming up—in September, isn’t it?—and you may not be here then. And I always remembered Sabrina’s birthday with some little token.”

  No, you did not. And this is only May; a very long time to September. Sabrina opened the box. “Well, Nicholas,” she said after a moment. “A Fabergé egg is more than a little token.” She lifted it from its box, a golden egg decorated with jewels that swung open beneath her fingers to reveal a tiny basket of flowers carved from precious stones. “In perfect condition,” she murmured.

  “Well, only the best,” said Nicholas gaily.

  “Thank you. It’s very generous of you.” And not bad, she thought, as an attempted bribe. She smiled at him, suddenly enjoying herself, reveling in being back in the fray, fencing with people who always had hidden motives. “Such a clever idea, to open a conversation with such a gift.”

  Nicholas’s look sharpened; he never liked it when people understood him.

  “Tell me about the winter season,” she said. “I’ve gone over our books and it seems to have been rather quiet.”

  “Yes, rather. The economy, you know, people are holding back, waiting for a clue to the future. I wouldn’t worry, though, dear Stephanie; we’re solvent and we can wait out a bad season, or even two, if we have to.”

  “Even two,” Sabrina repeated thoughtfully. “And what are you doing to change a bad season to a successful one?”

  “Well, you know, one talks to clients, as always, one meets new people, one gathers information for the future; the main thing is to make sure that one’s clients and their friends don’t forget one.”

  “You mean you continue to build goodwill for Blackford’s and Ambassadors.”

  “Exactly. Exactly. One is always at work, always.”

  “But the question seems to be, Nicholas, for whom?”