“I met her on the street a couple of weeks ago. She told me you’d gotten her a job.”
“Not really. It was my suggestion, that’s all. She wasn’t trained for anything except being a lady, and there’s not much demand for teaching ladyness or ladyship or whatever. Then I thought of Admiral Young’s daughters and I suggested to him one day that perhaps Miranda Shaw could teach the girls some of the social graces they lacked. He approved of the idea.”
“The girls were with Miranda when I saw her,” Aragon said. “I didn’t notice much improvement in their ladyshipness.”
“No results were guaranteed. I doubt that the Admiral expected any. He’s a wise man, he was probably only trying to help Miranda.”
“And you?”
“What do you mean and me?”
“What was your motive?”
“I’m a nice girl,” she said. “Haven’t you noticed?”
“Yes. I also noticed you’d been crying. Why?”
“I went to a sad movie. Or I saw a little dog that looked like one I had when I was a kid. Or I remembered my favorite aunt who died last year. Check one of the above.”
“Check none of the above. And you mustn’t add your tears to ‘all that water under the bridge’ Grady mentioned.”
“How can I avoid it?”
“Don’t answer his letter. Don’t tell him to come, don’t warn him to stay away. Just stay out of it.”
“That’s a lot of advice in return for a stale cup of coffee.”
“I drank the coffee. Are you going to take the advice?”
“Sorry, it’s too late,” she said. “I sent him the application form yesterday afternoon.”
The girls liked to put on their pajamas and eat dinner in the upstairs sitting room with their cat, Snowball, while watching television. Miranda’s arrival had changed all that. She insisted they appear at the table properly dressed, on their best behavior and without the cat. This rule applied especially when guests were expected.
Retired military friends of the Admiral stopped on their way through town now and then, and once a month Charles Van Eyck came to see his sister, Iris, motivated not so much by duty as by expedience. Iris possessed a great deal of money which she would one day have to abandon for more spiritual satisfactions. Though considerably younger than he, she was unwell and unhappy and the combination gave him hopes of outliving her. These hopes changed daily like the stock market, gaining a few points here, losing a few there. As an investment the monthly dinner was becoming more and more speculative. Iris seemed to thrive on adversity. Arthritis and a recent heart attack gave her an excuse to do only what she wanted to do, and unhappiness made her oblivious to the needs and desires of other people and the fact that blood was thicker than water.
By his own standards Van Eyck was not greedy but he liked to think about money and he enjoyed its company. He studied his savings-account books and various senior citizens’ publications. He visited his safety-deposit boxes and later he would sit in the lobby eating the free cookies and drinking the free coffee. He knew that the cookies and coffee were not actually free, that he was paying for them one way or another, so he ate and drank as much as he could before bank employees started giving him dirty looks. The dirty looks were free.
Lately Van Eyck had another reason for his regular visits to his sister. He distrusted all women, especially the pretty ones like Miranda Shaw. When she was first hired he wrote an anonymous letter to his sister which began You have taken a Jezzebel into your home . . . For several days he carried the letter around in his pocket in a sealed stamped correctly addressed envelope, afraid to post it. Iris with her sharp mind and suspicious nature might trace it back to him, and besides, he had a nagging doubt about the spelling of Jezebel. Jezebelle was more literal, Jezebell had a ring to it, Jezebel looked somehow unfinished. He thought of burning the letter but he hated to waste the stamp and some of the clever descriptive material about Miranda Shaw, so he sent it anyway.
To Miranda herself, who opened the door for him, he was polite, even gallant.
“Ah, my dear, how elegant you look this evening.”
“Thank you, Mr. Van Eyck. Mrs. Young and the Admiral will be down shortly. May I pour you a drink?”
“Pour ahead.”
“Your usual Scotch on the rocks?”
“One rock. I’m very Scotch.”
It was his favorite joke and entirely original, but all Miranda did was smile with one side of her mouth as if she were saving the other side for a later and a better joke. He changed the subject abruptly. There was no use aiming his best shots into a wilderness.
“What are we having for dinner?”
“Beef Wellington.”
“Why can’t we ever have something tasty like pot roast or chicken stew with dumplings?”
“The housekeeper received a French cookbook for Christmas.”
“Wellington was an English duke. Very cheeky of them to name a French dish after him. I intend to pour ketchup all over it.”
“I do wish you wouldn’t, Mr. Van Eyck. The housekeeper was very perturbed last time.”
“I’ll go out to the kitchen, find the ketchup wherever she’s hidden it and bring it right to the table. Beef Wellington indeed. The poor man is probably turning over in his grave smothered in all that greasy foreign pastry.”
“Please reconsider about the ketchup,” Miranda said. “It will set a bad example for the girls.”
The girls were all ready for a bad example. Inside the confines of their best dresses they squirmed and sighed and made faces. Cordelia’s lime-green silk had a sash so tight it divided her in two like an egg-timer, and Juliet wore her tattletale dress, a bouffant taffeta that responded noisily to the most discreet movement, crackling, rustling, complaining, almost as though it had a life of its own.
The girls sat side by side at the mahogany table across from Van Eyck and Miranda, who had done the setting herself—silver bowls floating camellias and miniature candles, and crystal bird vases with sprigs of daphne that scented the whole room. The Admiral at the head of the table complimented Miranda on the decorations, but Iris, opposite him, said she hated candles, flickering lights always gave her a migraine. She asked Cordelia to blow out the candles.
“I can’t,” Cordelia said.
“Why not?”
“I haven’t enough breath. My dress is too tight. I think I’m going to faint.”
“So am I,” Juliet said loyally.
Their mother didn’t seem particularly interested. She had the little poodle, Alouette, on her lap and was feeding it bits of shrimp from her seafood cocktail.
The sight infuriated Cordelia. “I don’t see why you can bring that dog to the table and we’re not allowed to bring Snowball, who loves shrimp. Shrimp is his very favorite thing.”
“What were you saying about your dress, Cordelia?”
“It’s too tight. I can’t breathe. I’m going to faint.”
“Don’t be tiresome.”
“I mean it. I’m going . . . here I go . . . one, two—”
“Well, hurry up and get it over with so the rest of us can eat. The food will be cold.”
“You don’t care.”
“Of course I do,” Iris said. “I’m hungry.”
Frustrated, Cordelia turned her wrath on her uncle. “It’s all your fault. We had to dress like this just for you.”
Van Eyck looked surprised. “Like what?”
“This.”
“Up.” Juliet said. “We had to dress up like this just for you.”
“Really? Whose bizarre idea was that?”
“Hers.” Both girls answered simultaneously, scowling at Miranda across the table.
“She said well-bred young ladies always dress up for company,” Cordelia explained. “And I said Uncle Cha
rles isn’t company, he’s only a relative. And Juliet said you wouldn’t notice anyway because you’d be three sheets to the wind.”
“You said that about me, Juliet?”
“I may have,” Juliet said. “But she’s a pig to bring it up.”
“Unfortunately, my dear nieces, I am not three sheets to the wind. I am not even one sheet or two, let alone three. But I’m certainly working on it . . . Cooper, let’s have some of that special stuff you’ve been hoarding. I understand that when a military man retires he commandeers all the booze he can lay his hands on. Why not share it with us common folk who paid for it in the first place?”
Cooper Young had learned many years ago at Annapolis to eat quietly and quickly whatever was placed in front of him and retained this habit throughout his life. As a consequence, eating was not enjoyable but it was also not unbearable. He could listen without heartburn while Iris and the girls bickered during the salad course, and his brother-in-law, over the beef and asparagus, delivered a lecture on the sinful extravagances of the Pentagon. Cooper did not answer, did not argue. Now and again he glanced at Miranda, who was equally silent, and he noticed how skillfully she pretended to eat while only rearranging the food on her plate and raising an empty fork to her mouth.
Cherries jubilee.
Cordelia was allowed to flame the cherries as a reward for not fainting, and everyone was quiet while they burned. Then it was time for Miranda to provide the evening’s entertainment, a report on the girls’ progress since the last family dinner.
“This week,” Miranda said, “we have been concentrating on attitudes that affect behavior, for example, self-fulfillment as opposed to selfish fulfillment. We made a list of questions to ask ourselves at the end of each day. We gave them a special name, didn’t we, Juliet?”
“Yes, but—”
“What was it?”
“Questions for a summer night. But—”
“Can you recite them?”
“I can,” Cordelia said, still basking in the warmth and glory of the cherries jubilee. “Questions for a summer night. Here they are:
“Have I earned something today?
“Have I learned something today?
“Have I helped someone?
“Have I felt glad to be alive?”
“How poetic,” Iris said. “And what are the answers for a summer night?”
Juliet and her dress complained in unison. “I didn’t know we were expected to have the answers, too. Memorizing the questions is hard enough. Anyway, it isn’t even summer yet. By the time it comes, maybe I can think of some answers.”
“Don’t be an ass, there aren’t any,” Cordelia said crisply. “It’s only a game.”
“It can’t be. A game is where somebody wins and somebody loses. I should know, I’m the one who always loses.”
“No, you don’t. You only remember the times you lose because you’re such a rotten sport. I often let you win to avoid the sight of you bawling and blabbering.”
Juliet appealed to Miranda, wistfully, “Is it only a game?”
“No indeed,” Miranda said. “I believe they’re very important questions.”
“But how can I earn anything? I don’t work.”
“You could earn someone’s respect and admiration. Any job well done is worthy of respect. Can you think of a job you did today?”
“I washed the cat, Snowball. He had fleas.”
“You see? That’s something you earned today, Snowball’s gratitude.”
“No. He hates being washed and he still has fleas. I got seven more bites on the belly.”
“I’ve got at least twenty-five,” Cordelia said.
“Not on the belly.”
“I haven’t searched there yet. Most of mine are on the wrists and ankles. They itch furiously but I don’t dare scratch because Mrs. Young is looking.”
Iris was listening as well as looking. “If you girls have fleas, I don’t want you coming anywhere near my dog.”
“We never do. He comes near us.”
“Then run away from him.”
“He can run faster than we can. And also, he cheats by taking shortcuts under tables and things.”
“I suggest,” Miranda said, “that we consider the second question. Have you learned something today?”
Cordelia related what she’d learned, that the Pentagon was spending billions of dollars each year on uniforms and pensions while the average citizen was being taxed into oblivion. Van Eyck, with his second sheet to the wind and going for three, applauded vigorously and said by God, at least there was one sensible person in the family besides himself.
Juliet couldn’t think of anything she’d learned for the first time, though she had learned for the fourteenth or fifteenth time that cats didn’t like to be bathed and neither did fleas but it wasn’t fatal to either.
In spite of her makeup Miranda was beginning to look pale. “Perhaps we should go on to the third question. Have you helped someone today?”
“They have helped me decide to go to bed,” Iris said and slid the little dog off her lap and onto the floor. “Miranda, I’d like to speak to you privately up in my room . . . Cooper, show Charles to his car and don’t give him any more to drink . . . Goodnight, Charles. It was good of you to come. Take care of your liver.”
She was tired. Her thin yellowing face sagged with fatigue and she had to use the table and her cane to hoist herself to her feet. It was a heavy antique cane she’d brought from Africa, where it had once been part of a tribal chiefs ceremonial uniform. Iris continued to think of it like that, as an adjunct to her costume, and she refused even to try the lightweight aluminum crutches prescribed by her doctor. Crutches were for cripples. Her cane was a piece of history and a symbol of command, not dependence.
The procession moved up the staircase, slow and solemn as a funeral march, Iris leaning on the banister and her cane, taking one step at a time. Miranda walked behind her, then the two girls, and finally the little dog, Alouette. The shrimp and cherries had given Alouette the hiccups and their rhythmic sound accompanied the procession like the beat of a ghostly drum.
The Admiral escorted his brother-in-law to the front door.
“Iris is damned rude,” Van Eyck said, straightening his tie and brushing off his coat as if he’d been physically ejected. “She’s the one who should be taking lessons in the social amenities, though it’s about fifty years too late.”
“I’m sorry you feel insulted.”
“My liver is a very personal thing. I may never return to this house.”
“We shall miss you, Charles.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry to miss me. I haven’t left yet. I might change my mind and take that nightcap you offered me.”
“I didn’t offer you one.”
“Why not?”
“Iris told me not to.”
“But she’s gone to bed. This is between you and me.”
“I’m afraid not,” the Admiral said. “Now do you think you’ll be able to get home all right? If there’s any doubt, I can drive you or call a cab.”
“Don’t worry about me, old boy. Just take care of yourself.”
“What do you mean, Charles?”
“She’s a sleek little filly, that Miranda, with plenty of mileage left in her. And don’t tell me you didn’t notice. I saw you staring at her.”
“I don’t believe we should refer to a lady in terms of horseflesh.”
“You didn’t stare at her as if she was a lady,” Van Eyck said. “You old Navy men never change. Girl in every port, that sort of thing.”
“I never had a girl in every port. Hardly any port, as a matter of fact.”
“Why not? I understand the military feel that it’s their prerogative to—”
“Go home, Charles.”
“That’s damned rude.”
“Yes.”
“I’m a taxpayer.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll rue the day.”
“I’ve lost count of the days I’m going to rue,” the Admiral said, opening the door. “Probably up in the thousands by this time . . . Goodnight, Charles. Drive carefully. The Pentagon can’t afford to lose a taxpayer.”
The girls listened at the door of Iris’s room on the second floor. They could hear her talking to Miranda in the loud firm voice that was stronger than the rest of her and needed no support from cane or crutches. The words were too fast to be intelligible. They crashed into each other and splintered into sharp angry syllables.
“She’s mad,” Cordelia said. “Well, for once we didn’t do anything.”
Juliet wasn’t so sure. “Maybe we did, unbeknownst.”
“We never do anything unbeknownst. It’s always spelled right out. She’s probably mad at her.”
“I wonder why.”
“Maybe it was those questions for a summer night. The whole thing’s pretty silly when you think of it. Why not a winter night? Or autumn?”
“Summer sounds better.”
“But it’s not sensible. On summer nights people are outside barbecuing steaks or playing tennis. It’s on winter nights they have nothing to do but sit around making up dumb questions.”
“I hate those questions,” Juliet said. “I just hate them. They give me the glooms.”
“Don’t be an ass. They’re only words.”
“No. She means them. ‘Have I earned something today?’ How can I earn something when I don’t have a job? Maybe we should run away and get jobs, Cordelia. Do you think we could?”
“No.”
“Not even a lowly type like washing dishes in a restaurant?”
“They don’t wash dishes in restaurants. They toss them into a machine.”
“Someone has to toss them. We could be tossers.”
“I don’t want to be a tosser,” Cordelia said. “Now wake up and smell the coffee. We’re not good for anything, so we might as well enjoy it.”
The heavy oak door of Iris’s room opened and Miranda came into the hall with the poodle, Alouette, on a leash beside her. The girls hid behind a bookcase and watched her go down the stairs. She moved very slowly, as if she was tired, while the little dog strained at the leash trying to pull her along.
The Murder of Miranda Page 16
