“What did you do?”
“Sat in my room and cried, mostly. It was so hard, Fred. I wanted to write you a letter, to call you up, not to talk, just to hear your voice and know you were there. But I knew that if I once weakened, I’d come running back and be damned forever. When it got too bad, I’d go out and walk till I was too exhausted even to think.”
“Did you eat?”
“I don’t know, Fred. I suppose I must have, sometimes, or I’d have starved to death. All I remember is trying to force myself to swallow and feeling this big lump in my chest. I think what brought me to my senses was when it came time to write another check for the room rent and the bank sent it back saying there was no money in the account. At first I thought I’d gone crazy, then I realized that Department of Human Services woman must have got hold of the money and was using it to help those poor girls. I knew they must deserve it more than I—at least that’s what I thought then—but it put me in a terrible position. I had to sell my engagement ring, or the landlady would have thrown me out.”
“What do you mean, sell your engagement ring? For God’s sake, Iolanthe, you took plenty of jewelry with you when you left. Where did that go?”
“I didn’t take it! I might be a fool but I’m not a thief. I left everything but my engagement ring and my wedding ring right in the top left-hand dresser drawer, where I always kept it. I did take some clothes. That didn’t seem so much like stealing, and I had to have something to wear. I wasn’t trained for anything but being a wife, and when Jasper told me I had to go—”
“Oh hell, Iolanthe,” Fred was still struggling. “So what it boils down to is that Jasper broke into the house and stole the jewelry as well as the money?”
Chapter 11
“I SUPPOSE IT MUST have been Jasper who took the jewelry, if you didn’t find it. I remember he took my door key when he came to get my suitcases and made as if to throw it away, but he may have been only pretending. I wrote to him after that rent check came back, and all I got was a letter from somebody I’d never heard of before, saying that Mr. Flodge was away on business and they didn’t know when he’d be back. That’s the last I ever heard of Jasper till I got this week’s County Record and saw that he was dead. I started subscribing a year or so ago, I’d got so homesick. I suppose the funeral was really just an excuse to come back in hopes of seeing you. I thought I was resigned enough not to make a fool of myself.”
Iolanthe picked up her napkin again and dabbed at her face. “But anyway, once I realized I had nothing to fall back on, I knew I’d have to fend for myself somehow, and that sort of pulled me around. Not being trained for anything, of course, I had to take what I could get, jobs like working in a doughnut shop, and bundling groceries in a supermarket, that didn’t pay me more than barely enough to get by on.”
“God damn it!” The struggle between rage and compassion was all but over. “If I’d known you were having it so rough—”
“I survived, didn’t I? At least it taught me a few things. After a while, I happened to remember a cousin of my mother’s who lived in Balaclava County. She’d always hated Father, so I thought maybe she’d be willing to help me a little. I went down on the bus and she found me a job working in a candy factory. It was awfully monotonous work and my back ached so badly all the time from bending over the conveyor belt that I had to quit. So I went back to doing housework, and that’s what’s kept me alive ever since. It’s quite pleasant working for the Enderbles, they’re lovely people and the animals are cute, even if they do mess up the floor. But when I think of the beautiful home we had—oh, Fred, I’ve missed you so terribly! And all this time I’ve felt like a sinner for even daring to think about you.”
“Why the hell shouldn’t you think of me? You’re still my wife, Iolanthe. That goddamned lying son of a bitch! Putting us both through three years of hell for one of his cute tricks. If Jasper Flodge wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him myself. Here, you’d better eat something. Want Elva to heat up that chowder? How about a piece of pie? You always used to like Elva’s pie.”
“Oh, Fred!”
Now was the moment for the hero to fold his heroine to his manly bosom. Fred was showing every inclination to do so, despite the fact that by now almost every eye in the room was upon them, when Iolanthe froze.
“Fred, look!” she whispered. “That’s the woman!”
“What woman?”
Fred needn’t have asked. Lucivee Flodge wasn’t wearing her spangled hairbow now, she was trying to sneak out of the dining room without attracting attention, which was about the silliest trick she’d pulled yet.
“You mean she was the one who claimed to be from the Department of Human Services? Iolanthe, are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be. How could I forget that face, leering and grinning and nodding at me while Father raved on about iniquity and damnation? Who is she, Fred?”
“She calls herself Lucivee Flodge, and claims to be Jasper’s wife. God damn it! Nine little teenage girls with nine of Fred Wye’s bye-blows. Of all the rotten, filthy lies—let go of me, Iolanthe, I’ve got a few things to say to that bitch.”
“Please, Fred, not here. You could get arrested.”
Peter couldn’t stay out of it any longer. “Er—not to butt in on what’s none of my business, but if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t try to tackle that woman by myself. She’s too tough and too slick, she’d slap you with a lawsuit on some pretext or other and you’d be lucky not to wind up either broke or in jail. I’d say the smart thing to do is get hold of a good lawyer before you’re a day older.”
“Oh yes, Fred, do,” begged Iolanthe. “I couldn’t bear it if you got into any more trouble on account of me.”
Fred thought a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, honey, if you say so. I guess what we’d better do is stop at Matt Barrett’s on our way home.”
“While we’re there, you might ask him about that money Aunt Prunella willed to me, that Father’s still not letting me have. At least it would make up a little for what Jasper stole.”
“I’ll ask him, all right. Come on, finish your chowder and let’s get moving. Sky, would you and Evander mind if we take the car and go on ahead?”
“I’ll run them back when they’re ready to leave,” said Peter. “My wife’s coming tomorrow, Mrs. Wye, I’ll phone her right away and ask her to bring up whatever you want from the Enderbles’s. I’ll also ask her to call Mrs. Lomax about finding somebody to take over their housekeeping if you’d like.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful of you.” Iolanthe was looking about twenty years younger. She was clinging to her husband with one hand, dutifully spooning up the last of her chowder with the other. “There, Fred, all finished. Have we any food in the house, or shall I ask Elva to wrap us up a loaf of bread and some eggs for breakfast?”
“Got your old job back, eh? God, it’s good to see you, Iolanthe. We got anything to eat, Evander?”
“Half a jar of instant coffee and a few stale crackers. General store’s still open. I’ll go if you tell me what to get.”
That was quite a speech for Evander. Iolanthe gave her brother-in-law a smile and shook her head.
“That’s all right Evander. I can do the shopping while Fred talks to Mr. Barrett.”
“Need any money?”
“Thanks, but I got paid yesterday. That must sound funny, coming from me. Please don’t get up, Professor Shandy. I do hope you and Mrs. Shandy will drop by for a cup of tea before you start back to Balaclava. Is the house a dreadful mess, Fred?”
“Not too bad, considering. We shovel out every six months or so.”
“Well, we can have our tea on the porch if it isn’t raining. Come along then, darling. I want to go home.”
Hand in hand into the sunset. Just like the cowboy and the rancher’s daughter in those mushy endings Peter and his buddies used to groan over from the peanut gallery at the old movie house. He could almost smell the popcorn. Evander and his cousin weren�
��t making any move to stir their stumps. They’d give Fred and Iolanthe time enough to get home and settle in, as was only decent.
While Evander and Sky waited for their coffee, Peter told Thurzella to save him a piece of her grandmother’s pie and went to give his own wife the latest installment in the serial. He was feeling right at home in the antique telephone booth by now, he reversed the charges and chatted on with Helen for upward of fifteen minutes. Then he remembered the pie and left her to let the Enderbles know they were about to suffer a switch in housekeepers. He hoped Mrs. Lomax wouldn’t have too tough a time finding somebody who didn’t mind scooping up bunny balls off the living-room rug.
The pie was rhubarb, as would naturally be expected at this time of year, a bit thick in the crust for Peter’s taste but otherwise well up to standard. The company wasn’t too bad, Evander didn’t say anything, but at least he wasn’t glowering. Schuyler Tilkey talked about potato farming and a hypochondriacal hay baler he’d once owned, sensible topics that Peter could relate to instead of those interminable screeds that Withington would have been reeling off if he’d got the chance.
When Peter and the others at last stood up to go, Withington was still sitting alone in his corner. Nobody had come to his table since that scene Lucivee Flodge had made, those untasted glasses of champagne had sat losing their fizz until he’d motioned for Thurzella to take them away. It seemed discourteous to walk out on him without a word, but what was there to say? Peter gave him a nod of farewell, and left with his new acquaintances.
One amenity of Pickwance that Peter hadn’t known about was a small, shabby, but evidently well-patronized poolroom situated on a side road that ran up from the corner where the weaving shop stood. Schuyler Tilkey had talked himself out by now, Evander still wasn’t uttering, but it was still a bit early for Fred and Iolanthe to have their reunion broken in upon. Peter had no objection to stopping in with the cousins and whiling away an hour or so knocking the balls around.
Peter and Tilkey were both pretty good, but Evander was a wizard. He skunked them both, he skunked a few more. When nobody else would play with him, he put on a bravura solo performance that left all present rapt in awe and reverence. At last, in a spirit of mutual bonhomie, Peter delivered his human cargo to the big yellow house on the hill, went back to the inn, and sneaked up to his room a tiptoe lest Withington might again be lurking under the lobby afghan, ready to pounce.
All was well that ended well. Peter slept the sleep of the agreeably pooped and awoke to a morning upon which he would not have been at all surprised to see Pippa passing. Thurzella’s equally pretty cousin was helping out again this morning, both girls were wearing pink stirrup pants and rose-printed tops, Pippa herself could not have chosen more appropriate garb. They were recommending the waffles and maple syrup. Who was P. Shandy to say them nay?
The waffles were crisp, the bacon was crisper, the orange juice well-chilled, the coffee just short of scalding. The lark was probably on the wing by now and the hillside no doubt dew-pearled. He must remember to go out and check, but first things first. Peter savored each mouthful, said yes to more coffee and a regretful no to a third waffle because his pants were beginning to feel uncomfortably snug around the waist. He ought to go out and walk a brisk mile or two before girding his loins for the ride to Sasquamahoc.
But what if Helen and Catriona came back early and he wasn’t there to greet them? He’d better get to Sasquamahoc first and take his brisk walk after he got there. Feeling competent, decisive, and let off the hook, Peter wiped the syrup from his lips, paid his score, and asked Thurzella to wish her grandmother good morning for him as she was no doubt too fully employed with the mysteries of her culinary art to exchange small talk with her paying guests.
Now to be up and doing with a heart for whatever Fate might dish out to him, which might well be more fried-clam tacos unless Helen happened to notice that slight bulge above his belt. He might, he supposed, stop somewhere along the way and buy himself a wider belt; but such artifice would be a touch unmanly and Helen wouldn’t be fooled by it anyway.
So what? Elva Bright’s cooking must inevitably have had its effect on Fred Wye during those years when husband and wife were parted and the inn his only source of edible provender, yet Iolanthe hadn’t seemed to notice anything about him to complain of. Her man was her man for a’ that, and it was to be hoped that Helen Marsh Shandy would feel the same when she realized how much money her own man was prepared to fork over for a few square inches of painted canvas just because he wanted it and could not explain why. He was in the same sort of relationship with that picture as Sir Percival (or was it Sir Galahad?) had been with the Holy Grail, he could see it as a vision drawing him and his checkbook ever onward to Rondel’s Head. Peter wished it were half past three already, and that he and Helen were climbing that awful path to Miss Rondel’s enchanted dining room.
He’d arranged last night to drop Schuyler Tilkey off on the way back to Sasquamahoc. They’d left it that, if Tilkey wasn’t at the inn by eight o’clock, that would mean he was having breakfast at the Wyes’s so as not to hurt Iolanthe’s feelings and would wait for Peter to swing by the house whenever he took the notion. It seemed a bit early to interrupt the family reunion. What he’d really like to do would be to run out to Rondel’s Head for a few minutes but Miss Rondel might take umbrage if he did and call off the negotiations. He settled for a leisurely exploration of the back roads, of which there weren’t very many, and found his way by accident back to the Wyes’ house.
Already the big old house looked less forlorn than it had the day before. Windows were open, the big front door standing ajar, rugs thrown over the porch railings to air, a bunch of field flowers in a pottery jug on a windowsill. Evander was out weeding around some perennials that had been too long neglected but had bravely kept up the struggle. Peter wouldn’t have minded stopping to pull a few weeds as a neighborly gesture but those inside must have heard the car drive up and were coming out to meet him.
Schuyler Tilkey was back in his traveling costume of elderly denims and a flannel shirt, his funeral suit in its plastic bag hung over his arm. Fred was carrying Sky’s overnight bag and an old cast-iron apple corer evidently intended as a present to Mrs. Tilkey. Iolanthe was wondering whether Professor Shandy wouldn’t like to stop in for a cup of coffee before they got on the road. Peter said he’d already had too much coffee, thanks, and he and Tilkey had better get started because Helen had said she and Catriona were planning to be on the road by sunup, which they probably hadn’t stuck to, but one never knew.
He then delivered sundry messages from the Enderbles and Mrs. Lomax, all of whom had been flabbergasted but delighted to learn that Mrs. Howard had so romantically turned out to be Mrs. Wye. They hoped she wouldn’t forget them, that they’d get to meet Mr. Wye in the not-too-distant future and that Mrs. Wye, as they now knew her to be, wouldn’t worry about the animals because Mrs. Lomax’s late husband’s cousin’s niece was studying veterinary medicine and anxious to make some tuition money this summer. She was quite willing to houseclean and not a bit fazed by the elderly rabbit’s little problem.
Mary Enderble had packed some of Mrs. Wye’s things and was sending them along with Mrs. Shandy. The rest would be coming as soon as Mary could get them boxed up, which she was able to do now that her wrist was so much better thanks to all the help she’d got from dear Mrs. Wye. What with one thing and another, half an hour passed before Peter, his passenger, and the apple corer got on the road. Even Evander made a gesture that might be interpreted as a farewell wave. At least Peter chose that hypothesis over the less attractive one that Evander might in fact be hauling off to heave a rock through his windshield.
The ride down was, fortunately, uneventful. Tilkey was less chatty this morning. He didn’t say much that hadn’t been covered last night, although he did have a few interesting expletives saved up for Iolanthe’s father. Peter was ready to say “Amen” to them all even though he’d never met the old Bib
le thumper and didn’t want to.
On the brighter side, Tilkey informed Peter that he’d phoned home before leaving Fred’s house and been given the joyful tidings that the agglomeration of junk which his son was so deluded as to call a car was, by some miracle, back in running order, waiting to be picked up and paid for at the garage to which the cousin with the tow truck had taken it. This was indeed good news. It meant that Peter need only stop at the right spot along the highway where he’d picked up the stranded Tilkey and wish him bon voyage instead of having to deliver him to some outlying farm and waste an hour or two maundering along a maze of country lanes that were supposed to be shortcuts back to the highway and would have turned out to be anything but.
In due time, they reached the garage and exchanged a typical rural New England farewell. Sky Tilkey picked up his overnight bag and his funeral suit and said “Thanks for the lift.” Peter handed out the apple corer that Sky had forgotten to take and said “Don’t mention it.” Sky replied “Don’t worry, I won’t,” and they parted the best of buddies.
While his former passenger strode bravely forward to face whatever dire tidings might await him regarding the mechanic’s bill, Peter flipped his ignition switch back on and pulled out to the highway. Now that he had no passenger to scare the bejesus out of, he let his foot rest more heavily on the gas pedal; he was perturbed lest Helen and her friend had in fact beaten the sun to its rising. What if they were already sitting in Catriona’s two-hundred-year-old kitchen, eating crullers and wondering what in Sam Hill was keeping him?
Something in the Water Page 11
