Well, Mr. Mulvaney took a shine to her right off, as he put it, and said he enjoyed that tour of Portland as much as she did, partly because he hadn’t really looked at the place in years, partly because her questions, which I gather were both penetrating and original, made him see everything a bit differently, anyway. They were comfortably acquainted before the day was over, Mr. Mulvaney being a warmhearted, chatty man and Mrs. Dunningham as full of curiosity as Sherry. They stopped occasionally at some apartment for rent, but she always emerged shaking her head, and from her comments afterward on what she hadn’t liked, Mr. Mulvaney began to have a fair notion of what she would like. At noon of their second day of touring, he took her to the Rainbow for her lunch, confiding that this was his neighborhood, and after lunch asked if she’d consider just a single big room and bath overlooking a rose garden. She was dubious at first at the idea of a boardinghouse, remarking that she knew she’d said she wanted people around, but she didn’t want them very close around, and asked him straight out if he thought they’d try to take care of her. He just laughed and said, “Not Mrs. Jackson!”—a remark I understand well—so Mrs. Dunningham agreed to have a look at the place. Ten minutes later they were off to fetch her luggage. She had one small suitcase—that was all.
“And that’s all the conniving there was to it,” I told Uncle Frosty triumphantly. “Mr. Mulvaney was just plotting to find her the place she wanted, nothing more. He said he knew she’d like College Street because she liked him—he could feel it. He said he’d never talked so much about himself in his life as he did driving her around, but that a person couldn’t help it—she was interested. I think he just needed someone to talk to. He’s such a nice, sweet, patient man, Uncle Frosty, and wait till you hear what he has to cope with—”
Uncle Frosty waited, and he heard, in my most passionately indignant accents. Then as I paused for breath, he infuriated me by remarking in very dispassionate accents, “You’ve got quite emotionally involved with these people, haven’t you?”
“Of course I’m emotionally involved with them!” I exploded. “I know them. And they’re no more conniving than I am, in fact, less so—and I might as well say right now that I’ve not found out one thing to indicate they unduly influenced anybody, and—”
“Shannon, calm down. I never wanted to find out anything but the truth. I admit that what you’ve told me so far is not what I expected to hear,” he added.
“Well, the rest is even less so. Uncle Frosty—I guess I shouldn’t ask, but—well, won’t you just drop the case?”
“My client would only get another lawyer, old dear. Unless your information proves that the case won’t hold water, legally.”
“Well, it proves no such thing.” I sighed. I went on with the rest of what I’d noted in the journal, including the fairly cryptic clues I’d gleaned concerning what Mrs. Dunningham had really been like. It was during this part, I think, that Uncle Frosty murmured, “This is as good as a novel. A mystery novel,” he added with a grin.
And you know, he was right. I stopped talking, I was so struck by it, and began working out how the novel would begin (with Mrs. Dunningham emerging from the Heathman Hotel with those newspapers in her hand) and how the plot would thicken and the suspense grow as you showed this mysterious little lady influencing all those people’s lives . . .
Uncle Frosty brought me out of my momentary trance by saying, “Is that all you have in that journal?”
“Jolly near all. A few more bits and pieces of remarks Mrs. Dunningham made to people—completely irrelevant, for all I know. She seemed to have freedom on her mind a lot, if that means anything. I did find out she never mentioned her daughter to a soul. Don’t know why, and I can’t understand it. In fact, there’re masses I don’t know or understand about the whole thing.”
I tossed my journal onto the desk and sat staring dejectedly at it while Uncle Frosty stared out of the window and thought. Presently, he poked the intercom and asked it for two cups of coffee and the file on Lorna Dunningham Watson.
“Mrs. Dunningham lived with the Watsons for a year after her husband died,” he remarked as we waited.
“She did? You mean just before she came here? Well—maybe they were mean to her. Maybe that’s why—”
Uncle Frosty was shaking his head. “According to Lorna Watson, her mother seemed perfectly happy with them—‘just like always,’ she said.”
“But she wasn’t perfectly happy always. Miss Heater said she had a look in her eye—as if she’d seen plenty of unhappiness but just put it behind her.”
“Well—after all, she’d lost her husband not long before.”
“I don’t think that was it,” I said stubbornly. “She told Miss Heater her marriage was a cage.” I grabbed the journal again and found the exact quotation. “She said she married to find security and to get free of her early life. ‘Get out of my cage,’ was the way she put it. But said she only got caught more firmly in another trap and that security wasn’t worth it.” I tossed the journal aside. “There. She didn’t like her husband.”
“Oh—that may be jumping to conclusions. She stayed with him forty-nine years.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t let her leave. Wonder what her early life was like?”
“She was an orphan. Grew up with foster parents, in Sacramento. Went briefly to business college there, but quit at eighteen to marry a man ten years older than herself.”
“Well, where did you get all this information!” I exclaimed.
“From Lorna Watson, of course. I haven’t been just sitting here, Shan. I had to go to Medford a while back, so I nipped on down to San Francisco, too, and came back with more notes than you have there. That’s what I’ve sent for.”
Miss Jensen appeared then with the file and coffee, and after she’d gone, Uncle Frosty sat up and began to go through his papers with a good deal more interest than he’d betrayed so far. “Let’s have a look at those bits and pieces of yours, Shan,” he murmured. “I’ve a notion, if we fitted them in with this stuff . . .”
I got excited, too. And the most remarkable thing began to happen as Uncle Frosty read things Lorna Watson had said about her mother, and I chimed in with her mother’s quoted remarks. It all began to make a sort of sense—at least, we began to get a picture of Mrs. Dunningham’s married life. The vividest touch was a snapshot Uncle Frosty had in the file—Mr. and Mrs. Dunningham and Lorna standing in front of their Sacramento home about fifteen years before. One glance explained why Lorna had been late to marry. The snapshot showed a large, stolid woman with implacably crimped dark hair, staring the camera down. Everything about her looked humorless, unimaginative, conventional. I asked Uncle Frosty about her personality, and he said, “Rather oppressive. She’s a good, forcible organizer, but hard to deflect when she’s once launched on a course—such as this lawsuit.”
That fitted her appearance. Even more interesting, she was a near duplicate of her father. He, too, was large, stolid, humorless, unimaginative, and conventional. The difference was that he also had a kind of wistfulness about him, and his arm curved around Mrs. Dunningham’s shoulders in what seemed a very gentle way.
Mrs. Dunningham, standing between the two of them, looked a creature from some other world—leprechaun land, maybe. A tiny little lady, as Wynola had said, with white hair drawn back into a bun high on her crown, where a child might wear a ponytail; a still, almost placid face; deep-set eyes turned into black caverns by the too-harsh light; a plain dark dress: she seemed a quite unremarkable frail little lady. Yet it was there, all the same. Was it the slight tilt to her chin? The fact that you couldn’t read her eyes?
“I’ll bet he just adored her,” I murmured, staring fascinated. “And I’ll bet he never once bought her a present she really liked or understood the least bit how she really felt about anything. I’ll bet she never blamed him for it, either—but what a lonesome forty-nine years that must have
been, Uncle Frosty!”
“For him, too,” Uncle Frosty said.
“He had Lorna. No wonder she never got to go clear to England just to see Stonehenge. Can’t you see their reaction? I’ll bet Mr. Dunningham took her on his next business trip to Fresno, instead.”
“No, he took her to Victoria, B.C.,” Uncle Frosty said, smiling.
“Of course! ‘Just the same as England, and so much closer!’”
“And more practical,” Uncle Frosty added. He thumbed through his papers and selected one. “Lorna reports that her mother was always terribly impractical. ‘Always wanting to spend money on useless things.’ Wanting to only, I gather. Mr. Dunningham apparently kept the purse strings in his own hands.”
“So she wouldn’t go buying things like cuckoo clocks to keep her reminded of the ridiculousness of the human race,” I said reminiscently.
“Come again?”
I explained, and Uncle Frosty looked enlightened and shuffled his papers again. “There was something about a cuckoo clock she’d had for years—wedding present, I think. Here it is—according to Lorna, she was ‘plain silly’ over it, and when Lorna dropped it one day during a housecleaning, she ‘took on something terrible.’ It couldn’t be fixed, to Lorna’s relief because it was a dust-catcher and so old-fashioned, but she gave her mother a nice new electric clock the next Christmas.”
“Oh, dear,” I said.
“Lorna told me forcefully several times that she was always good to her mother, never let her lift a finger about the housework, never let her go into town alone for fear a big place like San Francisco would confuse her. She thinks her mother abominably ungrateful just to walk out like that, because she took the very best care of her.”
No doubt Mr. Dunningham had taken frightfully good care of her, too, but for those forty-nine years she’d at least had her own house to occupy her and make her feel useful. It was becoming very clear what her year with the Watsons had been like. Worse than a cage—it must have been a prison. Small wonder that she had waked up one morning, thought, “What am I doing here? Why don’t I just go?”, and instantly packed that one little bag and headed north, leaving her whole life behind.
I remarked, “She actually told Sherry once that everybody ought to get lost at some time in their lives—that it was the only way to find yourself. That’s exactly what she did, wasn’t it? Then afterward I suppose she didn’t want to risk what she’d found by even mentioning Lorna’s name.”
“Superstition,” Uncle Frosty muttered.
Maybe so—but I understood how she’d felt.
Uncle Frosty closed his file at last and said slowly, “To me, the basic idea behind that will of hers is still unclear. I feel there was one, but I don’t get it. I do think the idea was her own—and I think she was in possession of all her faculties when she had the will drawn up. But, Shan, I still can’t absolutely prove it. The thing might not stand up in court.”
It was maddening, having to be legal about all this when the situation was plain as the nose on my dad’s face, and that’s remarkably plain. I asked Uncle Frosty what would happen now, and he said all he could do was talk to Lorna Watson, explain things, and advise her strongly not to contest the will—to respect her mother’s wishes, though they were hard to accept.
“Talk to her when?”
“We’re planning to stop over in San Francisco tomorrow on our way to Mexico City. I can see her then.”
“Will she listen to you?”
“I don’t know. I’m wondering whether she’s—well—generous enough to step aside for these strangers, whether they were her mother’s friends or not. Seems to me, if she were that kind of person, her mother never would have felt as she did about her.”
“That makes sense,” I said moodily. “But you will try?”
“Oh, I’ll try my derndest. Really, I will, Shan. And I may succeed. But if she insists on going ahead with the suit, I’m obligated to conduct it.”
“How soon do you think we’ll know?”
“Depends on her. But if she decides to sue, I suspect she’ll do it right away.”
“She can’t, until you get back!”
“Oh, yes—young Turnbull can start the first wheels turning. So if it’s thumbs down, you may know soon.” Uncle Frosty took a last swallow of his cold coffee, made a face, and added, “In any case, you can quit behaving like a detective. Your job’s done. Mighty well done, too.”
“Done?” I said blankly. “You mean it’s—over?”
“Sure. I’ve got all the information I need to make up my own mind, and that’s what you were after.”
“But—” I swallowed, trying to fight down a sudden panic. “What’ll I do now?”
Uncle Frosty shrugged and smiled. “Come with Mona and me to Mexico, why not? Rainy season, but we’re ignoring that. It’s the only month I can get away.”
“But I don’t—I mean, it’s frightfully nice of you, but—” But I didn’t want to go to Mexico, rain or shine. I could think of scarcely anything I wanted less. Besides, Mona and I never seemed to jell; I’d spoil the trip for everybody. “If I don’t do that, must I go back to Mary’s Creek?” I asked warily.
“Nope. You’ve got a whole month to go yet on our bargain. What you do depends entirely on how you feel about things by now.”
Well, the way I felt was that I belonged right on College Street, in the Rainbow. It was the only place I had belonged, for years and years. “Could I—just stay put?” I said slowly. “I can live on my waitress salary, you know—I’ve been doing it. Your checks are just piling up in the bank.”
“That’s what you want to do? Sure? Our plane leaves early tomorrow, and then it’ll be too late to change your mind.”
“I’m not going to be changing it. This is what I want.”
“Fair enough. I see nothing against it.” He pawed briefly in a drawer and handed me a thin typed sheet of paper. “Here’s our itinerary. It’s vague—we’re after ruins, not tourist centers. But our dates at a couple of hotels are firm if you want to get in touch. We’ll be home the thirty-first. Give me a ring the next day, will you?”
I promised and got up feeling oddly happy and light on my feet. I kissed him good-by, told him to have a lovely time splashing about in his ruins, and went out reflecting for the hundredth time that Uncle Frosty must be the fairest man alive. We both knew that when I rang him on September 1, his part of our bargain would be complete; it would then be time for mine. But he’d said not a word to spoil my last month of being left alone.
Cautiously, as I reached the street and headed toward the Poudre Puff, I let myself wonder—just testing—if my attitude toward college had changed at all. I found I still shied away, though my reasons weren’t quite the same. Sherry had punctured my theory that college was “just more school.” I knew I might even like it—if I could be somebody besides myself. But my imagination still boggled at the picture of Shan Lightley diving gracefully into a whole freshman class of Americans and doing anything but sink like a stone.
Well, then, I thought, stopping automatically at a “wait” light, what shall I do next year? Go back to Europe? No, blind alley. I’ve got to start doing something besides tag people about. If I don’t enter the university, I’d better get a job.
The next minute I was thinking, “But I’ve got a job!”
People began to brush past me and detour around me, and I realized I’d had a “walk” light for several seconds. I started across the street, still carrying on my silent monologue. Why get a new job when I had an old one I liked already? I’d stay at the Rainbow. I’d go right on living in Mrs. Dunningham’s room and winding her cuckoo and watching Mrs. Hockins prune roses and Wynola grow up—without spying on anybody. No reason I couldn’t stay several years. Maybe I’d just stay and stay, until I got married or something.
The more I thought of it, the more exh
ilarated I felt and the faster I walked. Somehow, the decision put everything in a new light. I was all but hugging the basket with my domino in it and wishing the hairdo were over so I could renew my eye shadow and slip back into character.
I turned a corner, met a gust of wind that made me duck and not look where I was going, and ran slap into somebody coming out of a book shop. The person grabbed my elbow to steady me, I looked up to say “pardon”—and it was Sherry.
5
Fortunately, I was simply frozen from the shock—too much to betray myself in those first few seconds. In the next few, praying that my stunned expression would pass as blank nonrecognition, I twittered in my strongest British accent, “Teddibly soddy. Ohl my fohlt.” I then turned away casually and started on. The temptation was to run like a stag, but I managed to hang onto myself when I realized Sherry wasn’t following. I think that’s all that got me to the next corner without a collapse or a sudden uncontrollable sprint.
Once around it, I moved so fast that several people turned in a bemused manner to blink after me. Within three minutes I was in a ladies’ room turning myself back into Georgetta and hiding my hair in the scarf. No sign of Sherry when I ventured cautiously onto the street. Five minutes later I was thankfully giving myself over to Opyl.
He couldn’t have been sure it was me, I told myself. When I turn up tomorrow acting perfectly normal, he’ll decide he made a mistake. He’s got to. Sure to. Anybody would.
None of these assurances served to calm me. Throughout the entire hair operation, I sat chewing my lipstick off, going over and over that unlucky encounter, wondering where on earth Sherry had sprung from, why on earth he’d had to materialize on just that corner at just that moment. It seemed cosmically unfair. It wasn’t until my coiffure was receiving its final cloud of glue that my memory offered me a snapshot of the bookstore window behind him—filled with paperbacks. Herndon’s. Merely the place he worked—that’s all. He’d told me he hung around there when he wasn’t working. If only I’d listened, if only I’d located the place and made a rule to avoid it . . . If only, if only . . .
Greensleeves Page 19
