Family Vault

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “They were becalmed in a fog in their sloop, the Caroline, about a mile offshore. Actually the boat wasn’t in any danger, but Uncle Gilbert, Alexander’s father, found out he’d forgotten his heart medicine, which he needed very badly. They’d bashed up their dinghy so Aunt Caroline decided to swim in for help. She’d always been a marvelous distance swimmer—she even trained for the English Channel when she was a girl, but her parents wouldn’t let her do it. Anyway, a squall came up and she lost her bearings. She finally made it to shore, but she’d taken a terrible beating. Both eardrums were broken and she developed an infection that left her totally deaf. Her eyes were also injured. They tried all sorts of treatments but nothing helped. The worst of it was that Uncle Gilbert died while she was in the water. Alexander was with him, and I don’t think he’s ever gotten over it.”

  “Why did he let his mother make the swim instead of going himself?”

  “Because she was the better swimmer and a complete dud at handling the boat. They made the sensible choice, even if things turned out wrong.”

  “That’s the trouble with being sensible,” said Bittersohn. “How old was your husband when this happened?”

  “Seventeen. He’d just finished prep school and was about to start college. He and Harry were roommates, as you may know.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know Lackridge at all, except as my so-called publisher.”

  “Why so-called? I thought your book was all settled.”

  “Hardly. I still have to write most of it.”

  “Have you written before?”

  “A few articles for trade publications. Nothing anybody’s ever read.”

  “Cheer up,” said Bob Dee, who had come back with a fresh lot of peanuts. “By this time next year, you’ll be a household word.”

  “In how many households? Do you suppose we’re going to eat soon?”

  “One never knows,” said Sarah. “If you want another drink, you may as well have it.”

  “I don’t, particularly.”

  Nevertheless, since Leila showed no sign of budging, Bittersohn held out his glass and Bob Dee sped off to fill it.

  “What does your husband do, Mrs. Kelling?”

  “Do?”

  Sarah was surprised by the question. Bittersohn must assume her husband led the life of a normal man. She fumbled for an answer.

  “Well, he does some editing for Harry,” footling assignments he performed with a conscientiousness far exceeding their importance and never got paid for, “and—and manages our properties and so forth. And, of course, his mother takes up a lot of his time. Alexander is the only person other than Leila who can do that hand signing to her satisfaction.”

  “But it’s only tracing the letters of the alphabet, isn’t it?”

  “Essentially, yes, but they have a sort of shorthand. There’s also an international symbol language, but she doesn’t know that one.”

  “What about Braille?”

  “Oh, yes, she started learning that as soon as she realized she was going blind. Aunt Caroline is a very determined lady.”

  Sarah essayed a light laugh to show she didn’t consider her mother-in-law the least bit formidable, but Bittersohn probably wasn’t fooled one iota. Mrs. Kelling’s voice, pitched too loud and edged with vexation over something that hadn’t gone to her liking at the State House, told its own story.

  4

  THEY WENT IN TO dinner at about half-past nine and it was every bit as awful as Sarah had anticipated. The look on Max Bittersohn’s face as he sampled Leila’s cuisine for the first and undoubtedly the last time was almost worth having to endure the experience, but not quite. Bob Dee was the only one who ate much, perhaps it was one of his duties. Leila and Caroline, deep in plans for a political coup, didn’t seem to notice what they were putting into their mouths. Harry, who was well over the border by now, doused everything with ketchup from a messy bottle he insisted on keeping by his place. Alexander hardly pretended to taste his dinner.

  Sarah was getting worried about her husband. She wanted to ask if he felt sick, but didn’t. Making a fuss in public would upset him even more, if that were possible. At last even Harry Lackridge noticed.

  “What’s wrong with you tonight, old buddy? Mourning your lost love?”

  Leila paused in her diatribe against the senate majority leader and turned to her husband. “What lost love? What are you talking about?”

  “The late, shall we say, lamented. The girl with the sparkle in her smile. She whose bejeweled bicuspids brightened his salad days. Namely and to wit, Ruby Redd.”

  “You’re blotto. Alex, did you know that woman?”

  “Oh, yes,” he replied in that same dead voice. “I knew her. We all did. We used to go to the Old Howard on Saturday nights to watch her dance, then buy her drinks in a squalid little bar across the street.”

  “Danny Rate’s Pub,” said Sarah.

  They all looked at her.

  “The old man in the cemetery,” she explained, flustered. “The one who told us it was Ruby Redd. He used to be the bartender there.”

  “Amazing!” cried Harry. “I’ve just thought of a profound philosophical observation. I haven’t worked out the phraseology yet, but it will be something to the effect that this is a small world. Catchy, eh? What was his name?”

  “I forgot to ask.”

  “That’s our Sarah,” Leila remarked.

  Alexander snapped out of his lethargy. “Why is everybody picking at Sarah?” he blazed. “Don’t you realize she’s been through a—a hellish—”

  He lost control of his voice, and drank some of the nasty white wine in his glass. “I’m sorry, Leila. I only wish I could have spared you this experience, Sadiebelle.”

  His use of the old pet name made Sarah’s eyes fill with unexpected tears. She smiled across the table at him, swallowing until she could get the lump in her throat to go down.

  “I know, darling. You’d like to keep me in a little velvet box, along with the rest of the family treasures.”

  “Speaking of family treasures,” Bob Dee broke in, evidently under the misapprehension that he was offering an agreeable change of subject, “I understand the Kelling family has a pretty spectacular collection of heirloom jewelry. Any chance Mr. Bittersohn could get a look at some of the pieces? It would be a great boost for the book if—” He saw the look on Alexander’s face, and faltered.

  “I’m afraid that’s quite out of the question, Mr. Dee. The jewels belong to my mother for her lifetime, and she doesn’t care to have them shown.”

  “What is everybody talking about?” Caroline broke in. “I haven’t had a word for the past ten minutes.”

  That was gross exaggeration, of course, but to one sitting in silent darkness, time must sometimes seem very long. Harry, always more demonstrative with Caroline than with anybody else, put a comforting arm around her shoulders. Leila glanced at Alexander.

  “Shall I ask her?”

  He shrugged. “If you like.”

  The fingers began to fly, Leila explaining who Bittersohn was and what he was presumed to want, although the man himself had voiced no interest in the collection. Mrs. Kelling reacted as they expected.

  “Out of the question. As long as I’m alive, the jewelry will stay where I put it. After I’m gone, Sarah may do as she pleases.”

  “What will you do, Sarah?” asked Bob Dee.

  “I expect I’ll know better when I’ve seen them,” she replied.

  “Don’t you even know what they look like?”

  “Only from some of the family photographs and portraits. I don’t even know what’s in the collection. The inventory is along with the jewels, in the vault at the High Street Bank. At least I think it’s the High Street Bank. Anyway, it’s wherever Aunt Caroline says it is, and that’s where it’s going to stay, so I’m afraid Mr. Bittersohn will have to leave us out of his book.”

  “But why won’t she let you see the jewelry,” Dee persisted, “if it’s coming t
o you anyway?”

  “I don‘t know,” said Sarah, who was getting very tired. “Perhaps you’d like to ask her yourself.”

  A smile crooking her thin lips, Leila transmitted Dee’s question. Again Mrs. Kelling made the anticipated reply.

  “I prefer not to discuss the matter any further.”

  “I personally feel Mother’s attitude is a trifle unfair to Sarah,” Alexander half-apologized, “but since she can’t see the pieces herself, she believes she would be shirking her duty as custodian if she were to expose them to any possibility of theft or substitution. She doesn’t let me see them, either,” he added drily, “though I suppose I must have when I was a youngster. I’m sorry for my wife’s sake that I remember practically nothing about the collection, but boys just aren’t much interested in that sort of thing. I am, of course, familiar with the paintings that show some of the jewels.”

  “The ruby parure,” Dee put in eagerly, “in the Sargent painting of Hermina Kelling at the museum. I stand in front of it and cry every time I go there.”

  “I do remember that,” said Alexander. “Mother wore it to the opera not long before—her accident.”

  Bittersohn put down the fork he’d been pretending to eat with. “Are you saying that Mrs. Kelling still owns the complete parure?”

  “Strictly speaking,” said Alexander, “I do. According to family tradition the jewels are passed down from father to son. The wives get to wear them, or allow their daughters to if they feel so inclined, but they are merely custodians, as I mentioned. It would have been appropriate for Mother to turn them over to Sarah when we married, since my father was no longer living, but she chose not to, and considering the circumstances, Sarah has been kind enough not to press the issue. All this is boring for you, I’m sure.”

  “Far from it,” said Bittersohn. “So your mother has never worn any of the jewels since then?”

  “I don’t believe so. Those she has on now are her own, her engagement ring and some India pearls my father gave her outright as a wedding gift. They were brought back by one of the Kellings who was in the tea trade back around 1850.”

  “Does she always wear the pearls?”

  “Now that you mention it,” said Sarah, who could see Alexander was getting impatient with this persistent questioning, “I can’t recall ever having seen her without them. Can you, Leila?”

  “I bet she even wears them with her nightie,” said Harry. “Go ahead, Leila, ask her if she wears them to bed. Tell her Bittersohn wants to know.”

  To their surprise, Caroline Kelling smiled at the question.

  “I can’t imagine what Mr. Bittersohn thinks he’s going to do with that piece of information. Alex, I think we should be going. We have Frederick’s funeral tomorrow, in case you’ve forgotten. Leila, you’ll forgive us if we don’t stay for coffee.”

  Without a word, her son got up and helped her out of her chair. Sarah rose, too, with mixed feelings. She was always relieved to get away from the Lackridges’ and she was bone-weary after this grueling day. Still, she wouldn’t have been averse to another few minutes’ chat with Bob Dee, since she so seldom got to meet anyone of her own generation. Bittersohn, too, might be interesting to know better, although there was something oddly disturbing about the man.

  “Are you going to be working on that jewelry book?” she asked her husband as they started up the hill.

  “I don’t know.”

  His voice was so utterly devoid of life and hope that she stopped short. “Alexander, are you ill?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You certainly don’t sound it, and you didn’t eat one bite of dinner.”

  “I detest Leila’s dinners.”

  “Then why do we accept every time they ask us?”

  “Because we always have, I suppose.”

  “I think it’s time we stopped.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Oh, yes, we can. Alexander, I’m getting awfully fed up with the way we live.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?”

  At least his voice could still show pain. “Sarah, what can I do? She won’t be around forever.”

  “She’s seventy-three years old and strong as a bull. The way things are going, she’ll probably outlast us both. Can’t you realize she’s eating you alive?”

  “I realize.”

  “Then why can’t we do something about it? Get a companion for her.”

  “We’d never find anybody qualified.”

  “How do you know? We’ve never looked.”

  “Anyway, we can’t afford one.”

  “Alexander, that’s simply nonsense. It’s my money we’re living on, isn’t it? Why can’t I have some say as to what we can afford and what we can’t?”

  “Sarah, we’ve been through this before. My trusteeship ends on your twenty-seventh birthday. Until that time I am not going to spend one cent that I don’t absolutely have to.”

  “Then sell some of those stupid jewels. What good are they, gathering dust in a bank vault?”

  “They belong to the family.”

  “You said they belonged to you.”

  “My dear, must we air our problems on the sidewalk?”

  “It’s time we aired them somewhere.”

  He didn’t reply. After a while, Sarah began to feel guilty for attacking her husband when he was so totally down. She felt for his hand in the dark.

  “I’m sorry, Alexander.”

  “You have a right to speak your mind.”

  “Yes, but I could have picked a more suitable time and place.”

  The sound he made wasn’t really a word, so she didn’t try to answer. Perhaps it was better not to. She’d never seen Alexander in such a state before, and she hoped she never would again. She’d fix him a bowl of soup or some milk toast as soon as they got inside the house, and make him eat every bite of it.

  It was odd that he’d been so totally unstrung by hearing of that stray corpse in the family vault. No, perhaps that wasn’t what ailed him. It might not be because it was the family’s vault, but because the bones belonged to a dancer he’d known back when handsome young Alex Kelling was one of the crowd from Lowell House, free to hang around Scollay Square on Saturday night buying drinks for a girl with rubies in her teeth.

  The boy from Lowell House had died a long time ago. Since then, there had been little joy for Alexander. How much had she herself done to make him happy? When they married she was still numb from her own tragedy, abruptly bereft of a father who’d been a widower since Sarah was ten and had original notions about bringing up his lone chick.

  Tutored at home, never visiting anywhere outside the Kelling clan, not having a particularly warm relationship with her father but accustomed to being guided by him in everything, she’d felt lost when he died, immensely relieved when soon afterward the man she loved best in all the world offered himself as a father substitute. Hardly as a husband. As far as their conjugal relations went, she might still be the young cousin he took to ride on the swanboats. Sarah let go of the hand she was holding and Alexander didn’t seem to notice.

  She was glad when they got into the house. Caroline Kelling dropped her wrap and handbag for somebody else to put away and said, “Edith, I’m going straight to bed.”

  Edith wasn’t there. If they’d returned at their usual time, the Kellings’ only live-in servant would be doing her old retainer act in the front hall. Since they were fifteen minutes early, she must still be glued to the television set in her basement lair.

  “I’ll get her.”

  Sarah hung up her own cape and pushed through the swinging door that led to the long, dark back hall and the basement steps. Sure enough, from below came screams and gunshots loud enough to blast the dust out of the cracks in the hundred-year-old paneling. Edith was not yet so deaf as her mistress, but she soon would be if she kept on assaulting her eardrums at that decibel rate.

  Knowing she could never make herself heard over the bedlam, Sarah did not bo
ther to call out but flicked the light switch on and off in the hope of attracting the maid’s attention. That didn’t work, either. Sighing, she picked her way down over the worn matting on the staircase. Edith was sprawled in an overstuffed chair with her feet up on a hassock, her mouth open and her eyes shut.

  Sarah switched off the blaring television set. “Edith! Edith, we’re home. Mrs. Kelling wants you right away.”

  The maid leaped to her feet, smoothed her rumpled skirt, and glared as though it were Sarah’s fault that she’d been caught in such an undignified posture.

  “You’re early.”

  “I know. You’d better go on up to Mrs. Kelling’s room.”

  Muttering something that was probably discourteous, the elderly woman made for the staircase. Sarah let her get a head start. She found Edith rude, lazy, inefficient, and deceitful, making capital out of her alleged devotion to Caroline Kelling while dodging as much of the housework as she possibly could. What Edith thought of Sarah was expressed mainly in sniffs and sneers behind Alexander’s back. As she’d been with the Kellings since Heaven knew when, there’d be no getting rid of her barring an act of Providence. And Providence, as Sarah’s father had been wont to say, was in Rhode Island.

  Edith was also clumsy. As she lumbered through the back hall, she’d nudged ajar one of the framed photographs that lined the wall. It was still swinging on its wire and Sarah paused to straighten it. She liked these sensitive views her husband had taken of the family’s place at Ireson’s Landing up on the North Shore.

  Alexander used a camera with far more than an amateur’s skill, did his own processing, and had supplied many photographs for Harry’s various literary projects with little or no recompense. Sarah had pilfered these prints from his files and framed them as a surprise. He’d been touched by the gesture even while he deplored the expense. She’d meant to hang them in the dining room, to replace some water colors that had been insipid to start with and were now faded to pale tan mush, but Aunt Caroline said she’d always been fond of those water colors, so the exquisite pictures wound up here, where Mrs. Kelling seldom came.