A Familiar Tail

by Delia James

  I eyed her over the rim of my coffee cup. “You mean did I get any new Vibes about Dorothy’s death? No. Sorry.”

  “Oh, well. We probably just have to give it time.”

  I swirled my coffee, and Alistair butted my elbow, making things slosh. “Okay, okay.” I scratched his ears. “Um, Val, I can’t believe I’m about to ask this, but what was Dorothy’s relationship with Brad Thompson?” I’d work my way around to my interrupted conversation with Julia later. After that, I’d tell her about aka Dorothy Gale. Maybe.

  I expected a frown, but Val leaned forward eagerly. “You did pick up something! What was it? Does it have something to do with that argument you and Brad had in Raja Rani the other day?”

  “You saw that? How did you see that?”

  “Portsmouth is not a big town. I didn’t have to see it. I heard about it.”

  I considered my coffee and my new neighbor. Was I ready to tell Val about Brad’s mysterious copies? She might decide to start tearing into the house to look for them, even though we’d been over the place from top to bottom yesterday. But that wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was if I told Val, I’d have to explain to her why I hadn’t told Julia, and that wasn’t going to lead anywhere good.

  I took a deep breath and punted. “Were Brad and Dorothy friends? Or business partners?”

  “Not as far as I know, but you could ask Laurie Thompson.”

  “Riiighht,” I drawled. “I could go to her house and say, ‘Hey, Laurie, I want to talk about your husband and the dead witch.’”

  Val demonstrated her essential maturity and stuck her tongue out at me. “You could go over and talk about art. I mean, you said that painting of hers was really good, didn’t you?”

  I did, and it was. I drummed my fingers against the table. “They’re in trouble, aren’t they? The Thompsons? Is it money?”

  Val nodded. “Brad was out of work for a long time before he got his job with Maitland and Associates. The debts piled up. You know how it goes.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I do.” I drummed my fingers some more and glanced at Alistair. He licked his whiskers and strolled over to bump his head against my purse where it was hanging on the back of the chair. “Hang on,” I said to Val. I unearthed my phone and hit a number. It was too early for anybody to be in the office, but I got voice mail.

  “Hey, Nadia, it’s Anna Britton. Call me back when you get a chance. I’ve been looking at some work by a new artist out here, and I think they’re somebody you’re going to want to see. Bye.” I hung up. Val was staring. “A friend of mine runs a gallery down in the Hamptons. It’s not huge, but if I can talk her into hanging one or two of Laurie’s pieces, it could lead to something.”

  “Seriously? That’s wonderful!”

  I shrugged. “I can’t promise anything, and I’ll need to find out if Laurie’s even interested.” I smiled. “So, I guess I’m going to have to talk with her after all.”

  “That’s fantastic! I knew you could do this! I’m just sorry I can’t come with you.”

  “You’ve got a business to run. I swear, I’ll report back as soon as I’m home.”

  Val gave me her number to add to my phone list and we said good-bye. I closed the door behind her but watched as she crossed the garden and let herself out through the gate. I realized I was smiling.

  “I think I’m going to like this friends-and-neighbors thing,” I said to Alistair.

  He responded with a grumpy rumble and nosed at his now-empty plate. “No more for you,” I informed him as I cleared the table and carried the dishes to the sink. “I’ve got places to go and people to meet. I can’t spend all day feeding the cat.”

  When I looked down to see Alistair’s response, he wasn’t there.

  • • •

  I SHOWERED AND dried my hair. That is, I dried my hair after I unearthed my blow dryer from the depths of Thing Two. In honor of the fact that I intended to go visiting, I put on my batik-print skirt and a mostly unwrinkled sleeveless blue blouse. I was going to need an iron, or at least time to hang stuff up. There was a washing machine in the basement. It would mean going down into the cellar again, but I could handle it now. Probably.

  As I headed to the foyer to grab my purse and keys, which I’d left on the table, I was startled by a low rumble from the doormat. Alistair was back. He was also flattened out in front of the door, growling.

  “That’s not about your dish being empty, is it?”

  He grumbled a response. I walked gingerly up to the door, undid the dead bolt and peered out. The little porch was empty; so were the yard and the street. The morning was already warm, and the air was full of the smell of roses.

  But Alistair wasn’t taking all this emptiness calmly. He stalked past me and started prowling the narrow front yard. I found myself automatically looking for that skinny yellow bird neither of us liked. What I found instead was a white envelope sticking out of the mailbox.

  “What’s this?” I asked as I pulled it out. Alistair showed no interest. He was busy patrolling the picket fence, shoving his face into the weeds and lashing his tail.

  At first glance, the envelope looked normal enough, although it was a little thicker and heavier than the usual office supply store paper. Then I saw it had been addressed by hand, in the precise, slanted cursive you hardly ever saw anymore. There was even a seal on it, but no stamp. Somebody had put this into the box him – or herself.

  “What the hey?” I broke the seal and pulled out a sheet of notepaper, which was a match for the envelope. The handwriting looked the same as for the address.

  I read:

  To Miss Annabelle Blessingsound Britton:

  I am writing to invite you to have coffee with me Tuesday morning at eleven o’clock. I recognize you do not know me and have no objective reason to agree. However, if you will come, I promise I will be able to shed some light on certain events that have occurred in your proximity since you arrived in Portsmouth.

  Sincerely,

  Elizabeth Maitland

  The address was over on Newcastle Island.

  Alistair climbed back onto the porch, tail still lashing.

  “Hey, Alistair.” I crouched down and held out the letter. “What do you think of this?”

  Alistair sniffed the paper and shrank back with a growl.

  “Yeah, me too. Should I go?”

  Alistair growled again.

  “Okay.” I tucked the note in my purse. “Change of plans. I can talk to Laurie Thompson later. Right now, I’m going to meet the bad witch.”

  30

  I KNEW THAT the mouth of the Piscataqua is a maze of islands. I hadn’t realized several were large enough to hold their own communities. Newcastle felt like a country town, all winding roads, big trees and clusters of old houses interspersed among the new gated “communities” (read, groupings of big houses planted behind massive garages and wide lawns with no sidewalks, all built to order from preset patterns, carefully spaced so you didn’t have to actually get too close to your neighbors).

  Yeah, yeah, I’m an old-town snob, and that’s not changing anytime soon.

  The GPS led me past three “communities” and around a bend to a sloping road where the oaks were so huge and so close together, I was plunged into twilight.

  “Destination is on your left,” the voice informed me.

  Except when I looked to the left, all I saw was more trees. I had to squint and slow down before I could tell that the winding path between them actually was wide enough for a car. I downshifted and turned the Jeep onto the shadowed path.

  Past the first screen of trees, I came to an old stone wall, complete with a pair of wrought-iron gates. They were, at least, standing open. I was expected.

  “Criminy,” I muttered as I eased the Jeep through. “She really is old money.”

  It took another couple of minu
tes of carefully negotiating the drive’s multiple curves before I reached the edge of the grove and came out onto a sun-drenched lawn. Now I could see the Maitland house, and it was, quite literally, the big house on the hill. A redbrick house, specifically. It was built in the high, square, Georgian style with a curved brick porch and a slate roof. The drive might have been left in wilderness, but the lawn and the bushes that surrounded the house were trimmed within an inch of their lives. I half expected to find a gardener in a smock and floppy hat to be stooped somewhere among those perfect plants.

  I thought about flexing my new magical muscles and trying to find a Vibe but decided not to push my luck. I was already on edge just walking up the flagstone path to the semicircle of a brick porch. I felt a long way from home here, like, a hundred miles and a hundred years away.

  Instead of a pushbutton, the doorbell was the antique kind that turns. A Hispanic woman with gray streaks in her black hair and wearing a black dress and white apron opened the door.

  “Miss Britton?” she asked, and I nodded. “Good morning. You are expected. This way, please.”

  “This way” took us through a formal front room and a formal middle room and what had to have been a breakfast parlor of some kind. I felt the twenty-first century slipping further away with each step.

  The back parlor was as grand as the front room. Plaster rosettes and garlands decorated the ceiling. French doors framed in stained glass looked out over the terrace. No white wicker furniture graced Mrs. Maitland’s terrace, I noticed, just wrought iron, like the gates. Her immaculate back lawn sloped down toward more trees and a green-and-brown pond.

  “Miss Britton is here, Mrs. Maitland,” announced the maid.

  “Thank you, Marisol.” Mrs. Maitland rose from her seat on a graceful Victorian sofa upholstered in a deep moss green and came forward to shake hands. “I’m so glad you decided to come, Miss Britton.”

  “Thank you for inviting me, Mrs. Maitland. What a lovely home you have.” This was me being polite as well as truthful. The place was gorgeous. It also had all the warmth and life of a museum display. I kept expecting to see velvet ropes set up to keep me away from the glass-topped tables and delicate Louis XIV display cases.

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Maitland gazed about that cool room with satisfaction. “My . . . let me see, five times great-grandfather Diligence Maitland built the house shortly after the family arrived here. Won’t you sit down?” She gestured toward a velvet and mahogany chair of the same vintage as the sofa. “Marisol will be back shortly with . . . Ah, thank you, Marisol.”

  The woman who had answered the door walked in with a tea tray (silver), loaded with china cups and a pot and plates of little ham sandwiches and mini tarts.

  “Lemon or milk?” Mrs. Maitland inquired. “This is a lovely first-flush Darjeeling I’m sure you’ll enjoy. And please, help yourself.” She handed me a cup and saucer, waved at the food, but didn’t take any herself, I noticed. That trim figure came at a cost.

  I put a sandwich on my saucer and sipped the tea. It was very good, but, then, I didn’t expect it would dare to be anything else.

  Mrs. Maitland sipped her own tea. She also contemplated me over the cup’s rim. I had to resist an urge to smooth my blouse down. This flawless room was working its effect on me, and all at once I felt too awkward and too rumpled.

  “I cannot get over how much you look like your grandmother,” she told me. “How is Annabelle Mercy? I entirely lost track of her after she left us.”

  “She’s doing well, thanks for asking.”

  “She and Charles both?”

  “My grandfather passed four years ago.”

  “Oh. I am sorry.” But Mrs. Maitland didn’t sound sorry. She sounded more than a little satisfied, like she’d just had her suspicions confirmed. Something inside me curdled. I took another sip of tea to try to settle it.

  “Were you two close when she lived here?”

  “I thought so,” murmured Mrs. Maitland toward her tea. “But that all changed when she met Charles.”

  “Really? I was under the impression you had an argument before then—you and Grandma B.B. and Dorothy Hawthorne.”

  Not one perfect hair turned; not one immaculately mascaraed lash blinked. “I see you’ve got at least some family history in your pocket. Or maybe I should say ancient history.” Mrs. Maitland shook her head. “One hopes that private quarrels will stay private. However, that’s not really possible for people like us.”

  “Like us?”

  “People from the old families.” That euphemism had been polished perfectly smooth. “What the rest of the world chooses to forget or ignore, we do not, or cannot.”

  It wasn’t just a faint ring of pride I heard in her words; there was a whole ancestral chorus. I set my teacup down. Carefully.

  “I appreciate your inviting me, Mrs. Maitland . . .” I waited for her to say, Call me Elizabeth, but she didn’t. “But your note said there were things you wanted to talk about?”

  “It’s straight to business, then. Very well.” Mrs. Maitland took a final sip of tea before she set her cup and saucer down with a definitive click. “I understand you’ve rented Dorothy Hawthorne’s house for the summer.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Darius has been extremely reluctant to let it go. You must have been very persuasive.”

  I opened my mouth to ask who the heck Darius was; then I remembered. “Are you talking about Frank Hawthorne? Or his father?”

  “Frank, of course. I forget sometimes he changed his name.”

  “Oh. Well. I wasn’t that persuasive. It’s only a short-term lease.” I smiled. “I haven’t made up my mind about staying in town yet.”

  “Why that house?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Why that house in particular? There are many summer rentals available.” Mrs. Maitland waved her perfectly kept hand, indicating the river, and Portsmouth. “You must see things from my perspective. Annabelle Mercy’s granddaughter returns after many years’ absence. She’s a dynamic young woman who, I gather, has traveled the country, has a glamorous career in the arts . . .” Hardly. She was trying some left-handed flattery on me and wasn’t making a very good job of it. “But what does she do now? She takes up with Annabelle’s old friends, rents another old friend’s house. I have to wonder, what has made her so suddenly and so very determined to stay in a place like Portsmouth and spend her time with old women and their old ways?”

  She was watching me closely, looking for cracks. I summoned all the cool I’d learned from dealing with difficult clients and fussy gallery owners. It wasn’t easy.

  “I don’t know that I am determined to stay,” I said. “I just needed a change of scene for the summer. As for old ways . . . well those ways are part of my family history and I’m interested. That’s all.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I wonder why it’s any of your business.”

  “Because I don’t want to see you taken advantage of.”

  That stopped me. “I beg your pardon?”

  Mrs. Maitland clasped her hands on her knees. For the first time since I came in, she seemed uncomfortable. “Julia Parris is a bitter, tired woman,” she said softly. “Just like Dorothy Hawthorne was. But they both also come from old families like mine, and yours.”

  My patience with her indirect language snapped. Like the house around us, it felt designed to intimidate and exclude. Blessingsounds, you may have figured out by now, do not take to being intimidated real well. Neither do Brittons.

  “Mrs. Maitland, it’s just us here,” I reminded her. “We don’t have to be coy. Dorothy and Julia and my grandmother”—and me—“are all witches. So are you. You practice magic—excuse me, the ‘true craft’—and you use it to . . . arrange things.”

  It seems
I’d finally gotten over the stuttering thing. Kenisha would be so proud.

  Mrs. Maitland did not answer immediately. It seemed to me like she was considering how far she really wanted this little conversation to go. “I ask you to understand, Anna,” she said at last. “I was raised to keep the craft a strict secret, as was my mother and her mother before her. Not only was this the way our family avoided the persecutions that rather famously overtook others, but it is how we keep the power out of the hands of those who might use it unwisely.” She paused. “Did Julia tell you that she and Dorothy disregarded all precautions to go public with their practice?”

  That choice of words was no accident, and I needed to be careful how I answered it. “Julia told me Dorothy wanted to teach anyone who wanted to learn. It went against tradition, and there was a fight. Julia took Dorothy’s side, eventually.”

  Mrs. Maitland’s mouth tightened into a little moue. “I’m sure that’s how she remembers it. And perhaps that is how it happened. I was not . . . admitted to all their discussions.” She tried to say this with indifference, but it didn’t work. She might accuse Julia of being bitter, but Mrs. Maitland was angry. No. She was furious. “Of course they said that they were working in the interests of freedom. Equality. That it wasn’t fair for any power or knowledge to be restricted according to family and heritage. They said . . .” She shook her head hard. “It was a time of change, radical change. Old ideas were being thrown out left and right, without any consideration as to the purpose that such traditions serve. Dorothy and Julia thought they would bring a revolution to our little corner of the world, and perhaps they did. But they went too far, and they never recovered.” She lifted her gaze, and it was as hard and cold as the room around us. “In sharing the power of the true craft, they diluted it. They let it bleed into the river of nonsense that gets called ‘New Age.’ Their students came and they went, while the two of them stayed and withered.” She shook her head. “Instead of powerful teachers and leaders, they became sniping spinster women, reduced to petty attempts to destroy those around them.”