Cirak's Daughter

by Charlotte MacLeod

“Jenny, do you want to go in?” her stepmother asked when she came out.

  “I’d just like to fix my hair a little.” Jenny had been wearing that wig so much lately she felt slightly undressed without it.

  “Use my room if you’d like,” Beth urged. “Right here. That light in the bathroom isn’t very good.”

  “Thanks, I will. Please don’t wait for me. I can find my way down.”

  “Maybe we’d better,” Beth said anxiously to Harriet Compton. “Jack can be a bit touchy sometimes.”

  They went downstairs, and Jenny snatched her moment of solitude. Beth’s room didn’t look particularly poor-relationish. It wasn’t fancy or frilly—that would have been out of keeping with the quiet elegance of the house—but the spindle bed with its Martha Washington spread, the cherrywood dresser and night stand were good enough to have sent Aunt Martha into a frenzy of jealous longing.

  The only incongruous note was a dolls’ house, clumsily furnished with bits and pieces Beth must surely, in her inept way, have fashioned herself. It was much like one Jenny had built out of grocery cartons when she was a kid longing for a home of her own. The Plummers hadn’t objected to the dollhouse because it kept young Jenny quiet and out from under foot, but she herself had realized when she was about fourteen that she couldn’t live in a fantasy world forever and had passed on her dollhouse to a neighbor’s child she’d begun to babysit. When she’d seen her handiwork set out with the trash a few weeks later, she hadn’t felt more than a passing pang. Beth, it appeared, was less willing to give up her childish dreams.

  Well, that was Beth’s affair. It was high time Jenny got back to the party.

  The floors of the old house were uneven, and the bedroom door had swung shut. Disoriented by her inspection of the dollhouse, Jenny made the wrong guess and found herself opening Beth’s clothes closet instead of the door to the hall.

  Here was another surprise. For somebody who had nothing to wear, Beth certainly took up a lot of closet space. The hangers were crammed. Perhaps much of it was Marguerite’s overflow, however, for most of the frocks looked almost shockingly elegant in contrast to the homemade horrors squeezed in among them. Several were brand-new with price tags still on, and Jenny had been under Aunt Martha’s influence so long she couldn’t help reading the tags.

  Something was wrong here. The first tag said size fourteen. How could that be? Marguerite Firbelle was as petite as Jenny herself, and Jenny took a six or an eight. The shop must have sent the wrong size, and Mrs. Firbelle hadn’t yet got around to changing it. But the next was a fourteen, too, and the next, and so on down the line.

  A closetful of mistakes? Ridiculous. Beth herself was a fourteen. She’d said so down at Louise’s Boutique. Intrigued, Jenny shuffled through the closet. There wasn’t a thing on the rack that wouldn’t fit Beth, and still she drooped around saying she had nothing to wear. More mysteries!

  But it was hardly polite to be snooping around your hostess’s closet, and Jenny had already been away from the party too long. She found the right door and went downstairs.

  “We’re in the study, Jenny.” Beth was at the foot of the stairs, waiting to show her the way. The room was in darkness except for a pool of light from a gooseneck lamp, which illuminated an expensive slide projector and a very annoyed operator.

  “Blasted bulb’s burned out, and I don’t have a spare.” Jack was fuming. “I’ll have to call MacRae.”

  “Must you?” his mother protested.

  “Yes, I must,” he snapped back. “Where else would I get one at this time of night?”

  Jack picked up the phone and dialed. “MacRae? I’m stuck with a roomful of culture vultures and no bulb for my projector. How about dropping over with one of yours? I’d be interested to see what you think of the work I’m doing with my new telephoto lens.”

  Jenny caught the half-patronizing, half-pleading tone of the amateur trying to put himself on level terms with the professional. Jack might sneer behind MacRae’s back about commercialism, but she’d bet he was praying for a pat on the back about his new telephoto lens.

  Since he could so easily have run over and gotten the bulb himself, though, she sensed that Jack’s real reason for inviting MacRae was to upset his mother. Jenny also had a hunch Mrs. Firbelle knew and resented what her son was up to, but didn’t dare show her feelings. The atmosphere was as tense as a telephone wire. What was going on in this stately old house, anyway?

  Right now, Jack was filling in the wait with a lecture on local fauna. Harriet was listening with a polite show of interest, but Jenny wasn’t paying attention at all. She was watching Beth drop stitches in the dim light. Why did the woman bother with this endless handwork when she did it so badly and when she didn’t have to?

  Unless the dresses crammed into that upstairs closet weren’t hers after all? Could they be kept hanging there like forbidden fruit, to torture Beth with the sight of something rich women could enjoy and poor relations couldn’t? Was Marguerite Firbelle really that cruel?

  Or was it Jack who called the tune here? An only boy who’d been spoiled rotten all his life, as Jack obviously had, might well resent having to share his darling mama with an indigent cousin. Perhaps Marguerite bought Beth clothes out of a sense of guilt, afraid of what the neighbors would say if she didn’t, and Jack kicked up a row when he saw Beth wearing them.

  That would make more sense. Jack did have a nasty streak in him, anybody could see that, even though he had shown unexpected kindness to his cousin that afternoon at the luncheon. In public, with everybody watching. What happened when there was nobody around to see?

  Even Mrs. Firbelle must have been relieved when the doorbell rang and the maid ushered in Lawrence MacRae. Jack stopped learning and started fussing. MacRae had to have his coat taken away and hung up, be given a drink he obviously didn’t want. He had to admire Jack’s new light meter, pronounce on the merit of some other gadget Jack was thinking of buying, and finally discuss the proper method of replacing the burnt-out bulb because the projector was such a highly developed precision instrument.

  MacRae changed the bulb himself with two flicks of his capable fingers. “Okay, Jack, let’s see what you’ve got.” He was visibly sorry he’d come and eager to get the show over with. Jenny began to feel that she and Lawrence MacRae had a good deal in common.

  Whatever else he might be, Jack was an excellent photographer of Bohemian waxwings. His new telephoto lens had picked out the white wing patches and rusty under-coverts, which, he explained in detail, distinguished these birds from their smaller and commoner cousins, the cedar waxwings. He showed a whole flock of cedar wax-wings, too, to make sure his audience got the message.

  Waxwings had charm, no doubt about that. Jenny forgot for a while she was bored and got lost in the treetops as the feathered songsters clicked by: flying, perching, nesting, eating, sleeping, delousing themselves, little reckoning that an avian Peeping Tom was recording their every winsome pose. It was, as everybody remarked at appropriate intervals, truly amazing.

  Like too many amateurs, Jack didn’t know enough to quit while he was ahead. After having pleased the group with his waxwings, he bored them to desperation with a miscellany of family pictures: his mother picking flowers, posing in front of Grandfather Firbelle’s portrait, wandering through the garden, mother and himself beside the birdbath, taken by Beth hence a trifle out of focus.

  “Who’s that in the background?” Jenny asked because she hadn’t said anything for some time and thought she ought to.

  “Oh, that must be James Cox.” Marguerite Firbelle perked up. “Jack, do show them the slides you took at the dinner party. They’ll be interested because it’s Jenny’s house now.”

  Unhappily, Jack was only too willing at this point to be the obliging son. Yet another tray was fed into the projector. Taken in candlelight, the pictures were romantically dim. It was easy to see why Mrs. Firbelle wanted them shown. She herself came out exquisitely fragile in her silver brocade, her hair a shi
ning moonlit nimbus. Beth was virtually invisible, her brown hair and mud-colored outfit blending with the shadows. James Cox was a bulk of shoulder and a flash of white shirt front, nothing of the eagle showing here.

  Jack had far too many slides of the dinner party, each with Mother Firbelle much in evidence and the others mere sepia blobs. At last he flipped to one that showed a square of light with a man silhouetted within the frame.

  “Here’s Cox in the doorway waving us good night.”

  “That’s exactly how we saw him last.” Marguerite sighed. “He often used to stand just there and look over at this house. He said it gave him pleasure to see”—she smiled a sad, secret smile—“where his friends lived.”

  Harriet Compton straightened her back, smoothed her skirt, and threw her bomb.

  “Yes, James could be quite the gay gallant when he took the notion. I understand he cut quite a swath among the ladies of Meldrum. Isn’t that right, Lawrence?”

  MacRae sounded stunned, but he gamely played her line back. “Er—oh, yes. Yes, he did. Definitely.”

  The Firbelles gasped in unison. Jack was the first to get his breath back.

  “Are you saying you knew Cox?”

  “How could I avoid knowing Jenny’s father?” said Harriet blandly.

  “Jenny’s father?”

  “Hadn’t you noticed the resemblance? Lawrence spotted it right away.”

  “Sticks out a mile,” mumbled the photographer.

  “Then what’s she doing here?” Jack Firbelle hurled the question like an accusation.

  “Living in the house her father left her, of course,” Harriet Compton replied calmly.

  After that, the party was definitely over. Harriet was the only one who managed anything like a graceful farewell. Even Marguerite Firbelle’s poise was shattered. Jack glared at Jenny as if she’d been a worm in his apple, making her so nervous she had a hard time stammering out so much as a thank you.

  As for Beth, she simply faded into the background and went on with her knitting. The last words the departing guests heard as the door closed behind them were, “Oh dear. I’ve dropped another stitch.”

  19

  MacRae walked Jenny and her stepmother back to the carriage house. None of them said much until they got there. Then Jenny broke the silence.

  “You know what? I’m starved.”

  “Come to think of it, so am I,” Harriet agreed. “How about it, Larry? Care to join the ladies in a sandwich?”

  “Might get a bit crowded, the three of us squeezed in between the same two slices of bread.”

  That wasn’t much of a joke, but it was enough to set them laughing. They began raiding Jenny’s refrigerator, fishing out cold cuts, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes, wondering where the mustard had managed to hide itself, pouring out glasses of milk for Jenny and Larry, boiling water for Harriet’s tea.

  Then they were crammed in around the midget table, eating, talking, Harriet explaining that she had decided she wanted to be there when the Firbelles realized who Jenny was. Though exactly what they should make of the family’s reaction, none of them was sure. Obviously Jenny’s identity was more alarming a fact than Harriet had thought it would be. They ended up making silly jokes, trying to wipe that uncomfortable scene at the Firbelles’ out of their minds. They succeeded so well that they didn’t realize how late it had gotten, until they heard a violent banging at the back door.

  They all started. And Jenny grew cold with apprehension.

  “Heavens, who could that be at this hour?” Harriet exclaimed.

  Jenny giggled nervously, then tried to make a joke. “Probably your grandmother’s cat, Larry, coming to take you home. I’ll go.”

  “No, wait.” Larry jumped up to forestall her. “It might be anybody.”

  But Jenny went, and it was only Beth Firbelle, still in that impossible crocheted potato sack, still with her drawstring bag in her hand. Beth’s legs and feet were bare, her skirt rucked up over her knees. Her hair was a mess, her face flushed purple. She was panting as if she’d been running.

  “Beth,” Jenny cried. “What’s the matter?”

  “I got out.”

  Beth shouted the words fiercely, triumphantly, her pale eyes glittering in the light from the kitchen. “They thought they’d locked me in. Idiots! I get out whenever I want to. I’m smarter than they are. I knew all the time he wasn’t James Cox. It’s right here, in one of those photography books Jack’s always buying. See? And I knew you looked like him. I came back and saw you after Sue Giles’s party. I even brought the book.”

  She held up a large, slick, expensive-looking volume. Jenny could only catch a glimpse of the title, something about cinematography, before Beth flipped to the page she wanted. Yes, there was the eagle; younger than in Lawrence MacRae’s photograph, black-haired, beardless, unmistakably Jason Cirak at the height of his fame.

  “If you knew, why didn’t you tell?” Larry demanded.

  “Why should I?”

  Beth’s voice was too loud, too shrill. “It’s my book. Don’t you think I know why Aunt Marguerite brought me to Meldrum after Mummy died and they wanted to put me in the hospital like Bill Giles? I may be crazy, but I’m not too dumb to know why she’s after me all the time to sign checks. Who do you think pays the bills in that house? It’s mine. All mine. Aunt Marguerite’s mine, bought and paid for. James Cox was trying to take her away from me.”

  She slammed the book shut. “Jack’s mine, too. I heard them talking. They say he’s going to marry you for your money, Jenny, so they can afford to put me in the nuthouse. But I’ll fix that. I’ll kill you the way I killed your father!”

  Beth raised her arm. The drawstring bag swung down in a murderous arc.

  “Jenny, look out!”

  Larry snatched her out of the way, just as the bag thudded against the doorsill. They stood horrified, watching a great chip fly off the thick oaken plank. Then Larry leaped. Before Beth could swing her deadly weapon again, he had her wrestled to the ground. But her strength was incredible.

  “I can’t hold her,” he panted. “Get help, quick. Jenny, run and bring Jack.”

  Having seen Bill Giles in action, Jenny didn’t stop to argue. Seconds later she was across the back yard and pounding at the Firbelles’ door, screaming at their open windows.

  Jack rushed down, pulling a bathrobe over his pajamas. “Jenny, what’s the matter?”

  “It’s Beth. She tried to kill me. Hurry!”

  “Mother,” he shouted. “Bring the capsules. Where is she, Jenny?”

  “In my back yard. Larry’s trying to hold her, but she’s fighting like a—”

  Jack wasn’t waiting to hear. He was already nearly at the carriage house. Jenny heard him shout, “Turn her back to me if you can, MacRae.”

  By the time Jenny got to them, Jack had Beth in an expert Judo grip. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time he’d had to cope with one of his cousin’s insane rages. Even so, she was fighting her way out of control again when Harriet Compton rushed out to them with a roll of clothesline and the bloodstained suede jacket she’d brought from Baltimore.

  “Here, wrap this around her, back to front. Pinion her arms.”

  All four of them together managed somehow to get the thick, soft leather around her writhing, jerking body. While the men held her, Harriet and Jenny passed the rope back and forth. When Marguerite Firbelle at last made her appearance, carrying a small vial, they had Beth trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

  Jack took the bottle from his mother and shook out a capsule. “Come on, Beth,” he coaxed. “Take your pill. It’s yours. You bought it.”

  He and his mother pried Beth’s jaws apart and forced the capsule down her throat as if they were medicating Elspeth Gillespie’s cat.

  “Good girl. Okay.” Jack let Beth fall to the ground. “She’ll quiet down in a minute. These things work fast, thank goodness. I’ve never seen her this bad before.”

  “Not even the night she murdered my fat
her?” cried Jenny.

  “She did no such thing,” Marguerite Firbelle snapped back.

  “Stupid.” The pill was beginning to take effect. Beth lay quiet on the grass, smiling up at them drowsily, enjoying her private joke. “Of course, I killed him. I just put a brick in my bag the same way I did tonight and went back pretending I’d forgotten my scarf. When he came to the door, I let him have it. Whammo.”

  “Beth, you couldn’t have,” screamed her aunt.

  “Why not? It’s my brick.”

  Her eyes closed. Jack collapsed on the doorstep, where the broken sill showed its fresh, bright scar, and buried his face in his arms. Harriet Compton went and got the sherry bottle and a glass.

  “Jack, you’d better have a drink of this. It’s all we have in the house. How about you, Larry?”

  “No thanks. I’m all right. I guess.” Larry was still breathing heavily, but he managed to smile as he tucked his torn shirt back under his belt. “Looks as if I’d better go get the station wagon.”

  Marguerite Firbelle was ready to take command again. “That will hardly be necessary. You and Jack can carry Beth that short way back to the house between you, I’m sure.”

  “Mrs. Firbelle,” he answered, “there’s no way I’m going to let you take Beth anywhere but to the hospital. Being an accessory to murder just isn’t my bag. I’ll drive her there myself if you want, to spare you from having to call the police ambulance, but that’s as neighborly as I get.”

  Mrs. Firbelle tried once more. “Surely you didn’t believe what she said? Beth’s always making up stories. She isn’t responsible.”

  “She’s responsible for trying to brain Jenny with that brick she’s got in her bag right now, because I saw her do it. Don’t try to tell me you never knew how James Cox died.”

  “Mother only knows what she wants to know,” Jack Firbelle said wearily. “Go get your car, MacRae.”

  20

  “Twice in one day is a bit much.” Jenny sighed.

  She and Lawrence MacRae were alone in the station wagon, on their way back to Meldrum. Harriet Compton, Jenny hoped, was asleep in the carriage house by now. Jack Firbelle had stayed in Providence for an emergency consultation with the family lawyer, after the authorities who’d gotten hold of Beth’s medical records had given him an extremely rough going-over.