The Inheritance

by Michael Phillips

  37

  Christmas in the Big Apple

  NEW YORK CITY

  Ten days after making their plans, the day before Christmas Eve, the two career women stepped off the train in New York’s Grand Central Station, found a taxi, and checked into their hotel about three o’clock.

  They relaxed, dressed, and went out to treat themselves to an evening at the fabled Chez Anatole where they had been lucky to get a table at all. Their dinner featured roast pheasant. The trimmings included hors d’oeuvres of escargot, new to Loni but she was game to try it, wine, a French Bordeaux, and dessert, a chocolate mousse laced with cream and crumbled shortbread. They topped it off with peppermint espresso from a small bistro on their way to a theater for one of the last Broadway showings of Fiddler on the Roof.

  By the following afternoon, lugging several large bags, the sidewalks and stores on Fifth Avenue were so crowded the two could hardly move.

  “I’m ready for a break!” said Loni. “These feet of mine need a rest. I wonder if I’m going to make it to church tonight.”

  “We passed a tea shop a little way back,” Maddy noted. “A sign in the window said Christmas Eve High Tea.”

  “Tea!” said Loni with a grimace. “Did I tell you about tea in Scotland? Let’s just say it wasn’t to my taste.”

  Maddy laughed. “High tea isn’t about tea!”

  “What then?”

  “Everything that comes with it. It’s fantastic. You can have coffee. You’ll love it. Trust me.”

  “If you say so,” laughed Loni. “Is this something you learned from your Scottish mother?”

  “Yes. But high tea is as much English as Scottish. Let’s go drop our things off at the hotel. Then I shall treat you to an experience you will not soon forget.”

  Thirty minutes later Maddy and Loni were seated, both with cups of coffee in front of them. Two trays of goodies were just being delivered to their table—a three-tiered glass tray filled with cakes and candies and cookies of every shape and color imaginable, and another with tiny sandwiches, fruits, and cheeses.

  “So, this is your high tea,” said Loni. “You were right, it looks promising.”

  “This is only the beginning. There will be more to come—we may need to save our next meal for tomorrow.”

  “If I’m going to make it past midnight,” sighed Loni as they nibbled and sipped, “I think a nap may be in order.”

  “Midnight!” exclaimed Maddy. “How long does Christmas Eve service last?”

  “It’s a midnight service. Starts at eleven, probably ends at midnight or twelve-thirty.”

  “Then I may want to grab a few winks too.”

  Loni grew thoughtful. “Were you serious about what you told me back at the office,” she said, “about being an atheist?”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” replied Maddy.

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “I’m not a card-carrying wacko about it if that’s what you mean. I have religious clients. I don’t want to offend them. I’m not going to protest Nativity scenes or put a Darwin bumper sticker on my car. I told you before, I don’t think about all that. But if you pressed me . . . yeah, I would say I don’t believe there is a God.”

  “Why do you celebrate Christmas then?” asked Loni.

  “I don’t know—tradition, just for fun . . . because it’s a holiday. It’s festive. I guess I like it.”

  “Did you celebrate Christmas growing up?”

  “No. It was only my mom and my sister and me. My folks are divorced. My mom was nuts about her nonbelief. She hated religion. She constantly preached anti-religion. She did plaster her car with anti-Christian slogans. But we did presents at Christmas and had a tree and all that. She just made sure we knew the baby Jesus thing was imaginary and had nothing to do with the real origin of Christmas. By the time I was a teenager her vendetta against Christians began to annoy me. She protested too much.”

  “Yet you’ve seemed to follow in her footsteps.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I suppose I adopted her general outlook, just not her passion about it.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He was never a factor in our lives. My mom hates him too. She made sure we saw him as little as possible.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Yeah, it is. Now my dad’s got Alzheimer’s and it’s too late for me to know him as an adult. It’s my own fault—I waited too long. I allowed my mom’s poison to keep me from contacting him once I was old enough. Then I got swept up in my career. It’s one of a few guilts I carry around.”

  Loni sipped at her coffee.

  “My mom wasn’t a very happy person,” Maddy added after a moment. “Still isn’t. Her poisonous attitude toward my father actually did nothing but poison herself.”

  “Sounds like a little religion might do her some good.”

  “An interesting idea. Try telling her that! What about you?” asked Maddy. “What did you do for Christmas when you were young?”

  “Oh, the usual Christmas-card kind of festivities,” Loni said with a fond smile. “Church and music, visits with the relatives and people in the Fellowship, sleigh rides, and of course food. And lots of it.”

  “Sounds like my kind of Christmas—some of it, anyway. What do you mean, in the ‘fellowship’?”

  “It’s what we call our church,” replied Loni, “Where I grew up.”

  “Pennsylvania, right?”

  Loni nodded. “Rural Pennsylvania.”

  “So what else did you do?” asked Maddy, reaching for the last triangle of sandwich.

  “There are lots of old English traditions in our little community. Most of the families are English. That’s where our Fellowship originated—in England. I used to love singing carols. It gave the season such an old-world feel.”

  Loni glanced away with a wistful smile. “And here we are in the middle of New York,” she sighed. “No trees, no tinsel, no feast.”

  “What are you talking about!” said Maddy. “Every store has a Christmas tree. There are carols everywhere. We’ve been hearing them all day. You and I are going to open our gifts tomorrow in our hotel room. And we are going to have a feast too.”

  “You win. We are surrounded by Christmas. Still, don’t you feel a little disconnected from it all? It’s different from Christmas with family. I wonder . . . are we two old maids with no place to go for Christmas? Or are we two modern girls taking New York by storm?”

  “Neither,” said Maddy. “We’re just trying to convince ourselves that we have something to live for besides our careers. And I may be an old maid before my time, but you need to stop talking like that! Hugh would marry you in an instant if you’d let him.”

  “You’re probably right,” laughed Loni. “Maybe a year from now he and I will be honeymooning here, though I’m not sure I am quite ready for that!”

  “Nor am I,” rejoined Maddy. “My life is complicated enough without men.”

  “You sound like me in college.”

  “No way!”

  “Really. I didn’t date once my whole two years in JC. It made my roommate crazy. She was constantly trying to fix me up. I told her I hated the superficiality of it.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t date!”

  “It’s true.”

  “You had no excuse. But look at me—I’m hardly a woman who turns heads.”

  “Maddy, sometimes you are too much!”

  “Too much what?”

  “Never mind.”

  “So if you loved the holidays as a girl,” asked Maddy, growing serious again, “why didn’t you go home for Christmas?”

  Loni’s thoughtful expression deepened. “You know my parents are dead?”

  “You’ve mentioned it,” replied Maddy. “I didn’t want to pry.”

  “Being an orphan complicates everything. I had a dozen relatives among our community, but I was the only kid growing up with no mother or father. My grandparents were older by the time my parents were ki
lled, and they were stuck with me. No, I mean to say they were wonderful, but . . . I don’t know, I just had to get away from all that. It still feels strange when I go back.”

  “It’s probably lonely for them now.”

  “You’re right. But the longer you stay away, the harder it is. . . .” Loni’s voice drifted away.

  “That’s so true. Why is that?”

  “Nothing changes there, at least in my case. It’s a huge conflict just knowing how to dress when I’m there. You either go back to your old ways and looks and act and talk like you were before, or if you are true to the new person you’ve become, you can’t help disappointing them. They are very conservative, not politically but culturally. It’s a hard situation to navigate. I think I’ve convinced myself that I’m actually doing them a favor by not going home.”

  “You mean by letting them think of you as you used to be?”

  “Something like that. At least that’s my rationalization. Though that cat was out of the bag years ago. They have a pretty good idea who I’ve become. In their own way they’ve accepted it. Besides, I like my new life. And anyway, this year I wanted to spend Christmas with you!”

  “Thank you . . . thank you very much!” said Maddy, doing her best at an Elvis imitation. “But seriously, folks . . . I know what you mean. I wasn’t particularly anxious to go home again either after last Thanksgiving with my mom and sister. The main topic of conversation was about me finding a husband. The magazines left in my room were a nice touch too, with the pages turned back where some great new diet had been circled with a Sharpie. In their eyes I’m an overweight single woman who, as the saying goes, isn’t getting any younger. But maybe I like my life and my job and who I am. Even you were doing it this morning, Loni, without even realizing it.”

  “Doing what?”

  “We were in that dress shop, and it was Here, Maddy, try on this dress. It would be a nice break from your black tailored suits. Branch out, wear something pastel or burgundy.”

  “I’m sorry. That bright one I was looking at—I thought it would bring out your beautiful eyes.”

  “But why? Why do you want to bring out my beautiful eyes?”

  “I don’t know. Because you have pretty eyes. Why hide them?”

  “Loni . . .” said Maddy before pausing briefly. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I love you, Loni. But you have no clue what it’s like not to be tall and athletic and beautiful.”

  Maddy’s words hung in the air. Loni stared back almost as if she hadn’t heard them. Her mind raced back to her childhood when she was awkward and gangly.

  “I am who I am and I like it,” Maddy went on. “Just don’t try to fix me up with bright dresses that highlight my eyes.”

  “Okay. Agreed,” Loni said with a nod. “I apologize.”

  “Good. Now that that’s settled, we had better get back to the hotel for that nap before our night out—at church no less!”

  38

  Rivals and Lovers

  WHALES REEF, SHETLAND ISLANDS

  A man identifying himself as Clement Ardmore appeared in Whales Reef during the first week of February, booked a room at the Whales Fin Inn, then proceeded to request appointments—not only with David and Hardy Tulloch, the two cousins at the center of the controversy, but also with every other Tulloch relative on the island.

  On the second day after his arrival, Coira MacNeill announced that he was a private investigator, an “heir hunter” working for the probate court. How she came by the information she did not divulge.

  Though David as titular chief might have been said to be the most important man on the island now that old Macgregor had been laid to rest, the title of most notorious and most feared surely went to his cousin Hardy.

  Hardy Tulloch had grown up as the biggest and strongest boy on the island. By the time he was ten, no fourteen-year-old would dare tangle with him. At sixteen, still growing, filling out in all directions and actually not a bad-looking lad in a savage kind of way, he naturally assumed that any girl within five hundred miles would wilt in his presence.

  What young women found attractive in such a one was a mystery. Yet there were girls who were drawn to danger as moths to a flame. Hardy strutted and boasted and engaged in all the games hot-blooded youths play to turn the heads of foolish maidens. It was hardly any wonder, by the time he was eighteen—a result of that curious feminine laxity of youth which causes teen girls to be swept off their feet by the least character-worthy young men—that he had left a string of hearts behind—not broken exactly, but certainly older and wiser.

  All the while, Hardy’s ego grew in corresponding measure to his size.

  The small Whales Reef Tulloch clan was an anomaly in the Shetlands where Scandinavian tradition predominated. Though Norse blood intermingled freely with Celtic on their island, the clan traced its primary roots instead to the western Highlands of mainland Scotland. The lairds and chiefs of Whales Reef had always attempted to preserve that Highland clan tradition.

  Hardy, however, despised the kilt, traditional Scottish dance, and Celtic music. He declared himself a Norseman through and through. He participated every year in Lerwick’s spectacular annual Viking festival, Up Helly-Aa, marching through the streets in full Viking regalia behind the grand longship built for the occasion. With a thousand torch-bearing guizers, brandishing axe and shield, Hardy was in his element for the celebration, which culminated in the burning of the longship and a great fireworks display. His dream was one day to march at the head of the procession as the Guizer Jarl of the festival.

  Through most of the years of their youth, Hardy dismissed his young cousin as a mere child, a weak one at that. When the two crossed paths, Hardy bullied young David mercilessly, whether from jealously or mere boyish cruelty, it hardly mattered. That his father and David’s were both fishermen did nothing to draw together the two great-great-grandsons of the Auld Tulloch—the last laird and chief born in the nineteenth century, and the last upon whom both titles rested. Whatever had prompted Ernest Tulloch to split the titles seemed destined to taint his legacy to the third and fourth generation, the very generations represented by David and Hardy and their fathers.

  From an early age Hardy hated hearing David referred to as “the young chief,” a title Hardy coveted for himself. At the time of the accident that claimed David’s father, Hardy was a menacing 190-pound seventeen-year-old with a temper, while David was a slender fourteen-year-old of a mere 120 pounds.

  David mostly managed to stay out of his cousin’s way. When the young chief left for Oxford, Hardy was a hulking twenty-year-old, by then shouldering an equal share of the workload of his father’s business. He paid little attention to the changes taking place in David during the next three years. Though he visited the pub almost daily for two or three pints of ale with his friends, neither did he take much notice as Audney Kerr slowly turned into a woman.

  All that changed, however, when David returned prior to his fourth and final year at the university. Suddenly Hardy was startled to see that David, like him, had become a man.

  Most bitter of all for Hardy to swallow was the fact that every eligible girl on the island, and not a few on mainland Shetland, was in love with the young chief.

  Hardy’s eyes also began to see Audney Kerr in a new light. The change came one afternoon when David walked in and strode across the floor of the pub, greeting the patrons and being greeted in return.

  Audney approached. Their eyes met. Audney’s glistened briefly and she glanced shyly away.

  Hardy saw it. Suddenly he beheld what Audney Kerr had become. Most important, he saw that she was in love with David. All the competitive spirit of his nature instantly rose up within him. His chief became a rival in love, that most perilous of rivalries.

  From that moment on, Hardy’s visits to the Whales Fin Inn took on new import. Henceforth, every afternoon when he walked through the door, he took it as a new opportunity t
o dazzle and impress.

  Audney’s rebuffs of his attentions, and the fact obvious to everyone in the village that she had eyes only for David, made Hardy all the more determined to possess her.

  By the time David departed Shetland in the fall to begin his final year at Oxford, Hardy Tulloch vowed that before his cousin set foot on Whales Reef again, Audney Kerr would be his.

  Like most vows, it was easier made than carried out. Hardy was shocked to find Audney not so willing to fall in with his designs. She spurned him with such wit, with a feminine bravado to match his own, that the very ring of her laughter became bitter in his ear. She dared laugh in his face at the suggestion that she accompany him to Lerwick for a weekend where they could “have some fun” together. And she did so in front of a pub full of Hardy’s fellow fishermen.

  Hardy seethed for days at the rebuke. But his anger at being made to look the fool by the village beauty, along with her obvious affection for his milksop of a cousin, only deepened Hardy’s desire to have her.

  No matter how long it took, Hardy swore that he would conquer Audney Kerr. In so doing he would prove himself twice the man of the so-called chief.

  39

  Over Dinner

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Loni Ford and Hugh Norman had managed to see each other but a handful of times since Christmas. At last they both had the same night free and agreed to meet for dinner. Hugh suggested the Capital Grille, and Loni offered no complaint.

  The moment they walked into the premier steak house on Pennsylvania Avenue, Hugh glanced about, assessing which movers and shakers might be present. As they were shown to their table, he paused to exchange a handshake and a few words with more than one acquaintance.

  “Under Secretary of State . . . Assistant Attorney General,” he whispered as they sat down, “There’s a congressmen . . . one or two senators. And I think that’s the vice-president’s wife over there. A full house tonight!”

  “Maybe I should leave!” quipped Loni. “You can schmooze to your heart’s content.”