No Mallets Intended

by Victoria Hamilton

Becca groaned and let go of her arm. “I guess you’re okay, if you can make a bad joke.”

  With two glasses of wine in hand and the plaid blanket over their laps, the two sisters settled back down on the settee by the fire. Becca seemed calmer, but still troubled.

  “So what’s bugging you? Did you and Kevin have a fight?”

  “Not at all. He’s so nice, Jaymie. He’s just . . . he’s so nice!”

  “And . . . ?” Jaymie was afraid that Becca was experiencing the same thing she was . . . dating a nice guy, but not sure it was love.

  Becca stared moodily into the fire and took sips from her glass. Her round face was not meant for brooding, though, and she just looked petulant, her cheeks red from wine and the fire. From experience, Jaymie knew to let her talk when she wanted. Hoppy was taking full advantage, snuggling up on Becca’s capacious lap.

  Finally she said, “I’m supposed to be the steady, older, wiser one, and I rush into marriage like I’m buying a new pair of earrings.”

  “Becca, don’t talk like that,” Jaymie said softly. Seemed like it was cold feet, or bride nerves, as Grandma Leighton called them.

  “I’m going to be forty-eight in three weeks, Jaymie. Forty-eight.” She turned to her younger sister. “You remember when I got married the first time?”

  “Barely. I was just, what . . . four?”

  Becca nodded. “I was nineteen and ended up back home in seven months. Dad thought I should give the marriage more time, but Mom understood. She was the one who said I should come home. I’ve always felt like the turmoil I caused was what set Mom and Dad off on their own troubles about then. If only I could go back, I’d tell that teenage girl to slow down, take her time; she had her whole life to screw things up.”

  That sounded an awful lot like bitterness. “Becca, what’s going on?”

  “Do you remember my second wedding?” her sister asked, her voice odd. She stared determinedly into the fire, not meeting Jaymie’s eyes.

  “Do I? The groom got stinking drunk and told the maid of honor—that would be me—to back off and stop telling him what to do. All in a lovely English accent.” Becca’s second husband was a charming Englishman who had plunged her into debt and almost bankrupted her, before taking off back to his homeland and leaving her to sort the mess out in her own methodical way. “That was James the Jerk.”

  “No, you’re wrong.”

  Jaymie stared at Becca. Was the wine already taking effect? “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t remember my second wedding because you weren’t at it. No one was.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Becca sighed, took a big gulp of wine and turned to gaze steadily at Jaymie. “I have a lot to tell you, stuff that even Mom and Dad don’t know. When I was twenty-five I met a guy, fell head over heels, and we got married at a JOP. Two weeks later I figured out what a mistake it was. We fought like two cats in a burlap sack, as Grandma would say. She’s actually the only other person who knows. I got it annulled and just tried to forget about it.” She had said it all quickly, plowing through it, then sighed deeply and slumped, as if a burden had slipped from her shoulders. “James the Jerk was my third mistake.”

  They sat in silence for a long time, just listening to the crackle of the fire and the howl of the November wind rattling the windows. Then Jaymie moved over, hugged Becca hard and said, “Are you worried you’re rushing things with Kevin?”

  Becca nodded, sniffling. “What if I’m doing it again?” She pulled a tissue out of her cardigan pocket.

  “Let’s go upstairs to your room and talk,” Jaymie said, touched that her sister had come to her, of all people, to hash this out. Not Dee, not Valetta, her! The fire had burned down, so Jaymie separated the logs from each other and made sure the screen was in place. “We’ll figure it out together.”

  They sat up long into the night, with Jaymie just listening at times and acting as a sounding board at others. Wine gave way to tea. After a few hours, and hearing all about Becca’s concern that she was being impulsive yet again, Jaymie, sitting cross-legged on her sister’s snowy counterpane, asked one question. “What did you learn in those three marriages, and how is this one different?”

  That inspired another long, long discussion, and the outcome was, Becca decided she had learned enough about herself and let enough time elapse since her last marriage ended—almost ten years—that she could trust herself. Kevin was a fellow antiques dealer she had met at a show and though she hadn’t known him a long time (just a little over a year) they had talked about everything under the sun, and she had met his family and friends. That hadn’t happened before.

  What had worried her was her own past history, mostly. Becca had gotten along with Kevin right away, but since he was a little older than her, she was hesitant about dating. She typically went for slightly younger men, but Kevin was patient and just kept asking. Jaymie had met and liked Kevin; he was kind, steady and gently humorous, and he took wonderful care of their grandmother. In fact, that was why Becca was able to come down to Queensville for a few days; Kevin was taking their grandma to a doctor’s appointment, and then out to lunch, a “date” they would both enjoy.

  Ultimately, as they sat and chatted, Becca was reassured that she was not making another mistake, and the wedding was back on.

  The next morning Jaymie awoke late—the result of staying up until three talking—and had to rush through walking Hoppy, and all the other little chores. She was helping Cynthia Turbridge, owner of the Cottage Shoppe, move some stuff around in the store that morning, then she was working for a couple of hours at Jewel’s Junk—Sunday was a good day to catch the tourist dollar—while Jewel went shopping in Wolverhampton. Finally, she would come home and get ready for the heritage committee meeting that evening.

  Becca had a busy day planned as well, mostly making some local deliveries of china pieces. It was cheaper, since she had wanted to visit Jaymie, too, than mailing such delicate pieces from Canada and risking breakage. First there were deliveries in Queensville, then she had a set of Spode completer pieces—Copeland, a pretty blue and white pattern—that a lady in Wolverhampton wanted for Thanksgiving, so she and DeeDee Stubbs were heading there and then going on to an estate preview for an auction they would all be going to that Friday night. There was a Hoosier listed that Becca promised to look at and take pictures of so Jaymie could show the committee what she had in mind.

  “Good morning, Cynthia!” Jaymie called out as she entered the Cottage Shoppe, Cynthia’s store on Main Street, just down from the Queensville Emporium and Jewel’s Junk. The town was small enough that the business district was limited to one strip of shops, with everything else, like the Ace Hardware, a grocery store and a few others, on the highway toward Wolverhampton.

  No answer to her salute. Jaymie walked through the first room, made to look like a cottage living room with lots of knickknacks, all with price tags. She found Cynthia sitting at the cottage kitchen table (also for sale), staring into a cup of coffee.

  “What’s up?” Jaymie asked, sitting down opposite her.

  “Huh? Oh, nothing. Can I get you something?” Cynthia said, her lightly lined face turned down into a frown.

  Jaymie paused, then said, “The other day you asked me to come help you move stuff around, and we agreed on this morning. Right?” One thing Jaymie had to be, juggling her usual multitude of small jobs, was organized, and she wrote everything down in a purse calendar. She pulled it out of her bag and verified it; she had the correct day.

  “Oh. I guess you’re right,” Cynthia said. “I think . . . I wanted that divan in the living room moved to the side bedroom because I have a rattan set coming and need the space.”

  “I came ready to work.”

  Cynthia seemed distracted, but they moved things around. Jaymie was noticing signs of strain in the older woman; though normally calm and reflective, she
was snappish, even broody. Cynthia Turbridge was a transplant, having worked in business or banking or something like that, then retiring young to buy a house in Queensville, where her elderly mother lived. She had been there about five years and had started giving yoga classes, but her interest in shabby chic and her enthusiastic buying habits meant she had to get rid of a lot of stuff, so the store was her answer. Her cottage shop was doing reasonably well, but Jaymie wondered if the money wasn’t coming in as speedily as she had hoped.

  There was no tactful way to ask about money, however. At the door as she was leaving, Jaymie said, “I’ll see you at the meeting tonight.”

  Cynthia, standing in the middle of the floor surveying their work, looked up. “I’m . . . I’m not sure I’m going.”

  Jaymie turned back, one hand on the doorknob. “But we were going to talk about the design of the various rooms tonight, right? And color schemes . . . pink and white candy stripes, in your case?”

  Cynthia smiled weakly and shrugged. “We’ll see. Uh . . . do you know who else is going to be there?”

  “Everyone, I think. It’s an important meeting, which is why you have to go.”

  “Is Theo Carson going to be there, do you think?”

  “Probably.” Jaymie paused, but just had to ask. “Why?”

  “Oh, no reason.”

  “You know him, right?” Jaymie tried to remember if he and Cynthia had ever been at the same meeting, and she realized Cynthia usually was absent when Theo was making a presentation. Coincidence, or something else?

  “Sure. You run along, Jaymie. I have to get busy.”

  As Jaymie worked at Jewel’s Junk she pondered Cynthia’s odd behavior. When Jewel came back she would have to ask why their friend seemed wary of being at the meeting if Theo Carson was attending. However, by the time Jewel returned, Jaymie had been busy, and with so many other things to ask and tell her, she completely forgot.

  • • •

  JAYMIE HEADED TO the heritage group meeting that evening, joining Valetta and DeeDee there. Dee had brought her elderly mother-in-law, Mrs. Stubbs, who was a fount of information where Queensville history was concerned. It took a couple of strong men to get the woman and her traveling wheelchair up the stairs, a vivid reminder to all that they needed to consider building a permanent ramp into the historic home if it was to conform to the Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines on wheelchair accessibility to public buildings. They would eventually need to consider an elevator to the upper floors, too.

  Heidi Lockland was also in attendance. Haskell Lockland, a distant cousin of hers, was the heritage society’s president and she was cautiously exploring her local family ties. The feuding Queen Victorias, Mrs. Trelawney Bellwood and Mrs. Imogene Frump, were also there, seated at opposite ends of a row of chairs. Though Mrs. Bellwood was the Queen at the annual Tea with the Queen event every Victoria Day weekend, Mrs. Frump occasionally performed the same duty in Johnsonville, the town across the river on the Canadian side. The lady desperately wanted a chance to play Victoria at the Tea with the Queen event in Queensville just once before she passed, though, and so fitfully wished Mrs. Bellwood ill every May. The two had not spoken directly to each other in years, but it was rumored that there was an ancient photo of the two as pigtailed girls with their arms over each other’s shoulders.

  The parlor, Jewel Dandridge’s project, had become one with the dining room by opening the huge pocket doors between them all the way, and the larger area was filled to capacity, with folding chairs and antiques mixed to make enough seating space for all. Jaymie sat with Valetta and Dee a few rows from the front, which was in the dining room. An antique buffet held pamphlets and pitchers of water for the speakers.

  As Jaymie had warned Cynthia, Theo Carson, the author the society had hired to write the Dumpe family history for the booklet they were going to have printed for the opening, was indeed there in a place of prominence among those seated facing the crowd at the head of the room. He was a tall, distinguished-looking fellow with a thatch of brown hair and a neat mustache. He tended toward professorial tweeds and sports jackets with leather-patched elbows and usually had his phone in his hand.

  He was actually a historical writer of some note, and it had been whispered that his book From War to War had been optioned to a documentary film company for PBS. While he wrote the historical pamphlet for the committee he was also doing research on his next book, Nazi in the USA, Jaymie had learned from Valetta. His girlfriend, Isolde Rasmussen, was in the front row opposite him. She swiveled in her chair and saw Jaymie; she waved and touched her head. Jaymie nodded and smiled to indicate she was just fine.

  Dick Schuster, a pudgy, balding little man in a threadbare cardigan and polyester dress pants, glared at them both, then glowered across the room at Jaymie. Schuster was an antagonistic local, someone who had fought hard against Carson being hired in the first place. He was a writer, he claimed, and could have done the pamphlet at a fraction of the price. In fact, he was researching a book on the Dumpe family anyway—again, he claimed, though no one had heard what he was doing toward it, nor had he interviewed anyone yet—and his book would “blow Carson’s little puff piece out of the water.” He implied some deep and awful secrets he would expose. He didn’t seem to understand why that would not endear him to those who wanted the Dumpe Manor project to be fascinating and enlightening but not scandalous.

  When he applied to write the pamphlet, the committee had investigated him and discovered that, though Schuster talked a blue streak about writing local history books, all he had ever done was threaten to write books. As one of the few society members comfortable using the Internet, and with her connections at the Wolverhampton Weekly Howler, Jaymie had done some research herself and found a wealth of reasons not to hire him. Nan Goodenough, her editor at the Howler, told her a story in confidence. Schuster had dug up some dirt on a Wolverhampton politician’s family. Nan did not specify what it was, and Jaymie didn’t really want to know. Schuster apparently went to the woman and threatened her with writing a tell-all story; she caved, paid him off and actually moved away to keep the scandal hushed.

  If it had been something the public needed to know, malfeasance or neglect of duty, Nan’s husband, the newspaper owner and chief editor, who knew the whole story, would have felt bound to print it. However, it was something to do with her family—Jaymie could think of lots of things that were “scandalous” but nobody else’s business—and the Howler never exposed her private ordeal. If that was what Dick Schuster thought constituted “history,” then he was not the right guy for the job.

  Haskell Lockland, standing at the front of the gathering among the leading committee members—three women (the treasurer, recording secretary, and subcommittee chair) and Theo Carson—harrumphed loudly to get everyone’s attention. The harrumph was a surprisingly effective method—or would have been had he not been interrupted by Dr. Prentiss Dumpe, a balding, slump-shouldered man, who banged the door open and sidled into the room followed by his slimy son, Iago, a thug wannabe. Everyone ignored Haskell and twisted to see who was making such a ruckus.

  Dr. Dumpe, a local psychiatrist, had told them all that he was going to fight the committee over ownership of Dumpe Manor. He had already tried to get a court order to prevent them from doing anything to the house, since he swore it should have come to him. Haskell Lockland, a lawyer, didn’t believe he had any legal authority behind his challenge, and the court appeared to agree, declining to grant the injunction.

  The doctor’s reasoning behind his attempt to regain the family home was that when his grandmother died in the nineties—leaving the house to her sister-in-law, who was not a Dumpe at all—it would have been passed down to him but for “undue influence wielded over a poor, dependent woman.” When the inheritor in turn left Dumpe Manor to her nephew, he rented it out to roomers for a couple of years, then left the area, virtually abandoning the building to the n
ot-so-tender mercies of nature before finally selling it to the heritage committee. To Jaymie, it seemed that the chain of inheritance was clear and legally binding, and the committee was proceeding with the necessary work on that assumption.

  Haskell, a tall, elegant figure—middle-aged but holding up well—harrumphed again and said, “If everyone will pay attention, we’ll get on with the meeting.”

  Prentiss and Iago found seats, but at the last minute the door opened again and Cynthia Turbridge slunk into the room. Jaymie caught Jewel’s eye—the stylish junk shop owner was just two seats away from her—and motioned to the door.

  Jewel caught sight of her friend and whispered loudly, “Here, Cynthia, we’re over here!”

  “Is she okay?” Jaymie asked. “She didn’t seem to want to come to the meeting tonight.”

  Jewel, a fifty-something firecracker of a woman, gave a dirty look toward the front of the room, then bent across Valetta to Jaymie. “Cynthia and Theo Carson were quite the thing when he was first hired,” she whispered. “Didn’t you know?”

  Jaymie shook her head.

  “Oh, yeah, hot and heavy. Girl fell hard. But he quickly dumped her for Isolde Rasmussen. You can see why.” She widened her eyes and glanced ahead at the tall, blond, beautiful and cool as a cucumber Isolde. “Who at our age could compete with thirty and stacked? But Cynthia was crushed.” She hushed as the Cottage Shoppe owner made her way to them. The women finally turned and noticed that the whole room was glaring at them. Valetta snickered.

  “Sorry, Haskell,” Jewel said brightly. “We’re all here now. What are you waiting for?”

  The meeting proceeded and they got a lot done, even though Prentiss kept interrupting, telling them that they couldn’t do anything structural and that he wasn’t going to repay them for all their work once he got the house back. Haskell finally told him that until Prentiss got that court injunction to stop work, he could just shut up.

  They were all entitled to their say, but those who were working on rooms for the soft opening were expected to have a plan in place. The girl’s room was going to be rose and white, but not striped, Cynthia agreed. It would be rose with white wainscoting and have a white iron single bed covered in a quilt Cynthia had found at an antique shop; it was made with blocks of different rose-patterned materials.