Bellevere House (Vintage Jane Austen)

by Sarah Scheele

  Bellevere House

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Bellevere House

  By

  Sarah Scheele

  Copyright © 2017 by Sarah Scheele. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Hannah Scheele.

  No part of this work may be copied without consent of the author. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual situations or persons is coincidental except when referencing known historical personages.

  March 1937

  Chapter 1

  Warren Haverton, head of the Haverton family, ran the First National Bank of Parkdale. Bankers are always viewed as faintly doomsday—no matter how sunny their dispositions—and at this time they were especially feared because so many people and institutions still suffered from financial crisis. But within his family old Warren was a bit of a prankster and always had a twinkle in his eye. He liked to scare his adult children, still living at home, by threatening drastic steps such as lessening their allowance. (Or worse yet, withdrawing Myrtle and BeBe from the B College up near Chicago. But he’d never really be cruel enough to do that. Myrtle and BeBe couldn’t live without school.) The brothers of the girls were both noticeably older than their sisters and worked in business. Grover was on the New York stock exchange and rarely came home these days. His mother worried about him sometimes, but only to show maternal affection. Grover was not the sort of person you worry about.

  Faye Powell was their cousin from Tennessee. Her mother, their aunt, hadn’t done well, and neither had most of Faye’s siblings. But Faye had found a good fit with the Havertons and now lived with them as a sort of permanent assistant—no, that wasn’t it. The Havertons didn’t need assistance and wouldn’t have found her much help if they had. Permanent servant? Impossible, offensive even. Besides, they always cleaned up their own rooms before coming downstairs, as they’d been taught. There was nothing for her to do. Secretary? Closer, but too official; she only sorted the mail and answered a few phone calls now and then. Uncle Warren had often had a secretary suggested to him and had always defiantly shot the idea down. He was a dragon on a gold mine about his papers—and unlike the proverbial dragon, had chosen to hoard something no one else considered interesting. But I digress. Anyway, Faye was a Something or Other, now permanently attached to her cousins the Havertons. And since no one, including Faye, ever asked them about the situation, it would probably never be clarified.

  On a sunny morning in March, Faye was in the front room collecting her uncle’s mail. Nearly every letter was a condolence message, mostly from out-of-state old friends Faye had never heard of, on Uncle Bart’s death. Uncle Bart was the husband of her mother’s other sister, Aunt Cora. Aunt Betty, married to Uncle Warren, was the third and oldest of the sisters. (This may be confusing, but you will have to muddle through with only a general idea, because that’s what the Havertons did.) Anyway, Uncle Bart had spent much more time with the Havertons than Faye’s parents had. The Powells were always moving around in the general area of Tennessee, whereas he and Cora had firmly settled in Parkdale to be near Betty and Warren. So nearly everyone in Parkdale had the semi-functional knowledge of his identity that the Havertons had, and sent polite—and vague—notes accordingly. Nobody was sure what Uncle Bart had done with his life, except he had rather remotely been a sort of preacher in a denomination specializing in frequent revivals.

  I’ll send these up to Aunt Betty—though I don’t know why she thinks it’s fun to read them. The telephone rang. What’s that? “Yes? 3128 Park Street, Warren Haverton residence. Who is this?”

  A young man’s voice erupted out of the phone. “Faye, is that you? I’m just about in a red-hot pickle! A pickle, I tell you. What’s this deal about Uncle Bart? Do I even know the guy? I don’t think I do.”

  Oh, there you are. We’ve finally made contact. “Hello, Grover,” she said, blithely. It wasn’t overly important what she said. If she was as muffled at his end as his voice sounded to her, he might not understand half of her words anyway. “Yes, I’m afraid it’s true. You’ve got to come home for the funeral. Uncle’s orders.”

  Grover sounded really, really irritable. “Sure, I’d definitely love to bounce home and see a good old landmark like Dad. But I’m kind of tied up right now. Can’t you send all the excuses or something? Say I’m in tears about Uncle Bart?”

  Faye was very sorry, but it couldn’t be arranged. “Uncle Warren laid down the law. Everyone must come. It would be disrespectful to your uncle’s memory to stay away. Your presence does matter,” she finished. “Besides, how could I sell the idea you were in tears? Guys don’t get that dinged up, especially not humdinger jokesters like you.”

  There was a pause. Grover’s voice sounded rather stiff. “I’d . . . I’d hide them, of course. Wouldn’t want people to think I was a pussycat. But they’re there, I promise you, Faye. I’ve got stuff in the core about Uncle Bart. If it will get me out of going to the funeral?”

  There was a creak from the front door and a murmur of voices. Faye looked around. “Got to go, Grover. Call later to plead your own case, and in the meantime I’ll tell Uncle Warren your thoughts. Although don’t delay—else the funeral will be over, and your excuses redundant, and he’ll be madder than ever.”

  Quickly putting down the phone, she headed to the door to embrace Uncle Bart’s widow, a short old woman with a long red nose. Behind this woman stood a stocky boy holding several enormous bouquets of flowers from Courier and White. The family had been receiving courtesy bouquets for a week, purchased by acquaintances at the flower store’s brick building, which was three and a half blocks away past the railroad tracks. The company’s name was engraved over the door in a metal plate embedded two years ago.

  “Oh, Aunt Cora! You look really well,” Faye exclaimed. “Do sit down.”

  There was much coyness about Aunt Cora’s red nose, within the family. Honestly, Faye had yet to figure out why. Were they saying Aunt Cora was ugly? Perhaps. She certainly wasn’t the most fashionable commodity, being after all—well, old. But the way their eyes always twinkled at each other over their coffee cups indicated there was something more. I’ll figure it out eventually, if I need to. As I’ll figure out whatever Grover is up to. He sounded really testy. Stiff. He’s preoccupied with something, that’s for sure.

  Aunt Cora stitched her lips and took off her gloves. They were expensive lace, manufactured before the Great War. Through a collision of her grief with her personality, she was not in a good mood. “You’re a very lazy girl, you know that, Fa—Fa . . . what in heaven’s name is your name again, girl?”

  “Faye.”

  Aunt Cora settled herself. “Yes, that’s right. When you brought me those flowers the other day, two of them were wilted. Wilted, I tell you! The buds had fallen off and turned brown.”

  “That is typically what happens when flowers wilt, Aunt,” chuckled Faye’s cousin Ed from where he was standing by the bar.

  Faye’s eyes sparkled a little. Ed always brightened up a room with his delightful smile and zest for living. Clever too—and handsome, not that that mattered. Everybody either liked Ed or was scared to say they didn’t. Faye alw
ays felt a secret ripple of camaraderie when she spent time with him. She wasn’t sure if he knew that she had deciphered the nefarious codes of the younger Haverton set, but she did know she saw a side of him other people didn’t. He was loyal, whip-smart, devilishly amusing, and occasionally actually listened instead of putting you down. But she’d never told him she thought so. Faye was only girl who’d ever seen that side of him, and she felt it best not to let him know about it. He didn’t have much opinion of the generality of women.

  “I see you’re in proper mourning,” she said, approaching him.

  “Yup. You seen Grover?”

  “He doesn’t want to come home. He’s making a fuss about it and wants me to pass the message on to Uncle. Oh, and he’s starting to get a New York accent—don’t know how he does it. I never could drop mine from Tennessee, and the comments about that never end.”

  Ed gave her an odd look out of his blue eyes. “Well, what did he say?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing, really. Just a . . . a demeanor. He didn’t communicate much of anything. I think the funeral came at a bad time, somehow.”

  Whatever the situation was, it seemed Ed had some clues to its identity. He looked thoughtful and drifted away. But Faye did not bother to play the sleuth in Grover’s affairs—especially since, as I mentioned earlier, Grover was the kind of person who easily slips out of the mind. Ed vanished around a corner, and in a few minutes Myrtle and BeBe breezed in. Faye scuttled to help with their towering shopping bags.

  Cries of apology echoed. The girls had meant to come home right away after hearing of Uncle Bart’s tragic demise, but the college band committee had desperately needed their input on the new uniforms. They’d been to Chicago to pick them out. The uniforms were going to be a splendid and mature black with gold trim and fringe. The band would look like musical bumblebees. And while they’d been up there, some of their classmates had insisted on doing a little extra shopping . . . but they were really heartbroken about Uncle Bart. Honestly.

  The girls were both several years younger than Faye, being the daughters of Uncle Warren’s second marriage. (His first had ended in a divorce, which like all divorces these days had been mildly—and only mildly—scandalous.) Grover and Ed as the children of the now distant Eleanor Wankle were not blood relatives to Faye at all, but she called them cousins anyway because it was faster. Myrtle and BeBe were three years apart, but did everything together as if they were twins. Both were currently wearing fashionable, boxy fitted skirts and sheer professional-looking blouses. Myrtle was generally said to be very pretty. None of her features were exactly bad, and her figure was shapely, but she somehow gave an overwhelming impression of bottom, to which a large buckle lying on her rear end only added. She was enthusiastic about this annoying recent fashion. BeBe, several inches shorter, possessed dyed red hair in visibly artificial permanent waves, large earrings like curtain rings, and an awkward, blocky bosom she was trying to disguise beneath a short-waisted jacket that hitched up. However, she had a spunky personality that got her instant attention from bystanders, and was a devotee of the current trend for bright lipstick.

  The electric doorbell buzzed through the house again. Myrtle and BeBe, busy with their packages and a hundred yards of hideous band uniform material, thought the phone was ringing. Faye, however, knew it was the door and almost fell backwards as Grover pushed through and breezed past her. He had gained a little weight, and his flat brown hair had visible comb tracks through the grease. He did not look happy, and his eyes were small and cranky.

  Whoa. That was fast. “Grover! Uh . . . weren’t you in New York a minute ago?”

  He folded his arms. “Sure, sure. No, I wasn’t in New York when we talked. Right at the train station here, actually.” Ignoring her startled face, he headed towards the stairs. “And where’s Mother, for heaven’s sake? I thought she’d be down here, what with the funeral and all.”

  Myrtle and BeBe exchanged a glance before shrugging and returning to their purchases. But this is so odd. If you didn’t want to leave New York, why were you here? And if you were that close nearby, why would it kill you to come two miles to see your family? I really thought I’d have to tell Uncle Warren you weren’t coming while he glared at me.

  “Oh, certainly, Grover. She’s resting upstairs.”

  Grover seemed perplexed, although his mother had been napping, off and on, for years. “Well, what’s wrong with her? Nothing serious?”

  “It’s not unusual, Grover,” she said meekly, ignoring his tone. Yes, it was certainly her fault that her aunt constantly took naps and that Grover’s current behavior could benefit from an explanation. “She should be down in a minute.”

  Grover got himself a drink from the mini-bar and wiped his mouth. “It would be pretty ridiculous if she got sick on the day of the funeral, considering how she was always pushing Uncle Bart at us. I doubt it though,” he added, anxiously. “She will be down probably, you think?”

  He looked unseeingly out the window, his mind clearly far afield. Somewhere as remote as the North Pole--or at least as inaccessible to his family. Myrtle and BeBe seemed to have forgotten he was there. Actually, Faye couldn’t blame them. She would have blissfully let him fall into the background as well if he hadn’t been acting so stinky. After a minute he glanced at her.

  “It is a funeral—right? Uncle Bart is dead, right?”

  Golly, this is getting absurd. “Yes, he is.”

  He sprang to the foot of the stairs as Aunt Betty emerged. Her eyes were drowsy, but her face glowed with genuine serene happiness at seeing all of them returned to her. Aunt Betty loved her children. Faye set out an ottoman for her to put up her feet, while Grover gave her a sort of hug. Aunt Betty, drawing together the green silk bathrobe she had received last Christmas from her husband, drifted to the sofa. She was a true lady, utterly refined and spectacularly helpless. She inspired instant servitude in all around her through her lazy postures and the barely detectable drawl of words that dribbled from her lips like honey.

  “Now, Grover, have you met any suitable girls? No, really suitable. Short skirts don’t always mean suitability. You have to think of her family. Myrtle and BeBe tell me everyone wears them, but that can’t be true. I don’t wear them . . .”

  Aunt Betty’s understanding of fashion was limited to her own youth, and she had only realized short skirts existed when Myrtle and BeBe adopted them during their school days in the Roaring Twenties. She now opined on this change in a tone-deaf way to men like her son, whenever the subject crossed her mind.

  Grover lounged in an armchair. “Sure, a real lady always dresses like an old woman. I mean . . .” coughing, “A woman from your day.”

  Myrtle fluttered to the sofa and sat importantly beside her mother. “Mother, it’s official! Did you see? Look!” She held out her hand, on which Faye glimpsed some sort of hardware. “I have to admit, I just about died when he asked me.”

  “Yup,” BeBe chuckled, burrowing in the boxes. “Then you did a Broadway slide and said something about the whole works.”

  Aunt Betty glanced blankly from one to the other. Faye sat down beside her aunt and reached out to Myrtle, who was more than happy to supply her hand, on which sparkled an enormous sapphire ring set with pearls. “You see, Aunt Betty? It’s an engagement ring. Myrtle’s getting married soon. And she’s so happy.”

  Her aunt beamed, inspecting the ring. “Oh, that’s very nice, dear. It looks expensive, which means he’s rich, does it not?”

  BeBe and Myrtle nodded wisely.

  Their mother looked dubious. “Does your father know about this?”

  Faye and Grover both glanced with interest as the sisters hesitated. “Nooo . . .” BeBe began.

  Myrtle quickly took over. “But Father will absolutely love him. Absolutely. His name is Rivers—Bill Rivers. His niece was a classmate of ours at The B. She was one of our best girls, actually, wasn’t she, BeBe?”

  “Absolutely,” BeBe echoed.

  Niece
? Faye, accidentally catching Grover’s eye, saw that for once he wasn’t thinking about himself. He’d noticed it too. Surely an error on Myrtle’s part. How could her boyfriend’s niece be in her class? What a strange family.

  “And he’s rich, Mother. Really rich!” Myrtle cooed. “We’ve had a few dates, he’d pick me up at The B, you know. He has a huge place somewhere in Florida.” She squeezed her mother’s hand. “You’ll love him, you really will. He’s so—um . . .”

  The girls eyed each other, suddenly floundering. Faye understood. Myrtle didn’t really like Bill Rivers at all. No one in love takes five minutes to think of a laudatory adjective. And why was she in such a hurry to get married to a man she didn’t care about? Faye could see BeBe’s round eyes held a knowing smirk. But no one said anything.

  Myrtle smiled vaguely. “He wanted to visit, but not now. Since there’s a death in the family.”

  “Uncle Bart is dead, right?” BeBe suddenly queried. “I mean, really dead. There really is a funeral, right?”

  “Yes,” said Faye. “Yes, he is really dead.”

  Myrtle seemed glad of the change of topic. “Anyway, you’ll love him.”

  Chapter 2

  The funeral went off splendidly. Of course, it was probably tasteless to enjoy it at Uncle Bart’s expense—at least, at his expense in that the whole thing would never have happened if he had not died. But from a spiritual viewpoint there was no reason to mourn, because Uncle Bart was in heaven of course. Everyone at the funeral loudly declared, more than once, that they were fully certain of that. Faye’s aunt and uncle had discreetly provided enough food to make a party of it. There was champagne, spring salmon, handsome waiters who would bring more salmon for a tip, and such delicious little pink and lavender pastries from Moorland’s pastry shop.

  Faye turned away from the chapel, where she had lingered a few moments to put a cluster of red carnations on the family plaque that now held Uncle Bart’s name. The new minister, Mr. Halwell, had preached a nice sermon on divine forgiveness. How sweet and precious it was that people were never obliged to stand up before God or anyone else and say they had been such and such a way. Certainly a sermon completely suited to the man being buried and to those who wished to remember him. No rules—no regrets—just Grace.