by A. L. Duncan
“Just where the bloody hell are you going with that?”
“To your room, sir,” Liz said.
“No, no, no.” He gestured vigorously at the guest room before him. “Put my luggage here—where I always stay.”
Liz curtsied. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but that’s Miss Vaughn’s room now.”
“It’s what?” He was beside himself at such a notion.
Ilene had been playing the piano and now walked out of the sitting room. She frowned at her brother. “Stop badgering my help, Oliver, and let Liz do her work, for God’s sake.”
“So this is your doing?” he fumed.
Ilene raised her chin defiantly. “You’d better restrain yourself. Is this any way to act on the eve of our brother’s funeral? I advise you to show some respect for the occasion, and to keep your voice down in our father’s house.”
Janie climbed up the stairs and paused in a whisper, “Surprise.”
“I hate surprises.” He glowered as he stomped down the stairs.
LATER, JANIE ENTERED the sitting room with a tray of tea and crumpets and laid the tray on a small sixteenth-century Italian table. “Thought you’d like a spot o’ tea, Missus,” she jested in a Liz-accent.
Ilene smiled. “How wonderful.”
“Liz seemed a little caught up with all the extra arrangements, so I thought I’d help out.” Janie poured them each a cup of tea. “Actually, it seemed the only thing I could do that wouldn’t get my hand slapped by Gil, so I thought I’d come in and be sociable.”
Ilene accepted the tea graciously. “Oliver takes some getting used to, I’m afraid.”
“So I see.” Janie placed her cup down on top of the piano and eased herself onto the bench. The rib injury still felt quite raw. “He certainly lives up to his reputation.”
Ilene moved over to stand near the piano as Janie started playing a Russian folk tune then switched to Chopin’s Barcarolle.
“You’re doing that without sheet music,” Ilene said.
“Uh huh. A bit rusty, though. It’s been a while.”
“That’s a difficult piece.”
“Hmm. Not when you’ve played it as often as I have. It was my mother’s favorite.”
“Oh. Did you lose your mum too?”
“Hmm? Oh. Oh, no,” Janie replied after comprehension dawned. “She’s in Pittsburgh. Living quite happily, I assume, among the fields and crickets.”
“Oh. I guess it was just how you used past tense, and all.”
“Well, I said it was my mother’s favorite because she seems to have a favorite something that changes about every six months. Lately, it’s Glow Worm.”
Janie began improvising to a Scott Joplin tune, then to an Irving Berlin tune. A tear fell on the ivories, and she stopped playing. Ilene’s eyes were closed against the flow, but it was no use. Janie pulled Ilene down to sit beside her. Ilene fell into her arms, weeping in the comforting embrace.
THE REST OF the afternoon was melancholy for Ilene as she drifted about the manor in a daze. She eventually found herself again in the sitting room, staring at the letter from Teddy that Janie had set on the piano earlier. Janie entered quietly with a tray of tea and greeted Ilene with a kiss on her forehead. Ilene sighed as she reached for the letter. When Janie turned to go, Ilene asked, “Aren’t you staying?”
“Don’t you want some time alone?”
“I’d rather not.”
Janie went to the window and leaned against its large frame. The envelope had been meticulously sealed with the initial T impressed into the red wax. When Ilene broke the seal and opened the flap, she found the letter folded exactly in thirds, edged in red pencil. “A special trait of Teddy’s,” Ilene mused. She was instantly moved by seeing Teddy’s handwriting, and sat down on the piano bench to steady herself before reading out loud.
“Dearest Leeny,
I’ll understand if you hate me after this and disown my name as a Vanderholt, but I had to do this. I would have been a burden to you all. With this action, you are free of me. Please forgive me, beloved sister. Julius Caesar once wrote, ‘It is easier to find men to fling themselves recklessly on death than men to endure pain patiently.’ I suppose he had men such as myself in mind. There is much about my life you don’t know. Much I could never tell you. There is one thing I ask of you, however. Please go to Vienna and retrieve my things from the Embassy. Do with them what you like, but I do ask that you give the copy of Byron’s poems to my friend, Samuel Tisdale. He liked Byron I think. I always wanted to believe Byron wrote of you when he wrote Farewell to England, as you have been the noblest, the best, the bravest.
With all my love,
Your Teddy”
Ilene wept.
JANIE WAS IN the kitchen, helping with the salad while Anna and Liz prepared dinner. Liz sidled up to her and smiled wryly.
“So, what do you think of Oliver?” Liz asked.
Janie smirked and chopped the tip off a cucumber. “First impressions are always the truest, they say.”
Anna smiled. “Such a diplomatic reply.”
“Well, you sure gave ’im a true one of you, ay?” Liz chuckled. “An impression, I mean.”
Anna checked the oven, then added, “I have to say, luv, nobody has ever stood up to Oliver that way before. Not even the men, cowardly souls.” She carried the roast over to the table and flashed a wink at Janie. “All the more power to you, I say. ’Bout time somebody put him in his place.”
“Ooh, you’ve no idea ’ow long I’ve wanted to do that,” retorted Liz.
Janie laughed. “Then why haven’t you?”
“And get fired?”
“Just a minute. I thought that Aria Manor belonged to the Major.”
“It does.”
“And has he ever threatened to fire you?” asked Janie.
Anna waved an arm about. “No.”
“We’re the best ’e’s got,” Liz said vehemently. “It would take a pretty number of ladies to replace us, you know.”
Janie shrugged. “Then pay no attention to Oliver’s hot air.”
Anna stirred sherry into a saucepan. “And what of the Major?”
“You let me handle the Major.”
Anna balked. “Right.”
“And what about Oliver?” asked Liz.
“I think she’s already showed him what’s what,” Anna said.
Liz sniffed as she picked up a silver tray of sherry and port in crystal decanters with matching pony glasses. “Want to ’elp me with the hors d’oeuvres?”
“Sure.” Janie laid down her knife and stepped over to a large platter with shrimp cocktail on beds of lettuce and a tower of Danish caviar in the center. She frowned as she followed Liz out of the kitchen. “I never cared for caviar.”
“Don’t forget to ready the soup when you come back,” Anna called after Liz.
Liz sighed. “Oh, she always shouts something at me just as I leave. Can’t ’ear a bloody word of it.”
“Where are we taking these, anyway?” asked Janie.
“Living room.”
“There’s a living room?”
“Yup.”
“You know, for as long as I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the manor having a living room,” Janie mused.
“That’s because nobody uses it except Oliver. You can’t get the Major to even breathe anywhere near it.”
“I wonder why?” For Janie, it was just another question to add to the many others concerning The Major’s behavior.
“They say that’s the room where they found ’is wife, Mrs. Vanderholt, all those years ago. Terrible death she ‘ad.”
Gothic influence ran rampant in the living room. Ornately stenciled open beams drew the eye, which went next to the massive tapestries that hung on either side of the limestone fireplace.
The moment Janie had walked into the room, she’d had an eerie image of figures that blinded her in their violence, shouts, and gunfire. As quickly as the vision had appeared, it
was over, and Liz was standing before her, meeting her eyes in puzzlement.
“Carolyn...you all right?”
Janie took a breath. “Yeah. Guess I drifted off for a minute.”
“Next time send me a postcard. I called your name three times.”
“Sorry.”
Liz turned and eyed her carefully. “You sure you’re all right? You look awfully pale. ’Ave you eaten at all?”
“Well I—”
“And don’t tell me you’ve sustained yourself on pickles. You’ll need more than pickles and cheese to keep going around ’ere. You go ahead and eat seconds.”
Janie smiled at Liz’s mothering as she set the tray on the table and gestured at Liz’s protruding belly. “Looks to me like you’re the one needing an extra slice of something. Eating for two.”
Liz giggled as she rubbed the bulge. “Doctor Collier says she’s growing just fine.”
“How do you know it’s a she?”
Liz shrugged. “Intuition, I call it. ’Ad a dream about it, I did. And it was a little baby girl with blue eyes just like ’er father’s.” She made a face at Janie’s dismissive grin. “Don’t you believe in what your dreams tell you?”
Oliver strode into the room, distracting Janie from pondering the question.
“Ah, you beat me to it,” he exclaimed.
Liz rolled her eyes and departed.
Janie glanced over her shoulder. “Excuse me?”
“The sherry, of course,” Oliver replied.
“It’s all yours.”
Janie was unimpressed with his condescending attitude, but what she found even more unlikeable about him was his air of dishonesty. He gave off a sense of deceit that was common in crafty people, tainting the room like cheap cologne. She knew it well; she had sensed it in the mobster, Owney Madden.
Janie eased into a brown leather chair and pulled a cigarette case from the pocket of her cardigan. She lit a cigarette and studied the tapestries. They were scenes from The Canterbury Tales.
Oliver poured a glass of sherry and glanced toward the door. “Now that we’re alone, let’s get down to business, shall we?”
She didn’t like the sound of that. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
Oliver leaned down, startlingly close to her face. “Just for the record, I am the one who hired you.”
Janie frowned at his smug grin. “You?”
“Given your true profession, do you really think my father would have hired you as Superintendent of Gardens?”
Janie was dumbfounded. That was the kind of talk that came from someone involved in something quite unscrupulous. She rose from the chair and began to pace, wondering how best to respond without disclosing that she had no idea what he was talking about.
“I must say, if you hadn’t been so persistent, I probably wouldn’t have even considered you in the first place. However, your track record is most impressive.”
“So, you checked me out?”
“Damn right I did,” he replied. “And indeed, you are the best in the business. At least I know I’ll get my shillings’ worth out of you.”
Best at what? Janie was stymied.
Bartley’s entrance broke the silence. “Dinner is served.”
Oliver held out a glass to Janie. “Sherry?”
THAT EVENING, CAROLYN’S ghost appeared to Janie in her room and admitted to having lived a life that involved a unique form of artistry.
Carolyn’s confession was disturbing, and a revelation. Janie paced in her unlit room with only the moonlight casting a pale glow across the floor. Janie muttered angrily, “You’re a jewel thief?”
Carolyn’s ghost leaned against the large window ledge with arms crossed. “Was.”
“Sorry.”
“It wasn’t so terrible. I was trained for it after all.”
“Trained? By the mob?”
“Actually, it was Uncle Sam.”
Janie stopped pacing. “Our government hired you to steal jewels?”
“Not just any jewels,” Carolyn corrected. “Jewels on loan to museums from foreign countries. Insurance pays off, the jewel sells to the highest private bidder, and everybody’s happy.”
“And you get away without acquiring a criminal record.”
“It’s all under the table. All politics. A few dozen assignments and I could have retired young.”
Janie massaged her temples. “And all this time I thought you were an innocent gal who didn’t have a family.”
“You were innocent long after I was, kiddo.”
“Not exactly the saint I pictured you as.”
Carolyn’s ghost cringed. “I’m not much for roses and pilgrimages.”
“So, what’s the deal with Oliver?”
Carolyn sighed. “Well, he’s not exactly talking about petunias.”
“So I gathered.”
“Guess I was getting soft. Oliver was running some import scam and said he could get his hands on an easy one million in diamonds from an African supply company working through the British Embassy.”
Janie frowned in her attempt to understand. “Wait a minute, he said I...you...approached him first. So, how did you find out about the scam?”
Carolyn flashed Janie a smug grin. “I was interested in something much more valuable than a handful of diamonds coming to Aria Manor. How wonderful that you are in a position to pick up where I left off.”
Janie threw up a hand in protest. “Whoa, now. I’m not you.”
“Oh yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not!” Janie shouted harshly. “I’m not a thief!”
“You can’t tell me you’re not a little curious.”
“I’m not getting involved, and that’s that!”
“Without ever having intended it, I’m afraid your...interests are very involved already.”
Janie twisted about. “What do you mean?”
The ghost started to fade. “If you change your mind, you’ll find a hidden compartment in one of my suitcases. Everything you need is there.”
Chapter Nine
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THE MORNING DEW dampened the small group of mourners who stood facing the sea at cliffside. The Vicar read Bible passages without regard to the not-so-distant roar of surf and squall of sea gulls. The breeze was stiff, fluttering the ladies’ black veils and tear-soaked handkerchiefs like waving banners. Oliver seemed detached, but then he and the Major had been imbibing bourbon since before eight a.m. The liquor had only added to the Major’s deepening despair. Naturally, soldiers like him faced victories and catastrophes with the discipline of a Spartan warrior, yet even the strictest training could not toughen the human heart. The Major’s grief clung to his eyelashes. Janie was sure he would fall apart if he allowed even one tear to fall.
Deep blue skies hung with a quiet softness over Teddy’s memorial. Janie was there, not for Teddy entirely, but also in remembrance of her father. She and her father hadn’t really tried to reconcile their differences. Their way of interacting was to push their opinions on one another and then wait to see who would break down and give in. After thirty years of pushing each other’s buttons, each had developed calluses.
The Vicar finished his prayer and a wreath was thrown over the cliff. It was carried out on the tides, waters much calmer than the ones which had claimed Teddy. The mourners silently turned back toward the manor, everyone except Janie, who sat on a rock and gazed out to the wreath of flowers hoping the white caps would carry her on some daydream of a clearer conscience. No one could ever have engineered the strange chain of events that had brought her to these distant shores.
A soft hand touched her shoulder. “Mind if I join you?” Ilene asked.
Janie gestured at an adjacent rock. “Pull up a seat.”
Ilene didn’t hesitate to brave the mid-November day. She pulled off her shoes before stepping down to the flinty boulder. Using Janie’s shoulder for support, she sat beside her.
“H
ow very still the world seems,” Ilene mused. “How very powerful against my small life. It’s as if I were a simple, unadorned tree whose life was marked by the slightest fixtures of earth’s changes and is only witnessed by an occasional passerby. Once in a while as would be dictated, I would bloom, be crumpled by the harshest passing storm, and yet constantly maintained by the seas comforting winds through my resurrected leaves and new branches.” Ilene grinned. “Silly, isn’t it?”
“I think you’re a lovely little bush.”
“I’m a tree,” Ilene corrected.
“Oh, forgive me.”
Ilene hesitated and then blurted, “Since reading Teddy’s letter, I’ve had the most curious urge to go to Vienna.” She took a breath and met Janie’s eyes. “I thought it would be nice if we could go there, you and me, to get away from all this for a while. What do you think?”
“Aren’t your roots a bit deep here at the manor, little tree?”
“Well, I’ll just have to uproot myself, won’t I?” Ilene bumped Janie’s shoulder. “What do you call those roaming bushes in America?”
Janie laughed. “Do you mean tumbleweeds?”
“Yes, that’s it. Let the winds carry us freely wherever it likes. I want to be with you, Carolyn,” Ilene added. “We could travel to Brussels, Paris, Morocco, if you like, to a hotel far away, where no one would possibly know us.” She studied Janie’s thoughtful features. “What’s the matter? Is it wrong to want this?”
Janie glanced up with a soft smile and touched Ilene’s delicate cheek. Ilene leaned into her cupped hand. Finally she sighed. “Not at all. I think it’s a wonderful idea.”
“Good.” Ilene beamed. She stood up and hopped into her shoes like a little girl preparing for a great Easter egg hunt. “It’s settled then. We shall start packing immediately!”
BACK IN HER room, Janie ran a hand over the lining of one of the suitcases, but found nothing. Hands on her hips, she heaved a sigh of exasperation and eyed the other piece of luggage. After a moment, she slid the case over and sat on the floor to open it. It held stacks of bills, untouched from the day she had packed them before embarking on her journey. She felt along the back, searching for a hidden compartment, all the while wondering if the ghost was nothing more than a figment of her imagination. She groaned as she realized that if there was any such compartment, it was probably underneath the money.
