Murder at Teatime

by Stefanie Matteson

  John, who had been engrossed in his book, perked up his ears at the mention of the famous botanical collection.

  Daria smiled. “Dr. Thornhill was a trustee of the botanical society. He still is, for that matter. When MacMillan left his collection to the society, Dr. Thornhill was asked to oversee the transfer. He was the only trustee who knew anything about botanical books. Some of the books needed repair, so he called in Mrs. Freeman. She’d done some work for MacMillan before he died. On Der Gart, for instance. Felix talked about its being in immaculate condition, which is true, but when a book is five centuries old, it’s bound to experience some wear and tear. I have a bit more work to do on it myself.”

  “How long will your work here take you?” asked Charlotte.

  “Until the end of the summer,” Daria said. Gathering up a stack of cardboard rectangles, she carried them over to the counter, where she began matching each to a piece of linen book cloth. “It’s not standard practice for the binder to come to the collector. But Dr. Thornhill was willing to foot the bill for moving my equipment up here. Besides,” she added, “the prospect of getting out of the city for the summer sounded pretty good.”

  “I should think it would,” said Charlotte.

  “Most of the work I’m doing here isn’t as complicated as Der Gart, though,” Daria continued. “John, let me see that Grenville,” she said, reaching for the book in his hands. “For instance, a book like this—an eighteenth-century herbal—is in very good condition.” She handed it to Charlotte. “All I have to do is clean it up, oil the binding, and make a box for it.”

  “Is that what you’re doing now?”

  “Yes,” she said, as she glued the cardboard and linen together with deft, sure strokes. “It used to take me days, but now I can make one in a few hours.”

  Charlotte donned her glasses—Ben Franklin-style spectacles that gave her a professorial air—and picked up the book. The pages opened to a beautiful hand-colored engraving of the same violet-blue flower she’d seen in the witches’ garden, the one that had made her fingers numb. The name, written at the foot of the page, was monkshood, or Aconitum napellus.

  “What about you?” asked Daria. “What brings you to Bridge Harbor?”

  Charlotte laid the book down. “I guess you could say I’m here for a rest cure. I finished in The Trouble with Murder last month, and since I don’t have any other immediate offers, I’m taking some time off.”

  “I’m sure there’s no shortage of offers for an actress of your caliber,” said John, who was fiddling with a 35mm camera on the counter. He picked it up and focused it on Charlotte.

  “Not a shortage, but not a steady flow either.” She scowled at the lens. “If you click that thing, I’ll be very upset.” She spoke jokingly, but there was an edge to her voice. Generally she was indulgent of her fans, but candid photographers irked her beyond reason, the result of having spent a good part of her life eluding overzealous paparazzi.

  John laid down the camera.

  “Thank you.”

  “I would like to photograph you some time.”

  “Maybe,” answered Charlotte, with a little smile. “I’d like to hear some more about your work,” she said, changing the subject. She smiled. “It seems that our conversation yesterday was interrupted.”

  “It does seem that way, doesn’t it?” he said sardonically. “I’m sorry I walked out.” He shook his head. “As you could see, Frank doesn’t miss a chance to give me a hard time about what I’m doing.”

  “I sensed that he disapproved,” said Charlotte, observing that she was picking up some of the local talent for understatement.

  “He thinks of his herbals—not these,” John said, dismissing the herbal in front of her—“but the incunabula, as sacrosanct, and my efforts to make them more accessible as some sort of sacrilege. Don’t ask me why.” He paused. “I do know why. It diminishes their uniqueness. The tragedy is that he doesn’t even realize the incredible wealth of historical information they contain.”

  “Such as?”

  “Science, medicine, folklore. You name it. Language, for instance. Before Der Gart, all books were printed in Latin. It was the first book ever printed in the vernacular. In this case, a medieval German dialect.”

  “Can Dr. Thornhill read medieval German?”

  “No.” He paused to light one of his French cigarettes, and offered one to Charlotte, which she accepted. “I don’t even think he realizes that Der Gart represents the birth of the modern science of botany.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “The illustrations in the herbals preceding Der Gart were copied from manuscripts handed down from the Greeks and Romans. They were copied and recopied so many times that few of them bore any relationship to real plants. Der Gart was the first to contain illustrations drawn from nature. The artists actually looked around them for the first time.” He flicked his ashes in an ashtray. “Frank says the public wouldn’t appreciate his herbals. But he’s the one who doesn’t appreciate them.” He stopped suddenly, and gave Charlotte a contrite look. “Sorry if I’m being a bore.”

  “Not at all.” She had the self-educated person’s respect for erudition. She’d spent her high school years at a posh Connecticut finishing school, her absent father’s only contribution to an upbringing that was otherwise lacking in the amenities. As a result, her education was long on deportment but short on knowledge. She’d often said she’d been educated on Hollywood’s sound stages: she could always be found between shots with her nose in a book. But there were gaps in the scope of her knowledge that regularly cropped up to annoy her.

  “I’d take you down to see Der Gart and the other early herbals now,” said Daria, “but I think Dr. Thornhill’s got someone in the library with him. If he’s still busy later on,” she continued, “I’ll get Der Gart out of the vault and show it to you up here.”

  Charlotte thanked her. In fact, she could hear Thornhill talking with another person—probably Chuck Donahue—in the library below.

  “I wouldn’t let Dr. Thornhill bother me if I were you,” said Daria, turning her attention back to John. “You know why he picks on you, don’t you? He’s jealous. He doesn’t understand what you’re doing. He’d never admit it to you, of course, but you make him feel out-of-date.”

  “Exactly.” John smiled in appreciation. “The universities are full of dinosaurs like him who look down their noses at the scholarship of their younger colleagues, especially if it has to do with computers. It’s nothing new: the words and numbers people have been at loggerheads for centuries.”

  “They feel threatened,” said Daria.

  “Yes. Which would be okay if the job market weren’t so tight. But in a tight job market, it stifles creativity.”

  “Why?” asked Charlotte.

  “Because it’s the old scholars—the ones who’ve quit thinking, quit writing, quit innovating—who control the future of the young scholars. In an open market, the young scholar who deviates from the academic orthodoxy of his elders can always find a niche. But today the young scholar who doesn’t stick to the straight and narrow runs the risk of being denied tenure.”

  “Which means what? Being denied the security of a lifetime job?”

  “More than that. It means being condemned to servitude. Tenure is a class system. The tenured professors—or should I say parasites—get the lightest class loads and the highest salaries, and the untenured professors have to take up the slack. We’re the ones who get the heaviest class loads, the most boring subjects, the most inconvenient times.…”

  “All for peanuts,” chimed in Daria.

  “Peanuts is right.” He rocked back on the edge of his stool, gripping the edge of the counter. “It’s a question of power: the old men have it, and they’re not about to relinquish it to the young, especially to a young scholar whose politics are too left-wing, whose interests don’t fit neatly into one discipline, and who’s contemptuous of their hidebound ideas.”

  “An
d you are all of the above,” said Charlotte.

  He rocked forward, landing with a thud. “I guess I am.” He smiled, a warm smile that erased the bitterness of his words.

  The three of them sat quietly for a moment, the sounds of the house magnified by the lull in their conversation. The drone of a soap opera was overlaid by the sharp tones of voices raised in argument from below. Then the doorbell rang, bringing the echo of Grace’s footsteps in the parlor. They heard her speak briefly to the visitor, and then start up the stairs.

  John glanced at his watch. “Well,” he said, breaking the silence. “I know you came here to talk to Daria about books, not to listen to me spout off, so I’ll be off.” He slid hastily off his stool, picked up his camera, and strode out of the room, nearly colliding at the door with Grace, who entered holding a twenty-dollar bill in her outstretched hand.

  From below, the sound of arguing became louder, and then, as the door to the library opened, very loud. They heard Chuck shout, “You’d better leave it to me, you understand?” and then the sound of the screen door slamming.

  “Oh me, oh my,” said Grace, shaking her head in disapproval. “Those two fight like cats and dogs.”

  A minute later they heard the sound of Chuck’s car starting up, followed by the sound of flying gravel as he took off down the driveway.

  “Pardon me, girls,” Grace said. “Would either of you have change for a twenty? Wes Gilley’s at the door with the lobsters I ordered for tonight’s dinner. It’s Frank’s—I mean Dr. Thornhill’s sixtieth birthday—but all I have is a twenty, and he doesn’t have any change.”

  “I think I do,” said Daria, reaching for her pocketbook. As Daria looked for the change Charlotte wandered over to the window. The view was spectacular: sailboats skipping across the sun-spangled bay, the forest of masts in the harbor, the waves lapping against the banks of the emerging bar.

  Daria handed Grace the change.

  “Thank you, dear,” she said, with a pert wobble of her head. “We’re having lobster thermidor. Marion and Chuck are coming over—I think.” She turned to leave. “Would you girls like some tea? I’m just getting tea ready for Dr. Thornhill. I always take it to him at four, just before The Edge of Night.”

  Charlotte declined the invitation, having eaten a late lunch at the Saunders’. Daria did too, much to Grace’s disappointment.

  “She’s sweet,” said Daria, after Grace had left.

  Charlotte agreed that Grace did have her own peculiar brand of charm, but her thoughts were on John. If he harbored a grudge against Thornhill, he might be responsible for the trouble at Ledge House, although she couldn’t imagine him writing poison-pen letters or letting the air out of the jeep’s tires.

  “I gather John and Thornhill don’t get along,” she said, priming the pump.

  “No. It’s really a shame. I think John blames Dr. Thornhill for the fact that his career isn’t going anywhere.”

  “But they’re at different universities, aren’t they? How could Dr. Thornhill influence John’s career?”

  “All it takes is one person with clout, and Dr. Thornhill has plenty—the grand old man of economic botany and all that.”

  “Do you think that’s what he’s doing?” Charlotte remembered the sarcastic edge she’d sensed in Thornhill’s voice at the scrying session, when he’d wished John good luck in his tenure ambitions.

  “I doubt it. John has a bit of a chip on his shoulder.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “His background, I guess. He comes from a coal mining family. He’s named after John L. Lewis, the union leader. He resents the fact that success seems to come so easily to people like Dr. Thornhill. Resents it and aspires to it at the same time, if you know what I mean.”

  Charlotte nodded. “But if Dr. Thornhill isn’t blackballing his career, why hasn’t he been granted tenure?”

  “Supply and demand. It’s not lack of talent. He’s brilliant. He can actually read the early herbals like Der Gart. No, I think he’s just blaming Dr. Thornhill for a situation that’s not anyone’s fault.”

  “It sounds as if you admire him.”

  “I do. When one of these early herbals came on the market recently, the prospective buyer asked John to check it out. He found major flaws: a page was missing, there were transpositions in the text. No one else had noticed. The point I’m making is this, I guess: everyone wants these herbals to enhance the prestige of their collections, but nobody actually reads them. Except for John, that is.” Leaning forward on the counter, she smiled her dazzling smile. “But we’re not lovers, if that’s what you mean.”

  Charlotte threw her head back and laughed. “Yes, I guess that’s what I was wondering—at the back of my mind.”

  “I suspected as much,” Daria said. “No, we’re not lovers. Not yet, anyway. It’s not that I’m not attracted to him. It’s just that … I don’t know. These things always seem to get so complicated, and I’m not sure I want complications in my life right now. I guess I’m not ready for a love affair.”

  Charlotte looked at Daria sympathetically over the tops of her glasses. “I know the feeling.”

  From below, they heard Thornhill calling for Grace.

  “That’s right,” replied Daria, smiling. “I guess you would. I thought you’d finally met your match in your last husband. At least, it seemed that way from what I read in the gossip columns.”

  “I thought so too.” After separating from her third husband, Charlotte had decided she’d be best off with someone whose achievements matched hers, but in another field—a writer, a politician, a businessman—someone who wouldn’t be threatened by being Mr. Charlotte Graham. Jack had seemed just right: he’d built a small family-owned mining company into one of the country’s biggest conglomerates. But it hadn’t worked. They had both come to realize that he didn’t like living with a competitor for the limelight. “We’re still good friends,” she said. “But we finally had to face the fact that he wanted someone who would massage his ego and take his suits to the cleaners. I guess I didn’t fill the bill.”

  “I should say not,” said Daria.

  From below, they heard a thud, followed by a low moan. Charlotte caught Daria’s eye—it suddenly dawned on them that Thornhill’s call to Grace a few seconds earlier had carried a note of urgency.

  A moment later they were downstairs. They found Thornhill kneeling on one knee next to a wicker chair that had toppled over—it was the chair they had heard hit the floor. One arm was draped around Grace’s waist and the other was clenched to his chest. His appearance was alarming. His complexion was gray, and beads of sweat stood out on his freckled temples, despite the cool breeze blowing through the doors to the veranda. He was gasping for breath.

  “It’s his heart,” explained Grace, who seemed untowardly calm. “He gets these spells. He’ll be all right in a few minutes. Won’t you, sugar?” She patted his head, and wiped his face with the washcloth she held in one hand.

  “My legs feel so heavy,” he complained.

  “Have you called a doctor?” asked Charlotte.

  “No. I gave him a nitro, though. He’ll be all right,” she repeated, as if trying to convince herself. “If you girls could just help me get him to his room …”

  “I’ll help you in a minute,” said Charlotte. “First I’m going to call an ambulance.” She didn’t think he looked all right at all. She remembered seeing the bar from the window. The tide was out: an ambulance could make it across.

  The nearest hospital was in Bridge Harbor; a regional hospital with an excellent reputation. The availability of good medical care was one reason why the Saunders had chosen Bridge Harbor for their retirement.

  “Do you really think that’s necessary, honey?” protested Grace. “He’s always pulled out of these spells before.”

  “We’ll let the ambulance crew decide that,” replied Charlotte curtly. “Is there a phone in the library?”

  Grace nodded.

  With the ambulance on
its way, Charlotte returned to the parlor to help Daria and Grace carry Thornhill to his room. He wasn’t especially heavy, but his inability to move his legs made their job difficult. At last they arrived at his spare, cell-like bedroom, its stark appearance relieved only by an engraved portrait of a bewigged Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist.

  As they laid him on his narrow bed Charlotte had an uneasy feeling. For some reason she was reminded of the image of the yellow dog that had appeared in the coals of the fire in the witches’ cauldron.

  6

  “What do you think of this?” asked Stan, sliding the local weekly across the table to Charlotte, who was sipping her morning coffee. “In the box,” he added.

  The item was an editorial entitled “The Man Who Would Be King”; it was prominently displayed in a box on the front page next to a story on the proposal to grant a tax abatement to the Chartwell Corporation.

  “Once upon a time,” read Charlotte, “there was a beautiful republic by the sea whose people were very poor. Among the republic’s territories was a beautiful island, which was owned by an old hermit. Many pilgrims wanted to visit the island, but there was no bridge. So the people said to the hermit, ‘Let us build a bridge so the pilgrims can visit our island.’ The hermit said, ‘But where will the pilgrims stay?’ The people replied, ‘Let us build an inn where the pilgrims will stay.’ ‘But who will tend the inn?’ asked the hermit. ‘We will tend the inn,’ replied the people. ‘The inn will give us work and make us prosperous again.’ The hermit considered the people’s petition, and then said: ‘I will not allow it. I am now king of all I survey. If I allow the pilgrims to visit my island, I will no longer be king, for they will not obey me.’ And so the people suffered. But the hermit lived happily every after.”

  “Kipling, it’s not,” Charlotte said drily as she finished reading. “Isn’t pilgrim the Maine expression for a summer tourist?”

  Stan nodded. “As if the meaning weren’t clear enough. What they left out of their little fable is how the inn would help the local newspaper: And when the inn was built, the local bellyache grew fat with revenues from ads designed to separate the pilgrims from their hard-earned cash.”