Beacon Street Mourning (10 page)

I sighed. Wasting money offended Father's Yankee sense of
thriftiness. Money belonged in banks, in his philosophy; in fact, one should spend as little of it as possible—given the demands of a certain lifestyle.

"Yes, Father," I agreed.

"That's my girl," he said. He reached up and I bent down to kiss his cheek. For a moment, with his hand on the nape of my neck, he held me there with his cheek next to mine. A tear slipped from him to me and made a tiny wet spot on my temple.

"My girl," he said again, whispering into my ear.

BACK AT THE HOTEL I wrote out a note on Parker House notepaper. It was most fortunate for me that the hotel came better equipped for the niceties of genteel living than I myself did these days.

Dear Augusta,
[I wrote]
as Father has told you, I am in Boston for an indefinite period of time. I have come primarily to be with him as much as possible while he recovers his health. While I don't wish to impose on you, I do want Father to be happy, and as you must know he is insisting that my partner, Michael Kossoff and I stay at the house on Beacon Street.

I would appreciate an opportunity to discuss this privately with you, since I recognize our presence in the house will make extra work. Father's discharge from the hospital tomorrow morning makes it urgent that we resolve this matter as soon as possible. Therefore, I would like to call on you at home tonight after supper. If you prefer to come here to the Parker House, kindly have the desk clerk phone up for me when you arrive and I will come down. We can talk over tea in the lounge.

I will ask the messenger who delivers this note to wait for your reply.

I had signed:
Yours most sincerely,
a bald-faced lie.

The reply came promptly:

Caroline, I shall be happy to receive you here at eight this evening. Augusta S. Jones.

MEN ARE PERVERSE. I daresay they are all that way, there is simply no getting around it; but there are times when I swear to you Michael Archer Kossoff must be the most perverse of them all. He would not go with me to speak to Augusta that evening.

"Honestly, Michael!" I stamped my foot, which I should not have done because I felt it all the way up past my knee, but I was so exasperated I could not help it and almost welcomed the pain. "I cannot understand why you won't do this for me. Why you are always insisting on coming along when I'd rather be by myself, but refuse when I want you to come because I
don't
want to be by myself, is completely beyond me!"

He calmly stroked the silver streaks in his beard, which run from the corners of his mouth down past his chin in a pleasingly symmetrical manner. "I wish to remain neutral in this matter."

"You can't," I stated unequivocally. "I need you on my side."

"I
am
on your side, but in order to be of greatest use to you I must remain objective. Therefore, I will not accompany you this evening. You and Augusta must come to whatever understanding you can reach between you in order to allow a reasonably peaceful sharing of space in the house. You know you
must, for your father's sake. As for me, your father has extended his invitation, I have accepted, and that is sufficient."

"I hate it when you sound so reasonable about things that are inherently maddening."

"Fremont, come here. Please." He held out his hand. He sat on a small sofa in the sitting room of my two-room suite. I had been pacing back and forth because I could not sit still; I told myself it was a useful form of exercise.

I sighed and went to him.

One by one Michael took the canes from me and laid them on the floor. He put his arm around me and drew me close.

"Your body is taut as a bedspring," he said.

I hunched my shoulders. I could not think of any rejoinder since it was true, my muscles and nerves and everything felt stretched to the breaking point.

He placed his fingers under my chin and turned my face to his. Softly he said, "Forget Augusta for now. It's two whole hours before you must deal with her. Let us talk about something else, something much more pleasant."

"Such as?"

He kissed me, a soft and lingering kiss of the sort it is impossible to resist, the sort of kiss that has one's lips parting, wanting more, no matter what one's mind says.

"Such as your father's wish to see us married."

Before I could react, while the softness of his kiss and the wanting more were still upon me, Michael's lips came over mine again, this time offering the taste of his tongue . . . and I was lost in him.

PEMBROKE JONES HOUSE is on Beacon between Charles and Arlington streets, directly across from the Public Garden. The house was built in the previous century, sometime prior to 1850; just as I had not been able to recall the name of the architect, I also couldn't remember the exact date of its construction. Perhaps it was time I learned both these things. I wondered if they were recorded somewhere for posterity or if I would have to confess my ignorance to Father—more evidence of my shocking lack of concern for things most Bostonians of our ilk are supposed to hold sacred.

The facade of the house is brick and stone and has remained unaltered all its many years, save for a few necessities such as replacement of the outside shutters. Like all the others along the old stretch of Beacon Street from Arlington up past the State House (that's as opposed to the new part of Beacon on down through Back Bay), these houses in our block were built flush to the sidewalk with no front yard or even a strip of grassy verge to call their own. Nor do they have much space in back, though ours has a tiny walled garden where one may sit out in summer. The builders must have assumed that anyone desirous of outdoor activity would go across the street to the Public Garden. Why then waste valuable lot space that could be used to enclose more rooms?

The house does have many rooms, on three full floors plus a top floor of tiny rooms with low ceilings and dormer windows that stick up through the sloping slate roof. There is also a basement scarcely worth mention, as it has never been much more than a stony hole in the ground.

The driver of the hansom cab had assisted me out of his vehicle and I'd paid and tipped him handsomely, with the promise of more to come if he would return for me in an hour. Now I stood on the sidewalk gathering my composure and contemplating this place where I and so many generations of my paternal family had lived the majority of our lives.

I had to admit it was rather imposing. In part this was due to the cumulative effect of so many tall houses taken altogether, their appearance similar yet not identical, each as large and handsome as the ones on either side, and all bathed in the mellow glow of evening's gas lamps. These old Federal-style houses were plain when compared to the Victorians and Edwardians of San Francisco; yet they seemed somehow both more substantial and more elegant. Beacon Street commanded respect—even from me, though I had never thought or felt this way before.

I slowly climbed the seven steps from the sidewalk to the front door and rang the bell. Lights glowed behind the drapes of the first-floor windows, but the upper floors were all dark. My heart began to beat faster as I stood there waiting to be admitted to the place where in the years of childhood my little feet had once run freely in and out.

The woman in servant's dress who answered the door was completely unknown to me, and I to her. But apparently I was expected and she was well trained, because she did the little dip that passes for a curtsy these days and said, "Evening, Miss Jones, please come in."

"Fremont Jones to see Augusta Simmons Jones," I said, perhaps unnecessarily. But I wanted the maid to announce my arrival to Augusta as Fremont, not as Caroline.

"May I help you with your coat and all, miss?"

I acquiesced to this offer, and while divesting myself of all the layers of outdoor wrappings, I remarked, "Your employer is my father. I grew up in this house. Did Augusta—Mrs. Jones—tell you that?"

"No, miss. Only that you'd be Miss Jones and you was expected."

"I see." Well, that was a place to start at least.

Propriety notwithstanding, I had always been inclined to talk freely with the servants, mine and other people's, because, for one thing, they are people too and deserve to be treated as such, and, for another, because they generally know much more about what is going on in any house than anyone else. But in this instance, with a maid handpicked by Augusta, I must remember to be wary.

"How long have you worked here, may I ask?"

At closer range she was even younger than she had appeared when she first opened the door. Her skin was so fair that it bordered on the unhealthy, a bluish-white like skim milk. But her fingers were red, especially around the knuckles; Augusta was working this girl hard.

"Few months, miss," she replied, her pale eyes flickering as she counted up in her head, "going on five, I reckon. Would you like me to undo your coat buttons?"

"No, thank you, I can manage. What is your name?"

"Mary."

"And do you have a last name, Mary?" I asked gently, with a smile.

"Mary Fowey."

Mary Fowey could scarcely stand still while she waited for me to undo the buttons all down the front of my coat. I was deliberately taking my time, not to torture poor Mary, but
because Augusta had not seen fit to come into the hall and welcome me properly, with the warmth due a family member—or even a close friend. She should not have left me for her maid to handle like any old evening caller. I tried not to mind, for after all, I no more wanted to be there than Augusta wanted me, but still it did sting.

"Well, Mary," I said as I finished undoing the last few buttons, "perhaps you can tell me if Ralph and Myra Porter are still working here?"

Ralph and Myra between them had looked after this house inside and out for more than twenty years, and they had been very much in residence when I'd left for San Francisco four years earlier. They lived not in those little dormer rooms on the top floor but in their own suite of rooms on the third floor, convenient to the back stairs; my mother was the one who had made this change, declaring it was senseless for Ralph and Myra to squeeze themselves into those tiny rooms on the top floor when the whole rest of the house was occupied by only three people. I'd unthinkingly assumed the devoted servant couple would be there forever—or at least until they died. This house had always been their home as much as it was home to me and Mother and Father.

Mary ducked behind me to take my coat as it slipped off my shoulders. Her hands trembled, and were so cold I felt their chill through the fabric of my dress when she touched me briefly.

"No, Miss Jones," she said. "There's never been anybody here by that name since I come. Nobody here but me takin' care of the missus."

"I'll need my canes," I said quickly, as she was about to store them in the umbrella stand. "I'm sorry to hear about the Porters. They were here for a long time—and I expect sometimes you must wish you had some help."

At this Mary's eyes widened. "Anything you say, miss," she
blurted, and then scurried off down the hall. She was several steps along before she thought to turn and say, "Mrs. Jones is in the library. If you'll just follow me."

Interesting, only the one girl for this big house. No wonder her hands were red. Even given that recently Augusta had been the only person living here, it was still a lot of work for one maid. I imagined she would just get through the rooms in a week and then have to start all over again the next, which must be grueling for her. Not to mention the cooking and laundry.

Well, there was going to be much more work starting tomorrow. I wondered if Augusta had thought of that. If she'd even told Mary.

I walked down the hall to the library at a steady pace, slowly accustoming myself to the formerly familiar surroundings. Perhaps it was only my imagination, but the house
felt
different.

The doors into the drawing room and dining room were closed, which made the hallway excessively dark. Of course the wainscoting and the doorframes were of dark wood, but the walls were cream plaster, and if those doors had been open the hallway would have been brighter, more welcoming. But that was not it entirely; there was a darkness here that had nothing to do with mere absence of light. Or with the fact that I could be virtually certain Augusta had taken no pains to create a welcoming atmosphere, because she did not wish to welcome me.

As Mary and I passed the tall-case clock in mid-hall I noticed it stood silent; I hoped it was not broken, but had been left unwound. I loved that clock, its face with the Roman numerals and pastel-painted faces of the sun and moon. What kind of person does not bother to wind a clock?

Aha, I might know the answer to that: a very nervous person, whose nerves are aggravated by the constant ticking and by the pendulum's unrelenting swing; a person for whom the passage of time somehow has more import than merely the
counting of the hours. Was this more imaginative speculation? Perhaps; on the other hand it could be my detective's brain working—a part of myself that had always stood me in good stead.