Crossing the Lion (a Reigning Cats and Dog) (2010) (5 page)

Smiling shyly, Scarlett added, “I was so grateful to Mr. Merrywood for hiring me right out of college. I can’t imagine working for anyone nicer.”

“Scarlett was an economics major at Vassar,” Charlotte explained.

“And I knew I could learn more working for Linus than anywhere else,” she commented. Her forehead creased as she said, “But I interrupted you. I’m so sorry. Please go on with whatever you were saying.”

“Where was I?” Charlotte asked, sounding distracted.

“You were telling us about Linus’s birthday party,”
Betty reminded her. “And how nice it was that he had his whole family with him.”

“That’s right,” Charlotte said breathlessly. “It was a lovely party. A real celebration. And the thought that’s kept me going ever since is that at least Linus had a chance to see everyone one last time. It was an absolutely perfect evening and a wonderful dinner. Cook made it all herself, from soup to nuts.”

Peeking over from the linen napkins she was folding, Gwennie added, “Quoite a spread, it was. All ’is favorite foods—including the ones that were bad for ’im.”

She shook her head disapprovingly. “Lobster with melted butter, shrimp smothered in garlic and oil, even a fancy chocolate birthday cake almost as tall as I am. Imagine, a man ’is age, eating foods loike that.”

“Now, Gwennie, none of that matters, does it?” Scarlett piped up. “Mr. Merrywood enjoyed his last meal, and that’s what matters.”

“Y’ask me, it was all that nasty saturated fat wot did ’im in,” Gwennie grumbled.

As I sat back down, I glanced over at Charlotte, wondering how Linus’s grieving widow felt about an argument on this particular subject. I was relieved that Gwennie’s hands flew up in the air, as if she’d just noticed that something was missing, and she rushed out of the room to remedy the situation.

The sound of voices out in the hallway caught everyone’s attention.

“Of course Mummy wouldn’t start dinner without us,” a woman exclaimed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if
she was doing something civilized right now like enjoying cocktail hour, the same way she would have if Daddy were still here—see, Townie? I was right! Some things never change, thank goodness!”

A woman in her mid-thirties strode into the room a few paces ahead of a man about the same age, pausing as she glanced at the tray of snacks and the glasses of sherry that everyone held. A look of satisfaction crossed her face.

“I’m sorry we’re so late, Mummy,” she said, leaning over to kiss Charlotte’s cheek. As she nestled onto the couch next to me, all three dogs—Frederick, Corky, and Admiral—converged on her, wagging their tails and demanding attention.

“It’s positively ghastly out there!” she moaned, reaching down to pat each of the dogs distractedly. “But at least we managed to accomplish what we set out to do, thanks largely to Townie. He’s ever so organized!”

Ever so organized?
I thought with amusement. I was beginning to think I’d truly been transported into a 1930s black-and-white movie.

I studied the woman I surmised was Charlotte and Linus’s only daughter, Missy. Her glossy chestnut-brown hair, just long enough to brush her shoulders, was held in place by a brown-and-black-plaid headband. I recognized it immediately as the signature fabric of Saint Burberry, the patron of preppies.

But her choice in headgear wasn’t the only thing about her that screamed preppie. Missy Merrywood wore a beige blazer with a pair of tailored wool pants
that looked as if they had been custom-made to show off her fit figure. Tucked loosely around her neck was a patterned brown scarf I thought might be Hermès. Hanging from her shoulder was a quilted black purse on a gold chain. Even I recognized it as Chanel, thanks to the shiny gold logo on its front flap.

Next I checked out her husband. I thought I’d heard her call him Townie, but I figured I had to be mistaken.

He struck me as considerably more staid than his bubbly wife. And it wasn’t just his conservative clothing—a dark sports jacket worn with gray slacks—or his closely cropped light-brown hair. It was more the way he held himself slightly apart, not only in the vibes he gave off but also physically. Rather than sitting with the women or standing at the fireplace with Winston, he chose to stand off to the side. It was almost as if he was watching rather than participating.

Charlotte would have none of it. “Townie, come sit with us,” she insisted. “I must introduce you to our friends. Betty and Winston Farnsworth …”

Once again, the lady of the house made sure all her guests were properly introduced. When it was my turn, Townie stepped over and held out his hand.

As soon as I reached out, he seized my hand enthusiastically, clamping on to it with the tightest grip I’d ever experienced in the name of meeting someone new. I squeezed back as hard as I could, not wanting him to think I was a featherweight.

“Townsend Whitford the Third,” he said through a clenched jaw. In fact, it looked as if his top teeth had
been cemented to the bottom row with Krazy Glue. “But call me Townie. Everyone does.”

“Jessica Popper the First,” I said. “But call me Jessie. Same reason.”

“Aha!” Townie chortled, still doing an impressive job of making sure his teeth remained pressed against one another. “So this one has a sense of humor! I like that in a woman!”

His open approval of
moi
, the only real outsider in the room, appeared to arouse some feelings of jealousy on wifey’s part. Missy immediately stood up and rushed over to his side. She grabbed his arm as if an earthquake had suddenly begun rocking the room. She practically sent the man sprawling across the floor.

“Come sit with me, sweetie!” she cooed. “Over here, on the love seat. Don’t you just adore love seats? It’s the absolutely perfect name for a piece of furniture that’s built for two, don’t you think?”

Once Mr. and Mrs. Whitford had staked out their own part of the room, Townie pulled a carved wooden pipe out of his pocket.

“No one minds if I smoke, do you?” he drawled.

“Of course no one minds!” Missy exclaimed. “Goodness, Townie, it’s not as if you smoke those nasty cigarettes. Your pipe has a delicious aroma. Cherries—like the ones we used to pick at our summerhouse on Nantucket. Remember, cupcake? At least, that’s what the smell always reminds me of. There’s something ever so romantic about it. Not that you and I need any
more
romance, angel pie, do we?”

Even though Townie looked as if he was basking in his wife’s adoration, once again Missy grabbed his arm. She clutched it so fervently that I wondered if she feared he was about to bolt. I was curious to see how the poor man was going to manage to light that pipe of his, given the fact that he now had the use of only one of his hands.

Addressing the rest of us breathlessly, Missy said, “I think just about everything this man does is simply amazing. Don’t I, sweet pea? As a matter of fact, I consider myself the luckiest woman in the world. If I ever sat down and made a list of all the qualities I wanted in a mate, I’d be able to put a big red checkmark next to every single one. Not that I’ve ever done that, of course. Why should I, when I already know I managed to find the one man on this planet who was custom-made for me …?”

Missy’s endless gushing was making my stomach turn even worse than the roiling waves of Peconic Bay had. I was zoning out when I noticed something moving near the door. A young man was lurking in the hallway, right outside the door. He kept glancing into the room furtively, as if he hadn’t yet decided if he really wanted to come in.

“Oh, good,” Charlotte said, interrupting her daughter’s oration about the wonders of Townsend Whitford III. “Brock is here.”

She rose from her seat and floated across the room. By the time she reached the doorway, the lurker had stepped in, probably having realized he no longer had any choice now that he’d been spotted.

“Hello, Mother,” he greeted her. His expression softened as he kissed her lightly on the cheek, which told me that she wasn’t the one he was ambivalent about.

Now that he was inside and I got a better look at him, I saw that Charlotte and Linus Merrywood’s youngest offspring was tall, slightly built, and lean to the point of being bony. Brockton Merrywood, who looked as if he’d barely made it into his thirties, wore his dark-brown hair in a shaggy style that was more Yippie than yuppie. Perched at the end of his slender, almost delicate nose was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses similar in style to the ones John Lennon favored.

Given Brock’s taste in eyewear, it wasn’t surprising that his duds consisted of jeans that bordered on scruffy and a white tunic-style shirt embellished with tiny white beads and elaborate embroidery. And even though the calendar read November, his toes peeked out from the ends of a pair of well-worn Birkenstock sandals.

Charlotte beamed as she said, “Everyone, I’d like you to meet my baby—that is, my youngest. Brock, this is Winston Farnsworth and his wife, Betty …”

Once all the introductions were done, Brock lowered himself onto an ottoman. But it was Townie who got the conversation moving once again.

“Brock recently launched a new enterprise,” he said, addressing Betty and me. “He just went into the bead business.”

“It’s a jewelry business, actually,” Brock replied coldly.

“Yes, but it’s beaded jewelry, right?” Missy countered. In a strained voice, she added, “My baby brother is one of those artsy-craftsy people. You know, the kind who like to
make
things.”

“At least I work,” Brock shot back.

“I don’t have time to have a job!” Missy insisted. “I’m too busy with all my charity work, which I can assure you adds up to more hours than most people put in at their office!”

“What Missy meant to say is that Brock has always been extremely artistic,” Charlotte explained, ignoring her children’s bickering. There was pride in her voice as she added, “Brockton was never interested in the family business. He always found it so cold and dry. There’s nothing the least bit creative about all those bits of metal being turned into such practical things, and Brock thrives on creativity.”

“Much to Linus’s dismay,” Townie commented in a voice so soft I wondered if anyone besides Missy was meant to hear him.

“Poor Daddy,” Missy said with a loud sigh. “We’ll all miss him so much.”

“Everyone misses him already,” Townie added. “Not only was he phenomenally successful, he was also universally loved. Now, that’s a pairing you don’t see every day.”

A silence fell over the room as all of us remembered why we were here. But I was already learning that silence was as rare in this house as a dust-free surface.
Once again, Gwennie’s brash voice cut through the room like the proverbial fingernails on a chalkboard.

“’Scuse me,” she said, bustling into the room. “If y’ don’t moind, dinner is served. ’At’s wot Cook told me to say.”

“Oh, good,” Charlotte said. “Gwennie, would you take the dogs into the mudroom and give them their dinner?”

Can I go with them?
I thought mournfully as I stood up, along with everyone else in the room.

Here I’d been on Solitude Island for less than an hour, yet I was already pining for the one thing I suspected I’d get very little of while I was here: solitude.

L
ike every room I’d seen so far in the Merrywood mansion, the large dining room was decorated in a grand manner—at least by nineteenth-century standards. The walls were covered in ornate dark-green wallpaper that appeared to be made of silk. The windows along one wall were framed by velvet drapes in the same somber hue. Hanging on the walls were more huge oil paintings of people who, from the expressions on their faces, looked as if whatever they’d last eaten hadn’t agreed with them.

Also like the rest of the house, this room was shrouded in darkness. The rain beat mercilessly
against the windows, the slightly alarming sound punctuated by the occasional clap of thunder. Aside from periodic flashes of lightning, what little light there was came from another chandelier. It was just as big, fancy, and useless as the one in the front hallway.

Placed at either end of the long, narrow table was an elaborate candelabra. The dozen or so candles stuck into them emitted a pale, flickering light that cast eerie shadows across the dark walls but other than that did little besides drip wax onto the white linen tablecloth. I found myself wishing I’d packed a decent flashlight along with my travel alarm clock and my moisturizer.

The table was set for eight, with glistening crystal, snow-white plates, and silverware so shiny that someone in this household obviously knew their way around a polishing cloth. At each place was a salad that looked appetizing enough, along with a dinner roll on a plate with its own pat of butter molded into the shape of a rose.

As hungry as I was, I hovered near the doorway, not sure what the lady of the house had in mind in terms of seating arrangements. Charlotte immediately headed for the chair at the end of the table, the seat closest to the swinging door I assumed opened onto the kitchen. Betty sat down on her left, while Winston chose the chair to her right.

Townie and Missy, meanwhile, pulled out the two chairs next to Winston, while Brock and Scarlett took the two on Betty’s side of the table. That left me with no place to sit but the other end of the table, opposite
Charlotte. I perched nervously on the edge of the high-backed wooden chair, hoping that being so visible wouldn’t mean anyone would be looking to me for guidance in the area of table manners.

“Isn’t this nice!” Missy gushed. “Doesn’t the table look lovely, buttercup? I see Gwennie even took out the best china and silverware.”

“It was already out,” Brock noted, sounding a tad irritated. “We used it for Dad’s birthday dinner, remember?”

“Of course I remember!” Missy shot back. “I was just commenting on how pretty everything is, that’s all.”

“I’d say we could all use a glass of wine,” Townie interrupted heartily. He grabbed one of the bottles that had been strategically placed around the table. I surmised that when it came to setting the table properly in this house, making wine accessible was a top priority.