The Plain Old Man (4 page)

“If it weren’t Gillian it would be somebody else,” Charlie reminded her. “We all know what Jack Tippleton’s like. I can’t imagine why Martha hasn’t walked out on him long ago.”

Ridpath Wale shrugged. “Because we all know what Martha’s like, I suppose. Emma, my extrasensory perception tells me you’re about to offer us a brandy.”

“Right over there on the tray. Help yourself, won’t you? I don’t know where Heatherstone’s got to. He’s worn to a frazzle, poor man. I must say I’m none too spry right now, myself. Pour me just a splash while you’re about it. Charlie, you’d better not. We don’t want your poor toe flaring up again. Sarah, how about you?”

“None for me, thanks.” Sarah reluctantly got up from the gold-brocaded easy chair she’d been enjoying. “I must stir my stumps. I promised Cousin Frederick I’d run over this evening and see his new suit. It’s the first one he’s bought in thirty-two years.”

“What if Max calls?”

“He won’t, not tonight. He’s left Belgium and is on his way to Helsinki.”

“Good heavens, whatever for?”

“Don’t ask me. Is there anything you want me to take to Cousin Frederick?”

“Only my love. Tell him Heatherstone will save him a seat for the show and he’s to wear his new suit. None of this business of letting it hang in the closet for the next ten years so the moths can bite pieces out and it won’t look vulgarly new.”

Charlie Daventer snorted. “Huh. At Fred’s time of life, he can’t have ten years left to wait.”

Sarah was annoyed enough to remind Charlie that he himself had been Cousin Frederick’s classmate, but she forbore. She merely said her good-byes, remembering not to drop a curtsy to her elders because she wasn’t Walter Kelling’s little girl any more, and left.

C
OUSIN FREDERICK WOULD HAVE
made an even plainer old man than Charlie Daventer, Sarah couldn’t help thinking as she kissed his wizened cheek. She didn’t have to stand on tiptoe to reach it; Frederick wasn’t much taller than herself.

His apartment was tiny, too, being no more than an ill-furnished snippet off the end of the kitchen ell of another great barracks much like Emma’s. Frederick could have kept the whole house for himself after his parents died if he’d wanted to. Instead, he’d cut off these two little rooms and let the rest to a series of well-heeled tenants. It was commonly supposed the elderly bachelor squirreled away the proceeds along with the rest of his hoard in Swiss banks, safe-deposit boxes, or more likely oatmeal cartons stuffed under his mattress. Only Sarah, Emma, and one or two other Kellings knew Cousin Frederick turned over every penny of his rents and a good deal more besides to a boarding school for handicapped children.

Sarah didn’t mind perching on a broken-backed chair under a bare light bulb. She hadn’t meant to stay long in any case. She was well aware that Frederick liked to get to bed early in order to save on electricity. Besides, she was tired herself. She admired the new suit, which looked much like any other suit Frederick had ever owned except that it wasn’t yet frayed at the cuffs or bagged at the knees, and adjured him to wear it to the show or Aunt Emma would be heartbroken. She listened to the usual reminiscences about her late husband, the usual complaints about his light bills, and the usual diatribe against Cousin Mabel. Then she bade the old curmudgeon a fond good night, for she was warmly attached to Cousin Frederick in spite of everything, and drove the two miles or so back to Aunt Emma’s.

She put her car away in the carriage house, being as quiet about it as she could in order not to disturb Mrs. Heatherstone, who had to get up early and make the porridge. The Heatherstones lived in a spacious flat over the vast area that had once been filled with carriages, sleighs, gigs, dogcarts, and horses. Now it held only the big old Buick that Aunt Emma rode in on state occasions with Heatherstone driving, the little red two-seater she scooted around in by herself to luncheons and committee meetings, and the sober Plymouth Mr. and Mrs. Heatherstone used for shopping and to visit their married son at Pelham on their days off. There was plenty of room left over for Sarah.

Back when Uncle Bed’s parents were still alive, there’d have been a stable boy to put the car away for her, or at least to hold the big doors open while she drove it inside. Only she wouldn’t have been around then, much less driving a car. Anyway, in deference to the march of progress and Heatherstone’s advancing years, Mrs. Kelling had installed electric-eye openers that worked with remote-control pushbuttons.

Aunt Emma had no live-in help except the Heatherstones these days. Instead of a red-armed woman bending over a washboard set into a soapstone tub, there were a washer, a dryer, and a mangle in the basement, and a nice lady who came in once a week to run them. Another woman arrived at half-past eight every other morning to tidy the rooms and do the floors. This one preferred to be addressed as a domestic assistant. Aunt Emma said she could be called whatever she pleased provided she didn’t forget to mop under the beds, which in fact she never had, so far. The heavy cleaning and yard work were handled by jolly men who came in trucks loaded with rakes and shovels and large appliances, and by college students trying to earn tuition money, all these under the supervision of the Heatherstones. It wasn’t much like the old days. In Emma Kelling’s opinion, it was far, far better.

Nevertheless, Sarah wouldn’t have minded being respectfully attended by a well-muscled stable boy just now. She didn’t know why. She wasn’t a timid person as a rule, and heaven knew she’d had plenty to be timid about during the past couple of years. Nevertheless, she felt a profound reluctance to walk that fifty feet or so of flagstone path from the well-lighted carriage house to the well-lighted side portico. She hesitated before she pushed the portable control gadget to shut the door behind her, peering all around the garden, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever might be causing her this perturbation.

There was nothing. Emma Kelling was too well aware of the break-ins and muggings that had become so regrettable a common-place occurrence in affluent suburbs. She’d had all the shrubberies within grabbing distance of the walkway cut down ages ago. Nobody was hiding out there, not so much as a skunk or a raccoon or a dog breaking Pleasaunce’s strict leash law. There was simply no place to hide. Yet Sarah practically had to get behind herself and shove to start her legs moving along those flagstones.

She’d been given her own latchkey to save Heatherstone’s feet. Even as she was turning it in the lock, Sarah was craning over her shoulder to see what so patently wasn’t there. She inched the door open barely enough to squeeze her slender frame through, and shut it so fast she caught a fold of her skirt in the crack and had to open it again. Nobody saw her graceless performance. The yard was as vacant now as it had been when she drove in.

Sarah had assumed from the dearth of cars in the drive that Charlie and Ridpath must have left. She was right. She found her aunt sitting alone with Ernestina, humming a snatch from
The Yeomen of the Guard
as a change from philtres and spells, doing a finicky bit of mending on the beaded bag Lady Sangazure was to carry. Nobody in the audience would be able to see whether or not the long-tailed drawstring pouch was missing a few of its beads, but Lady Sangazure would surely never have put up with any hiatus. That was enough for Emma.

When Sarah came in she looked up and smiled. “Well, dear. How’s Frederick?”

“Same as always. He told me to give you his best, such as it was.”

Sarah repeated as much of Frederick’s family gossip as she could remember and reported in detail on the new suit. These things were important to Emma Kelling.

Everything was important to Aunt Emma, she thought. It was this zest for leaping with might and main on everything that came along that kept Beddoes Kelling’s widow from ever getting old and dull, kept elderly bachelors dangling on her string for decades, kept elderly husbands hanging around her tea table when they ought to be home at their wives’. Jack Tippleton would have stayed this afternoon even if Gillian Bruges hadn’t been handy for ogling.

It wasn’t just the old ones, either. Parker Pence openly adored Mrs. Kelling. Guy Mannering was more in love with Emma than with Sarah, though it was silly of him to be either and he’d never have admitted he was. As for the women, not even Cousin Mabel could think of anything really rotten to say about Emma, though she still hadn’t given up trying. Emma Kelling literally did not have an enemy in the world.

Surrounded by all this benign influence, Sarah wondered why she still had the fidgets. She couldn’t sit still. Rather than bounce around in a chair, she wandered out to the sun parlor to see if the scenery was dry, though she knew perfectly well it must be, and it was. There’d be no problem when Guy and his crew came to pick it up at the impossible hour he’d set. Presumably somebody would be up to let them in. It might turn out to be Sarah herself. She didn’t feel as if she was going to sleep much tonight.

Her aunt was noticing. “Sarah, what’s got into you all of a sudden? You’re prowling around here like a cat on hot bricks.”

“Am I?” Sarah did what Emma would have told her to do twenty years ago: sat down and folded her hands like a good child. “I don’t know, Aunt Emma. I’m just edgy. Maybe I’m having one of those psychic premonitions your friend Mrs. Wincley’s always going on about. I hope to goodness Max isn’t in some kind of trouble.”

“Not in Helsinki, surely? Finns always strike one as being so worthy and high-minded. I suppose one could get trampled by a reindeer, or choke on a bone in one’s herring salad, but I’m sure Max has sense enough not to.

“Dearie, why don’t you nip out to the kitchen and get the tray Mrs. Heatherstone left on the table? It’s a vacuum jug of Slepe-o-tite. I always have a cup at night when we’re doing a show. One gets so keyed up, you know, and it makes me sleep like a dormouse.”

“Slepe-o-tite? Isn’t that the stuff you used to make me drink when I stayed with you that time Mama was so sick? I don’t believe I’ve ever tasted it since.”

It was odd, Sarah remembered the visit better than she remembered her mother, although Mrs. Walter Kelling had lived another five or six years before she’d at last had to stop protesting that there was nothing much the matter with her. By the time she died, Sarah had been twelve; too old to be shunted off on Aunt Emma, not too young to take over her father’s household; at least not by Walter Kelling’s reckoning. It was strange to think that if her father hadn’t been so fond of gathering wild mushrooms, Sarah might even now be back in that high, narrow, austerely correct house on Pinckney Street, gazing at a lithograph of Ralph Waldo Emerson and trying to think of something cheap but elevating to order for tomorrow’s dinner.

She fetched the tray and set it on a taboret in front of her aunt. Emma Kelling filled the two cups from the jug and handed one to Sarah, then took a sip from her own.

“Ugh! Sorry, dear. I’m afraid Mrs. Heatherstone let the milk scorch.”

Sarah tasted the stuff and hoped she hadn’t made a face. “I’ll heat some more milk and make a fresh batch.”

“Why bother? It will taste awful no matter what you do. Come now, drink up. It’s good for you.”

Having been brought up on the same Puritan ethic as her aunt, Sarah gulped it off, except for a half inch or so at the bottom of the cup that she felt entitled to leave for Mr. Manners. Then she kissed Emma good night, carried the jug and cups back to the kitchen, rinsed them out from force of habit, and went upstairs.

At least the stuff seemed to be working. Sarah was already yawning by the time she’d hung up her toothbrush. She fell asleep with the reading light on, and didn’t wake up until she heard her aunt and Heatherstone making a surprising amount of noise out in the upstairs hall.

“That’s impossible,” Emma was insisting. “It can’t be gone. You’d need a truck to carry it off.”

“They had a truck, Mrs. Kelling!” Sarah had never heard Heatherstone raise his voice before. “They came at ten minutes past seven this morning. Mrs. Heatherstone let them into the sun parlor because you’d told her to. They loaded the scenery on the truck and drove off.”

“But didn’t Mrs. Heatherstone watch them?”

“Of course she watched them. She says she stood right there in the doorway and never took her eyes off them for one second. She insists they couldn’t have taken anything except what they were supposed to.”

“Well, then,” said Mrs. Kelling.

By this time Sarah had got on her robe and slippers and run out to join them. “Well then, what? What’s the matter?”

“Oh, Sarah!” Emma Kelling couldn’t give full voice to the exclamation because she was still wearing her chin strap, but she managed to convey more agitation than Sarah had ever known her to give way to before. “Heatherstone says Ernestine’s gone.”

“Gone? How can she be? Is he sure?”

Even as she asked, Sarah knew her question was idiotic. How could he not be sure? Nevertheless, she had to run down to the drawing room and see for herself.

The massive baroque frame was still there, hanging over the mantel as always. Inside, however, nothing showed except a rectangle of wall, its gilt tea-paper covering a little brighter than the area outside the frame. Neatly thumbtacked just about where the white dove ought to be perched was a torn-out newspaper headline that read
ART THIEVES HOLD PRICELESS MASTERPIECE FOR RANSOM.
She was standing on the hearthrug staring up at it when Emma Kelling got to her.

“Sarah, what does that paper mean?”

“I’m afraid it means you’re about to get stuck for a lot of money, Aunt Emma.”

“Whatever makes them think I’d pay?”

“I can’t imagine.”

But of course she could. Here was this rich woman in her imposing house. Here was this enormous portrait, not only valuable in itself but presumably freighted with enormous sentimental value for its owner, and her many family connections. It even had a certain historical value, Sarah supposed, for the country, though that was stretching Ernestine somewhat thinner than she’d been in real life.