The Recycled Citizen (21 page)

“God, you’re getting to be a worse prude than Aunt Matilda ever dared to be,” he sputtered. “Since when can’t a man perform the purely altruistic gesture of offering a lady a little refreshment?”

“You’re here to raise money, not whoopee,” was Sarah’s unfeeling retort. “Give Dolph some if you’re feeling altruistic. He looks as if he could use a mild anesthetic about now. Good heavens, is that Aunt Emma’s bus already?”

It was, and the already wasn’t so early, either. Time had flown, as time has a way of doing when one could best use an extra half hour to catch one’s breath. Emma floated in at the head of her brigade, bestowing smiles and kisses right and left, exclaiming over the massed flowers in the majolica jardinieres, the servers in their amusing costumes, the luscious canapés on their silver platters, the silver buckets full of cooling champagne.

“Absolutely perfect! I couldn’t have planned it better myself.”

This, from Emma, was the ultimate accolade. “No really, Mary dear, we’re none of us a bit hungry at the moment. We picnicked on the bus. Just let’s get these dear people out of their wraps and set up the chairs for the musicians. Perhaps if some of these muscular young men could roll the piano just a wee bit closer to the archway—”

The muscular young men were as eager to be of service to Emma Kelling as young men everywhere always were. The piano was moved, the strings and the woodwinds comfortably settled.

“We didn’t bring the brasses or the tympani; we didn’t want to drown out the auctioneer. It’ll be just nice, soft hearts and flowers music, to mellow them up. There, don’t you think that will do?”

“Need you ask?” Sarah gave her favorite aunt another kiss and hoped to goodness Mary had remembered to get the piano tuned.

Emma sat down to give the musicians an
A.
Right on pitch. Everything was going to be just fine.

“For God’s sake, didn’t you bring anything else to put on?” Max murmured. Sarah gasped. Everything was ready but herself.

She fled upstairs, remembering to close off rooms as she went. By the time she got back, clean and combed and wearing a rose-colored velveteen float dress with a string of pea-sized pearls Max had rushed out and bought in Zurich six minutes after she’d phoned him with the news of her pregnancy, the prospective buyers were flocking in and the champagne was beginning to flow.

As she came back down the front stairway, Sarah was amused to see Osmond Loveday standing just inside the door. He’d shown up in black tie, sure enough, and was greeting all comers as if he owned the place. Well, why not? Those he recognized would no doubt be pleased that he remembered their names, and the rest would think he was the butler. Dolph and Mary must be relieved that Loveday had taken on a chore neither of them wanted.

They’d agreed to start the bidding at eight o’clock sharp whether anybody was there or not, but they needn’t have worried. By the time Jeremy Kelling ascended the auction block and picked up his gavel, almost every chair in the ballroom was occupied. At Jem’s opening knock, clearly audible in the front hall, Osmond Loveday abandoned his post.

“Where are you going?” Sarah asked him.

“To say a brief word of welcome and explain the purpose of the auction.”

“Don’t you dare.” This was no time to mince words. “Dolph will be livid if you interrupt the bidding. You’d better stay by the door; people are still coming and someone will have to let them in. Unless you’d rather go serve champagne and let one of the actors do the receiving,” Sarah added, knowing he’d rather die.

Luckily, Apollonia Kelling and her entourage arrived just then, all of them in a tizzy. “I was sure I could flap my way straight here like a good old gray-haired homing pigeon”—Appie was panting—“but somehow or other I got a teensy weensy bit confused.”

“We’ve been up and down every back road from here to West Roxbury,” snapped one of her companions, a woman about Appie’s age, dressed from cap to socks in strange garments all knitted from the same batch of mulberry-colored wool. Her face was mulberry-colored too. Sarah recognized her as Mrs. Plinth. Clever Mrs. Plinth, Appie always called her. Nobody knew why, but it was clear that any friend of Mrs. Apollonia Kelling could be as clever as Appie wanted her to be, as far as Osmond Loveday was concerned.

He bore the new arrivals off to shed their outer wrappings and refresh themselves at the champagne table before they sat down and opened their pocketbooks. Or didn’t, as was more apt to be the case. Sarah had no great hopes of Appie’s crowd, but they weren’t going to matter. When she peeked into the ballroom, she could see that the auction was taking off in grand style.

Jeremy Kelling was everyone’s dream of an auctioneer: fast-talking, funny, rattling off information that Max was feeding him about the merchandise interspersed with nuggets of family history, mostly invented and often slightly wicked, to get the crowd bidding madly on even the least exciting of Dolph’s alleged family heirlooms. She’d have loved to stay and watch the fun, but since Osmond Loveday was showing every sign of being enraptured by the clever Mrs. Plinth, she thought she’d better get back to the door.

“God, the world lost a magnificent snake-oil salesman when Jem opted to spend his life chasing chorus girls,” Dolph remarked when he wandered out into the foyer a little while later. “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing at the moment,” Sarah answered quite truthfully. “How’s Mary bearing up?”

“Having the time of her life. She looks wonderful, don’t you think?”

Mary was wearing the blue dress she’d had on the day Dolph asked her for their first date. At the time it had been the only decent thing she owned. How like her to put it back on for her debut as lady of the manor, Sarah thought.

“She’s marvelous, Dolph,” she said, and meant it. “Let’s make our next fund-raiser a waltz evening so you can show her off properly.”

“Don’t know how Mary would like that,” he grunted. “Loveday would, though. Damn fool, coming here in black tie like the headwaiter at a goddamn nightclub. Where’s he got to now? I thought he was tending door.”

“Aunt Appie came in with a gaggle of her friends, and he’s gone to get them settled. How many people do we have by now, Dolph?”

“Upward of three hundred and fifty, Porter-Smith says. I hope to God we don’t get many more.”

“Some are sure to leave early.” Sarah hoped she knew what she was talking about. “How’s the champagne holding out?”

“Fine. Nobody’s drinking much so far. Jem’s got ’em all mesmerized. Who’d have thought the old coot had it in him? Oh damn, here comes another gang.”

“Only three. No, there’s another one coming behind them. I wonder if these could be Eugene’s fiancée and her family. That girl looks awfully bridal, somehow.” It might have been because she was wearing a shiny new diamond, with her left hand slightly extended and the fingers arranged in a gentle droop that showed off the ring to its fullest advantage.

The older woman came forward a step and introduced her party. “Good evening. We’re Diane and Henry Wilton-Rugge, and this is our daughter Jennifer.”

How nice Jennifer had her own hyphen, Sarah thought.

“And this is our friend—”

“Ted Ashe,” Dolph finished for her. “Great Scott, Ted, you needn’t have got yourself all togged out like a hog going to war. All I wanted you to do was help Harry Burr park the cars.”

The Wilton-Rugges stared blankly at Dolph. The fourth member of their group only smiled.

“They say everyone has a double. This Ted Ashe must be mine. Actually I’m Hetherton Montague, Mr.—ah, Kelling, I believe?”

“Hetherton Montague, my eyeball! Now look here, Ted, a joke’s a joke, but if you’ve been bamboozling Mary and me for the past two months, I want to know why.”

Sarah thought she’d better intervene. “Mrs. Wilton-Rugge, why don’t we go along in? Eugene’s clerking, but I know he’s impatient to see you and your husband. And Jennifer, too, needless to say.”

“Yes, let’s go.” Mrs. Wilton-Rugge fell into step with Sarah. Her husband and daughter followed, though somewhat reluctantly.

“What an odd mistake for Mr. Kelling to have made,” said Mr. Wilton-Rugge.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Sarah told him. “I recognized Mr. Ashe too. He’s not quite the master of disguise he seems to think he is. Since he’s a friend of yours, though, I expect you realize what he’s up to.”

“Hetherton’s not what you’d call a friend.” The man knew when to backtrack, obviously. “Hardly more than an acquaintance. Someone brought him to a cocktail party a couple of weeks ago, and since then I’ve bumped into him a few times. He happened to mention that he was coming to your auction tonight. I said we were, too, so he said why not let him take us to dinner somewhere and then all come together. What did you mean about what he’s up to?”

Sarah shrugged. “I assumed you must know what he does for a living.”

Before he could press the issue, she hailed one of the young actresses. “Magda, do give the Wilton-Rugges some champagne and take them into the auction room. I believe Eugene Porter-Smith is saving them seats down front. Excuse me, I’d better go back and see what’s happening.”

What was happening was about what Sarah had expected. Dolph was fast coming up to the boil, and. Adolphus Kelling in a rage was not a quiet man. Once he let go, he’d have no trouble outshouting Emma’s chamber music group, the chatter around the champagne table and even Jeremy Kelling on the auction block. They’d have all three hundred and fifty people racing out to see the fight.

Ashe-Winchell-Montague, to give him his fair share of hyphens, wasn’t fighting, exactly. He was merely sneering and making remarks about phony philanthropists who only care to involve themselves with those of the downtrodden who allow themselves to stay trodden down. Sarah’s first thought was to run back and get Max. When she reached the ballroom, though, she saw him up on the auction block, giving Jem a break to rest his tonsils. Max had one of the beaded footstools by one leg, was working the bidders up to a hundred and twenty dollars and appeared confident of getting more. She’d be crazy to interrupt him now.

It didn’t matter. Sarah could raise her own voice in a pinch. She scurried back to the foyer. “Dolph, shut up. Mr. Winchell, why don’t you save your views for your readers if you have any?”

They were both surprised enough to obey. The snappily dressed outsider with the strangely clean face was first to recover, his aplomb.

“What is this? First he calls me Ashe, then you call me Winchell. Are you both nuts?”

“No, but you are if you think you can fool anybody just by getting your face dirty,” Sarah retorted. “It’s awfully unconvincing when you forget to let your whiskers grow too. But then the unshaven look would hardly go well with your pink and purple tuxedo, would it?”

“Pink and purple tuxedo?” Dolph had found his voice again. “Good God, what is he? Some kind of pervert?”

“You might call him that. He writes smear stories on organized charities for
Syndicated Slime
and signs them Wilbraham Winchell. He uses a number of different names. Don’t ask me why he took the risk of coming here tonight calling himself Hetherton Montague. I suppose he either expected to get some more material for a trumped-up exposé of the SCRC or hoped to plant some.”

“That’s actionable,” cried the man of many names.

“Then sue me. Now, Mr. whoever you are, let me remind you that this is a private auction. I sent out the invitations myself, and I’m sure none went to either Hetherton Montague or Wilbraham Winchell. That means you must be here at Dolph’s original request as Ted Ashe. Therefore, we may as well call you that and I’m going to let him decide what to do with you. Only please take him outside, Dolph, before you start to bellow.”

“Sarah.” Osmond Loveday had come up behind her. He sounded rather frantic. “Did I hear you say Ted Ashe is really some kind of reporter?”

“You make it sound like a dirty word, Ozzie,” Ashe gibed.

“Apparently you do too,” said Sarah. “That’s right, Mr. Loveday. As you may have heard me say, he writes for
Syndicated Slime.”

“And he’s planning to do a story about the SCRC?”

“I can’t think why else he’s been haunting the place. Can you?”

“This is terrible!” Loveday was actually wringing his hands.

“Damn right it’s terrible,” barked Dolph. “Biting the hands that fed him. Outside, Ashe. We’ll settle this—I was going to say man-to-man, but I’m dashed if you qualify as one.”

“I’ll come with you,” cried Loveday. “Wait till I get my coat.”

“Who the hell needs you?”

Dolph slammed out of the house, herding Ashe in front of him like an angry gander. Sarah debated calling for reinforcements, but she didn’t think they’d be necessary. Harry Burr was out there, and George and Walter the gardeners. She wasn’t about to go herself; Max would have a fit if she did. Besides, she had a more urgent errand.

“Mr. Loveday, I’m going upstairs. Go find one of the actors to watch the door. You’d better see what’s happening in the drawing room. If anybody’s curious to know what the commotion was all about, tell them a reporter was trying to gate-crash and that you helped Mr. Kelling throw him out, which is perfectly true.”

It wasn’t, but Osmond Loveday would surely not be averse to sharing the hero’s role. He nodded and bustled off. She went on upstairs to one of the bathrooms that had been declared out of bounds to visitors. There she dawdled, attending to her creature comforts, dabbing at her face and hair, sitting down on the padded stool and putting her feet up against the side of the tub to rest them a little.

She hadn’t realized how tired she was. Perhaps she ought to stretch out on one of the guest room beds, just for a moment.

S
ARAH WAS DIMLY CONSCIOUS
of voices downstairs, of cars in the drive. Then Max was bending over her, smoothing her hair. She smiled up at him through what was left of her sleep.

“Hello, darling. How’s the auction going?”

“It’s gone. Don’t you realize what time it is?”

“Oh no! Don’t tell me I’ve slept through the whole thing. How maddening! Did we make lots of money?”