The Withdrawing Room (3 page)

“Get him a desk, Sarah,” said George sleepily.

“Quit fussing, Barney,” said Anora. “Sarah, Barney needs a desk to write his poison-pen letters on. What about that one in the library? You won’t want it there anyway, will you?”

“No,” stammered Sarah. “I was wondering where to—”

“Well, then, just move that little table out and move the desk in. Come on, Barney, Auntie Anora’s got a nice, big, gorgeous desk for you to feel important at. Show him, Sarah.”

They trooped across the hall to the library and solemnly inspected the handsome burl walnut desk that Alexander’s father and his father before him had sat behind. Sarah didn’t much like the idea of this fussy little man’s taking their places, but obviously she wasn’t to have any say in the matter. At any rate, she’d have to put it somewhere or her lodgers wouldn’t have room enough to sit.

Quiffen grudgingly admitted the desk would suit his purpose well enough, but where was the filing cabinet to go with it? He must have a filing cabinet to hold his important correspondence.

“Get him a filing cabinet, Sarah,” droned George.

“Here’s one right here,” said Anora. “What’s in it, Sarah? All that old committee nonsense of Caroline’s, I suppose. Chuck it out.”

So Mr. Quiffen got his filing cabinet for his important correspondence, which Sarah vaguely recalled consisted mostly of writing letters to the papers about what was wrong with everybody and everything in and around Boston. If a light bulb flickered on the Cleveland Circle platform at Park Street Station, if a red tulip popped up in a bed in the Public Garden where only yellow tulips were supposed to grow, if (though this was unlikely to happen) a trombonist at Symphony hit a B-sharp where a B-natural was called for, Barnwell Augustus Quiffen would leap to take pen in hand and regret to inform.

Mariposa then served tea, Charles being still at the factory, and Mr. Quiffen thawed sufficiently to recite excerpts from his family tree, at which Anora roared, “She’s not planning to use you for stud purposes, Barney. Drink your tea and leave the poor girl alone. She’ll get enough of you after you move in.”

That, Sarah thought, was more than likely to be true. She’d had nearly enough of old Barnwell Augustus already. However, his readiness to make out a check in advance for the stipulated month’s rental, which amounted to a good deal thanks to Uncle Jem’s agile arithmetic, made her decide that perhaps, after all, she might be able to endure the man. Since the Protheroes had managed to stay friends with him all these years, he must have some redeeming features. If she failed to discover them, she could at least depend on Anora to shove him into line when he got too far out of hand.

D
ESPITE EVERYBODY’S GOOD INTENTIONS,
Sarah’s renovations didn’t get done overnight. Work that had started in late November was still incomplete when she realized that the holidays she’d been dreading, were actually upon her. This was all to the good. Whatever her many relatives might think of her scheme, and Dolph’s reaction had been among the politest, they couldn’t fault her for attending to business instead of accepting their sometimes well-meant invitations. Nobody expected cheery cards or gifts from a new-made widow. She ate a stodgy Christmas dinner with Aunt Appie and Uncle Samuel in Cambridge and spent a surprisingly riotous New Year’s Eve on Pinckney Street with Uncle Jem, Egbert, and Dolph, who got tiddly on champagne and recited all he could remember of “Gunga Din,” which fortunately was not much.

On Sunday, January 2, Mariposa swept up the last of the shavings. On Monday, the third day of a new year that couldn’t possibly be any worse than the one just past, Sarah found herself seated at the head of her own dining room table wearing her mother’s slate blue dinner gown and Granny Kay’s bluebird brooch, being served in her public role as mistress from a dish she’d prepared in her private capacity as cook, by Charles doing his impersonation of a perfect Scottish butler in a noble English household.

Sarah herself had a sense of total unreality about the performance, but her lodgers appeared satisfied that they were getting the genuine article. All except Professor Ormsby, who stuck to his hairy tweeds and brown turtle-neck, had dressed for the occasion. Mr. Quiffen was correct in black tie. His clothes were probably even older than Sarah’s gown, since he also was of a caste that didn’t believe in discarding anything that still had good wear in it just because the garment happened to be a few decades out of style.

Mr. Porter-Smith, on the other hand, had blossomed forth in a wine-colored suit with satin lapels wide enough and shiny enough to skate on. The ensemble was completed by a matching tie the size and shape of an Amazon butterfly, and a ruffled pink shirt.

Even he, however, was outshone by Mrs. Sorpende. She was dressed in black as usual, a long-sleeved, long-skirted gown of dull black crepe beautifully fitted to her ample though by no means unpleasing figure. This she had artfully enhanced by an emerald green chiffon scarf that veiled but did not quite conceal the low-cut neckline. In her elaborately dressed black hair was set an aigrette of green ostrich tips and jewels which, had they been real, would have given Sarah cause for alarm about burglars.

Charles was trying to remain correctly impassive, but Sarah could sense his inward rejoicing at having such a classy dame to pass the crackers to. Professor Ormsby happened to glance up from his soup and once having glanced continued to gaze. No doubt Mrs. Sorpende’s alluringly draped corsage was an agreeable change from wind tunnels.

Poor Miss LaValliere, though a pretty enough child in spite of the fact that she had subdued her frizz into a sort of Early Andrews Sisters hairdo, was hopelessly outshone. She was wearing a conventionally indiscreet tubelike affair of some clinging substance, but not even Charles bothered to peek down, her unfettered décolletage since it was obviously not worth the bother. Perhaps she was trying to discourage the treatment of woman as a mere sex object, Sarah thought. If so, she could hardly have chosen a more effective way.

Be that as it might, Jennifer LaValliere was pouring badly needed money into the Kelling coffers and it was Sarah’s job to keep the girl happy. She started being gracious, whereupon Mrs. Sorpende and Mr. Porter-Smith both followed her lead. Miss LaValliere’s suddenly becoming the focus of attention annoyed Mr. Quiffen, who started acting like a superannuated and very spoiled baby. This landlady business was going to be more complex than Sarah had bargained for.

Luckily she’d had plenty of experience at sticky family gatherings. She placated the old man by letting him bore her to excruciation with a diatribe against the Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority. He rode the MBTA a good deal, it seemed, for the express purpose of finding fault with it. His tale of being trapped for half an hour outside Kenmore Station on the first hot day of summer with the air conditioning not on and the heat in the car going full blast might have had more punch if it had been told eight months earlier. However, Sarah endured his whinings and snarlings with a practiced look of keen attention, an occasional shake of the head, and a few murmurs which Mr. Quiffen might take for whatever he chose to take them for.

In fact, she hadn’t the faintest notion what he was saying most of the time. She was wondering if the beef stroganoff would hold out until everybody had got a fair share. She hadn’t realized professors of aeronautics ate so much. Thanks to some fancy footwork on Charles’s part, though, disaster was averted. If Professor Ormsby wound up with a great many noodles and a very little beef the second time around, he didn’t appear to notice, but shoveled in the last forkful with the same gusto as the first.

There was homemade apple pie for dessert. “The apples came from our trees at Ireson’s Landing,” Sarah told the company, and they made suitably reverent noises. Little did they ken that they’d be eating plenty more of these apples before the winter was over. As soon as she’d been able to think straight enough to start planning her boardinghouse, Sarah and Mr. Lomax had scooped up every one that was still salvageable.

At the end of the meal, Mr. Porter-Smith touched his napkin to his lips with a gracefully Edwardian flourish and said, as Sarah had been betting with herself that he would, “My compliments to the cook.”

Without batting an eyelid, Charles replied, “Thank you, sir. I will convey them on your behalf.”

They adjourned to the library to drink their coffee, they dispersed, and Sarah went upstairs to take off her dress and collapse. The first major hurdle was over.

For the rest of the week Sarah was kept as busy as she’d been getting ready for her lodgers. Now she must find out their needs and crotchets, keep the larder stocked, think up ways to feed Professor Ormsby and still wind up on the profit side of the ledger. As he never showed any sign of noticing what he ate provided he got enough of it, this was not too difficult.

As for the others, Jennifer LaValliere tended to pick and nibble. Mrs. Sorpende always said she shouldn’t, then did. Mr. Porter-Smith was so overcome by the grandeur of Charles and the value of the Kelling silver and china that he’d no doubt have eaten a slice of old boot with relish if it were served to him elegantly enough. Mr. Quiffen gobbled, glared around the table to make sure nobody got a better portion than he, quarreled with anyone who’d quarrel back, and made himself generally obnoxious at every opportunity.

Letting the Protheroes bully her into taking George’s old buddy in as a boarder had been a sad mistake. Worse, it was a mistake she need not have made. Only a day or so after Sarah had got herself trapped into putting up with Barnwell Augustus Quiffen, she was visited by William Hartler.

Mr. Hartler was as cheery as Quiffen was nasty, which was saying a good deal. He beamed, he chuckled, he reminded Sarah of those delightful parties at Aunt Marguerite’s where he and she had got acquainted and Sarah recalled that Mr. Hartler himself had been the main reason why those particular gatherings had been less Godawful than the rest.

On those occasions, he’d always had his sister with him. Sarah recalled her vaguely as a gentle, self-effacing soul, even shorter than he and a good deal thinner. Her name was Joanna, but she and William had called each other by ridiculous nursery nicknames even though they must both be seventy or close to it. She’d appeared devoted to her brother and it was Sarah’s impression that she’d kept house for them since neither, to the best of Sarah’s knowledge, had ever married. Then why was William alone now?

“Oh, Joanna’s flown the coop,” Mr. Hartler told her. “She deserted me to spend the winter in Rome with an old friend from boarding school. Do her good to get away for a change, but it’s pretty ghastly for me, I can tell you. We got rid of our place in Newport and put our things in storage. We plan to find an apartment here in Boston when she returns. In the meantime, I’m bumming around on my own and making a poor job of it. I tried a hotel but that cost a fortune, so now I’ve got a room over on Hereford Street, which means I have to go trailing out to a restaurant to get anything to eat. It’s no fun. No fun at all. Living here with you would be ideal for my purposes. Good food, good company, lovely home, ground floor. I’m not supposed to climb stairs, you know. Doctor’s nonsense about my heart. Other than that, I’m fit as a fiddle.” Sarah believed him. Mr. Hartler could have posed for Thomas Nast’s drawing of St. Nick with his tummy and his twinkle, except that he was clean-shaven and not smoking a pipe and withal as spruce and tidy an old gentleman as any landlady might want occupying her front parlor suite.

“And it would be so convenient for my work,” he sighed.

“Your work?” Sarah asked in some surprise. “Volunteer work, of course, but it’s important. Most important! I’m tracking things down for the restoration of the Iolani Palace. In Honolulu, you know.”

“As a matter of fact, I do know. Edgar Driscoll had a fascinating feature story about it in the Boston
Globe
a while ago and we had a letter back when my husband was alive, asking whether we had anything to donate from the royal visit in 1887.”

“And did you?” cried Mr. Hartler eagerly. “Nothing of consequence. Queen Kapiolani and Princess Liliuokalani never stayed with us, but they did pop in for tea one afternoon.”

“Here? In this very room?”

“Oh no. They’d have been entertained in the formal drawing room.”

“Mrs. Kelling, could I see that room? Just for a moment?”

Sarah shook her head. “I’m terribly afraid you can’t because it doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve had to turn it into a bedroom. That’s the room you’d have had if you’d only come a little sooner.”

For a moment, Sarah thought Mr. Hartler was going to burst into tears.

“I feel as if St. Peter had just slammed the pearly gates in my face,” he said with a rueful smile. “To think that I might have been sleeping in the very same room where those two wonderful, vibrant ladies sat and drank teal Mrs. Kelling, I’m shattered, utterly shattered. I only hope the fortunate person who occupies it now realizes his great good fortune. Would it be someone I know, by any chance?”

“His name is Quiffen, and he’s a friend of the Protheroes. You’ve met them, surely?”

“The Protheroes, yes, though only in passing as it were. But Quiffen? No, I can’t say that name rings a bell. Perhaps I could find a way to scrape his acquaintance,” he added, brightening a little. “If I were to explain what it would mean to me—I don’t suppose he’d be amenable to a spot of bribery and corruption, by any chance?”

He said it with a whimsical smile, but Sarah wasn’t altogether sure he didn’t mean it. “I’m afraid not,” she said firmly. “Mr. Quiffen is very well off and he appears to be perfectly satisfied with his accommodations. For the moment, at any rate.”

Mr. Hartler took the hint she couldn’t resist throwing in. “Ah, then if you think there may be any chance whatever, I implore you to keep me in mind. The Harvard Club will always find me. They’ll take a message at the switchboard. Wonderful people. Most obliging. You’re quite sure it wouldn’t do any good for me to explain the circumstances to this Mr. Quiffen?”