Thread and Gone (4 page)

Chapter 6

My next stop was the patisserie. I'd decided to treat myself to an éclair for dessert tonight. I was hoping Nicole would also have a couple of baguettes left. Gram had given me one of the two panini presses she'd gotten as wedding gifts. I was looking forward to making a classic ham and cheese sandwich to test my new toy.

The store smelled sinfully of fresh bread and frostings and fruit fillings.

A dangerous place for anyone worried about sugar and carbs. But I refused to worry. Life (and that included food and drink) should be enjoyed.

I wasn't the only one who thought so. I could see why Nicole had been concerned about Henri's absence. Half a dozen people were either waiting in line or checking the pastry case before making their decisions. I didn't know the young woman behind the counter; she must have been a summer hire. I gave her credit. She looked frazzled but kept smiling.

Two éclairs were in the case. Clearly they were both meant for me.

I got in line behind a woman holding a drooling baby wearing a pink onesie printed with “Daddy Loves Me.”

A shirt I never could have worn. I hoped that little girl knew how lucky she was.

When I got to the front of the line I placed my order and asked, “Is Nicole here?”

“She's in the kitchen. Busy,” said the young woman, putting my choices in a box and a bag.

“Would you give her this, when she has a few minutes?” I scribbled a reminder to Nicole and my telephone number on a copy of the French note. “Last night she said she'd try to translate this for me.”

The girl nodded. “I don't know when she'll have time to look at it.”

“That's okay. Just make sure she gets it.”

“I will,” she said, handing me my change. “Have a good day.”

I planned to. Right after I delivered the embroidery to Lenore Pendleton's office.

Like the Mainely Needlepoint office, which was in our living room, Lenore Pendleton's law office was on the first floor of her home, a classic white colonial. Mainers called them “four on fours,” because they were square, and originally had four rooms on each floor. Over the years many had been modified by the addition of conveniences like closets and bathrooms, but the basic structure of most of the houses, and their outside appearance, hadn't changed.

Dave Percy's little yellow house was catty-corner across the street. I'd forgotten that.

I hoped Lenore wouldn't mind my volunteering her safe. In the two months I'd been back in Haven Harbor I'd met her a couple of times. First, to ensure that everything connected with Mama's death had been done properly, and then, recently, Gram and I'd consulted her about how to transfer what I still thought of as Gram's house to me.

As I turned up Lenore's brick walk a heavyset man in a badly fitted suit stormed out her door, slammed it behind him, and stomped past me. He got into a beige sedan and gunned it.

Someone was having a bad day.

I opened the door to the front hall and walked into the reception area. Lenore's secretary, Glenda Pierce, wasn't there, so I obeyed the “ring bell to let me know you're here” instruction on the desk, and rang her small enameled brass bell.

Within a few minutes Lenore appeared in the doorway between her office and the reception area. Her brown hair streaked with gray was clipped up, but a few strands had escaped and were curling down her neck. She reached up to secure them as she walked. “Angie! I didn't expect you this morning. Your appointment isn't until next week.”

“I took a chance your office would be open.” I liked Lenore Pendleton. She was friendly but professional. The last time I'd seen her she'd suggested I make out a will. I'd thought it was only something you'd do if you were a lot older than twenty-seven, or if you had children. She'd convinced me otherwise. I had an appointment with her next week.

“From nine to five, almost every day,” she said, giving up on her hair. “I played hooky yesterday because of the holiday, and told Glenda she could take the week with her family. But there's always paperwork to catch up with. You know what it's like to have your business in your home.”

“You never leave your office,” I agreed.

“But there are real advantages when the weather turns horrible. Come on in,” she said, gesturing to the private office in back of her reception area. “Your grandmother's wedding was lovely, by the way. She and Rev. Tom looked so happy. Are they still on their honeymoon?”

I nodded. “They're in Quebec, eating so much they'll be wanting to hibernate when they get back, according to Gram.”

“Sounds like Charlotte,” said Mrs. Pendleton. “I hope she and Tom are happy together.”

“So far, so good,” I agreed. “Marriage seems to be right for them.”

“Perhaps so,” she said. “But the tough part of marriage comes after the honeymoon.”

I didn't know what to say. “I've never been married.”

She saw me glancing at her left hand. “I'm separated. Filed for divorce eighteen months ago. My advice about marriage is simple: don't rush into it. In my profession I see a lot of couples who marry too soon. Or who think getting married will solve all their problems.”

“I think Gram and Tom are old enough to know what they're doing.” Gram was sixty-five; Tom, fifty-two. They'd each been married before. Gram'd been widowed years ago, before I was born, and Tom about ten years ago. I hoped they'd have many years together.

Mrs. Pendleton brushed her hair up again. “Of course they are. I shouldn't have said anything. It's just that marriage and divorce have been on my mind recently. What's brought you here this morning?” She straightened the line of books on her desk, pushing the marble bookends that held them more toward the center. They'd been dangerously close to falling off the edge.

“You know Mary Clough, right?” I asked.

“I helped her with legal issues after her parents died. She's a sweet girl. Horrible tragedy, to be left alone so young.”

“Last night she came to my home with her fiancé . . .”

“Her fiancé?” Mrs. Pendleton looked shocked. “Mary's engaged?”

“To Rob Trask,” I said.

Lenore shook her head. “She's so young. I hadn't heard. Sorry to interrupt.”

“That's okay,” I said. “She does seem young to be engaged. But in any case, she brought a piece of needlepoint for me to identify. It may be several hundred years old.”

“Interesting,” said Lenore, leaning forward.

“Mary wanted to know more about the needlepoint, and how much it might be worth.” I hesitated. “Rob seemed most interested in its value.”

“It might be worth a lot?”

I shook my head. “I don't know. I've never seen a piece like it. We'll have to do research. But it's possible.”

“What brings you here?”

“In case it
is
valuable, I want to keep it out of harm's way. Secure.” I didn't add “and away from Rob.” “Mary agreed that, if you wouldn't mind, we'd leave it with you. You know both of us. And you could put it in your safe.” I held up the envelope. “It wouldn't take up much room, and I hope you wouldn't have to keep it more than a few weeks. It could only be days.”

She nodded. “Most people would use a safe deposit box. But I could do that for you. I assume you don't want the responsibility of having it in your home.”

“Exactly. And I don't have a safe deposit box.”

“May I see this embroidery?”

“Of course.” I opened the envelope and took out the leather packet and then the letter and the stitching. “The needlepoint and this note were inside the leather.”

Mrs. Pendleton didn't touch any of the pieces I spread out on her desk. She just looked at them. “You're right to keep them safe. That needlepoint is exquisite.”

“No matter how much we find out it's worth, it's definitely special,” I agreed.

“You said Mary knows her needlepoint will be with me?”

“Yes.”

She leaned back. “Put everything back in the envelope, then. I'll put it in my safe, I promise. And I won't release it to anyone but you or Mary. No matter who asks.”

Chapter 7

My new panini press worked beautifully. I carried my sandwich and a glass of lemonade out to our porch to eat. Sunny July days shouldn't be wasted.

After I finished I tossed the crumbs from my sandwich to the sparrows holding their daily meeting at our front yard bird feeder.

I'd been so busy preparing for Gram's wedding, and then for my dinner party, that I'd gotten behind in paperwork for the business. I turned on my computer and starting sorting through invoices.

The afternoon went quickly. Office work wasn't my favorite kind, but my in-box was finally empty and I had a stack of envelopes ready to mail.

I was about to have an end-of-day beer when Ruth called.

“Angie, I wanted to thank you again for the lovely dinner you prepared last night. I so enjoyed getting out a bit and seeing everyone.”

I made a mental note to keep more closely in touch with Ruth. She was the oldest of the needlepointers, and her arthritis kept her from doing much stitching. At her request, I hadn't given her any jobs recently. But there must have been days when she felt isolated in her home. Spending time online wasn't the same as being with other people.

“I've been thinking about that needlepoint Mary Clough showed us last night. You and Sarah are the experts on old needlepoint.” I rolled my eyes. I wished I were an expert. But Ruth was still talking. “But I know a little bit about it, too, and I've always loved English history. When Sarah said last night she thought the stitching might be Elizabethan, it got me to thinking. So I spent time online this afternoon.”

“Yes?” I said.

“I may not be right. In fact, I keep thinking I couldn't be right. But what Sarah said was true. That embroidery square looks very like other work by Mary, Queen of Scots.”

“Do you think so?” I blurted. “I meant, it's old stitching. But . . . royal?” I'd convinced myself that, at best, the needlework was a copy.

“Maybe not, maybe so. But check it out. That stitching and the work Mary Stuart did have a lot in common. She was famous for her needlepoint, you know.”

So I was learning. Yesterday I didn't know that. In fact, I still wasn't sure who she was.

“You said queen of Scots. So she was Scottish?”

“Oh, my dear, yes. She became queen of Scotland when she was six days old. When she was five years old she was promised to Francis, the Dauphin of France, and sent to France to learn French and the customs of their court. She and Francis married when she was sixteen. A year later his father, the king, died. Francis became king of France, and Mary, his queen. But a year after that, Francis died of an ear infection. Isn't it awful what people died of years ago? So Mary went back to Scotland with two titles—queen of Scots and dowager queen of France. She had a claim to the English throne, too, as a descendant of Henry VII's sister. That's why her cousin, Elizabeth—Queen Elizabeth the First, of course—kept her under lock and key for so many years.”

No, I didn't know all that. And I got a little lost trying to follow Ruth's story. My semester on world history at Haven Harbor High hadn't covered much. And, to be honest, I hadn't paid much attention. But I did get Ruth's basic message: this Queen Mary had been pretty important in Elizabethan times.

“She was in prison?”

“Not a dungeon, of course. After all, she was a queen. But Elizabeth was afraid Mary's supporters would try to put her on the English throne. She'd already been thrown out of Scotland because she'd made poor decisions choosing her two husbands after Francis—she wasn't good at relationships, I always thought—and she was Catholic. Scotland was Protestant then. So Mary asked her cousin Elizabeth for asylum. Elizabeth offered her a place to live at the home of the Earl of Shrewsbury, one of the lords who supported Elizabeth. But when Mary got there she found there was a catch. She couldn't leave. And she could have very few visitors.”

“So she was all alone there?”

“Oh, she was allowed to bring a few members of her staff with her, including her ladies-in-waiting and her chef. And the earl's wife, Bess of Hardwick, became a friend of sorts, as well as a jailer.”

“How long was she held there?”

“Eighteen years. And then she was put on trial for treason, found guilty, and beheaded.”

“Whoa. Not a pretty ending.”

“No. But what's important to us is that Mary'd learned needlepoint when she was a child in France. Like other women of her station, she had professional needlepointers working for her, designing and stitching tapestries and bed hangings and elegant clothing. But she and her ladies also did needlepoint themselves. It helped fill those long years of exile from Scotland and imprisonment in England.”

Locked up eighteen years, without even a television set or a newspaper. Needlework might seem pretty important if it was all you could do. “But even if the needlepoint Mary Clough showed us is Elizabethan, how would we know who stitched it?”

“Noble ladies like Queen Mary stitched their own emblems, or symbols, or even their initials, into their work. The books you and Sarah have about Elizabethan needlepoint should picture those.”

“I'll let Sarah know,” I assured Ruth. “She's doing most of that research. I still think it's a long shot. How would a queen's embroidery end up in a Maine attic?”

“Let me know what you discover,” said Ruth. “I love mysteries.”

Could Ruth be right? If a queen's embroidery had ended up in Maine, it would probably be worth a lot. But, how could we find out? I was pretty sure stitching by Mary, Queen of Scots, didn't go on the market often.

Ruth didn't get excited about very much. But she'd sounded convinced.

What if I'd held a piece of needlepoint stitched by a queen?

I shivered. I felt as though a ghost from the past had reached out and touched me.