Beacon Street Mourning (14 page)

"Convention be damned," he growled. Then he gathered
himself into a sitting position, stretched, and said, "Hmm. You must be feeling better. Your dubious sense of humor has returned."

I sighed. "I wasn't trying to be funny. I really meant it, you know. This is Boston and we aren't married yet. We should observe the proprieties. By noon today, according to the usual way of things, Augusta or that young man she calls her son will have told anyone who'll listen that you spent the night in my room with the door closed."

"I don't give a fig."

Michael came over to the bed and kissed me, at first tentatively and then rather well, after which he took my chin in one hand and searched my face. "You sound like your usual self. You kiss like your usual self. Are you really all right now?"

"I think so."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"I know Father died and I, I did some odd things. That part is like a dream—in the dream I'm a little girl, walking around his bed, looking at him, knowing he's dead but not wanting to believe it. I didn't know what to do and so I just lay down next to him. Then the doctor came and made me drink nasty stuff.

"I won't forgive him for that, by the way. Now I'd like to wash and dress and then have some breakfast. Will you stay and help me? I have a feeling I may be a little unsteady on my feet when I first get out of bed."

"WHERE ARE THEY?" I asked later, meaning Augusta and Larry. We were having breakfast in the dining room: scrambled eggs and bacon that had been left in warming pans on the sideboard. The house seemed empty. Someone had once more stopped the tall-case clock, which made it seem emptier still.

"I don't know," Michael acknowledged.

"And Father's body?"

"Taken to the mortuary yesterday."

"Oh."

The door at the back of the dining room opened and Mary Fowey came in with a plate of toast. "I heard you get up, miss. And Mr. Kossoff. So I made toast. Cook's gone to market."

"Thank you, Mary." She put the toast on the table and for a moment looked straight into my eyes, an unusual thing for Mary to do.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Miss Fremont," she said.

"Thank you," I repeated, and because something more seemed called for, I added, "I only hope Father is at peace."

Mary nodded, averted her eyes, and moved back from the table.

"Will there be anything else you're needin'?" she asked.

"Fresh coffee, if you can manage it."

"Yes, miss. I can do that."

"Oh, and Mary: Where are the others?"

"Mrs. Jones and her boy, they went out. Didn't say where, didn't say how long. If anyone comes to the door, I'm to say we're not receiving callers and they're not to leave their card, those were my instructions."

I looked at Michael to see if he thought there was anything odd about that. Certainly it seemed odd to me. But I could learn nothing from Michael's face, which was a cipher, as it so often is.

"Not even to leave a card?" I couldn't help sounding incredulous.

"That's what she said. It's been the same since your poor father got so sick. Mrs. Jones don't want no callers nor no calling cards neither."

Well, that explained a few things I'd wondered about—such as where Father's friends had gone, and why. I said:

"As long as I'm in the house, Mary, if anyone comes calling you're to have that person wait in the hall and bring his or her
card to me. Most likely I'll be happy to receive anyone. If I'm not here, I'd like you to take the card and say, 'Miss Caroline Fremont Jones will want to know you've called.' Then give any cards to me when I return. Can you do that?"

Mary smiled and did her quick little dip. "Yes. It'll be better, too, won't it, having people come to the house, like at most folks' houses. 'Specially when there's a grief in the house, you want your friends around, anybody would."

A remarkably long speech from her.

"You're quite right," I agreed.

Mary blushed, and fled in the direction of the kitchen. I hoped she wouldn't forget to make the coffee.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Michael commented when we were alone again.

"I do." I continued to eat my breakfast quite calmly. Food had been what I needed, and when I'd had at least two cups of good, hot coffee I expected I should be quite restored to my former self. Already I was beginning to remember details of finding Father, details that were important, things I'd observed before the child in me had taken over.

"Augusta isn't going to like you giving orders to her maid in her house."

"It doesn't matter." I broke a piece of toast in two and buttered it. Simple toast—and it tasted simply delicious.

"What do you mean, Fremont?"

"This is not her house anymore."

"Not her house."

"Father left the house to me, Michael. He left everything to me except enough of a legacy to provide Augusta with a living for the rest of her life—as long as she doesn't live extravagantly."

Michael let out a long, slow whistle and reared back from the table, as if he suddenly needed to distance himself from me. "How long have you known this? Does Augusta know?"

"Since last April when he came to see me; and no, I don't believe she knows. Certainly she wouldn't have liked it, and Father would have wanted to avoid unpleasantness—that was his way. He had a new will drawn up shortly before he came out to San Francisco, and I rather doubt he told anyone other than me. The bank is executor, and the document is stored in a safe-deposit box there. He used one of the bank's lawyers. At the moment I do not recall the lawyer's name but I have it written down."

"You are speaking of your father's bank where he used to work, Great Centennial."

"Yes."

Mary returned with a pot of steaming coffee, and I gave her my most effusive thanks.

"I don't understand why he would do such a thing," Michael said, "cut his wife out like that."

"He didn't tell me. I don't know either," I shrugged. Every moment I was feeling better, stronger. The coffee tasted fine and was working its magic.

"You must have asked," Michael said, narrowing his eyes at me and bringing those dark eyebrows together until he looked a bit like a bird of prey. "You're of too curious a nature, you can't stand not knowing things."

I buttered more toast. I had already eaten all my eggs and bacon. "In general, yes, that's true. But Father was a private man, and one did not question him. I inherited my, ah, rather uncharacteristic nature from my mother's side of the family."

"Fremont, sometimes you are the most extraordinary person!"

"Thank you," I said, inclining my head with a small smile.

"I'm not sure I meant that as a compliment."

"I'm sure you won't mind if I take it as one."

"You never told me you were for all intents and purposes your father's sole heir."

"What does it matter, Michael? You know I don't care that much about the money. And while I acknowledge that this is a much finer house than I ever really understood when I was living here, it will only be a burden. I'll have to figure out what to do with it. However—" I broke off to drink more coffee, as a new thought had just occurred to me. "However, I expect the house had a great deal to do with it."

"With your father's virtually cutting Augusta out of the will?"

"Yes. I expect he wanted to keep the house in the family. And I shouldn't have been a bit surprised if Mr. Larry Bingham didn't have quite a lot to do with that decision. Father didn't like him. He told me so."

"Mm-hm."

A silence fell between us at the table while we each thought our own thoughts. Then Michael said:

"I expect Augusta and Larry have gone to make arrangements for the funeral."

"Then in that case," I said, putting my napkin properly draped on the table, "you and I should be on our way."

"Where are we going? I expect I should go back to the Vendome and change clothes, since I've slept in these, before I go anywhere else."

"We are going to Father's doctor, Searles Cosgrove, to request an autopsy."

"An autopsy?"

"Well, you needn't look so shocked. I want to know the exact cause of Father's death. Cosgrove will have filed a death certificate, I expect. I do not know exactly how these things are done in Massachusetts, but surely it cannot be too difficult to find out."

AT MY SUGGESTION we walked through the Public Garden and then up Commonwealth Avenue to Searles Cosgrove's office. I did not call ahead to announce that we were coming, because I did not want to give him the benefit of prior warning. I was still more than a little angry with the good doctor for having drugged me without my permission. It is one thing to offer painkilling or sleep-producing nostrums to a patient in discomfort, but quite another to force the same on someone temporarily unable to refuse.

I wanted to walk because I felt the exercise and the fresh air would serve to clear away what few cobwebs remained in my head. I'd chosen a good day for it: As often happens in New England at this time of year, the cold wind that ruled the weather a couple of days ago had served to clear the skies and make room for a balmy day. There was a hint of spring in the air, blue sky reflected in the puddles formed by melting snow, and I saw a robin hopping in a soggy brown patch that would soon be green with grass.

There was no spring in my heart, however, nor was I inclined to ooh and aah over the tiny tips of crocuses pushing up through the snow, as some other strolling couples would stop to do now and again. Rather I was filled with a sense of all-consuming purpose—and the anger that I knew was justified, yet amplified by the loss of my father.

Michael noticed, of course; he does not miss much. Sometimes I am glad of this and other times I am not. Today I supposed I did not particularly care one way or another when he said, "You're very angry, aren't you, Fremont? I'm assuming this anger has nothing to do with me, but is related to your father's death."

It was not really a question, so I didn't answer.

"When someone dies, anger is a common response, Fremont. I've felt it myself in such a situation."

Still I did not answer; I thought it unlikely that Michael, although both his mother and his father were dead, had ever been in my precise 'situation.' And I thought it best not to say so.

"Are you going to tell me before we get to Cosgrove's office why you want an autopsy to be performed on your father, or do I have to wait and hear it with him?"

This time I responded with a question of my own: "What did he say was the cause of Father's death?"

"Heart failure. He called it 'cardiac arrest.' "

"That will be what he wrote on the death certificate, then."

I'd had some experience of death certificates and coroners and such a couple of years ago, when I'd been a temporary lighthouse keeper and had spotted a woman's dead body rolling over and over in the waves breaking on the rocks along the shoreline of Monterey Bay.

After thinking for a few moments I went on: "And did Cosgrove tell you that himself, or did you hear it from Augusta?"

Michael glanced down at me. This day might be clear and sunny, but his blue eyes, which can change like the weather, were gray and foreboding. By that storm in his eyes I anticipated I would not like what he had to say in reply, and I was right. He said:

"Actually it was neither. Larry Bingham called me at the
hotel and asked me to come to the house because you weren't well. It was Larry who met me at the door and told me what had happened."

"What time was this, Michael?"

"Midmorning. Ten or ten-thirty, I should say. Cosgrove was no longer there, he'd left. And Augusta was in her room with the door closed. I didn't see her until later, around noon, when Mary came to your room and told me luncheon had been set out as a buffet in the dining room. When I went down, Augusta was there and we talked. She confirmed what Larry had said, that your father died of heart failure."

"They waited a long time to call you," I said. "What else did Augusta say?"

Michael's hand came out to cup my elbow as we stopped at the curb, waiting to cross Arlington Street. The wheels of passing carriages and autos spewed muddy water from the melting ice, but I daresay no one minded much. Muddy hems are a small price to pay for a day that has broken the grip of winter.

"Ah," he said, "let me think. She said Leonard died sometime during the night, and his death had put you in such a state that Dr. Cosgrove thought it best to dose you with laudanum."

"What about the nurse, was she there?"

"Not that I saw. Of course, by the time I arrived there would have been no need for her. Augusta had already called the funeral home and they came for your father's body while I was sitting in your room with you in the late morning."

"Hmm," I said, although that was usually Michael's line.

"You still haven't said why you want this autopsy. You must have a very serious reason."