Beacon Street Mourning (17 page)

My thoughts slowed down a bit and I admitted: I hadn't thought he would lie to me, not anymore, not since the
agreement we'd made to establish our partnership. Perhaps I was wrong . . .

"All right," Michael admitted, "I did think Cosgrove would probably say something about Augusta's wishes in this matter having precedence over yours. The same would be true for the wife in most of the United States, and I believe in most other countries as well."

"Hah! I knew it!" So much for thinking I might have been wrong.

"Will you please let me finish, Fremont?"

"I beg your pardon," I said somewhat sarcastically.

"And so you should, because I was about to say that I don't underestimate your powers of persuasion. There was always a chance you could convince Cosgrove to override Augusta. To get him on your side."

"Hah!" I said again, this time bitterly.

"Indeed. Far from having won him over to your side, you seemed to have put the man into a hostile mood even before I arrived at his office. What did you do?"

"I didn't have to do anything. He was like that from the moment I went in and sat down. Obviously, no matter how courteous he seemed to be before, he wants nothing more to do with me now. Searles Cosgrove is just one more male of the species besotted with Augusta."

"Nonsense. You must have said something to rile him, made one of your, er—"

"Unwise accusations?" I supplied. "Never mind that they are only unwise in your estimation whereas in mine they are well founded."

We approached the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Berkeley Street. Michael saw an autotaxi coming our way, so he stepped out into the street, saw that it held no passengers, and hailed it down.

I picked my way through the slush—wet feet are more irritating than mud on one's skirts—and got in. None too soon; I was tired but the walk had been exhilarating. My sense of purpose was exhilarating too, even though the anger behind it was troubling.

Michael gave the Beacon Street address and instructed the driver to go the long way, around the Common. I didn't mind, as I expected he'd done so in order to assure the cabbie a better fare, and I could use the extra time to compose myself.

"At any rate," Michael said as if picking up where we'd left off, "though Cosgrove's manner was rather offensive—leaving aside the question of whether or not he was provoked—"

I shot him a look but kept quiet. My mind was made up. I knew what I was going to do, I accepted that I would have to do it by myself, and I didn't care what Michael or anyone else thought or said or did.

"—really, Fremont, my dear, you must admit the doctor was right in at least most of what he said."

"I admit no such thing!"

"Won't you agree that it's better for your father—for
anyone
—to die happy and at peace? To die at home with his family around him?"

After a long silence during which I examined Michael's bearded face minutely, as if I had never seen him before, or perhaps on the other hand as if I would never see him again, I very carefully said, "I think it is always better to live than to die. As for choosing one way of death to be preferable over another, I will leave that to the gods and to murderers, as only they have control over life and death."

I LET MYSELF into my house and went straight back to the kitchen. The cook was puttering about in the pantry closet, where I could hear but not see her; Mary, however, was rinsing something in the sink. I asked her to bring a bowl of soup and
some oyster crackers to my room in an hour, or a sandwich if Cook had no soup available, and to wake me if I were sleeping. In her taciturn manner she assured me she would do as I'd asked. Then I went up the back stairs.

"Oh, Miss Fremont!" Mary called out when I'd gone up about three steps.

I stopped and turned in the narrow stairway, which was dark enough to be unpleasant. I thought I should have to do something soon about better lighting for these stairs and halls.

"I'm sorry, I almost forgot. There was a caller," Mary said, "a gentleman that's been here before, but like I told you, I was supposed to send everybody away and say no visitors. I mean that was before, 'til you said different this morning. If you take my meaning, miss."

"I understand, Mary. Go on."

"Well, this gentleman, he asked for Mrs. Augusta Jones and for you, too, the both of you, so I told him like you said. And he give me his card. Here 'tis."

"Thank you, Mary."

"But I didn't say nothing to Mrs. Jones. I hope that's right."

"Yes, quite right—she is the one who doesn't want visitors, not I, and so it's best that we not trouble her. You've done well."

"I hope so. Have a good rest, miss. I'll keep a careful watch on the clock, you can be sure of it."

"I know you will."

I smiled at her choice of words, "watch on the clock." I liked Mary. It would be so easy to forget that it was Augusta who'd hired her, and, therefore, Augusta who most likely had Mary's loyalty.

I continued on up the stairs, squinting at the calling card as I went, but it was too dark to read on the staircase. I wasn't able to see the name on the card until I came out into the hall, where
daylight streamed through the windows at both ends: William Reginald Barrett.

Hmm, I thought. I hadn't known his middle name was Reginald. Musing, tapping the card against the palm of my hand, I went on to my temporary quarters in the guest room.

Immediately questions presented themselves: Could William have learned of Father's death already? Or had he been coming by regularly since Father's return from the hospital? Was this just one more visit I'd never known about? Or might Augusta have gone to the bank when she supposedly went out with her son this morning to make arrangements for Father's funeral?

Oh how that galled me: She had taken her son, not Father's daughter, to make plans for his funeral. She had not had the decency, or the consideration, to inquire as to my wishes—what words should be said, what songs sung, when my dead father's body was laid into the ground.

Tears pricked at my eyes again. For a moment my most fervent wish was that the animosity between the two of us, Augusta and myself, could end. I wished that we could bury my father in peace, then each of us go her own way and there would be an end to it.

I sighed, tossed my cane upon the bed, and sat down upon the mattress. Bury Father in peace: Michael would like that alternative. Then peace also could be restored between him and me . . . and surely that would be a fine thing.

Peace, yes—

But peace at such a price that I would never rest again a day on this earth! I blinked back the tears and with the back of my hand dashed away a few that had strayed down my cheeks. Unable to stay still, I popped up and began to pace back and forth. As I paced I continued to think, for there was plenty to think about. Such as:

If Augusta had already gone to the bank this morning, and if on that trip to the bank she had seen William, then I expected
she would also have stopped in to speak to one of the two lawyers in the bank building who handled all Great Centennial's legal matters. They had handled my father's legal matters as well, and would know of the new will waiting in its safe-deposit box.
But
—

Reaching the corner of the rug, whose border I was following as I paced, I turned sharply and started back the other way.

But
neither of the lawyers would say a word to Augusta until they'd contacted me, because I was the principal heir and would have to be notified first. Surely that was the way it worked.

Oh, God!
What if I were wrong, what if they'd already told her?

I would have to go to the bank myself this afternoon. I must make certain Augusta did not learn about the new will until after the funeral.

Make peace with her? Not likely! Once she'd been told the terms of that will, anything like an amicable coexistence between myself and Augusta as was Simmons would no longer be possible. She was going to be very, very angry.

In fact—I stopped short, gripped by a new and horrible thought: If Augusta had already been to the bank, and if she'd been told that the bulk of the family money and property had passed to me, I could be in danger.

And here I was with no way to protect myself. My weapon of choice, a somewhat old-fashioned type of gun called a Marlin, had gone the way of everything else I'd lost in that same disaster that caused my broken legs. Since I could hardly handle a gun and a cane at the same time, and didn't like guns anyway, I hadn't even begun to think of getting another—

The cane! Good heavens. I'd been pacing the room without it!

My cane still lay on top of the bedspread where I'd tossed it. I stared at it for a moment, looked down at my two feet
sticking out from beneath my mud-splattered skirt, and laughed aloud.

But I laughed for only a brief moment, because the sound of laughter echoing off the walls of this house seemed wrong. The house at Beacon Street was a house of mourning.

I TOOK OFF my skirt and lay down in my bodice and petticoats, pulling an afghan over me. I tried to sleep for the time that remained before Mary came to wake me.

Surprisingly enough, I was able to quiet my mind and I did doze off. But I awoke before Mary's knock, went to the window, and looked out.

This window on the back side of the house looked down into the little walled garden, which seemed forlorn and abandoned. I supposed it had always looked like that in the wintertime. I tried to see it as it had been in my mother's time, and as I'd tried to keep it after—with flowers growing in large pots all about, changing with the seasons. I wondered if there were still the big stone planters of daffodil and tulip bulbs down in the basement where they used to wait all winter until, when it was warm enough, Mother would have Ralph Porter bring them up and put them out against the garden walls. Later there would be pansies in pots, and petunias, and impatiens; and still later the spicy-smelling, brightly colored blooms of midsummer, the zinnias and the marigolds.

I doubted the flowers were brought into the walled garden anymore if Ralph were not there to help with the doing of it. The planters and pots were heavy when filled with dirt, too heavy for a woman. I could not see Mary's thin arms equal to the task of moving them about; nor could I picture Augusta with dirt on her hands.

Not the good honest dirt of the earth, anyway.

I left the window and rummaged through the dresser drawers until I found a stiff wire clothes brush, then set about brushing the dried mud from my skirt. As I brushed I decided I would try to find Ralph and Myra Porter. I wanted to know if they'd left of their own accord, or been dismissed. I wanted to know anything they could tell me.

The changes Augusta had made in this house were subtle. They didn't show on the surface, yet they had a lasting effect— even if that effect were only symbolic of something deeper. Symbolic: such as the stopping of the tall-case clock, which just happened to have been Father's favorite clock, a legacy from the family as old as the house itself. Practical: such as no longer having a manservant to do the tasks that had been Ralph Porter's responsibility, for example looking after the horse and carriage this house no longer had.

All right, one might argue—as Michael certainly would if I were to discuss this with him—that carriages were fast going out of date and automobiles were the coming thing. One might argue that in a city like Boston, where there are plenty of carriages for hire, and autotaxis, and even a subway train that runs underground, one does not need one's own horse and carriage.

However—I gave my skirt a last whack, the final bit of dried mud dropped away, and I pronounced it clean enough—
however,
I did not believe any of those things had anything to do with why the carriage house out back was locked up tight, probably empty and certainly dusty. I believed that like Ralph and Myra's being gone, like the failure to replace Ralph with another manservant, getting rid of the horse and carriage had been just one more step toward my father's isolation. Augusta had achieved it so subtly, so slowly, that most likely he had never even noticed.

I didn't doubt there were other things she'd done to isolate him, other steps she'd taken . . . and I wanted to know them all. I wanted to know everything.

I HAD TOLD MICHAEL I'd be resting all afternoon, when I had no intention of doing so. Therefore I thought it advisable to find Mary before I left the house and ask her to say to Mr. Kossoff, if he should happen to stop by or to call on the telephone before I returned, that I was resting and had asked not to be disturbed.

Augusta was apparently resting too; I hadn't seen her all day. And while this state of affairs could not last forever, for the moment it suited me. I was not to escape unscathed, however: Larry Bingham strolled into the hallway from the library just as I went walking purposefully down the hall toward the front door. While I didn't think he'd been lying in wait for me, he did have a rather predatory appearance about him. Perhaps it was only my eagerness to be on my way that gave him that appearance, but I didn't think so.

"Going out all on your own?" he asked. Without giving me a chance to reply to that he immediately offered, "Want a companion? Somebody to walk between you and the street to keep the mud off you from the passing vehicles and all that, y'know?"