Beacon Street Mourning (20 page)

"Please call me Fremont," I said absently, "I do not hold
with formality. Did someone build this platform for you especially? It's an interesting arrangement, well thought out so that you do not have to bend down so far to pick him up as you would if he were in the usual sort of bed."

"Yes, that is so." Sarah seemed surprised. "You know something of nursing then? How is that, a lady like you?"

I smiled. "Those who know me in this city might disagree with you about my being a lady. You see, Sarah, I did a shocking thing a few years ago: I left home in order to work for a living, to have my own business. I went all the way to San Francisco in order to be sure of that freedom. But then, as luck would have it, the very next year we had a huge earthquake out there, and most people lost everything. Including me."

"I heard about that." She nodded. "Edwin will be all right for a while now, so whyn't we sit down. I could make tea if you like."

Edwin—what a noble name for a boy whose life turned out to have only the most pathetic prospects.

"No, thank you," I said. "I had coffee not long ago, and I don't plan to intrude upon you for very long. You asked if I knew anything of nursing—what I know, I learned after that earthquake. I worked for quite a while with the nurses of the Red Cross, though I never had formal nurse's training myself. Disaster relief, it was called—we did a lot of everything. I admire women in the nursing profession tremendously. You're obviously doing a fine job of taking care of your son, Sarah."

Sarah bit her lips again.

I added, "I am sure you did an equally fine job taking care of my father. But still, we must talk about that."

Sarah wore a white apron over a checked flannel dress—the apron's material was thin yet not fine like handkerchief linen; rather it had been washed and ironed countless times to near-transparency. She unconsciously took up a corner of the apron and rolled it against her knee.

I drew in a deep breath and got on with it. "Am I correct in surmising that Edwin cannot understand what we say?"

She nodded. "He's an idiot."

In spite of the seeming harshness of the word, especially when applied to her own son, I understood that Sarah was speaking as a trained nurse to whom the word "idiot" was a medical classification. Meaning he lacked the mental capacity to learn and to think and behave like a normal human being.

"Very well," I said. "To get straight to the point: Night before last, the night my father died, I came into his room at about three o'clock in the morning. Something, I don't know what, had awakened me. You were sound asleep in the reading chair."

I held up my hand to stop her before she wasted valuable time defending herself. I overrode her words with my own: "I'm not taking you to task for sleeping, or even blaming you for it. In fact, I do not think it was your fault that you were asleep. I think your sleeping at that particular time and in that particular circumstance was beyond your control."

Now Sarah's expression was both puzzled and wary. "I don't understand you."

"I believe you will understand shortly. Now, at what time did you wake up?"

She bit her lips again. Any harder, I thought, and she'll draw blood.

I decided to try another tack. "All right. Why don't you tell me then, in your own words, what happened on the night of my father's death. Everything, just as you remember it. Starting from whenever it was that the house grew quiet and you were left alone with your patient."

"He ... he was sick, and he died, and that's all there was," Sarah said in a strained voice. "I don't know what you remember, Miss Jones, Miss Fremont, but the truth is, when he died
you went all hysterical. Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Augusta, she came and saw how it was, and then she went and called the doctor. Dr. Cosgrove, that is. I work private duty for a lot of Dr. Cosgrove's patients. By the time he came you were, well, you weren't yourself. I wouldn't expect you to be able to make sense of anything, on account of being out of your senses for a while. That was why the doctor gave you the medicine, to let you rest until your senses could return to normal."

I was too stunned by this recital to say anything at all.

Sarah looked at me steadily. "I'm glad to see you're feeling so much better now, and I appreciate your coming by."

I turned my head away. The impulse to simply give up and leave was very strong, but I fought it down. When I had control of myself and had regained a measure of determination, I looked at her again and said:

"I believe either Augusta or Searles Cosgrove paid you to tell me that story, and perhaps to tell it to the police or anyone else who might ask, as well. I say to you again that I will pay you double, if you will tell me the truth. And I will protect you too. I can do this because I, not Augusta, am Father's heir. No one will say you neglected your patient."

I took in another deep breath, and with it that faint stench of soiled bedclothes from the basket by the bed with its human burden. "So, Sarah, shall we begin again?"

Sarah stood up, tall as she could, which was not very. She folded her hands very properly and said, "Miss Fremont, there is no need to say any of that again. I won't tell them you offered me money. I've already told you what happened, and now I think you'd best go."

THERE WERE FOUR of us around the dinner table at Beacon Street that night: Augusta, Larry, Michael, and I. Augusta was very properly dressed in unrelieved black, not even pearls or a cameo in sight; her jewelry was jet. This was the first I'd seen of her since Dr. Cosgrove had rendered me insensible with laudanum.

It was chilly in the dining room in more ways than one.

Michael looked grim. I wondered if I were the cause, or just this whole unhappy situation.

He has his black moods from time to time; generally when he has them he goes off alone somewhere, sometimes without notice. Would he do that now? Would Michael completely, physically desert me? I felt he had already deserted me in a significant way, because he did not believe in the legitimacy of my concerns about Father's illness and death. I felt doubly wounded, as if not only had I lost Father but now Michael was drifting away from me too.

My inner voice, which had not had much to say to me for a while—or perhaps I had not been listening—made a comment. It seemed to come from so far away that I had to strain to hear it:
You could be overreacting, Fremont.

I replied to the inner voice with a silent snort:
If I'm over
-
reacting, then why isn't he helping me to find out what really happened to Father?

Because he too had fallen under Augusta's spell, that was why. I was sure of it. Why, even now he was smiling at something she had said. Some inconsequential frivolity I had missed.

Hah! This was hardly a time for inconsequential frivolities. I felt an awful urge to jab him with the toe of my shoe, and I probably would have except that he was sitting on the other side of the table, where my foot could not reach. Augusta had seated Michael at her right hand.

I decided to leave him to flirt with her—if he dared do such a thing right on the heels of her husband's dying—and I turned to try my wiles on Larry.

Two could play at the flirting game, and in my case it was more excusable because I had loftier intentions. Michael was only acting like a man, and of course all men are beasts ... at least, from time to time. They have been only barely civilized by women down through the centuries, I am convinced of it.

"I hope you had a pleasant afternoon," I said to Larry. "Did you go out in search of old acquaintances as I suggested?"

He looked up from his soup, which he had been taking from the spoon with a slight slurp. "I'd thought I might, but then right in the middle of the afternoon, when I was about to leave, Ma got a call from the bank."

Oh dear, I thought. So Augusta had heard about the will already.

"I had to go down there with her. To keep her company, you know. She's upset still at losing Leonard."

I could not tell if I were imagining it, for we were dining by the uncertain light of candles flickering in two candelabra, but I thought Larry Bingham was regarding me speculatively.

"Of course she is," I said. "So am I."

Larry looked as if he expected me to say more, but I resumed eating my soup instead.

Augusta's visit to the bank and what she likely learned there was not a subject I could pursue, nor could I encourage her son to do so. Augusta would have to broach it herself if it were to be discussed at all—and I rather hoped it would not. Not tonight, I did not want to deal with all that tonight. Money, property, who would get what—surely it was unseemly to talk of these things before Father's body was even laid in the ground!

I heartily wished Elwood Sefton had not been so insistent upon it—especially since the only items in the will having to do with the funeral itself had been the mention of the plot in Mount Auburn Cemetery and the proviso that Father's coffin be made of wood. I had already known both those things, and would most certainly have told Augusta, so really it had been unnecessary for Sefton to get into Father's will now.

On the other hand,
said my inner voice,
when you know something is bound to be unpleasant, perhaps it is best just to get on with it. Do you really believe revenge is a dish best served cold?

Revenge. Was that what I was embarking upon, a course of revenge? I did not think of it as revenge, but rather as a search for the truth, and for justice, for my father's sake.

Tears pricked at my eyes, and I covered them with my hand. If only I were not so very tired—it was hard to keep myself in control.

To my great surprise, Larry, who was seated at my left, sensed my disturbance and reacted with sensitivity. He reached out and put his hand over my other hand, which remained in my lap. Too intimate a gesture, perhaps, for one of such short acquaintance. Yet I appreciated it, because at that moment I was in need of a human touch.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know you must be at least as unhappy about losing your father as my mother is about losing
her husband. It's not like she's the only one has a right to be upset, I know."

He'd spoken so quietly I doubted if Michael had heard. But Augusta did, and her head snapped up as she shot me a keen glance.

I had no idea what she and Michael had been talking about; I'd been distracted by my own thoughts. Whatever it might have been, she abandoned it and directed all her attention to me.

"Fremont," she said in a disapproving tone, "I heard you went out today."

Why should I not go out, and what concern should she have over my comings and goings? The tip of my tongue itched to snap back at her, but I did not wish to be unnecessarily provocative, and so I said nothing.

Augusta regarded me with what could only be called a withering glare. "I hope you have done something to obtain the proper wardrobe. Was that where you went, if I may inquire?"

"I beg your pardon?" I asked, blinking in disbelief. Proper wardrobe? She wants to talk, to make a fuss, about
clothes?

Ah,
said my inner voice,
but you are supposed to be in mourning.
And Augusta's next words confirmed that my inner voice was right.

"I would offer you something more appropriate myself, but you are so much taller than I am—"

Not to mention too thin for fashion, my feet are too long, my hair is straight as a stick, blah-blah-blah. Oh really, the triviality of this whole subject made me want to tear out what hair I had, straight or not!

Once again I sensed I was on the edge of my control, and so I reined myself in and tried to pay attention to the topic. There had been a death. Mourning was appropriate.

For dining alone with family, even in the circumstances, I'd
thought I was properly enough dressed. Since Mary had informed me we would all be eating together in the dining room tonight, I had changed my day dress for a gown of midnight-blue silk, with a high neck and long sleeves and a full, floor-length skirt. I showed not even the hint of an ankle. What could be more proper than that?

Actually I knew the answer to that question, and loathe though I might be to talk of clothes, I gave it: "I know I am not wearing black, Augusta. I'm not fond of black and so I own nothing of that color. This means I must provide myself with an entire new wardrobe, which takes time. I am taking all the necessary steps to see to it; you need not be concerned."

There. That should satisfy her. And I thought too that I had rather neatly sidestepped the matter of my going out, not mentioning where I'd been. I couldn't tell them about my visit to Nurse Kirk, not even Michael; nor did I want to have to make up a tale to account for half my afternoon's whereabouts.

"These steps," Augusta said, "had better not take too much time. Leonard will be buried day after tomorrow. The death announcement will appear in tomorrow's newspaper with all the details."

I nodded. Surely at R. H. Stearns I would be able to find something ready-made that I could wear with only a quick alteration to the bodice. I always needed a quick alteration to the bodice; and I always had to deal with both the saleswoman and the fitting woman fussing at me for not wearing a corset. No wonder I hated buying clothes.

But Augusta was not done with me yet, not by a long shot. She said, "You really should not have gone out today in that coat of yours—some shade of red, isn't it? Highly inappropriate!"

"The coat is burgundy," I said, "and it is the only one I have. At the moment. I will have another tomorrow, I assure you."