Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (98 page)

Lise Waldheim! A beautiful girl, but hostile … “You think you are so wonderful, Margo? Just because you won the Seward medal?”
Was I ever this young
, she wondered, and read other letters, saw her development from child to young woman. “Dear Aunt Vicky, I’m staying at the Hotel Jules Cesar in Arles …”

Oh yes, that was a lovely place
, she remembered, and read on. “It was once a monastery, with the eleventh century church of St. Trophime at its center. Mademoiselle Faust is our duenna. Do I like her? Perhaps I do, at odd and sundry times. She is very strict, and insists that we speak nothing but French on this little outing. She looks like a spider, has only half a stomach because of an operation. Today we went to Fontvielle, to see the windmills and in particular the one in which the author Daudet lived. We hired car and driver at Montmajour. The driver’s name was Michel. He had light hair, as light as my own, and teased me in a nice way, and of course I fell rather in love with him, which I knew he sensed. There were plains that stretched golden under a cerulean sky, and then the windmills, their giant arms stilled forever, the peaked thatches of their roofs piercing the blue overhead. In front of Daudet’s mill a tall, strong cypress stood guard. We toiled up the ascent in the burning sun, stumbling over the calciferous rocks, and then went inside to the dim cool of the mill’s interior. It’s a museum now, that mill which once housed one of the famed authors of the Provence, Alphonse Daudet.”

Not bad for a fifteen-year-old
, she thought, and skipped hastily through other letters from other years. “Dear Aunt Vicky: I am sitting at the Florian in the Piazza San Marco, with the pigeons wheeling overhead …”

Who was that child
, she thought, depressed.
I
don’t know that child, I was
never
that child!

And then, in the enormous welter of her own letters, neatly bound as to year and tied with the blue silk ribbons, she found a singular thing and, finding it, became once again a little girl, learning about palindromes. “Something that reads backwards the same way it does forwards,” Aunt Vicky had said. “
Subi dura a rudibus.
There are idiots who have spent a lifetime composing palindromes, but we must only feel pity for such misguided souls. It’s simply an interesting semantic thing, and I only mention it in passing.”

This palindrome, scrawled on a single sheet of yellow foolscap, was the classic of all palindromes. The writing was frenetic, slanting crazily, taking up most of the long page, and with an address to her, Margo.

Margo, take heed …

At the bottom of the page were three exclamation marks, digging heavily into the paper, so that in places the foolscap was torn through.

She looked long at it, held it upside down and sideways, and wondered anew. Among all these letters written by her young self, and neatly tied with sentimental blue ribbons, was this odd what have you, and was it supposed to mean something to her, and if so couldn’t there have been something less mysterious?

A
palindrome
?

MADAM, I’M ADAM

And at the bottom, a spiky signature and a date.

Victoria Brand, June 9, 1973.

What could she have meant?
Margo wondered. Yet she was sure it was some kind of message, some kind of communication from the dead to the living. Because it was the opinion of many medical minds that those who were doomed sensed their impending destruction, had a glimpse of the Dark Horseman, and spent their last days putting their house in order.

But what was one to make of this? It meant nothing to her, nothing. If a message, why not in plain English … she could have said, without equivocation, whatever she had meant to say.

Unless …

Unless she had wanted this weird communication to be disguised, oblique, of no import to anyone other than herself, Margo. What reason could there have been for that, then? Of whom was she suspicious, doubting? So that she must use a secret jargon — a code, really — to transmit something of value to the one person it was meant for …

She sat there, trying to puzzle it out.

MADAM, I’M ADAM

I haven’t the faintest idea what it means
, she thought, and bound the letters up again, once more in their blue silk ribbons, and then stuffed the palindrome into her pocket, to be mulled over at leisure. There was a reason for this eerie occultism, she told herself, and closing the desk, went out into the corridor again, where she heard the opening of the front door. Going to the staircase, she peered down.

“Who’s there?”

“Miss Margo? It’s me, Clara.”

Gladdened, she ran down the stairs, flung herself into the arms of Pompey’s sister. “There there,” Clara said. “You’re all alone? That’s no good. Come on, we’ll have a cup of coffee before I start my work. How are you, honey?”

“Very, very lonely.”

“Can imagine, and Pompey too.”

They sat at the kitchen table, drinking the perc coffee. “You’re so young,” Clara said. “Young enough to take things in stride. Not like Pomp, he’s an old man. I could make room for him, but he won’t hear of it. This here has always been his home. Poor fellow, he’s almost out of his mind.”

“Yes, I’m so concerned about him.”

“Some little money for him, others as well. She used it almost all up, poor soul. What you’re going to do with this house I don’t know, Miss Margo. Taxes will eat everything up.”

“What do you mean, what am I going to do with this house?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t have said nothing. Don’t say I said anything. I thought you knew. I thought — ”

“Knew what?”

Clara looked worried, anxious, conscience-stricken. “They’ll tell you,” she said. “I just thought you knew.”

“Tell me
what?
” Margo asked, urgently. “I won’t say anything, I promise, Clara. Tell me what?”

“She left this house to you. I thought you knew that. I made a boo boo. You won’t say I told?”

“She left this house to
me?
”

“You’re her blood,” Clara said.

“But after all …”

She sat there thinking about it. This great manor house, high atop a hill, filled with possessions from other centuries …
hers?
“Are you sure?” she asked Clara.

“But you won’t let on I told?”

“No no, of course not!”

“It’s yours, Miss Margo.” Clara got up quickly. “Got to start my work now,” she said, looking worried. “I didn’t mean to speak out of turn.”

“It’s all right, Clara, don’t think about it again.”

When she was alone she poured herself another cup of coffee. She was dazed, unbelieving. How could she make this house her home? Her work had to be in some large, metropolitan area … how could she earn a living here? Why would Aunt Vicky make such a quixotic gesture? Why?

The vacuum cleaner hummed, vying with the sound of the rain. MADAM, I’M ADAM …
Dear Aunt Vicky, I am sitting here at a little cafe in Annecy … Dear Margo, the pear tree is in blossom, it’s Spring again, wish you were here …

Don’t leave me
, she thought pleadingly.
Don’t leave me.

But of course Aunt Vicky already had.

In her room she heard the sound of the doorbell. Clara called up. “Company,” she said, her voice drifting up the stairwell.

It was Mr. James Huntington Bach, accompanied by a fresh-faced young man. The lawyer held out a liver-spotted hand and then brusquely kissed her. “I’m sure you know how sorry I am,” he said, in his low-placed voice,

“Yes, of course, Mr. Bach.”

He thrust his
pince-nez
on a fleshy nose. “I want you to meet Ed Corliss,” he said. “One of our assistants. He’ll be on the premises from this day forward. There’s the inventory, you understand. Every single piece of historical value must be ticketed according to catalogue. I’m afraid it will be something of an inconvenience to you, Margo, but it has to be done.”

“I don’t mind.”

They went into the living room. “I knew you were back in the country,” the lawyer said. “Your aunt said you were due here shortly. When she was taken so suddenly I tried to reach you, but with no success. She said you were staying in some hotel, but none of us knew
what
hotel.”

“It was the Plaza.”

“Of course there was no way of knowing.”

“Or any way of me knowing what was happening to her. If I’d had any idea she was failing, I’d have come right up.”

“Failing? No no, nothing like that. She was herself right up to the end. As strong as an ox, seemingly. The end was quite unexpected.”

“But John said — ”

“She was one of the lucky ones. No wasting away, no foretaste of death. Right as rain one minute, dead as a doornail the next. That should make you feel better. She never had a bad day in her life.” He pulled out a copy of the will, asking her to read it and then ask any questions she might want to raise. “In the meantime,” he said, “could young Ed and I have a glass of Harvey’s?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to neglect my duties as a hostess …”

“Stay seated, I know where the sherry’s kept,” he said, and pushing her down on the sofa again, went to the liquor cabinet and, opening it, brought out a bottle of Bristol Cream and filled three glasses.

“Ed … Margo …”

He placed a glass in front of each of them, lit a cigar, and then sat down and handed her the stiff-looking, legal document that was her aunt’s will. The paper felt cold in her hands, cold and impersonal, a far cry from the chatty and gossipy letters she had received through the years. With a determined effort of will, she stilled the trembling of her hands and read the dictates of a woman no longer of this world, while Jim Bach and his assistant made a pretense of riffling through some papers of their own.

There were a few codicils and sub-codicils, but in the main it stated that she, Margo Brand, was to inherit the property known as Brand House, and the stipulations were thus:

To my grandniece, Margo Meredith Brand, flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood, I leave this four-acred property, with everything inside the house and outside it, providing that she take up residence in said house. If she does not wish to live under the roof of Brand Manor, and make her home within these walls, then the entire property, by default, is willed to the New York State Historical Society, free and clear, without lien or obligation of any nature. To my dear niece, I entrust this charge: that under no circumstance will this estate be divided, lessened or in any way mutilated, or the contents within the house sold or auctioned. I, Victoria Brand, honor and esteem the history of our nation and will wish, with my dying breath, to preserve the artifacts of its beginnings. That what has been, under God, shall remain intact and undisturbed, and that young minds and aspiring souls may see and touch and know what their honorable past has been, that they may be reminded of our humble pioneer origins and the toil of those who hacked their way through a wilderness.

The lawyer saw that it was difficult for her to speak. “Yes, it’s very nice, isn’t it?” he said, putting his cigar into an ashtray. “A few mixed metaphors, but otherwise … well, quite touching. Just the same, Margo, it’s binding. It says, without the poetry, that the house is yours providing you decide to live in it. If not, then it reverts to the Historical Society of this state. So you have a decision to make. Either/or.”

He held up a hand. “No need to be hasty,” he said. “You just think about it. Nothing in this will says you have to make up your mind on the spot.”

She said, “How could I possibly live here?”

“The house is in good repair.”

“I don’t mean that. Is there any money? I’m sorry, I have to ask it,” she said. “Because to maintain a property like this is beyond my means. I haven’t any means at all, as a matter of fact. You know that, Mr. Bach. I’m just starting out. I’ll have a profession, but it means living in some large city.”

“I can tell you right away,” he said, “that there’s no money at all. There are bequests to a number of persons, which the remaining capital covers. To you, Margo, simply the house and the land. You can’t sell any of the furnishings, either, though even one of them would bring you a pretty penny. The will clearly stipulates that the house remains untouched.”

He gave her a long look, shifted in his chair, and shrugged. “For some reason your aunt painted you into a corner. She was a very bright woman and she must have had her reasons.”

He got up. “No hurry, as I said. Gather your wits about you and … no hurry at all. We’ll be running along now. I hope Ed here doesn’t get in your hair.”

“I don’t mind at all,” she said mechanically, and they went off, umbrellas held up in the gusty rain. Sighing, she turned away and, alone, read the will again. The legatees were simple people, of no account in the great world outside. Pompey, John and Douglas, Clara, the postmistress, the mailman.

Small sums of money, and nothing left over.
Why, she was almost broke
, Margo thought, touched and haunted. Another few years and this will would have been meaningless as regards the persons mentioned. There would have been no assets to fulfill the obligations.

She went up to her room and lay down on the bed. The vacuum cleaner, now that the “company” was gone, hummed again. The rain dashed across the windows, swept the trees outside. Everything was dark and dreary. She was in a bedroom of a house that now belonged to her, but what did it mean?
If there was only a way
, she thought, tossing. Some way to keep her inheritance, live here.

That’s just plain nonsense
, she thought. A twenty-one-year-old girl managing a house like this? Why, she hadn’t even voted yet!

You didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth … but just the same what
could
Aunt Vicky have been thinking of?

• • •

Clara woke her out of a sound sleep, knocking at her door.

“Miss Margo?”

She struggled up and wiped sleep out of her eyes. “I just dropped off after they left,” she explained.

“I’m finished with my work. I made some fresh coffee and a little cake. Come on down and I’ll cut some for you.”