Cruel as the Grave (3 page)

Maggie laughed again, more uneasily this time, and started when Gerard asked her gruffly what was so funny. Adrian and the car had disappeared while she stood there gaping and giggling.

“This!” she indicated with a broad sweep of her hands. “You didn’t tell me I should pack my hoopskirt!”

That came out more sharply than she intended, and Gerard flushed at the note of criticism in her voice. He shrugged his shoulders, struggling for a reply, then was saved when the front door opened and someone burst forth.

Helena McLendon, dressed in a violently red warm-up suit, hopped down the stairs, two at a time, until she reached a bemused Maggie and Gerard at the bottom of the flight. Once her feet, clad in well-worn sneakers, had steadied her in front of her nephew and his daughter, Helena paused to catch her breath before she flung her arms around Gerard’s neck. He was not expecting the onslaught of so enthusiastic an embrace and almost keeled over backwards from the force of it. He managed to steady himself and cautiously wrapped his arms around his aunt and squeezed her back.

After a few seconds Helena and Gerard released each other, and Helena turned a tear-streaked face toward Maggie, who held out her arms for another enthusiastic embrace. Helena gave her a quick, wordless hug, then stepped back to look up into her grandniece’s face.

Helena, youngest of the four McLendon siblings, was sixty-three. She was also, at five-ten, the shortest. Iron-gray hair, attractively cut in a short style, framed a mobile, intelligent face. Sky blue eyes darted back and forth between Maggie and Gerard while a radiant smile lent a shine to her whole face. Maggie didn’t think the woman had aged much in the ten years since they’d seen each other. The hair was perhaps a bit grayer, but she looked otherwise the same.

When her great-aunt at last spoke, Maggie felt the memories come flooding back. The voice had always seemed impossibly youthful to her, on those rare occasions when Helena had visited them. Bursting with energy, it held a current of enthusiasm matching the vigor with which Helena attacked life. Maggie, at the moment, felt old and tired beside her; Helena’s warm-up suit covered a fit and well-exercised body.

“My, you two are a rare sight for these tired old eyes!” Helena nearly shouted at them. She grabbed them each by an arm and almost dragged them up the steps. Gerard stumbled and started going down, but she held on tight, and he managed to right himself.

On Helena’s other side, Maggie had to stifle a giggle. Helena had pulled Gerard up like a yo-yo.
Lord,
Maggie thought,
she's got more energy than a hyperactive gerbil!

Maggie caught her breath at the top of the steps, but when Helena had swung open the massive front door, Maggie lost it again as she contemplated the entranceway.

Helena stepped ahead of them and turned to face Gerard and Maggie. “Welcome to The Magnolias, Maggie. I’m so glad you’re finally here!”

Maggie gaped at the grandly sweeping staircase ahead of her. The entrance to the house looked large enough to accommodate several overweight elephants, but the stairs lent the impression that the area was almost crowded. Any moment now she expected to see Vivien Leigh come rushing down in a vain attempt to keep Clark Gable from uttering that fabled line.

Helena smiled benignly at Maggie’s obvious amazement, but her smile faded when she looked at her nephew. Seeing the alarm in Helena’s face, Maggie turned to her father and was astonished to find him sweating profusely, his face pale and his eyes blinking rapidly.

“Dad, what’s wrong?” The sharpness in Maggie’s voice as she moved to his side and grabbed his arm roused Gerard from his curious state. “What’s wrong?” she repeated urgently.

Wiping a shaky hand across his forehead, he brusquely assured the two women that he felt a little queasy. “Probably that wretched tomato juice I had on the plane,” he muttered. “It didn’t taste right.”

Maggie didn’t believe him and was about to say so, when a strident voice assailed them: “Helena! Don’t stand there like a fool, girl—bring them on into the drawing room!”

Maggie turned her head in the direction of the voice but caught only a quick glimpse of a rigid back and a mass of stiffly-sprayed gray hair as the owner of the voice moved out of sight into a room to their left.

Helena blushed and motioned for Gerard and Maggie to follow her as she moved immediately to do the voice’s bidding.

Through the open door of the drawing room, Maggie saw several heads turned expectantly toward them. The voice belonged to a tall, elderly woman who stood in the center of the room. Dressed in immaculate lilac silk, her resemblance to Helena was striking, but she had to be at least fifteen years older. Her hair was cut in a style similar to Helena’s, but the effect was rather ruined by the fact that every hair had been threatened into place by excessive application of hair spray. Fascinated, Maggie watched for the hair to move, but every time the woman tossed her head—which she did at irregular intervals—not a hair stirred.

Neither of the other two people in the room, an elderly man and a woman only a few years older than Maggie, had said anything, waiting, it seemed, for the holder of center stage to make the first move. Helena waited nervously beside Gerard and Maggie. Gerard, apparently calm once more, waited also.

Maggie was tempted to say something, anything, just to break the silence, but as she opened her mouth to speak, the woman—who Maggie had decided by now must be Helena’s older sister, Henrietta—laughed harshly. “I hope you weren’t expecting the fatted calf, Gerard,” she said, the venom in her voice making Maggie flinch.

“No,” he responded, eyeing her insultingly. “One raddled old cow is quite sufficient, thank you.”

There was no mistaking whom he meant, and for a moment Maggie held her breath, expecting the worst. Instead, Henrietta laughed. “At least you didn’t go soft, teaching poetry all these years. I'm glad to see you haven’t lost your waspish tongue.”

“I certainly had a good role model.” Gerard smiled as he moved forward to hug her.

Helena giggled nervously, then urged a speechless Maggie forward. “Maggie, my dear, this is my elder sister, Henrietta McLendon Butler.” Helena made the introduction tartly, getting a little of her own back with emphasis on the word elder, Maggie was amused to note.

“But everyone just calls me Retty,” responded the elder sister with a flash of the eyes at Helena. She put her head to one side and subjected Maggie to a searching gaze. “No need to tell me who you are! Magnolia to the life!” She swept Maggie into a fierce embrace, surprisingly strong from someone nearly eighty.

Once Retty had released her, Maggie stepped back and began to mutter some incoherent words of greeting, but Retty had already turned to motion her two companions forward. “This is Harold,” Retty said, “my brother.”

Harold, though he obviously found it difficult to take his eyes from Maggie’s face, gave Gerard a big hug, then moved to Maggie, tears forming in his eyes. “You are so like her,” he whispered as he bent to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek.

“Like my grandmother, you mean?” Maggie said, her tone more waspish than she intended. “I wouldn’t know.”

Harold drew back in surprise, his face clouded by dismay. Gerard, engaging in more verbal fencing with his aunt Retty, hadn’t heard. Maggie wanted to poke her father in the ribs to get his attention. She felt overwhelmed by all this.

Then she took another look at Harold’s hurt face, and she felt ashamed of herself. This wasn’t his fault, she reminded herself sharply, and she smiled a rueful apology. His face clearing rapidly, he smiled back.

She studied him and her two great-aunts covertly. The resemblance ran strong among these three McLendon siblings. Retty and Harold were about the same height, a flat six feet like Maggie, and Harold had the same thick gray hair which graced his sisters’ heads. They were decidedly a handsome family. Not to mention a bit on the intimidating side, all together like this.

The final occupant of the room had moved forward to offer her greetings. “I’m Sylvia Butler,” she said shyly to Gerard, who clasped her proffered hand and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

“Sylvia, I’d never have recognized you,” he said.

“Of course not,” Retty complained. “You haven’t been here in twenty-five years. No way you could recognize the girl. She was only a child the last time you were here.”

“At least,” Gerard said, his eyes sparkling with mischief, “she doesn’t take after her grandmother, thank the Lord. She’s quite lovely.”

“My granddaughter,” Retty said, ignoring Gerard, as Maggie held out a hand to her cousin. Sylvia shook her hand, smiling.

Sylvia’s face seemed vaguely familiar to Maggie, who struggled to place it in her recollections. Shining dark hair framed a lovely oval face. Maggie envied her cousin her luminescent skin and the expression of calm which had now replaced her momentarily nervousness as she resumed her seat.

That’s it!
Maggie thought. Sylvia looks like a Renaissance Madonna. Her face had that same quality of ethereal repose which had made Maggie so fond of Renaissance pietistic art.

No one would accuse Sylvia’s grandmother of looking either pious or calm. Retty’s sharp tongue had already put Maggie a bit on edge.

“Well, why don’t we all sit down,” Helena chirped into the uneasy silence which had suddenly befallen the group.

She suited action to words by plumping herself down on one of the three sofas which stood at the center of the large room. The sofas formed a cozy C-shaped area around a small table holding an extravagant arrangement of magnolia blossoms made of porcelain. There were chairs and small tables scattered throughout the rest of the room, affording small pockets of isolated intimacy should anyone choose to move from the forced conviviality of the room’s center.

They all quickly followed Helena’s example. Maggie sat beside Helena on one sofa, while Harold and Sylvia sat down across from them. Retty motioned for Gerard to sit beside her on the sofa which served as the crosspiece of the grouping. Maggie privately dubbed it the Queen Bee’s Throne, smiling inwardly.

“We’re only going to sit for a few minutes,” Retty announced, “because lunch will be ready any moment. It’s a little later than we’re accustomed to, but just this once we thought we’d deviate from the routine, since you decided to grace us with your presence today.”

“Thank you,” Gerard responded drily. “We all know how you adore your routine.” He threw up his hands in mock dismay. “I did my best with the airline schedules, but apparently they weren’t aware of your schedule, Retty. Perhaps you should let them know, for future reference.”

Maggie again gaped at her father. Did he and his aunt carry on all their conversations like this? she wondered. There was a vein of humor in his riposte, but there was no mistaking the hostility.

“I daresay I’m predictable,” Retty acknowledged, “but who else is going to keep this madhouse running the way it should?” She glared pointedly at Helena. “No one else in this room, I can tell you that! And certainly not those who’ve abandoned their responsibilities to the family.”

Everyone else laughed politely at this little exchange, but Maggie felt increasingly uneasy. There were dynamics at work here which she had no preparation to understand. Once again she felt like poking her father with something sharp.

Helena sensed some of her nervousness, because she turned to pat Maggie’s arm soothingly, saying, “Don’t mind those two, my dear—they have twenty-five years of unused insults to trade.” She smiled wickedly, and Maggie could see the impishness in her eyes. “Retty and Gerard always got along famously, because he’s the only one who ever gives her back as good as she hands out.”

“Well, my goodness,” a voice exclaimed loudly from behind them, “the prodigal son is finally home.”

Maggie turned to see who the speaker was and almost fainted from the shock.

For a long moment everything wavered, and Maggie thought the room was going to spin around her. Then she took a deep breath as the woman moved closer. The silence held.

The woman returned Maggie’s gaze steadily, the faint hint of a frown stirring around her lips as she stared at the younger woman. She cocked her head to one side and said, “Goodness me, you’re like a ghost from the past.”

Retty broke the uneasy silence. “Maggie, this is your grandmother’s sister, Lavinia Culpeper. Lavinia, your great-niece, Gerard’s daughter, Maggie.”

Maggie stood as the woman came closer. Lavinia Culpeper was perhaps two inches shorter than Maggie, but the squareness of her shoulders and the spareness of her lean frame lent her the impression of height. Maggie felt as if she were staring into a mirror, but one which distorted the view somewhat, showing her what she could look like after forty years of dissatisfaction with life. Lavinia had an abundance of dark auburn hair, dramatically streaked with white over the temples, and she was dressed in a dark green linen dress, much like Maggie’s own, which highlighted the green of her probing eyes. She had an angularity of feature which marked her face with a vague air of horsiness enhanced by the thick, long hair. The aura of discontent came powerfully to Maggie.
Why,
she wondered,
is this woman so bitter?

“I’m not in the least surprised you knew nothing about me,” Lavinia said, her voice dripping with venom. “After all, I’m just an in-law here in the McLendon stronghold. Welcome home.” She turned to Gerard. “You had the sense, once, to get away from here. Why did you come back?”

“Hello, Lavinia, it’s wonderful to see you, too,” Gerard said in a neutral tone. Neither he nor his aunt made any effort to embrace. “I thought it was time I came back and introduced my daughter to her family.”

Lavinia regarded him in silence. “Lunch is ready.” She turned and walked away.

“Come along, everyone,” Retty said, standing up.

Still a bit stunned by what had just transpired, Maggie followed the rest of the family out into the hall and into the dining room next door.

The table could comfortably accommodate fifty guests, Maggie decided as she focused on the room in order to regain her equilibrium. One end of the long table was elegantly set with expensive-looking china, polished silver, and sparkling crystal. Maggie slid into the seat Retty indicated she should occupy, then bowed her head as Harold commenced to say grace.