Shadow of an Angle (28 page)

Mildred, who had been silent, finished her coffee and looked at me. "I really don't believe Gertrude cared for you, Arminda."

I laughed along with everybody else. "I don't think she liked you much, either. And to think I felt sorry for her because her husband died."

"He didn't die," Gatlin said. "Amos Whitmire ran off several years back with a topless dancer from Atlanta. Poor Gert hasn't been the same since."

"I don't guess we'll ever know what she put in your coffee that night," I said to Mildred.

"I don't think I want to know," Mildred said. "But she sure turned the bookstore upside down! We were getting just too close to something that made Gertrude Whitmire most uncomfortable."

"But didn't somebody try to run over Mrs. Whitmire with a car?" Lizzie asked. "She hurt her ankle real bad, remember?"

"Gertrude Whitmire
said
somebody had tried to run her down," her mother said. "She probably got all those cuts and scratches staging her fake accident."

"So everyone would think she was a victim," Dave said. "Looks like the wordy one will be put away for a long time. Wonder how long this has been coming on."

"I don't know, but I hope they put her someplace where she can't hurt anybody else. Do you think she knows about the quilt?" Gatlin asked.

"I'm not sure," Mildred said. "Perhaps not. But Otto must have told her about the group of girls and their pin, as well as the letter from Flora. I think she knew what her grandfather had done, and I'm certain she felt threatened by me, as well."

"I can't help but feel there's something else," I said as Mildred paid the bill. She insisted on it being her treat. "Hugh never would say what it was, but he was looking for something other than that letter. I'm sure of it."

Vesta came rushing up as we were leaving the restaurant and demanded a full account. "Why didn't you get in touch with me? Had to go to three stores to find that stone-ground cornmeal I like, and had no idea what was going on! You can imagine my shock to come home and find my own great-grandchild missing!"

I told her it was a little difficult to get in touch with somebody when you didn't know where they were, but she was so busy hugging and kissing Faye, she didn't even hear me.

The day had turned to dusk by the time we all ended up back at Gatlin's. Vesta heated spiced apple cider while Dave built a fire in the fireplace, and we all sat around, not saying a whole lot, but thankful to be together. The frenzied panic of the morning seemed a bad dream.

I was getting sleepy just sitting there with Napoleon's head in my lap when Chief McBride came to the door. "I've brought you some company," he said, ushering in Dr. Hank.

Of course, we all wanted to know how Sylvie was and were told her condition had been upgraded and they thought she might even be able to go home soon.

"That's one reason I'm here," the doctor told us. "She thought you might like to have this. It was in Sylvia's safety deposit box, but I believe it belongs to you."

"What in the world is it?" Vesta asked.

"Something Otto asked her to keep," the chief said. "He must've realized he was in danger and gave it to her for safekeeping."

"Sylvie thought it was a rare manuscript that Otto planned to sell," Dr. Hank said. "He was a good friend and had helped her purchase such things for her library collection in London, so she agreed to keep it for him, not knowing, of course, what it was.

"But when Otto was killed," he continued, "Sylvie says she became frightened and suspected that somebody might have been after the manuscript. That's when she rented the safety deposit box. She planned to leave it there until whoever killed Otto was safely in jail." He gave the portfolio to my grandmother.

"Hank, I'm sorry, but I have to ask," Vesta began. "What happened between Sylvie and Otto? Were they—engaged, or something?"

"Not hardly. Just friends. Both of them loved books—especially old books, so they had that much in common. And Otto was helping Sylvie with a collection for the museum in London. To be honest, I doubt if Otto cared in that way about the opposite sex."

"Oh." Vesta glanced at Mildred, who seemed to agree.

"Have you seen what's in here?" Vesta turned to Dr. Hank, and he nodded, grinning.

"Hell, Vesta, you know how curious I am."

Inside were several composition books, yellowed with age, a sketchbook filled with drawings of the characters Doggie Dan and Callie Cat, all signed by Lucy West book, and a manuscript in the same handwriting, unsigned and wrapped in oiled paper.

"Where did Otto find these?" Vesta asked.

"In the attic, I suppose," Mildred told her. "Don't you remember how he combed that attic when we moved out of the old place?"

My grandmother leafed through the papers almost reverently. "Why, these belonged to my mother. She drew these pictures herself…."

"And wrote the stories, too," Gatlin said, glancing through one of the composition books.

The folder had also contained a sheaf of letters Lucy had written to my great-grandfather before they married and the handwriting was the same as that on the other written materials.

"I've seen this old manuscript before," Vesta said, holding the bound papers wrapped in oiled paper. "It was in the showcase at the academy, the one in the library. It's said to be an original manuscript of one of the first stories."

"Looks like Otto helped himself to that one, too," I said.

"And it looks like Fitzhugh Holley was a plagiarist," Mildred said. "Good gracious, couldn't the man do anything right?"

"He had you," Vesta reminded her.

The next day was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I had invited the whole family over for the holiday. Dave had promised to smoke the turkey, and Vesta was making rolls and dressing. Mildred agreed to bring sweet potatoes—the good kind with brown sugar and nuts on top, and Gatlin said she'd contribute a cranberry salad, so I really didn't have that much to do. Still, I should have stayed home baking, but there was something I couldn't get off my mind.

"Why?" I asked Gatlin over the phone that morning. "Why in the world would Lucy let that horrible man take credit for her own creation?"

My cousin was mincing ingredients for the salad: celery, pecans, oranges, cranberries, and I had to wait until she'd switched off the food processor. "I can't imagine, but she must've had a reason. Whatever it was, we know the truth now. Otto must have thought he'd struck gold when he found that sketchbook and Lucy's stories, then matched them with the handwriting on that manuscript."

A production company, we learned, had expressed an interest in reprinting the old stories with the possibility of later introducing them as cartoons, and perhaps a line of children's clothing. The characters, although dated, still had a quaint appeal, and Hugh Talbot, when backed against the wall, had agreed not to contest the rights if it eventually came about.

"What are you making for dessert tomorrow?" Gatlin asked.

"Don't worry. It won't be pumpkin pie." (My cousin hated pumpkin pie.) "I'll let you know when I get back."

"Get back from where?"

"Mamie Estes's. If anybody would know why our great grandmother let that man put his name on her stories, it would be her."

"But Minda, she's a hundred and two! What makes you think she'll remember?"

"Some things you just don't forget," I said, and hoped I was right.

As it turned out, I was. I hadn't even called ahead, but took along a jar of strawberry preserves Augusta had made earlier, and took my chances. Augusta went along for company, and seemed quieter than usual, I thought, during the drive to Charlotte. She didn't even tell me to slow down or to mind the other traffic.

"I hope she's not asleep when we get there," I said as we turned into Mamie's street. And then I had a horrible thought. After all, the woman was 102! "Ohmygosh! What if she's—"

"She's not."

"Well, I guess you'd know," I said.

Her daughter-in-law met me at the door. "Well, my goodness, look at you! Mamie said you'd be coming today! She's waiting for you in the sitting room. Please come in."

"I see you've brought your friend again today," Mamie said after the younger Mrs. Estes left the room.

I took her hand and gave her the preserves. She looked frailer than before, paler, as if she were fading away. "That's right," I said. "Her name is Augusta."

Mamie nodded. "I know." I sat beside her and got right down to business. When somebody's 102, you don't dilly-dally.

I told her we had found Lucy's sketches and early manuscripts. I didn't tell her about Mildred because I knew she had been part of an awful deception, thinking her friend had drowned, and it might upset her to learn the truth.

"Do you know why my great-grandmother let Fitzhugh Holley take credit for her stories?" I asked. "Because if you do, I'd like to know."

Mamie did know, and when she told me, I could understand why the remaining members of the Mystic Six did what they thought they must do.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

H
e was a handsome man, such a handsome man! And pleasant, laughed a lot. Everyone loved him—including most of the girls at the academy." Mamie Estes looked as if she'd swallowed something bitter as she sat there turning the small jar of preserves in her hands. "Just about everybody had a crush on the professor—I know I did—but that was before we knew."

I waited for her to continue, not wanting to interrupt, yet I could hardly sit still in my eagerness to hear the rest. I glanced at Augusta, who stood in the background. She wore a frothy white dress today that almost blended with the lace-curtained windows. The angel, hands folded, smiled at me and waited serenely. But she had an eternity; I didn't. And Mamie—well, I didn't even want to think about that.

"He was a fiend!" Mamie said, speaking louder than I would have thought she was capable. "He never bothered me because I wouldn't give him the chance, but I don't know how many others he… well, he raped them is what he did! Led them to trust him, then forced himself on them—all of them so innocent. We didn't know a lot back then, and the poor girls didn't know what to do."

"Flora Dennis was one of them, wasn't she?" I asked.

She nodded. "I don't suppose it would do any harm to tell it now. Yes, Flora was one. She was one of his assistants, so honored at first, flattered to be asked. Later, I think she tried to warn Annie Rose, but was embarrassed to come out and tell her what had happened, and Annie Rose probably wouldn't have believed her, anyway." Mamie smiled. "Girls were as headstrong then as they are now, believe it or not."

"Why didn't they tell someone—theirparents or a counselor?"

"Dear child, we didn't have counselors back then. Sometimes, if you were lucky, you had an understanding teacher or parent, but people just didn't talk about things like that. The girls were ashamed—and afraid, I guess, that
they
would be blamed for what happened to them. That they would be more or less marked as bad girls forever."

"That's horrible!" I felt anger rising in me, fueled by the helpless frustration of being unable to change something that had happened so many years before.

"You're right. It
was
horrible, and once poor Annie Rose told us about her pregnancy, it all came out."

Tess Estes came in then and asked us if we'd like something hot to drink, but Mamie waved her away. I was glad she didn't want to be interrupted any more than I did.

"I remember when she told us," Mamie went on after her daughter-in-law left the room. "We were working on that quilt—the six of us." She smiled. "You know about our little group?"

I nodded.

"Annie Rose broke down crying, told us what had happened. She had already missed two periods, she said. Then Flora told us the same thing had happened to her and a couple of other girls, only they were lucky enough not to get in the family way. Professor Holley threatened to ruin their reputations if they said anything, Flora said."

My eyes grew hot, and I felt the first salty surge of tears. I blinked them back. "So what did you do then?"

"Lucy went to see Fitzhugh Holley. She wanted him to arrange to send Annie Rose somewhere to have her baby, to protect her from the scandal. And she demanded that he resign. The professor just laughed. He was a married man, you see, already had a little girl. He was respected in the community. 'Who would believe you?' he said to Lucy when she threatened to tell what he'd done."

"Didn't the professor's wife know what a creep he was?" I said.

"If she did, she didn't let on. Remember, things weren't like they are today. The scandal would've been mortifying.

"Lucy's visit did more harm than good, I'm afraid. Earlier she had let the professor critique her little animal stories, seeking his advice, thinking he might even help her find a market for them, and unknown to Lucy,
he had already found a publisher!
I don't know if the publisher mistakenly thought he'd written them or if Fitzhugh Holley deliberately put his name on the manuscript. At any rate, the vile man threatened to spread awful rumors about Annie Rose—Lucy, too—if she didn't keep quiet about the authorship. Said he'd tell everyone he'd seen them in the company of drummers at the Plenty Good Boarding house, where most of the traveling people stayed." Mamie lowered her voice. "Proper ladies didn't go near there."

"Drummers?"

Mamie laughed. "That's what we used to call salesmen—traveling salesmen. At any rate," she said, "things went from bad to worse in spite of our good intentions. But I must say the other members of the Six stood behind Annie Rose. We were trying to find a place she might go to have her baby in secret, and Pluma—I think it was Pluma—was waiting to hear from a cousin in Augusta when that poor child took her own life."

I was tempted to tell her she hadn't, but Augusta gave me the "Don't you dare!" glare.

We were silent for a moment, and I could see that she had just about used up her strength, and I, my time. "It's too late for Lucy," I said at last, "but there's a good chance the stories will be published this time under the right name, in spite of the late—and despicable—Fitzhugh Holley!"

Mamie Estes gave a feeble wave of her hand. "Oh, him! Don't you worry about that one. He's just where he ought to be. That's all taken care of."

"What will you do about the quilt?" Augusta asked during the drive back to Angel Heights.

"It's not up to me to decide, but if it were, I'd destroy it," I said. "The secret of what those girls did should end with us, and I think Mildred and Vesta agree." And except for the few of us who already knew, I didn't think Mildred meant to reveal her true ancestry.

The alma mater my great-grandmother had written and stitched had been found wedged beneath the spare tire in the trunk of Gertrude Whitmire's Lincoln, and Vesta has promised it to me.

"Ordinarily I don't go along with keeping bones in the closet," Augusta said. "But it's time to turn over a green leaf and start with a clean tablet, if you know what I mean."

I wasn't sure, but I thought I could figure it out. "Aren't you freezing?" I asked.

The dress she wore looked like something you might wear to a summer lawn party—a two-piece white georgette with flowing sleeves and delicate embroidered flowers. The trailing necklace winked at me in sapphire, rose, and gold. Sunset colors. And a scarf, sheer as sunlight, draped her shoulders. She shivered. "You might nudge up the heat a bit."

"Why in the world didn't you wear a wrap? You know how cold you always get."

"I came away in such a hurry…" She leaned forward, spread her pink fingers in front of the heater.

"Oh, bosh!" I said. "You just didn't want to hide that new dress! You did that embroidery yourself, didn't you? Augusta, you are so full of it!"

"Enough of that, Arminda!" Augusta turned her face away, but I could see she was smiling.

"Thank you for looking after Faye," I said later at the house. "That was you yesterday, wasn't it? How did you know where to find her?"

"Gatlin and her husband came here searching for her, so I just followed them and looked where they didn't." Shrouded in a huge apron with silly chickens on it that covered her from neck to hem, Augusta concocted a trifle with layers of ladyfingers, custard, and fruit. The next day we would top it with whipped cream flavored with sherry.

"And thank you for everything else, too," I said. I put my broccoli and onion casserole—my mother's own recipe—in the refrigerator to bake the next day.

"You're welcome, Arminda." Augusta covered her masterpiece with plastic wrap and stood back to admire it. She began to take off her apron.

For some reason, I didn't want her to take it off. "Do you think we should make the relish tray now or wait until tomorrow?" I asked.

"Why don't you make it now? Here…" She dropped the voluminous apron over my head, tied it behind me with a gentle tug of the sashes. The sweet fragrance of her reminded me of summer: chasing butterflies through the grass, picking wildflowers for my mother, playing hide and seek at twilight. Happy things.

Still, I didn't like what I was thinking. "Why are you putting this crazy thing on me? You know I don't wear aprons," I said.

"There were times, Arminda Hobbs, when people had to protect their clothing; you couldn't just throw everything in the washing machine. You'll do well to keep that in mind. Besides, I want you to have it."

"But it's yours. You'll need it…"

She didn't answer.

I felt like somebody had kicked me in the stomach. "Oh, Augusta! When?"

She pulled up a stool and poured coffee for both of us. Black for her, sweet and white for me. "Soon now. It's time, I think, don't you?"

I wanted to say no. It would never be time. I wanted her to stay forever, but I knew she was right. Augusta had two missions: mine and one unfinished from years before. I was going to be okay. I sipped my coffee for a minute until I was able to speak.

"You've accomplished what you came for," I told her. "You should be pleased."

"
We've
accomplished what I came for," she said, touching my forehead with a light fingertip.

"And where will you go now?"

Augusta smiled. "As for that," she said, "I'll just have to wait and see."

I smiled, too. "I have to make a phone call," I said, scrambling to find a number I had written down days before.

"Checking the menu with your family?" She lifted a quizzical brow.

"No, I'm calling the doctor."

Augusta put down her cup and frowned. "Are you not feeling well, Arminda?"

I laughed. "I feel just fine," I said, and left a message for Harrison Ivey inviting him to Thanksgiving dinner.