The Impersonator (10 page)

Turning slightly, I let my eyes sweep the room again. This time I noticed two dents in the deep pile rug where heavy furniture legs had recently stood. No one in the audience so much as blinked.

“Excuse me,” I said, walking through the cousins into the hall toward the bathroom that I knew was situated at the end of the corridor. “I’ll go wash up now. Oh, and Ross, if you don’t mind, could you and Henry move my furniture back? I prefer it the way it was.”

14

Even a lady of Aunt Victoria Carr’s social accomplishments found lunch a tough slog. Henry stared at his uneaten food as if he were going to be sick, while the other young Carrs maintained a sullen reserve. Grandmother, always quiet, murmured an occasional “How lovely” to show her approval as each course was laid. From the far end of the table, Uncle Oliver, fidgeting with his fork, sent a barrage of furtive glances my way that made it plain I had blundered worrisomely during the opening scene in the parlor. Fortunately, Aunt Victoria had been raised in an era when conversational skills were as important as good bloodlines, and could converse with a potted palm if the occasion required. She prodded the conversation along, lobbing questions back and forth, until I was reminded of a tennis instructor gamely serving balls over the net and waiting for their return. When she wanted to pause for a bite of poached fish, she aimed a long shot at one of her children.

“Tell Jessie about your studies, Valerie,” she commanded, starting with the most biddable. Aunt Victoria was cleverer than I had first judged.

It seems the girls had a tutor, a Mrs. Applewhite, who went away in August to visit her daughter’s family in Seattle. She would return shortly to start their final year of algebra, geometry, literature, French, Latin, and history. A music teacher, a china painting instructor, and a riding master came from Portland once a week to “round the girls out.” I silently vowed to make myself scarce on riding lesson day.

Once she had the twins speaking to me, the boys could hardly do otherwise without seeming churlish. “Henry, darling, fill Jessie in on your activities since she left,” Aunt Victoria directed next, saving the most truculent, Ross, for last. “We are so proud of Henry,” she confided, as if he were not sitting inches away. “He’s our public servant, or will be after November’s elections. Even as a youngster, Henry took an interest in politics—that and sailing were his favorite pastimes, as you remember, no doubt. Why, Henry! With Jessie here, you’ll have another vote!”

Henry’s favorite subject was himself, and his mother’s request pulled him out of his stupor. He warmed to the subject, glossing over his studies at Stanford University and going into greater detail about his many Portland political connections. “Our legislator is retiring at the end of this term, and the party is supporting me for his seat. I’ve come to know everyone of importance in the state, and they recommend this as the usual way to begin,” he said, adding modestly, “Then after a term in the state legislature, I’ll step up to governor or perhaps take the national route and become a senator.”

“Or president.” Aunt Victoria beamed. Oliver choked on a piece of bread.

I smiled and nodded, thinking I’d mark my ballot for Genghis Khan before I’d vote for this smug young man. I’d known Henry only an hour and already I shared Oliver’s aversion.

“And what is it you’ve been doing since you graduated from Stanford?” I asked. The trustees sent money regularly to Aunt Victoria for maintenance of the house and for the family’s living expenses, but there was no stipend to keep a grown man in funds over the years.

“I didn’t graduate. After three years, I realized there was nothing more they could teach me and I left. One scholar in the family is quite enough.”

“Yes, Ross is our future professor,” agreed Aunt Victoria. “Tell Jessie what you’re doing, Ross.”

Using the longest words he could manufacture, Ross outlined his years at Stanford—“magna cum laude,” interjected his mother—and his quest for a master’s and ultimately a doctorate in history. “I plan to become an academician,” he told me, addressing Oliver so as to avoid meeting my eyes. “I’ve completed the mandatory course requirements for the master’s degree and am currently working on my thesis. As soon as I’ve accomplished those prerequisites, I’ll embark on the doctor of philosophy degree.”

“Do you want to stay at Stanford to teach?” Oliver asked.

“Yes, and I am quite intent on that. I’ve mapped my future and feel Stanford is the best place to pursue my ethnographic research into the native tribes of the Northwest.”

“It sounds like the perfect career for you,” I said. “You look just like a professor.” I meant it nicely, but it seems I missed the mark. He glared at his fish knife.

“Now Jessie, turnabout’s fair play,” said Aunt Victoria. “I know the girls are famished for details of your vaudeville days.”

Finding the dead Indian woman had robbed me of my appetite, so it was no trouble laying aside my fork and folding my hands in my lap. “I’ve been involved with several acts during the past seven years,” I began. “Most recently I was with the Little Darlings. It was—well, it still is—a family act that combines dancing, singing, and short comedy routines into a fourteen-minute program. Until I left, there were seven Little Darlings plus Jock and Francine, the parents. Only three of the children were theirs, the rest of us were paid. I was Carrie Darling, the second child.”

“You mean they
said
they were all one family, but they weren’t?” Valerie made it sound as if the Darlings had been caught robbing banks. She seemed quite the infant for sixteen.

“That’s common in vaudeville. Most acts are formed to maximize talent. The Seven Little Foys are all genuine Foys, but that’s rare.”

“You’re almost twenty-one! How could you play a little girl?” wondered Valerie.

“That was my specialty. My size gives me a young appearance anyway, but the right makeup, clothing, and braids make me look positively juvenile, especially from a distance.”

“And you sang songs and danced in front of hundreds of people?”

“You get used to it. If you like, I’ll teach you a number one day and we’ll perform for the family.”

“Oh, no! I couldn’t!”

“I could!” Caroline chimed in. Ah, the dramatic one in the family. I could make use of that later.

Once I had started, the twins couldn’t get enough of vaudeville. The boys feigned boredom, but I noticed they were listening as attentively as their sisters. And I knew why. They were looking for something that would trip me up.

“The two youngest Little Darlings are brothers,” I told the girls. “Just five and six.”

“You don’t say! Imagine such babies performing onstage! I wish I could see them sometime. Where are they now?”

“I don’t honestly know … probably in the upper Midwest this time of year … but it’s easy to find out. You just buy a copy of
Billboard
or
Variety
or one of the vaudeville newspapers on sale at any theater or hotel and you can read who’s playing in the two-a-days all over the country. We could check to see if they are scheduled to come to Portland again, then go see them.”

At that remark, some of Uncle Oliver’s water sloshed out of its glass, but only I noticed. I couldn’t explain to him that the statement was a safe bet. The odds of the Little Darlings playing in Oregon in the next couple of months were slim to none, and by autumn we’d both be Somewhere Else. Even so, it seemed I had strayed from the approved script once again.

“What are two-a-days?” asked Caroline.

“Sorry, that’s just vaudeville talk for Big Time. It means the good theaters where you only have to perform twice a day. Usually a matinee and an evening show, or sometimes two evening shows. Playing Small Time can mean four or five or even six.”

Aunt Victoria stood, signifying the end of luncheon. “Well, I see there will be no dull conversations at mealtime in this house! Jessie, why don’t you take your grandmother for a turn in the garden? I’ll join you in a jiffy.”

“Yes, Jessie, you remember the garden,” said Ross, taking off his eyeglasses and wiping the lenses with his handkerchief. “One of your favorite places to take a book.”

Without his cheaters in the way, Ross’s eyes rivaled Valentino’s for dreamy beauty. A girl would die for those long sooty lashes that curled at the tips. I was not, however, so distracted that I missed his trap.

“I don’t remember being much of a reader,” I replied. “The garden does look lovely—I caught a glimpse of it from my bedroom window—but you had only the trellised roses along the chimneys when I was here, isn’t that right, Aunt Victoria?”

“Exactly so,” she agreed. “I had the wall built shortly after you left—that alone took six months, then it took three more years before the plantings were finished. Not that I could ever call a garden finished. Gardens are works in progress, your uncle Charles used to say.” At the mention of her late husband, she gave a sigh. “Dear me, I do miss him.”

“The trustees told me, of course, that Uncle Charles had passed away. I am so sorry. They said it was about a year after I left.”

“On December 9, 1918, at 2:14
P.M.
, his spirit left him for a far better world,” she said, placing one hand on her bosom in the dramatic fashion of an old-time actress preparing to recite. “He’d been ill for so many years, it was hardly what you could call a surprise, but … well, I find one is usually surprised at death even when one expects it.”

Grandmother and I exchanged a long glance. Death had certainly surprised us a few short hours ago. I wondered what had become of the corpse by now. Poor girl. I could only imagine her family’s grief.

“Would you like a turn in the garden, Grandmother?”

“I believe I would.”

I was headed upstairs to fetch her shawl when I heard a hiss. There, lurking in an alcove below the staircase was Oliver, gesturing wildly. Mindful of his warning that we not be seen talking alone, I looked about to make sure we were unobserved.

“What is it? Whatever is the matter? You needn’t worry about the Little Darlings showing up in Portland, and I don’t know what I said wrong in the parlor when the boys walked in.”

“Who told you that?” he demanded. “Who told you about putting your thumb in the glass mark?”

“My thumb? Uh, you did, of course. You told me about the green glass floats and how they were made in Japan. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes, yes, but not the thumb!” he rasped. “I never told you that. I couldn’t have told you. I didn’t remember it myself until you came out with it. I’d completely forgotten that Jessie used to say that.”

“Well, I wouldn’t make something like that up out of whole cloth. Are you sure you didn’t tell me?”

“Of course I’m sure,” he said, eyeing me warily.

“Stop looking at me like that! I’m not Jessie!”

“Then how did you know?”

“Coincidence. It’s a natural progression of thought. Pick up the glass ball and your thumb fits in the sealing mark. Anyone would say it. Calm down, you’re overreacting.”

Oliver pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his brow. “Maybe.” Then his face took on a crafty look, and his puffy eyes narrowed to slits. “Just don’t get ahead of yourself, girl. We’re playing this by my rules, not yours.”

I held up my hands in innocent protest. “Of course.”

“I’ve invested too much time and money in you to have this endeavor fall short. Oh, I know what you’ve been thinking all along, that if things get rough or you don’t like the way the game is going, you’ll just slip away clean as soap. Well, think again, my precious niece. We’re in this to the end, and you’ll dance to my tune for as long as I play it. Succeed and I can be generous. Fail or leave me and I’ll send a copy of your pretty new photograph to
Variety
and the rest of those weeklies with a notice about your criminal activities and no one will touch you with a ten-foot stage hook. You’ll never work again.”

Too numb to respond, I walked away, no longer very clear about why I was going up the stairs but very much aware of Oliver’s eyes boring into my back at every step. Never mind how, he knew, and with one simple threat had blocked my exit. He had understood all along that I could change my mind about this swindle and leave him high and dry. So he had devised a way to keep me in the game by cutting off my only escape route. With one stroke, he could prevent me from ever working again in the only business I knew. I was trapped.

15

“Oliver is telling your aunt about the dead woman,” said Grandmother, her shoes crunching along the marl path that led around the west side of Cliff House toward the garden gate. “Finally. She won’t want the twins to know.”

“She can hardly expect to keep that sort of thing a secret. Surely it will be in the newspapers and discussed all over town.”

“Those girls seem quite sheltered. She’s concerned the news will frighten them.”

“I don’t know why it should,” I said, holding the gate open for Grandmother. “It has nothing to do with us.”

Someone had built the garden wall by taking thousands of flat rocks and laying them one upon another, fitting them together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle so skillfully that no mortar was needed to hold them in place. Standing on my toes, I could peer over the top and see a wall of another sort, a forest of young trees that formed a barrier between the garden and the edge of the cliff. Beyond lay the Pacific Ocean.

The rhythmic wash of waves on the beach might have penetrated the woods or the rock wall, but not both. Only the birds chirping and the splashing of a nearby fountain broke a heavy silence. It struck me as odd that Jessie’s parents would build a house on the edge of the world to overlook the ocean, and Aunt Victoria would devote years to blocking both its sound and view. But Lawrence and Blanche Carr had died in a boating accident, so perhaps the association was unpleasant for her.

Some of the garden had been divided into trim flower beds, but a good deal of the space was given over to flowering bushes and trees. I recognized the roses—one sees plenty of roses at opening or closing performances—but the rest of the garden was as much a mystery to me as the stock market. Grandmother and I meandered along one pathway for a while.