The Marsh Madness (2 page)

B
E CAREFUL WHAT you wish for, as they say. Whoever “they” are, they’ve also been known to mutter that the heart wants what it wants. I was desperate to visit Summerlea. That’s what my heart wanted.

Wanted it bad.

When the first call came, I wondered if it was a mistake. We had an invitation to a very special luncheon at Summerlea, a famous and usually inaccessible grand summer estate that was nothing if not worthy of daydreams. This chance to peek inside a robber baron’s extravagant country home would be a treat. And it would be a first for me aside from seeing it in photo spreads in
Elle Decor
and
Vanity Fair
. I was revved up about the invitation to the traditional getaway of the Kauffman family. The family was down to the last member: Chadwick Kauffman, heir to whatever was left. Even if the Kauffman name didn’t conjure up what it once had, it still screamed A-list in our part of the world. I was way beyond intrigued, imagining the treasures, art, books and antiquities. I hoped I’d manage to snoop around.

Full disclosure: The invitation was to Vera Van Alst, the curmudgeonly book collector and allegedly wealthy recluse I work for. I had merely handled the details with Chadwick Kauffman’s staff.

Although Vera wouldn’t admit this, an invitation of any sort was very good news. She continued to be the most hated woman in Harrison Falls, New York, and surrounding communities, although you’d think that people would be getting over that now. It definitely limited our collective social life.

Now Vera was invited to inspect and purchase a collection of Ngaio Marsh very fine first editions. I’d be there to assist her, while perusing and drooling over yet unknown items. I launched into my Web research immediately after the first call and learned that Summerlea was a massive and rambling building with groomed lawns that sloped down to a sparkling lake. This would be the kind of country home full of family retainers—and monograms on the ornate silverware. Would the Kennedys stop by? Would we have champagne? Probably not at noon. I wasn’t really clear on the rules for that. Did I need a petticoat? I almost hoped so.

The deckle-edged invitation came in the third week of March. We were summoned for the beginning of April, the first slot that Chadwick Kauffman would have time for us. So there’d be no strawberries in the gardens and no stroll on manicured lawns through the leafy grounds. Not here in upstate New York anyway.

The big question: What to wear?

I’d popped over to Betty’s Boutique, my favorite funky vintage shop in Harrison Falls, and scored a raspberry wool day dress, a perfectly preserved prize from nineteen sixty-three. That was one good reason to enjoy spring’s slow arrival. Jackie O would have worn this little number with white gloves. I might not be able to resist wearing a pair. There weren’t a lot of opportunities to sport those.

Summerlea was getting closer. I pictured the new spring grass, peppered with early blooming crocus.

Only two more sleeps to go.

I was interrupted in my happy thoughts by Vera, who rolled her wheelchair into our own grand foyer looking even grumpier than usual. Good Cat and Bad Cat (not their real names), her identical Siamese, sidled along beside her. I kept clear of Bad Cat, although it was always hard to know which one that was.

“Are you excited?” I chirped.

Vera had a voice like crunching gravel. “Miss Bingham, I expect that by now you would be aware that I do not get excited. And is it really necessary for you to sound quite so much like a budgie?”

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

I had been fully aware that Vera didn’t get excited, but it had slipped my mind that no one else was supposed to either. I made a mental note never to chirp again. I lowered my voice a half octave. I also moved away from Bad Cat’s outstretched claws and said, “But Summerlea is historic. It is magnificent. It’s—”

She kept rolling, barreling down the endless corridors of Van Alst House, past the ballroom and the portrait gallery festooned with ugly oils of her relatives. Have I mentioned that all the Van Alsts seemed to have suffered from serious constipation and bad teeth? I always try to avert my eyes, as the overflow relatives are displayed all along that hallway. You can’t miss them no matter how hard you try.

Vera muttered, “I have my own magnificent historic home, Miss Bingham. I do not have to seek others like an overeager tourist.”

Maybe I won’t wear the gloves, I decided, breaking into a canter to keep pace with her.

“Of course, Van Alst House is wonderful, Vera. I love it here. But you’ve been cooped up for months, if you don’t count the Thanksgiving event and Uncle Lucky’s wedding and . . .”

I decided not to mention the various murders that had
disrupted Vera’s stay-at-home policy. “And Summerlea has quite a history too. They say that FDR and—”

The wheelchair stopped abruptly. “My grandfather entertained governors and visiting royalty here in Van Alst House. We have our own history. I don’t need to leave here to feel part of that.” Vera pivoted abruptly and headed into the study, one of my favorite rooms. I hustled after her.

True enough. Van Alst House had a rich past. But Summerlea had welcomed presidents and world leaders, society’s finest and Hollywood legends. Where Van Alst House had been built from the profits of a shoe factory, Summerlea was made of steel money and rail money and manufacturing money. The Kauffman heritage was more like a collaboration of robber barons on steroids. Never mind that the Kauffman family had dwindled and shrunk in influence over the years. Summerlea remained.

I knew I was being ridiculous. But I loved the whole idea. Was it a Cinderella thing? I was, after all, the motherless girl who grew up in the rooms over her uncle’s “antique” shop. I would have been better adding the cash for that raspberry wool dress to the savings that would one day fund my return to grad school. Never mind. Summerlea would be so much fun. And really, it wasn’t like anything could go wrong.

Speaking of wrong, Vera had continued sputtering.

I said, “Of course you don’t need to leave here. I couldn’t agree more. However, you have been chosen and invited to another wonderful place and given first dibs at one of the finest Ngaio Marsh collections in the world. At a very reasonable price, may I add. I’ve done my homework on this one. This is a very rare collection.”

We never admit out loud that money is a factor for Vera, but it is. Anyone with a sharp eye would notice that there is less sterling silver every year and that several key antiques are now making someone else happy. Sometimes I worried that the Aubusson rugs would vanish next.

Vera couldn’t ever simply agree. It’s not in her. “Humph. We need to knock back that dollar figure a bit. And cash only? Who ever heard of that? Maybe this Chadwick has squandered what’s left of the family fortune.”

I couldn’t let Vera bring me down. “I got the impression the price was firm. Anyway, you love Ngaio Marsh. You’ve been trying to upgrade your Marsh collection as long as I’ve been here. You know how hard they are to find, especially those early ones.”

“Be that as it may, what kind of man only collects one author?”

I shrugged. What did I know about the late Mr. Kauffman and his collecting habits? “I don’t know why he collected only the one author. It’s working for us though. We’ll be lucky to get these books. All thirty-two in fine condition. It could take years to locate the same quality any other way. Count your blessings. If they’d been part of a bigger collection, the whole shebang might have been sold off. It’s to our advantage that this was it.”

Vera sneered. “Still can’t imagine it.”

“When I spoke to Lisa Troy, his assistant, she mentioned that Mr. Kauffman liked Ngaio Marsh because of her New Zealand connection. Apparently, he had a thing for the place.”

“Then the man’s a fool. Marsh is a giant of the Golden Age, but it’s not because of New Zealand, even if she did hail from there. I think she’s the best of the British writers of that era.”

“Well,” I said, calmly. “This should all make an interesting discussion when we have our luncheon at Summerlea.”

Vera snorted. “I’ve met him more than once. Kauffman’s no prize, if you ask me. Anyway, I’ve heard that the old coot is practically gaga. Collecting only one author is probably a symptom.”

“Um, the old coot,” I said as tactfully as I could, “is dead.”

“Magnus Kauffman is dead?”

“As a doornail, apparently. That’s why the invitation came from
Chadwick
Kauffman. He’s the heir and the person we’ll be meeting.”

“So old Kauffman’s dead, is he? When did this happen?”

“Late this past year, Miss Troy, the assistant, told me. In the fall.”

She assumed her scowliest expression. “I thought I would have heard something.”

For sure Magnus Kauffman’s death would have made news, certainly the
New York Times
, but we’d been otherwise occupied.

“If you remember, we had a lot on our mind around Thanksgiving.”

Vera’s brow darkened. We never speak of the events of last November. I’ll say for the record that the weeks before Thanksgiving brought bad times to Van Alst House and a close call for Vera and her entire collection, as well as for my job and the life we all love. But that, as they say, is a story for another day.

I kept going. “Mr. Kauffman left everything to his nephew, Chadwick, his only close relative.”

“Really? You mean all those fine old families intermarrying are now reduced to one impoverished relative?”

“Um, hardly impoverished. I checked him out. He has a number of businesses, including the Country Club and Spa, an exclusive establishment over in Grandville. I’m pretty sure I’ve even seen coverage of his charity events in the
New York Times
Sunday Styles.”

“I must have missed that, Miss Bingham.” Vera glowered.

Silly of me. As if Vera—who took the
New York Times
every day for the crossword—would ever read the Sunday Styles section. What was I thinking?

I didn’t try to explain that it had been a charity event at the Country Club that had been covered, with women in gorgeous gowns and men in formal wear. “The point is that
Chadwick has made a name for himself and he took an interest in the, um, elder Mr. Kauffman.”

“I bet he did. I guess it paid off for him, then. But why is he selling off the Marshes?”

“Not sure. His interests lie elsewhere, as I said. Maybe he wants the collection to go to a good home, say, for instance, here.”

“Maybe there’s not much left of the estate and he’s starting to sell it off. Anyway, not sure I want to meet him at all,” she sniffed. “He sounds like a drip. What kind of man finds himself in the Styles section? I am sure he doesn’t have any interest in us.”

Oh no. It would be just like Vera to turn her back on this wonderful opportunity and cancel the lunch. After all, she couldn’t care less about other people’s historic houses, and she’d only wear one of her hideous and bedraggled beige sweaters to the event, possibly a cardigan that had been donated to the Goodwill by a retiring goat herder. I clung to my dream of wearing my raspberry dress to Summerlea.

“Chadwick Kauffman
is
interested in you, Vera—”

I hate it when she harrumphs. It’s a sound that haunts my nightmares.

The only selling point was getting our mitts on the books. I stuck to that. “He specifically mentioned that
you
were chosen to have first dibs on his uncle’s world-class collection.”

I didn’t mention that Vera’s own collection of Marsh novels was barely adequate. She had twenty-three of the books—nice enough, mostly paperback reprints in decent but not pristine condition. If this new collection was as described—fine first editions, practically untouched—she would be over the moon when she took possession of it. Not that she’d admit that. I knew I’d be finding buyers for the books she had, and if I was patient and businesslike, we’d collect quite a bit to offset the cost of the “Kauffman Find,” as I thought of it.

While I was at college, I’d discovered the Marsh books
one rainy weekend at my best friend Tiff’s family cottage. I read quite a few during the summers. Now I wanted to get back on top of the series, as part of the whole Summerlea adventure. I would never dare try to read Vera’s collection. I’d been hunting for cheaper secondhand copies for myself. Even with my nose for a bargain, I’d found that a challenge as many of the Marsh paperbacks were out of print.

Vera wasn’t letting go of her reluctance. She’s not the type to be enthusiastic about anything, except maybe bursting my bubble. “Why me?”

We’d been through this already, but I took a deep breath and recapped. “Miss Troy said—if you remember—that as you are a preeminent collector, Mr. Kauffman believes the books would be in good hands and this would honor his uncle’s interests and memories.” I may have put some words into the mouth of Chadwick Kauffman. I had never spoken to him directly. But it was all in the service of a greater good, and there was an excellent chance that this would turn out to be true. Plus I wanted to enjoy my bit of anticipation and, most likely, Vera wouldn’t remember the details of what I’d claimed he’d said.