The Tolling of Mercedes Bell: A Novel (18 page)

“All of this was acquired by Eleanor’s father in another era. This room was his. Mercedes can give you the full tour. Enormous place— five bedrooms upstairs and two more down here. How long can you stay?”

“Just a few days. If I can be of any assistance, I’m at your service.”

Philip said confidentially, “Mercedes isn’t one to talk much about herself, as you may have noticed, but she has mentioned you. We’ve been very happy to hear her sounding so much more positive about life this last year or so, after the trouble she’s been through.”

“I find her to be quite fascinating.”

“The Kid is all right,” Philip said proudly.

“I’m a subtenant of the Crenshaw firm. She’s working on a case I brought in last year.”

“She seems to enjoy her work.”

“She’s insightful and unconventional. She’s done some investigating and writing, which have altered the direction of our inquiry. I’m happy for any time she gives me.”

“You’re a shrewd man.”

Germaine appeared in the doorway, curious about what the men
were up to. She ran in, plunked herself onto her grandfather’s lap and petted the front of his soft gray cashmere sweater. He meowed loudly, and she giggled.

“Would you like a Shirley Temple?” Philip offered. “I have everything to make you one, just the way you like it.”

“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed, leaping off his lap.

Philip hoisted himself to his feet and ambled toward the bar. A few moments later Mercedes quietly entered the room.

“Looks like you’ve found a peaceful spot amidst the storm,” she said to the men.

“I was telling Jack here that you should give him a tour of the place. Maybe he’d like to meet the ghosts in daylight.”

Jack rose from the chair and gave one of Germaine’s pigtails a tug. She playfully swatted his hand.

“When you finish your drink with Grandpa, come find us, Sweetness,” Mercedes told her.

She led Jack out of the study to the far end of the drawing room, where she recounted her grandparents’ history. They had met in 1916, when he was twenty and she only sixteen. He had enlisted in the military before the beginning of World War I with an unquenchable desire to see the world and learn to fly. He became one of the country’s first airmen. She showed Jack photographs of her grandfather standing beside an open-cockpit bi-wing airplane. There were pictures of him with his young bride, of the house when they first bought it, and of Eleanor as a young girl.

By the time World War II broke out, he had been promoted to general and was later given a European command. She showed Jack photographs of General Stearn in his uniform, seated at a commander’s desk, surrounded by officers. Jack looked down at the floor and examined the colorful Turkish carpet, no doubt acquired by the general during his travels.

“It’s too bad you’ll never get to meet my grandfather,” Mercedes said. “He was intensely interested in people and traveled more than anyone I’ve ever known. His stories could fill any evening with adventure. Grandmother’s passion was antiquing,” she gestured toward the furniture that filled the room. “Wherever they traveled, she made forays into the countryside and went to auctions in search of old things.”

“Gabe and Kitty would be so interested in all this,” Jack said.

M
ERCEDES LED HIM INTO THE
formal dining room, where a sterling silver tea service sat on a long sideboard. An immense walnut table was surrounded by sixteen chairs under a chandelier dripping with crystals.

“We had some big dinners here when I was growing up. Grandfather sat at the head of the table there, and Granny sat here.”

Eleanor appeared in the doorway. Her voluminous bangles, gold chains, and heavy bracelets announced her approach, so Mercedes had already stopped speaking. Eleanor stared at Mercedes, curious about the conversation she had just missed, and turned a doting eye on Jack. Her full lips were painted red and her large, beautiful eyes were outlined in black. Her arching eyebrows gave her a permanent expression of imperiousness, never to be surprised by the failings of others. Eleanor spared neither time nor expense on her appearance and felt superior to women who did otherwise—a category that invariably included her daughter.

Jack, insouciant as always, turned his loving gaze away from Mercedes and looked kindly upon her mother. Whatever her flaws, Eleanor had married a fine man and given birth to his beloved.

“I just got off the phone with the doctor in charge,” she announced. “Granny has broken her pelvis and fractured her femur.
She is alarmingly malnourished and may be in the early stages of dementia. She will need twenty-four-hour care, probably in a convalescent hospital. It’s worse than we thought.”

You always expect the worst,
thought Mercedes.

“How unfortunate,” Jack said. “I hope they’ve made her comfortable. Mercedes has been telling me some of your family history. Mrs. Stearn seems to have led a fascinating life.”

Mercedes reached out to comfort her mother but was promptly rebuffed. “There’s no need for that,” Eleanor said. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Jack raised an eyebrow and checked Mercedes, who remained cool.

“If you like, I can investigate assisted living facilities while we’re here,” Mercedes offered.

“We’ll see if that’s really necessary.”

Eleanor squinted at her diamond watch. “You finish showing Jack around, and I’ll make some dinner reservations.”

Mercedes resumed the tour she was giving Jack. Germaine left the study to join them as they mounted the winding staircase. Mercedes’s luggage had been placed in a charming room with a pitched ceiling at the top of the stairs where she had always stayed as a child. A four-poster bed stood in the center of the room, covered in a vibrant handmade quilt nearly identical to the one on her bed in Oakland.

Next door, prepared for Germaine, was a room with two single beds and a great variety of antique dolls in handmade clothes, sitting in a cradle that had once held Eleanor. The dolls had been Eleanor’s as well, and looked as though they’d traveled the world.

The three other bedrooms on the floor had not been inhabited in many years. In each of them, time seemed to have been suspended. Mercedes felt unseen eyes upon them and closed each door behind her as they exited, knowing that Germaine would feel better for her having done so.

“Closing this place up will be no small undertaking,” Jack said.

“I think that’s what’s weighing on Mother,” Mercedes said as they descended the staircase. Jack followed last and, seeing the backs of their heads, thought of the many female antecedents whose pictures hung in the drawing room.

Downstairs, Philip and Eleanor’s suitcases were in what had once been General Stearn’s bedroom. Elizabeth’s room was on the other side of the bathroom, just as she had left it only a couple of days earlier on her fateful trek into the dining room. A marble-topped vanity with a gilt-framed oval mirror, worthy of any film star of Elizabeth’s day, was positioned between the two windows. Elizabeth’s legendary beauty had been preserved for as long as nature permitted.

Germaine opened the door to the walk-in closet and stood there with her mouth agape. It was nearly as big as her whole bedroom at home, and was packed with hat boxes, garment bags, handbags, countless racks of clothes, and shoes in every imaginable color.

T
HEY ALL DROVE TO THE
hospital in the Cadillac, which belonged to Elizabeth. Philip talked to Jack about the history of the area and General Stearn’s last post as commander of the nearby Air Force base. The visitors took turns at Elizabeth’s bedside. She was groggy from medication, confused by her surroundings; her pale eyes squinted to focus on their faces. She struggled to recognize them and to understand why they were there.

Eleanor’s impatience grew by the minute. She fidgeted with her jewelry and interrogated the nurse further about the prognosis. She wanted the situation to be resolved immediately.

Jack extended his arm to Eleanor and invited her to go for a walk with him. He didn’t wait for a response, but hooked her hand onto his arm, put his other hand on top of hers, and guided her out of the
room. Philip exchanged a look of understanding with Mercedes. Then he watched his daughter and granddaughter as they gently coaxed a smile from the ancient one in bed.

“We love you, Granny,” Mercedes told her. “We’ll come back to see you tomorrow and every day we’re here. We’re staying at the house. Everything is fine there. I have my old room at the top of the stairs and Germaine is staying in Mother’s old room. Mother and Dad are staying in Grandpa’s room while you’re recovering from your fall. My friend Jack is staying in a hotel.”

The more she spoke, the more Elizabeth seemed to grasp what was going on. She followed Mercedes’s eyes and lips and looked between her and Germaine. She looked over at Philip, who waved at her. Signs of progress.

Jack and Eleanor returned in a jovial mood. Eleanor was expounding on the cruise from which she and Philip had recently returned. Her impatience temporarily abated, she was happy to see Elizabeth more responsive. She seemed, for the first time that day, actually happy to be in the company of her family.

D
INNER WAS IN A NOISY
Mexican restaurant that had been a family favorite since the general had befriended the owner more than thirty years earlier. There was a photograph of the two men in the entryway, which Jack spied instantly. When Señor Martinez heard that Eleanor Stearn and her family had arrived, he came out to greet them personally and made a sweeping bow before kissing Eleanor’s hand. Germaine was ravenously hungry, excited by all the fanfare, and fascinated by the oversized sombreros and serapes on the walls.

Not long into the meal, after Señor Martínez had ceased fawning over her, Eleanor looked over at Jack and Mercedes, who were teasing
each other a little too softly to be overheard. Philip was talking to Germaine, who was telling him all about school, the field trip planned for the spring, and the work they were doing in class to prepare for it. Entrees were served all around and still no one engaged Eleanor in conversation. Jack put a bite of the beef enchilada in his mouth and continued listening to Mercedes. Eleanor could bear it no longer.

She picked up her fork, reached across Jack’s arm, and pierced his chile
relleño,
jabbing deeply into it to get a large bite onto her fork. The
relleño
squirted ingloriously onto the tablecloth and enchilada sauce spilled over the side of the plate, narrowly missing Jack’s sleeve. Philip, Germaine, and Mercedes all stopped in midsentence and watched as Eleanor put the gigantic bite into her mouth. She stared defiantly into Jack’s surprised face. He removed his left hand from the table and placed it in his lap.

“Grandmother!” Germaine cried out.

Mercedes flushed red hot but said nothing.

Jack looked down at his plate as Eleanor carved off another forkful of his beef enchilada, loaded with cheese and sauce, dripping more onto the tablecloth between them as she brought the fork to her gaping mouth. Mercedes put her face into her hands. Jack looked into Eleanor’s face, held her eyes with his, and slid his plate toward her.

“Please, help yourself.”