Victoria Hamilton - Vintage Kitchen 04 - No Mallets Intended (17 page)

She hastened the pace, feeling the need to get on with business. Bill would be there—he was painting the parlor—so he could give her a hand if she needed it. As she walked up to the house, though, she noticed several cars in the parking lot, and when she entered, letting Hoppy off his leash to have a free run of the house, she could hear two bickering voices.

“It wouldn’t be in there. Don’t be an idiot, Imogene!”

“Tree Bellwood, now you
promised
not to call me that anymore. It hurts my feelings.”

“Your
feelings
? Good heavens… if I hear one more word about your feelings I’ll fray them like silk embroidery yarn.” A muffled thump followed this announcement.

Good Lord, it was the Snoop Sisters redux. Jaymie took a deep breath and followed the squabbling to the library, a main-floor room that hadn’t yet been touched. A sight to behold greeted her: two woolen-trouser-clad bottoms and the soles of two pairs of sensible Rockport loafers.

“What on earth are you two doing?” Jaymie cried as Hoppy dashed across the Persian-carpeted floor toward the two older ladies. He danced around them, pushing at their bottoms with his one front paw. It was a grand game for the little Yorkie-Poo.

Mrs. Bellwood, always so dignified, fell over onto her rear and looked at Jaymie in astonishment. “We didn’t hear you, Jaymie.”

“Yes, we didn’t hear you,” Mrs. Frump echoed.

“If you were a proper young lady you would come and assist your elders and call off your dog!” Mrs. Bellwood griped.

At the oddest times Mrs. Bellwood’s Queen Victoria persona would overcome her and she would begin issuing orders in a terrible English accent, as if her mouth were full of marbles. A dedicated royalist, she had been copying Queen Elizabeth II for years and always watched her Christmas Day address to the Commonwealth nations, broadcast on Canada’s CBC Television. She took Queensville’s origins and the town’s connection to Canada, across the river, very seriously.

Jaymie helped her up.

“We’re looking for the Sultan’s Eye, of course,” Mrs. Bellwood said, as Jaymie then aided Mrs. Frump.

Jaymie glanced around the library. It was lined with bookshelves, and there were quite a few books left, beautiful leather-bound volumes. She hoped the heritage committee intended to keep the books exactly as they were, a testament to how literature endures. The bottom row had been taken out and stacked neatly to one side, as the two ladies searched for the mythical Sultan’s Eye.

“Do you really believe you’re going to find it?” Jaymie asked. “Do you think it even exists?”

“We’ve looked everywhere. I just don’t think it’s here, but
some
people,” Mrs. Frump said, giving Mrs. Bellwood a look, “won’t let it rest.”

“We haven’t explored every nook and cranny yet.” Mrs. Bellwood was unfazed by their lack of success so far.

“Can I get your opinion on the kitchen?” Jaymie asked, partially to ward off another argument. “Do you mind?”

Hoppy toddled awkwardly up the stairs to the second floor to explore, while Jaymie led the two ladies to her work in progress and they looked around. In Jaymie’s absence Mabel Bloombury had cleaned the window and put up the curtains she had made. They were crisp, and not the butter yellow she had expected. The material was white, with a pattern of cherries and ivy, and she actually loved it! So cheery and lively. Good on a dull November day. Curtains gave the room a more finished look than barren windows. “Mabel did a wonderful job!” she said, touching the fabric and adjusting the ruffles.

“It’s coming along,” Mrs. Bellwood said.

“Coming along,” Mrs. Frump echoed.

It wasn’t a resounding endorsement, but better than nothing. Jaymie emptied the box of kitchen tools she had bought at auction and laid them out. There were the usual strainers, an apple corer, some spatulas and other things that she knew, but there were other tools she did not recognize. “What is this?” she asked the ladies, holding up a long-handled item with wire spiraling around a spoon shape on the end.

“It’s a whip!” Mrs. Frump said.

“A what?”

“A whip… like a whisk,” Mrs. Bellwood said.

Jaymie made a whisking motion, then shook her head. “I don’t know if it would do the job. How about this?” she asked, holding up a long-handled tool that had a metal disk on the end with swirls cut out of it.

“That is a muddler… a potato muddler. Like a masher.”

Jaymie’s eyes widened. “Really? I never would have guessed that.” She now had a Vintage Eats column in her mind, one on long-lost vintage tools. “What about this?” she said, holding up a green-handled tool with three blades and a spring.

“That’s a Foley chopper,” Mrs. Bellwood answered, turning to examine the stitching on the curtains. “It was supposed to cut down the time it takes to chop herbs or nuts.”

Just then they heard the bang of the front door being slammed.

“Halloo!” shouted a voice Jaymie recognized. The two older women frowned and glanced at each other.

“It’s Joel,” Jaymie said. “He’s meeting me here.” She raised her voice and shouted, “In the kitchen!”

Mrs. Frump’s eyes widened and she looked at her new friend/enemy with a significant nod.

Mrs. Bellwood turned to Jaymie. “And why is
he
meeting you here?”

Jaymie sighed. “Just to talk, nothing more. We’re still friends, for heaven’s sake!” She walked out to the entry hall to greet him instead of waiting with the two ladies, and they shared an awkward hug. Joel had never quite looked like what he was, a pharmaceutical salesman who traveled a great deal. Strangers probably guessed he was an artist or musician, his hair a little too long, his clothes a little too casual. He looked tired and had stubble on his chin, but his light brown hair had been cut shorter than he used to wear it.

“Why did Heidi send me over here?” he asked.

“Let’s go sit on the porch,” she said, not wanting to be within earshot of two of the worst Queensville gossips. The floorboards creaked as they walked, and she saw two elderly faces peeking around the doorway from the kitchen.

They sat on the steps, Jaymie burrowing her hands in her coat sleeves, and talked about work and mutual friends. There had been a lot of changes in their little town in the last few months. Finally, getting chilled and not wanting to prolong things, Jaymie just launched into the reason she needed to talk to him. “So Joel, what’s the holdup with setting a date to get married? You were the one who asked Heidi, after all; why are you dragging your feet?”

“I am
not
dragging my feet,” he said.

Hoppy barked to come out, so Jaymie got up and let the little dog out with them. He crawled up on Joel’s lap and licked his chin. Joel cuddled him, petting the patch of fur that always stood in a tuft on the Yorkie-Poo’s head.

“Then what’s the holdup?” Jaymie prodded, trying not to watch his hands. He had nice hands, and she had always found them enticing: square, sensitive, eloquent. “You’re lucky a girl as nice as Heidi will have you,” she said, even more bluntly, trying to goad him into responding. “You should snatch her up before she changes her mind.”

He shook his head and gloomily squinted off in the distance, across the road where there was a marshy brushland stretch, brown and sage in the dim light of late autumn. “I should never have ditched you,” he said.

Jaymie stiffened in anger. “
What
did you say?” she asked, carefully.

Hoppy looked up at her, knowing the tone.

“Well, you know, Heidi is needy. You were so much more easygoing,” Joel said, scrambling to explain. “You never bugged me about marriage and crap like that.”

“You are
un
believable,” she said, standing, descending a step and facing him. Hoppy jumped off his lap and started investigating the porch. “You are
truly
unbelievable. I can’t believe you just said that. You are
so
lucky you’ve found a girl who loves you. I was an
idiot
for letting you get away with so much crap, you know that?”

“Don’t get huffy. I hate it when you get huffy.”

Huffy… that was a word to diminish the justice of her anger. She was done with being delicate. “Joel, who the heck is Cathy? What’s going on?”

He groaned and covered his face with both hands. “I don’t know what to do!”

“How about coming clean? Who is Cathy? And what does she have to do with you not setting a date to marry Heidi?”

He didn’t say anything for a long few moments. Jaymie let the silence stretch out, but finally she gently said, “Talk to me, Joel. If there’s a problem tell me.”

“I can’t marry Heidi,” he said, staring across the road. “I’m already married.”

Sixteen

“D
ID
I
HEAR
you right? You’re
married
?” Jaymie said, her knees buckling. She sat back down next to him.

“Yup, you heard me right.” He grimaced and sighed.

Jaymie frowned down at her toes, then lifted her gaze and turned, knee up on the step, to glare at him. “You mean, all the time you lived with me you were married? You made me… you made me the
other woman
?” Fury bubbled up inside of her. “You are a real piece of work, Joel Anderson, do you know that?”

“Wait!” he exclaimed, hands up in the “stop” motion, splayed out toward her. “You have to hear me out!” He talked, weaving a tale of a youthful marriage and long separation. They weren’t “really even married anymore,” in his view. How could you call them married when he hadn’t seen Cathy for years?

Jaymie snorted in disbelief at that, but decided not to interrupt.

Recently Cathy, his wife, had contacted him; she said she wanted to reconcile. Or dissolve the marriage… for a price. He believed she had somehow caught wind of his engagement to Heidi Lockland, one of the famous New York Locklands, who owned a good block of Manhattan property and had real estate investments in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, among other cities. Cathy was basically blackmailing him to end their marriage, holding him hostage to his youthful indiscretion.

“She’s been cyberstalking me or something! Heidi uses all that social networking crap. I’ve always avoided it, but Heidi has my name and pictures of me on her profile. I think Cathy found me that way.”

Jaymie paused, as the story sank in, but then said, “This is why you never take girlfriends to meet your parents, because
they
know you’re still married! Is this the part where I’m supposed to feel sorry for you? Really?”

“Have a heart, Jaymie,” he pleaded. “You were always the level-headed one; what am I going to do?”

“You have one option, and one option only: you tell Heidi the truth, and you do it now.” She shivered and rubbed her arms, angry and hurt and feeling betrayed. “Tell the truth, Joel, for once in your
freaking
life. And don’t
ever
say you should have stayed with me, because I don’t want you back. Not now, not ever. I don’t want
anyone
right now.”

She paused and examined that thought. It was true. She had been only five months into a broken heart when she started dating Daniel. Maybe that long a time
should
have been enough for her to get over it and move on, but she still felt the wound. It was healed over, but still there. She was just one of those who fall deeply when they fall in love, and that was okay. Now she knew the truth; she had to tell Daniel she wasn’t ready to get serious with anyone.

Peace spiraled through her, and she breathed deeply, the first long breath she had taken in a while. She had made her decision. She was happy in her life, with her family and friends. She was filled with gratitude for the path her life was taking. She had no desire to leave Queensville, and deep in her heart she did not see Daniel settling in her beautiful old Queen Anne home. There was a restlessness in his soul, and that would always feel like a reproach to her.

She glanced down at Joel, who looked like a puppy who had been kicked. More gently she said, “Tell Heidi the truth. She really loves you.” Pausing, she gripped his shoulder. “And I think she has things she needs to tell you, too,” she added, thinking about the fact that Heidi had not told her family about him and her plans to marry, though Joel didn’t yet know that. It was not a monumental betrayal like his had been, but it was important.

Joel covered her hand on his shoulder with his own. “You’re right, Jaymie.” He met her eyes. “You’re absolutely right. I’m really sorry for how I treated you, you know. And if you not wanting anyone right now is because of me, I’m sorry. I really am.”

Don’t flatter yourself,
she thought, but did not say. She took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “You did me a favor, Joel—you woke me up. I was coasting on everyone else’s dreams, but now I’m finding my own. Go home. Talk to Heidi right now.”

When she reentered the house with Hoppy at her heels, it was to find that the two older women had been at the door, no doubt listening in. She suppressed a smile. “That information, if you overheard it, was for our ears only, ladies, until he confesses all and is forgiven. Okay?”

Mrs. Bellwood nodded and so did Mrs. Frump. The first lady touched Jaymie’s arm and said, “You do what
you
want, Jaymie, about everything in your life. Our generation… we didn’t know we had time. We didn’t know we had choices and could do other things. I’m not complaining; I loved my husband, and my children and grandkids are wonderful. I’m not sorry for the path I took. But there were other girls who weren’t so lucky. You do
what
you want
when
you want.”

“Thank you.”

The two exchanged looks and Mrs. Bellwood nodded to Mrs. Frump.

“Jaymie, have you heard about this other will?” Mrs. Bellwood asked. “The one leaving this house to Prentiss Dumpe?”

“I’m the one who found it in the kitchen cabinet. I wish I never did! I hope it’s not going to affect our purchase of the house.”

“But you see, it couldn’t have been there before,” Mrs. Frump said. “We didn’t know if we ought to tell Haskell; he may be a wee bit angry at us.”

“Why?”

“We already searched the kitchen, you see, before Bill painted it. We knew you’d be working in here, so we did it just after the meeting… you know… searched for the Sultan’s Eye. There was no will in the lower cupboard then.”

Jaymie felt thunderstruck, then hopeful. “Are you sure?” She had cleaned under the cupboards herself, and assumed she had just missed it, but now, if what they were saying was true…

Both women nodded.

“We
did
use a flashlight to search,” Mrs. Frump said, a dimple winking in her cheek. “And I got right down until I was practically inside the kitchen cabinets!”

“We’re
sure
,” Mrs. Bellwood added. “It wasn’t there.”

“Thank you,” Jaymie said. “And you
should
tell Haskell. It ought to help.” She thought a moment, then said, “Did either of you see my small case full of tools when you were searching?”

Both women shook their heads. Did that mean, Jaymie wondered, that whoever hid the will also took her tools? Not necessarily, but it was possible. Mrs. Bellwood and Mrs. Frump headed off to talk to—or at—Bill while he painted in the parlor. Jaymie worked alone in the kitchen and had it looking much better by the time she was done.

The Hoosier was in place, and on it were some Jade-ite mixing bowls. Jade-ite was a green glass used for dishes and mixing bowls that were mass-produced in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, in such a broad range of table and cookware that Jaymie had decided to furnish the whole kitchen in the stuff, and so had scoured vintage stores and flea markets. So far she had some mugs and mixing bowls, as well as a measuring bowl. But from her research she knew that there were vases, juicers, dinnerware sets, refrigerator dishes and more, all in the lovely soft green made by Anchor Hocking for its Fire-King line. It was a hot collectible, time appropriate and color appropriate for her—or rather, the heritage society’s—project.

But as wonderful as getting lost in the past was, there were still so many things plaguing her. Now that Heidi and Joel’s problems were hopefully back between the two of them where they belonged and no longer on
her
plate, Jaymie decided to tackle a couple of other things. She would start with a trip back to the Queensville Inn and another visit to Mrs. Stubbs.

She walked back to town with Hoppy, deposited her little dog at home, then strolled over to the inn. She made a brief visit to the kitchen, where she consulted with the chef, a French Canadian of superb talent, on the autumn basket offerings for her vintage picnic business. Two new enterprises were expanding her reach. Wolverhampton Winery was offering a special winter package that included a bonfire picnic on the beautiful grounds of the winery. And a lovely country bed-and-breakfast was partnering with her to offer fall and winter walk suggestions, with one of her picnic baskets on a wagon.

She wasn’t sure how many people would want to traipse through the woods hauling a Radio Flyer loaded with a picnic basket, but the owners of the bed-and-breakfast, which was also a Christmas tree farm, thought it was worth a try. They were featuring it as a country getaway in their advertising, trying to drum up more business in the slow season. They were hoping that day-trippers would come out with a basket, go into the pine woods, have their picnic, then cut down their own Christmas tree.

She returned to the front of the inn, said a brief hello to Lyle, who was working in the office behind the check-in desk, then headed to Mrs. Stubbs’s room. The elderly woman was again in her wheelchair, now by the window for best light, and this time reading an Anne Perry historical mystery, one of the Christmas series. Perry’s novels were some of the only mysteries Jaymie read, so they discussed her books briefly, before getting more serious.

Mrs. Stubbs watched her, her gaze still sharp, even with the cataracts that misted her one eye worse than the other. She was due for surgery to remove them, and everyone hoped for the best. But even with faulty sight, she was sharply observant. She tugged the sleeves of her velour jacket down over her bony wrists and pulled her lap blanket up, then eyed Jaymie and said, “You need to know something, am I right?”

Jaymie had decided this was one woman she could be wholly honest with, so she told her everything about the will, and added what Mrs. Bellwood and Mrs. Frump had confessed, about searching the cabinet earlier. “I’m pretty sure it’s a fake, now, but that means Prentiss Dumpe is trying to pull a fast one over on the society,” Jaymie said. “You saw him, how he acted at the meeting. It is possible, I suppose, that the will is real, but that he or someone else planted it in the cupboard so I’d find it. If I were Prentiss, I wouldn’t want to be the one presenting it to the court. Who would believe him, even if it was true?”

The older woman frowned into the light from the window, her expression one of concentration. “Tell me exactly what the will said. It was in Jane’s handwriting, correct?”

“Supposedly, but that would be one of the things checked by the court. You want the exact wording?”

The woman nodded.

“Let’s see if I can remember. It was dated July fifth, 1993, and said that she was revoking all other wills, that she was of sound mind and that she was leaving everything to her ‘beloved’ grandson, Prentiss Dumpe, on the condition that he not give ‘a single, solitary dime’ to Hazel Grinley Frump because…” Jaymie thought back to the wording. “Uh, because she—meaning Jane—had reason to believe that Hazel was robbing her blind and keeping her from seeing her lawyer. It specifically included land, house, antiques, jewels, everything.”

There was something else… ah! Grinley, Hazel Frump’s middle name… had that been misspelled? Yes! Jaymie had seen the full name spelled out once, when she was reading up on what little house history there was, and the will had the
e
in
Grinley
in the wrong spot. Though not definitive, that surely was not a mistake Mrs. Dumpe would make of a lifelong friend and companion. Jaymie mentioned this to Mrs. Stubbs, and she agreed.

“Hmph. The whole thing doesn’t sound like Jane,” Mrs. Stubbs went on. “First, her ‘beloved’ Prentiss? She did
not
like her grandson. Since her son and daughter-in-law died—Prentiss’s parents, you know—he had ignored her, even though she paid for his schooling so he could get a psychiatry degree. Nothing was ever enough for him. She once told me that she didn’t want to be one of those women to threaten their grandson with cutting him out of the will, but she was tempted to do just that.”

“Did she ever?”

“What, threaten him? I don’t think so.”

“What about the part about Hazel robbing her blind?”

Mrs. Stubbs shook her head. “If you knew Hazel, you’d know how ridiculous that was. Hazel was the kind who, if you went to lunch, had to split the check
exactly
, and if one person paid a penny too much, she would reimburse them.” She sat back and stared off into space. “But Jane got a little… odd in her last few years. Suspicious, you know. I don’t think she’d suspect Hazel of robbing her, but who knows? You get two old women in a confined space and there can be simmering resentments. It’s hell getting old. If there was any alternative, I’d take it.” She cast Jaymie a look. “Not that I’m saying I don’t want to be here. As long as I have books and tea, I’m happy enough, I suppose.”