Wherever Lynn Goes (20 page)

“I'll help. It won't take us long to clean up.”

“No, you run along. You're still a bit pale. A walk in the gardens will do you good. I'll attend to this. I may not be able to cook, but I'm terrific with dirty dishes.”

I protested, but Mandy was quite firm, and I could see that it would be futile to argue with her. Shooing' me out of the kitchen, she began banging the pots and pans around quite happily, probably reminiscing about her days as a waitress. I took her advice and strolled out into the gardens, feeling rather melancholy, still a bit worried about the phone call. I was puzzled by Mandy's about-face, too. In London she had been near hysterical about the calls. Why, then, did she pass this one off so lightly? Was it because she had seen how upset I was?

It was a splendid morning. The air was fresh and clean, inebriating, the kind of air one never encountered in London. Colors were sharp and vividly defined: leaves green, jade green, dark green, brown, bluebells a bright blue, hollyhocks a vivid purple and red against the mellow gray wall. Tiny silver snail trails glistened on the flagstones, and the earth was a rich, loamy brown. Even the house looked better this morning, large and sprawling, leafy shadows playing on the sun-washed walls, the multi-level roof gleaming a dull bronze spread with chimney shadows.

It was hard not to be cheerful on such a morning, and I could feel my melancholy slipping away, feel strength returning. Everything was going to be all right, I told myself. Lloyd would be here this afternoon, and the men from Scotland Yard were already at work. The phone call had upset me, but it would be foolish to brood about it. The sun was warm on my cheeks, and the air was like a fine wine, reviving me, driving away the worries that plagued me.

Following the path around the side of the house, I came upon Bart's car parked in front of the carriage house, the back seat filled with a jumble of books and boxes, tennis racquets, shoes. The trunk was open, his ancient typewriter set beside a heap of clothes, the familiar cricket bat sticking out. There was a peculiar sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach as I realized what it meant. The door upstairs slammed, and I turned to see him coming down the stairs, arms laden with more clothes. He saw me, nodded, and moved past me to pile the clothes haphazardly on top of the others.

“You're leaving?” I asked.

“That's pretty obvious, isn't it?”

His voice was polite, his manner amiable enough, but there was an invisible wall around him. He stood there in the sunlight wearing brown loafers, tight denim trousers bleached the color of bone, and an exquisite bulky-knit crew-neck sweater of oatmeal tan, speckled with brown and rust. He had never looked more appealing, and he had never been so distant. Feathery black locks tumbled over his brow. He smiled, but there was no warmth. His vivid blue eyes regarded me with cool objectivity. There was so much I wanted to say, but the words seemed to stick in my throat. He didn't make it any easier. He rested his hands on his thighs, looking slightly impatient.

“You—you don't have to leave,” I finally said.

“I think it's best this way, don't you?”

“I—yes, I suppose so.”

“I've already talked to Hampton over the phone. There'll be no trouble about the second will. You'll get everything.”

“I don't want it,” I replied, sounding childish.

“Neither do I. I don't intend to argue with you, Lynn. I think we pretty well covered everything yesterday.”

“I guess we did.”

There was a long silence. He tapped his fingers restlessly against his thighs, waiting, definitely impatient to be rid of me. I looked into his eyes, and I knew I had deceived myself. I had, finally, lost. I had loved him for years without even knowing it, and now that I knew it was too late.

“Well?” he said.

“I'm sorry about yesterday, Bart.”

“Are you?”

“I shouldn't have made those insinuations. I know—I realize how unfair I was.”

“Forget it.”

“Where will you go?”

“To the inn, right now. I'll stay there a couple of days or so, then after this thing about the wills is settled I'll move on to London. I have the flat there.”

“I—see.”

He was stiff, unyielding. He saw how uncomfortable I was, and made no effort to help. He didn't care. I was simply one he'd missed, one he had failed to seduce.

“Look, I've got several more loads to pack up. If there isn't anything else—”

“The latches. I haven't paid you for them. I'll—”

“Don't bother. Consider them a gift.”

I wanted to plead with him, beg him to stay, but my pride prevented it. I looked at him, and I could feel my cheeks coloring, feel the anger begin to mount—blessed anger, preventing the other emotions from taking hold. There was no reason for him to be so cold, so bloody unyielding. I had apologized, and if he wanted to sulk, if he … Thank God he was leaving before I made an even greater fool of myself.

“I insist on paying you,” I said crisply. “I don't want to be under any obligation to you.”

“I'll not take your money.”

“How much did they cost?”

“Listen, I don't want to fight. Okay? I'm liable to lose my temper again and do something foolish, say something foolish.”

“Like you did yesterday.”

“Like I did yesterday.”

I stared at him, longing to say something that would demolish him but unable to think of it. Bart smiled a crooked smile, one eyebrow slanting up at the corner.

“Too bad we couldn't hit it off,” he said. “Believe me, the loss is all yours. Maybe one of these days you'll realize that.”

“Your conceit knows no bounds.”

“Yeah, I know. I'm insufferable. No argument. You're lucky to be getting rid of me.”

“For once we're in complete accord.”

He started to say something else but thought better of it. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head good-naturedly, and went back up the stairs, leaving me standing there with burning cheeks. I wanted to scream. I walked quickly around to the front of the house and hurried up the steps. Then I stopped, as I felt the tears run down my cheeks. I wiped them away angrily, furious with myself. He had deliberately humiliated me, made me feel shabby, and I was glad he was leaving—genuinely, sincerely glad.

I don't know how long I stood on the veranda, holding on to one of the peeling white posts, a prey to conflicting emotions that swept over me in waves. I heard him loading the car and, some time later, heard the motor starting and watched him drive away. He stared straight ahead, not once looking back, and the car disappeared around a curve between the tall leafy trees, and then there was only sunlight and shadow on the drive, making patterns as the wind caused branches to sway.

I was in a wretched, irritable mood when I went back inside. Mandy met me in the hall, a puzzled crease between her brows.

“Bart knocked on the back door while I was still in the kitchen,” she said. She held up a set of keys. “He gave me these.”

“He's gone,” I explained. “He drove away a few minutes ago.”

“Just like that?”

“
Just
like that.”

“You needn't snap my head off!”

“I—I'm sorry, Mandy. I went for a walk, as you suggested, and I felt revived, felt so much better, and then I ran into Bart and—and he managed to spoil everything, just like he always does. He's gone now, and I'm
glad.
”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“He's going to the inn. He'll stay there for two or three days, then he's going on to London.”

“Oh well.” She lifted one shoulder in an actressy shrug and sighed. “I'd rather hoped he'd be around to cook dinner tonight, but I suppose we can order something in the village and bring it back. I wonder if Cooper's Green has a Wimpey's.”

Neither of us mentioned Bart's name again. I wandered around restlessly, and Mandy made a couple of telephone calls, speaking low as though she was afraid I might be listening. One, no doubt, was to Sergeant Duncan, and the other was probably to her agent in London, who, I knew, had asked her to check with him. I was sitting on the leather couch in the library and looking moodily at the wall of books when she came in. There was a purposeful expression on her face.

“Lynn, it's after ten. I guess we'd better get on up to the attic and start sorting through the junk.”

“Whatever for?”

“Don't tell me you've forgotten about the jumble sale?”

“Oh Lord!” I groaned.

“You also told Myrtle you'd try to find time to gather up a few things to bring with you. Remember?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Come on, don't look so glum. It'll be fun to prowl around in the attic. There's no telling what we might find.”

Reluctantly I followed Mandy upstairs and down the hall. We climbed up the narrow attic stairs, opened the door, and stepped into a vast, musty, crumbling world of old barrels and piles of dust-covered books, magazines dating back to the turn of the century, trunks, old dress forms, antique lamps, and broken, discarded furniture. Rays of sunlight stirring with dust motes slanted in through the high dormer windows. The bare wooden floorboards creaked noisily as we moved across them. In spite of myself, I felt some of the old fascination for the place coming back.

Staring around at the accumulation of several generations, I felt an overwhelming sense of the past, and there was a touch of nostalgia as well. I remembered by-gone days when, with the oil lamp shedding a warm yellow light and rain pounding on the roof overhead and lashing against the windows, I had amused myself for hours exploring the treasures to be found in the old trunks smelling of camphor and dry silk and lilac. Curled up on the faded rose sofa with broken springs and lumpy cushions, I had studied the pictures in the yellowing magazines and imagined myself living in those days of horse-drawn carriages and velvet furbelows. In the old viewer with its wooden handle and foggy lenses, I had looked at the stiff cardboard scenes of Rome and Venice, faded a pinkish-brown.

“An antiques dealer would go out of his mind!” Mandy exclaimed, interrupting my reverie. “What a fabulous old Victorian lamp! Look at this glass, Lynn. Tiffany? I wouldn't be surprised.”

Mandy's enthusiasm was boundless. Far more knowledgeable about such things than I, she kept pointing out treasures that would fetch a good sum on the antiques market. Oblivious to dust and cobwebs, face smudged and gold slack suit getting deplorably soiled, she threw herself into the job with that vital energy I had always admired. Between the two of us we managed to fill a sturdy cardboard box with less-valuable items: brass candlesticks, ivory fans, costume jewelry, a pretty lamp, various old but still usable items of clothing. After the box was filled, Mandy sat down on the floor, leaned her back against the wall, and began leafing through a book of fashion plates we had come across earlier. I was rummaging through the old oak cabinet on the other side of the room.

“Fantastic!” she called. “Lynn, these should be framed. They date back to the eighteen eighties! Bustles, parasols, fur muffs …”

I was examining a dust-covered but lovely set of gold-rimmed bone china with delicate blue flowers and not really paying attention to her. I rubbed the dust off the teapot, marveling at the beauty of the piece and wondering why the set had been relegated to up here. Kneeling down, I looked to see what was on the other shelves: a collection of glass dogs, a heap of dress patterns, a dusty velvet pin cushion, a hundred or so old
Punch
magazines, a small red lacquered box … I picked up the box, startled to see it. I had mentioned it only this morning.

“Imagine finding this,” I said.

“Hmmm? What luv?”

“The little red box I was telling you about, the one my father sent to me from Australia.” I opened the lid. The box was filled with yellowing sheets covered with bold, rather crude handwriting. “His letters are here, too.”

“His letters?”

Mandy wasted no time in joining me in front of the cabinet, fashion plates forgotten.

“I wonder why Aunt Daphne kept them. I guess she thought I might want them when I grew up. There are no envelopes.”

“No return address, either,” Mandy remarked, taking out one of the letters.

“What an unusual little box. I've never seen one like it before. The lacquer's not quite smooth, rather grainy. The lid's a bit crooked. It's obviously handmade, like the doll was. He must have made it himself.”

“What are we waiting for, luv? Let's
read
them!”

Mandy clearly expected the letters to reveal a great deal about my father. She was doomed to disappointment. We sat down on the old sofa with the box between us. It didn't take us long to read them. There weren't more than twenty or so. Short, ungrammatical, they were filled with platitudes, a father telling his daughter how to conduct herself, inquiring about her schoolwork, her health, and so on. There were no personal references, no references to his work, nor did he ever mention Australia. Duller, less-revealing letters would be hard to imagine. Legs propped under her, elbow leaning on the arm of the sofa, Mandy frowned.

“Are you
sure
he was in Australia?”

“Positive. I—I think it was Sydney.”

“Strange he never mentioned it. Strange, too, that none of them has a return address, just the date each letter was written. If we had the envelopes there would be postmarks, but they're missing. Doesn't it strike you as odd, Lynn?”

“Not particularly.”

“These letters could have been mailed from anywhere. It's almost as though he were trying to hide something.”

“Nonsense. Letter writing doesn't come naturally to some people. He obviously found it difficult to express himself—that's why there are so many platitudes. You must bear in mind, too, that he was writing to a child. I find nothing at all mysterious about them. They're simply dull.”