My One True Love

by Deborah Small

  Miss Alma bustled away, and Mrs. Sweeney caught Joe’s eye. He narrowed his at Barrister.

  It took another tense few seconds before Barrister finally offered the flicker of reluctant acquiescence Joe sought.

  Joe retracted his hand and stepped back, and without looking away from Barrister, who set about tugging his jacket into place and adjusting his tie all the while offering Joe a look that promised him today’s skirmish wasn’t the last, Joe said, “Miss Lisette, take Maisie home and see she’s fed. I’ll be having lunch here, with Mrs. Sweeney and her unexpected guests.”

  BARRISTER’S RESEMBLANCE to George was less conspicuous once he was seen next to his mother. He was a male replica of Esther Sweeney-Griffiths.

  Their slightly bulbous noses, thin, angry mouths, and pale, near-ashen skin left no doubt in Margaret’s mind about their familial link. She had to wonder what of his father’s influence Barrister Griffiths possessed other than his first and last name, because even his mendacious personality was a perfect mirror to his mother’s.

  The only contrast between them seemed to be physical size. Esther Sweeney-Griffiths was nothing short of a giantess. Broad-shouldered with hands half again as wide as her son’s, she tried—and failed—to look dainty lifting her glass of tea to her mouth. Her only blessing in the looks department was that her pronounced forehead was the result not of hair loss, like that her son suffered, but of her unfortunate decision to draw every last strand of her grey-streaked blonde hair into a tight knot affixed to the back of her skull by aid of what Margaret could only surmise was an army of hairpins. The jet comb securing her short mourning veil was as fixed as a crucifix nailed to a wall. Her dark-haired, blue-eyed daughters must have therefore taken after their father, whom Margaret decided must have been—based on the girls’ impersonation of seated statuettes—as retiring and deferential as Esther Sweeney-Griffiths was brash and demanding.

  As though to validate Margaret’s thought, Esther Sweeney-Griffiths lowered her glass and glowered at her daughters. “Those sandwiches aren’t going to eat themselves.”

  In perfect unison, the girls reached for the white bread, mayonnaise, and cucumber triangle on the plate before them, obediently nipped off a corner, and returned each sandwich to its respective platter before tucking hands back out of sight below the tabletop. Their jaws moved in synchronised, slow rhythm, each girl looking across the table at...Not their mother. Their gazes, though in Esther Sweeney-Griffiths’s general direction, were too distant. It was as if they each saw the same thing but in a different realm. It was odd. And not a little unnerving.

  Margaret turned her gaze to the bowl in front of her as she dredged up the remains of the seafood chowder with her spoon.

  Ushered out of the four-up in the drive by a groom at Mrs. Sweeney-Griffiths’s signal, the seventeen-year-old identical twins, Misses Orva and Odelia Griffiths, had approached the manse with the trepidation of young women being summoned to the executioner’s block. They’d paused at the base of the front steps, protected from the rain by the broad umbrella the Griffiths’s groom held over their bonneted heads, while Miss Lisette escorted Maisie down and past them into the rain, and only resumed their snail’s-pace advance when their mother barked at them to quit dawdling and get themselves inside for luncheon.

  On the surface, they seemed nothing like their caustic brother and mother except for a tendency to sniff every minute or so as though trying to source an unfamiliar odour. Or unblock their nasal passages. But looks were no promise of potential, so she would reserve judgement for now.

  Doing her best to ignore the discordant adenoidal symphony around her, Margaret slid her spoon into the empty soup bowl and looked at her guests.

  “Would anyone like more soup or sandwiches, or are we ready for dessert?”

  Mr. Banner was the only one who met her gaze. “Just coffee, thank you.”

  Barrister Griffiths, who’d claimed the seat at the far end of the table facing the entrance to the room, tossed his napkin into his soup bowl with a grunt and pulled a cigar and lighter out from a pocket of his waistcoat. He flipped the top up and struck the flint with his thumb.

  “If you don’t mind, Mr. Griffiths,” Margaret said. “I’d rather you didn’t. I find the smoke irritates my sinuses.”

  He held her gaze a moment, the flame wavering a finger-width from the cigar clenched in his teeth. With a faint hardening of his expression, he flipped the lighter closed, plucked the cigar from his mouth, and returned the lighter and cigar to his waistcoat. He pulled a gold toothpick out from a different pocket and set to work on his equine-like teeth. His sisters continued to chew.

  Esther Sweeney-Griffiths dragged her napkin from her lap to dab the corners of her down-turned mouth. “Dessert sounds good to me,” she said. “And tea. How about you, Barrister, darling?”

  Barrister grunted again, but this time he looked at Margaret. “I like my dessert whiskey-flavoured.”

  “Of course.” Margaret summoned a smile. “Mr. Banner, would you do the honour?”

  Mr. Banner pushed back his chair.

  “Two glasses if you would, Mr. Banner.” Margaret looked to the end of the table. “Do you prefer it neat or on the rocks?”

  Barrister’s eyes fluttered, but he recovered quickly. “On the rocks.”

  “I’ll take mine neat, Mr. Banner.”

  This time it was Mr. Banner’s eyelids that quivered briefly to expose his surprise. But like Margaret’s unwelcome lunch guest, he swiftly adopted a neutral expression as he nodded and faced the credenza.

  “And you ladies?” Margaret offered Odelia and Orva a smile. “Do you prefer coffee, tea, or something stronger?”

  They stopped chewing and glanced at each other, then at her, as if she’d offered them each a pint of pig’s blood.

  “My girls know better than to allow a drop of the Devil’s poison to touch their lips.” Esther Sweeney-Griffiths pursed her mouth. “They’ll have tea.”

  Margaret looked to Mr. Rufus, who waited patiently with Miss Alma near the entry door.

  For the next minute, the only sound in the room was the steady hum of rain on the conservatory’s glass roof and the quiet clink and chink of carefully stacked china and cutlery. Mr. Banner, in hand of two tumblers two fingers’ full of whisky, one with ice and one without, remained near the credenza until Mr. Rufus and Miss Alma filed out, taking with them the dirty dishware and Margaret’s quiet request to return with coffee, tea, and dessert.

  When they were gone, Mr. Banner brought Margaret her drink, his fingers brushing hers in the transfer as their eyes met. Need swelled within her, so strong and hot, it temporarily impaired her ability to react. It wasn’t until he moved away that she was able to drag her gaze to the glass in her hand.

  Gulping a reinforcing mouthful, she swallowed, and fought the nonsensical urge to tear up as the whisky raced through her limbs.

  It was normal, her sudden desire to be touched, held. A normal reaction to an abnormal situation. Even men sought succour when circumstances overwhelmed them, and that was what Mr. Banner had offered her with his gaze and perhaps not-so-accidental touch: condolence. Support.

  Fealty.

  His look had told her he was here for her and sorry she was being subjected to this appalling luncheon with these vile persons, with the exception of the daughters.

  Permitting herself another, if smaller, mouthful of the spirit, she cast a surreptitious glance along the table.

  The jury was still out on Odelia and Orva Griffiths. She found it impossible to judge books without covers, and to her, that’s what they were.

  Despite the rich lustre of their dark hair and the blue of their eyes that almost perfectly matched the sateen, royal-blue ribbons in their hair, they lacked enough substance to help her paint a picture of who they were as individuals. The only tentative sketch she had so far was that they each found strength in the other, like a pair of matched bricks cemented together through the mortar of their singular birth and upbrin
ging—a life, she suspected, that was only slightly better than the descent into hell their mother purported to protect them from by denying them a single sip of the Devil’s drink.

  Mr. Banner plunked Barrister’s poison on the table in front of him and retook his seat on Barrister Griffith’s immediate right, something that had not escaped Margaret’s notice from the moment they had all entered the room. It heightened her appreciation of Mr. Banner’s instincts.

  Barrister Griffiths was right-hand dominant; Mr. Banner was left-hand dominate. His purposeful placement of himself on Barrister’s right was strategic, ensuring matched speed and strength should George’s nasty excuse for a nephew make any attempt to revive his earlier violent intention. That was the crux of this whole disaster and forced farce of a luncheon, wasn’t it?

  Barrister was watching her, perhaps thinking the same thing; the time for delay was over. His mother’s frequent frowns in his direction indicated she too was anxious to get on with things, and she expected him to crack the whip. And that told Margaret more than she expected Esther Sweeney-Griffiths wanted her to know.

  Gripping the crystal tumbler containing her preferred poison and using it to anchor herself to the table, she inhaled, and aimed a smile at the instigator of this embarrassing charade.

  “Tell me, Esther,” she said amiably. “What do you hope to gain from your visit today?”

  Chapter 9

  Whose Inheritance?

  THERE WAS A MOMENT of stunned silence, and then Barrister and Esther erupted in synchronised shock.

  “You’ll direct your queries to me—”

  “Me? It’s Barrister who’s been wronged—”

  Joe somehow managed not to smile as mother and son floundered to recover from Mrs. Sweeney’s sweetly delivered—and deadly accurate—summation of the situation.

  Barrister Griffiths was a bully. Arrogant, greedy, entitled. But he’d not been born that way. Like Maisie or any child, Barrister had been born soft and malleable. His mother had moulded him in her likeness, with the exception of their public façades.

  As evidenced by his barging in earlier, gun in hand, Barrister had no qualms about demanding what he believed to be his, rightfully or not. Esther Griffiths, in contrast, was a sly manipulator who preferred pulling the strings from behind a curtain.

  “It was my idea to come here, today,” Barrister insisted, leaning forward in his chair, eyes narrowed and cheeks blanched with fury. “I wanted to see the trollop who bewitched my uncle and stole my inheritance.”

  Esther Griffiths straightened in her chair and shot a “so there” look at Mrs. Sweeney. It took all Joe’s reserves not to stand and order them both back to the rat hole they’d crawled out of.

  It wasn’t his place to tell them to get out. It was Mrs. Sweeney’s. And she didn’t glance at him or offer any sort of visual or verbal authorisation to act on his impulse. Chin up, expression as smooth and indecipherable as unmarked vellum, she held Barrister’s accusatory gaze as though waiting for the echo of his petulant words to fade. Esther, for once, seemed to have lost her voice, though Joe felt indignation radiating from her, little pulses of angry heat bouncing off his right shoulder.

  The twins, also for the first time, displayed some animation, their lips parted as they stared, hard, at something on the wall behind Joe and their mother.

  Joe had a sense they’d prefer to be absorbed by the flower-print cushions on their wicker chairs than be party to the silent struggle for control playing out at either end of the table, but as far as he was concerned, it was good for them. Good for them to witness someone—a woman, no less—standing up to their mother and brother, something Joe was confident they had rarely, if ever, experienced. Their father certainly hadn’t provided any opposition to his wife and son’s spiteful natures.

  A lean and good-natured young man when he’d met Esther, Barrister Sr. had evolved into a morose, reclusive, and obese shadow of his former self over the next quarter century as he attempted to blind and deafen himself to his wife’s—and then son’s—cruelty with a damning combination of food and dark rum. Joe was convinced Barrister Sr. had never been happier in his marriage to Esther than on the day his beleaguered heart gave out and he was set free of her—and his son’s—Machiavellian machinations.

  “Your inheritance?” Mrs. Sweeney’s voice was calm, void of sarcasm. “How might you justify that assertion? You’re my husband’s nephew, not his son.”

  “I’m his blood kin.” Barrister started to stand, and Joe clamped a hand on his wrist.

  “Mrs. Sweeney is doing you a favour, entertaining your nonsense,” he said, edging his tone with enough quiet menace to earn a fearful glance from Barrister. “So kindly stay seated if you want her to hear you out. Otherwise, I’ll escort you and your mother out.”

  Barrister sank back into his chair and Joe released his hold. Once freed, Barrister jerked his hand close to his body and his gaze to Mrs. Sweeney. Drawing an audible breath through his nose, he said, “Sugar Hill is a Sweeney legacy. A blood legacy. It belongs to the Sweeneys.”

  Mrs. Sweeney raised her delicate eyebrows. “Your last name is Griffiths, is it not?”

  “I’m a Sweeney.” Esther Sweeney-Griffiths glowered. “And I will always be a Sweeney, which makes my son a Sweeney. I was born and raised here, in this very house, and my son deserves to raise his family here. My grandchildren deserve to be born and raised here.”

  What she really meant was that she thought she deserved to come back and live here, despite Barrister Sr.’s will, which had granted her a lifetime annuity and a plot of land and secondary house within the larger Griffiths family estate willed to Barrister Jr.

  Joe smoothed his hands on his trouser legs to keep from wrapping them around Esther Sweeney Griffiths’s throat as George’s lament—shared with him the day Cyril Sweeney’s will was read—echoed in his memory: Esther’s always resented not being born male. She believes by virtue of being firstborn she’s entitled to Sugar Hill, but my father’s will stipulates that I’m to be saddled with it—and with Esther’s lifelong vindictiveness. What she doesn’t know, Joe, is that if she were a different person, a kinder, more honest person, I’d happily sign Sugar Hill over to her. But knowing who she really is, I can’t. In good conscience, I cannot inflict her on the people that live and work here. I cannot.”

  “It must be very difficult for you,” Margaret Sweeney said to Esther, “raising three children alone. How long have you been widowed?”

  Esther blinked and closed her mouth. Margaret Sweeney returned Esther’s suspicious scowl with gentle interest.

  Esther sniffed and darted hard looks at each of her children before huffing an aggrieved sigh as she looked back at Mrs. Sweeney. “Eighteen months,” she moaned. “And it is difficult. You’ve no idea what it’s like raising such ungrateful wretches, always wanting more. They’re never happy.”

  Misses Odelia and Orva offered no outward reaction, though a stippling of pink colour bleeding into their cheeks belied their feelings about their mother’s attack on their character. Barrister made no attempt to mask his thoughts and sighed, the exasperated and weary sound of someone who’d heard the same joke told one too many times.

  Esther’s response to her son’s auditory eye roll was an even louder huff. “Not that their good-for-nothing father ever helped with anything, anyway,” she continued. “Always hiding in his study, stuffing his mouth with sweet cakes and drinking the Devil’s poison all day long. The only good thing he ever did for me was die. Now I can raise my head when I go to town and to church, knowing no one’s whispering about my drunkard husband behind my back.” She leaned towards Mrs. Sweeney and lowered her voice. “I don’t have to ask him for money anymore, either. I’ve enough to buy what I want, when I want, and I don’t have to suffer his muttering about waste.” She straightened. “I don’t consider finer things waste. It’s important to keep up appearances when you have three children to marry off. Like attracts like, you know.”

  M
rs. Sweeney offered a gentle smile. “I admire your commitment to your children’s care, as I admire your husband’s commitment to your care upon his passing, as no doubt do you.”

  Esther hesitated, and then scowled. “If you’re implying that my son does not deserve Sugar Hill—”

  “I’m not implying anything.” There was no gentle or polite interest in Mrs. Sweeney’s demeanour now, only cool assurance. “I’m saying that my husband provided for me as your husband provided for you, and I can almost guarantee that you would not willingly give up, to anyone, not even your children, what your husband wanted you to have. Likewise, I will not relinquish what George wanted me to have. If he’d wanted your son to have Sugar Hill, he would have willed it to him. He did not. He willed it to me. He entrusted Sugar Hill to me, and I intend to honour his memory, and his gift, by taking the best care of it I possibly can.”

  “It’s not yours to take care of!” Barrister exploded from his chair, a spoon clutched in his fist.

  Joe bolted up and closed his hand around Barrister’s wrist before he could fling the utensil. Squeezing, he twisted, forcing a cry from Barrister as he crouched and angled in an attempt to follow his arm.

  “Let go, you bastard,” Barrister snarled.

  “Not until you apologise to Mrs. Sweeney,” Joe snarled,

  “and everyone else at this table for your poor manners.”

  “I will not—ah!” Barrister hit his knees. “Stop. I beg you, stop. You’re going to break my arm.”

  Joe didn’t add more pressure, nor did he ease up. “Apologise.”

  “Let go of my son—”

  “Sit down.” Margaret Sweeney’s voice scythed through Barrister’s whimpers and Esther’s outrage with the force of a honed broadsword. Joe heard Esther’s chair thunk as she reacted with the obedience he knew Barrister Sr. had not lived to see. “Mr. Banner,” Mrs. Sweeney added, her tone perfunctory, “if you would so kindly release my late husband’s nephew from what must be a rather excruciating position and help him into his coat and to the front door, I will guide his mother and sisters on their way.”