Missouri Magic

by Charlotte Hubbard

  Her hazel eyes sparkling, Katherine looked at her niece fondly. “You’ve gotten her goat, dear. You’ve upset her blessed routine by coming here, and Justine doesn’t function well unless everything’s in its proper place at the correct time. I’ll tell you why she really does the marketing, but you must swear you’ll never breathe a word about it. She’ll kick us both out.”

  Celesta’s eyes widened. Surely penny-pinching and peevishness motivated her spinster aunt more than any gossipy secrets, yet all she knew about Justine she’d heard during Katherine’s visits and her mother’s childhood recollections. Justine had never once come to see them at the Perkins home, and mostly looked down her nose at them during the family funerals that had brought them together through the years.

  Katherine chortled, and in a conspiratorial voice she said, “Justine will tell you she takes these morning walks for her health—which she does—and that she prefers to shop because she thinks I do poorly at it. But woe unto the person who tries to unpack her basket when she returns.”

  “Why?” she asked, intrigued by this little mystery.

  “Because her first stop is the tobacco shop, and then she buys a dime novel or two, and the groceries go on top, to hide her little habits. Sundays, when the shops are closed, can be particularly trying if she doesn’t stock up enough on the day before.”

  Celesta’s mouth dropped open. “Justine smokes?”

  “Like a locomotive. Rolls her first cigarette on the way home—which is why she shops early,” the little woman twittered, “and she puffs during the day as she cleans the upstairs—which is why she cleans there, you see. And each evening after dinner she retires to her room, opens her window, and inhales one cigarette after another while she sits glued to some pulpy-paged western.”

  The thought of her extremely proper aunt being riveted by tales of Buffalo Bill or Calamity Jane, a cigarette dangling from her lips, was more than she could fathom. Celesta looked closely at Katherine, wondering if her imagination was working overtime. “And how do you know this?” she asked slyly.

  “Know?” Katherine exclaimed. “Why do you think binoculars and keyholes were invented, child?”

  Celesta laughed out loud, because she had no trouble at all envisioning this little woman spying on her sister-in-law. After the strain of the past few days, it felt wonderful to lose herself in such a tantalizing joke at Justine’s expense. She grasped Katherine’s fragile hand, both of them still giggling, and almost revealed a secret about herself that this aunt would find amazing and amusing.

  But it was too soon. The writing Celesta did was a personal success she’d shared only with Mama, an outlet for her adventurous fantasies that could now occupy her empty moments and supply a small income she might need someday.

  She squeezed her aunt’s hand fondly. “Far be it from me to upset Justine’s routine, then,” she said lightly. “What can I do for you while I’m here? Perhaps staying out of her way and keeping you company can be my particular talent.”

  Katherine’s eyes misted over, and the network of tiny lines around her eyes rose with her soft smile. “That would be lovely, dear. After I clear the table I usually see to the gardens, in the cool of the morning. It gets me out of this musty old house and gives Justine a chance to whisk her little habits up to her room when she returns.”

  Celesta smiled at the woman’s sense of human nature and wondered how she’d tolerated her sister-in-law’s domineering ways in the year since Ambrose drowned. She supposed it was a skill she, too, should hone, since her status as an outsider put her at the mercy of whomever she lived with.

  When she stepped out into the garden, however, her gloomy thoughts dissipated like the dew that glistened in the rainbow of blossoms before her. The small stone courtyard was edged with impatiens that burst forth in orchids, pinks, and oranges, set off by the deep green foliage of red geraniums and ivy that climbed the fortress-like wall of the house. A stone path, lined on both sides with yellow-orange marigolds, led to a white latticework gazebo perched on the edge of the lawn, overlooking the wooded cliffs that tumbled down to the river.

  At that moment the sun peeked out from behind a cloud, lending the whole panorama a sparkle that took Celesta’s breath away. She knew immediately that this was where Katherine found sanctuary from an overbearing relative, where she sought solace for the loss of her beloved Ambrose and now for Rachel.

  Her aunt came out the door tying a floppy-brimmed bonnet beneath her chin, smiling with cherubic glee. “Isn’t this a morning?” she chirped, clasping her hands as she gazed eagerly at her flowers. “Let’s see to the vegetables first. There should be enough green beans for our dinner, and plenty of onions and radishes. The lettuce has probably run amuck since I last cut any.”

  Celesta followed her around the corner of the imposing stone mansion, through a break in the honeysuckle hedge. Here, in a large, sunny clearing, lay the most perfectly manicured garden she’d ever seen. Along the far edge stood rows of sweet corn, staked tomato plants tied with calico strips, and potatoes just starting to bloom. Leafy bean plants rippled in the breeze, flanked by onion tops standing at attention and the lighter, brighter ruffles of lettuce and radishes. Not a single weed dared invade the rows or the hoed strips of brown earth between them!

  “This is truly your calling, Aunt,” she murmured. “Eula’s flowers pale beside yours, and she buys her produce uptown rather than dirtying her clothes with digging.”

  Katherine’s face lit up with pride as she handed her a flour sack she’d brought from the house. “Plants make marvelous companions, Celesta. They keep me busy, they put food on our table . . . and they refuse to produce for your aunt Justine,” she added smugly.

  She leaned over, gently lifting the nearest heart-shaped leaves, and gasped. “My word, would you look at these beans! We’ll have a big potful to eat and enough to put up several jars for winter. We’d best get busy!”

  The two of them hunkered over and picked in companionable silence for several minutes, dropping handfuls of firm, slender beans into their cloth sacks. With the sunshine soaking through her cotton blouse and the garden’s earthy perfume rising around her, Celesta felt alive again, aware of colors and textures and senses that had been dulled by the shock of her mother’s sudden death. It felt good to sweat. Her rapidly filling sack made the ache in her back and shoulders worth the effort.

  Beside her, Katherine sighed and kept on plucking beans. “You know, it puzzles me a little, your mother’s passing does. She looked fine that morning, when I stopped for a moment on my way home from sewing circle.”

  “She was in a wonderful mood: we enjoyed our mornings when Eula went to her charity meetings and Patrick was at his office. We’d done the laundry and hung it out, and we were beating rugs when one of her headaches started,” Celesta replied quietly.

  “Bright sunlight and the heat affected her that way.”

  “It’s too early to be this warm,” Katherine agreed dolefully.

  “And when she asked me to bring her usual tea and toast upstairs, we assumed she’d be recovered in time to cook supper.” She cleared the thickness from her throat, concentrating on the blurring beans so that she wouldn’t go crazy from remembering what happened next. “You know how she heaped sugar into her tea?”

  “I like my tea like I like my men—strong and sweet,” her aunt mimicked, just as Mama had said it hundreds of times over the years.

  “Yet she complained it tasted bitter. Had no more uttered the words than she went into convulsions.” Celesta swallowed hard, blinded by tears that plopped onto the plants beneath her. “I didn’t know what to do. And I didn’t dare leave Mama alone.”

  “You poor dear, I didn’t mean to upset you all over again,” her aunt crooned, and then she reached over to embrace Celesta. They straightened up, hugging each other until their sniffles subsided. “She was so pink and pretty in her casket, it seemed impossible that she could be gone. Rachel used to blush that way when your father would whisper
in her ear.”

  With a hasty knuckling of her eyes, Celesta resumed her picking. The garden was in full sun, and the dew was turning to steam already—not a day frail aunts should spend toiling in the heat. After she composed herself, she took up the thread of Katherine’s conversation. “What was he like, my father? Mama never said much about him.”

  “There weren’t words to describe the way he tore her heart out when he left.” She heaved her bulging sack farther down the row and kept on picking. “Ian Montgomery came on like a race horse, fast and flashy. Your mother was the envy of every girl in Hannibal when he married her after a whirlwind, high-society courtship. Your grandfather saw through him from the first; but he could never deny Rachel whatever her heart desired, so he went along with the marriage. Eleven months later you were here and Ian was gone. Vanished from the face of the earth, so it seemed.”

  “Was he handsome?”

  “Heart-stoppingly so.” A grin twitched on her aunt’s lips. “Justine was green with envy—Ian was old enough to be her beau instead of her little sister’s, you see. And she was quick to cry ‘I told you so’ when he left, which was all the reason your mother needed never to return home again. It broke your grandfather’s heart, knowing his favorite, Rachel, lived clear across town with his only grandchild, but he understood her stubborn pride. She got it from him.”

  Celesta smiled to herself. The one thing no one could take from Mama was her pride, and it was a small comfort that even in death Rachel Ransom Montgomery’s face radiated a serene confidence, as though she knew the solution everyone sought and refused to reveal it...as though she knew someone had killed her and was plotting her revenge.

  The thought startled Celesta, and she stood up too quickly. Who could’ve possibly wanted Mama dead? And why? Something about that cup of tea—

  “Are you all right, child? You’re as pale as your flour sack.”

  Celesta blinked, forcing a smile. “I—I’m fine. Really.”

  “We’ll be done here in a few minutes,” Katherine answered as though she didn’t completely believe her. “We’ll cut some lettuce and put it in the ice box, and then we’ll sit out in the gazebo to snap these beans. Always a breeze out there, and always shade.”

  She chattered on, and Celesta pretended to listen. Her thoughts were galloping, spurred by the sudden revelation that her mother had been yanked into the hereafter by a hand other than God’s. But this wasn’t the time to lose herself in wild conjecture. Aunt Katherine was hugging her overstuffed bag, trying to lift it without spilling any beans, and it was no job for a lady her size.

  “Let me carry these while you cut the lettuce,” Celesta said, quickly hefting the bulging sack from Katherine’s arms. “And I’ll get us some lemonade to sip while we’re snapping. Justine’ll come home and think we’ve done nothing all morning, we’ll be so cool and refreshed. The idle rich, you know.”

  A single bead of sweat trickled from each of her aunt’s silvering temples, yet the woman’s laughter tinkled like a bell. “You were never short on imagination, dear! Let’s hope your aunt appreciates your humor as much as I do.”

  Celesta scowled. “I—I do tend to fly off at the mouth sometimes, and I hope I don’t offend—”

  “Nonsense!” Katherine wiped her forehead with a dainty brush of her fingers, streaking it with dirt. “We need your sunshine and your smiles, Celesta. I never got to see you as much as I would’ve liked—didn’t want to interfere, or cause trouble for Rachel with Eula Perkins. But I always thought of you as the daughter I could never have. You belong here in your grandfather’s house whether Justine thinks so or not. You were his pride and joy to his dying day, the legacy of his heart and soul and irrepressible wit. Which is the very reason she resents you.”

  It was a lot to think about, being a flesh and blood legacy. A responsibility . . . one more subtle way Aunt Katherine had of manipulating her into staying on here at the manor. Celesta smiled to herself as she carried the sack of beans into the shaded gazebo. For all her romantic notions and apparent fragility, Katherine Ransom was every bit as brazen as Justine when it came to getting what she wanted—she just went after her flies with honey instead of a fly swatter. It was a tactic she recognized easily after serving in the Perkins household all her life, because her endearing aunt and Eula were ladies cut from the same bolt of silk.

  And would it be so terrible, returning to the home her mother had denied her? Celesta looked around and could only wonder. The white latticework formed a bower shaded by towering oaks and sweet gums, framed by ferny-leafed mimosa trees with feathery pink blossoms. Roses climbed the sunnier side of the gazebo, in deep shades of cerise, and around the structure’s base caladiums danced in the breeze, their showy foliage reminding her of summer-bright watermelon slices. And of course, there was the Mississippi flowing below, the never-changing yet ever-fascinating lifeblood of Hannibal, Missouri.

  And as she sat down in the white wooden swing, she felt the gazebo’s peacefulness seeping into her. It was a serenity born not of her own need but of generations who must’ve sat here in seclusion, making the swing creak as their thoughts clarified, hearing the wind sift through the leaves while the water lapped at the shoreline far below. She wanted a life of her own . . . felt obligated to comfort her aunt by staying, yet realized Justine would challenge her presence at every turn . . . yearned to make a name for herself on the newsstands . . . desperately needed to know who killed her mother and why.

  “So you’ve discovered my hideaway.” Katherine eased onto the swing beside her, handing her the damp, cold glass of lemonade she’d forgotten to pour. “Many’s the hour I’ve spent here, watching for your uncle Ambrose to return home. The Phantom docked just around the bend, you know. How he despised that name, but it was another of your grandfather’s macabre little jokes.”

  “Like saying he’d return to haunt the house after he died?”

  “Only the ballroom alcove. Your grandmother, rest her soul, accused him of hiding a jug up there,” Katherine recounted fondly, “but in truth, it was their . . . rendezvous. Ambrose Senior was a vital, affectionate man, and I imagine he felt a bit ... frustrated after his son and I took over the suite adjoining their bedroom, as newlyweds, with his unmarried daughter in the room on the other side of them.”

  Celesta chuckled at her aunt’s delicate phrasing. “They had a love nest? I remember him as a tall, rather forbidding man with dark hair and eyes—”

  “Powerful eyes,” her aunt whispered.

  “—whom people considered a bit odd because he supposedly communed with the spirit world.”

  Katherine chuckled and sipped her drink. “He staged a séance once, as Halloween party entertainment, and he never lived it down. Loved the notoriety, actually. But your grandfather was a passionate, caring man, deeply in love with Martha, and when she died he lost his very soul. All that remained was this house full of memories, with a sharp-tongued daughter who’d never left the nest and a wild rose who refused to return to it, and a son who never quite measured up. You thought him forbidding, from your little-girl viewpoint, but I think he was just large and lonely and . . . disappointed, after his Martha died.”

  The words rang with tenderness, and as Katherine gazed out over the river with a faraway look on her face there was another question Celesta felt pressed to ask. “Do ... do you think Uncle Ambrose drowned when the Phantom went down, or could he have been hit over the head by wreckage and lost his memory?”

  “My Ambrose is dead and buried somewhere beneath the Mississippi, child,” she replied. Her steady hazel eyes reflected the conviction that vibrated in her voice as she gazed at Celesta. “His captain, Bill Thompkins, confirmed it when he brought me his personal effects, but I sensed even before Bill arrived that something fatal had befallen my husband.”

  Katherine stroked the slatted swing seat between them, her face alight with love. “This gazebo was our place, Celesta, and no matter what his father thought of him, Ambrose Ransom, Junior, wa
s a devoted husband with a lust for life and for ... well, for me. Had he survived, he would’ve found a way to let me know. It gives me great comfort to come here of an evening and think of him . .. and at times his spirit is with me, you know?”

  Celesta nodded, her eyes filling with tearful comprehension. “So when Justine implies that he disappeared rather than—”

  “Justine thinks men are rather worthless, on the whole,” Katherine stated lightly. She reached for a handful of green beans and began to break them into a large stock pot, punctuating her opinions with their steady, crisp snapping. “Which is precisely why men have never taken to her. But I know an infinitely more interesting topic than your maiden aunt to gossip about. Don’t you, dear?”

  Katherine’s sly smile made her look almost girlish as she coyly avoided Celesta’s questioning glance. Joining in her mental cat-and-mouse, Celesta reached down for a handful of beans herself. Only after she’d popped several into pieces did she end the delicious, quivering silence between them. “Who, then? Eula?”

  “Bah! Enough about withered old women.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Patrick?”

  “Old news! Your mother always thought he was cute, but I find him rather full of himself, don’t you?”

  Celesta’s laughter rang out over the cliff. Leave it to her astute aunt to puncture a man’s reputation with the prick of one remark!

  “You can’t tell me you’ve forgotten him, dear. My Lord, I thought your veil was going to catch fire when he lifted it.”

  Celesta’s mouth snapped shut so fast she almost bit her tongue, abruptly silencing her merriment. And even as the telltale color tinged her cheeks, Celesta peppered her denial with indignation. “Mr. Frye’s gesture was highly inappropriate—”

  “Which was exactly what we all needed!” Aunt Katherine exclaimed. “Eula and I were carrying on over an old wives’ tale, and Patrick was ready to smother you and—”