“If you mean about Stacy, you might want to wait until I’m sure that the photograph is of him; I’m trying to withhold judgment until I see what the Department of State has,” Poppy said, edging around a large van pulled by two huge Belgian Draft horses. The onside horse turned toward Poppy’s Hudson and tossed his head, snorting. “I guess he doesn’t approve of autos,” said Poppy.
“Or he might be bored,” Holte said. “Many of the horses pulling caissons in the Great War grew restive if they had to stand for a long time, or were kept working past their usual hours.”
“Most horses are like that,” Poppy said, and sped up again, moving into the flow of traffic. “Have you seen N. N. N. Blessing recently?”
“Not for a few days. I’d just as soon give him a little time to get the feel of the investigation before I go to speak with him. He’s just getting settled into the case, and he will need a day or two to decide how to proceed; he should be in Vienna by now, but he’s hardly had time to unpack his duffle. He will have to get whatever information the police have before he makes up his mind about what to do, and how to do it.” He noticed a paper boy on the curb ahead, brandishing copies of the Tribune. “Keep an eye on that lad. He looks excitable.”
“So do most paper boys,” Poppy said, but double-clutched down to second gear, just in case. “What does the headline say?”
Holte eased half-way out the passenger door, and read aloud, “TWO SHIPS MISSING IN POLAR EXPLORATION FEARED LOST There’s a two-column story beneath, but I can’t make out what it says.”
“No need. We’ve been covering the search, Daffydd’s on it.” She pronounced the clever Welshman’s name Daveth, and wondered in passing why he clung to the traditional spelling of it, since almost everyone got it wrong. “The Coast Guard finally confirmed their conclusion. Too bad,” Poppy said, and drove the next mile in silence. After she had passed the Friends Day School, she said, “I wonder how many people go missing in a year? Not only in disasters, but simply vanishing.”
“Quite a number of them,” Holte said. “But no one actually vanishes: everyone is somewhere.”
“Yes, but not everyone else knows it,” said Poppy, slowing down.
“That’s true,” Holte said, recalling the bombed and burned villages he had seen before he died, and the wandering refugees who trudged in the wake of the armies toward what they hoped was safety.
“But do you have any notion how many?” Poppy asked. “Thousands, do you think, or just hundreds?”
“Thousands sounds more accurate; there are a lot of missing people left over from the Great War, and another group of those who are unaccounted for from the Flu. Big emergencies always leave a trail of those whose fates are unknown.”
“And how many of those are dead?” Poppy tapped her horn in warning to a young woman walking a frisky dog along the sidewalk.
“Many are, but not all. Certainly a third of them are still alive,” Holte said. “More living spectres, in a way.”
“Ye gods!” Poppy was so struck by this remark that she almost ran through the next intersection without stopping. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. There are all manner of living spectres, aren’t there? The Armenians aren’t the only ones with a claim on that title; there are countless living spectres, aren’t there? People who have lost connection with their own pasts, and have no means to regain them. In a way, GAD fits the description as well, and so do Stacy, and Derrington, and Louise.”
“True enough,” said Holte, and fell into a reverie that lasted until Poppy pulled up in front of Esther’s house; as Poppy got out of the auto, he shook himself out of his preoccupation, and said, “I’m going to do a little exploring. I’ll be back tonight.”
“Should I expect you at any given time?” Poppy asked as she locked the Hudson’s driver- side door.
“I don’t know. If I’m not back by nine tonight, don’t wait up.” He drifted out through the roof. “Wish me success,” he said as he faded into a smudge of mist.
Poppy watched him go until there was nothing to see; puzzled but unworried, she went up the steps and onto the porch, where she stopped to get out her key, only to have Miss Roth open the door for her.
“Thank goodness you’re back. Come in, come in,” she urged, all but dragging Poppy inside.
“Ye gods!” Poppy exclaimed. “What’s happened?”
Miss Roth flung up her hands. “Judge Stephanson proposed,” she wailed. “Miss Thornton is upset.”
Poppy blinked. “I take it that Aunt Esther refused him?”
“She always does,” Miss Roth said fatalistically.
“Always?” Poppy repeated. “Does this happen often?”
“Once a year for as long as I’ve been here—probably longer,” Miss Roth said as she closed the door and urged Poppy in the direction of the parlor. “It always upsets her. Always. But she never tells him it does.”
Poppy almost tripped in astonishment. “He proposes? Every year?” She was astonished that Aunt Esther had never mentioned it.
“Usually nearer to Thanksgiving, but with Miss Thornton leaving in four weeks or so, he spoke up earlier. Miss Thornton is…a bit—” Without finishing her thought, she knocked on the closed sitting room door. “Miss Thornton? Miss Poppy is here.”
“Have her come in,” Aunt Esther called. “You can leave the door open. You don’t have to shut me up in here.”
Miss Roth pushed the pocket-doors wide and stepped out of Poppy’s way. “Have you had your lunch yet?” she asked Poppy.
“Not yet,” Poppy said, and looked into the sitting room warily, not knowing what she would see. “Aunt Esther?”
Miss Roth leaned near to Poppy. “I’ll have Missus Sassoro get to work on something for you. I’ll bring it in, when it’s ready, and something for Miss Thornton, as well; something hot and nourishing. She’ll need it.” Having said that, she hurried off in the direction of the kitchen.
Poppy lingered in the door. “Aunt Esther?” she repeated, noticing that a half-empty bottle of rum was on the coffee table, and that Esther had a glass in her hand. “What’s wrong Aunt Esther?”
“Come in Poppy.” Esther was sitting on the arm of the settee, her hair slightly disordered, the color in her face high. “Don’t worry; I’m not distracted, only a little drunk. Come in and sit down. Have a bit of the rum, or some cognac. I dislike drinking alone.” She achieved a slightly lopsided smile.
Poppy went to the chair nearest to the settee and put her brief-case down beside it. “Miss Roth told me something about Judge Stephanson…”
“He proposed.” Esther sighed. “Occasionally I think I should accept, just to see what would happen. He’d probably faint.”
“Aunt Esther!” Poppy burst out.
“Well, he probably would, but he would expect me to follow through, which I wouldn’t,” she said, sounding a trifle morose. She regarded her niece through slightly unfocused eyes. “For heaven’s sake, pour yourself a drink Poppy. You’d think you’d never been around anyone a bit into the wind, and I know that’s not true.”
“No, it’s not,” Poppy said as she went to the tray on the cabinet behind the settee; she took out the bottle of cognac and poured herself three fingers in a tulip-glass, reminding herself as she did that she had not eaten since breakfast, and that it would be wise to go slowly; she was about to replace the bottle when Esther interrupted her.
“Bring it over here. I don’t want you jumping up and down every ten minutes,” Esther said, waving Poppy back toward her. “Have a seat and get comfortable.”
“But what’s wrong?” Poppy asked again, and took a small sip of her cognac. “You like Judge Stephanson, don’t you?”
“Yes, I like him. I’m very fond of him,” Esther conceded. “If I were ever going to marry anyone, it would be Benedict Stephanson. But I am not going to marry, not at my advanced age: why should I? I am not in my dotage, and neither is he, but it’s not as if I’m going to need a name for my children. I’m well enough
off not to need his money, and I am high enough in society to be above the usual suspicions. I don’t need his position or his social standing to ensure my place in the world.” She took a swig of rum and went on, “It’s not that he isn’t a worthwhile catch. He’s a good man, no doubt about it.”
“Then why are you so…disquieted?” Poppy was beginning to feel worried about Aunt Esther’s condition; this was a side of her aunt that Poppy had never seen, and it unnerved her. “Haven’t you got used to his proposing?”
“No, I haven’t; I get jumpy when he makes his annual proposal,” said Esther, her words a little too precise for complete sobriety. “You see, I like things the way they are. I enjoy his company; he’s an excellent companion. He has always been kind to me, in his way. I trust him in most matters. He does not condescend when he talks about my work, he does not try to tell me how to conduct myself, and he purports to admire my independence.”
Poppy felt baffled. “Then what do you find distasteful in his proposal?”
Esther wagged a finger in Poppy’s direction. “That he wants marriage. I have no desire to be any man’s legal chattel, and he knows it, but he can’t help himself. He grasps why I say no, but he feels compelled to offer anyway. He wants to protect me, he says, and I suppose he means it, but he doesn’t know what he is asking me to give up for his sake, and money is the least of it.” She finished the rum in her glass and poured some more. “It’s not as if I haven’t explained it to him, time and time again. He has said that he is aware of the disadvantages that marriage imposes on females, and then he tells me that he doesn’t see marriage that way—and of course he wouldn’t. He tells me that he would let me run my own affairs. Let! As if I needed his permission to do so—which I would, if I married him, come to think of it.”
“He’s a judge; he must see the results of marriage in his courtroom from time to time; doesn’t he comprehend that you have made up your mind?” Poppy watched as Aunt Esther started to pace around the sitting room. “Isn’t there some kind of contract you could make, if you accepted him? Something that would grant you more independence than is permitted in most marriages?”
“That’s not what bothers me,” said Esther, taking another sip of her rum.
“Then what is it?” Poppy asked, bewildered.
“I want to maintain my financial autonomy, and in this state, that would not be possible,” she said bluntly.
“Do you mean you wouldn’t retain the proceeds of your work and title to all you own before marriage?” Poppy was shocked at the depth of her feeling, and wondered if she could attribute it to her first sip of cognac.
“Technically—” She stumbled over the word and took another run at it. “Technically, there is a way that includes appointing an executor, which is bad enough during my lifetime, but it could be challenged by his heirs when I die, and in most such cases, the heirs prevail.”
“Does he have heirs?” Poppy asked, dumbfounded; Aunt Esther had never mentioned them before.
“Oh, yes. I thought you knew. He has three children, all grown now and two with families of their own: Victoria, the youngest, lives in Cambridge with her professor husband and four children; Ralph lives in Cleveland—he’s never married; he plays the French horn and teaches music there—and Walter, the oldest, lives in Arizona, for his health; he was gassed in the Great War—he was an officer then; he led his men into mustard gas—his wife and he decided to follow his doctors’ advice and move to a warm, dry climate. They have one child, a son who is presently an officer in the Navy. Benedict’s first wife died twenty-six years ago of a severe case of measles, of all things, which she got from one of the children. Amanda was a very sweet woman—I liked her then, though I doubt I would now: too compliant—who could deal with all the day-to-day aspects of life, which left Ben free to work on his legal career.”
“Then you knew her?” Poppy was nonplused at learning this.
“Yes. I met Ben through Amanda. She was a member of the same discussion group that I was; we talked about world events. They were very popular before the Great War, discussion groups—almost as popular as mummy unwrappings were, shortly after you were born, and for more than a decade after. Discussion groups were more lady-like than sewing bees had become; we were supposed to do more than gossip.”
Poppy took another, larger sip of cognac. “You’re joking, aren’t you? About the mummies?”
“Not at all,” Esther said. “Jo was fascinated by them; she must have tended a dozen unwrappings in the years before war broke out.” She poured a splash more rum into her glass. “You were at the Smithson School for Young Ladies then, I believe, and your mother did not approve of mummy unwrappings as entertainment.”
Mentally unraveling this tangle of information, Poppy asked, “Why would you think that Judge Stephanson’s heirs would not honor their father’s wishes in regard to his estate?”
Esther heaved a prodigious sigh. “Because I’ve seen it before, and I have no wish to spend my waning years tied up in legal wrangles, thank you.” Her ths were becoming more zs.
“You’re assuming you’d outlive him,” Poppy pointed out.
“It’s likely I would. I’m younger than he, and I live more actively than he. Gardening is not the same as exploring, you know.”
“And you’re sure it would come to that?” Poppy asked before Esther could wander down another conversational path. “That the heirs would lay claim to your portion?”
Once again Esther sighed. “If they didn’t, I’d be astounded. I have a fair amount of my own money—not a vast fortune, but I’m more than comfortable, and it would become Ben’s money if we ever married. Unless he made a separate and specific provision in his Will that my funds should be returned to me upon his death, they would be lumped in with his money, and his heirs would have first claim on it.” She took a good swig of her rum, and explained. “I’ve seen it happen many times,” she repeated with intensity, “before a father dies, the children all pledge to accept the terms of the Will, and then, when the parent is no longer about, disputes break out, especially if there is another wife in the picture, a woman not their mother. They wouldn’t have minded if Amanda got all Ben’s money—not that I’d want all of it—but they’d be outraged if I did try to recover my own.”
“But would it have to come to that?” Poppy asked, and was denied an answer when Miss Roth appeared in the door with a tray in her hands.
“Italian soup and toasted cheese sandwiches. Missus Sassoro says she’ll push dinner back an hour—you can come into the parlor at seven instead of six, and dinner will be served at eight—so you will have an appetite for the meal. It will be lamb chops and sautéed rhubarb with a side-dish of steamed cauliflower with butter and cheese.” She came into the sitting room and put the tray down on the coffee table, next to the bottle of rum. “The coffee is hot, there’s cream and sugar.” She pointed them out.
“Thank you Miss Roth,” said Aunt Esther with owlish formality. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
“You might want to have a lie-down after you finish up here,” Miss Roth hinted broadly. “Should I go in and close the draperies in your bedroom so you can rest this afternoon? I’ll tell anyone who phones that you’re not available.”
Esther rolled her eyes. “If you think I’m that far gone, you might as well.” She came back to the settee and plunked herself down on it. “There. Are you satisfied?”
“For now,” said Miss Roth, and left aunt and niece alone.
“Where were we?” Esther asked Poppy, who was pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“You were telling me about inheritance battles,” Poppy said as she used the tongs to pick up one cube of sugar from the bowl on the tray.
“Yes, I was, wasn’t I?” Esther eyed the sandwiches with misgiving. “The soup smells very good, but I’m not so sure about these cheese sandwiches.”
“Ye gods, why not?”
“Because it smells as if she’s toasted them in margarine, not butter,” Esthe
r said bluntly. “I can’t bear the taste of margarine. Dreadful stuff. Might as well use lard instead.”
Poppy could tell that Aunt Esther was about to go off down another conversational rabbit hole, and decided to stop her. “Which of Judge Stephanson’s heirs would you expect to attempt to break their father’s will?”
“I don’t know,” said Esther. “But once we married—if we married—control of my money and property would pass into Ben’s hands, and would end up part of what they fought over; I have my own heirs to think about.”
After adding the usual dollop of cream to her coffee, Poppy remarked, “And who might they be? Since you haven’t any children.”
“I have you, for one, and Hank. And Linus, Bethany, Jacob, Estelle, Francis, and Bertram, not that I feel any obligation to Regis’ children—they’re all well established, and like Regis, they disapprove of the way I live my life.” She steadied herself as she reached to pour more rum into her glass. “I don’t feel any sense of family obligation to them, nor they to me. You and Hank are another matter.”
At the mention of her oldest uncle’s children—all of whom were more than a decade older than she—Poppy blanched, and said the first thing that came to mind. “Just Hank and me, not Stacy?”
“Good Lord, no! Not Stacy. Never.” Esther drank more rum. “No. Not Stacy,” she repeated for good measure, and drank down the last of the rum in her glass before pouring out another three-fingers’-worth into it.
Poppy took this all in. “If you’re telling Judge Stephanson no because of Hank and me, I wish you wouldn’t. I can manage very well on what my father left me, and I plan to work as long as some paper will hire me. I’m doing well financially; I’ve been investing most of my annual allotment of inheritance, and depositing a quarter of it in a small but very reliable local bank; I try to live within my salary in most things. What you charge me to live here is a pittance, so if providing me and Hank an inheritance is all that’s holding you back, Aunt Esther, don’t—”
“Of course it’s not all,” said Esther abruptly. “I enjoy my way of life, and, fond as I am of him, Ben would want me to curtail my exploring. He’s been telling me for the last three years that a woman of my age shouldn’t go about on her own, visiting remote places populated by what he calls unscrupulous natives. As if the civilized world is any better when it comes to a lack of scruples. Look at the level of corruption in this city. What native in New Guinea can aspire to that?” She set down her glass and reached for the soup spoon on her side of the tray. “I suppose I’d better get into this; Miss Roth will hector me if I don’t. She doesn’t approve of my being drunk.”
Living Spectres: a Chesterton Holte, Gentleman Haunt Mystery Page 39