Beloved

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Before long she was hooked on the houses themselves. She became quite shameless, hopping up and down the brick sidewalks when the windows were too high to see into, pausing on every incline to see what she could see. From the pediments outside to the curved staircases inside, she couldn't get enough of the antique homes. By rights she should have been arrested for peeping. But she convinced herself that the owners understood that the historic treasures they lived in belonged, in some small way, to every American.

  The more she prowled, the more Jane saw that somehow Nantucket Town had been spared the ravages of modernization. There were no ugly apartment boxes; no factories; no malls; no office blocks. The town was wonderfully consistent, with its lane after lane of eighteenth and early nineteenth century houses. The saltboxes, Federals, Greek Revivals — even the whimsical Queen Annes, with their turrets and towers and verandas — she loved every house without reservation.

  And she loved the ghosts that went with them. In every foggy, lamplit lane she could see them: well-dressed ships' captains arm in arm with their wives; ordinary seamen, relishing their time ashore before shipping out for another two or three year voyage; young Quaker girls in their coal skuttle bonnets, chattering and giggling on their way home from Monthly Meeting. They were there, the ghosts were, because there were no apartment buildings or office centers or mini-malls to block Jane's view of them. It was that simple.

  ****

  "Well? What do you think of our Little Grey Lady?"

  The question was put to Jane by Mrs. Whitney Crate, a sharp old woman who lived down the road, and she was apparently referring to Nantucket, not herself. Mrs. Crate had been the first to arrive at Phillip's dinner party and would no doubt be the first to leave: probably at nine-thirty, whether her husband was done with his coffee or not.

  Jane tugged the black sheath she wore over her knees a little more primly and smiled. "I haven't seen much of the island, only Nantucket town," she said. "But the town itself seems nearly perfect."

  Mrs. Crate smiled importantly and said, "We like it."

  Mrs. Crate had a forty-something daughter who lived with her. Like her mother, Dorothy Crate was smug and slow to warm up. She was sitting next to her mother, sipping sherry and sizing up the new neighbor.

  "Has Phillip told you? I dabble in local history," Dorothy said to Jane with a fluttery wave of her hand. "I'd always meant to get an oral history from your ... aunt, but somehow things never worked out. Mrs. Merchant wasn't the most ... approachable woman, you understand. One never knew what, exactly, to expect. She was quite the character around here. A very ... mysterious woman. Yes ... yes ... mysterious."

  Jane murmured something noncommittal in response and wandered over to the sideboard to accept a sherry from Bing, who was pouring for their host.

  "Oral historian, my eye," Bing whispered to her as he handed her a glass. "She is such a fraud."

  Jane caught her breath, afraid that Bing might have been overheard. But no; Cissy had taken Jane's seat and was filling in mother and daughter on the progress at Lilac Cottage.

  "There's just nothing Jane can't do," Cissy was saying in an awestruck voice. "This morning I dropped in and there she was with a sledgehammer, knocking out the rath and plaster —"

  "Lath and plaster, you noodle," said Bing. His voice was warm and amused and his gaze equally so, as it passed from his sister to Jane and lingered there. "Is this true, Jane? Are you superwoman?"

  Jane flushed and said, "Anybody can tear down a wall. The question is, who'll put it back together for me? I haven't found a contractor yet."

  "You might want to call the guys who did my place," said Bing. "Remind me to give you their card before I go back to New York Monday. Phillip put me on to them. Where is our host, anyway?"

  Their host was in the kitchen, consulting with the cook. When he came out, he rubbed his hands together and said, "All here except for McKenzie. Bing? Any sign of him?"

  "Haven't seen him all day."

  A shadow passed over Phillip's face, like a hawk's over a pond. Then it was gone, and Jane was left with only a vague sense of unease, nothing more.

  Phillip's smile was urbane. "We won't be able to wait dinner, I'm afraid, or it'll be my head that ends up on the platter." He glanced in the direction of the entry hall.

  On cue, the doorbell chimed. In half a dozen strides Phillip was in the hall. Jane heard a low exchange of voices, and then Phillip ushered in his truant guest: Mr. McKenzie. Mac, that is, McKenzie.

  At first Jane thought that he was merely there on some errand, because somehow he didn't quite fit in with the rest of the company. He was dressed acceptably enough — a tweed jacket over a dark plaid shirt and wool slacks — but it was a far cry from Phillip's Ralph Lauren look and Bing's loose, New Yorky elegance. His shaggy hair was neatly combed, but certainly not styled; Jane was willing to bet it had never, ever, been touched by mousse. He towered over the others, but that wasn't it, either. He looked out of place most of all because of his hands: big, powerful, unmanicured.

  He's country, Jane decided. And not just fashionably so. Mac McKenzie was the real thing — for better or worse.

  He greeted the women with a stiff smile and shook hands with Bing and poor Mr. Crate, who'd finally come out of hiding from the corner bookcase where he'd spent the past half hour browsing.

  Phillip filled in the last of the evening's introductions. "Jane Drew, I'd like you to meet John McKenzie."

  "We're already on a first-name basis," McKenzie said dryly.

  "I'm just not sure which one," Jane replied with her mother's smile. So he was one of the owners, then. "Is it John, or is it Mac?"

  "Mac, to those who know me."

  "Well, John, then I guess 'Mac' will have to wait." God. What was it with the guy? Just getting his name squared away was going to take a U.N. effort.

  A look of sympathy for Jane flashed over Phillip's face, as if he understood her sense of frustration with the man.

  "Shall we go in?" he suggested to the company.

  The group fell into the kind of disjointed chitchat that usually accompanies a move from one room to another. Cissy was demanding to know how McKenzie had got Buster to "stay," and Mr. Crate was asking Phillip about a first edition of Great Expectations that he'd been thumbing through. Bing was chatting amiably in Jane's ear about contractors.

  And from behind her Jane heard, or thought she heard, Mrs. Crate murmur to her daughter, "What's that felon doing here?" But she couldn't be sure. Maybe Mrs. Crate had said, "What's that fellow doing here?" Felon or fellow, she didn't seem to want McKenzie included in the company.

  The table setting was quietly spectacular, thoroughly in keeping with the rest of the furnishings: antique Meissen and Waterford on satiny damask, and heavy silver candlesticks surrounding a floral arrangement of breathtaking loveliness.

  "I have always loved this room, Phillip," Dorothy gushed. "What a shame it's dark out; your view of the ocean is so much better than ours."

  "I keep forgetting there's an ocean out there," Cissy said, craning her neck. "All we see are bushes — look! You can see the lights of a big ship!"

  "That's not a ship, Ciss; it's a fishing trawler," said Bing. "Don't be silly; nobody would fish in March," Cissy retorted.

  "Ah, sweet Cissy," said Phillip, slipping his napkin from its silver ring. "Where do you suppose the 'fresh fish' we buy locally comes from?"

  "Well, I suppose I thought — rom warmer water. You shouldn't make fun of me, Phillip," she added with dignity. Her cheeks were deeply flushed.

  She does have a thing for him, Jane decided. It was really very sweet. Of course, Cissy was too hopelessly naive for a man like Phillip; his type would have to be able to recognize Meissen at a glance and understand the dollar value of a water view. Someone like Dorothy Crate, for instance. Jane was sitting diagonally across from her and had the chance to study her. Dorothy was attractive, carefully preserved — despite her lightly grayed hair — and well spoken. Her manners
were impeccable, even if she was a bit of a fraud.

  The first course was brought out by a jacketed butler: a bisque of lobster. All that's missing is the string quartet, Jane thought, impressed.

  Dorothy Crate batted her eyes at Phillip. "I understand congratulations are in order, Phillip; you've sold the property in Bourne! How wonderful for you! Who bought it?"

  A look of bland reserve settled on Phillip's handsome brow. Clearly he preferred not to discuss his business dealings at his own dinner party. But he answered easily, "A designer outlet. They'll do well. It's a good location."

  End of story. Dorothy swung her gaze carefully over the top of Mac McKenzie's head and focused on Bing Andrews instead.

  "And how goes the Melowe Museum, Bing?" she asked. "Are the funds still flowing? It can't be easy being the Director of Development nowadays when so many others are chasing the same few dollars."

  "I do my best to outrun them," Bing acknowledged, smiling.

  "My brother knows everybody worth knowing," Cissy added. "You should see his Rolodex. Just last week he managed to shake down someone for a thirty-thousand-dollar contribution to the museum. It's true what they say about him: When Bing Andrews walks into a room, hold on to your wallet," she said cheerfully.

  "It's for a noble cause," Bing said, laughing; but he was obviously embarrassed by his sister's effusiveness.

  Jane gave Bing a sideways look. Yes, she could see it: He was clearly the type who could charm a possum out of a tree. If he were less well born, he might have been selling time-shares, or conning little old ladies into buying triple-paned windows they didn't need. But he was as rich as he was engaging, and so he spent his time extracting money and art out of acquaintances who had too much of both. It was a perfect fit.

  The conversation turned to the halting state of the economy, although it seemed pretty obvious to Jane that most of the guests had nothing to fear from it. No one asked her what she did for a living, which spared her from having to admit she'd lost her job. The presumption seemed to be that she was a millionaire.

  "Will you be living in Lilac Cottage year-round, Miss Drew, or just the summers?" It was Mrs. Crate, and she was giving Jane precisely two choices.

  Before Jane had a chance to speak, Cissy answered for her. "Neither! She's dumping it!"

  Instantly Jane felt the temperature drop ten degrees. Several of the party had lived on the island all their lives; naturally they would resent a money-grubbing carpetbagger. "Well, I wouldn't say dumping it, exactly. I ... I plan to make every effort to properly restore the cottage."

  "No kidding?" said Cissy. "You said you wanted to slap a coat of paint on it and sell it. But a restoration —you'll be here for a year. Cool!"

  The girl was infuriating. Jane glanced around the table, wondering why on earth she'd blurted out a commitment she had no intention of fulfilling. Phillip, on her left, was giving her a look so penetrating that she wilted under it. McKenzie was sipping his soup, oblivious to her embarrassment. Bing's smile was, as always, sympathetic. As for Mrs. Crate and her daughter, they were wearing carbon copies of the same expression: suspicion.

  Damn it! she thought. This is what comes from getting to know your neighbors personally. You begin not wanting to disappoint them.

  "Excuse me," poor Mr. Crate mumbled into the painful silence. "Would you please pass the salt?"

  Thankful for the diversion, Jane lifted the shaker nearest her, even though there was another at Mr. Crate's elbow, and handed it to him. The simple act of lifting made her wince in pain; her shoulder had been aching for a week now.

  "What's wrong?" Cissy demanded to know. "You made a face."

  Jane tried to make light of it. "I got a deep scratch from a rosebush in the graveyard behind the house the other day, and I think it's got worse. I suppose my urban immune system hasn't adjusted to country living."

  "For goodness' sake," said Mrs. Crate. "I've been a gardener all my life. Nothing's ever happened to me."

  Bing also was puzzled. "Are you sure the infection is from the rosebush, and not from some rusty nail around the house?"

  "Did you put Bactine on it?" asked Cissy, pushing away the bisque as a child would her spinach.

  "Do you know," mused Dorothy, "this reminds me of an old Nantucket legend. I'm not quite positive about the details, but there's a story of a grieving mother who planted a rose on the grave of her convict son. She couldn't afford a stone, you see. The rose is supposed to have been cursed ever since."

  "You're quite right, dear," said Dorothy's mother. "I remember it now. Except that it was the convict's wife, not his mother, who planted the rose. Or — was it a father and not a son who was buried? I can't recall."

  Mr. Crate took off his wire-rimmed glasses and began polishing a lens with his handkerchief. He cleared his throat. "I believe the legend is that it was a murderer who planted the rose on his victim's grave, out of remorse."

  "Nonsense!" snapped Mrs. Crate. "I never heard that. It was a wife and her husband. Absolutely."

  "Really," said Jane, fascinated by all the versions. "Do you remember where this cursed rose is supposed to be growing?"

  "In the North Burying Ground, wasn't it, dear?"

  "No, Mother. I think, the South."

  "North, South, whatever. Surely the important part of the legend is that later someone scratched herself on a thorn and her hand fell off —"

  "Mother, I do hate to argue but I think the victim actually got brain fever and died."

  Bing was sitting opposite Jane; she felt him give her a gentle kick in the shin. She looked at him and ventured a tiny smile. He was right; these people were a piece of work.

  Jane wondered what Phillip Harrow thought of the whimsical, if not downright absurd, argument the Crate family was having over the Legend of the Cursed Rose. Presumably he'd had higher hopes for the level of dinner conversation.

  "What do you think, Phillip?" Cissy asked, voicing Jane's thoughts. "Who's right?"

  Phillip shook his head diplomatically. "We have three different opinions: from an amateur historian, a retired scholar, and a woman of immense experience. I couldn't begin," he said dryly, "to choose among them."

  "Get it looked at by a doctor."

  All eyes turned to McKenzie. It was the first thing he'd said since they sat down at the table.

  He was looking directly at Jane. His hazel eyes were intensely expressive.

  "Excuse me?" she said, puzzled.

  "You should get the scratch looked at by a doctor," he repeated. And then, as if that expanded version of his remark had exhausted him, he stayed silent throughout the entire next course.

  The conversation during the fish course drifted amiably around the problems and pleasures of living on an island thirty miles from the mainland. All the while Jane was wondering why Phillip had invited McKenzie. His interest in being there seemed to range from zip to nil.

  After a while, Phillip tried to draw out McKenzie. "Mac, how's Jeremy? Your boy must be, what — seven, eight years old now?"

  "He's ten. And he's fine."

  "And Celeste?"

  "She's well."

  So. He was married. Or divorced. Divorced.

  "Good. Is she still with Rooney, Smith and Amel?"

  McKenzie nodded, and that was that. Really, he was practically rude. If he hated being there that much, why come at all? Shyness was one thing; but this ....

  Jane decided, almost from a sense of perverseness, to make him talk. "I was wondering, John, how your property runs. You must have a long, narrow strip of land between Bing's house and mine?"

  McKenzie looked up from his cranberry-stuffed bass, warned her away from the topic with a level look, and returned to his food. "Nope. I don't."

  Bing laughed rather self-consciously and explained. "Mac's property is what realtors call 'landlocked'; it doesn't front on the road. He drives over my land — which used to be owned by relations of his — to get to his own. It's not all that unusual with these old plats. Have y
ou traipsed over to his place yet, by the way? Wonderful property. Spectacular views, good acreage — and you can't have a quieter neighbor than one with a tree farm."

  "Oh, I see," Jane said, thwarted in her effort to make McKenzie talk. "What you mean is Mr. McKenzie has an easement over your property."

  Phillip interrupted. "No, Mac has something better: Bing's word as a gentleman," he said blandly.

  Mr. Crate chimed in with a gracious, "Hear, hear."

  Bing colored and changed the subject, leaving at least one puzzle solved. McKenzie is here because he has to be, Jane realized. He has to stay on friendly terms with his neighbors. Judging from the black look on his face, that took an effort.

  Cissy had been uncharacteristically quiet for the last little while. Now, like a child too long ignored, she became restless. "What I want to know," she said in a fretful voice, "is who actually carries out the curse when a rose is cursed? Is it some kind of ghost? A ghost in the garden?"

  "Cissy, really," her brother said. "It's not as though we can look it up."

  "Is it the ghost of the one in the grave?" she persisted, ignoring her brother's halfhearted attempt to shut her up. "Or is it God? Or the devil? Or even Nature, some kind of vindictive Nature?"

  She was deadly earnest, and Jane found that endearing. "Yes, and what about that curse of the Mummy's Tomb, now that we're at it?" she threw in impishly. "Who's responsible for that one?"

  "You laugh, Jane," said Mrs. Crate. "But some say Nantucket has more ghosts per square mile than anywhere else in America. There are whole books written on the subject."

  "You're not serious," Jane said, grinning. But she was scanning people's faces, aware that everyone at the table — except Cissy, of course — seemed to know something that she did not. It was hard to pin down: a veiled look of reserve; a sense that some subjects were better left alone.