Cirak's Daughter

by Charlotte MacLeod

  That was a stupid remark to make, Jenny realized as soon as it was too late. If she was going to start picking fights with every man she met, she might as well have stayed at Uncle Fred’s.

  At least she’d managed this time to pick a companion who wanted to gossip. “I see you’ve met our handsome bachelor,” the plump woman was saying with a coy giggle.

  “Have I? I’ve met so many people here that I’m afraid I’ve lost track of who’s who. Do you mean that distinguished-looking gray-haired man standing over by the door?” Jenny knew perfectly well she didn’t.

  “Heavens, no!” The woman was laughing so hard now that it must be putting a terrible strain on her girdle. “That’s my husband. I meant Lawrence MacRae, that redhead you were talking with just now.”

  “Oh, the one with the mustache. I’m sorry, I thought you said handsome.” It was a feeble effort, but Jenny couldn’t come up with anything better at the moment. “What does Lawrence MacRae do?”

  “Good question. He calls himself a roving photographer. I can believe the roving part, all right.”

  Well, MacRae needn’t rove Jenny Cirak’s way, not that he showed any sign of wanting to. Now he was trying out his charm on a squealy blonde who hadn’t let Miss Plummer read her palm because it was too scary.

  “My husband’s the town druggist,” her new chum was informing her. “He’s Sam Green and I’m Daisy. Sue introduced us before, but I expect you don’t remember. I was named after Aunt Marguerite,” Daisy added with a self-satisfied nod at the woman in silver brocade.

  “Mrs. Firbelle?” Jenny was surprised. “Then you’re a cousin to that pretty, dark-haired woman they call Pamela.”

  “Pamela Bauer, yes. She’s Aunt Marguerite’s daughter. That’s Pam’s husband Greg over at the bar.”

  “I thought it was,” Jenny said. “I just read his palm.”

  “Watch out he doesn’t try to read yours. Pam’s got her hands full with that boy, between you and me. Greg has to watch his step, though. He knows Aunt Marguerite wouldn’t stand for any monkey business.”

  Daisy’s remark might be vague, but her meaning was clear. Mrs. Firbelle must control the family money and make them all toe the mark, just as Uncle Fred did with the Plummers. She couldn’t be any freer with the funds than he was, either. That was a tacky dress Daisy had on, and Pamela’s was no better quality, though more smartly cut.

  “And that’s my cousin Jack, Pam’s brother. Jack’s not too well, and he lives at home with his mother. And the woman next to him, in that pink crocheted outfit, is our cousin Beth. She’s staying with Aunt Marguerite, too.”

  Beth must be a poor relation, Jenny thought. The hideous shrimp-pink top and skirt were inexpertly worked and clumsily put together. Beth had made a bad job worse by crocheting a droopy stole and a drawstring bag that hung over her arm on a lumpy cord of the same ugly color. She was thin and inclined to stoop and had the anxious-to-please look of somebody who lived on another’s bounty.

  Right now, Beth was bringing a daintily arranged plate from the buffet for her aunt. Jack came along to arrange pillows and fetch a tray table so that his mother could eat in all possible comfort. How nice. Everybody was related to Mrs. Firbelle, it appeared, or to someone connected with her. Sue Giles, the hostess, was Daisy’s husband’s sister. The giggly blonde with Larry MacRae was Sue’s cousin’s wife. The cousin himself, an airline pilot, was off in the wild blue yonder tonight, according to Daisy. That must be why the wife was acting so flighty with the photographer.

  MacRae was not related to anybody except his grandmother, who lived two streets over and couldn’t come to the party because her cat was sick. He had arrived late because he’d taken the cat to the vet, who was a brother-in-law of Greg Bauer. Jenny never got to find out whom the grandmother’s cat was related to because Daisy couldn’t wait any longer to wade into the buffet.

  She herself would much rather have skipped it, but she didn’t dare resist Sue’s urgings to “Try some of this. It’s my special recipe.” By the time people started to collect their wraps and she could leave without offending her hostess, Jenny was stuffed to the eyeballs and none too comfortable in her stomach. The Firbelles’ insistence on walking her home didn’t make her feel any better.

  There was no real reason why they should. She could have nipped through the hedge and been there in two seconds, but Mrs. Firbelle made a stately little procession of it. Beth had time to let Jenny know the soil around the carriage house was no good for roses, but that the yarn shop in the village was excellent. Jack snarled about the condition of the asphalt sidewalk and the general incompetence of the Meldrum Board of Selectmen. Mrs. Firbelle asked what Miss Plummer did when she wasn’t reading palms.

  This must be what they’d come fishing for. “I’m trying to be a writer,” Jenny answered with her fingers crossed.

  Jack snorted. “Rather a picturesque way of starving to death, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, well,” said Jenny, trying to sound blasé, “I expect my trust funds will keep the wolf from the door.”

  “But what if it happens to be a very large wolf?” tinkled Mrs. Firbelle.

  “Luckily for me, it was a very large inheritance. I was the only child.”

  “Oh.”

  Now they’d heard what they wanted to know. And the Firbelles weren’t about to snub an heiress. Beth waxed more eloquent about rose sprays, Jack more waspishly Establishment. Mrs. Firbelle made hospitable noises about a simple dinner with the family. At last, Jenny had said the right thing.

  She was beyond feeling pleased with herself. The late hour, the surfeit of food, the strain of having to play her role in front of all those strangers had exhausted her but left her too keyed-up to sleep. After she’d locked up the carriage house and gotten ready for bed, she wandered around the small rooms, picking things up and putting them down.

  These were things her father had touched, had handled, had lived with. Jenny had never been able to hate him as much as they’d tried to make her. How could you blame a man for running away from the Plummers? All she’d ever minded was that he hadn’t taken her, too. Always, there’d been her private dream that some day he’d come back to get her. Perhaps he’d meant to. Anyway, he’d done the next best thing. Had he pictured her here in the carriage house, the way she was trying to picture him?

  She knew what Aunt Martha would say to that. How could he, when he’d never taken the trouble to find out what she looked like? She’d never seen so much as a snapshot of him, either. Uncle Fred had destroyed any her mother might have had.

  “Why should you bother your head about him? He doesn’t give a hoot about you.”

  But he had cared. No matter how her father had managed to get hold of all that money—even if she wound up having to kiss her inheritance goodby—she’d have the comfort of knowing he’d wanted her to have it. Where was he buried? How had he died? Oh, why did he have to leave her before she’d gotten a chance to know him?

  Jenny was at the kitchen window now, looking out at the pattern of bare branches against the blue-black of a late October sky. The moon was on the wane. High wisps of cloud that meant winds to come threw a milky haze across its lopsided pale-gold oval. She was chilly, standing in her thin nightgown with only a nylon peignoir thrown over it. Did the furnace work, she wondered. Maybe she ought to have it checked.

  How strange to own a furnace, she who’d never owned anything bigger than a schoolbag in all her life. How strange to be here by herself, having to make her own decisions instead of being surrounded by a herd of Plummers telling her she couldn’t.

  She was finished with the Plummers. Jenny had known as soon as she’d backed her new car ever so carefully out of Uncle Fred’s driveway that she was never going back, not really. She’d pay token visits on holidays, she supposed, and send her mother a check now and then. If it wound up in Fred’s pocket instead of Marion’s purse, that was their business. Jenny had no noble intention of paying him and Aunt Martha back for what they’d be
grudged her all these years, as if it had been their personal money they were spending instead of funds left in trust for the entire family. They could keep Jenny’s share of the Plummer money from now on. They weren’t getting any of Jason Cirak’s, if she could help it.

  From the kitchen, she had a view of the Firbelles’ back yard, an acre or more of well-tended garden backing up to the shaggy little plot she was entitled now to call her own. The rear of the house, sitting up on the knoll at the far end, was less imposing than the front, but it still looked elegant and important, like Mrs. Firbelle. It was a good thing Jenny’d been able to give the right answer when the matriarch dropped that ever-so-gentle hint about the state of her bank account, she thought. If she didn’t have so much money, she’d most likely have got dropped flat on her face after that stupid palmistry act. Whatever had possessed her to add that ridiculous bit about danger?

  Though maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous. Jenny had always found her hunches pretty reliable, and she’d heard enough cynical remarks from the Plummers to believe a wealthy widow with a gaggle of poor relations might have real cause for worry.

  Judging from the little Jenny had seen of her at the party tonight, Mrs. Firbelle expected plenty of attention from her relatives. If the contrast between her clothes and the younger women’s, particularly poor Beth’s, was any indication, though, she didn’t give much back. Furthermore, she was adept at slipping in the needle where it hurt, as Jenny had reason to know. No doubt a lot of other people around Meldrum did, too.

  Wasn’t this fun, standing here in the dark scaring herself silly! If she was going to make up awful stories about rich old ladies in big houses, maybe that book she was pretending to write ought to be a gothic novel. Actually, it might be interesting to try one.

  “Gianna stood at the window of the old carriage house, her raven hair in wild disarray, her exquisite features frozen into a mask of terror. Was that a human form she spied lurking in the shadows of the haunted mansion?”

  Jenny caught her breath. Had she talked herself into imagining things? Or was somebody actually standing out there under that big maple tree, next to the low picket fence that marked the boundary between her yard and the Firbelles’?

  Probably just Beth taking the family dog for its outies, she tried to tell herself. But her neighbors didn’t have a dog; at least she hadn’t seen or heard one so far. Anyway, Beth had looked pretty frazzled around the edges by the time they’d said good night. She must be in bed by now.

  It wasn’t tall enough to be Jack, she thought. Besides, since Jack wasn’t a well man, he’d hardly be dawdling around outdoors at this hour. Surely it couldn’t be Mrs. Firbelle. Even in silhouette, that stately little form should have been unmistakable. And Jenny wasn’t even sure whether it was a man or a woman over there.

  She felt the short hairs on her head begin to prickle. Why hadn’t she thought of getting a watchdog before it was too late? By now, everybody in Meldrum must have heard there was a young single woman living in the carriage house. If that was in fact a prowler planning to break into her house, she could be in real trouble. And if she let him scare her any worse than she was scared already, she might as well fold up and quit right now.

  Without giving herself time to think twice, Jenny snatched a heavy, silver-knobbed walking stick out of the umbrella stand and slipped out the back door. As the night wind caught her thin robe, she realized what an utter fool she was being. At least she might have had sense enough to put on a coat over her nightgown.

  But if she went back to get one, she’d never find the nerve to come out again. Taking a firmer grip on the cane that must have been her father’s, Jenny sneaked forward. The moon was wholly behind the clouds now, and she’d lost sight of the figure. There! No, only a bush. Maybe the person had seen her come out and run away. She moved a bit more boldly.

  “Going somewhere, Miss Plummer? Rather late to be out for a stroll, isn’t it?”

  She recognized the voice and the silly mustache. It would have to be Lawrence MacRae. On his way home from bidding the blonde a cozy good night, ho doubt.

  “I saw somebody on the lawn,” she explained stiffly.

  “So you came rushing out with a club to say hello.”

  “I thought it was a burglar. I have this little hangup about not getting murdered in my bed.” She clutched the billowing folds of her flimsy peignoir around her as best she could and moved back toward the carriage house, feeling as foolish as she must be looking. MacRae blocked her way.

  “Miss Plummer, I don’t know what sort of game you’re trying to play here, but if your plan is to throw a scare into Maggie Firbelle, you might as well forget it. She’s a lot tougher than you are. By the way, you’ve forgotten to put your hair on.”

  “Oh, sh-shut up!”

  “Would you care to tell me what this is all about?”

  “I told you, and you didn’t believe me. Let me b-by. I’m freezing.”

  He let her move on, but stuck right with her as far as the door.

  “Mind if I come in a minute?”

  “Yes, I do mind,” she blazed. “I don’t know what you think I am, Mr. MacRae, but there’s one thing you can be very sure I’m not.”

  She got a little satisfaction out of slamming the door in his face.

  3

  Hot milk, aspirin, and the warmth of her bed after the two-way chilling she’d gotten sent Jenny to sleep at last. She didn’t wake up until somebody rang her doorbell at half-past ten the next morning. With any luck, it was the plumber about that leak in the basement, though he’d said it’d be a week or ten days, since it wasn’t an emergency. She threw on a bathrobe, pulled a comb through her hair, and ran to let him in.

  “Oh, I beg your pardon. I’m afraid I’ve got you out of bed.”

  Jenny blinked. This couldn’t be the plumber, surely, or the Avon lady or the minister’s wife. A tall, middle-aged woman in elegant tweeds, clutching a gold-mounted attaché case and a marvelous alligator handbag was standing on the front stoop, looking pleasantly apologetic. She must have the wrong house.

  Jenny smiled back. “You did, but it’s quite all right. I should have been up ages ago. I just moved in, and I’ve knocked myself out trying to get settled.”

  “You’ve just moved in?” Why should the stranger look so upset by that remark? “But you do come from around here? Recently married, perhaps?”

  “No, I’m not married, and I’m from out of state.”

  “Oh, then you came to be near friends or relatives?”

  “No, I don’t know a soul except some neighbors I met last night.” This was none of the woman’s business, of course, but she did look so respectable and so disturbed that it seemed rude to brush her off. “So if you’re looking for directions or something, I’m afraid you’ve picked the wrong house. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

  Jenny began to inch the door closed, but the woman made no move to leave. “I can’t have the wrong house. See, here it is. Eighty-three Packard Road, Meldrum, Rhode Island.”

  Jenny looked at the wrinkled scrap of brown wrapping paper the woman took out of that magnificent handbag and shook her head. “How odd. I certainly never wrote that, and the house stood empty for six months before I moved in. Could there be another street with the same name around here, I wonder?”

  “The men at the fire station said no. I stopped there for directions, and they told me it must be this place. An old carriage house, remodeled, they said. There isn’t another one like it, is there?”

  Jenny shook her head. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help you. Would you like to use my phone to call a cab or anything?”

  She didn’t see any car out front and there was no public transportation in Meldrum, so she concluded the woman must either have walked from somewhere or come in a taxi and let it go, assuming she’d found the right address. The Plummers would have fits if they knew she was inviting a total stranger into the house, but somehow this pleasant, middle-aged woman felt more like a friend t
o her.

  “That’s tremendously kind of you. I shouldn’t impose.”

  In spite of her polite demurrer, the woman followed Jenny into the house. “What a delightful little place you have here.”

  “Thank you, but please don’t think I picked out the furniture. I’m going to get rid of those red and yellow cauliflowers as soon as I have a chance to shop for draperies and slipcovers. I—took the house already furnished.”

  “Some people do tend to confuse clutter with coziness.” The unexpected visitor dodged a lurid jardiniere full of pampas grass and motheaten peacock feathers. “But I’m sure it will be delightful once you get weeded out here.”

  She gave an approving nod to the blue-checked cloth and the copper mug full of late marigolds with which Jenny had tried to spruce up the table in the tiny breakfast nook off the kitchen.

  “I’m trying to think what to do. I’ve apparently chased a wild goose all the way from Baltimore.”

  “Baltimore, Maryland!” Jenny exclaimed.

  “How many Baltimores are there? I don’t know what I came looking for, but I’m sure it wasn’t you.”

  How could she be sure? Jenny knew the paper meant nothing to her personally, but who was to say it didn’t have some connection with the mystery surrounding her father? She made a quick decision.

  “I’m going to put on some coffee for us and go get some clothes on. Please sit down. I shan’t be a second.”

  “Do you really want me to? I didn’t mean to involve you in this.”

  “Please.”

  The woman gave Jenny a quick smile, then sat down and folded her well-kept hands on the blue tablecloth. When Jenny came back in jeans and a red jersey, she was still sitting, as if she hadn’t moved a muscle. Jenny rattled cups, and she came out of her abstraction with a start.

  “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself. My name is Harriet Compton.” She gave a Baltimore street address that meant nothing to Jenny. “I’m a certified public accountant by profession.”