What Marguerite was doing, Jenny couldn’t have cared less. It had been his mother’s idea, Jack claimed, to bring Beth to Meldrum after the parents who’d shielded her all her life had both died like James Cox, in so-called accidents that were never explained.
The reason, of course, was money. Beth had been left rich. Marguerite’s fortune was long gone, though none of the hopeful heirs except Jack himself—not even his sister Pamela—knew that. Trying to get a power of attorney would have been too risky, so they’d simply installed Beth in Pam’s old bedroom and started milking her for all she was worth. Jack had talked freely enough about the experience on their way to the hospital.
“Ever since Beth came, it’s been one long nightmare. We never knew from one minute to the next if she’d be a sensible grown-up, a whining little kid, or a screaming maniac. We had to lie and scheme and cover up for her all the time. It was like living on the edge of a volcano. We knew she’d killed her mother and father. At least I did. Mother would never admit it. Sometimes I think Mother’s a little crazy, too. Nothing concerns her except getting her own way. You hit the nail on the head, Jenny, when you told her that night at Sue’s that there was danger around her. Mother wouldn’t have stood a chance if Beth had happened to turn on her in one of those sudden wild fits. She’d keep insisting, ‘Oh, Beth would never hurt me,’ even when I was trying to wrestle sedatives down Beth’s throat to keep her from going berserk the way she did tonight. I reminded Mother that Beth’s own people used to say the same thing, right up till they died; but it was no use. You can’t talk to Mother.”
“What sets Beth off usually?” Larry had asked.
“Mostly it’s when somebody’s trying to take something of hers, or she thinks they are. She won’t even wear the clothes Mother buys her because she’s afraid we’ll take them away to be washed or dry cleaned and she’ll never get them back. She makes those ghastly duds and wears them till they fall apart, then we have to burn the rags and there’s another big scene. Nobody knows what I’ve been through, between the two of them.”
None of it would have happened if Jack hadn’t been such a jellyfish in the first place, Jenny thought, but she didn’t say so. It would have been too cruel, and what was the use anyway?
She spoke her mind to Larry on the long drive home, naturally. They’d talked about other things, too: themselves, their thoughts and feelings, the things they’d done, the things they’d like to do. At last Jenny had confessed what she’d been longing to tell someone, that Harriet Compton wasn’t really her aunt but her stepmother.
“I suppose you two will be taking off for Baltimore after this,” he’d replied, not sounding happy about the prospect.
“What for?” said Jenny. “There won’t be any more midnight prowlers to scare me off, will there? After all, it was Beth I saw the night you thought I was being so mean to poor, dear Mrs. Firbelle.”
“You sure know how to rub it in, don’t you?”
“Well, you asked for it. Frankly, Larry, I don’t know what we’re going to do. I expect Aunt Harriet will go back to Baltimore fairly soon, and I’ll go to visit her, of course. We want to see a lot of each other, but it’s too late to start any live-together mother-and-daughter routine. She’s made her own life. And even though I haven’t made much of a life for myself yet, I’m working on it.”
“You’re going to be a famous writer.”
Jenny shook her head. “After what happened to my father, I don’t think I want to be a famous anything. The writing idea was just an excuse to explain living alone in the carriage house; and if you want the truth, I haven’t written a line since I got there. I think what I’d like to do is keep the house and fix it up the way it ought to be. I need a place to call my own, and it’s the only link I have with my father.”
Jenny yawned. MacRae began singing to keep them awake, an old Scots ballad the late Colin Gillespie might have taught him.
“I hae laid a herrin’ in salt.
“Lass, if ye love me, tell me noo.
“I hae brewed a fourpit o’ malt,
“An’ I canna come ilka day to woo. By the way, how do you like my granny?”
The sudden change of subject made Jenny laugh. “I think she’s a gr-rand woman.”
“Aye.” The red mustache perked upward at the ends. “An’ she thinks Harriet Compton’s a fine, upstandin’ leddy wi’ nae silly air-rs an’ graces aboot her. No’ but what the lassie’s a bonny wee thing an’ a cr-redit tae the family, tinker blood or no. She thinks we ought to get better acquaintit.”
“Then tell her we’re planning to invite you both to a proper high tea as soon as we learn how to bake scones and crumpets.”
“Och, lass, we canna wait sae long,” said Lawrence MacRae. “We’ll come tomorrow an’ bring our ain.”
About the Author
Charlotte MacLeod (1922–2005) was an international-bestselling author of cozy mysteries. Born in Canada, she moved to Boston as a child and lived in New England most of her life. After graduating from college, she made a career in advertising, writing copy for the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company before moving on to Boston firm N. H. Miller & Co., where she rose to the rank of vice president. In her spare time, MacLeod wrote short stories, and in 1964 she published her first novel, a children’s book called Mystery of the White Knight.
In Rest You Merry (1978), MacLeod introduced Professor Peter Shandy, a horticulturist and amateur sleuth whose adventures she would chronicle for two decades. The Family Vault (1979) marked the first appearance of her other best-known characters: the husband and wife sleuthing team Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn, whom she followed until her last novel, The Balloon Man, in 1998.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1982 by Charlotte MacLeod
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN 978-1-5040-4507-0
This 2017 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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CHARLOTTE MACLEOD
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