The Bilbao Looking Glass

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Oh. But surely they’d never—”

  Sarah faltered. She’d forgotten for the moment that Mr. Lomax had a helper this year. From what little she’d seen of that nephew, she wondered if perhaps the Lomax reputation for probity might be in danger of getting tarnished around the edges. Pete would hardly hide stolen property here, though, because he knew Sarah was planning to open her house early. Or would he?

  “Say you nothin’. Saw wood.”

  With that sibylline utterance, Lomax bowlegged himself off to the tomato plants. Jofferty wrote out a receipt for the Bilbao looking glass on a page from his notebook, and asked Max to wrap the thing up for him real good so’s it wouldn’t get busted. Breaking a mirror that valuable would mean a dam sight more than seven years’ bad luck and he’d been getting enough flak about the robberies as it was.

  “I’ll go over the lists of stolen property as soon as I get back to the station,” he promised, “and let you know if I turn up anything. Bilbao looking glass, eh?”

  “Sometimes they spell it Bilboa,” Max told him. “Means the same thing. Except in Bilbao, of course. Got any cardboard and wrapping paper, Sarah?”

  “Bring it into the kitchen. I’ll see what I can find.”

  Wrapping bundles is always more of a nuisance than it starts out to be, and the looking glass presented special problems. Eventually, though, they found enough padding and stiffener to assure a safe ride in the cruiser.

  “There you are, Sergeant.” Max personally carried the package out and stowed it in the cruiser’s trunk. “I’ve marked it fragile, but you’d better make sure they understand down at the station that it really is. And for God’s sake, don’t let anybody take off the wrappings.”

  “They won’t get a chance,” Jofferty assured him. “We’ve got a special box down at the bank where we store valuables, and it just so happens I’m the man in charge. I’m going to take this thing directly there and forget to file a report. That satisfy you? Hey, and give my regards to your folks.”

  As he turned the ignition key in his mud-spattered cruiser, he glanced over at the magnificent car beside him, and grinned. “Guess your mother must have said more or less the same things mine did when I quit the fish cake factory to join the force. I told her getting shot at now and then’s a better deal than spending the rest of my life gutting pollock. See you around, Max. So long, Mrs. Kelling.”

  “Fine thing,” Sarah pouted after he’d driven off. “If Sergeant Jofferty starts calling you Max after he’s known you for about thirty seconds, why can’t he call me Sarah?”

  No doubt he would have, if she were Mrs. Bittersohn instead of Mrs. Kelling. No matter how far he’d stretched his roots, Max would always be accepted around the North Shore in a way none of her own crowd would ever be, even though they’d been trooping here summer after summer, some of them for three and four generations. Lines between summer people and year-rounders might be less sharply drawn these days than they were in her grandparents’ time, but they still existed and it wasn’t fair.

  “You’re a bunch of snobs, that’s what. Look at you. You don’t even come from Ireson Town and everybody treats you like his long-lost cousin. Even with Alexander, they never—”

  She stopped short. Max must be getting awfully fed up with Alexander by now. “Come upstairs and help me wrestle with the new mattresses. Mr. Lomax has got them in the wrong rooms.”

  They were busy putting the guest room to rights when the telephone rang. Sarah had a pillow jammed under her chin and was struggling to cram it into a case that must have shrunk in the wash. “Answer that, will you, Max?” she mumbled. “It’s probably your pal Jofferty about the looking glass. Maybe he’s found out where it belongs.”

  Max ran to the phone, but was back upstairs before Sarah had got the second pillowcase unfolded. “It’s for you. Some woman named Tergoyne. She thought she’d got the wrong number.”

  “Couldn’t you have convinced her she had?”

  Sarah was not panting to chat with, or rather listen to, Miffy Tergoyne. Miffy was one of the old yacht club set to which Alexander’s parents had once belonged. Their official membership had been dropped after Alexander’s father died and his yacht had to be sold, but the Kellings automatically continued to count as part of the crowd because they always had.

  Having become a much gossiped-about widow and, worse, a near-bankrupt one in the past months, Sarah had been counting on social ostracism from the yacht club set as a fringe benefit. Either Miffy was too old to change her ways, though, or else the fact that Sarah was now in possession of her father’s relatively modest bequest must have reinstated her among the elect. Well, it couldn’t be helped.

  Somebody had once observed that the true Boston Brahmin has customs but no manners. Like most generalizations, that remark was probably based on a few unfortunate particulars. One particular could have been Miffy Tergoyne.

  “Sarah.” Her nasal shriek was enough to cut the phone wires. “Who was that man?”

  “Max Bittersohn, my tenant,” Sarah told her.

  “My God, you’re not starting that stuff out at Ireson’s? Alice told me but I couldn’t believe it, not after Alex. Are you really having an affair with him?”

  “How kind of you to take an interest in my affairs,” Sarah replied sweetly.

  “Is that supposed to be an answer?”

  “What makes you think you’re entitled to one?”

  That actually stopped Miffy, though only for a moment. At last she sniffed and growled, “I must say you’ve changed.”

  “No I haven’t. This is the first time you’ve ever bothered to listen to anything I had to say, that’s all. To what do I owe the honor, Miffy?”

  “I want you and Appie here for drinks at half-past five.”

  “Sorry, but Aunt Appie’s not coming until Monday.”

  Miffy cackled. “That’s what you think, little girl! I phoned Appie this morning and bullied her into starting right away. She ought to be rolling up that godawful driveway of yours any minute now.”

  “Miffy, you didn’t! I haven’t even got the house ready. Did you ever once in your life give any thought to minding your own business?”

  “Don’t be absurd. Why should I? At half-past five, sharp on the dot. Bring your boy friend. Alice and I want to look him over.”

  Max came downstairs in time to see Sarah hurl the receiver back on its hook.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she raged, “except that Aunt Appie’s about to breeze in here without a word of warning and Miffy expects us all for drinks at five-thirty on the dot. You included.”

  “Damn it, Sarah, I thought you and I were going to have a few days to ourselves.”

  “So did I, but that doesn’t cut any ice with Miffy.”

  “Couldn’t you simply have told her to go to hell?”

  “I did, but she wouldn’t listen. It’s not Miffy, Max. The real problem is Aunt Appie. I couldn’t bear to have her find out she’s not welcome. You’ll know why when you meet her. Aunt Appie’s the eternal Girl Scout, doing her good deed every day and getting kicked in the teeth for it more often than not.

  “You never met my Uncle Samuel, a fact for which I hope you’re duly grateful. He was the world’s most dedicated hypochondriac. Aunt Appie nursed him through every disease in the medical book. At last he died of a misprint and I truly believe she’s sorry he’s gone.

  “When Cousin Dolph told her I was coming out here for the summer and came up with the bright idea that she ought to come too, because the change would do her good, I wanted to slaughter them both but I hadn’t the heart to tell her she couldn’t come. Aunt Appie tried so hard to ease things for Alexander all those years when he was stuck with taking care of his mother.”

  There she went again. Max was looking thunderous, and no wonder. Sarah flung her arms around his neck. “I’ll make it up to you somehow. I promise.”

  “That’s what you say,” he grumbled.

  H
owever, he was still allowing himself to be placated when they heard the taxi from the railroad station clattering over the potholes outside. With her fingers, Sarah hastily rubbed lipstick off Max’s chin.

  “Don’t you dare go sneaking off. You’ll have to meet her sometime.”

  “How long’s she going to be around, for God’s sake?”

  “I have no idea. Not long, most likely. She’s not going to be all that comfortable, you know, with half the furniture up in Boston and no heat but the fireplace. You know how raw it can get at night here so close to the water. Oh dear, I do hope Mr. Lomax remembered to have the chimney swept. I don’t know what the High Street Bank would do to me if I let the place burn down.”

  Sarah’s property was under litigation because of a disputed mortgage. The big house itself wasn’t worth much, unless some enterprising architect wanted to spend a few hundred thousand dollars converting it into luxury condominiums. The thirty-five-acre tract on which it stood, though, would make a developer’s fortune. All she could do until the suit was settled would be to pay the taxes and hope.

  Right now, Sarah was in no position to make long-range plans anyway. Everything hinged on what happened between her and Max. After having to spend the summer enduring Sarah’s relatives and old acquaintances, he might decide to call the whole thing off. She made a futile attempt to put her long, fine, light brown hair in decent order and went to meet her aunt.

  “Isn’t this fun!”

  Aunt Appie was climbing out of the station taxi, scattering bags and bundles in gleeful abandon. “As soon as Miffy phoned me, I threw my things together and buzzed right along. Caught the train by the skin of my teeth. I’ve made us a lovely tuna casserole so we shan’t have to fret about dinner.”

  “You shouldn’t have,” Sarah protested, and meant it. She knew Appie’s casseroles of old. “Cousin Theonia packed food enough to last us forever. But you were sweet to bother,” she added, because after all the dish must have been an awful nuisance to juggle all the way from Porter Square to North Station to Ireson’s End to here. She could always sneak the pallid, tasteless mess out to the skunks and raccoons after dark. They didn’t care what they ate.

  “Now, Aunt Appie, you mustn’t try to carry all that stuff alone. Here, I’ll take the casserole and your tote bag. Max can handle the suitcases. You remember Max Bittersohn. You met him at Dolph and Mary’s wedding reception.”

  “Yes, of course,” cried Appie, who clearly didn’t but wouldn’t have dreamed of saying so because she could never bear to hurt anyone’s feelings. “Are you a neighbor?”

  “Max is one of my boarders and a very good friend,” Sarah answered for him. “He’s staying in the carriage house.”

  Her aunt beamed. “Oh how nice. Then we have a man around to carry the trash to the dump. I’ve been wondering all the way out on the train how we were going to manage that.”

  By a supreme effort of will, Sarah refrained from grinding her teeth. “Aunt Appie, you don’t have to manage anything. You’re here strictly as a guest, and see that you remember it. You’re not to do one single thing except visit your friends and enjoy yourself. And Max is not the odd-job man, so don’t get any bright ideas about having him paint the house or build you a kayak.”

  “Sarah, you do get the oddest notions. Whatever would I do with a kayak? But then how do we manage the trash?”

  “Mr. Lomax comes with his truck and takes it away, the same as he’s always done. He also copes with the repairs, the grounds, and the garden. I’m going to be weeding the vegetables and Max will attend to his own business. We’ll all three be awfully busy, so you’ll have to amuse yourself with Miffy and the yacht club bunch. They’ll keep you hopping, never fear. Now come upstairs and let’s get you settled.”

  “Just let me fill my lungs with this wonderful air first. Um-aah!”

  There were two kinds of Kellings, the longs and the shorts. The tall ones inclined to oblong faces and eagle-beak noses. A few, like Sarah’s late husband, had managed to be handsome. Most did not.

  The short Kellings had squarish faces, straight little noses, and mouths that could be described, though never by Kellings themselves, as kissable. Their contours were gentle, ranging from agreeably curved to much too fat. Sarah herself was an unusually pleasant specimen of the shorts.

  Aunt Appie, also a Kelling-Kelling like Sarah since the Kellings tended to marry their distant cousins and keep the money in the family, was a long; one of the scraggy longs. As she stood snuffling up the salt air with arms outstretched and nostrils flaring, she might have inspired Cyrus Dallin’s “Appeal to the Great Spirit” if she’d had a horse under her and been wearing moccasins and breechclout instead of sensible oxfords and a green seersucker shirtwaist that actually did suggest a Girl Scout uniform.

  Having primed her pumps, Appie led the march into the house, lugging a bulging photograph album she intended to entertain Sarah with during the long, cozy evenings. Max, who’d had other ideas about how to beguile the moonlight hours, eyed the album without favor.

  “Your room isn’t ready because I wasn’t expecting you until Monday,” Sarah told her aunt. “Max and I just got here ourselves. I’m not even unpacked yet, and neither is he.”

  “Then we’ll all bustle around at once and get ourselves stowed away shipshape and Bristol fashion. What fun! Shoo, chickens. Old mother hen will build her own nest and lie in it with the greatest of ease. Oh, she floats through the air—”

  Even Max couldn’t help grinning as they left Appie thumping pillows and rattling drawers. “I see what you mean,” he murmured. “Is she always like that?”

  “Pretty much. Just be firm with her if she offers to cook you anything or starts organizing an expedition to study the tufted titmouse in its native habitat. Some of her old pals will be wanting her to go and stay with them, God willing, as soon as they find out she’s in town. You are going to drive us to Miffy’s, I hope? Aunt Appie would be heartbroken if she thought you were being left out of the general jollity.”

  “Will there be any?”

  “It’ll be deadly. The interesting people stay clear of Miffy. But Aunt Appie will enjoy herself. All we have to do is get her nicely planted at the party, then sneak off alone. Once they’ve all poured a few of Miffy’s martinis down the hatch, they won’t know who’s there and who isn’t.”

  “Then how’s she going to get back here?”

  “Somebody will bring her, sooner or later. Don’t look so glum, darling. We’ll work things out one way or another. Come and see your new home. I hope the paint’s dry.”

  Despite her resolution not to spend any money on the Ireson’s Landing place until she knew whether or not she still owned it, Sarah had done a fair amount of titivating in the carriage house. She’d had to. The little apartment over the stalls hadn’t been occupied by a coachman since 1915, and the cobwebs practically had to be hacked through with a machete.

  She and Mr. Lomax had brushed and scrubbed the walls and ceiling then covered the old gray plaster with creamy yellow paint. The exposed beams had been oiled with some magic potion brewed by Mr. Lomax, the battered furniture painted bright red and camouflaged as far as possible with India print throws and cushions. The wide-board pine floor, which was really beyond restoration, had been painted dark green and covered by a braided rug Mrs. Lomax had made some time ago. Mrs. Lomax was laid up with arthritis now, but still pleased to be doing something for Isaac Bittersohn’s boy because she’d always thought a heap of Isaac.

  There wasn’t much they could do about the old-fashioned bathroom except clean it. As to the kitchen, there wasn’t one. Max would take his meals at the big house or, if Kellings got too thick on the ground, go over to Miriam or his mother for a handout.

  Sarah hadn’t got to meet Max’s parents yet. Apparently that wasn’t going to happen until she was ready to affirm without a qualm or a sniffle that she was ready to tie the knot. She wished she were. It would be so much pleasanter to share these two bright rooms
with Max than to rattle around with Aunt Appie in that drafty ark on top of the hill. She gave him a rather forlorn smile and went back to finish her own settling-in.

  Chapter 3

  “WELL, SARAH, YOU’RE LOOKING a shade less bedraggled than you did the last time I saw you, though I don’t suppose you’ll ever get over losing Alex. Too bad you never managed to have a child. That would have been some consolation, though probably not much the way they’re all turning out these days. What in God’s name do you think Miffy put in these martinis?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  Sarah refrained from wishing it were something instantly lethal, and wriggled herself away from Pussy Beaxitt. Max, she noticed, had been cornered by somebody wanting a free appraisal of what was alleged to be a Rembrandt Peale but most likely wasn’t. She trusted he wouldn’t be foolish enough to oblige. She ought to have had brains enough not to drag him here in the first place. She’d forgotten how unspeakably god-awful these gatherings of Miffy’s could be.

  A year ago, she’d have been passively bored instead of actively hating every second she spent here. She’d got used to boredom ages ago, since that had seemed her inescapable lot. First she’d been only Walter Kelling’s daughter, too young to count with the grown-ups and too shy to mingle with any teen-agers who might be around. Then, about the time she might have been making her debut and perhaps arousing a little interest among the stag line, her father had died from eating poisoned mushrooms and she’d married the distant cousin Walter had named as Sarah’s guardian. As Alexander’s wife she’d never got much attention either. Who’d notice quiet little Sarah when they’d always had to take her mother-in-law, the beautiful, blind, intelligent, opinionated Caroline Kelling, with them?

  But she wasn’t little Sarah any more. Sudden widowhood and unexpected crises had pushed her out of the old rut; a long way out but still not far enough or she wouldn’t be here now, nursing a glass of the vermouth that hadn’t got put into the martinis and wondering why she hadn’t had guts enough to be rude to Pussy.