Terrible Tide

by Charlotte MacLeod

  Bert lay sprawled on the iron cot now with the afghan wadded around his neck, but Annie was gone. She must have roused herself and put herself decently to bed. Good. Holly kicked her sodden slippers under the stove and padded barefoot through the now familiar dark house. She’d be inviting trouble if she showed a light and let that person out there know the household was stirring.

  Annie’s door was wide open tonight. The old woman lay on her bed fully clothed, emitting muffled snorts. Holly managed to get her cardigan and housedress off and bundle the covers over her. Then she went back to her own room. From there she could see the jug in the water and the wall behind which she’d lurked. Thank goodness she’d come in when she did. The night prowler was back on the terrace, standing in almost the identical spot where she’d done her impersonation of a rock.

  Could the man possibly be as tall as he looked in that gray mist? Why not? There were plenty of long-boned males in the area, men like Sam Neill and her own brother Roger. Earl Stoodley was a big man, too, but fatter than this one. At least Geoffrey Cawne was out of the running. He’d be too short. It couldn’t be Sam either, come to think of it, because Sam was down in Saint John with his sick mother.

  Or was he? Bert’s saying Sam had gone didn’t mean he’d stayed. Bert wouldn’t know. He must have been up here working on Claudine’s jar half the afternoon, judging from the state he was in now. The longer Holly watched, the more she got the uncomfortable feeling this could be Sam. He had the sure, vigorous way of moving. He knew the terrain. But why should Sam be putting on this cloak-and-dagger act?

  What would happen if she stuck her head out the window and called to him? What would happen if it wasn’t Sam after all, or if Sam wasn’t the sort of man she thought he was?

  Whoever he was, he moved. She wondered in sudden panic whether he meant to force his way into the house. No, he’d merged into the dense shrubbery that lined the overgrown drive. He was going down to the road. Nothing more would happen now. And Holly Howe would be dead on her feet if she didn’t get a few more hours’ sleep before she had to face another day at Cliff House.

  Chapter 20

  ABOUT HALF-PAST SEVEN, Holly was awakened by sounds of distress from the bathroom. “Annie,” she called, “what’s the matter?”

  “Oh dearie, I’m poorly.”

  That was a masterpiece of understatement. The poor old soul was retching so violently she hadn’t the strength to stand. Holly did her best, supporting the flaccid body, bathing the sweating face with a damp washcloth, helping Annie back to her own room. She got her into a clean nightgown, put her back to bed, and covered her with extra blankets. Annie lay there shivering, her eyes sunk into wrinkled black pools. Holly would have been frantic if she hadn’t known about the rum.

  “I don’t know when I’ve felt so bad,” Annie whispered.

  “Do you want me to call Dr. Walker?”

  “No dearie, don’t do that. I’ll be all right in a while.”

  That was probably true. Now that she’d got the alcohol out of her system, rest and a hot water bottle should be cure enough. Holly gave Annie a comforting pat and went down to boil a kettle. She’d been afraid she might find Bert in equally bad shape, but all those years of training must have toughened his resistance. He was on his legs and mending the fire, cursing with almost half his usual fluency.

  “Well, I see you’re bright-eyed and bushytailed,” Holly remarked.

  “Ungh. How’s Annie?”

  “Poorly. Hand me that kettle, will you? I’m trying to get her warm.”

  Bert passed over the teakettle with an air of outraged virtue. “Ain’t nothin’ more disgustin’ than a drunken woman.”

  “Then what did you get her sloshed for?”

  “Quit yellin’, can’t you? Cripes, if a field mouse was to back into a pussywillow just now, I don’t think I could stand the noise o’ the collision.”

  Bert slumped into the rocking chair and glowered at the oven door. Holly put the coffeepot on, fixed Annie’s hot water bottle from the teakettle, and took it upstairs.

  Annie’s eyes were shut, but she whispered, “That you, dearie? I don’t know how I’m going to drag myself out to get her breakfast. Just the look of porridge would set me off again.”

  Holly’d forgotten there was another invalid to feed and clean up. “Never mind, Annie,” she sighed. “I’ll do it as soon as I get the porridge boiled. That’s what she has, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right, dearie. Porridge and tea. Ugh!”

  Annie groaned but mercifully didn’t start retching again. Holly put the comforting heat to the old woman’s stomach and went back to her own room to change into jeans and a sweatshirt. When she got down to the kitchen again, Bert had dozed off and the coffeepot was boiling over. She shoved it to the back of the stove and poured herself a mug to sip while she stirred the porridge.

  At last it began to plop tiny volcanoes that sent scalding spatters over her hand. She mustn’t let the gruel get too thick or Mrs. Parlett wouldn’t be able to swallow it. She mustn’t allow any lumps to form or Mrs. Parlett might choke. She must get up there and do what she had to, much as she disliked the thought.

  Propping up that all-but-lifeless body was like handling a puppet. When it came to poking food into the silent mouth, Holly almost panicked. Eating seemed to be the one physical act Mrs. Parlett could still perform with any sign of intelligence, though. If Holly was late with the next spoonful, her mouth would hang open in reproachful expectation, bits of porridge clinging to the mucous membrane. When the last scrape of gruel, the last sip of tea had disappeared, the mouth closed and stayed closed.

  Was it mere instinct, or did a spark of awareness linger in that worn-out frame? Did she know what had become of her, the laughing Mathilde who’d gathered field flowers to brighten the dark corners of Cliff House? Now Holly understood why Annie kept on laundering the lace-edged pillowcases and the delicate nightgowns.

  “I’ll pick you some flowers as soon as I get a chance,” Holly promised. “You’ll like that, won’t you? Now I’m going to get you fixed up nice and comfortable.”

  That was the sort of thing Annie would say. Holly’d heard her droning on to Mathilde often enough. The words didn’t matter, it was the love in the voice that counted. She carried the tray out and was on her way to the bathroom for warm water and towels when the phone rang. It was Geoffrey, wondering if she’d be free to work with him that morning.

  “I can’t,” Holly wailed. “Annie’s sick in bed and I’ve got both her and Mrs. Parlett to look after. Anyway, Earl Stoodley wouldn’t want to come on a Sunday.”

  “I’ve just spent twenty minutes talking him into it.” Geoffrey sounded rather frosty. “What’s the matter with Annie?”

  “A gastric upset.” That was close enough to the truth.

  “Do you think it’s anything catching?”

  “Oh no, I’m quite sure it’s not.”

  “Then we may as well come. If you can’t help me, I’ll have to muddle along as best I can. Would it be possible for you to take time out from your nursing to open the door for us?”

  “I expect I can manage that much.”

  Holly waited till he’d rung off before she slammed down the receiver. Of all the things she didn’t need today, this had to be number one!

  She got the basin and towels and went back to Mrs. Parlett, trying to remember how to do a back rub. Was it alcohol or talcum powder you used? Alcohol dried the skin, but powder might make the patient sneeze and choke. She went to ask Annie and found her asleep, curled around the hot water bottle. She’d skip the alcohol. There’d been too much of it used around here already.

  To Holly’s surprise, she found she didn’t mind coping with the pathetic effects of incontinence. What got to her was the simple act of bending over to change Mrs. Parlett’s bed. The muscles in her injured thigh pulled till the whole leg felt as if it were on fire. By the time Geoffrey Cawne and his portly bodyguard arrived, she didn’t see how she could m
anage to descend that long flight of stairs and let them in. Holly solved that problem by sliding down the bannisters.

  “What’s the matter with Annie?” was Earl Stoodley’s greeting.

  Holly’s leg gave her a nasty twinge. She snapped back, “Mostly I think she’s plain exhausted. You have no idea how tough it is to take care of Mrs. Parlett without proper facilities. Couldn’t you at least rent a hospital bed so we wouldn’t have to do so much bending?”

  “Far’s I know, nobody’s standing over you with a blacksnake whip,” he replied blandly.

  “What’s that supposed to mean, that we let her lie there and starve to death in her own filth? This is still Mrs. Parlett’s house and it’s her money that pays us, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “I’m not one to forget anything. S’pose you try to remember whether it’s her or me who does the hiring and firing around here.”

  Holly caught a warning glance from Geoffrey and didn’t answer back. With Annie too ill to cope, Stoodley would adore an excuse to fire the new helper on the spot and let Mrs. Parlett die of neglect. Should Annie happen to die, too, he’d just blame Holly for having deserted two helpless invalids, and set happily about making his own dream of glory come true. She turned and went down to the laundry room with her burden of reeking sheets.

  When she’d set the old-fashioned washing machine thumping and bumping, she hauled herself back to the kitchen. She should have warned Bert visitors were coming. A glance told her she needn’t have worried. Bert was too wily an old fox to be caught by Earl Stoodley. He’d even smoothed out the cot where he’d slept, and folded the afghan. Only a few extra dishes in the sink and a lingering mephitic whiff betrayed the fact that he’d been there. An opened window and a dishpan full of hot suds took care of those clues. Holly was innocently stacking away clean china when the two men came to find her.

  “I hate to disturb you,” Geoffrey apologized, “but could you spare two minutes to give us your opinion of this setup?”

  “Certainly.” She hung up her cup towel and followed him to the back parlor. For an amateur he hadn’t done badly, though the group he’d assembled was curiously assorted. Early piecrust tables flanked a late Victorian loveseat. Matching Sèvres urns on the tables made a strange contrast to gaudy Berlin-work sofa pillows and a silly Art Deco doll Mathilde must have picked up in Paris.

  “My idea was to show the mélange of treasures spanning the centuries,” Cawne explained. “Is it too much of a hodgepodge?”

  “No, I think it’s fun,” Holly told him. “I’m just wondering how you’ll get it all in without distortion.”

  “I thought I’d use my wide-angle lens. Would you care to look through the view-finder? You’ll have to climb up on this footstool. I thought a high angle would be better, to pick up the carving on the loveseat and those nice finials on the urns.”

  Stifling a groan, Holly did as he asked. “The angle isn’t bad, but your lighting is too flat. You’ll wash out the detail. Move your left-hand flood about eight inches—no, that’s no good. You’ve picked up a glare from the table top.”

  “Those tables are a problem. The wood’s so highly polished it acts like a mirror.”

  So it did. The last time Holly’d noticed those tables, they’d been coated with dust and grime. That must have been Thursday, the last time she’d helped Geoffrey. She remembered bumping into one and noticing a chip out of its edge while she was hunting for props to use with that ill-chosen Bible box. The edge wasn’t chipped now. Both tables looked good as new. And that same night she’d been locked into this room.

  And only yesterday Fan had remarked that they’d got that pair of piecrust tables shipped off to Mrs. Brown.

  Cawne was getting restless. “What’s the matter, Holly? Is the lighting still wrong?”

  “Do you have to use those tables?” Her voice was too shrill.

  “Why not?” he said in some surprise. “Go ahead, if they’re wrong, say so. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings, what matters is that we make no mistakes. My distinguished colleagues will be going over every page with a magnifying glass, and if there’s any fault to be found, I assure you they’ll find it.”

  Lovely! And Geoffrey was also going to include illustrations of local artisan Roger Howe with his eighteenth-century tools and his foot-powered lathe. Once the fakes were spotted, it wouldn’t take a university professor to figure out who was responsible for them.

  “The tables are no good,” Holly said flatly.

  “No good?” sputtered Earl Stoodley. “They’re worth thousands and thousands of dollars.”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean they—they’re out of proportion to that heavy loveseat.”

  “Then let’s take away the loveseat and just show the tables,” said Geoffrey.

  “That’s stupid! It destroys your whole concept. You can’t just have two dinky little tables sitting side by side.”

  His eyebrows shot up, and no wonder. She’d been yelling. Earl Stoodley was watching with a strangely blank look on his pudgy face. With a supreme effort, Holly pulled herself together.

  “Look, why don’t we do it this way? Pull the loveseat around at a right angle to the fireplace, leave the doll and pillows as they are, and set the urns on the mantelpiece. The Chippendale firescreen and the brass warming pan can go side by side opposite the loveseat and I’ll bring down a marvelous Victorian paper fan out of the fireplace in my bedroom. That gets in more contrast of periods with greater design interest. If you’re absolutely hung up on those tables, we can set one at the end of the loveseat next to the fireplace.”

  Where it would be almost totally hidden, as Stoodley was quick to point out. “Why not drag it out where folks can see it?”

  “Because that’s not good photographic layout,” Holly argued. “You don’t line things up in a row like bowling pins. Please try it my way. If you don’t like the layout, we can always come back to this one.”

  In a pig’s eye they could. By the time she got through shoving things around, they’d have forgotten all about the piecrust tables. Holly’d done enough camera work to know how fast an original concept can get lost in the shuffle. Furthermore, she was hoping Earl would start wanting his Sunday dinner pretty soon.

  Her stratagem worked, but her leg took a terrible beating. By the time she’d limped upstairs for props, helped Cawne move the furniture and rearrange the lighting, she was half out of her mind with pain. Still, she’d produced a handsome layout and maybe saved her brother’s neck.

  On the other hand, she’d probably cooked her goose with Geoffrey by criticizing him in front of Earl Stoodley, and she’d been away from her patients too long. As soon as they’d finished shooting she said, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go now. Mrs. Parlett should have been fed at noon and it’s almost one o’clock.”

  Cawne began to apologize, but Stoodley cut him short. “Don’t let that bother you, Professor. I guess she’s learning to put first things first around here.”

  Holly felt her face blaze and her throat tighten, but this time she had sense enough to keep quiet. She couldn’t fight Earl Stoodley with words.

  Chapter 21

  “ANNIE, DO PLEASE TAKE a sip of tea. You’ve got to get something into your stomach or you’ll dehydrate.”

  The housekeeper was proving a more difficult patient than Mrs. Parlett. It was suppertime now, and Holly was ready to push the panic button. She’d half-dragged Annie to the bathroom a couple of times during the afternoon, but now Annie was so weak that she couldn’t get out of bed at all. Still she insisted she wouldn’t have the doctor.

  “Come on, try,” Holly begged again.

  This time, Annie allowed a few drops to pass between her blue lips. “Thank you, dearie,” she whispered. “That’s enough.”

  “No it isn’t. Drink some more.” Wheedling, scolding, threatening to call Dr. Walker, Holly managed to get about half a cup of tea into the old woman. Miraculously, it stayed down. “There, see. You’re doing fine.”
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br />   “Yes, dearie.” The voice was a mere thread of sound. The gray head lolled back on the pillow.

  “Oh my God,” Holly thought, “she’s dead.” She actually fetched a mirror and held it to Annie’s mouth to convince herself Annie was still breathing.

  Now she couldn’t fool around any longer. At least she could call Claudine. Since it was Claudine who’d sent up the rum, she didn’t pussyfoot about what was wrong with Annie, and Claudine was every bit as upset as she should have been.

  “Poor Annie, she has so few pleasures. I ought to have known better, with that old souse Bert egging her on. No, please don’t call the doctor. If Annie’s no better in the morning I’ll get someone to bring her down here. Now that you’ve managed to get something into her, though, I expect she’ll be all right. How are you managing with Mrs. Parlett?”

  “Oh, she’s an old sweetie,” Holly said. “That’s like taking care of a baby who never cries. I’m growing fond of her.”

  “Are you really, Holly? That’s—I’m glad. Call me again if you’re worried. Any time, night or day.”

  Holly could swear Claudine was crying when she hung up, but she had no time to wonder why. There was still Mrs. Parlett’s supper to take up, and loud clanking from the drive told her Bert Walker was arriving. She hobbled out to meet him.

  “Oh Bert, I’m so glad to see you. I hope you’re not expecting a proper Sunday meal, though. You’ll be lucky to get another can of beans tonight.”

  “I’ve et worse. What’s the matter? Where’s Annie?”

  “Still in bed. She’s been sick as a dog all day. I’m worried about her, Bert.”

  “Did you call Ben?”

  “Dr. Walker? She wouldn’t let me.”

  “Stands to reason. She wouldn’t want him to know what made ’er sick.” The prunelike face split in an evil grin.