Cyanide with Christie

by Katherine Bolger Hyde

  She was disappointed again in the evening, though, by not being able to get to the Christmas Eve service. Instead she gathered all who were willing – Dustin and Cruella declined – in the parlor around the piano. Olivia, it transpired, was an excellent pianist and accompanied the group in half an hour of traditional carols. Oscar and Ian had passable tenor and bass voices, respectively, while Olivia’s clear soprano made Emily’s shortcomings as a singer less obvious. Katie and Marguerite carried the alto part, and Luke, who was somewhat musically challenged, plowed manfully through on the melody.

  ‘We don’t sound bad,’ Emily observed after the first few songs. ‘We should go around the neighborhood. Except there is no immediate neighborhood here, and we’d never be able to make it to town.’

  ‘Dommage,’ said Marguerite. ‘But at least we have entertained les chats.’ All three cats had sat attentively, lined up on the window seat, throughout the performance. When they realized the music was over, they all curled up and went to sleep.

  The night was yet young, and Katie served mulled wine and homemade eggnog in the library. ‘I know,’ Oscar said suddenly. ‘Let’s read A Christmas Carol. We can all take turns.’

  ‘Perfect!’ said Emily, and she quickly found the book on the shelf – a beautifully illustrated leather-bound edition, its corners rubbed with much use.

  Oscar began, since it was his idea. He read with an actor’s expression through Marley’s appearance, then handed off to Emily for the Ghost of Christmas Past. They each took a turn, Marguerite’s French accent lending a peculiar flavor to the Cratchits’ Christmas dinner. By the time the book was finished, everyone was stifling yawns, and soon all except Emily, Luke, and Oscar drifted off to bed.

  Oscar seemed too elated to sleep. ‘This is so cool,’ he said. ‘This is the kind of Christmas I always dreamed of but never had.’

  ‘Was your family not into the traditional celebration?’ Emily asked, hoping she wasn’t being too personal.

  His face fell. ‘Not really.’ Oscar stared into the dregs of his wine. Emily offered him more but he shook his head. ‘It was just me and my mother growing up. I never knew my father. We weren’t exactly poor, but certainly not well off. My mother worked really hard, and when Christmas came, all she wanted to do was put her feet up and think about nothing at all. Some years we didn’t even have a tree.’

  Memories flooded Emily’s mind, making her heart constrict. ‘It was like that for us, too, after my mother died. I was eight. From then on, Christmas only happened if I made it happen. It was all a bit much for me to handle.’ She gave Oscar a sympathetic smile. ‘But I married a man who made Bob Cratchit look like Scrooge, so from then on we went all out every year. I’d almost forgotten what those Scrooge years were like.’

  Oscar grimaced. ‘I apologize for reminding you.’

  She reached over and squeezed his hand. ‘Don’t apologize. I’m glad we’re able to make up a bit of the deficit.’

  Oscar stood and stretched his arms over his head. ‘I think I’ll head up. I want to be well rested for the real party tomorrow.’

  ‘Good idea.’ She glanced at Luke. ‘Ready?’

  He nodded, a deep crease between his brows. Did Luke have bad Christmas memories as well? They’d never talked much about all the years they’d been apart; the present had always been so engrossing.

  When they’d said goodnight to Oscar and climbed to the third floor, Emily asked Luke, ‘Is something bothering you? You didn’t say much – is Christmas a sore spot for you too?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s not that.’ His frown deepened and he shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘It’s just – well, I’ve never heard you talk about your husband like that before. I never thought you were that happy together. And you and Lansing are getting so buddy-buddy these days. Seems like I’ve got competition from the living and the dead.’

  Emily was flabbergasted. Lately Luke had been showing a side of his personality she’d never seen before. He’d always seemed so confident, but apparently it was only a show. He must be insecure deep down for a few chance remarks to make him doubt her love for him.

  ‘Luke, you’re blowing things out of proportion. Philip and I were happy together, in a mild sort of way. I guess “contented” would be a better word. But that has nothing to do with my love for you. And as for Oscar, you’re being silly. You can’t seriously think I’d prefer him over you.’

  He looked up at her with pain in his eyes. ‘Can’t I? He’s brainy like you. You know all the same books, you get each other’s jokes while I sit by and scratch my head. Why wouldn’t you want a man you can share all that with?’

  She came up close to him and slid her arms around his waist. ‘Because he isn’t you.’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. ‘I love you. Oscar’s a friend, period. It’s true, I do miss the kind of conversations I have with him and the others, but clever, well-educated people were as plentiful as books in a library in my old world. I’ve never met anyone else who could make me feel the way you do. You are my man.’ She gave him a teasing smile. ‘Whether you like it or not.’

  His frown lessened but did not disappear. ‘Then prove it.’

  She pulled back a bit to look him in the eye. Was this about sex? He’d never pressured her about that before. She had her reasons for holding back – her faith was of the conservative stripe that still disapproved of premarital sex – but they’d never really discussed the issue.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said cautiously.

  ‘Marry me.’

  ‘Oh, Luke …’

  ‘If you’re so sure I’m the one for you, marry me.’

  She turned away and paced a small circle, twisting her hands like a silent-movie heroine. This was not the romantic proposal-acceptance scene she’d envisioned. For one thing, the timing was terrible. Just when she was feeling pulled toward her old life – the hushed, cat-free atmosphere of the Reed library, where she would surely be able to grasp the key ideas that eluded her here; her own church, where she could find regular weekly sustenance for her soul – Luke wanted her to abandon all that, completely and permanently, and settle down in Stony Beach as his wife.

  She stopped and faced him. ‘I can’t, Luke. Not now. I thought I was ready to leave academia behind me, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve been working on my Dostoevsky book, and I feel like I need to finish that before I abandon that life forever. It’ll mean a lot of time at Reed, in the library.’

  ‘We’ve talked about that, Em. Marrying me doesn’t mean you have to be imprisoned in Stony Beach. You can still spend time at Reed when you need to.’ His jaw clenched momentarily, and she knew he was envisioning her there with Oscar and others of his ilk. ‘And I’d feel a heck of a lot better if you spent your time there as my wife.’

  She took a moment to imagine herself at Reed as Mrs Luke Richards. That was a person she did not yet even know. How could that hypothetical person belong to Reed?

  ‘It’s a question of focus. When I marry you – notice I did say when – I want to be free to focus on you. I don’t want to bring unfinished business into our marriage.’ Her feelings were more complex than that, but she couldn’t put words to them. She appealed to him with her eyes to understand what her voice could not articulate.

  His mouth twisted. ‘I get it. What you’re really saying is you don’t want me as baggage when you go back to Reed. You want to be a free agent.’

  She huffed in exasperation. ‘There you go again. This is not about Oscar or any other man. It isn’t really about us at all. It’s about me. When I made the transition from Reed to Stony Beach, it was too rushed, too – well, almost forced on me. I mean, I made the choice, but I didn’t make it without a certain amount of external pressure. I don’t mean you – I mean the whole situation. And now, I’m starting to see that maybe I didn’t take into account everything I should have.’

  One look at his face was enough to tell her she was only digging herself in deeper. She went up to him and laid her hands o
n his chest. ‘I will marry you eventually, Luke. I promise. I just need some time.’

  His face worked, and she realized he was holding back tears. Never in all their time together had she seen him cry.

  ‘I was going to give you a ring for Christmas,’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘I guess that’s off.’

  Tears sprang to her eyes at that, but she couldn’t give in. At this point she would be caving to emotional blackmail, and she’d be sure to regret it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Luke,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  His face hardened into a mask she’d never seen before. ‘Some Christmas,’ he muttered under his breath as he turned away.

  Some Christmas indeed. What would tomorrow be like, with all the difficult people she had to deal with, if she didn’t even have Luke on her side?

  NINE

  First thing Christmas morning, while most of them were still in their bathrobes, Emily invited Marguerite along with Katie and Lizzie up to her sitting room to give them their gifts. She’d prepared small, impersonal gifts for her other guests, but she wanted to exchange the more meaningful ones in private.

  Luke was still sullen and withdrawn, though he made an effort to appear like his normal self in front of the others. Emily gave him her gift – a pair of hand-tooled Western boots with his initials worked into the design. He showed due appreciation, but nevertheless she felt her gift had fallen flat. What was a pair of boots when what he wanted was her heart and hand?

  For Marguerite she had a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild, a wine she knew her friend revered but could never afford on a professor’s salary. Marguerite, in turn, presented her with a bottle of Disaronno amaretto, a treat Emily allowed herself only rarely because its higher alcohol content made her tipsy more quickly than she liked. But as one of the aunts in A Child’s Christmas in Wales said to justify her own holiday alcohol consumption, ‘it was only once a year.’ She thanked Marguerite warmly.

  ‘You know, much as I love the contents, this would be worth having for the bottle alone. Isn’t it the coolest thing you ever saw?’ She showed Katie and Luke the unusually shaped bottle, rectangular with a broad, square lid topping its tapered neck. ‘It looks like one of those men in Renaissance paintings with the weird flat hats.’

  Luke gave an affirmative grunt, then went back to admiring his boots. Katie looked up from unwrapping her own gifts to say, ‘Cool,’ but it was clear this particular enthusiasm was Emily’s alone.

  Never mind; she was happy the others were enjoying their own gifts. For Lizzie, Emily had made a lovely soft, lacy crib blanket in butter yellow. Because knitted gifts from her to Lizzie were fairly commonplace, she’d also included a complete boxed set of the little Beatrix Potter books that Ben Johnson, the local bookseller, had found for her. ‘She’s a bit young to appreciate them now, of course. But I don’t think a child is ever too young to be read to.’

  ‘I totally agree.’ Katie had moved on to admire her own gift, a beautifully bound and illustrated set of the novels of Jane Austen. ‘I only ever had these out of the library – except for one old, dog-eared paperback of Pride and Prejudice. This is absolutely perfect, Mrs C.’ She jumped up and gave Emily an impulsive kiss on the cheek.

  Emily teared up as she hugged her. ‘You’re very welcome, Katie.’

  Katie’s gift to her was a scrapbook of photographs of Lizzie from birth to the present, with funny or touching memories written in. ‘This is perfect too. Makes me feel like a real grandma.’ On cue, Lizzie cooed and reached up her arms, entwined in her new blanket. Emily picked her up and rubbed her face in the baby’s halo of red-gold hair.

  ‘Thank you all for being here. The rest of the day may get pretty crazy, but I’m glad you were with me to start it off right.’

  The others dispersed, Marguerite to shower and dress and Katie to start breakfast. ‘Do you want to shower first?’ Emily asked Luke. ‘You’ll probably be faster than I will.’

  ‘Sure.’ He was picking up all the used wrappings and stuffing them into a bag. He wouldn’t look at her.

  She couldn’t bear this distance between them. ‘Luke—’

  ‘Yeah?’ he said without looking up.

  ‘Can’t we be – well, normal with each other? After all, nothing’s really changed.’ What she meant was that she’d been declining his proposals for months; why should this time make such a difference? But somehow she didn’t think saying that would help.

  He straightened and met her eyes. ‘That what you think?’ She quailed under his steely gaze. ‘Sure feels different to me.’

  ‘Well, then – can we put this on hold till after Christmas? At least pretend to be normal, just for today?’

  His jaw clenched as he drew in a long breath. ‘All right. I’ll make an effort. For the sake of your guests. You have enough loonies to deal with as it is.’

  She sagged in relief. ‘Thank you. And I know you won’t believe this, but I really do love you. No acting required on my part.’

  He gave her a look that said, Yeah, right, shoved the bag of wrappings in the trash, and headed for the bathroom.

  This was going to be a long, long day.

  For Christmas Day, Emily felt she had to let Cruella out of her room, at least for meals. When Emily came down for breakfast, Cruella was already there, walking around the table as if to compare the gifts laid out next to each guest’s plate. The gifts were identical as wrapped, though slightly varied beneath – a beautiful leather-bound journal and fountain pen in different colors for each writer.

  Predictably, Oscar, Ian, and Olivia were properly appreciative. Oscar in particular stroked his journal and fondled his green-marbled pen with the absorption of a child who’s just received something he’s always longed for. He looked up at Emily with misty eyes.

  ‘Thank you so much. I’ve been making do with ballpoints and spiral-bound notebooks all my life. These make me feel like I could write something beautiful.’

  Emily beamed at him, then caught Luke’s glower and looked away. Dustin opened his gifts, set them aside with a grunted ‘Thanks,’ and dug into his breakfast. Cruella evaluated her journal and pen (originally meant for the absent Alex) as if assessing what she could get for them on eBay, then set to her meal in silence. Her eyes, however, darted between Dustin, Ian, and Olivia as if to be sure they didn’t escape.

  No one would be escaping the house today. Luke predicted that by midday the road through town would have thawed enough for him to collect all the local dinner guests in his official SUV. But the highways out of town were still frozen solid.

  From the time they came in and seated themselves, Ian and Olivia both were restless in their chairs, twitching their shoulders and scratching discreetly from time to time. Olivia ate little – only a bit of fruit and the small, gluten-free coffee cake Katie had baked especially for her – and excused herself, saying, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong – perhaps I’ve developed an allergy to the fibers in this outfit. I’m going to shower and change.’

  Ian finished his breakfast as quickly as politeness would allow and followed her. ‘I seem to have the same problem as Olivia,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it’s the dry air. I itch all over.’

  Cruella snickered and ducked her head. Emily frowned at her. Was she simply enjoying her enemies’ discomfiture, or could she be in some way responsible for it?

  Dustin stopped with a huge bite of cinnamon roll half-chewed in his mouth, shoved his chair back, and bolted from the room. The bathroom door slammed, and some time later he reappeared, looking as green as a piece of rotten meat. ‘What are you feeding us, anyway? Something’s gone bad. Gave me the worst runs I’ve ever had.’ He stared accusingly at Katie, who was coming in with a fresh pot of coffee.

  She faltered in her tracks. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Weaver. I don’t know what the problem could be. Everything was fresh when I cooked it this morning.’ She looked entreatingly at Emily.

  ‘Is everyone else feeling all right?’ Emily asked of the company
in general. Everyone nodded or said, ‘Fine.’ She said to Dustin, ‘I don’t think it was the food, since it hasn’t affected anyone else. Perhaps you picked up a bug in town and it’s just now showing itself.’

  He grunted. ‘Maybe.’ He gulped down the last of his coffee, then made a face. ‘This coffee’s bad, anyway. Worst I’ve ever tasted.’

  If there was one thing Katie did superlatively well, it was coffee. Emily shot a glance at Luke, who frowned.

  ‘Let me see that cup.’ He reached across Marguerite to take the cup from Dustin, brought it up to his eyes, and examined the inside. He sniffed at it, then touched his finger to the bottom and brought it to his lips. He made a face and spat into his empty juice glass.

  ‘It’s not the coffee. There’s detergent in this cup.’

  Katie went white and shifted from foot to foot. ‘I swear, all the dishes were properly rinsed. They all went through the dishwasher together. I don’t know how one could have detergent left in it and not the others.’

  ‘Maybe some joker decided to give you a little Christmas gift – the kind that keeps on giving.’ Luke peered at Cruella, who was shaking with suppressed laughter. ‘Cruella, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?’

  She pulled in her cheeks to stop herself giggling and made a long face. ‘Who, me? Why would I do such a thing? I find it entertaining, that’s all.’ The giggles returned in full force.

  ‘Suppose you show me what you’ve got in your pockets.’

  Cruella stood, still laughing. From two capacious pockets in her skirt she pulled a set of keys, some wadded-up tissues, a paperclip, and a bottle of prescription medication. ‘Go to town, Sheriff.’

  Luke reached for the prescription bottle. ‘Toprol XL. What’s that?’

  Oscar said, ‘Blood pressure medication.’ When Luke cocked an eyebrow at him, he added, ‘My mother takes it.’

  Luke uncapped the bottle and shook the tablets into his hand. They were all identical with the same pharmaceutical stamp. ‘Looks legit.’ He replaced the tablets and passed the recapped bottle back to Cruella.