Mrs. McEye looked sympathetic. “Among many, Mrs. Lloyd.”
“Cultivated,” Amy said. “That’s the word. But how does one become that cultivated when for all those years she cut herself off from the world? And was in such a morbid state. Because she was, wasn’t she?”
“Oh, yes. A permanent depression, so it appeared. Withdrawn. Would come downstairs now and then but her only interest seemed to be making sure those pictures in the West Gallery and the dining room were right there as always. Painful really, to watch her go along testing their frames with her fingers to make sure of that, poor dear.”
“And she had no tutoring, no private instruction all that time?”
“Wouldn’t stand for it,” Mrs. McEye said. “Nothing in the way of any instruction until last year, when she came out of that bad time and took up braille. But she did listen endlessly to cultural things on radio and recordings. And did want to be read to. Old plays especially. And news about the theater in the Times.”
“The theater?” Amy said. “Not the art news?”
“No, I imagine art is a touchy subject there, Mrs. Lloyd, considering she had a fine talent that was suddenly no use anymore. But Mr. McEye told me that she loved to go to the theater as a girl. Her father—that was Mr. James—had copies printed up of all the plays she ever saw, and that’s what she usually wanted read to her. I used to do it for her myself sometimes. Not lately however. Not since she did make the turnaround, so to speak. Has she asked you to read any of those plays to her?”
Careful, Amy thought. Ma’am’s intense interest in art—especially feminist art—was not a secret to share. “She hasn’t asked me yet,” she said.
“Well, sooner or later perhaps.” Mrs. McEye returned to her lunch. She ate with almost excessive neatness, pressing a napkin to that overflowing embonpoint with two fingers. Amy suspected from her frowning concentration that mastication was being accompanied by some deep thinking. So it proved. Mrs. McEye said, “Very strictly between us, Mrs. Lloyd, the family is concerned—we all are—about her emotional state. I mean, now that she’s miraculously come out of that dreadful depression, could she be going too far the other way?”
“Other way?”
“Yes. Too volatile, so to speak. She seems to be living in a constant state of—well, I suppose you could call it excitement. And at her age she does have just so much energy to spare. She is frail. One look makes that plain enough.”
Amy seized opportunity. “You mean there’s something physically wrong there? Fainting spells—something like that?”
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. McEye with assurance. Which, thought Amy, does put me one up on her. And the family. Ma’am’s terrifying, glassy-eyed blackout had the look of something concealed from all but Mrs. Lloyd. Not that there was any joy in this little triumph. It was made even worse when Mrs. McEye leaned forward and reverted to the lowered voice. “You see, Mrs. Lloyd, there’s a feeling in the family that Miss Margaret is—it’s awkward trying to find the words—well, that she’s involving herself in some matters beyond her experience. If you know what I mean.”
Amy hesitated only the flicker of an eye. “Not really.”
“Oh, dear, it is hard to explain. But I can tell you that after never setting foot outdoors all those years she doesn’t hesitate now to be driven off somewhere by herself. Wilson would give Mr. Craig the addresses in confidence—a certain office building, the Plaza Hotel, various art galleries—but of course he couldn’t go inside with her and report on what she was doing there. Who she was meeting there.”
Whom, Any corrected silently. “But,” she asked, “why assume she was meeting anyone?”
“Oh, no question about that. Wilson reported that her manner when she entered those places was, well, very purposeful. And when Mr. Craig finally put it to her in the nicest way she flew into the most frightening rage. Far beyond what might be expected at such a natural question. Believe me, Mr. Craig knows her moods very well. Her response on that occasion made him greatly concerned. And then—”
Amy waited. “And then?”
“Well, there was her asking me to hire a private secretary for her. And the way over the past month she rejected several suitable applicants just on my description of them.”
Signally honored, Amy thought, that’s me. She said, “Is there something so strange in her wanting a private secretary?”
Mrs. McEye held up a hand in protest. “Believe me, Mrs. Lloyd, this is no reflection on you. But why a private secretary all of a sudden with family and staff attending to her with such devotion? What troubled Mr. Craig and Mrs. Jocelyn most—and this is very much between us—was her repeated emphasis on a private secretary, a confidential secretary.”
“Just a way of putting it,” Amy suggested.
“Yes, but it did seem to mean sharing confidences with an outsider—again no reflection on you, Mrs. Lloyd—rather than with her family. I’ll tell you this, I feel it was the best of good luck that you came along just when you did. And Lloyd, too, of course. He appears to be a most desirable addition to staff.”
Both Lloyds signally honored, Amy thought. She had the uncomfortable feeling from the McEye’s almost intensely sunny regard of her that there was more to come. An invitation to the waltz. Confidential secretary to Ma’am, confidential agent for her terribly devoted family.
Hell and damnation.
Mrs. McEye leaned over farther forward than usual. “I’m sure I don’t have to ask whether you share the family’s concern for Miss Margaret.”
“No, of course not.”
“Well then, you can see how much they’d appreciate your help in assuring that well-being.” She pressed a hand to the embonpoint. “I for one certainly would. You do understand what I’m getting at, don’t you?”
“I believe so.”
“Yes. Then if she does communicate—through correspondence, through visits—with people who are strangers to the family, and she shares this with you—”
“I then share it with you,” said Amy. “But I really—”
“Please. You must see that this is not a betrayal of Miss Margaret’s trust in you. Not one bit. After all, Mrs. Lloyd, you have the family’s trust, too. And consider that Miss Margaret after all those years out of the world, so to speak, doesn’t realize how it’s changed for the worse. Doesn’t appreciate how easily she can be victimized by unscrupulous people. In that regard, she is childlike, so to speak. So the family’s deep concern is quite natural and proper, isn’t it? If you saw a child pull away from its parents and prepare to run out into traffic, the least you’d do is warn the parents, wouldn’t you?”
Casuistry lives, Amy thought. “Of course,” she said. Unless, she thought, the child happened to be a highly intelligent, fiercely independent woman of seventy.
Still, it seemed from the churning inside her that she wasn’t really made for this game. And it could get to be quite a nasty game, too. She had a vivid picture of Craig Durie in his armchair and Jocelyn Durie behind her desk and the McEye with that perpetual hovering, all of them confronting her with a demand for some solid information about God knows what nonsense. But it was Ma’am’s private and treasured nonsense whatever it was. As for the idea that Margaret Durie could be readily victimized by anyone, that provided the only comic touch to the business.
Meanwhile, none of this was relevant to the case of Amy Lloyd. The bottom line was that even if she weren’t made for this game she’d have to play it as best she could. The stakes were simply too great. Let the Lloyds knock on Domestique’s door again, this time with dismissal notices in hand, and it wasn’t likely that door would be opened.
The McEye seemed to be well satisfied with the way things had gone. “Now then,” she said, “on my Thursdays and Saturdays off, Nugent will attend to the office here as well as she can, and you’ll take over as soon as you’ve finished with Miss Margaret. Which means that early in the evening you’ll draw all necessary information from next day’s calendar and any additions
to it along the way and post the next day’s duty rosters on the board. Any questions about that?”
“None that I can think of,” said Amy.
“Then let me ask you a question. One of the staff reports illness. Malingering possibly, but staff gets the benefit of the doubt there. Still, that leaves you with some assignments and no one to attend to them. What do you do about it?”
“I suppose,” said Amy, “I phone Mrs. Bernius and ask for a suitable temporary to be sent over.”
Mrs. McEye regarded her fondly. “Yes, indeed,” she said. “You do learn quickly, don’t you?”
Mike took one more quick reading of Mrs. Mac’s handy schedule reminder. No mistake about it: 5 P.M. Mrs. Langfeld and L from R to British Airways, Kennedy.
So here he was at five-fifteen, dutifully standing beside the parked car at R and still no sign of the lady and her L. Dead, he thought. Lying upstairs like Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat, dead of unrequited love, and nobody had bothered to let him know it. How long did he wait here like this? Or did the chauffeur dare ring that doorbell and inform whoever answered that Gwen Langfeld had better get a move on if she expected to catch her plane?
Of course, a car phone would solve all such problems. It was Wilson who had brought up this car phone thing, and then with a typical Wilsonian mixture of pride in the family’s strange ways and irritation at his own martyrdom under them had noted that the family had once tried car phones until Mr. Craig got a troublesome call from his office while on the road and promptly had all the phones removed.
“Quite a temper,” Mike had remarked.
“Don’t show it,” said Wilson, “but don’t let that ever fool you.”
At five-twenty, thank God, Gwen Langfeld did at last emerge from the building. She looked even smaller than she had appeared to be on introduction—she was really on the tiny side—and was wearing a caftan, a bulky gray cardigan over it, sandals on stockingless feet, and a babushka tied around her head. With that moonface and snub nose, Mike observed, the babushka did nothing for her. As she seated herself he also observed that there was something missing from the scene. Mrs. Langfeld and L, said the schedule, but aside from a large pocketbook made of some kind of unfinished leather, there was no luggage.
He addressed her through the open door. “Your suitcases, ma’am?”
She made a vague gesture. “No, it’s all right.”
“Yes, ma’am.” And, he thought when he got the car moving, there was a certain style in walking aboard a transatlantic flight with only a pocketbook as luggage. In her own daft way, Gwen Langfeld had style.
She said nothing until they were well into Queens, crawling through the worst of the rush-hour traffic. Then Mike became aware that she had shifted over in the seat and appeared to be studying his profile. Finally she said in that small voice, “What’s your name?”
“Lloyd, ma’am.”
“That’s right. And you’re married to the new housemaid, aren’t you? The very tall one with the red hair.”
“Yes, ma’am, but she’s not a maid. She’s Miss Margaret’s new secretary.”
“She is? I didn’t know Aunt Margaret had a secretary. Why would she need one?”
“I believe you’d have to ask her about that, ma’am.”
“I suppose. But she’s always saying how much she hates people clustering around and helping her. Have you met her?”
“Yes, ma’am. Briefly.”
“Then you must have seen how forceful she is. She believes the only true gratification of the spirit lies in setting some goal and moving in every possible way to achieve it. Of course she’s wrong. That way can be very destructive to the spirit. Do you know anything about transcendental meditation? In group?”
Oh, boy, Mike thought, here it comes. An invitation to a soirée à la Peters, the erring houseman. He said, “I’ve heard of it. I’m afraid that I—”
“It means above all—What is your name?”
“Lloyd, ma’am.”
“It means above all, Lloyd, that you find your center. You are within the universe, the universe is within you. When you find your center you feel the oneness. Acutely. When I’m home again I want you to share in my gatherings so you can search for that feeling. I think you’d be very responsive. Your wife, too. It’ll help her counter that flow of negative forcefulness she must be meeting in Aunt Margaret.”
“I’ll mention it to her,” Mike said, then moved almost as much by concern at the nonflow of traffic as by the feeling he’d better haul himself out of this metaphysical quicksand: “I hope you won’t miss your flight, ma’am. This traffic makes slow going.”
She made that vague gesture. “No, it’s all right. Mrs. McEye made the arrangements.”
Now that’s real faith, Mike thought. Mrs. Mac, the infallible. Still, there were limits to infallibility as in this case where once they docked at the terminal this moon maiden could wander off somewhere in search of her center and never be seen again. And who would take the rap for that? Well, since his orders were never to leave the car, Mrs. Mac would.
Enlightenment came as soon as he pulled the car up to the curb of the departures area. Before he could open the door, an anxious-looking gent, middle aged, dressed impeccably, emitting a distinct whiff of VIP, had opened it and was helping the passenger out. If not the manager of the airport, at least the manager of the airline. Right behind him was a younger model of VIP on the rise. Also on hand was a redcap standing by an empty handtruck and involved in something of a hassle with travelers who would plant their bags on the truck only to have them immediately pushed off.
Add it all up, Mike thought, and one thing was clear. Mrs. Langfeld—no, make that any of the clan Durie—would never be found wandering off alone at any airport.
The VIP led Mrs. Langfeld away. The younger man pointed at the trunk of the car. “The luggage, man,” he said in purest Oxbridge.
“No luggage,” said Mike. “None at all.”
He strove for a tone that would indicate surprise that anyone could imagine Mrs. Langfeld traveled with luggage. Young Oxbridge actually looked apologetic. “Ah, then,” he said awkwardly, and as he moved off was clearly attempting to cover the awkwardness by making a firmly dismissive gesture at the waiting redcap. The redcap, taken aback in his turn, rallied just in time to give Oxbridge the finger as he disappeared through the door.
Just another couple of cases, Mike thought cheerfully as he got back into the car, of people who hadn’t found their centers.
“Well,” said Amy, “luggage or no luggage, she is not checking into a hotel in London.”
She was helping Mike put away the order delivered on schedule by Hale & Hale, clothiers: the livery sheathed in a black plastic bag, the rest in boxes of various sizes, everything with that winged lion crest on it. With the dresser here and the closet there, they were making a sort of gavotte of it while Mike described the trip to Kennedy.
His wife’s authoritative tone interested him. “Do tell,” he said.
“No hotel. The family owns a house in London. According to the McEye, a loverly Georgian town house in Belgravia, all staffed. And I’m sure that whatever Gwen needs is all laid on there for her.”
“It’s the only way to live,” Mike said. “Once folks realize how easy that makes travel, everybody’ll be doing it.”
“And,” Amy said from the recesses of the closet, “they also own an estate in Scotland and another one on Gonquit Island off Maine—the whole island is theirs—and another one in Aiken, South Carolina. All staffed and waiting.”
“And an oceangoing yacht berthed down the block to complete the ensemble.”
“No yacht,” Amy said. She emerged from the closet, her face bright with pleasure. “I’m glad you brought that up. The best part is that the McEye was so humorless about it.”
“The no yacht?”
“Yes. All because of James Hamilton Durie. When the Morgans and other nouveaux riches were going in for yachts he refused to. Want to guess why?
”
“Too easy,” Mike said. “The old gent was subject to seasickness.”
“Oh, no. That’s terribly plebian. The reason was he felt—and I quote the McEye—that motor-yachting was vulgar. Isn’t that beautiful?”
“It is. But sailboating?”
“His thing. That’s why he bought that island off Maine. He and his wife did a lot of sailing there. Matter of fact, that’s where they and the boys were when Margaret went down those stairs. I suppose the worst of it for them was that they were so far away when it happened. They didn’t get back here until the next day.”
“Double misery,” Mike said.
“It must have been. Especially the way James Hamilton felt about her. The McEye said that while he could be hard on the two boys, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. Like her taking up painting seriously. He didn’t like it, but when she came on stubborn, he just buckled at the knees. Anyhow, that’s how Mr. McEye described it to the McEye. She hadn’t started working here yet when it actually happened. Of course, as butler he’d be in the middle of everything, ears fanned wide.”
“Just where she is now,” Mike said. “Come to think of it, what made her so chatty about all this? You must have really captivated her.”
“Oh, I did,” Amy said. “For the wrong reason.”
Her tone was suddenly bitter, Mike noted, her face troubled. He recognized the symptoms of a downer in the making. He seated himself on the edge of the bed and patted the coverlet. “Sit.”
She sat down against him and he put an arm around her waist. “Speak.”
“Hell and damnation.”
“Not very enlightening. How did you captivate her for the wrong reason?”
“Because she asked me to report back on Ma’am’s private little doings, and I let her believe I would. After that, she couldn’t have been friendlier.”
Very Old Money Page 17