Rest You Merry

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “What’s she like?” asked Mrs. Lomax abruptly.

  “Miss Marsh seems pleasant enough,” Shandy replied with due caution.

  The housekeeper snorted. “You better watch your step, Professor. Those old maids are man-hungry, every one of ’em. Man-hungry,” she repeated with a speculative gleam in her eye that her employer had never noticed before.

  Shandy realized he was sweating again. “Good, then I’ll—er—leave you to it. You needn’t bother discussing salary with Miss Marsh. Let me know what’s owed and we’ll just add the amount to your usual weekly check. I can square up with Professor Ames when he returns.”

  Knowing he intended to do nothing of the sort, he fled to the bathroom and lurked there until Mrs. Lomax left the house. While waiting, he studied his face in the mirror. It was the same undistinguished, middle-aged countenance he’d seen yesterday, the same one he’d been shaving so meticulously for so long without untoward result. Why, all of a sudden, was it having this peculiar effect on the most unlikely women?

  The sky was almost dark now, and had the weighted look that promised more snow. A storm would put no damper on the revels, unfortunately; but would only lead to joyous wallowings, snowball fights, and no doubt the erection of obscene snowmen on his front lawn. He must be sure to get up early and knock down any such artifact. He wouldn’t want Helen offended again.

  There was still a full hour to kill before he could drop over and pick her up. Actually there was an hour and three quarters, but he thought it might be a courteous gesture to arrive early with a bottle of amontillado and suggest a preprandial drink, since no liquor was served in the dining room. He ought to make sure Mrs. Lomax had left by then, however. Shandy was still feeling a bit nervous about that look she’d given him.

  In the meantime, he supposed he ought to pop next door and find out whether they could give him any information either about the night of the murder or about the recent embarrassment. He didn’t suppose they would. The Jackmans were a family with young children, so involved in their own manifold doings that they barely noticed what was happening around the neighborhood.

  This was probably the worst possible time to burst in on them, but so was any other time. Groaning, for he was weary in body as well as mind, Shandy bundled himself up and went out again.

  Chapter 10

  THE JACKMANS WERE AT home, no question about that. Even over the babble of the crowd and “the peals of the college carillon, the sounds of “Sesame Street” and the shrieks of a child getting its hair pulled were only too audible. Shandy clutched the packet of gingerbread men he had procured from the convenient though ruinously expensive stand on the Common, and began a fusillade on the knocker. After a while, he succeeded in making himself heard.

  “Mum! Mum, somebody’s at the front door,” shrilled infant voices.

  “Well, answer it, Dickie,” replied one tired adult. “You’re door monitor today.”

  “No, I’m not. Wendy is.”

  “I am not!”

  “You are, too!”

  “Stop it, both of you!”

  Mrs. Jackman came herself, looking determinedly bright and motherly, with a moppet clinging to each leg of her blue jeans. Mrs. Jackman always wore blue jeans. She had jeans of blue denim patchwork and jeans with her children’s handprints embroidered on them and rhinestone-studded jeans for evening wear. Shandy tried to recall whether she had worn jeans edged in black to the funeral, but couldn’t remember seeing her there at all. That was as good an opening gambit as any.

  “Er—good evening, Sheila.”

  “Why, Peter Shandy, what a surprise! Wendy and Dickie, say good evening to Professor Shandy.”

  Dickie howled, “I don’t want to,” and Wendy began to sniffle. Shandy made the mistake of trying to placate them with gingerbread men. Their mother’s firm “After dinner, darlings” brought wails of protestation. At last she managed to herd the children back into the playroom and shut the door against the din.

  “They’re overtired,” she apologized. “We only got home a little while ago. Do sit down, Peter. Where have you been keeping yourself? We haven’t seen you in ages.”

  “I know. I was hoping we might—er—meet at the funeral this morning.”

  “Oh, heavens, was it today? I completely forgot. We’d planned this tobogganing trip, you see, and then Roger and the two older boys are sleeping out overnight at the shelter, which meant bundling up the sleeping bags and getting gas for the camp stove, and generally running around and back and forth like crazy. Then at the last minute we couldn’t find the batteries for JoJo’s electric socks, which meant a rush to the Sporte Shoppe. I couldn’t disappoint the children by staying home, but I did mean to pop over and leave a note in Professor Ames’s mailbox. Do explain for me when you see him.”

  “He’s gone to California.”

  “How nice.”

  Sheila Jackman would have made the same response, Shandy thought, if he’d told her that Timothy Ames was being lowered inch by inch into a vat of boiling quicklime. She had one ear cocked toward the playroom and her mind on whatever was about to boil over on the kitchen stove. He might as well have saved the price of those controversial gingerbread men.

  “I’m afraid I’ve come at a bad time,” he ventured.

  “Oh, not at all. I’m letting the children watch television an extra half hour as a special treat, so there’s no rush about dinner. We’re having things they specially like, baloneywoppers on French toast and cocoa with extra marshmallows. I don’t suppose you’d care to stay?”

  “Er—thank you, but I have another engagement.”

  “Then let me give you a drink. Just one second till I turn down the gas. I’m making mulligan stew to take up to the shelter tomorrow. The boys are having a cookeroo.”

  She went out before the professor could tell her he didn’t want a drink, and returned with two very large and dark bourbon old-fashioneds.

  “Hope you like the specialty of the house. Rog and I always keep a jug mixed in the fridge. We tell the kids it’s Geritol.”

  She flopped into a modular arrangement of sofas and ottomans that bore the imprint of tiny feet on its cushions, and took a long, grateful swig.

  “I suppose you think it’s terrible to deceive a child, but honestly, sometimes you simply have to.”

  “Er—what might be called survival tactics,” said Shandy.

  “How nice of you to understand.”

  Sheila gulped some more of her vitamin compound and began giving the visitor her undivided attention. “You are nice, Peter. Come on over here where I can see you better.”

  She patted the squashy cushions, and the hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle.

  “Thank you, but I’m afraid my—er—old bones require a straight chair.”

  “Don’t be silly. You’ll never be old.”

  This was getting worse by the second. He could swear she was batting her eyelashes at him. Shandy gulped and hastened to get on with his business.

  “Sheila, I came to ask if you or Roger had seen anything unusual at my house on the night of the twenty-second.”

  “Way back then? How could I possibly remember?”

  “That was the night of the Dysarts’ party. And also the day I—er—had my decorations put up.”

  “Oh, now you’re ringing my bell. Wendy came home with her eyes like saucers. She still hasn’t stopped talking about those reindeer on your roof. She blows kisses to them every night. Like this.”

  Shandy flinched. “Did you go to the Dysarts’?”

  “Yes,” Sheila pouted, “but we couldn’t stay long. We had a problem getting a sitter. Everybody was either off holidaying or working at the Illumination.”

  Shandy wasn’t interested in sitters. “What time did you leave?” he prodded.

  “About a quarter past nine.”

  “Then Jemima Ames was still there when you left?”

  “I believe so. I know she came in right after we did, making a big
entrance in that goofy purple cape of hers. Rog calls her the Batmobile. Oh, gosh, that doesn’t sound so funny now, does it? Let me fix your drink, Peter.”

  “No, really, I have to be going. Just tell me one more thing, Sheila. Did you happen to see her after the party?”

  “How could I? Wasn’t it that same night she was killed?”

  “I meant that same night, on her way to my house. She’d have come past your house, wouldn’t she?”

  “Probably.” Sheila didn’t sound very interested.

  “And she left only a few minutes after you did. Adele Dysart says it was shortly before half past nine.”

  “Peter, that is odd.” Young Mrs. Jackman bounced herself upright against the back of the sofa. “You see, we were stuck for a sitter, as I mentioned before. I was moaning to dear old Mary Enderble about missing the party, so she very sweetly offered to come over for a while. They never go to the Dysarts’ for more than five minutes, you know. It’s just not their kind of thing. But that’s why we had to rush off, because it wouldn’t have been very nice to keep her up past her bedtime. They sack in with the titmice, you know. Besides, she might not have been so ready to help me out another time. Survival tactics.”

  Mrs. Jackman chewed the orange peel from her drink. “So I started nagging Rog at nine o’clock sharp, and maybe fifteen minutes later I managed to pry him away. But by the time we’d stood chatting with Mary about the party and she’d told us this perfectly fantastic thing Dickie said—”

  Shandy didn’t want to know what Dickie said. Sheila went on with her tale. “Anyway, it must have been pretty close to half past when Roger started walking Mary home, and I stood right over there at the window watching to see if they made it. Frankly, I didn’t think Rog could hold himself up, much less an elderly woman, but he managed somehow. He’d been drinking that God-awful punch Bob made. I swear it was radioactive. I took one sip and snuck out to the kitchen and fixed myself a bourbon when nobody was looking. Sure you won’t have another?”

  “Positive. But you say you stood there watching.”

  “For ten or fifteen minutes, anyway. They weren’t making much headway against the crowd, then Rog had to stop in and say hi to John and pat the rabbit. He always gets silly when he’s plastered. It must have been close to a quarter of ten by the time he got back in the house.”

  “And you didn’t see Mrs. Ames at all?”

  “Not for one itty-bitty teentsy-weentsy second. The first thing I said to Rog when we heard yesterday that she was dead was that we didn’t even say good-by to her at the party and now we’d never see her again, which should be a lesson to us all,” Sheila concluded somewhat owlishly.

  “Yet according to the Dysarts, Jemima walked through the short cut straight into the Enderbles’ yard. It seems most peculiar that she didn’t meet Roger and Mary.”

  “Well, she didn’t. Rog would have said so. You know Rog. Golly whiskers, it’s going to be lonesome around here tonight. Peter, couldn’t you possibly—”

  At that moment the playroom door burst open and Wendy, pursued by Dickie with a rubber snake, hurled herself yowling into her mother’s arms. Shandy took advantage of the incident to escape.

  He was an extremely puzzled man. How was it possible neither of the Jackmans had spotted that magenta bulk in the Crescent? He must check with the Enderbles. Not now, though. It was getting close to six and the couple tended to be gently garrulous as no doubt he himself would when he was their age.

  Why was he thinking so much about age all of a sudden? Annoyed with himself for no reason he could put his finger on, Shandy went back to the brick house, got a bottle of his best sherry, camouflaged it inside a folded newspaper, and battled his way over to the Ames house.

  Already Tim’s place, if not yet transformed, was beginning to resemble a human habitation. It was possible to walk through the vestibule without stumbling over fallen objects. The living room was almost tidy and the fire in the grate, for once, burned clear. Helen remained dissatisfied.

  “I’m afraid everything’s still in a terrible mess. Mrs. Lomax did wonders, but she couldn’t stay long. She had to go home and feed her cat.”

  “The beast has a delicate stomach, I understand.”

  “So she told me. However, she’s coming back tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  Shandy unwrapped his present. “I thought you might like a drink before dinner. The college doesn’t serve anything stronger than rose-hip tea.”

  “Peter, you are a kind man. I’ll get us some glasses.”

  “Just a small one for me. I’ve already been dragooned into having a cocktail with one of the neighbors.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Lomax saw you going into the house next door to yours. She mentioned ever so casually that the husband’s away.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “I gather there’s not much around here she doesn’t know.”

  “She often knows a good deal more than the facts warrant,” said Shandy crossly. “Can I help with the wine?”

  “No, sit still. You must be exhausted.”

  “So must you.”

  “I suppose I am, but I don’t feel it yet.”

  Miss Marsh handed him a glass and sat down on the other side of the fireplace. “It’s too late for Merry Christmas and a bit soon for Happy New Year. And Cheers doesn’t sound particularly appropriate under the circumstances, does it? Poor Jemmy was dreadfully cut up about losing her mother. I’m so glad Professor Ames decided to go.”

  “So am I,” said Shandy. “To your good health, then. That seems decorous enough, don’t you think? I hope you’re going to like Balaclava, Helen.”

  “So do I. I’m getting too old to keep moving. California was the worst mistake I ever made. I used to have nightmares about standing smack on top of the San Andreas Fault when it finally made up its mind to let go.”

  “It’s just too bad you had to find chaos in this house and a carnival on your doorstep.”

  “But the chaos isn’t permanent, I hope, and compared to what goes on out there, the Grand Illumination could pass for tranquillity. Peter, I don’t want to rush you, but do you think we might go to dinner pretty soon? I’ve worked up a ravenous appetite and there’s not one solitary thing to eat in this house except a box of Triscuits the mice have been at.”

  “Whenever you like,” he replied, making no move to rise. “I’ll take you grocery shopping afterward.”

  “If you’re sure it won’t be putting you out.”

  “Not at all. I’m down to three stale doughnuts myself.”

  “Poor Peter.”

  Helen picked up the empty glasses and carried them out to the kitchen. “I’ll get my coat.”

  Shandy rather wished they didn’t have to rush off. He was comfortable here in the tidied room beside the bright fire. It was the first time he’d ever been inside the Ames house and not wanted to leave.

  Still, the anticipation of taking Helen Marsh to dinner was pleasing, too. Perhaps she’d invite him back afterward. He caught himself wondering if she’d pat the sofa cushions.

  No such luck. Helen wasn’t that sort of person. But then, he hadn’t thought the others were either. Life was full of surprises lately. Surely one of them must turn out to his liking.

  Chapter 11

  “WATCH IT, PROFESSOR!”

  “Drat it, I told you to keep that sled off the walkway!”

  Needless to say, the girl charged on unheeding. Helen Marsh turned to look after her.

  “What a gorgeous creature! Who is she?”

  “A student named Heidi Hayhoe.”

  “Peter, you’re making that up.”

  “Not I.”

  “Well, I suppose anything is possible. I went to school with a girl named Ethel Gasse. Is Heidi in any of your classes?”

  “I wish she were,” snarled Shandy. “I’d take great pleasure in flunking her out.”

  “Really? I should think you’d prefer to keep her after school.”

  “Wha
t for? My reputation as a—er—dirty old man is, I assure you, newly acquired and totally unfounded. In any event, President Svenson has strong views on the subject of—er—extracurricular fraternization between faculty and students.”

  “I’ll bet Heidi Hayhoe hasn’t. Somehow, I hadn’t expected to find a girl of that type at an agricultural college. I don’t know why. They’re common enough. Sorry about that. I don’t know if it’s your sherry or my empty stomach. How far is the dining room?”

  “First building on the right at the top of the Crescent. Think you can hold out that far?”

  “I’ll try. I do feel like a lady salmon at spawning time. Will it be as mobbed as this walkway?”

  “Oh no. The public’s not allowed and I don’t expect many faculty people will be around. Monday’s dinner is apt to be a warmed-over version of Sunday’s, I’m afraid.”

  “It can’t possibly be any worse than the lukewarm cardboard I had for lunch.”

  “As a matter of fact, we think the food is generally not bad. The dining room’s operated as part of the course in restaurant management and the cooks get graded on their biscuits.” He explained a bit of the college’s unique work-study program as they topped the rise and entered the restaurant.

  “I’m beginning to have a good deal of respect for this place,” said Helen. “It doesn’t sound like any institute of learning I’ve ever been at, but it certainly seems to fit students for the ways they’re no doubt going to live.”

  “President Svenson would be pleased to hear you say so.”

  “I am pleased,” boomed a voice in their ears. “Who is this perspicacious lady and why have I not met her?”

  “She’s only been in town since about half past three.”

  Shandy performed the introductions. “She’s the relative of Timothy Ames’s son-in-law who’s come to—er—thrust a finger in the dike.”

  “Decent of you to come on such short notice. Mrs. Svenson’s going to have you to tea some time or other.”

  “Thorkjeld, what a way to give an invitation,” chided Sieglinde. “We shall expect you at half past four on Thursday afternoon, Miss Marsh, and you must bring this bad Peter Shandy with you to keep him out of mischief for a little while. Peter, I did not find your latest decoration amusing.”