Scarlet Spirits

by Alice Duncan

  “So you live north of us here on Marengo?” Mrs. Mainwaring said in her magnolia-petal voice.

  “Yes. Four houses up, on the same side of the street. The bungalow with the hydrangea bushes next to the front porch.”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve noticed your house. It’s a lovely bungalow. In fact, the entire street is charming with its canopy of pepper trees. I’m pleased to have joined you here.”

  “Um…have you lived in Pasadena long?” That wasn’t pushy, was it? According to Harold, she’d moved here in 1896 after having lived a scandalous life in some of the rougher western towns in what we civilized folk think of as the “old days.” Again, Harold’s understanding might be based on gossip and speculation. I hoped it wasn’t, though, for reasons already stated.

  “I moved to Pasadena in 1896, Mrs. Majesty, and I used to live in a house on my property at Orange Acres.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard of Orange Acres,” I said, pleased at recognizing this bit of history as the truth.

  “As have I,” said Vi. “My employers, Mr. and Mrs. Algernon Pinkerton, always order their oranges from Orange Acres. According to Mr. Pinkerton, your oranges are the best.”

  Not sure if Vi was telling a slight stretcher there. I mean, oranges were oranges. I personally loved them. What’s more, we had both a Valencia and a navel orange tree in our own yard, so we had fresh oranges almost all year round. But if it was a stretcher, it was kindly meant and I doubted God would care much.

  “Ah, yes. I’ve met the Pinkertons,” said Mrs. Mainwaring. To my astonishment, her eyes crinkled a little, and I swear I saw a twinkle in them. “And I know Mrs. Pinkerton’s son, Harold Kincaid. He’s a nice fellow.”

  “He certainly is,” I said. “He’s one of my very best friends.”

  “So he told me.” More twinkles from Mrs. Mainwaring.

  Golly, maybe Harold did know what he was talking about!

  Hattie appeared in the doorway bearing a tray holding a perfectly glorious tea pot and four cups in an elaborate design that had an Asian look about it. I’d seen the pattern before and knew it had been manufactured by Coalport—in other words, wildly expensive—but I couldn’t recall the pattern’s name. It sure was pretty, whatever it was.

  “Let me help you with that, Hattie,” a deep masculine voice said from outside the sitting room, surprising me into a smallish start.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Judah. I can manage.”

  “Nonsense,” said the voice, and darned if a tall man with a rakish air about him—unless that was my vivid imagination playing games—didn’t take the tray from Hattie and carry it to the tea table in front of Mrs. Mainwaring.

  When I glanced at the mistress of the house, I thought I saw a flash of irritation in her expression. It vanished so suddenly, I might have been mistaken. My imagination occasionally—only occasionally, mind you—gets out of control. A little bit.

  “I beg your pardon, ladies,” said the man, setting the tray gently on the table. He stood, bowed, and smiled at us. Goodness gracious, but the man was handsome! Probably as old as Mrs. Mainwaring, he too was remarkably well-preserved. Dark hair and green eyes graced a slightly weathered-looking face. The weathering didn’t decrease his handsomeness, but rather added to it.

  Which is just unfair, darn it! Why do women get old and worn-out looking, but men get old and remain good-looking? I didn’t approve, curse it. Not that my approval has ever mattered to anyone, much less God, who’d probably stopped listening to me whine years ago.

  If Mrs. Mainwaring had been irked by this fellow’s sudden appearance, she recovered her poise at once. Smiling graciously, she said, “Mrs. Majesty, Mrs. Gumm and Mrs. Gumm, please allow me to introduce you to Mr. Judah Bowman. Mr. Bowman is…an associate of mine.”

  An associate, was he? Oh, boy, I could hardly wait to telephone Harold!

  “How do you do, ladies? Happy to meet you.” He started with me, so I stuck out my hand. He had a firm, but not punishing, grip and his smile didn’t waver when he asked, “And which one are you?”

  “Daisy Majesty,” I said and gulped. I swear to heaven, that man’s smile ought to be outlawed!

  “Missus Majesty,” said Mrs. Mainwaring. I got the impression she was warning Mr. Bowman to keep his distance from me.

  “Very pleased to meet you,” said he, and moved on to my mother.

  Once introductions were complete, Mr. Bowman sat himself on a chair near Mrs. Mainwaring, giving her a sidelong glance that also should be outlawed. These two weren’t married or they’d share the same last name—unless Mrs. Mainwaring was an extremely modern woman—but I’d have bet my last dollar they were lovers.

  Lovers. I don’t know why, but the word sounds ever so much more romantic than man and wife.

  Perhaps it was I who needed to be outlawed. Grim thought.

  Two

  Anyhow, by the time Ma, Vi and I had remained a polite thirty minutes, all of us present had managed to glean some—not much—information about each other. For instance, I now knew Mr. Bowman worked as a private investigator and had an office in downtown Pasadena. I’d bet Sam would love that.

  I’m joking. Sam loathed private detectives and claimed they interfered with police business. He might well be correct. Everything I knew about private detectives had been harvested from the rows upon rows of detective novels in the fiction section at the Pasadena Public Library. If those detective novels were as accurate as some of the dime novels about characters in the Old West I’d read recently, fiction and fact didn’t spend a whole lot of time together.

  As already stated, Mrs. Mainwaring owned and operated—in association, I’d learned, with Mr. Bowman—Orange Acres. So I guess she’d been telling the truth about the two of them being associates but, as also already mentioned, I’d bet anything they were more than mere associates.

  Mrs. Mainwaring and Mr. Bowman now knew I had a dachshund named Spike, played the piano, sang alto in our church’s choir and worked as a spiritualist-medium. Both parties appeared interested in my profession; I don’t think they were fibbing.

  They also knew Ma was the chief bookkeeper at the Hotel Marengo, and that Vi worked for the Pinkertons. They both claimed to know and like Harold Kincaid, and neither one had ever heard of Harold’s evil sister.

  Best of all, Mrs. Mainwaring said she’d love it if we threw a welcome-to-the-neighborhood party for her. This made Ma, Vi and me happy, and we chatted merrily as we walked back up the street to our bungalow.

  As we approached the house, Mr. Lou Prophet limped across the street to greet us. We’d seen him not long since, as he and Sam had come to take dinner with us after church. Neither man had attended o church with us, mind you, but they’d both managed to be free of whatever they’d been doing in time for Vi’s magnificent pork roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, early asparagus and Harvard beets.

  As he neared us, Mr. Prophet said, “Sam asked me to let you ladies know he’s about finished with the bookcase, and did you want to see it.” He hesitated for a second and then asked, “Did you meet the new lady down the street?”

  “Yes. To both of those questions. Thanks, Mr. Prophet.”

  “Welcome. What’s the lady’s name, by the way?”

  I wondered why he wanted to know, but figured he might have met her in the “old days,” although Mrs. Mainwaring’s old days weren’t as old as Mr. Prophet’s. Did that make any sense? I was pretty sure—although I’d never yet been rude enough to ask—that Mr. Prophet was in his mid- to late-seventies. Mrs. Mainwaring wasn’t nearly so old.

  “Her last name is Mainwaring,” I told him. “Her first name is Evangeline, which I think is a pretty name.”

  “Yeah, it’s nice,” said Mr. Prophet, who seemed to have lost interest in Mrs. Mainwaring. Guess he didn’t recognize her name from his rowdy days in the Old West.

  “Do you want to come over and see the bookcase?” I asked my mother and my aunt.

  “Not right now, sweetheart,” said Ma. “I’m going to take a
little nap.”

  “As am I,” said Vi. “We’ll be able to see it later.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Mr. Prophet tipped his hat—a truly disreputable derby—at my mother and my aunt, and he and I turned to walk across the street to my new house. Well, it was Sam’s, but my name would go on the deed as soon as we were married. Sam had also told me he aimed to set up a trust, whatever that was, to enable me to live well should anything happen to him. I didn’t want anything to happen to him, curse it, but at least I understood why he wanted to establish the trust.

  I’d learned about a month or so earlier that my Sam had a whole lot of money and didn’t need to live on the pay he earned working as a detective in the Pasadena Police Department. He and his father owned a chain of jewelry stores in New York City and elsewhere in the eastern states. In fact, Sam’s father had designed my engagement ring, which boasted a glorious gold flower pattern with a spectacular emerald in its center.

  It was nice to know Sam had money. I still didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. I loved him. I’d lost the only other man I’d ever loved, thanks to Kaiser Wilhelm and his ever-accursed mustard gas, and Billy’s death had nearly killed me, too. The mere thought of losing Sam gave me the staggering fantods.

  “Fantods” is a word I’d learned from Mr. Prophet, by the way. I’d begun writing down the quaint expressions he used, although I hadn’t told him I was doing so. I doubt he’d have appreciated me calling them quaint, either. But really. He had more strange, old-western expressions in his vocabulary than I’d ever heard, even in the dime novels a friend of mine, Robert Browning (not the poet), had lent me. He had a whole collection of the things. That is to say Robert had a collection of dime novels. Shoot. The English language is sometimes difficult to manipulate.

  Anyhow, on this particular lovely Sunday afternoon, Mr. Prophet opened the gate leading to the porch for me in a gentleman-like fashion, and I smiled at him. Then we walked to the front door, which he also opened for me. Therefore, I said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re most welcome, Miss Daisy.” He gave me a sly wink. Shoot, even Mr. Prophet could be appealing when he did stuff like that.

  The sound of hammering led us to a back room, which Sam had designated as the library, on the first floor of our new home. Sure enough, when I walked in, I saw Sam standing on a tarpaulin sprinkled with sawdust, in his undershirt and trousers, hammering a nail into a board. Sam had an impressive set of muscles. He wasn’t lean and lanky as my late Billy had been, nor was his skin the ivory white of Billy’s British ancestors. No, indeed. Sam’s family was pure Italian, and he looked… Well, he looked really good with his muscles bulging and so forth. He also sported quite a bit of chest hair. Billy hadn’t. And yes, I know decent women aren’t supposed to notice things like chest hair, but Sam and I had been engaged for a long time by now, and we occasionally did things together my parents might have found shocking had they known about them.

  Or maybe they wouldn’t. Heck, people have been doing what Sam and I had been doing ever since the dawn of humanity. How else could the human race have survived, you know? But you weren’t supposed to do that particular thing until you were married, at least in these enlightened times.

  Sam and I, however, had both been married before, Sam to his Margaret and I to my Billy, and both of our late spouses had suffered years of torment thanks the ailments sickening them. Margaret had succumbed to tuberculosis, and Billy had finally tired of his life as a pain-wracked, shell-shocked invalid and taken his own life. Dr. Benjamin, our wonderful family physician, had written “accidental death” on Billy’s death certificate so he could be buried in Mountain View Cemetery and prayed over by the minister of our Methodist-Episcopal Church, Mr. Merle Negley Smith.

  Anyhow, the point to all of the verbiage is to explain that, while Sam and I had both been married to people we’d loved, we hadn’t been able to enjoy all aspects of married life for long. We were, darn it, two healthy adults, and we enjoyed the heck out of one of those aspects.

  And I also say to heck with what the moralists of the world preached. Sam and I would be married as soon as we could be, we’d been engaged for what seemed like forever, and we knew what we were doing, confound it.

  Not that I’m the least little bit defensive about my behavior, you understand.

  “Afternoon, sweetheart,” said Sam, laying his hammer down and coming over to give me a kiss. “Look at this.”

  I looked. And I felt my eyes open wide. “Oh, Sam! Did you do that scrollwork at the top of the bookcase yourself?”

  “Guilty as charged,” said he, pleased with himself.

  For excellent reason. “I didn’t know you were a wood-carver. That takes real talent, Sam. I’m impressed.”

  “Learned when I was a kid. My father taught me, just like his father taught him. Dad uses his artistic ability to create jewelry these days, but he’s still one hell of a woodworker.”

  “As are you,” said I, running my fingers along the delicate scrollwork at the top of the bookcase. The bookcase, by the way, was about as tall as I, if you count the scrollwork, and I’m about five feet, four inches tall.

  “I sanded the thing and varnished it,” Lou Prophet said at my back.

  I turned around and gave him a hug, which startled him and almost made him lose his balance. I hadn’t intended the last part. After making sure he could stand on his own, I said, “Thank you, Mr. Prophet!” Turning and hugging Sam, I said, “Thank you both! This is just…” Tears began dripping, and I felt stupid.

  “Shee-oot,” said Prophet. “Don’t cloud up and drip on us, honey. It’s bad for the varnish.”

  Laughing, I plucked my hankie from my pocket. “It’s just that it’s so pretty, and I love it so much. Oh, Sam, I can never thank you enough for buying this house for us.”

  “Oh, I bet you can. I’m sure I can think of a way or two.” He gave me a suggestive leer.

  “Why, Sam Rotondo, what do you mean?”

  To explain his meaning, he pulled me into a rather intimate hug, which I returned with gusto.

  “Want me to leave the room?” asked Lou Prophet drily, thereby succeeding in separating us.

  “Spoilsport,” Sam said to Prophet.

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. But you guys are making me jealous.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Prophet,” I said, recalling from several yellow-back novels about his exploits in the Old West that he’d once been a flagrant womanizer. I have a feeling those parts of the books, if none of the others, were true. He just had that…I don’t know…air about him, if you know what I mean.

  “I’m sure we can find a lady for you somewhere, Lou. You just wait,” said Sam, brushing sawdust from my shoulders.

  “Guess I’ll have to, won’t I?” said Mr. Prophet with a sigh that sounded the least little bit discouraged.

  “We will,” I told him, sounding more determined than I felt. Where the heck were we supposed to find a woman for old, one-legged Lou Prophet? I sure as heck wasn’t about to introduce him to any of my friends. Despite his relatively old age, I wouldn’t be surprised if he could lead a young lady astray, even a devout Methodist-Episcopal one like me.

  Please stop laughing.

  “Thanks,” said he. “Think I’ll retire to the cottage. We old folks need our rest, you know.”

  “Nonsense. You’re not old!”

  I’d just told a massive lie, and Mr. Prophet knew it. Giving me another wink he said, “You fib pretty good, Miss Daisy, and I know your heart’s in the right place.”

  He limped from the room, and Sam and I toddled upstairs where we finished what we’d begun in our library. Pretend you didn’t read that last sentence, okay?

  “I think we should hold Mrs. Mainwaring’s party in our new bungalow,” I said one afternoon as I contemplated life.

  “It’s not furnished,” said Ma.

  “Actually, that’s kind of the point,” I told her. “This house is full of furniture. Sam’s house—wel
l, and mine, too, eventually—has two stories, not much furniture, and lots of space.”

  After contemplating my reasoning for a second or two, Ma said, “Hmm. I think you’re right.”

  “I do, too,” said Vi.

  “Sounds like a good idea,” said Pa.

  “Okay by me,” said Sam.

  “Huh,” said Mr. Prophet.

  And thus the party venue was selected.

  My darling aunt, Vi, expected to have to prepare and supply all the foodstuffs for the party. When Sam and I walked across the street one afternoon after having enjoyed some perhaps-illicit jollifications in our own home, we found her at the dining-room table, making a list.

  “Whatcha doing, Vi?” I asked.

  “Thinking about what I should fix for the party.”

  Snatching the list from under her pencil, thereby creating a big leaded streak across the page, Sam startled both Vi and me. She looked up at him, her eyes as round as pie plates. “Whatever did you do that for, Sam Rotondo?”

  “You’re not going to work at this party. You’re going to come as a guest and enjoy yourself. I’m getting the shindig catered by the Hotel Castleton.”

  “Oh, Sam! That will cost a fortune,” said Vi, sounding horrified.

  “Sam’s got a fortune,” I told my wonderful aunt.

  “You do?” Vi blinked up at Sam.

  “I don’t advertise it,” said Sam. “But I don’t want you to have to do the work this once. Just mingle with the neighbors, meet Missus… Well, I don’t remember what her name is—”

  “Missus Mainwaring,” I prompted.

  “Yeah,” said Sam. “Her. And whoever lives in that mansion with her.” He glanced at me. “Is there a Mister Mainwaring?”

  “Not that I know of. There’s a Mister Bowman, but I don’t know if he lives with her.”

  “Daisy!” said my aunt, shocked.

  “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I only meant that you and Ma and I met Mister Bowman, and it was clear he’s on friendly terms with Missus Mainwaring. I have no idea what his living arrangements entail, but we should invite him.”