by Savage, Tom
“He saw what she was really like,” he said. “He got a dose of her temper, and her violent behavior, and her—well, her commonness. I believe the doorman, incidentally, at least about Jim’s taking off for weeks at a time. I’m sure he did. And then one day he told her. He wanted a divorce.”
Holly stared. “Did he ever confide any of this to you?”
“Oh, my dear, no! I was his mother’s brother. He wouldn’t have dared. If his parents learned that he’d admitted he’d been wrong—no, he kept it all to himself. But that’s what I think happened. I think he told Constance that he was leaving her.”
“On April Fools’ Day,” Holly added. “Yes, I see. And she became violent.”
“Again,” he said.
She nodded. “Again. Only this time—where was the gun?”
“In the drawer of the bedside table.”
“Yes,” she said, still nodding. “And he was found on the bedroom floor.…”
She turned to look out of the window again. He studied her quietly, noting that she didn’t seem to be particularly upset by the story, or by the scrapbooks. Of course not, he reminded himself. Her parents—her parents of record—were Mr. and Mrs. Smith of Indio, California. Until a few weeks ago, she’d never so much as heard of the Randalls.
Now was the time to tell her the rest. About his feeling, his theory. His awful suspicion.
But she was a beautiful young woman. She was gazing out at the grounds—her grounds now—assimilating a terrible scandal in which she’d played no part, though it profoundly affected her. She was tough: he could say that for her. Even now she was turning back to him, a smile on her lovely lips.
No, he would not tell her. Not now. Not today.
And yet …
Then he had an idea.
“Thank you,” she said, reaching up to kiss his cheek. “I’m glad I met you. I’m glad you’re here.”
Her great-uncle smiled and squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you’re here! I hope you will come to visit me. We could play again.” He gestured toward the chessboard.
“I’d love to,” she said, and she meant it. “Would you consider joining us in the dining room for Thanksgiving?”
His bright smile faded, and he shook his head. “Thank you, but no. I—I’d really rather not. I’m sure Raymond will be bringing me some turkey here.”
“In that case, may I join you?” she asked. “Catherine said we’re having the big meal at about three in the afternoon. I’ll eat a little there, and then I could join you here later. Would that be all right?”
She saw the look of pleasure on his face, and she was pleased, too. She preferred this man’s company to John and his wife any day of the week.
“That would be delightful,” he said, his eyes gleaming.
“It’s a date, then,” she replied. “I’ll tell Mr. Wheatley.”
With that, she turned and headed for the door. His voice stopped her.
“One moment, Holly.”
She stopped in the doorway, watching as the old man went over to the table and picked up the scrapbook they’d just been perusing. He brought it over and handed it to her.
“Why don’t you borrow this for a while?” he said. “I have a feeling you may want to look through it again.”
She smiled. “Thank you. You know, it’s funny: I was just thinking of asking you for it. I do want to read it again. I guess it’s—well, it’s really all that’s left of them. I mean—”
He nodded, holding up a hand. “I understand. Yes, look through it again. Look—carefully.”
She stared at him a moment, and she almost opened her mouth to speak. It was the way he’d said it, with that little pause before the final word. But then he was smiling again and holding the door open for her. So she smiled, too, and walked away down the hall, the big scrapbook under her arm. The door clicked shut behind her.
He shut the door and leaned back against it, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. Then he expelled the breath in a long sigh of relief.
She had taken the scrapbook.
What’s more, she had promised to look through it again. She even seemed interested in doing so. She was a very intelligent young woman. Very perceptive.
Very observant.
Perhaps, he thought, I won’t have to tell her my suspicion. Perhaps she’ll tell me. Perhaps she will see the connection, too. If it is there, if I’m not simply imagining it. If I am not going mad.
He continued to lean against the door, weak from the exertion of talking more than he had talked in years. He breathed slowly in and out, waiting for his strength to return and his heartbeat to slow to normal, thinking:
Your move, Holly Randall.
She sat at the little table in the corner of her room later that night, just before she went to bed. She had placed the scrapbook on the table, and now she was gazing down at the paisley print cloth-bound cover. She ran her hand over the smooth material, remembering the tea and the chess game and the long conversation with her great-uncle Ichabod.
Here it is, she thought. Between these covers is a terrible history. The unofficial recording of the incident that shaped my life, that made me who I am. My mother’s legacy.
Her life: Indio. The constant, merciless heat of the Coachella Valley. Ben and Mary Smith. Public schools with the children of date pickers. The university in San Diego with a crowd of future yuppies, Gregory Sandford III and all his condescending friends. A cramped, shared apartment in Palm Springs. Explorers Travel Agency, with its attendant daily phone arguments with airlines and hotels and car rental services. Endless dreary paperwork, surrounded on all sides by glorious Ektachrome posters of Hawaii and Australia and the Swiss Alps. And the Greek islands, always the Greek islands, shimmering in the Aegean on the wall beside her desk.
Then she lifted her gaze from the table and looked slowly, appreciatively around the bedroom. This was her room now, for as long as she wanted it. This house, Randall House, would soon belong to her. This was her father’s legacy.
“You’re Holly Randall now.”
She smiled, thinking, Perhaps it all evens out in the long run.
With this, Holly pushed the scrapbook away from her and stood up from the table. She would look at it some other time, later. When she was ready. Now it was time for bed.
Her last thought before she slept that night was of the little black and white chessmen being moved so carefully, so methodically around the exquisite marble board.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Watchers
The following three weeks were busy ones for Holly. First came Thanksgiving, that pleasant double celebration she gracefully managed to divide between her relatives in the dining room and her kinder, gentler relative upstairs. She and Ichabod played two games of chess that day. He won both, but she was learning a great deal about the game simply by watching him.
The cocktail party at Melissa MacGraw’s home a week later was a resounding success, as far as Holly was concerned. Missy introduced Holly and John and his wife to her family and friends, who were all very nice people. They were presumably aware of the scandal that had tainted the Randall family, but they gave no outward sign of their awareness. Missy’s twin brother, Matthew, was an artist specializing in portraiture. He asked Holly if he could paint her, and she agreed.
She spent three days sitting for Matthew MacGraw, and she became friendly with him and his wife, Laura. They took her to Vermont one weekend and taught her how to ski. She and Missy and Laura went shopping in New York a few times. In the second week of December there was another party at someone’s house, and Holly met several more of her wealthy neighbors. Everyone seemed to like her.
She rarely went into the village. The local townspeople had made their feelings for her—or, at least, her family—all too clear, and she avoided them as much as possible. The lone exception to this was the police chief, Pete Helmer, whom she occasionally encountered on Main Street as he made his daily rounds. She always spoke cordially to him, and he alway
s gave her the impression that he was glad to see her.
Mildred Jessel frequently saw Holly with Kevin, riding or walking or going off together in a car. This pleased her, I think, though she was careful to keep her feelings to herself. Besides, she had other things to keep her busy. There was the house to run, and the upcoming Christmas party, and there was her husband. Mr. Jessel was up and about again, but he still had a persistent cough that worried her. He did not go back to work in the garage, and Mrs. Jessel insisted that he stay close to home. Everyone could see that he did not look well.
When she was roaming around the estate, which she did almost every day, Holly would sometimes be joined by the German shepherd, Tonto, and his master. The three of them became a familiar sight in the distance, exploring the woods and the cove and the wide lawns in companionable silence. She and the boy, Toby, were occasionally seen riding horses together, with Tonto loping along beside them.
John Randall and his wife were always careful to be friendly with Holly, and she usually joined them after dinner for card games in the library, or in the music room, where they would all watch television. But at least twice a week she would spend the later evening hours upstairs with her great-uncle, perfecting her chess game.
Mrs. Randall was very busy all through those first weeks of December, arranging for the party on Christmas Eve. She and the Greenwich caterer planned an elaborate menu for an estimated one hundred fifty people, most of whom had already written or phoned to accept their invitations. A local decorator was contracted to arrive on the day of the event to quite literally deck the halls. An enormous tree was ordered for the Great Hall, and there would be a supplementary staff of twenty to help the permanent staff with the party: waiters, bartenders, kitchen help, and parking attendants.
It occurred to me in that time that we, all of us, were watching Holly for one reason or another. John Randall and his wife, certainly. Kevin Jessel, in hopeful anticipation of romance. Ichabod Morris, who saw everything from his windows. The boy, Toby Carter, who always seemed to be around somewhere. The cop, Pete Helmer, who tended to stare at her whenever she ventured into town. Even Dora Jessel, in her rare appearances, though after the meeting in the cemetery she remained a respectful distance from Holly.
So the time passed. It was a particularly rough winter that year: the weather grew sharply colder as the new year approached, with more snow than had been recorded in the area for a long time. Later that season, in February, after the scandal had begun to die down, New York City and the surrounding area would twice be brought to a standstill by blizzards. But in December, as everything around her slowly froze, Holly seemed to be slowly melting, relaxing into her new lifestyle and her new role as mistress of Randall.
And then, almost before we knew it, December 20 arrived. It began like many other days that season, full of the promise of the impending holiday, but it didn’t remain that way. Looking back from this comfortable distance in time, I’d say it was the beginning of the end.
That snowy twentieth of December, the day of the next death.
Holly entered Saks Fifth Avenue that day with a sense of purpose bordering on urgency. She knew the place would be mobbed, which it was, and she was determined to make all her purchases and have them wrapped in a reasonable amount of time. The only way to do this, she knew, was to be organized.
She pulled the gift list she’d made from her purse and studied it. John, Catherine, Ichabod, Missy, Matthew and Laura MacGraw, and Kevin and his family. The other servants were getting cash bonuses, which she knew they’d appreciate more than a token gift, and she’d already sent packages to Ben and Mary Smith in California. So, ten presents. Twelve, she amended: she had to get something for Toby and Tonto.
Kevin had dropped her off at the entrance on Forty-ninth Street, and he was now finding a nearby garage for the car. She was meeting him at the ground-floor information desk in thirty minutes, so she decided she’d use the half hour to find his gift. She’d already decided what she was getting everyone, so now it was just a matter of finding things.
She’d rarely been anywhere so crowded. Hundreds of people clogged every aisle in the big store. But that was part of the holiday experience, the trees and garlands, the thousands of twinkling lights adorning the store’s many displays, and laughing crowds laden with bags and brightly wrapped boxes. It was beautiful, really.
She’d chosen Saks because it was the one place where she knew she would find everything under one roof. The crowds at Macy’s, the other logical choice, would be worse than this, far worse, and she wanted to get back to Randall at a reasonable hour: she had a date for a chess game. Smiling at the friendly bedlam around her, she pushed off through the densely packed wall of bodies in search of Men’s Accessories.
She found the appropriate counter and selected three pairs of Italian leather driving gloves. Kevin and his father could use them, of course, and Toby would get a pair as well, for riding. Kevin needed an extra gift, however: she looked at the ties on display, but she ended up buying a rather expensive aftershave lotion instead.
Now she would need a silver pipe and cigar lighter for John, a gold cigarette case and lighter for Catherine, silk scarves for Missy and Mrs. Jessel and Dora—she supposed she had to get something for Dora—and a household gift for the MacGraws. That left Tonto: if Saks had a Pet Accessories department, and it probably did, he’d get a big rawhide bone. If not … well, she’d get the bone somewhere else.
Her gifts would be fairly impersonal, she knew, but she didn’t really know any of these people very well. The only gift that would have any personal meaning was the one she was buying for Ichabod. She was getting him a new scrapbook, one she hoped he’d fill with memories of her.
She was so caught up in her planning that she almost forgot to make her way to the information desk. When she remembered, she hurried off in search of it.
Kevin was there, waiting patiently, doing his manly best to ignore the throngs of mostly female customers who milled about him and buffeted him, laughing and pointing. Holly smiled at the sight of him: he’d apparently been there for quite a while. He was a good sport, she realized for the umpteenth time in the five weeks she’d known him. When they were through here, she would take him somewhere quiet for dinner.
Kevin was watching Holly. He was trying to determine whether or not she was pleased with his impulsive surprise. It was difficult to tell, really, because he never seemed to know what she was thinking.
The little basement Italian restaurant he’d brought her to was on Fifty-second Street between Madison and Park, a couple of blocks from Saks. The decor was classic: exposed brick walls, plain wooden chairs, tables covered with red and white checked cloths, and candles in red glass orbs adorned with white plastic netting. The hot, fresh bread and the jug of house white wine had already arrived, and he had insisted on ordering for both of them. They would start with fried calamari, minestrone, and green salads, followed by the specialty of the house, tricolor tortellini carbonara.
He’d been here a few times before, but that had been years ago, shortly after he’d graduated. His love interest at the time was a woman—a rich, older woman—who lived nearby on Park Avenue. He was surprised this evening when the proprietress, Mrs. Amalfi, recognized him and called his name and came over to kiss him on the cheek. Holly had been surprised as well, he supposed, and she had laughed.
Now she smiled over the red candle at him. “This is charming. Thank you.”
He smiled back, wondering what to say next. When he’d insisted on taking her to dinner, as opposed to the other way around, she’d been surprised, but she had acceded with grace. He was supposed to entertain her now, he knew, but he didn’t feel at all certain of himself. She was sipping her wine, looking at him in polite anticipation.
“I guess I used to be a regular here,” he suddenly heard himself say.
She smiled. “Yalie raids on New York?”
“No, after that. After Yale.”
Now something
apparently occurred to her. “What was your major there?”
He blinked. It wasn’t the conversational gambit he’d been expecting, but he found himself going along with it.
“I was a psychology major,” he whispered. “I was thinking about becoming a psychiatrist.”
He felt a sudden need to elaborate, to explain that extraordinary statement to her. He thought furiously, wondering where to begin. Her next words preempted him.
“I see,” she said, looking directly into his eyes. “Your sister.” It was a simple statement of fact, and it defied any argument.
He stared, feeling the embarrassment welling up inside him. Then, to his surprise, the embarrassment was replaced by another emotion, one he hadn’t been expecting.
Pride.
“Yes,” he said. “Dora. I wanted to—to see what I could do about her. She has a lot of problems. She’s depressive, certainly, and possibly delusional. She’s always been different, ever since we were kids. She was the school weirdo: I learned how to fight at a very early age, defending her from the cruelty of the other kids. But when she was seventeen—well, something happened. She’s spent a lot of her adult life in clinics. Hospitals.”
“What happened to her?” Holly asked.
Kevin shrugged. “A boy named Leonard Ross. He was an oddball, too, but my parents were delighted when he asked Dora to the senior prom. It was the only date she ever had in her life. She looked so beautiful in her white dress. But a few weeks later—well …” He trailed off, embarrassed, unsure how to proceed with the story.
There was apparently no need. Holly nodded her head in understanding. “Oh.” Then she appeared to think of something, and she leaned forward. “Was there an abortion? Or did the baby die?”
That surprised him. “No. Why do you ask?”
She shook her head and looked away. “I don’t know, I was just thinking—the cemetery.…”
“The child was adopted. Miss Alicia and your uncle John helped my mother find an agency in New Haven. But that’s when Dora’s real problems began. She—she tried to commit suicide. More than once. She ended up in the first of several psychiatric facilities. The Randalls paid for everything. Anyway, I guess that’s why I was interested in psychology. I wanted to be able to help her.”